Oh, those Russians
Apologies to readers who’ve been having comments vanish or their details being forgotten this morning. This is as a result of a security measure implemented by our webhosts, because the site is under what they describe as a “targeted” DoS attack.
It’s been going on for some time now (since almost exactly the point when the Scottish Daily Mail began its “cybernats” smear campaign), and although our hosts keep shutting it down, it just starts up again from a new IP address. It’s aimed very specifically at Wings Over Scotland. Someone REALLY wants this site taken down.
We’re working on several things to try to deal with the problem more permanently, and will get everything back to normal as soon as possible, but your comments aren’t just disappearing – what’s happening is that they’re being posted, but the site is being very heavily cached to reduce the damage done by the DDoS attack, so you won’t be able to see them for a while, although other people will.
It’s all a bit of a pain, but try to see it as a compliment.
Wow….Just…wow…
Isn’t this perhaps an attack on free speech…no paper will bother though since it’s not their free speech that’s the problem!
First they say youre a weirdo in Bath
Then they claim youre a Controller of Cybernats
Then they try and bring your ‘1 million visitors’ site down
THEN YOU WIN!
A Dos attack can be traced using BackTrack5, or the Police?
I did expect this to happen, you’ll find during Sept your site will be down for weeks, expect it. But then you knew that Stu.
Wisht I could see the trace route data and get to work finding out who’s behind it.
Sorry Stu, my fault – I was leaning on the F5 button.
“First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they come to fight you, and then you win.” (M.K. Gandhi)
Wow. So somebody really wants to damage this website. I mean seriously who would want to spend large amounts of money to do such a thing? Who or what Government would want to shut you up? More to the point who has a motive, and the ability?
link to theguardian.com
Some Russian once hacked my Hotmail account. Eventually managed to wrestle it back via Hotmail help desk but it was a bugger to find the link that would put it back to English afterwards…
GCHQ playing silly beggars?
Stuart you have become an enemy of the state my friend thank God you are not bowing to pressure but be careful. I applaud you for taking this stance and you have helped immeasurably in downing the state myths.
Now we win.
Ah, Russians. Because they’re the most obvious people to choose a Scottish (mainly) political media digest.
Honestly can’t think of any other group who would have an interest in closing down a pro-independence website which routinely rubbishes UK Government pronouncements and attracts a very high number of unique visitors every. single. month.
Well…. mebbe one group. Old, devious, very keen to hang onto power… not quite so far away as Moscow, and no less dangerous than the Russians.
On a completely unrelated note; I wonder how big your file at MI6 is now, Rev? I suspect if you happen to forget your bank PIN someone at GCHQ could probably send it to you….
How about the facebook back up idea? I know you hate facebook, but wouldn’t it , I presume, have very good take down counter measures? not the least being the publicity they could force if such a thing happened.
You would still have full editorial control on official posts by simply linking to pdfs of same stored on a cloud drive (s) which again should be fairly immune to take down.
Not sure how much control you could retain over comments, but presumably there is some kind of delete or hide function at least.
Also, don’t know if provision could be made with FB to ignore politically motivated reports.
Could it be implemented as simply as your isp providing a redirect to your FB back up version when the site is taken down?
“How about the facebook back up idea? I know you hate facebook, but wouldn’t it , I presume, have very good take down counter measures? not the least being the publicity they could force if such a thing happened.”
You have a very curious notion of (a) Facebook’s level of security, and (b) the way Facebook do business. It’s slightly more likely that we’d shift to printing out the site on revolutionary pamphlets.
I would think it would be some group trying to protect the union and desperate not to leave their fingerprints on it.
I’m not very good with names, but your DDOS attack may be down to followers of that guy from Eastern European history.
Was it Vlad the Emailer?
Thanks – thought you didn’t like me any more
This is why I never take my tin foil hat off. #indyrefski
Didn’t I say we needed Cybernat codenames, codewords, passwords, whatever …
George F … we know it’s you … gonnae-no-dae-that …
‘Then they come to fight you’.
I read the link to DoS attack – way above my computer literacy level.
So can some-one tell me – Can the perpetrators of DoS attacks be easily traced?
Didn’t one VPU (Very Prominent Unionist) say that he would do “whatever it takes” to thwart Scottish independence?
Can we arrange an alternative virtual meet up should wings be compromised?
Also Stu – are there plans in place should you be taken ‘ill’?
Is this what MI5 means by “false flag operations”?
You probably upset someone’s breakfast cup of tea today with that 1,000,000 unique visitors stat, eh, Stu? 🙂
I wonder if its the same person that spammed the Scotsmans comments section for months. They ran a program te post a comment every 30 seconds or more. The moderators couldna get rid o them for some reason and it wis always blamed on a Yesser even though closing doon the comments section wis a stupid thing for us te dae. Mair likely it wis a Nono since the Yes side usually whips their arses on the comments sections in newspapers.
I hope you’re hosted somewhere that the corrupt British state can’t easily take down.
What’s the plan for a virtual meetup if Wings goes down?
If GCHQ wanted the site down I am sure that they would take steps to ensure that it was accidently on purpose off line and not attempt a DOS attack. Much more likely to be Better Together supporters who really are very bitter indeed or one of Stu’s more swivel eyed stalkers.
Not going to work though. There is going to be a lot more of WoS before the 18th Sept….so lump it boys!
A “doughnut” Shit Sandwich.
It is a compliments.
It also proves it’s working and they need to stop it.
If they do manage to bring down the site in September I’m sure you could use all the email contacts you have. We can put millions of copies on the street. I for one would be happy to print and distribute.
Rev , all I can say is well done .
Someone wether it be the establishment or some right wing unionist group are now very scared of you and are trying to stop you publishing the truth .
We have all said for a while now that there is no positive case for the union and that project fear are having to rely on lies , smears , scare stories and suppression of the truth .
The more they come after you , the more we know we are winning .
Of course, at the moment, knowing you’ve added a comment and then realising it’s not showing up does look superficially like a normal day on the Better Together Facebook page.
Superficially, mind.
So, it is an attack, and it is specifically directed at WoS. Well well.
What it’s doing at the moment is inhibiting discussion. If we can’t see what’s being posted (and I can’t see other people’s posts either, it’s not just mine), we can’t hold a conversation. And it’s the BTL conversations here that keep the site alive. I wouldn’t be at all surprised if that’s what the attackers want to achieve.
This is the very crux of the difference between WoS and NNS. NNS has no conversations BTL. It used to have, but the site owners didn’t like it and stifled the conversations. That’s one reason I only visit there ocasionally to see what they’re saying, and leave again fairly quickly after I’ve skimmed the most recent posts.
WoS doesn’t just have cutting-edge journalism and great writing, it has a community. The writing can always be archived and restored pretty quickly, but the conversation is more fragile, and that seems to be what they’re going after at the moment.
Graeme Purvis
That is Pacific Quay.
Anybody know who is. BBC’s neighbour there?
First you have me hearing all the “Where there is discord, may we bring harmony etc ” in Maggie’s voice,(standing on the steps of No 10).
Now you have me singing “Oh those Russians” as Bony M in Ra-ra-Rasputin.
The very reason a DDOS is applied is the difficulty tracing the actual source. The key is the first ‘D’ which stands for ‘distributed’.
They generally work by the originator employing a range of infected PC’s all over the world which hammer the site with page request etc at the same time and for a long time. The web server can then collapse under the load.
The only real solution is to put in place countermeasures.
Depending on the size of the bot network of infected machines, finding the true source is like a needle in haystack.
The botnets won’t even know they are being used for an attack. This is the downside of a massively powerful worldwide network to which any dumb fuck can attach a PC.
Have you ever given thought to having the website mirrored to another server? Thats what I would do. That would spread the load over to a second server if the load got too much for the first one.
@jimbo
The difficulty depends on where the attack originates from and on what network. Its a crime in this country to anyone doing it from this country would be committing an offence and should be reported to the authorities.
Talking of Facebook i have not seen a BT advert on it for a while have they spunk ed their cash away or have they diverted it elsewhere
Then you win. 🙂
As this crime carries a maximum of 10years, here’s hoping..
As this crime carries a maximum of 10 years, here’s hoping..
Solid plans need made, I agree with other post that it is almost certain to happen in September, but perhaps many times prior to that. The site is important to all of us, and it is important to our mission. It will of course not be cheap, but you know we would support you in a solution, if there is one.Maybe some crypto solution ie as BITCOIN has.
Although I personally do not know how it would sensibly work, as I do not have that knowledge.A brilliant techie required.
The UK stinks. This will be ignored by our so called Scottish ”journalists”. They must know that there is no real independence debate. There is no fair and balanced media, no free press, threats to National Collective and now cyber attacks to take down an informative pro indy site. How far will this go and what will it take for someone, somewhere, to break ranks and announce the truth of this farce of a democracy.
Checked under your each day Rev.
Though the DDOS attack appears to come from Russia, it doesn’t mean it originated in Russia. Could be from any part of the world through relays
Mind you if GCHQ were involved, it would be easier for them to jump into their cars and pop down from Cheltenham to see Stu, obviously they would be ersatz BT engineers there to ‘check’ the phone lines
It’s slightly more likely that we’d shift to printing out the site on revolutionary pamphlets.
… and working by ‘flickering’ candlelight.
Hope you have invested in a bullet-proof jacket. 🙂
Sorry all, very O/T but have just received the following email from 38 degrees:
‘Dirty energy company, Dart Energy, is preparing to get the green light for a dangerous new way to extract fossil fuels. They want planning permission to turn Falkirk in the heart of Scotland into a commercial ‘coalbed methane field’.
If they get the go-ahead in Falkirk – fracking is one step closer to becoming a commercial reality – and the decision is likely to set a precedent for the rest of the UK. But, if we win, it will be a landmark case in the fight against dirty energy.
But the local community have fought back. They’ve fought for a pause in the planning application, and they’ve now secured a public inquiry at which the plans will be put on trial, set to begin in early March. [3] If they win, Dart Energy’s planning application will be thrown out and it could stop their dirty gas field for good.
The whole community has rallied together and has raised just over £15,000 from small donations of just a few pounds to fund their legal case. But they’re up against an opponent and an industry with bottomless pockets and the best legal support money can buy. Their £15,000 just won’t be enough to build the strongest legal case needed to win.
They need £50,000 in total to be able to present the strongest case involving the best experts. A case strong enough to win. The public inquiry is only a few weeks away – which means the money is needed right now.
Can you help?
link to secure.38degrees.org.uk
I haven’t copied the whole email because I don’t want to spam the Wings comments feed, but I thought it might be of interest.
link to theguardian.com If its not GCHQ, look at the major “donors” to BetterTogether, like BetterTogether funder, Ian Taylor who donated half a million was it thanks to one A Darling. Taylors main claim to fame is his company paying a million dollars to Serb warlord Arkan in an oil deal. So once you have these “connections” in your phone book and stacks of cash to pay for a DDOS, its probably very straight forward.
I have to say I am pleased that WoS is effective enough to annoy a wee Bitter Traitor to waste this much time and energy. It does show that the site is doing its job.
Go us 🙂
Another possibiity is to fall back on an old technology which is still very much alive and usable – Usenet. It’s free, it is uncontrolled and uncontrollable. A Wild West frontier version of Twitter long before Twitter existed.
Getting a group created in the UK hierarchy is clumsy but I’ve done it before. But it would need at least 20+ firm declarations of support during the RFD stage (“Request for Discussion”).
If it looks like there might be enough support for the idea, I could start the ball rolling. The major risk is of fragmenting the discussions between here and there but if all else fails it is a fall-back possibility – now or future – if the DoS attacks start to make discussion elsewhere impossible.
File under “bear in mind possibles”
Sorry, got to disagree with you Stuart. It just cannot be the Russians, they’re all parked in the Moray Firth waiting for the Navy to turn up!
I have my doubts this is actually coming from Russia, IP addresses can be faked so easily that they’re basically worthless at best, and misleading at worst for location tracking.
Have to say that I’m proud to be an occasional participant on a site that’s annoyed the corrupt establishment and its collective of brown-nosers to the point where they’re desperate to shut us all up.
If it’s someone paying a “hacker for hire” service to do it, we could just sit tight and wait till they run out of Bitcoins to waste.
If it is someone in a more “official” position, I really hope someone can prove that. The potential for this to backlash spectacularly against them is a very enticing thought… 😉
I am aware of certain lack of security on FB. For example, when I log in, it is apparently from Cumbernauld, even though I have never even used a mobile device from anywhere near there. Following all the counter measures I could find has never resolved that strange phenomena and of course, the suspicion is that my account has been hijacked or re routed.
However, since my posts are getting out onto FB and reaching others, I’m not really bothered.
Is anything secure on the net to those who really need access?
Not sure what you mean by business, so can’t comment at all on that.
On the sage advice of Major B, Kendo changed from DoS to Windows 3 some time ago and hasn’t been attacked since.
@mchaggis
Is there anything we can install on our machines to remove or prevent the malware?
“In mother Russia, server DDOS you.”
@Graeme Purves
Is this what MI5 means by ‘false flag operations’?
Why bother with MI5 when GCHQ has its very own Joint Threat Research Intelligence Group?
link to rt.com
Tried talking to NNS?
They were attacked and I think IIRC the solution was mirror non uk based sites.
I know some IT guys and will ask their advice.
Not sure what’s going on here as I can read 40 comments, but note my name etc does not appear in the boxes above, so have to fill them in.
Is there more to it than this?
“Not sure what’s going on here as I can read 40 comments, but note my name etc does not appear in the boxes above, so have to fill them in.”
“Apologies to readers who’ve been having comments vanish or their details being forgotten this morning”
Talking about desperate attacks here’s Alan Cochrane of the Telegraph, calling Scottish nationalist “Rabid”. why? well because we had the audacity to question David Cameron’s sermon on the mound.
link to telegraph.co.uk
Here’s what to do now that it is slow to post on Wings today because of the attacks ..
Everybody go onto the websites of UK and non-UK news agencies (registering if necessary) and comment (O/T) on as many news pages as possible to the effect that there is a breaking news story where it looks like agents of the British State are currently staging a denial-of-service attack on the pro-independence Wings Over Scotland website.
Do this, and keep doing it, as long as the attack persists.
i.e. Try to make it as big a news story as possible, as far and wide as possible.
And do it deliberately …
Can concur with Dick re usenet, used to use that a lot in the old days but would restrict participation to pretty much activist motivation levels.
Okay, enoughs enough, Rev, whatever you said to upset Diana Dors, please apologise.
Im like a junkie needing a fix and every time I look round the corner, the dealer still hasn’t showed
Beware men in Bath with umbrellas…
Decent AV software is all that is required to prevent your machine becoming part of a bot network. The bots are controlled by a stealth trojan sitting on your PC.
As for your ‘Cumbernauld’ issue. Its nothing sinister. FB, in the event of not picking up a GPS track from a device (such as a desktop computer), or a nearby wireless network (which are all mapped), will make a best guess about where in the UK you are sitting and posting from. Not sure exactly how, but I suspect from your IP routing via the nearest , last or biggest exchange.
On Usenet… it is the last preserve of the truly deranged internet user. A hodge podge of nutcases and deviants which provide it with all the bad press it sometimes deserves. It is also alien to the average net user, old looking, difficult to use (I know I know its not really) and a complete non-starter for any high profile expectation.
Rev Stu – at what point is it advisable to report this to the police formally? If there are minimum 10 year sentences already awaiting it must mean it is an illegal operation.
The reaction by the police will no doubt point a finger or two at the likely source.
Here’s a fellow member of the clergy, sticking it to David Cameron, over independence.
link to dailyrecord.co.uk
There’s quite a good article that explains when a Denial of Service attack becomes “warfare” vs being civil disobedience. link to resources.infosecinstitute.com and link to law.yale.edu
These papers were bourne out of the dispute between Estonia and Russia where Estonia was crippled for months due to huge distributed denial of service attacks on its government and media institutions.
I keep thinking about the claim that “not a shot has been fired” in this referendum campaign – only a few ego’s were bruised along the way. lets keep it like that.
Here’s Ed Miliband admitting that if Labour are returned to power, in 2015, he’ll keep cutting like the Tories, and decimate public spending, along with other severe austerity measures.
link to scotsman.com
This is great from the Daily Record of all places and Canon Kenyon so with anonymous cyber bullying, or the BBC in Scotland going after the UWS BBC bias researcher in mind-
“A procession of VIPs from England coming north to tell us that an independent Scotland would be impoverished, alone, divided and incompetent is now followed by how much you love us. Neither threats nor Valentines will work.” and I want to add, neither will criminal attempts to stop Freedom of Speech in Scotland. Have you got that Daily Mail, BetterTogetherBBC etc?
link to dailyrecord.co.uk
Oh I say! what larks. I must look out my revolutionary bunnet and arm bands.
Cybernats are us.
@bugger the panda
“Graeme Purvis
That is Pacific Quay.
Anybody know who is. BBC’s neighbour there?
”
not sure I understand your post but
the science centre, bip solutions and the hub which has a lot of small tech business (and happens to be where I’m sitting right now)
O/T Angus Mac Neil, on Parlianet just now
Ooo look, I’ve disappeared. Just been complimented I suppose.
Now brits, I know you are upset and are being nasty but sending you love right back at you. XXXX
so we,re back with the DDOS, again I cant post up
Bloody hell, what’s next? Polonium 210? I know you’re not the type Stu, but stay clear of swanky hotels and coffee with “friends” 🙂
Somewhere the Rev is saying
“All i said was, this G.A.Y Greatest Hits was good enough for Putin himself”
Do these idiots not realise that this sort of stuff strengthens our resolve?
I’ve just bought a fresh load of Yes stickers and a lanyard for my work pass, and added a donation to Yes Scotland at the same time. I can’t be the only one who thinks like this, can I? Result – increased exposure for Yes and increased normalisation at the same time.
Needless to say I’ll be contributing to the Rev’s fundraiser as well…
Eject any lockable holdalls you may have, just saying.
The polling must be frightening the state.
This might be useful in the future.
link to informationweek.com
These tips may be useful as well.
link to esecurityplanet.com
Rev, just a thought, but is all these extra site views you have been getting this week, coming from this DDOS attack?
“Rev, just a thought, but is all these extra site views you have been getting this week, coming from this DDOS attack?”
No. Doesn’t work like that.
Rev,
For those unfamiliar with your Twitter/Facebook accounts, can you post them as well as a temporary backup domain name in a common area so that of you are denied service for an extended time, people can still keep in touch?
I suspect a department or extension of the British government/establishment is behind these DOS attacks but of course would never be able to prove it unless someone blabbed from within.
@HandandShrimp.
“Bitter Traitor”
Ooh! I do like that.
@McHaggis
Yeah I have Avast (paid version) installed as I found it better and less system hungry/intrusive than the likes of Norton. Hope that is good enough to stop me contributing to the attack.
I know it doesn’t get everything, e.g. stubborn toolbar hijackers. So I occasionally also use the excellent free French program adwcleaner by xplode (get it direct don’t use cnet etc.). Its a bit like using draincleaner and comes with a similar hazard warning. Use after a backup, in case it takes out something it doesn’t recognise which is ligit. It does give you the option of removing from its hit list first, but… danger Will Robinson.
Kirrie is best part of a hundred miles from Cumbernauld with Dundee, Perth and Stirling, all sizeable towns, in between. I use BT broadband (I know) if that has any relevance?
No, Stu said on Twitter that it wasn’t affecting the stats.
McHaggis says:
On Usenet… it is the last preserve of the truly deranged internet user.
Really only the .alt hierarchy. In the past 10 years Usenet has shrunk a lot from what you might remember. I’m one of the dinosaur geeks who still like it 🙂
Although uk. has its nutters, they tend to only inhabit the more lunatic fringes and what remains of the uk. hierarchy is (mostly) reasonably civilised. I would still only recommend it, though, if things get FUBAR elsewhere.
Barontorc says:
Rev Stu – at what point is it advisable to report this to the police formally? If there are minimum 10 year sentences already awaiting it must mean it is an illegal operation.
Not much joy down that road, I’m afraid. The instigators seem to be in Russia. The innocent users whose computers have been hijacked could be anywhere and unless they scrupulously monitor i/o activity on their machines probably aren’t even aware that they’re part of the attack.
“No, Stu said on Twitter that it wasn’t affecting the stats.”
Not directly, maybe, but continued use is bound to have an effect in terms of nuisance aversion.
Wouldn’t recommend sharing the link to possible readership recruits until/if normal service is resumed.
“and stacks of cash to pay for a DDOS”
you don’t need stack of cash, you need an internet connection and the knowledge to know how to do it.
Lot of paranoid ranting shite in these comments.
Any lone asshat can carry out a DDoS. It does not mean the Government are coming to get anyone. Even if it were, it is an unprovable assertion that smells of paranoid nonsense to any casual reader.
Incidents such as these should go unreported to avoid a) these types of halfwit reactions, and b) to avoid giving the perpetrator attention, which is a likely motivation for doing it in the first place.
“Lot of paranoid ranting shite in these comments.
Any lone asshat can carry out a DDoS.”
Of course. But this one has been going on for weeks, and has been unusually determined. It’s been aimed directly at us, not just the hosts or one server in general. Someone’s out to get us, and I didn’t speculate about who, so calm yourself down.
Ive often traced a few hops to infected servers from phishing emails, then notified the system admin. The hops taken with often masked IP through an onion router like TOR can be investigated using BackTrack5 operating system.
It is difficult but may yield some clues as to its origin.
Pass me the data for fun!
link to bbc.co.uk
@David Lyon – well placed paranoia don’t you think the establishment will know who we all are and that’s what frightens them the fact that we are ordinary people with ordinary lives usually safe in the box we are not radicals or revolutionaries just people looking for answers and WOS provides those answers in a succinct, straightforward manner and they fucking well hate it..
Rev. Stuart Campbell says:
Someone’s out to get us, and I didn’t speculate about who, so calm yourself down.
Indeed. Enough’s been said in the past about how it was all going to get dirty so why would anyone be surprised that it’s getting dirty? They can’t stop us, all they can do is make life awkward. The fact that there are no guns doesn’t mean it’s not a war.
We have no real way of finding out who’s behind it, too many layers to pick through, and simply knowing who’s doing it is unlikely to make them stop. But the reassuring thought is that, whoever is doing it, their nose is getting seriously out of joint.
Be surprised if it doesn’t get dirtier.
It’s a real shit state of affairs we have in Scotland at the moment. Every single newspaper is pro-union and owned outside Scotland, we have a state broadcaster that is simply a mouthpiece for the No campaign and yet many or most Scots are unaware of the situation and are ill informed about their own country in the most important year in our history.
The British establishment has worked hard to keep Scots in the dark and they ain’t gonna give up lightly. If the mass campaign of negativity from the media and pro Westminster politicians doesn’t work they’ll try something else. We will see a whole host of dirty tricks over the next few months, I’m sure we ain’t seen nothing yet.
to avoid giving the perpetrator attention, which is a likely motivation for doing it in the first place.
That makes sense, launch an anonymous attack to bring attention to yourself… kinda like saying people leave anonymous donations to charities for the publicity.
Attempts to close down debate on any issue should never go unreported.
Did the Russians make off with the big orange up/down buttons?
The bastards!
Got a friend who works in IT. He told me that, unfortunately, not much can be done once a DDOS is under way. He did say, though, that the following is useful to help avoid future attacks, or, should another attack take place. (Note: ‘useful’ and ‘help avoid’. There is, as yet, no system that is 100% secure, no matter what preventative measures are taken)
If you are using dedicated servers you can create a backup connection called an out of band connection in addition to your regular network connection. If your regular network connection becomes unavailable, you should be able to use your out of band connection to get onto the server. Most hosting providers can add one for you. Not sure about costs, though.
For pages and info that is frequently accessed you can use a cache service. The cache will store that data on a different server, which may or may not be hosted by the same company, to reduce the load on your servers.
Should there be any weak point in your system you can use an application profiler to determine where your these are. Prices will vary, of course, from free for basic, to anything up to £100 per month for the pro level.
“Did the Russians make off with the big orange up/down buttons?
The bastards!”
So it seems, but you can usually use the ‘End’ and ‘Home’ keys on a conventional kbd to achieve much the same thing.
aye, so the “Black Ops” have begun then !!!
It must be a day for gagging pro-indy blogs. Quite why Glasgow Caledonian University has issued a Cease and Desist notice against Logic’s Rock is beyond me.
Miss Streisand is clearing her throat!
link to logicsrock.blogspot.co.uk
“I love the smell of Cybernapalm in the morning.”
Thank goodness it’s only a DoD attack. I thought you had took on the same moderators as Newsnet Scotland!
@chicmac
This one isn’t too bad for detecting nasty stuff. I use the free version myself.
link to malwarebytes.org
If you have a really good system, you can probably run another similar program at the same time for an extra line of defence (sometimes malware can sneak past one program but get caught by another).
@David Lyon
I’d definitely think it’s not the government, considering if it was they could just order the server host to shut down the site, using all that guff the Daily HateMail has been reporting as an excuse.
More likely it’s someone who’s either doing it themselves or else is paying someone to do it (there are “hacker for hire” services who’ll run this sort of thing if you know where to look for them and have the cash to pay for it).
As for keeping it quiet, I think this sort of thing could actually backfire against the No campaign.
The idea that they are so afraid of open debate that their supporters may be trying to sneakily silence their opponents using illegal means would probably wreck what little is left of their credibility if the story got around.
Whoops. Should have said DoS. Or is that a Freudian slip…
@Oneironaut says:
As for keeping it quiet, I think this sort of thing could actually backfire against the No campaign.
I agree. Hence my suggestion earlier (2:35pm) that any time anything like this happens we use it as an opportunity to make as much noise as possible.
– more noise leads to more Wings website visitors
– more visitors means more TRUTH getting out there
– more TRUTH out there (replacing the lies) means YES wins
You seem to be managing the attacks OK but in case you are looking for any technical support these guys link to deflect.ca specialise in helping not-for-profits deal with DDOS attacks. You can contact them via link to deflect.ca
Good luck!
Andrew
Unrelated then – link to pcworld.com
From Russia with love bombing.
@Rev: It’s slightly more likely that we’d shift to printing out the site on revolutionary pamphlets.
Unfortunate, as that’s something I’d love to see!
“Beware men in Bath with umbrellas…”
I was going to ask what you would be doing in a bath with an umbrella then I thought better of it,
Its obvious, the showers leaking isn’t it?
I work for a very large internet company. We get ddos several times a day on multiple websites/products. We mitigate this with help from Prolexic Technologies. It’s not free mind.