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Continuing Attempts to Thwart FluTrackers

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  • Continuing Attempts to Thwart FluTrackers

    Some of you may have noticed that we were down for about 30 minutes today.

    Another denial of service attack.

    We are very progressive on the situation and continuously upgrade and address methods to prevent these situations.

    Also the attempts to crack the password to our server continue. Everyday.

    We are also very proactive on this and we are employing all available methods to prevent any unauthorized entry. To this date none of these attempts have been successful.

    I have to wonder why someone would try to take FluTrackers down. Repeated attempts. Systematic. Ongoing.

    Is it the fact that we are free to the world?

    Is it that we find information and publish it?

    What is it?..........Really - I would like to know.

    We are monitoring this site 24 hours a day and we will keep it online.

    In addition, our backup site is now FluTrackers.org and is fully operational. Please bookmark this site. If we are down for any length of time please go to this site for information and posting. We are in the process of installing a registration procedure for that site.

    For me personally, these attacks just make me more determined to stay online and continue to support the effort here. And - if any of the attacks are successful and the site goes completely down, we have backups to this site and we will come back online within hours.

  • #2
    Re: Continuing Attempts to Thwart FluTrackers

    maybe someone has a particularly interesting contribution
    but was banned
    I'm interested in expert panflu damage estimates
    my current links: http://bit.ly/hFI7H ILI-charts: http://bit.ly/CcRgT

    Comment


    • #3
      Re: Continuing Attempts to Thwart FluTrackers

      Originally posted by gsgs View Post
      maybe someone has a particularly interesting contribution
      but was banned
      gsgs, the way I see it, is, if the above was true...first of all, FT's does not ban someone without a very good reason. Second, if this is their response, if the above happened....I don't think we would want someone with these ethics on the site anyway.

      Comment


      • #4
        Re: Continuing Attempts to Thwart FluTrackers

        We ruined that option when we did not agree with the school policy. And then we disagreed with the policy of depositing sequences into GISAID unless they are already deposited at Genbank. So.....

        Que sera, sera.

        We are on our own.

        Comment


        • #5
          Re: Continuing Attempts to Thwart FluTrackers

          I remember when I spent a lot of time at "the other site" several months ago. They had numerous shut-downs and attacks. Since I no longer frequent their site, I'm unsure if those attacks have continued.

          Comment


          • #6
            Re: Continuing Attempts to Thwart FluTrackers

            We are also very proactive on this and we are employing all available methods to prevent any unauthorized entry. To this date none of these attempts have been successful.
            Sharon,
            Whoever the "we" is, I thank them.

            Until this person is caught, we won't know the motivation. We all know FT is really big and picked up on Google often; maybe it's just a challenge for this individual to hack FT.

            Is there something to be gained by the hacker, other than taking FT offline?

            You probably already have this; but in case someone else ever needs it:
            The salvage of human life ought to be placed above barter and exchange ~ Louis Harris, 1918

            Comment


            • #7
              Re: Continuing Attempts to Thwart FluTrackers

              2 points to note:
              1. orchestrating DNS attacks and continually modifying the method of attack to bypass obstacles takes a reaonable degree of technical savvy.
              2. Information control (i.e the flow and content of it) has become synonymous with politics - of companies, of governments, and of large interest groups. Any of these, globally, could seek to restrict access to the information posted here for domestic reasons that may be specifc to them. The more money or power or influence at stake the more the desire to control market sensitive information - so could be any organisation or individual or authority anywhere.

              The only thing to do is keep doing what you are doing, and hope that organisations that find FT content and observation helpful might volounteer to assist in helping track down who is behind this and help in getting them to stop or increase site defences.

              Comment


              • #8
                Re: Continuing Attempts to Thwart FluTrackers

                Missouriwatcher - Some new sites experience a lot of "down time" as they adjust to traffic levels. This is fairly common.

                We are experiencing a planned and systematic program designed to take FT offline. The DOS attacks are frequent and timed. There is at least 1 attempt per day to crack the password to the server. They are using ghost ips from all over the world.

                It looks like a computer program activated to attack us repeatedly.

                Comment


                • #9
                  Re: Continuing Attempts to Thwart FluTrackers

                  maybe other sites are targeted by the same program

                  find some keywords characteristic to the attacks and search the web
                  I'm interested in expert panflu damage estimates
                  my current links: http://bit.ly/hFI7H ILI-charts: http://bit.ly/CcRgT

                  Comment


                  • #10
                    Re: Continuing Attempts to Thwart FluTrackers

                    You would have thought that by now, whoever it is has got the message that we are not going anywhere. Work with us, not against us

                    Comment


                    • #11
                      Re: Continuing Attempts to Thwart FluTrackers

                      I am not counting on any financial help.

                      Look at this recent report about the internet and this pandemic (Appendix 9A). While we were the first in the world to publicly expose the developing problem, I do not see us listed anywhere in this report.

                      ProMED is a great resource, but in this case we posted about this event at least 6 days earlier.

                      I can only conclude that we are locked out of the system.

                      Comment


                      • #12
                        Re: Continuing Attempts to Thwart FluTrackers

                        Maybe we are a whole NEW system ! You help so many people that you will never know about...ordinary wee people like me who would never, ever, have this kind of knowledge without you!

                        Comment


                        • #13
                          Re: Continuing Attempts to Thwart FluTrackers

                          Howdy one and all....on this matter let me begin by saying I was also personally hack-attacked, and my computer was wiped and all my work and research of the past 3 yrs is gone .......so I KNOW we are lucky to have this site and the work done is important, but as a poor man, I no longer can do much to help. I'll have to replace my computer, and otherwise am now using the 30 mins. free/ day at the local library to stay abreast of the changes here.


                          Best wishes, and Happy 2010,
                          joseph

                          Comment


                          • #14
                            Re: Continuing Attempts to Thwart FluTrackers

                            I'm in the "mixin and her gang don't know" - category

                            they always want to make it looking like "we" would support
                            their censorship policy, which I don't.
                            I'm interested in expert panflu damage estimates
                            my current links: http://bit.ly/hFI7H ILI-charts: http://bit.ly/CcRgT

                            Comment


                            • #15
                              Re: Continuing Attempts to Thwart FluTrackers

                              Originally posted by Roehl_JC View Post
                              Howdy one and all....on this matter let me begin by saying I was also personally hack-attacked, and my computer was wiped and all my work and research of the past 3 yrs is gone .......so I KNOW we are lucky to have this site and the work done is important, but as a poor man, I no longer can do much to help. I'll have to replace my computer, and otherwise am now using the 30 mins. free/ day at the local library to stay abreast of the changes here.


                              Best wishes, and Happy 2010,
                              joseph

                              Oouchy !!

                              Comment

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