Unknown digital assailants managed to down 4chan for an extended period of time on Tuesday.
“Site is down due to DDoS,” 4chan founder Christopher Poole (aka “moot”) confirmed in a status blog post.
“We now join the ranks of MasterCard, Visa, PayPal, et al. – an exclusive club!”
In a somewhat ironic twist, 4chan’s members have been responsible for a number of controversial DDoS offensives against ideological opponents, such as the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) and the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA).
4chan activists also played a pivotal role in supporting WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange by launching a DDoS campaign against Visa, MasterCard and PayPal for refusing to process donations to WL.
As expected, there is plenty of speculation about who executed the DDoS attack against the site.
Personally, I suspect that the digital battle was likely waged by pissed off ex-4chan members who employed their former weapon of choice – LOIC (Low Orbit Ion Cannon) – against the site.
Other less-likely, but possible assailants could include:
- Anti 4chan activists.
- Enigmatic government entity conducting an exploratory cyber offensive.
- DDoS “mercenaries” secretly hired by elements associated with sites that have fallen victim to 4chan.
What do you think?
