So I tried to go on Twitter this morning and got told the site wasn’t available. On checking whether Twitter was down, I found out some idiots have started a DDoS attack* on not just Twitter, but Netflix, Spotify, Etsy, Reddit and a bunch of other sites as some kind of extortion scheme. “We’re not going to let you use your favorite sites until you give us money” or some such nonsense.
Honestly, I don’t want to give these assholes money. I want to give them an ass kicking.
And if this turns out to be another attempt to mess with the election by preventing early voting?
Hopefully some assholes aren’t just going to go to jail and pay a fine. Hopefully some assholes get to go to prison, have their pictures splashed all over the Internet, and get to have their lives completely destroyed. Because you know what? Fuck those guys.
When I was young and dumb, someone calling down some rAIDS was just an annoying juvenile prank. “Oh noes, I can’t read my favorite fanfic today. Guess I’ve gotta do something else until the rAIDS clears up.”
But blackmail and extortion?
Fuck you very much.
GO DIRECTLY TO JAIL.
DO NOT PASS GO. DO NOT COLLECT $200.
Just because these kids have grown up with the Internet doesn’t mean they have the first clue about life and the world. Cyber-attacks and extortion don’t make a person Woke. It makes them a Criminal.
Wake up.
*
*DDoS attack — basically, you gather a bunch of people and keep visiting a website until the site doesn’t work anymore. It’s the same thing that happens when a million people all try to look at the same cat picture at the same time… the servers can’t handle the load and suddenly no one can look at the cat picture.
Your information isn’t stolen or anything. It’s basically someone standing in the door of a store and not letting you in. It’s an annoyance tactic for the most part.
When it becomes a concern is when someone has a zombie army of slaved computers also hitting the sites. Why? Because to get a zombie army you infect a bunch of people with malware and use their IP addresses to commit your crimes from.
And that’s what they are: Crimes.
DDoS attacks aren’t funny jokes anymore. They cost people time and money they’re not going to get back, and a malicious DDoS attack can ruin someone’s business or ability to make money.
And extortion?
That’s totally illegal, bro. And it pisses people off.
