Don’t Let Cyber-Vandals Beat You!

Yesterday Patrick Lambe’s website was targeted by spammers, and mine by what appears to be a denial of service attack , but more likely was a spam bot attack. Patrick tells me his site is targeted via comments, but usually he picks up the attack fairly quickly. I’m not sure exactly what the target was on my site but I suspect it was something to do with my “Genocide Knowledge Management ” blog and the meta-tags associated with the blog. The spammers did not penetrate my site and all my security measures worked (thank goodness), but they did succeed temporarily in overloading the site with anonymous hits on the front page. I took my site down for a couple of hours and put a few more security measures in place, but they won’t beat me, and I will continue to blog about what I think is interesting and important.

Take for example the “Genocide Knowledge Management ” blog. I have witnessed first hand the aftermath of genocide and war. I have also witnessed first hand the bureaucratic workings of the Red Cross, and for that matter other aid agencies like Care Australia. I therefore stand by my comments, just as I stand by each of these blogs, which also created back channel controversy: 

Of course spammers aren’t targeting me or Patrick because of our content – at least I think that is the case! They are cyber-vandals and take a perverted pleasure in crippling others work simply because they can. The internet is a wonderful tool, and can be extraordinarily useful. It can also be extraordinarily dangerous and anti-social.

I am not going to push directly my morals onto others, but just think how much better off we would be without unsolicited or malicious e-mail, hate sites, child pornography sites, and so on. Wouldn’t it be nice to donate to an online charity knowing the money will get to where it is needed without the fear that it is a bogus site, or the front for some criminal organisation? Wouldn’t it be nice if we didn’t have to worry about computer viruses, spam, and site denial attacks? Wouldn’t it be nice if the code writers for viruses and malicious bots used their talents to enhance the cyber world experience? 

Of course this is all a dream, but I for one will not be beaten by these vandals. Considered and reasoned freedom of speech matters, as does collaborative sharing of ideas! Don’t let cyber-vandals beat you.

Regards, Graham



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