The Laughing Wolf

Some Thoughts for The New Media

Yesterday’s DDOS attacks have brought a number of things to light for this wonderful new media known as the blogosphere. The most obvious is, of course, exactly how vulnerable we are to disruption. What also came to the fore is that we face other challenges as well, challenges to free speech and hosting that take trial to reveal. There are other topics, but these will do for a good start.

While a few had emergency backup sites, and a few others joined in, the attack brought significant parts of the blogosphere to a halt. Just as newspapers and magazines have emergency printing options in place, and broadcast outlets (usually) have emergency broadcast facilities, each of us as bloggers needs to look at this as a call to make such plans.

My own emergency site, like so many others, is over on blogspot because it is easy and it is free. The problem here should be obvious: it is another single-point failure waiting to happen. What we need to look at is agreements with other domains and providers, such that mirror sites or emergency backups are in place and – more importantly – known to the readership. Given that few blogs make any money, and are done on a shoestring, these options need to be free or nearly free to be practical. Give it some thought, and I am sure that we can come up with something.

We also need to consider something that most old media would find totally unacceptable: we need to share. For example, if I am up and my Blogfather is down, you can bet that he will have full posting privileges here posthaste, and that I would likely give the same to all members of his team. Having two blogs under one roof is not a novel idea, merely an expansion of the group blog concept. This would in no way work for old media, but it is a strength of the new that we need to exploit.

Some have said that this also shows the need to migrate to different hosts, and that idea does have some merit. It was good that Winds of Change and some other sites were on different hosts and served as clearing houses for information. Yet, some reprehensible comments by one provider show the danger to free speech that can and does exist. Bloggers in particular are going to need to go for providers that have extremely strong commitments to the ideals of free speech, and are prepared to back those to the fullest.

In that regard, I would once again like to thank Hosting Matters. They are an excellent host in my experience, and their response to this attack was both outstanding and professional. They did all they could, and it is unfortunate that those upstream of them were not as responsive or professional. More importantly, they have stated and continue to state, despite threats to their bottom line, their strong support for free speech through their policies. Thank you.

At this point, I would urge you to go read this post and this post over at Winds of Change. There is a lot of good information there, and some good suggestions. While I am not a techno-geek, a lot of people in the online community are, and if we all work together and the providers work with us, a number of good security measures can and will be developed. Make no mistake, this is not Hosting Matter’s fight, or the provider’s fight, it is OUR fight and we need to ram it home on all fronts.

Along those lines, it may be foolish or ignorant of me, but I do plan to file some form of civil action against the individuals behind this attack, and any who abetted them, if they are ever identified. Yes, it probably will go nowhere, but it may also rob them of some flexibility, some operating capital, and resources. Even if I never get anything out of it, the light shown on these cockroaches and the blocking of avenues is well worth the time and effort. In any war, always pursue all avenues of attack simply to keep the enemy reacting to you and to deny them free movement.

Meantime, I very much like the idea put forward yesterday on various forums and at his sites, by Steve at Little Tiny Lies. It is obvious that Internet Haganah has hurt the murdering, cowardly scum so I agree: Let’s support them. Steve has put forward two ideas, one involving hitting the tip jar (always a good idea) and the other in helping distribute the information from this site over so many different hosts that it is impossible to go after all of them (or at least damned difficult). I like both ideas, and will do what I can when I can as a means of pursuing yet another avenue in the war.

Another avenue is the one I started yesterday: A listing of as many emergency backup blog sites as possible. I have started it on my emergency site, and if you have such a site submit it here in the comments. I will make my master list available to any and all bloggers so that it can be posted as many places as possible. That way, when DDOS and other attacks happen again -- and they will -- we can stay up and running as much as possible. SEND THOSE ADDYS IN!

In this age of Wi-Fi and such, we should have and must make use of all the options possible to make sure that such attacks can only hamper the free flow of information. This new media has many strengths to go with its weaknesses, and we need to use our strengths, and find fixes for the weaknesses, so that the ignorant, the intolerant, and the totalitarians everywhere can not block us. That is a worthy challenge, and one we need to take up immediately

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