It is my understanding that Marvel Studios' Tony Stark was modeled after him, rather than the other way around. Additionally, he had a cameo in one of the Iron Man movies.
The movie personality of Tony Stark was supposedly inspired by Musk's persona (at least from before he began spending most of his time in a futile attempt to woo Trump)
"In 2022, Iron Man screenwriter Mark Fergus confirmed that Musk had partly inspired the screen version of the Marvel hero, as both men share tech prowess, arrogance and a short fuse. He told New York magazine that Stark was as if “Musk took the brilliance of [Steve] Jobs with the showmanship of [Donald] Trump,” adding: “He was the only one who had the fun factor and the celebrity vibe and actual business substance.”"
Edit: I'm not quite sure why Musk was brought up unprompted though, made it seem like he has something to do with this company, but it doesn't seem like that's the case?
The 1993 movie Super Mario Bros. features both a major and minor antagonist clearly modeled after Donald Trump. He was a well known, highly referenced figure for DECADES before he entered politics. Where are you getting this idea that nobody in 2008 could have been thinking about Donald Trump?
He was literally in the middle of his 13-year run on Network tv. If he hadn't won the presidency, that would be talked about as the apex of his time as a public figure.
Donald Trump has been a public figure for much longer than just the last ten years. By 2008, the Apprentice had already been running for four years. He ran for president in 2000. The portrayal of Biff Tannen in Back to the Future 2 (1989) was partially based on his public persona at the time.
And, having been a kid at the time, I remember excitedly talking with friends about how Elon Musk was the real life Tony Stark. We were young enough to be insulated from his controveries, and to not truly appreciate how impossible the Iron Man suit was.
A "bulletproof" host or provider is the colloquial term for a business that will not reveal your identity, payment information, provide LEO access, respond to subpoenas, etc.
It's generally used by cyber-criminals as a "safe" vendor, though some privacy-minded individuals like this type of provider as well.
Imagine a rack of servers in some countries where global and even that country's law can't really touch them. "cyber gangs" and the like will use those servers as hosting for their malware and activities.
> even that country's law can't really touch them.
Well, that countries law enforcement could always cut off those servers. It's usually either due to corruption or in case of russia political intent that these servers are kept online.
Others already answered but while I'm chiming in anyway, I'm not in the hosting industry but IT security (for like ten years, say) and for me it's a very normal term. Maybe precisely because of that niche though; many of us are paranoid
Sometimes it feels like the internet is still the wild west.
The EU tries to rope off a single building with velvet ropes, a doorman, ID verification, facial scans, and cookie banners, while next door it's an illegal rave in an abandoned supermarket.
I think blaming the EU for cookie banners is wrong. Those banners are malicious disobedience, and, for the most part a legal violation. What websites should do is that they should assume you reject any tracking as their default, and then they can offer a site setting that you have to seek out, where you can agree to be tracked. What they are sort of allowed to do, is that they can prompt you with a banner, but it has to be a single no-click without requiring you to read much, but that is still not compliance. Anything more annoying is a legal violation.
The real issue is that there aren't a whole lot of consequences when it comes to tracking data. It's a legal violation, sure, but it's not a criminal violation. So it would be up to you to pursue it. In many countries you can't even file a civil lawsuit, but rather, you have to go through your national data protection agency. Which in reality likely means your complaint will be auto-rejected after five years because they need to clean up the queue.
As far as the malicious disobedience goes... well... it's probably because "all the other website do it", but you might as well just give people the option to go to a setting to turn it off. It's not like that would be any less of a legal violation than the banner.
Sort of aside but it’s wild to me that people talk of ab testing all kinds of minor things and yet so many shops immediately cover up the item I’m viewing with a huge banner/full page annoyance about cookies.
That rubric only applies when the users aren’t actively and maliciously sabotaging the system, which privacy-subverting websites absolutely are. (And everyone else is cargo-cutting their behavior.)
Defending yourself from abuse is not an excuse for others to engage in abuse. I have no issue with passive 90's-style ads. I don't need to block them. I use my abuse-blocker to handle more concerning problems.
Note that the most annoying consent banners come from advertising conglomerates (IAB comes to mind). Well who would think they wouldn’t sabotage anything?
> I think blaming the EU for cookie banners is wrong. Those banners are malicious disobedience, and, for the most part a legal violation.
The EU's own government websites are littered with the obnoxious cookie banners [1].
It's an unbelievably thoughtless and misguided law that has unfortunately ruined the internet. I think a lot of people rightfully blame the EU and they're terrible lawmaking for this nonsense.
I don't seem to get them from outside the EU (even with my adblocker disabled), so a law saying they need an annoying banners I agree to before they go for it might actually be a step up.
MIRhosting, a leading provider of enterprise-grade colocation and IT infrastructure services in Europe, proudly announces the launch of two dedicated, fully equipped data rooms at its newest location within the NorthC data center in Nieuwegein. This strategic expansion strengthens MIRhosting's colocation capabilities, directly addressing the growing demand for reliable and scalable colocation solutions in the greater Amsterdam region...."
It’s a little bit Ironic that they use the name of an American super hero
That Elon Musk fancies himself to be. Well, that's less ironic.
It is my understanding that Marvel Studios' Tony Stark was modeled after him, rather than the other way around. Additionally, he had a cameo in one of the Iron Man movies.
Elon was three years old when the first Iron Man comic book came out.
EDIT: and the movies are pretty faithful to the comic books.
The movie personality of Tony Stark was supposedly inspired by Musk's persona (at least from before he began spending most of his time in a futile attempt to woo Trump)
https://www.theguardian.com/film/2024/oct/28/robert-downey-j...
"In 2022, Iron Man screenwriter Mark Fergus confirmed that Musk had partly inspired the screen version of the Marvel hero, as both men share tech prowess, arrogance and a short fuse. He told New York magazine that Stark was as if “Musk took the brilliance of [Steve] Jobs with the showmanship of [Donald] Trump,” adding: “He was the only one who had the fun factor and the celebrity vibe and actual business substance.”"
Edit: I'm not quite sure why Musk was brought up unprompted though, made it seem like he has something to do with this company, but it doesn't seem like that's the case?
This is pretty revisionist. In 2008 when the first Iron Man movie came out, Trump wasn’t on anyone’s radar let alone used as inspiration for anything.
The 1993 movie Super Mario Bros. features both a major and minor antagonist clearly modeled after Donald Trump. He was a well known, highly referenced figure for DECADES before he entered politics. Where are you getting this idea that nobody in 2008 could have been thinking about Donald Trump?
He was literally in the middle of his 13-year run on Network tv. If he hadn't won the presidency, that would be talked about as the apex of his time as a public figure.
Isn't the alternate timeline version of Biff Tannen in Back to the Future 2 modeled after Donald Trump? That movie was released in 1989...
The screenwriter said some time _after_ 2016 with never previously noting the connection so take that as you will.
Donald Trump has been a public figure for much longer than just the last ten years. By 2008, the Apprentice had already been running for four years. He ran for president in 2000. The portrayal of Biff Tannen in Back to the Future 2 (1989) was partially based on his public persona at the time.
The Trump bit may be revisionist (I admittedly hadn't heard of that comparison before), but the Musk bit goes pretty far back, here's a 2011 article about it: https://www.todayifoundout.com/index.php/2011/08/robert-down...
And, having been a kid at the time, I remember excitedly talking with friends about how Elon Musk was the real life Tony Stark. We were young enough to be insulated from his controveries, and to not truly appreciate how impossible the Iron Man suit was.
His cameo in IM2 was part of the deal he made to let the producers use a SpaceX facility.
WTH is a “bulletproof host”? Been working in the industry for 30 years and never once heard it?
> WTH is a “bulletproof host”?
A "bulletproof" host or provider is the colloquial term for a business that will not reveal your identity, payment information, provide LEO access, respond to subpoenas, etc.
It's generally used by cyber-criminals as a "safe" vendor, though some privacy-minded individuals like this type of provider as well.
> provide LEO access
Those poor astronauts! ("Law Enforcement Officer", for anyone else not in the know).
Especially helpful hint coz the other thread's talking about Elon </SCNR>
My mind first jump to an old video of somebody shooting a Sun Microsystems machine and the bullets did not in fact penetrate the steel.
Are you thinking of HP or did they both do it?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gnjb1WVkhmU
I forgot about the HP one! I distinctly remember there was a Sun too; it was like a backyard shoot.
Ars covered it in 2013, it's common in security (Risky Business, OSInt, Krebs) https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2013/01/how-t...
It says so in the article. Isp's who ignore authorities and allow anything to happen on their networks.
Imagine a rack of servers in some countries where global and even that country's law can't really touch them. "cyber gangs" and the like will use those servers as hosting for their malware and activities.
> even that country's law can't really touch them.
Well, that countries law enforcement could always cut off those servers. It's usually either due to corruption or in case of russia political intent that these servers are kept online.
Thanks for the replies. Should have RTFA I guess
> Been working in the industry for 30 years and never once heard it?
obligatory: https://xkcd.com/1053/ Happy ten thousand day!
Others already answered but while I'm chiming in anyway, I'm not in the hosting industry but IT security (for like ten years, say) and for me it's a very normal term. Maybe precisely because of that niche though; many of us are paranoid
Sometimes it feels like the internet is still the wild west.
The EU tries to rope off a single building with velvet ropes, a doorman, ID verification, facial scans, and cookie banners, while next door it's an illegal rave in an abandoned supermarket.
I think blaming the EU for cookie banners is wrong. Those banners are malicious disobedience, and, for the most part a legal violation. What websites should do is that they should assume you reject any tracking as their default, and then they can offer a site setting that you have to seek out, where you can agree to be tracked. What they are sort of allowed to do, is that they can prompt you with a banner, but it has to be a single no-click without requiring you to read much, but that is still not compliance. Anything more annoying is a legal violation.
The real issue is that there aren't a whole lot of consequences when it comes to tracking data. It's a legal violation, sure, but it's not a criminal violation. So it would be up to you to pursue it. In many countries you can't even file a civil lawsuit, but rather, you have to go through your national data protection agency. Which in reality likely means your complaint will be auto-rejected after five years because they need to clean up the queue.
As far as the malicious disobedience goes... well... it's probably because "all the other website do it", but you might as well just give people the option to go to a setting to turn it off. It's not like that would be any less of a legal violation than the banner.
Sort of aside but it’s wild to me that people talk of ab testing all kinds of minor things and yet so many shops immediately cover up the item I’m viewing with a huge banner/full page annoyance about cookies.
The two aren't necessarily mutually exclusive, it's very possible the same places found the tracking data is worth the annoyance.
If the majority of users use the system wrong, it's the system that's wrong, not the users.
That rubric only applies when the users aren’t actively and maliciously sabotaging the system, which privacy-subverting websites absolutely are. (And everyone else is cargo-cutting their behavior.)
To be fair, I’m sabotaging it from the other side with my ad-blocker.
Defending yourself from abuse is not an excuse for others to engage in abuse. I have no issue with passive 90's-style ads. I don't need to block them. I use my abuse-blocker to handle more concerning problems.
Note that the most annoying consent banners come from advertising conglomerates (IAB comes to mind). Well who would think they wouldn’t sabotage anything?
> I think blaming the EU for cookie banners is wrong. Those banners are malicious disobedience, and, for the most part a legal violation.
The EU's own government websites are littered with the obnoxious cookie banners [1].
It's an unbelievably thoughtless and misguided law that has unfortunately ruined the internet. I think a lot of people rightfully blame the EU and they're terrible lawmaking for this nonsense.
https://european-union.europa.eu
I don't seem to get them from outside the EU (even with my adblocker disabled), so a law saying they need an annoying banners I agree to before they go for it might actually be a step up.
If anything the internet has become more of the wild west and will continue to do so as the internet is incredibly useful for state actors.
The physical world is like that too!
this is more common and easier than people think, and I think this conflict was necessary to exposure the hubris behind global superpowers
they think they're omnipotent but really don't control the world, rendering economic sanctions and service blacklisting to be null and moot
Sanctions?! What sanctions? They don't even hide, right in the heart of Western Europe:
https://www.swedbank-aktiellt.se/telegram/WOzsdcJG
"AMSTERDAM, April 10, 2025
MIRhosting, a leading provider of enterprise-grade colocation and IT infrastructure services in Europe, proudly announces the launch of two dedicated, fully equipped data rooms at its newest location within the NorthC data center in Nieuwegein. This strategic expansion strengthens MIRhosting's colocation capabilities, directly addressing the growing demand for reliable and scalable colocation solutions in the greater Amsterdam region...."