Slashdot Mirror
Internet Filters - Libertarianism is Hate Speech?
John Deere asks: "Just went live with a libertarian web-based discussion site a few days ago and today one of our members posted that our news and political discussion site has been listed as a 'Hate Speech' site by SurfControl ("details)
Needless to say, some of our slacker members are now unable to access the site, due to blocks at their places of employment. Now, I don't mind our site being blocked by employers who want to keep their employees working instead of arguing objectivism vs. utilitarianism. It does concern me, however, that it appears to be quite easy to be listed as a 'Hate Speech' site, and not have much recourse. My questions are, has anyone been successful in changing the categorization of their site by one of these filtering services, from negative to neutral or positive? How much pressure was required and how long did it take?" It would be interesting to note how many GOP and Democratic sites are also listed under the same tag at SurfControl. I have a hard time seeing political discourse being listed as hate speech, but maybe this is a case of a single comment or post getting the entire site banned. Has anyone been able to negotiate a change of status with the various filtering services out there? If not, is there any legal way such changes can be forced by some form of arbitration or legal action?
As an assistant member of the security team of a large fortune 500 company, I have discovered a new form of terrorism stemming from the deepest underground of the Internet. A site catering to hackers, communists and anti-Americans called Slashdot.org has created a new type of denial-of-service attack known as 'the Slashdot effect'. This attack has been used against what are seen as the enemies of the 'Open source movement' which include many large American companies such as Microsoft as well as many American media companies such as Time-Warner-AOL. The Slashdot Effect could have a potentially crippling effect on the American computer industry and I feel it is justified to offer my own advice on this problem.
What is the Slashdot Effect?
The Slashdot Effect (also known as Slashdotting) is a new form of denial-of-service attack stemming from the site Slashdot.org. Once they find a 'target' (whether it be a large media company or small personal homepage) the URL of the site is posted on the front page of Slashdot.org. Members of this site attempt as quickly as they can to follow these links and overload the target server. This causes the 'target' website to slow to a grinding halt before going offline. It can sometimes take days or even weeks for the site to recover from such a surge of traffic, and often the servers can be damaged beyond repair (that is, they cannot be fixed with a simple defrag!).
Who is normally the target of the Slashdot Effect and how is it done?
Many American companies have already been attacked by the Slashdot Effect. Targets often include news sites such as the New York Times as well as well as large American companies such as Intel. Sites that criticize the open-source movement are a prime target. For example, lets say an American media website such as the London Times does a review of a little known operating system known as Linux. Linux is an operating system developed by a hacker from communist Finland, which is based on code stolen from an American operating system known as Unix. It was created in cooperation with a communist group known as g.n.u. (Which stands for Glorified Novelty Unix) and is generally unusable by non-hackers. Obviously since it is such an archaic and unstable operating system compared to those made by American companies such as Microsoft it would get a bad review on the London Times. Once a Slashdot member discovers this honest review the URL would be posted on the front page of Slashdot.org. A flood of users would follow the link to the site and bring the server to a grinding halt. Since most of these users are terrorists they would probably have ads disabled using European hacking software. This would mean a potential loss of thousands of dollars worth of ad revenue. To top it off, members of Slashdot.org often plagiarize the articles and post it on illegal mirrors, furthering the loss of ad revenue. Members of Slashdot are rewarded for plagiarizing in the form of 'Karma', a form of hacker currency, on Slashdot.org.
What can I do to avoid the Slashdot Effect and how would I deal with it if it happened?
The easiest way to avoid the Slashdot effect is to refrain from posting anything about any open-source software, especially Linux. Focus your website on fine American companies such as Microsoft. You can also set up your server to reject any links from Slashdot.org, something many people have done. If you think your site is being attacked by the Slashdot Effect, contact the authorities immediately and report this act of terrorism. The penalties against hacker/terrorists are stiff and you can feel confident that the perpetrators of this terror will be punished in the harshest possible means.
by Anonymous Pancake