6. Current continuity information
Public reporting indicates that services and information are being moved
to:
https://www.inventati.org/
The following channels were identified for updates from or about the collective:
https://cavallette.noblogs.org/
https://mastodon.bida.im/@cavallette
Because the situation is developing rapidly, technical status, legal
measures and service availability may change after the date of this
report.
Autistici/Inventati: U.S. Sanctions and DNS Suspension
Report date: August 28, 2026
Executive summary
Autistici/Inventati was formally designated by the U.S. government as
a Specially Designated Global Terrorist (SDGT) on August 26, 2026.
This was not limited to a political statement by U.S. Secretary of
State Marco Rubio: the U.S. Department of the Treasury's Office of
Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) added Autistici Inventati to the
Specially Designated Nationals and Blocked Persons List under
Executive Order 13224, as amended.
On August 28, autistici.org stopped resolving in the public Domain
Name System. Independent tests against Cloudflare and Quad9 returned
NXDOMAIN for the domain itself and its mail and web hostnames. As a
result, the website, email services and hosted subdomains became
unreachable before any connection to the underlying servers could be established.
The timing, the sanctions designation and statements from
Autistici/Inventati make a causal connection highly likely. However,
no public statement from the domain registrar, Public Interest
Registry or another infrastructure provider has yet established
precisely which organization suspended the domain or the exact legal
and technical mechanism used.
1. U.S. designation and sanctions
On August 26, 2026, OFAC added AUTISTICI INVENTATI to the SDN List
with the SDGT designation. OFAC identified the organization as an
Italy-based provider of data processing, hosting and related services
and warned of secondary-sanctions risk under section 1(b) of Executive
Order 13224, as amended by Executive Order 13886.
Official OFAC designation:
https://ofac.treasury.gov/recent-actions/20260826
The U.S. Treasury stated that Autistici/Inventati was designated for allegedly providing technological support, goods and services to
violent far-left groups. Autistici/Inventati denies these allegations
and describes its work as providing digital self-defence, privacy and communication services to activists, individuals, groups and
associations.
U.S. Treasury press release: https://home.treasury.gov/news/press-releases/sb0616/
Italian news report on Rubio's announcement: https://www.rainews.it/articoli/2026/08/usa-rubio-annuncia-sanzioni-a-n etwork-estrema-sinistra-tra-cui-gruppo-hacker-italiano-22f51a4e-e4dc-48 88-b764-fab3527567e5.html
2. Immediate practical consequences
According to reporting published on August 28, autistici.org became unavailable at approximately 03:57 local time. A member of the
collective stated that the underlying servers were still operating and
that the failure involved the domain rather than a server malfunction.
The reported effects include:
* Approximately 20,000 autistici.org email accounts becoming
inaccessible through their normal domain names.
* Approximately 10,000 hosted websites and blogs becoming unreachable.
* Disruption to newsletters and mailing lists used by thousands of
people and organizations.
* Blocking of the PayPal account used by the volunteer-run
organization to collect donations and pay operating expenses.
* Migration or redirection of services and public information toward inventati.org.
Interview and impact report from la Repubblica: https://www.repubblica.it/cronaca/2026/08/28/news/autistici_inventati_g overno_usa_chiude_sito_accusa_terrorismo-425552370/amp/
Radio Onda Rossa report stating that autistici.org was suspended and
services were migrated to inventati.org: https://www.ondarossa.info/newstrasmissioni/ponte-radio/2026/08/sulle-s anzioni-ad-autisticiinventati
Public statement attributed to the Autistici/Inventati collective: https://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2026/08/27/18888276.php
3. Independent technical observations
DNS tests were conducted on August 28, 2026 using two independent
public recursive resolvers.
Cloudflare resolver, 1.1.1.1:
* autistici.org A: NXDOMAIN
* autistici.org AAAA: NXDOMAIN
* autistici.org NS: NXDOMAIN
* autistici.org MX: NXDOMAIN
* www.autistici.org A and AAAA: NXDOMAIN
* mail.autistici.org A and AAAA: NXDOMAIN
Quad9 resolver, 9.9.9.9:
* The same queries returned NXDOMAIN.
* Quad9 additionally reported an Extended DNS Error indicating a
negatively cached result for the entire name.
HTTPS requests to the following addresses failed during DNS
resolution:
https://autistici.org/
https://www.autistici.org/
The curl error was:
curl: (6) Could not resolve host
IMAP TLS tests were attempted using these commands:
openssl s_client -connect mail.autistici.org:143 -starttls imap
-servername mail.autistici.org -verify_hostname mail.autistici.org
-showcerts
openssl s_client -connect mail.autistici.org:993 -servername mail.autistici.org -verify_hostname mail.autistici.org -showcerts
Both attempts failed at DNS resolution with "Name or service not
known." No TCP connection was established and no TLS handshake
occurred. Therefore, no server certificate was received or evaluated.
The outage observed during these tests was a DNS-level failure, not a certificate-validation failure.
4. Scope of the sanctions
The designation blocks property and interests in property of the
designated entity when they are in the United States or under the
possession or control of U.S. persons. U.S. persons are generally
prohibited from transactions involving blocked persons unless OFAC
authorizes or exempts them. OFAC also warns that foreign financial institutions and other non-U.S. parties may face sanctions exposure
for certain significant transactions involving a designated entity.
OFAC issued General License No. 36, which authorizes transactions
ordinarily necessary to wind down dealings involving Autistici
Inventati until 12:01 a.m. EDT on September 25, 2026. Payments to a
blocked person must be placed in a blocked account. The existence of
this wind-down period does not guarantee that every private
infrastructure or payment provider will continue supplying service
until that date.
OFAC General License No. 36: https://ofac.treasury.gov/media/936791/download?inline=
5. Assessment of the connection between sanctions and the outage
The following facts are confirmed:
* The U.S. designation and OFAC listing occurred on August 26.
* The public DNS failure occurred by August 28.
* autistici.org returned NXDOMAIN through multiple independent public resolvers.
* The collective reported that its servers were still operating.
* The collective reported disruption to email, websites, mailing lists
and donations.
* The collective considers the domain suspension one of the first consequences of the sanctions.
The following point remains unconfirmed:
* No public statement located from the registrar, Public Interest
Registry or another relevant provider identifies who technically
suspended autistici.org, who requested the suspension, or the precise contractual or legal process used.
The most accurate conclusion is therefore that the domain suspension
is very likely a direct or indirect consequence of the U.S. sanctions.
The available evidence does not yet prove the exact chain of
instructions or identify the infrastructure organization that executed
the DNS removal.
6. Current continuity information
Public reporting indicates that services and information are being
moved to:
https://www.inventati.org/
The following channels were identified for updates from or about the collective:
https://cavallette.noblogs.org/
https://mastodon.bida.im/@cavallette
Because the situation is developing rapidly, technical status, legal
measures and service availability may change after the date of this
report.
--- Digital Signature --- MTGwYkdXS5x6eUQazzBCbIFWAIkRmnUf0qZnzr9TDQFHdSaQt3SyygXPpzZ9AEwFq0V6UHK VIkjsylesnFrsAQ==
Victor Virebent wrote:
6. Current continuity information
Public reporting indicates that services and information are being
moved to:
https://www.inventati.org/
The following channels were identified for updates from or about the
collective:
https://cavallette.noblogs.org/
https://mastodon.bida.im/@cavallette
smtp/imap are both working at smtp/mail dot *inventati* dot org.
Because the situation is developing rapidly, technical status, legal
measures and service availability may change after the date of this
report.
### 1. DNS tramite Cloudflare
$ dig @1.1.1.1 autistici.org A
status: NXDOMAIN
$ dig @1.1.1.1 autistici.org AAAA
status: NXDOMAIN
$ dig @1.1.1.1 autistici.org NS
status: NXDOMAIN
$ dig @1.1.1.1 autistici.org MX
status: NXDOMAIN
$ dig @1.1.1.1 www.autistici.org A
status: NXDOMAIN
$ dig @1.1.1.1 www.autistici.org AAAA
status: NXDOMAIN
$ dig @1.1.1.1 mail.autistici.org A
status: NXDOMAIN
$ dig @1.1.1.1 mail.autistici.org AAAA
status: NXDOMAIN
### 2. DNS tramite Quad9
$ dig @9.9.9.9 autistici.org A
status: NXDOMAIN
$ dig @9.9.9.9 autistici.org AAAA
status: NXDOMAIN
$ dig @9.9.9.9 autistici.org NS
status: NXDOMAIN
$ dig @9.9.9.9 autistici.org MX
status: NXDOMAIN
$ dig @9.9.9.9 www.autistici.org A
status: NXDOMAIN
$ dig @9.9.9.9 www.autistici.org AAAA
status: NXDOMAIN
$ dig @9.9.9.9 mail.autistici.org A
status: NXDOMAIN
$ dig @9.9.9.9 mail.autistici.org AAAA
status: NXDOMAIN
Quad9 indicava anche:
EDE: 29 (Result from negative cache for entire name)
### 3. HTTPS
$ curl --connect-timeout 8 --max-time 15 -I https://autistici.org/
curl: (6) Could not resolve host: autistici.org
$ curl --connect-timeout 8 --max-time 15 -I https://www.autistici.org/
curl: (6) Could not resolve host: www.autistici.org
### 4. IMAP porta 143 con STARTTLS
$ openssl s_client \
-connect mail.autistici.org:143 \
-starttls imap \
-servername mail.autistici.org \
-verify_hostname mail.autistici.org \
-showcerts
error:10080002:BIO routines:BIO_lookup_ex:system lib
connect: Name or service not known
### 5. IMAPS porta 993
$ openssl s_client \
-connect mail.autistici.org:993 \
-servername mail.autistici.org \
-verify_hostname mail.autistici.org \
-showcerts
error:10080002:BIO routines:BIO_lookup_ex:system lib
connect: Name or service not known
Conclusione: nessun test ha raggiunto un server. La negoziazione TLS
non |? mai iniziata, quindi non |? stato possibile ricevere o
verificare alcun certificato. Il blocco avviene prima, a livello DNS: autistici.org risulta NXDOMAIN sia su Cloudflare sia su Quad9.
Virebent Team
--- Digital Signature --- uSMK2aJMYFJWqo8JNjfmh1x+e3tJwFHyfVZ+HYFv2ZhVPxoRXLidEdbAUmVsXjPWLu6JBiB lQSB1CW7cTLYEDA==
| Sysop: | Amessyroom |
|---|---|
| Location: | Fayetteville, NC |
| Users: | 74 |
| Nodes: | 6 (0 / 6) |
| Uptime: | 30:12:56 |
| Calls: | 1,195 |
| Files: | 1,354 |
| D/L today: |
16 files (19,622K bytes) |
| Messages: | 294,275 |