Astounding

• @astounding — Historical Telegram contact handle; later described as lost
• @reservedmemory — Documented Telegram handle

Astounding is the creator and early public operator of BlackForums.net, a hacking and marketplace forum advertised for hacking discussion, breach material, leaks, cracking tools, carding-adjacent trade, and database sales. BlackForums began appearing publicly in April 2023 and was repeatedly promoted through Telegram as a new forum for hacking enthusiasts, leaked databases, cracking tools, and marketplace activity.

Astounding’s main strength is infrastructure building. She is not best understood as only a “hacker” in the cinematic sense. Her sharper profile is that of a forum mechanic, marketplace wrangler, web developer, community operator, and chaos-tolerant administrator who kept a volatile criminal-adjacent forum alive through downtime, DDoS pressure, theme rebuilds, plugin problems, migration work, escrow disputes, and identity drama.

BlackForums became significant because it tried to turn Telegram-scene disorder into a searchable, rank-based, upgrade-driven forum economy. It had user upgrades, VIP contests, awards, marketplace verification, seller sections, invite-only plans, escrow/MM services, XMPP experiments, PGP-related features, Telegram promotion, and later domain migration into blackforums.ru. That is the real risk. A forum like this does not need every user to be skilled. It only needs to make bad trade easier, safer-feeling, and more social.

Astounding’s public persona is half admin, half malware gremlin, half exhausted webdev, and yes, that is three halves because this creature does not obey arithmetic. She is abrasive, meme-driven, often crude, frequently unserious in tone, but operationally persistent. Under the clowning sits someone who can ship forum features, manage user economies, handle moderation disputes, build or modify plugins, run infrastructure, and keep a community orbiting her brand.

The @astounding handle is both a brand marker and a reputation object. Losing it created visible identity friction, but the broader Astounding persona continued through related BlackForums and Testecuzzi-era activity. The identity also became memetic: “everyone can be Astounding” was floated as part of “Astounding lore,” suggesting the name functioned not only as a handle but as a scene character.

BlackForums was a hacking/forum-marketplace project built around forum accounts, upgrades, marketplace posts, ranks, chat integration, and off-site Telegram promotion. It presented itself as a place for:

• hacking discussion;
• breach and leak discussion;
• leaked database material;
• cracking tools;
• marketplace trade;
• technical posts;
• upgrades and VIP status;
• verified sellers;
• forum awards and status items;
• escrow / middleman-style transaction support;
• community events and giveaways.

The project launched publicly around April 2023. By mid-May 2023, promotional posts described it as roughly one month old and advertised it as a new forum for selling, cracking tools, carding, and leaked databases. By November 2023, BlackForums V2 was being prepared with a major move from Invision Community to MyBB, a marketplace verification model, invite-only plans, upgrade systems, and forum events.

BlackForums was not just a website. It was a Telegram-fed reputation machine. The forum gave structure; Telegram gave oxygen.

Astounding repeatedly positioned herself as the person who made BlackForums real. She described making the forum, becoming known because of it, doing development work, managing maintenance, handling updates, working through theme changes, building or modifying plugins, and later reinvesting money made from BlackForums into a new forum project.

Her role included:

• public promotion;
• forum development;
• MyBB migration work;
• theme/design work;
• plugin/addon work;
• marketplace rules;
• VIP/upgrades management;
• usergroup and award concepts;
• escrow / MM service;
• moderation decisions;
• ban/unban handling;
• dispute response;
• anti-DDoS and reverse-proxy work;
• OPSEC and identity-verification practices;
• later domain migration planning.

BlackForums was not cleanly a one-person empire. Other names appear around hosting, development, design, servers, and later ownership. But Astounding’s creator/operator role is strongly supported by her own repeated statements and by the administrator-like behavior surrounding BlackForums.

The model was not elegant, but it was coherent: status, access, reputation, and trade all tied into one forum identity. That is exactly how small forums become sticky. People stay because their account means something.

BlackForums appeared publicly in April 2023 as a new hacking forum. Promotional copy described it as a community for hacking enthusiasts, data breaches, leaks, carding, tools, and news. The pitch was broad and aggressive: join the new forum, post, trade, discuss, and build a scene.

The early framing was not subtle. BlackForums wanted to be a new home for the breach/leak/hacking marketplace crowd. The message was “come here, sell here, post here, build here.” Baby’s first forum empire, except the baby came with a marketplace tab and a VIP upsell.

By May 2023, Astounding was pushing BlackForums hard through Telegram. She called it “my forum,” asked people to vote for it, and advertised it as roughly one month old with a growing userbase. Promotional posts emphasized cracking tools, carding, leaked databases, and an “extremely secure” environment.

This was the first growth phase. The forum was still young, but the marketing was already clear: BlackForums wanted to capture users from Telegram markets and turn them into registered forum members.

June 2023 shows Astounding doing the ugly work of running a forum: maintenance windows, theme changes, downtime notices, VIP discounts, PGP identity material, and public apologies for delays. Shedescribed sleepless nights and heavy development time poured into BlackForums, then took a short break while still remaining active on Telegram.

The forum already had monetization through VIP lifetime upgrades and user upgrades. Astounding also offered custom subforums and forum groups through direct contact. This is where BlackForums became less of a chat gimmick and more of an actual product with support burden. Running a forum is glamorous for maybe eleven minutes; after that it is just bugs, broke users, and some goblin asking why her profile picture broke.

November 2023 is the major rebuild period. BlackForums V2 moved toward MyBB after downtime and a last-minute switch away from Invision Community. The V2 roadmap included:

• MyBB migration;
• XMPP server work;
• disabled upgrades until plugin work was finished;
• marketplace verification;
• premium seller sections;
• invite-only plans at 4,000 members;
• user invitation limits;
• Christmas and New Year event awards;
• permanent user upgrades;
• PWA-style functionality;
• patching of discovered vulnerabilities.

Astounding publicly argued that MyBB was easier to code for, easier to modify, and suitable because it gave her the pieces she needed without reinventing the wheel. She also claimed to patch vulnerabilities she found. This is one of the cleaner technical markers: her strongest demonstrated lane is web/forum development and pragmatic platform modification.

BlackForums V2 was announced as released on 2023-11-25, though with unfinished details such as profile pictures not importing. That is very believable webdev behavior: “released” meaning “it loads, mostly, please stop screaming.”

BlackForums faced serious availability pressure. Astounding discussed large request floods, heavy access logs, the need for load balancing, and reverse-proxy style protection. She also talked about server funding constraints and the cost of running clearnet infrastructure.

This period sharpened Astounding’s infrastructure profile. She was not merely posting ads. She was handling the boring and painful parts: server costs, traffic spikes, DDoS mitigation, origin exposure, load balancing, and uptime. The scale claims should be treated cautiously, but the operational theme is clear: BlackForums had to survive hostile traffic and constant attention.

In December 2023, Astounding advertised an escrow service with low fees, minimum transaction sizes, coin support, and vouch-based legitimacy. She also discussed how forums themselves do not necessarily make much money; money comes through middleman activity, deposits, upgrades, ads through Telegram channels, and adjacent services.

BlackForums also ran giveaways for paid upgrades and forum awards. The community model combined giveaways, status rewards, VIP access, and seller verification. It was a rough but recognizable marketplace growth loop: bring users in, give them badges, sell upgrades, control disputes, and make the forum feel like the room where deals happen.

A public dispute in late November / early December involved dox concerns, leverage, and a claim that another party had stolen money. Astounding posted a statement saying BlackForums would continue running normally and that she would notify users if anything emerged that could affect her OPSEC.

This is an important behavioral marker. Astounding treated OPSEC as both personal risk and public reputation management. The forum’s trust depended on the operator appearing stable enough to keep infrastructure alive even while personal drama burned around it.

In January 2024, Astounding discussed an origin IP leak while denying that a security breach had occurred. Around the same period, she stated that she had lost the @astounding handle and that there would be “no Astounding anymore,” though the broader identity continued in practice.

Later in January, she said BlackForums would have a new owner, that money made from BlackForums would be reinvested into a new project called SecretForums, and that the new owner should be able to run BlackForums. She also said she no longer owned the group and directed users to ask another operator for ownership-level permissions.

This looks like a partial step-back rather than a clean disappearance. Astounding’s role shifted, but her technical and cultural fingerprints remained around the forum ecosystem.

In February 2024, Astounding was active around SecretForums. She complained about being banned or terminated when using the Astounding name on other platforms and noted that BlackForums-related vanity naming was banned in some places.

The same month, she tested or discussed PGP-encrypted site DMs and a PGP conversation addon. She repeatedly framed herself as a coder or developer rather than only a hacker. That distinction fits the rest of the profile: Astounding’s reliable capability is building and maintaining systems, not simply flexing about exploits.

Astounding sometimes tried to draw boundaries around what should be allowed. She said not to hit education, hospitals, healthcare, critical infrastructure, or small businesses, and framed healthcare disruption as something that could prevent people from getting medication or care. She also said carding was not allowed on the site or in chat.

Those boundaries are real as policy statements, but they sit beside contradictory material. Early BlackForums ads explicitly invoked carding and leaked databases. BlackForums remained a high-risk marketplace environment. Gore was tolerated if spoilered. “No fraud” rules existed beside data-selling, marketplace, access, and malware-adjacent culture. The moral map is not clean. It is more like a napkin covered in black marker and energy drink.

By May 2024, Astounding was heavily associated with BlackPlague, a stealer / malware-adjacent project. She discussed finishing a stealer, redesigning BlackPlague materials, hosting choices, recoding older work, and releasing related tooling with a loader. She claimed she had been a malware developer before being Astounding and claimed to have made more money with malware than with other work.

The BlackPlague material should be treated as credible enough to matter, but not clean enough to overstate. It supports a malware-adjacent builder profile: stealer development, loader/C2 talk, infrastructure thinking, and marketing. It does not prove every earnings or capability claim. Scene people inflate. Astounding inflates with glitter and a side of sleep deprivation.

In July 2024, BlackForums continued under blackforums.ru, which Astounding described as the official domain. Around the same period, she described a middleman/MM system implemented into BlackForums, stating that it did not handle user funds directly and was free. She also discussed needing more money and more features.

This marks the continuation phase. The project had moved beyond the original blackforums.net identity into a new domain and more structured marketplace tooling. The MM system matters because it turns the forum from a posting board into a trade-facilitation layer.

In August 2024, Astounding worked on XMPP-related infrastructure, including a direct XMPP client in BlackForums and a domain tied to that messaging setup. She also discussed blackforums.st, SSL certificate work, logo/layout issues, and broader forum security.

His security view was pragmatic and cynical: nothing is fully secure; every piece of code may contain a vulnerability; security depends heavily on the webmaster. That is one of her more grounded takes. For once the gremlin said the quiet, correct part.

In September 2024, Astounding discussed testing the BlackForums reverse proxy and continued promotion through giveaways and shoutouts. The later footprint shows BlackForums still being actively maintained, promoted, and adjusted after the original blackforums.net period.

By this point, BlackForums was no longer only a young clearnet forum. It had become a persistent scene project with domain migration, DDoS protection concerns, messaging features, marketplace controls, and a recognizable operator mythology.

Astounding’s strongest technical area is web/forum development. Sheworked with or discussed:

• MyBB;
• Invision Community migration;
• PHP plugin work;
• forum themes;
• PWA functionality;
• user upgrades;
• custom awards;
• forum shop mechanics;
• marketplace permissions;
• verified seller sections;
• XMPP integration;
• PGP-encrypted DMs;
• account/profile migration;
• reverse proxy / anti-DDoS setup;
• SSL and domain work.

The MyBB migration is especially important. Astounding did not present it as theoretical. She handled issues, bugs, upgrade plugins, database migration, and release problems in real time. That is the boring evidence of competence. Anyone can claim to be a hacker. Fewer people voluntarily fight forum plugins at 3 a.m. and live to complain about it.

Astounding dealt with:

• clearnet hosting costs;
• domain changes;
• origin IP exposure;
• DDoS pressure;
• load-balancing needs;
• reverse-proxy testing;
• access logs;
• SSL certificate work;
• .net / .ru / .st domain transitions;
• possible clearnet / onion split planning.

He was infrastructure-aware, though not perfectly disciplined. The forum repeatedly survived downtime and attacks, but the public chatter around infrastructure and origin exposure also shows OPSEC looseness.

Astounding used or discussed:

• PGP identity verification;
• PGP-encrypted site messages;
• Tails-based key handling;
• privacy tools;
• proxy chains / Tor-style routing;
• XMPP;
• personal OPSEC statements after disputes;
• handle rotation and identity loss;
• clean-device / logged-out behavior around public events.

His OPSEC posture is mixed. Shecared about verification, keys, privacy tooling, and not exposing hosting providers. Shealso talked far too much in public. That is the Astounding paradox: knows enough to hide the door, then loudly describes the hallway.

Astounding’s malware-adjacent profile includes:

• BlackPlague stealer work;
• loader discussion;
• C2-framework discussion;
• obfuscation concepts;
• ransomware-extension claims;
• stealer infrastructure planning;
• message scraping;
• long-running malware-development self-claims.

This material supports a credible malware-adjacent developer profile, but with noisy confidence. The strongest proof is not a clean public sample analysis; it is the recurring project work, infrastructure discussion, and repeated BlackPlague build/marketing behavior. Earnings and capability claims should be treated as self-reported.

Astounding also operated around data-market material. She described herself as having been a data seller for a significant part of her life, referenced POS data, discussed access/material quality, scraped messages, and ran a forum that advertised leaked databases and marketplace trade.

His value here is not only possession of datasets. It is market literacy: knowing what gets traded, what needs verification, how to route sellers, how to handle reputation, and how to turn forum structure into deal flow.

BlackForums governance was messy but deliberate. Astounding tried to create rules and incentives:

• marketplace access limited to upgraded or verified users;
• sellers required to show vouches or proof of non-scam products;
• certain categories restricted;
• invite-only plans after growth;
• upgraded users receiving more invitations;
• seller-only areas;
• forum events and awards;
• escrow/MM support;
• bans and unbans in chat;
• ad approval requirements.

The rules were not a clean ethical framework. They were a survival system. They reduced scams, protected the forum’s reputation, and kept the market from becoming so toxic it killed itself. Astounding was not making a clean community; she was keeping the sewer pipes from bursting. Noble? No. Useful to the sewer? Absolutely.

Astounding’s moderation worldview is best summarized as “controlled criminal mess.” she did not want the forum to become pure fraud spam or CSAM garbage, but she was still building infrastructure for high-risk cyber trade. That is not a halo. That is just better plumbing in a bad building.

The flagship project. Started around April 2023, promoted as a hacking/leak/carding-adjacent forum, rebuilt as BlackForums V2 on MyBB, expanded with upgrades, marketplace verification, PGP features, XMPP experiments, MM tooling, awards, invite plans, and later domain migration.

A later forum project announced after Astounding stepped back from direct BlackForums ownership. She described it as a new forum and suggested that money made from BlackForums would be reinvested into it. SecretForums appears as a continuation of the same builder instinct: forum, community, marketplace, identity, rules, repeat.

A malware/stealer-adjacent project associated with Astounding’s later activity. It involved stealer finishing, redesign work, hosting comments, loader/C2 direction, and claims of prior malware-development experience. BlackPlague is a separate risk lane from BlackForums but overlaps through Astounding’s development and marketing behavior.

Earlier Telegram marketplace channel used for BlackForums promotion, VIP sales, maintenance announcements, subforum offers, and community routing. This venue helped bootstrap the forum’s early audience.

Astounding’s style is chaotic, vulgar, theatrical, and technically persistent. She swings between childish memes, administrator announcements, hostile moderation, serious OPSEC talk, health complaints, developer burnout, and malware flexing. The public personality is intentionally abrasive and often absurd.

Recurring traits:

• heavy meme identity;
• loud self-branding;
• public exhaustion and burnout;
• constant forum tinkering;
• defensive OPSEC talk;
• blunt anti-scam posture;
• frequent slur-heavy aggression;
• chaotic affection toward community members;
• obsession with ranks, awards, and status;
• technical pragmatism when solving real problems;
• overtalking sensitive subjects.

He is not polished. She is not quiet. She is not disciplined in the way a careful operator should be. But she is productive. That is the annoying part. Some people are messy and useless. Astounding is messy and ships.

• Strong practical forum administration.
• MyBB/PHP/plugin/theme modification ability.
• Product instinct for status economies, upgrades, awards, and seller tiers.
• Persistence through downtime, DDoS pressure, and migrations.
• Ability to build community identity around a forum brand.
• Marketplace literacy and dispute-handling experience.
• Familiarity with PGP, XMPP, reverse proxies, and web infrastructure.
• Credible malware-adjacent project work through BlackPlague.
• Talent for turning chaos into user engagement.
• Strong sense of what makes a scene project sticky.

• Very noisy public OPSEC.
• Heavy overclaiming and theatrical self-presentation.
• Crude, hostile, slur-heavy communication style.
• Contradictory rules and marketplace ethics.
• Public identity/handle instability.
• Infrastructure and security incidents discussed too openly.
• Reliance on chaotic community trust.
• High exposure to dox, scam, and feud dynamics.
• Unclear boundaries between forum administration, malware work, and marketplace activity.
• Burnout and volatility repeatedly visible.

Astounding’s most credible technical profile is:

forum/web infrastructure builder + marketplace operator + malware-adjacent developer + noisy OPSEC practitioner.

His strongest lane is practical implementation. She can run a forum, move platforms, patch visible issues, design status systems, integrate communication features, handle upgrades, and keep a hostile community project online. That is real technical and operational ability.

His malware claims are credible enough to matter but too noisy to crown without caution. BlackPlague, stealer talk, loader/C2 discussion, and ransomware-related claims support a high-risk profile. They do not automatically prove every earnings claim or every claimed capability. Scene inflation is real, and Astounding is not exactly allergic to drama.

Astounding built BlackForums as infrastructure for a scene. The point was not just posts. The point was identity, trust, trade, and status.

The structure was simple and effective:

• pull users from Telegram;
• give them forum accounts;
• sell upgrades and status;
• restrict marketplace access;
• verify sellers;
• run giveaways;
• create events and awards;
• add private or semi-private communication tools;
• use Telegram for promotion and support;
• keep the domain alive through attacks and drama.

That is why BlackForums mattered. It gave a chaotic Telegram crowd a place to look more organized than it was. Dangerous communities get worse when someone gives them good UX.

Astounding is a high-risk forum creator and infrastructure operator best known for building BlackForums.net. her core value is not only technical skill; it is the ability to package a cybercrime-adjacent community into a functional product. Shecreated the room, sold the ranks, handled disputes, patched the walls, fought the fires, added features, and kept the little monster breathing.

The forum’s risk comes from facilitation. BlackForums made trade, reputation, seller access, upgrades, and community identity easier to manage. Later additions such as MM systems, XMPP, PGP features, and domain migration increased the project’s durability and utility.

Astounding should not be reduced to a loud Telegram clown, even though the clown shoes are visible from orbit. She is noisy, reckless, and frequently unserious, but also technically productive and operationally persistent. The correct assessment is not “elite mastermind.” It is worse in a practical way: a capable forum mechanic who built marketplace infrastructure for people who absolutely did not need better infrastructure.

• BlackForums
• BlackForums Chat
• Astounding's Marketplace
• BlackPlague
• SecretForums
• Cybercrime forums
• Marketplace infrastructure
• MyBB
• Forum escrow / MM systems
• Malware development
• Data markets
• OPSEC

Record created: 2026-06-12.