Friday, August 10, 2007

Online Harassment and DOS Attacks... This Sounds Familiar...

Last night, Jill over at feministe posted a troubling post. It looks like a number of feminist blogs, including feministe, had been targeted by denial of service(DOS) attacks, and their comments spammed with really disturbing and vile threats. Bloggers were threatened with sexually assault and murder just for blogging about feminism.

In a way, this is a sign that feminism has legs. The vitriol here shows that these assholes are, on some level, afraid. They feminism as a threat to the system that gives them power and privilege. They see bloggers like Jill and piny and the rest that they set out to silence as being the heads of a movement that scares them. They invested time and energy into a campaign to silence the voices of the people that they're worried want to change a corrupt system... they think that feminists want to take their toys away...

And they're right.

Feminism is a threat to assholes like them. As feminists get heard and they push for change, the sort of jerk who would use threats of rape and murder as a means to silence his political enemies is going to find that he has less and less political capital. His views will become more and more unpopular and he will be made to look like the offensive prick that he is. He will lose power.

These sorts of actions- trying to shut down sites that you don't agree with, using threats about rape, threats about cutting someone... murdering them...- it's exactly the sort of thing that happened to Kathy Sierra.

I don't know what else to say, but I wanted to take a moment to draw attention to this, and to say: Thanks to everyone at feministe. You're doing important work, and I appreciate the time and effort you put into running and maintaining an excellent site. These assholes see you as a threat because you are. And I think that the rest of us are better for it.

13 comments:

Anonymous said...

I'm fucking furious.

I'm **enraged.**

I followed the links to Feministe! and read the threat.

This is a VERY good argument for fellow feminists and feminist allies arming ourselves and getting together. Let's see the little pinheads try personally attacking us then.

Think I'll shut up now before I write something I'll regret.

Roy, I have a favor to ask--need some advice. Could you please contact me on my blog? All comments are moderated, so I'd see your email address. I'd like to ask your opinion privately, if you would be okay with that.

Thank you. and BTW, that was an INVALUABLE POST you just made. Thank you.

Anonymous said...

Just as I thought...the stats and views on my blog have jumped.

How ABOUT that? Real interesting, doncha think?

FYI, did you get my email, Roy? Take your time answering, just want to make sure someone wasn't posing as you in the comment...

Yeah, we are *being watched.* GOOD. It means they're afraid. And it means they're cowardly.

marnanel said...

The phrase "Gandhicon three" comes to mind.

Anonymous said...

Thank you, Marnanel. Your post was enlightening and **so** true. Yes, it IS Gandhicon Three, unquestionably, it is...no doubt about it.

Heh. Truly a vindication of our side.:)

Rex Libris said...

Yeah, that was me scarred. I just sent off an e-mail to you a minute ago.

And absolutely, Marnanel. I hadn't heard that exact story before, but the sentiment is pretty much how I saw it, too. Level 3... absolutely.

Jaclyn said...

Yay for GandhiCon Three! That's the most encouraging thing I've read all day...

Anonymous said...

Wow. Roy, thanks so much for bringing this to my attention. I have Feministe on my blogroll, but don't often take the time to always check it out. This makes me sick. I'm glad that those who were targeted are (from what I can tell from early comments) informing the authorities of this.

Scarred: Yes, even the stats for my blog, which hasn't been running for long, have jumped a bit, and I hadn't even made any new posts recently. This is very disturbing, but also encouraging, because as Roy pointed out in his post, we've made them scared. We're doing something.

Anonymous said...

Marnanel: Thanks for that, as well. I had never heard of GhandiCon, and we are definitely at GhandiCom Three. This is incredibly encouraging.

Anonymous said...

I'm almost wondering if this has SOMETHING to do with the upcoming 2008 elections.

It's a year and almost three months before the 2008 elections are held, and this country is angry. We Lefties are rising in stature and power, and I can't help but think this is scaring the shit out of a lot of people. Feminists managed to shrug off the impending character assassination from the Duke debacle, in part because of the DEANZA debacle, which was truly disgusting--and it helps that this rogue prosecutor Nifong is getting prosecuted himself. Hilary Clinton's running for office, and the rightwing blogs tried to take a straight razor to her, but apparently there was some effective counterfire. Now this...

Sounds to me like they're trying to silence us before we say something INFLUENTIAL.:) Timing is of the essence here...

Anonymous said...

Ah, but you see Ms. Scarlet; Communism was just a red herring.

Rex Libris said...

And if you want to know who killed Mr. Boddy, I did. In the hall, with the revolver.

Elaine Vigneault said...

Thanks for blogging about this.

I want to urge everyone (who this is happening to) to report these attacks. Many of them are very unskilled hackers who are easy to track. They're really just haters who are following directions. So report them, they can be found and a lot of this can be stopped.

Anonymous said...

I've found some more info if anyone wants to help shut them down. Visit http://ic3.gov and help report them.