All a bit odd really..an article with no real name
All a bit odd really
..an article with no real name
Synopsis: Current evidence available strongly points towards the fact that RenegadeRecon.com, JapanAirsoftGuns.com, WIIGuns.com, Airsoft-Finland.com and TokyoHobby.net are influenced by same people. All look to be designed by a Finnish webdesigner, all are (bar the original TokyoHobby.net site which is hosted in Finland) hosted through the same company (Dreamhost, USA) and all are updated from within Japan.
As a result of this article on 2nd April 2005 Renegade Recon stated clearly that they "...have had and have association with the person who Arnie’s Airsoft is accusing." (source). RR have stated themselves that they do have a current association with TokyoHobby. Renegade Recon also decided to remove all adverts that they were carrying for JapanAirsoft.
As always if you plan to buy online do some checking BEFORE you place an order. Ask around, talk to some people at the very least who has ordered before or ask in some online forums here or anywhere else about the retailer you are interested in and get some feedback before you send your hard earned cash to the other side of the world. If you send money to a company that you don't know you risk gaining nothing more than another sad tale to tell on the forums should the worst happen.
The new shop fronts: Two new shop fronts appeared on the internet very recently. Both promise to deliver cheap Airsoft direct from Japan:
wiiguns.com - TokyoHobby and WWII Guns share the same order tracking system, plus use "Clover Shop" an online selling tool that's specifically made available in Finnish as it is sold by a Finnish company. The CSS list from WWII Guns also bears a comment written in Finnish:
" *P addingin avulla voi tehdä marginaaleja, eikä taulukkorakenteeseen tule
ylimääräisiä reunuksia.margin-left sopii vasemman reunan sisennykseen, text-intend ei ole niin hyvä
ja se voi tehdä epätasaisia kappaleiden aluista.
*/ "The Finnish based shopping cart and comments in Finnish clearly points towards the WWII Guns website being designed by a Finnish designer. A further simple check on the whois for the domain name 'wwiiguns.com' indicates that it is registered to "Miki Nakamura" the same person that runs TokyoHobby, and is quite obviously a retail frontend for TokyoHobby.
japanairsoftguns.com - The DNS for japanairsoftguns.com leaves the user with no idea as to who owns or runs the company, however it is registered and hosted through the same company as wwiiguns.com. orca (in our forums) has also pointed out in the forums it shares a paragraph of unusual text with TokyoHobby's "Terms of Sales" (source) :
"Cyber defamation, slander and libel: User of this site agrees not to post any information which is detrimental to the reputation of japanairsoftguns.com on any medium whatsoever including, but not limited to, the Internet, or to any person or organization, and shall not induce a third party to do the same. japanairsoftguns.com will pursue damages in cyber defamation, slander and libel incidents to the full extend of the law."
It is highly probable that japanairsoftguns.com is another frontend for TokyoHobby.
The information portal: RenegadeRecon.com (RR) started up relatively recently on the internet (Sept 2003), providing news direct from unknown sources in Japan. The concept was good and the site design was top notch. The website was run fairly anonymously by "HQ", a person that gave his name as Michael to other users he became chatty with via email. RR is quite obviously run by someone either based in Japan or with some good contacts there.
On the 14th of February 2005 Renegade Recon they carried some news from a company called "WWIIGUNS.COM" advertising the new TOP MP40 (source) and then on the 25th of March carried a similar styled advert about "JAPANAIRSOFT.COM" (source). Shortly after this Renegade Recon started to carry banner adverts from JapanAirsoft.
Several people contacted 'HQ' (listed with the realname "Michael BD" at RR) at RenegadeRecon concerning the two retailers they had recently advertised but no replies were forthcoming to anyone that brought the subject up.
Solo's account: "Solo has been chatting with HQ at RR for some time now via email and was curious about the situation. The person responding to email sent to hq@renegaderecon.com called themselves Michael throughout their discussions and was quite chatty and wrote English very well. Solo conversed with "Michael" for some time via email and mentioned very recently that he was after some hard to find kit in Japan. Michael at RR told Solo that he was in Japan and could get the items for him and offered to buy the gear for him and post it out, natrually Solo took him Michael up on the offer wired cash over. The name on the bank account Solo had wired cash to was "Shizuka Nakamura" registered to a bank in Tokyo, Japan. Solo decided that on the basis of the name similarity to the person listed against TokyoHobby that he'd cancel the transfer and did so accordingly. He asked the person calling themselves Michael at RR quite simply if he was Miki Nakamura, but multiple replies came back that side stepped the issue and gave no direct response to the very simple question."
Nakamura is a fairly common surname in Japan, actually it's the 7th most common; however you roughly stand a 1% chance of successfully picking an individual out of a crowd at random in Tokyo with that name. The chances of two randomly chosen individuals bearing the same is very slim indeed.
A quick examination of the html code over at the index page for RenegadeRecon pulls up a very odd code fragment:
This code fragment which is commented out points to the page "http://www.renegaderecon.com/sisasivu.htm" which looks to be an old template page for the initial designs for RR. A check for "sisasivu" on Google (see here) pulls up some 274 Finnish websites and pretty much nothing else the word "sisasivu" is Finnish and a rough translation is "template". Various other words such as "etusivu_reuna_vas.gif" (meaning "frontpage_corner_left.gif") that appear in the site code are again obviously Finnish in origin.
Based on the fact that the RR website is currently hosted with the same company as the other apparent TokyoHobby retail frontends, is also designed by a Finnish webdesigner and is run by someone who is also using the Nakamura name the only reasonable conclusion to draw is that RenegadeRecon has a relationship of some form with TokyoHobby.
On 2nd April 2005 Renegade Recon stated clearly that they "...have had and have association with the person who Arnie’s Airsoft is accusing." (source). RR have stated themselves that they do have a current association with the singular person backing these retail outlets.
Update: A futher comparison between the site code on both Airsoft-Finland.com (source) and RenegadeRecon.com (source) again turns up striking similarities. The term "all good things" appears at the start and end of the HTML code inset as a comment. On Airsoft-Finland.com you find at the start of the site code "< !-- all the good things begings -->" at RR the term "< !-- allgoodthing -->", similar variations are found at the end of the document too (A-F: "< !-- all the good things ends -->" and at RR: "< !-- end:allgoodthing -->").
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References:
Whois results for relevant domains as of March 28, 2005:
Domain Name: RENEGADERECON.COM
Administrative Contact, Technical Contact:
Recon, Renegade qk6w56ak5r4@networksolutionsprivateregistration.com
Renegade Recon
ATTN: RENEGADERECON.COM
c/o Network Solutions
P.O. Box 447
Herndon, VA 20172-0447
570-708-8780
Record expires on 19-Feb-2006.
Record created on 19-Feb-2002.
Database last updated on 27-Mar-2005 19:54:02 EST.
Domain servers in listed order:
NS1.DREAMHOST.COM 66.33.206.206
NS2.DREAMHOST.COM 66.201.54.66
NS3.DREAMHOST.COM 66.33.216.216
Domain Name: JAPANAIRSOFTGUNS.COM
Administrative Contact, Technical Contact:
Japan Airsoft xv9hw5r58cv@networksolutionsprivateregistration.com
ATTN: JAPANAIRSOFTGUNS.COM
c/o Network Solutions
P.O. Box 447
Herndon, VA 20172-0447
570-708-8780
Record expires on 03-Feb-2007.
Record created on 03-Feb-2005.
Database last updated on 27-Mar-2005 19:54:36 EST.
Domain servers in listed order:
NS1.DREAMHOST.COM 66.33.206.206
NS2.DREAMHOST.COM 66.201.54.66
NS3.DREAMHOST.COM 66.33.216.216
Domain Name: WWIIGUNS.COM
Administrative Contact:
Nakamura, Miki fb9cf6d37vj@networksolutionsprivateregistration.com
ATTN: WWIIGUNS.COM
c/o Network Solutions
P.O. Box 447
Herndon, VA 20172-0447
570-708-8780
Technical Contact:
Network Solutions, LLC. customerservice@networksolutions.com
13200 Woodland Park Drive
Herndon, VA 20171-3025
US
1-888-642-9675 fax: 571-434-4620
Record expires on 03-Mar-2007.
Record created on 03-Mar-2004.
Database last updated on 27-Mar-2005 20:03:47 EST.
Domain servers in listed order:
NS1.DREAMHOST.COM 66.33.206.206
NS2.DREAMHOST.COM 66.201.54.66
NS3.DREAMHOST.COM 66.33.216.216
Domain Name: TOKYOHOBBY.NET
Administrative Contact:
Tokyo Hobby miki.nakamura@tokyohobby.net
4-45-12 Minami Ogikubo
Tokyo, Tokyo 167-0052
JP
+81 3 3334 3030 fax: +81 3 3334 3029
Technical Contact:
Nebula Oy hostmaster@NEBULA.FI
Tahdenlennonkuja 22
Espoo, - 02240
FI
358 9 25173174 fax: -
Record expires on 24-Apr-2006.
Record created on 24-Apr-2001.
Database last updated on 27-Mar-2005 20:02:20 EST.
Domain servers in listed order:
DNS1.NEBULA.FI
DNS2.NEBULA.FIRegistrant:
AFK
Minami Ogikubo 4-45-12
Tokyo, TOKYO 167-0052
JPDomain Name: AIRSOFT-FINLAND.COM
Administrative Contact, Technical Contact, Zone Contact:
AFK
Minami Ogikubo 4-45-12
Tokyo, TOKYO 167-0052
JP
123
info@airsoft-finland.comDomain created on 26-May-2003
Domain expires on 26-May-2005
Last updated on 09-Jun-2003Domain servers in listed order:
NS1.DREAMHOST.COM
NS2.DREAMHOST.COM
NS3.DREAMHOST.COM
This page last updated: Sunday, April 3, 2005 10:42 PM