Mattsapundit

So much for the marketplace of ideas. This morning, web hosting company Hosting Matters was struck with a major denial-of-service attack, knocking several high-profile conservative blogs offline.

In the past, Hosting Matters has demonstrated its ability to prevent and respond to DoS attacks. Accordingly, it’s become home to a large concentration of right-thinking, high-traffic blogs, including our beloved Lone Star Times.
My RSS reader is spattered with red text, indicating sites that are unavailable. Here’s a list:

• Lone Star Times
• blogHOUSTON
• Captain’s Quarters
• Power Line
• Instapundit
• BuzzMachine
• Cox & Forkum
• IMAO
• Thinklings
• Dhimmi Watch
• Jihad Watch
• The Counterterrorism Blog

It looks like these attacks are the work of overseas hackers. So says Hosting Matters:

Well, we know who the target is, and we know where the likely source of the attack originates…and I sincerely doubt that country’s leadership has the least bit of concern for extraditing over something like this.

Michelle Malkin has more.

UPDATE (11:35 a.m.): The sites are back up. According to the Hosting Matters support forums, it looks like the attack originated from Saudi Arabia. HM personnel won’t release the name of the site targeted by the Islamofascist hackers, but Michelle says it’s Aaron’s CC, which is still down.

UPDATE (11:52 a.m.): Here’s my response at LST.

Matt Bramanti | April 28, 2006 at 10:30 am
Posted to Crime, International, Politics, Blogging

3 comments

A priest and a rabbi are having lunch, and the rabbi asks the priest if he could be promoted. Priest says “Yes, I could be elevated to bishop.”

Rabbi says, “Then what?”

Priest says, “Well, the Holy Father could make me a cardinal.”

Rabbi says, “Then what?”

Priest says, “I suppose I could be elected Pope.”

Rabbi says, “Then what?”

Priest says, “That’s as high as it goes. It’s not like I could get promoted to Messiah.”

Rabbi says, “One of our boys made it.”

Matt Bramanti | April 27, 2006 at 4:14 pm
Posted to Humor, Religion

No comments yet

Facebook, the social networking site beloved by college students everywhere, is now mobile. Users can interact with the site, post messages and “poke” other users via SMS text messages.

Sending Facebook messages via cell phone, to me, isn’t that great. Why not just text-message the person directly? No, the real benefit is that the new service effectively puts all the contact information for your social circle online. With just a text message, you can look anyone up.

It’s funny, but as mobile devices and services get more and more powerful, they act more and more like dumb terminals.

Matt Bramanti | April 25, 2006 at 8:30 pm
Posted to Out and About, Tech, Personal

No comments yet

A security breach has compromised the personal information of students of the McCombs School of Business at the University of Texas, according to a press release from the school.

The press release recounts a previous security breach:

A similar security breach took place in 2003. Former student Christopher Phillips was found guilty of accessing protected computers without authorization and possession of stolen Social Security numbers.

Interestingly, Janet Elliott’s reporting for the Chronicle’s Austin bureau also recounts the previous incident:

A similar security breach took place in 2003. Former student Christopher Phillips was found guilty of accessing protected computers without authorization and possession of stolen Social Security numbers.

That looks strikingly similar. Maybe the newspaper should have just posted the press release?

BLOGVERSATION: blogHOUSTON, Lone Star Times

Matt Bramanti | April 25, 2006 at 3:27 pm
Posted to Media, Texas

No comments yet

I was up at Notre Dame this weekend, where I saw the following flyer in Lewis Hall:

The statistic wasn’t attributed to any source — how could it be? The very definition of the statistic makes it unknowable. Whoever wrote that statistic just made it up.

Rape statistics are often inflated in order to add urgency to the situation — particularly on college campuses. Unfortunately, this kind of ploy is destined to backfire if people do their homework.

Yes, rape is awful. Rape victims should come forward, and we should put rapists away for a long, long time. But artificially inflating the number only discredits women and may lead to a “cry wolf” situation in which legitimate rape accusations are doubted.

Matt Bramanti | April 23, 2006 at 7:55 pm
Posted to Out and About, Crime, Notre Dame, Photos

3 comments

I laughed my ass off:

Matt Bramanti | April 20, 2006 at 12:38 pm
Posted to Humor, Video

3 comments