And by ripe.org, I obviously meant ripe.net.

Well, if you read the article, you find a link: "You can read the full background to the story here [http://178.63.252.42/]." Look up 178.63.252.42 at ripe.org and you find it's owned by spacerich.com. Visit spacerich.com and you see in large, friendly letters: "Virtual Private Servers from $3.99/month"

So there you go, spacerich.com offers VPS for $3.99/month.

This is a complete perversion of the concept of Intellectual Property. The US Consitution allows things like patents and other IP "To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts". Recent patents granted by USPTO are just absurd, and do not fulfill the original intent of the Consitutional basis for IP in the US.