Motives for the 'attack', and suspects?

Hey,
Right now, I'm buying into the idea that this is a type of attack.

Now, for a few weeks, we've been seeing a lot of people who register, leave two or three messages that are incoherent or outrightly mocking, in nature... then seem to drop away. I've had a suspicion, for a while, that these were people who wantred to discredit or lower the quality of this board... now I think they were doing some sort of recon or probing.

Who would want to launch a sustained attack on this site? Well, the government or any number of companies... but my guess is that, within the last week, someone started a thread here that must've contained something that was unique and damaging to the gov... and which enegendered an 'attack' by the cyberwarfare assets the government has.

Yes, that sounds crazy, but the whole pattern of probing, then denying, fits in with cyberattacks that the government has claimed have occured against it... it also parallels the way the A Jazeera website was taken down, repeatedly, during the war.

If this is so, though a loyal american, I have to express my disgust for whatever branch of the government which, here, is actively trying to control speech. By their very actions, they are UN-American (even if they're sitting in the basement of US Space Command, right now, in a blue suit with a rack of medals on their chest).

Jim

[Edited on 10-6-2003 by onlyinmydreams]

[Edited on 10-6-2003 by onlyinmydreams]

ATS ahs been the target of hackers ever since it was put online during the last millenium..

Seriously though, ATS suffers from some devious past members who have taken their exile as some sort of personal grudge.

yeah,
You guys are most likely right.... I didn't realize that this site got shot at that often by the begrudged.

Still, I sometimes wonder if at least ONE of the members here is doing a little monitoring.

Also, I guess I couldn't figure out who, besides a comapny or gov, could spend their entire day trying to screw ATS up. I mean, if they're kids, don't they have school (or parents who would want them to go outside after being on the computer for hours and hours on end), and if they're adults, well, don't they have to work? So, are we looking for unemployed, mad, former members?

If this were a gov attack, ATS would be down instantly, and permanently. Hell, all ATS members would get to meet each other in person, in a REX84 facility!

This smells like an amateur with something to prove.

thats not funny, although it would be ironic. Conspiracy buffs assembled to be interrogated...nah. Just some nit wit trying to prove something. Wonder what those other sites were about though.

Didnt one of them redirect to a fed gov website? There was an article about the gov taking over certain websites when they were siezed, and started broadcasting gov propoganda....

In the event we get solid data on a possible attacker, I have an FBI agent here in NY paying attention to our situation.

Oddly enough, he knew of ATS are really likes the site.

Oh... well in that case, forget what I said about government propaganda...

Originally posted by dragonrider
If this were a gov attack, ATS would be down instantly, and permanently. Hell, all ATS members would get to meet each other in person, in a REX84 facility!

This smells like an amateur with something to prove.

First ever ats convention and probly the last

Sweet willaim. I think thats funny that he already knows. Did he say if he found i personally or throguh his work. If its though his work whooo hooo were on a watch list

I hate to say it, but anything you say or do online nowadays is subject to being monitored.

Someone came on this past weekend and asked what kind of coding, ect, was used on this website to prevent being tracked (gee, wonder if that was a recon????)

Anyway, thanks to Carnivore and other similar systems, you have no privacy anymore.

Dragonrider that is not 100% true. There is a program that allows secure chat.

I assure you that while encrypted chat or email like PGP does keep the snoopers from reading exactly what you are saying (although I am sure they are working on a way around it, if they dont already have it), using such will only illicit far more interest from snooper parties than anything a healthy paranoid mind like mine is likely to arouse from just saying what I have to say out loud.

Do you have a link, you remember what it is? Could prove useful.

Originally posted by William
In the event we get solid data on a possible attacker, I have an FBI agent here in NY paying attention to our situation.

Oddly enough, he knew of ATS are really likes the site.

This is interesting but not for any scarey reasons.
The Intelligence services need to occassionally think outside of the box.
ATS is an entire site dedicated to thinking outside of the box.

I wonder if he's a member?

Look, I know I am a suspect. It is just a coincidence that as soon as I became a member, posting something about bringing in more people from my boards (shut down by the CCP) that you had a dos attack. I was going to respond to a vailed accusation against me, but found your server was overwhelmed. I only told two people about this site, so it is not like all of the people from my boards starting hitting your server. The only possible reason I can see that I am responsible is if one of the two people I spoke to about ATS told one of the owners of the boards (the one who bowed to CCP's pressure) and he did it out of spite. He is extremely computer savvy. But that is a longshot.

there is a virus going around that is directed at the banking industry, B of A, Citi Bank, etc.. it creeps in locates accounts and passwords and then moves on. it has been affecting ATM's, internet checking etc... the end result is when you use yor card "access is denied", at least that is the worst end result so far.
probably one of your clients was hacked and the virus followed the trail here
at any rate you can all assume your passwords have been comprimised, especially those of you that are paranoid or in possesion of sensitive knowledge

tut's rumor mill

p.s. they found my step mother

No cookie no entry greedy cookie monster.

ATS has its own personal FBI Agent. Impressive!

Looks around in paranoid fashion.... "It wasn't me".

What if the president was monitering this website, like he was a member. .lol.....i dunno.....stupid thought...makes me laugh though...Bush on ATS. I wonder who he could be?
Deep

LOL @ PGP
Dont trust it as far as you can throw it, they handed over all the keys to the government right after they got "investigated" by some "friendly government agents" who said give us the keys and format of the keys... or we try you as terrorists, its in a rather good book that i have, cant remember the title.
As long as you dont trigger words from carnivore and echelon (theres over 100 of them that i'm sure you can imagine) your email/call/chat will pass onto the server and be deleted after a while to make space for more fluff, anything that triggers a keyword is given special attention and the things that get the most attention are.. dadadada... Encrypted email, you'll have it forcably decrypted where someone (probably a human this time) will read your message and draw up a threat assessment on you, pooling your past emails and anything they can get on you.

How do you think they're getting Al-Qaeda?
They sure as hell dont have many people on the inside, and if they did the "cell" structure would stop them finding out much, if told to operate indepently it would be a nightmare to catch them without this software.

I've always thought how easy it would be to go down to Walmart, buy lots of fertilizer, down to radio shack to buy some "parts" and then lop it all in a truck and go for a joyride into the nearest mall/FBI office.

If this were a gov attack, ATS would be down instantly, and permanently. Hell, all ATS members would get to meet each other in person, in a REX84 facility!

Wouldn't that be a riot! We can then see who here has the most usernames. I've spotted a few intuitively. It would be interesting to see all the cards laid down.