In related news, productivity around the world jumped exponentially...

August 6, 2009 8:14 AM

On Tuesday, Gawker media was taken offline by a German ddos attack. Today, three of the 'net's largest social media sites: Twitter, Facebook and Livejournal, are experiencing similar outages. Twitter now reports they are under a denial-of-service attack.
posted by zarq (105 comments total)

Perhaps someone issued a "__ days without an outage" press release, again? :)
posted by zarq at 8:14 AM on August 6, 2009

In other news, thousands jump off buildings and bridges when confronted with the dreadful spectre of being without an audience for 3 freaking minutes.
posted by FelliniBlank at 8:21 AM on August 6, 2009 [5 favorites]

Metafilter: 0 days without an outrage!
posted by Devils Rancher at 8:22 AM on August 6, 2009 [29 favorites]

It's y2k!
(3141 days too late...)
posted by seandq at 8:23 AM on August 6, 2009 [1 favorite]

It means we're disconnected. If we're disconnected we can't Twitter. If we can't Twitter we don't exist!
posted by TheophileEscargot at 8:23 AM on August 6, 2009 [2 favorites]

I was wondering why three out of my six morning tabs wouldn't open.
posted by lunit at 8:24 AM on August 6, 2009 [2 favorites]

What does anybody gain by doing this? I do hope that there are sociologists using this as a natural experiment on productivity.
posted by a robot made out of meat at 8:24 AM on August 6, 2009

Not to sound noobish but what exactly is a denial of service attack? And what does it do?
posted by Mastercheddaar at 8:25 AM on August 6, 2009

i love it when twitter people twitter "is twitter down?" into twitter to see if twitter is down, only twitter is down so when they twitter, twitter can't help them man.
posted by Jofus at 8:26 AM on August 6, 2009 [23 favorites]

LJ's status page. They're currently citing "database problems."
posted by zarq at 8:26 AM on August 6, 2009

always those germans...
posted by krautland at 8:26 AM on August 6, 2009 [2 favorites]

MetaFilter: 0 days without a twitter hatefest
posted by DU at 8:27 AM on August 6, 2009 [9 favorites]

I initially misread the first sentence of this post as

On Tuesday, Gawker media was taken offline by a German dildo attack.

...and was badly disappointed by the rest of the FPP.
posted by scrump at 8:28 AM on August 6, 2009 [13 favorites]

48-Hour Internet Outage Plunges Nation Into Productivity
posted by lukemeister at 8:28 AM on August 6, 2009 [1 favorite]

I am pretty sure Stephen Fry is the one behind bringing Twitter down. That guy updates while he's updating.
posted by like_neon at 8:28 AM on August 6, 2009 [8 favorites]

i love it when twitter people twitter "is twitter down?" into twitter to see if twitter is down, only twitter is down so when they twitter, twitter can't help them man.

'Sup dawg
posted by kittens for breakfast at 8:29 AM on August 6, 2009 [2 favorites]

I wonder if MySpace is jealous they're not relevant enough anymore to be part of this.
posted by birdherder at 8:29 AM on August 6, 2009 [13 favorites]

like_neon,

You're absolutely right. Did you see Stephen Fry's tweets from a taxi a couple of weeks ago when he really needed to take a pee?
posted by lukemeister at 8:29 AM on August 6, 2009

Now, guys, come on. When Metafilter went down it was like fucking Alderaan blowing up or something, you could sense the pained wails of the millions as withdrawal kicked in around the globe. Have a little empathy for your fellow compulsive refreshers out there.
posted by The Straightener at 8:30 AM on August 6, 2009 [40 favorites]

I know next to nothing about Twitter's infrastructure, but I'm going to go on a limb and assume it's pretty extensive, given their exposure.

If all it takes is one determined individual to take that infrastructure down to complete incapacity, why in the hell would I go with a 'cloud' model for my important data? Web apps, Chrome OS and browser-only netbooks sound really nice until you remember that all it takes is Michael Jackson dying to bring Google to its knees.
posted by Pragmatica at 8:30 AM on August 6, 2009 [3 favorites]

OK, twitter is back now. BUT FOR HOW LONG?!?!?!??
posted by [@I][:+:][@I] at 8:30 AM on August 6, 2009 [1 favorite]

Isn't bringing Twitter down the equivalent of kicking a drunk over in the street: Yukyukyuk and everything, but give it 20 minutes and he'll probably do it himself, and funnier.
posted by Jofus at 8:31 AM on August 6, 2009 [8 favorites]

seandq: "It's y2k!
(3141 days too late...)"

hey, if you think of 6am california as 1300 zulu, that's pretty close to .59, so you have 3141.59 days...CONSPIRACY? I think so!!!!
posted by notsnot at 8:31 AM on August 6, 2009 [1 favorite]

Behold the inherenty stability of Rails!
posted by Artw at 8:32 AM on August 6, 2009 [2 favorites]

there ought to be enforceable international laws on malware and DDoS propagation that include sentences of locking offenders in a cage with rabid chimpanzees

Or Twitter could just sue for all of the lost revenue the downtime is causing.

Oh, wait...
posted by Ufez Jones at 8:35 AM on August 6, 2009 [5 favorites]

ohthankarandomdeity, metafilter's still up

*breathes deeply*
posted by desjardins at 8:35 AM on August 6, 2009 [1 favorite]

For those of you who are lacking in compassion for the poor souls that are suffering right now, let us bow our heads in remembrance of the Metafilter issues earlier this year...
posted by 8dot3 at 8:35 AM on August 6, 2009

"The page is still loading, please wait to add favorites"

ET TU, METAFILTER?
posted by desjardins at 8:37 AM on August 6, 2009 [1 favorite]

I know next to nothing about Twitter's infrastructure, but I'm going to go on a limb and assume it's pretty extensive, given their exposure.

The last time Twitter was hacked, it was because a password on an out-facing server was set to "password".
posted by Sidhedevil at 8:39 AM on August 6, 2009 [4 favorites]

Mountains Out of Molehills

Metafilter downtime not included because that was a real crisis.
posted by lukemeister at 8:41 AM on August 6, 2009

Did you see Stephen Fry's tweets from a taxi a couple of weeks ago when he really needed to take a pee?

I stopped following him after about a day because he pushed updates from my real friends off the screen. Karl Lagerfeld is much more sensible about his updates.
posted by like_neon at 8:41 AM on August 6, 2009

This is why I'm glad that my avid interest in twittering turned out to be blessedly brief.
posted by blucevalo at 8:41 AM on August 6, 2009

Not to sound noobish but what exactly is a denial of service attack?

It's when a website (or anything) is sent millions and millions of requests. So many, in fact, that it can't handle them all and the website(s), their server(s) and their network(s) slow to a crawl, making them effectively unusable.
posted by rokusan at 8:41 AM on August 6, 2009 [2 favorites]

This is actually an annoying inconvenience for me, as I am doing a stunt project where I'm tweeting a book review every day for a year, and because of my crazy schedule I really need to do it before 1 PM EDT and WAAAH.

DDoSers are bad and should feel bad.
posted by Sidhedevil at 8:42 AM on August 6, 2009 [1 favorite]

If all it takes is one determined individual to take that infrastructure down to complete incapacity, why in the hell would I go with a 'cloud' model for my important data?

My last two programming jobs were at places that developed hosted software, which we thought was the greatest model ever. Flash forward to my current position doing internal development for a non-software company and my boss (the VP of Technology) has made it very clear that there's no way in hell we are going to use any hosted software because, well, we have a good backup model and he doesn't want to worry about not having his data when some provider gets nuked like that or has an outage. I certainly see his point. I wonder how business attitudes would change if say, Salesforce.com (customer relationship/sales software) got hit by an attack and was down for days and days.
posted by freecellwizard at 8:42 AM on August 6, 2009 [2 favorites]

Not to sound noobish but what exactly is a denial of service attack? And what does it do?
posted by Mastercheddaar

It's exactly like when you can't shit because your shit's too big. No shit.
posted by weapons-grade pandemonium at 8:43 AM on August 6, 2009 [10 favorites]

503
Request timed out waiting to execute

And they said it couldn't happen here.
posted by lukemeister at 8:47 AM on August 6, 2009

I stopped following him after about a day because he pushed updates from my real friends off the screen.


I stopped following him the day he twittered his location and I realized he was walking right past my window - and I was too lazy to go look. Talk about apathetic.

Meanwhile, what am I supposed to do without my Scramble? I mean, really, WHATAMIGONNADOARGHARGH?????
posted by CunningLinguist at 8:47 AM on August 6, 2009 [1 favorite]

Man I was so excited about the first 7 words of this FPP.
posted by Damn That Television at 8:48 AM on August 6, 2009

...and was badly disappointed by the rest of the FPP.

That post would have been titled: "ZIE ZNARKMEISTERS BIN SCHTUPPED!"
posted by zarq at 8:50 AM on August 6, 2009 [1 favorite]

I live in fear that one day twitter and mefi will go down AT THE SAME TIME... it'll be like that trailer for 2012, only worse.
posted by fearfulsymmetry at 8:50 AM on August 6, 2009 [1 favorite]

Last week my webhost was down for 5 days during an extended DDoS. Perhaps it was a trial run?
posted by TomMelee at 8:51 AM on August 6, 2009

I followed Stephen Fry for a couple days until he had someone live-twitter his "lecture" at an Apple Store on his feed. I almost think he's trying to be as obnoxious as possible as a joke on the people who follow him.
posted by kcalder at 8:53 AM on August 6, 2009

I live in fear that one day twitter and mefi will go down AT THE SAME TIME... it'll be like that trailer for 2012, only worse.
A tidal wave picks up Twitter's colo and smashes it into Metafilter's colo?
posted by kmz at 8:54 AM on August 6, 2009 [2 favorites]

This isn't really all that interesting...

To you. Those who rely on such services for professional reasons probably found it very "interesting". :)

And by "interesting," I mean "ARRRRGHFARRGLE!!"
posted by zarq at 8:55 AM on August 6, 2009 [1 favorite]

Not to sound noobish but what exactly is a denial of service attack? And what does it do?

It means attacking a site, or service, etc., in such a way as to prevent the regular users from making use of it. There are several ways to accomplish this:

• Find something that causes the site to crash completely, and then keep doing it.
• Make a request of the site that requires a lot of resources to process (such that it slows down or produces errors when other users try to use it), and then keep submitting requests like that over and over.
• Make so many ordinary types of requests to the site that it can't keep up and therefore has to start refusing service to regular users. Easier if you have an army of compromised computers that can send in such requests from all over the Internet, so there's no effective way to filter them out.

The last example is what they call a "distributed" denial of service attack, since the attacks from from computers that are distributed all over the Internet, rather than from a single source.

Note that these are not limited specifically to web sites or Internet services -- you could just as well have 10,000 of your friends repeatedly call the sales phone number of a company you don't like, just to jam it up and prevent them from making any actual sales that day.
posted by FishBike at 8:56 AM on August 6, 2009

What does anybody gain by doing this?

Some people just get off on being dicks. That's really all there is to it.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 8:57 AM on August 6, 2009 [1 favorite]

I almost think he's trying to be as obnoxious as possible as a joke on the people who follow him.

Or perhaps he's just a major narcissist.
posted by blucevalo at 8:57 AM on August 6, 2009

Something something screamed out something something suddenly silenced.
posted by The Whelk at 8:58 AM on August 6, 2009 [2 favorites]

I almost think he's trying to be as obnoxious as possible as a joke on the people who follow him.

Or perhaps he's just a major narcissist.

I believe both are the case. I think he's doing a reductio ad absurdum to the whole Twitter phenomenon AND he's got his head up his own ass.
posted by Sidhedevil at 8:58 AM on August 6, 2009

I almost think he's trying to be as obnoxious as possible as a joke on the people who follow him.

And he's got some big big issues re compulsive behavior, judging by the doc I saw about him once.
posted by fearfulsymmetry at 9:01 AM on August 6, 2009

You're absolutely right. Did you see Stephen Fry's tweets from a taxi a couple of weeks ago when he really needed to take a pee?

Good thing he can't twitter in the shower.
posted by yoink at 9:02 AM on August 6, 2009 [1 favorite]

always those germans...
posted by krautland at 11:26 AM on August 6

Eponysterical, or Godwin?
posted by specialagentwebb at 9:05 AM on August 6, 2009 [1 favorite]

This is something I would have to have friends to care about.
~sniff~
posted by Mister_A at 9:05 AM on August 6, 2009

What does anybody gain by doing this?

Often, blackmail. A few years back someone asked for some large amount of cash from Amazon, Amazon called their bluff, and got taken off line for a day or two. Usually the companies just pay up, so you don't even know the blackmail happened.
posted by idiopath at 9:07 AM on August 6, 2009

Any chance it's the Iranian government? Seems like the tide of anti-government tweeters had already turned, but maybe the government is operating on bureaucracy time.
posted by jiawen at 9:08 AM on August 6, 2009

Usually the companies just pay up

Is there documentation of that, or is this just a dark rumor?
posted by yoink at 9:19 AM on August 6, 2009 [1 favorite]

Those who rely on such services for professional reasons

HAHAHAHAHprofessional reasonsHAHAHAHAHA. whew. hahaha.
posted by kingbenny at 9:19 AM on August 6, 2009

it'll be like that trailer for 2012, only worse.

I don't know, that trailer looks pretty awful...
posted by quin at 9:30 AM on August 6, 2009

Those who rely on such services for professional reasons

HAHAHAHAHprofessional reasonsHAHAHAHAHA. whew. hahaha.

OK, perhaps not Livejournal. ;-)

But quite a few journalists, especially those who work in the tech fields, do rely on Twitter as a source for breaking news, or to help them reach contacts and schedule interviews. RWW has a decent article about it.
posted by zarq at 9:35 AM on August 6, 2009

Is it the German /b/tards?
posted by kldickson at 9:37 AM on August 6, 2009

In an unprecedented development, hundreds of thousands of office workers and students flocked to forest preserves to go on spontaneous nature walks. Here's the view of Yosemite from our news chopper, just look at the mobs of people. We've really seen nothing like this. Stay tuned or log in to twitter.com/CNNBrk for updates.
posted by naju at 9:38 AM on August 6, 2009

Semi-ignorant question: let's assume these attacks are sent by a bot-net. We can trace the actual IP addresses of the compromised computers, right? Why can't folks set up a blacklist registry, like a domain server, that shuts out any traffic to or from computers used in these attacks so that they just get a screen that says:

"Your computer is infected by a virus, so you've been shut out of the Internet until you deal with it, and click on this link to get off the blacklist."
posted by msalt at 9:39 AM on August 6, 2009

it'll be like that trailer for 2012, only worse.

I don't know, that trailer looks pretty awful...

Yeah, actually there'd still be youtube... I remember back to the time there was a powecut that lasted the whole weekend. I read three novels.
posted by fearfulsymmetry at 9:43 AM on August 6, 2009

In other news, thousands jump off buildings and bridges when confronted with the dreadful spectre of being without an audience for 3 freaking minutes.

It means we're disconnected. If we're disconnected we can't Twitter. If we can't Twitter we don't exist!

You're snarking on an internet forum. Are you under the impression that you're giving off less of a "Hey, look at me!" vibe than the Twitter users you're lambasting? 'cause I've got bad news for ya...
posted by GeekAnimator at 9:46 AM on August 6, 2009 [7 favorites]

yoink: Here are a few of the better links from google searches for "ddos blackmail" and "ddos extortion".

computerworld, 2005
gloablguerillas, 2008
Dancho Danchev, 2007
itproportal, 2008

Part of the problem with finding good online documentation of the phenomenon, is that the most credible sources are the most lucrative to extort. They understandably don't have much incentive or interest to draw attention to the phenomenon.

The typical "business model" is to acquire a botnet, using some ubiquitous security flaw in Windows, send a warning email via anonymous proxy to the target, offering them "network security consultation and protection from DDOS attacks". If they decline to pay for that protection, they get hit, and taken off line for some period of time. It is really protection money in the classic Sicilian Mafia style.
posted by idiopath at 9:48 AM on August 6, 2009

> Semi-ignorant question: let's assume these attacks are sent by a bot-net. We can trace the actual IP addresses of the compromised computers, right?

(a) You don't necessarily know that any arbitrary computer is compromised if all it's doing is requiring a web page. And if the number of compromised computers is large enough, each individual computer does not have to be contacting your site frequently enough to be considered malicious.

(b) Assuming you can tell a compromised from a non-compromised computer, blocking their IP doesn't mean blocking that computer, it means blocking every computer using that IP number. That might be several hundred or several thousand computers, depending on how the intranet is set up. In the case of a computer at a residence or small business, if the IP allocation is managed through DHCP, the IP number will change, possibly in a couple hours, meaning that the compromised computer is unblocked and an innocent computer (or computers) is now blocked.
posted by ardgedee at 9:49 AM on August 6, 2009 [1 favorite]

"Why can't folks set up a blacklist registry, like a domain server, that shuts out any traffic to or from computers used in these attacks so that they just get a screen that says:"
Because just accepting the connection, checking the registry and showing the message would be enough to overload the system during a full-on attack.

You have to progressively block further and further upstream, which even nowadays still isn't as easy as it could be. And ISPs should have systems in place to detect malware-laden machines and take them offline immediately, a lot of the problem is down to badly-maintained home PCs.
posted by malevolent at 9:49 AM on August 6, 2009

All these social media sites are yours... except Twitter! Attempt no ddos there!
posted by Guy_Inamonkeysuit at 10:06 AM on August 6, 2009

Are you under the impression that you're giving off less of a "Hey, look at me!" vibe than the Twitter users you're lambasting? 'cause I've got bad news for ya...

Are you under the impression that I was excluding myself from the group being (gently) mocked? Also, the FPP mentions attacks on four separate sites. Why would you assume I was talking about Twitter users primarily, or at all?
posted by FelliniBlank at 10:12 AM on August 6, 2009

Thanks idiopath. Looks like its definitely happening, but almost impossible to get a fix on the real extent of the problem (no doubt it's in the interests of the blackmailers to generate the impression that everyone pays up rather than face the awesome might of their botnets, just as it's in the interests of the targeted firms to keep it all on the QT). Presumably if nobody acquiesced to the demands the threat would lose all force pretty quickly. Of course, that means that some brave souls have to be willing to take the hit. I wonder if some kind of collective DDOS-insurance wouldn't be the best approach. If no business had to care about lost revenue, the blackmailers would be stymied.
posted by yoink at 10:14 AM on August 6, 2009

Also, the FPP mentions attacks on four separate sites.

Minor nitpick: Attacks on two sites. We still don't know what's happening to LJ or FB. It's possible that they're just experiencing a massive influx of frustrated Twitterers.
posted by zarq at 10:17 AM on August 6, 2009

It was a very strange feeling to get online about an hour ago and have no way to check in with friends. What am I supposed to do? IM? IM is so 2007! Facebook? Eeew, Facebook. I felt a bit miffed that the TV news didn't have the courtesy to report on this and include regular updates, it's not like they're talking about anything new or useful right now.

Stupid internets, give me back my 140 character updates!
posted by saturnine at 10:22 AM on August 6, 2009

You're snarking on an internet forum. Are you under the impression that you're giving off less of a "Hey, look at me!" vibe than the Twitter users you're lambasting? 'cause I've got bad news for ya...

Heh, I love Twitter. But this is still funny: "It means we're disconnected. If we're disconnected we can't Twitter. If we can't Twitter we don't exist!"
posted by TheophileEscargot at 10:36 AM on August 6, 2009

Update: LiveJournal and Facebook have confirmed they were the victims of simultaneous DDoS attacks today.
posted by zarq at 11:06 AM on August 6, 2009

I felt a bit miffed that the TV news didn't have the courtesy to report on this

Oh god MSNBC I wasn't serious.
posted by saturnine at 11:13 AM on August 6, 2009

I was surprised to hear about the outage on NPR this morning with mashable.com as a source.
posted by eyeballkid at 11:20 AM on August 6, 2009

conflicker?
posted by setanor at 12:02 PM on August 6, 2009

where did you read that it was a "german" ddos attack?
posted by kolophon at 12:02 PM on August 6, 2009

kolophon: where did you read that it was a "german" ddos attack?

Originally, a Twitter post from Ray Wert, who heads Gawker site Jalopnik. A google search turns up other articles which quote his post.

However, I just found this Times article while searching for Wert's Twitter feed, which is more recent and doesn't mention Germany. In fact, it says:

"Mr. Plunkett’s investigators, and the staff at Datagram, a company in New York that provides space for the Gawker servers, will probably never know who led the attack, and whether Gawker was a specific target. “I assume it was done on purpose,” Ms. Holmes said. “As to why, we can only guess."

If I had to write the FPP over again, I'd have left out that connection.
posted by zarq at 12:48 PM on August 6, 2009

Do people seriously still care about LiveJournal? I'm envisioning the admins there reading about Twitter and FB, then unplugging their servers and shouting, "Hey, everyone! Look at us! We got whacked too! Helllloooooooooooo!"
posted by mkultra at 1:00 PM on August 6, 2009

Eponysterical, or Godwin?
vielleicht ein wenig von beidem. oder keines. wer weiss.
posted by krautland at 1:06 PM on August 6, 2009

Can I just start putting my tweets here?
posted by swift at 1:23 PM on August 6, 2009 [1 favorite]

Google Maps fail: http://bit.ly/mBMs7 = East Orange is not Newark = no airport parking = we miss our flight. We'll try again tomorrow.
posted by swift at 1:24 PM on August 6, 2009

Do people seriously still care about LiveJournal?

I care about LiveJournal. I don't give a shit about 140-character updates or whether Joe Schmoe who knew me in the second grade can find me online. But I love my LJ account. I love the small circle I've built there, I love that I can remain anonymous there, I love the minimal design and simplicity.

The twitter wave has already crested, and Facebook cannot be far behind. In 3 years, something else will have come along and someone will ask "do people seriously care about FaceBook anymore", and someone will make exactly this post about their beloved retrograde FB account.
posted by hippybear at 2:09 PM on August 6, 2009 [5 favorites]

LIAR
posted by mrgrimm at 2:35 PM on August 6, 2009

Looks like John Hughes' death took twitter down again...
posted by fearfulsymmetry at 2:35 PM on August 6, 2009

LIAR!
posted by mrgrimm at 2:35 PM on August 6, 2009

Twitter attack grabs everyone’s attention.
posted by ericb at 2:37 PM on August 6, 2009

LIAR!

You're late. :)
posted by zarq at 2:47 PM on August 6, 2009

When you have the Wikipedia you don't need to ask. Unless that is also taken out by a DDoS.

That page was also linked in the FPP. :D
posted by zarq at 2:48 PM on August 6, 2009

Oh wow. I thought those services were just slow because it's deadline day at work, and the boss bottlenecked 'em to free up the 'net. Good to know my corporate overlords didn't cause this.
posted by limeonaire at 2:50 PM on August 6, 2009

Do people seriously still care about LiveJournal?

The poets and lovers of the world!

(And by "lovers" I mean lovers of bitchy infighting and holier-than-thou pontificating)
posted by Artw at 2:53 PM on August 6, 2009

DILDOS attack: Deliberate ILlogical Denial Of Sex. You do not want to get close to a victim of that.

And I'm using FriendFeed to split my list of Twitter Follows into bitesized pieces. Stephen Fry is in the Famous From Offline category with John Cleese, Robert Llewellen, and the ST:TNG co-stars. I also have MetaFilterers, Bloggers, Wecomickers, SLOtown Locals and "Frequent Flyers" (non-celebrities who twitter a lot and are entertaining at least 1 out of 5 times). Even if a Twitterer isn't on FriendFeed, I can set their Twitter RSS up as an "Imaginary Friend" (FF's term). I have a lot of setup yet to do but when it's really ready, I'll be able to keep the TweetyBirdHouse at a safe distance. Unless FriendFeed folds (it's lagging behind everything in the Social Sites field).
posted by wendell at 3:00 PM on August 6, 2009 [1 favorite]

hippybear: "Do people seriously still care about LiveJournal?"

Another LJ-er here. Livejournal, by nature of customizable community interface, large userbase, and intricate privacy settings/filters, offers something nothing else on the internet does. And while Facebook might be on its way out much as MySpace was a few years ago, Livejournal has always been niche (which is just the way we like it), and is still going strong.

So there.
posted by Phire at 3:40 PM on August 6, 2009 [2 favorites]

(Shoot, meant to quote mkultra rather than hippybear. Sorry hippybear!)
posted by Phire at 3:40 PM on August 6, 2009

I have an LJ, and use it for many of the same reasons that hippybear and phire do. :)
posted by zarq at 3:46 PM on August 6, 2009

Weird, can't sign into Twitter directly but I can still post and read tweets on Tweetdeck.
posted by fthead9 at 3:49 PM on August 6, 2009

Amazingly, life goes on.
posted by resiny at 4:25 PM on August 6, 2009

scrump: German dildo attack? Russian dildo attack. (SFW. Previously.)
posted by hattifattener at 4:53 PM on August 6, 2009

Is a Psychopath Attacking Twitter, Facebook?
posted by homunculus at 8:02 PM on August 6, 2009

CNET and the Guardian are reporting that the attacks were aimed at a single blogger:

According to senior industry figures, the strikes that affected hundreds of millions of web users around the globe on Thursday were part of an attempt to damage just one individual - a controversial Georgian known only as Cyxymu.

Max Kelly, Facebook's chief security officer, told CNet news that the strike was an attempt to silence Cyxymu - an outspoken critic of last year's conflict between Georgia and Russia in South Ossetia - as the anniversary of the war approaches.

posted by TheophileEscargot at 1:06 AM on August 7, 2009

This morning when I got up I checked Twitter. Didn't load. OK, must be down, went to my LJ. Nope, nothing there. Released and renewed my router's IP address, tried Facebook. Nada. Even though I was getting an IP address, I just assumed that our internet was out yet again (far from implausible, we have Comcast) and went back to bed.

Nice to know I'm not crazy, I guess.
posted by Burritos Inc. at 2:53 AM on August 7, 2009

Wonkette was attacked, too.
posted by dirigibleman at 7:07 AM on August 7, 2009

Via @pagent, Just keep tweeting.

I admit that I entertained violent thoughts about what I'd do if left alone with the script kiddies behind the outage. A roofing hammer was involved.
posted by crataegus at 7:08 AM on August 8, 2009