Anyone still think DU was crashed on election night by some random 400 lb hacker?

[Xipe Totec]

Just wondering.

[dalton99a]

1. "It could have been 400 lbs - but no one really knows for sure. It's all sides"

[Xipe Totec]

4. Tandem 200 lb hackers?

[AngryAmish]

42. 4 petite gal hackers

[Coventina]

2. No, I've always thought it was Putin.

I saw the "god-emperor" post and it immediately screamed "Russia" to me.

[AngryAmish]

43. The god Emperor stuff is pure Warhammer40k.

Not very Russian.

On edit:. I figured some pol type.

[BlancheSplanchnik]

75. What's warhammer40k?

I've never heard of that.

[AngryAmish]

76. A figure based table game

There is a lot of lore with it. Occupies same universe as Dune series. Sci-fi.

[JHB]

92. The video had a distinct east-Europe vibe, IIRC...

...so either from Europe or from American fascists who are taking up their counterparts' pet causes.

And "god emperor" has a lineage that goes way back before WH2K, so if there was something specifically aping the game's artwork and style, let us know.

[Corgigal]

3. Nope

We must piss them off the most. I'm sure they tried to troll us, they just weren't successful.
You would have thought they would have wanted to watch us on election night, but showing power was more important.

[Xipe Totec]

8. I'm not sure they were totally unsuccessful

There's been a lot of unproductive internal sniping for some time.

Petyr Baelish would be taking notes right now.

[Corgigal]

12. Yeah, true

Might have played up the Bernie bro topics. I personally didn't care, I would voted for a llama over Trump. Guess I'm not that pure, but being raised near NYC taught me all I needed to know about Trump.

[davekriss]

55. Ditto

[ms liberty]

25. This, totally this, including the Littlefinger reference. n/t

[tclambert]

51. Petyr Baelish (spoiler alert)

His face is now in Arya's satchel.

[emulatorloo]

53. Interesting n/t

[lunasun]

28. More like they didn't want us watching them and posting about any irregularity or returns early on

[jaysunb]

44. +1 n/t

[CentralMass]

56. +1

[Skittles]

5. I never thought that

[lastlib]

32. I never thought it either.

Too sophisticated and too brutally efficient. That was the work of professionals with deep resources. I would still pay WELL for information leading to their arrest and hanging by the gonadi.

[stopwastingmymoney]

58. That's exactly what I came here to say

[The Velveteen Ocelot]

6. Maybe a random 400-lb. Russian

working for a not-so-random 300-lb. orange fucknugget.

[ProudLib72]

7. Where was Christie at the time?

Just saying.

[Xipe Totec]

9. Trying to work his roku remote. nt

[ProudLib72]

11. Yeah, didn't think he had the skills to be a hacker nt

[Fozzledick]

13. Sitting on his bed in New Jersey?

[Cryptoad]

63. in his mother's basement!

[Ellipsis]

10. How much do YOU weigh?

[Xipe Totec]

15. Not enough to qualify as an internet meme. nt

[Ellipsis]

22. grin... well played.

[Xipe Totec]

29. Side note - I had a brother who was a hacker and he did weigh over 300 lbs

and he did live in my mother's house.

He died at age 30 of cardiac arrest.

As soon as the word was out that he had passed, his hacker buddies came to my mom's house and asked for permission to nuke his hard drives.

Don't know what he was into. Don't really want to know.



Edited to add

His IQ was measured once, and it was off the scale.

[Major Nikon]

37. All of us should strive to have such good friends

[Ellipsis]

39. I did live above this dude who was easily 400 lbs.

He sewed two 48 inch towels together for a bath towel. He drove an older pick up with a bench seat. It was the only thing he'd fit in. In short... He adapted to his weight. He was indeed on the computer 24 -7. I wonder.... Hmmmm.

[Hekate]

62. Sigh. Sometimes that stratospheric IQ lends itself to single-focus obsessiveness...

I guess he was lucky in his friends, as someone mentioned. Sorry he died so young.

DU lost Kephra at a young age, too, for the same reason. He was a beloved and valued member.

[davsand]

65. I miss Scott. I can't think about V for Vendetta and not think of him.

I still have a copy of that original comic he gave me to read.

He was an absolute sweetie, had a passion for news, loved his kitties, and he had a TERRIBLE Pepsi addiction... Deep vein thrombosis was what they finally ruled as the cause of death.

RIP, Kephra.




Laura

[lunasun]

26. Maybe ask Trump that. He started the idea

https://www.usatoday.com/story/tech/news/2016/09/27/tech-crowd-goes-wild-trumps-400-pound-hacker/91168144/

[Raster]

14. It was done by 4-chan contingent....

...it wasn't Russia. It was a cluster of malevolent 4-chan script kiddies.

[Xipe Totec]

19. You have some inside info you want to share?

[MineralMan]

70. There were people on 4-Chan at the time who were

posting stuff about the hack. I passed on a few of those posts to admins at the time. One, in particular, made it look very much like the poster was one of the culprits, but I didn't save any of that stuff.

Problem is that you can't identify the 4-Chan kiddies. So, there's no real way to tell who it really was.

[Raster]

89. the hack was extremely juvenile in its content, but well executed in its structure... script kiddies

I had been on 4-chan around that time and saw the same meme-bullshit, like "God Emperor," blatant geek reference to Dune. This wasn't Russia. This wasn't "oh let's keep the Dems at DU from discovering our hacking"... this was "in your face, you dem mofos."

There were also a few brief references on reddit that "the chans got DU good."

Russia had bigger and better things to occupy the bear brothers --"dancing bear," "fancy bear," etc.-- other than DU. As far as Putin and his hackers are concerned, we weren't that important.

[bettyellen]

84. But the Russians have been all over 4 Chan and Reddit for the longest time..

If they can be bothered with Linked In groups - and it appears they were, wouldn't surprise me if we were on their list too.

[unitedwethrive]

16. I thought it was Russia right away.

Taking away the communication ability of the most ardent Democrats was genius, on their part. There was no way for us to report irregularities at polling places or other problems such as mass purging of voter rolls.

[Honeycombe8]

17. I think it was the hackers who dumped to Wikipedia, and who fooled with election systems. Russia.

This was part of a broad plan for election night. You wouldn't think DU would be that important, but it is THE largest Democratic Party forum, and a source for informing Democrats about exit polls, turnout, irregularities in voting, etc.

So yeah, I think it was part of the plan to disrupt the opposition and ensure they couldn't call on Democrats to go vote at such and such, because the exit polls don't look good.

I am not prone to conspiracy theories at all. But I think it's logical to think it was the same people who had been doing all the other disruption leading up to the election. Remember that they focused on the internet, and had thousands of trolls to spew fake news and disrupt.

[denbot]

18. Never did.

From the gate I thought it was to suppress a possible response.

[BootinUp]

20. It was the Ruskies. Heh. Nt

[lunasun]

21. Only if it is some 400 lb hacker in Rmnicu Vlcea or the Altai region

If that intrusion broadcast was produced in the United States then that is actually even creepier it was so off and odd

[Dawson Leery]

23. Ruskie co-ordinated assault on the free world.

No accident that DU was hit.

[democratisphere]

24. No Comrade Xipe Totec. Not a Kremlin's chance in hell.

[Xipe Totec]

27. Chort! nt

[democratisphere]

33. Vpolne mozhet byt'.

[A HERETIC I AM]

30. I DON'T weigh 400 pounds

380, tops

[Xipe Totec]

31. We round to the nearest hecapound.

[A HERETIC I AM]

41. Good to know

Can we just use English Stone ?

[sharedvalues]

34. Negative.

[sharedvalues]

35. The question is what user data was obtained.

[MineralMan]

82. None that matter at this point, frankly.

Think back to when the site came back up. The admins are not going to discuss the exact nature of the hack and what access the hackers gained. They're not going to discuss the methodology of the exploit, either. Instead, they fixed the things that allowed that exploit to take place, made changes to prevent a future attack of the same nature, and then brought the site back online. We all had to log in anew.

I'm not going to speculate or discuss any of it any further. If the admins want to reveal any further information, I'm sure they will, but that's probably not going to happen. I suspect that DU will be much harder to attack in the future, though, based on the aftermath and precautions taken after it was launched again.

I do not know who hacked DU. I'm pretty sure I saw what I saw afterwards, but that provided no clues as to the actual hacker's identities. By association, though, they appear to be people who have hated DU for a very long time, and who found a way to penetrate it and disrupt it. There are many such people, I have no doubt. I can't think of any reason for any Russians to bother with DU, though, especially considering when the hack occurred.

I have my own suspicions, but not enough information to go any further. Clues and associations involved all seem to lead in one direction, but the trail grows cold before more can be determined. DU is back, is probably far more secure, and we're all back discussing stuff as usual. It doesn't appear that any personal information was compromised, since there's been no evidence of anyone using such information in any way.

Speculation about this from any perspective outside of the administration of DU is probably worthless, since none of us know exactly what happened and how. Some people have guesses about those responsible, I'm sure. The admins probably have guesses about that as well. Theirs are probably better informed than mine and those of others. However, the trail is almost certainly a dead end before reaching the actual culprits.

So, back to DU and its normal, or abnormal activity. The rest doesn't really matter all that much. It's just a political discussion forum. It has friends and enemies. There are probably people looking for new ways to attack DU. In the meantime, we can just carry on as always.

[defacto7]

36. No..

but it shows you how much this site is worth to "someone" in an election.

[Xipe Totec]

38. No reason to believe they won't try again in 2018. nt

[MineralMan]

85. They're probably always trying, frankly.

It's a lot of people who don't like DU and DUers. Some of them have screen names here and some have multiple screen names here. I'm pretty sure I know some of those screen names, but that doesn't really matter. There are folks out there who would like to see DU disappear, just as there are people who would like to see some right-wing sites disappear. There are people who are always fiddling around, trying to do something to cause that to happen.

It's the Internet. People take great pleasure in trying to screw with internet sites they don't like. There are websites that have no other function but to attack other websites, and I don't just mean DU. I know of websites that exist only to attack a website that discusses boats and boating. It's part of the Internet.

Every discussion forum on the Internet has websites created by people who have been banned from that forum. And those websites have websites that hate those websites. Disgruntled people do stupid shit. Here's a YouTube video I created on that subject:

A lot of people thought that was about DU and it's enemy sites. It's not. It's about all discussion forums.

[kimbutgar]

40. Malcolm Nance the ex CIA/navy guy mentioned Du on Stephanie Miller show today

Whoever did it knew they would cripple the most enlightened readers. It was cruel and coordinated. Could have been Russian or Reich wing hackers.

[mountain grammy]

46. I heard that too.

and I agree.

[ecstatic]

45. It was only fitting that they did that after 8 YEARS of trolling and dividing us right here

on this site. They attacked from within, then tried to destroy the evidence. I'm not sure how many people actually bought their bullshit (vs trolls pretending to buy the bullshit). It pisses me off all over again to think about all the threads that bashed Pres. Obama while fawning over racist assholes like Snowden & Greenwald. Actual democrats and supporters of the president were made to feel unwelcome. smh.

[mountain grammy]

50. I honestly don't see that being so prevalent here.

It's here, of course, and the defense of Snowden and Greenwald drove me nuts, but I learned to ignore it. As far as bashing President Obama, yes, there was some, and some honest criticism as well. I often saw Obama as more conservative than me, and sometimes disagreed, but if I ever "bashed" him or tried to make "actual democrats and supporters of the president" feel unwelcomed, I am honestly sorry.
I'm certainly not the brightest around here, but I think this is an excellent discussion forum. On political issues, I believe we are far more accurate and truthful than anyplace else I've visited, so this is where I mostly live. The blackout was a very bad week for me. Even with the election, I think if DU was up and running, I wouldn't have needed the xanax.

[Hekate]

66. I and many others spent the entire 8 years hiding in the BOG. Other sites were started...

...for those who were alert-swarmed or just couldn't take it any more. Some people left and never came back.

That's how bad it got. It was absolutely vile on many days. Calling the best prez of my 70-year lifetime a POSUCS was in some ways the culmination, but not the end.

We have to do better in the future.

[kimbutgar]

52. Agreed

Totally tired of the Hillary vs Bernie bs still going on. We need to come together as a United front. Election over 10 months ago. Get over it. Let's move on. Concentrate on kicking every rethug out in 2018.

[customerserviceguy]

47. We'll never catch him now

He's slimmed down to 390 pounds, and has moved out of his mother's basement.

[elmac]

48. The same hackers

that will shut our electric, communications, internet and energy infrastructure down when WWIII breaks out. Yes, I believe they can do this and will.

[byronius]

49. That video was painfully Stupid Russian.

I mean, full-on Idiot Russky. I could immediately see how they connect so well with Idiot Americans.

[LeftInTX]

54. Still do...

I don't know about the 400 lb and don't feel it was random.

It was someone who didn't want to see us celebrate Clinton's win.

I think it was 4Chan.

[shanny]

57. I don't think we are that important.

I think a random hacker is far more likely than Russians.

I mean seriously, what kind of a threat are we? We can't even focus on a common enemy.

[Rob H.]

67. I don't, either

People seem to think this is the nexus point of the Democratic universe, but I don't know a single person irl who's even heard of it.

[LanternWaste]

78. A top rated news aggregate site with 3.2 million visits per month

"I mean seriously, what kind of a threat are we?"

A top rated news aggregate site with 3.2 million visits per month, which shares both information and relevant experiences during election cycles.

By itself, its system failure was an aberration. Take into account the other news aggregate sites also taken down on election night, it appears some organization believes DU and other sites to be more trouble than it should be.



"We can't even focus on a common enemy."
Irrelevant at best. More accurately, simply absurd.

[shanny]

90. More trouble than it should be

In what way? Talking to each other? Mobilizing to "DU polls?"

Absurd on its face is right

[bettyellen]

86. I thought that too, until I read that article about them trolling Linked In groups-

Political and intelligence professionals forums. I think it was Newsweek that reported it/ trolling and trying to get people who we're suspicious of Russia kicked out of forums. Quite bizarre.

[C Moon]

59. I knew right away it was hacked to help Trump. The timing was just too convenient.

And I don't know who else was watching FiveThirtyEight, but that was what I was left with.
They were scrambling around like mad to understand why all their easy predictions for Clinton, were falling to Trump. One, by one, by one, by one.

[Hekate]

60. Nope. We have enemies -- I just didn't think we had foreign enemies...

...that would make an example of us.

[Warpy]

61. Nope. That video was right out of Putin's troll factories.

Apparently they consider this little backwater in the vast ocean of the internet a threat.

[littlemissmartypants]

64. Kick. ♡

More likely 3 seventy pound North Koreans paid by Putin.

[Henry Krinkle]

68. It wasn't the damn Rooskies

I'd love to know where people get the notion that this site is that huge, well known and
influential that it would attract the attention of Putin and his associates.

Why would they even take the time to hack DU when there's little to no benefit in doing so?
And if they had desired to take DU down, they wouldn't have done it in such a trollish, cartoonish manner...
they never would have done something as insignificant and amateurish as vandalizing a single
web forum. Recall that just a few weeks before the election there was a major botnet attack on the
east and west coast that shut down major social media sites for hours?

Hacked home devices caused massive Internet outage
SAN FRANCISCO — Eleven hours after a massive online attack that blocked access to many popular websites, the company under assault has finally restored its service.

Dyn, a New Hampshire-based company that monitors and routes Internet traffic, was the victim of a massive attack that began at 7:10 a.m. ET Friday morning. The issue kept some users on the East Coast from accessing Twitter, Spotify, Netflix, Amazon, Tumblr, Reddit, PayPal and other sites.

At 6:17 p.m. ET Friday, Dyn updated its website to say it had resolved the large-scale distributed denial of service attack (DDoS) and service had been restored.

DDoS attacks flood servers with so many fake requests for information that they cannot respond to real ones, often crashing under the barrage. It's unclear who orchestrated the attack.

https://www.usatoday.com/story/tech/2016/10/21/cyber-attack-takes-down-east-coast-netflix-spotify-twitter/92507806/

Seriously, if the Russians wanted to disrupt communications and dialogue at a critical time, which would seem more
effective and likely to you... taking down one little known website, or taking down the heavy hitters?

Here's the 'hacked' version...

Here's the original unedited version...

The original video was created by a group of right wingers that goes by the name 'Murdoch Murdoch'.
The song used is 'Take Back The night' by the Protomen.

As you can see, all thier stuff is done in the same animated style (kind of reminds me of
the old 'Clutch Cargo' cartoons with the creepy looking moving mouth and lips thing)

https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=Murdoch+Murdoch

They all also have the same Alt-Right, White Supremacist theme (at least the ones I watched do).

Murdoch Murdoch is also closely associated with the Alt-Right, White Supremacists and 4Chan /pol/
(probably 8Chan as well). Just about all their work relies heavily on popular themes and memes
commonly found on the Chan groups.

(Warning... some of the crap posted here might be deemed offensive)

http://en.rightpedia.info/w/Murdoch_Murdoch
http://www.departmentofmemes.com/article/youtube-deletes-murdoch-murdoch-channel-latest-alt-right-crackdown

I have no proof or evidence that either 'Murdoch Murdoch' or 4Chan had any direct involvement in the hack, or
any prior knowledge of it. Usually when 4Chan /pol/ is up to no good, and pull off a successful stunt, they waste
no time pounding their chests and proudly take credit for it. To the best of my knowledge, no such claims were made.

The most likely scenario I can think of is that the hack is the work of one-three individuals with strong ties to
the Alt-Right who used the 'Murdoch Murdoch' video (along with their hacking skills), to take down DU.

Given all that, who do you think are the most likely culprits behind the attack?

[Xipe Totec]

69. Why would they even take the time to hack DU when there's little to no benefit in doing so?

WTF are you doing here then, if there's no benefit?

Important enough for you to take the time to post your wall of words.

[MineralMan]

71. LULZ. That's why.

[Henry Krinkle]

74. Yep, that pretty much covers it.

Which is one reason I don't think there was any Russian involvement; they're not known
for their sense of humor

[Proud Liberal Dem]

72. In their mother's basement (or elsewhere)?

[MineralMan]

73. There was cross-chatter on 4-Chan and some gun sites immediately

after and before. I remember digging around and seeing posts that indicated that they were from the hackers. I passed some of those along to admins, including one about a precursor incursion into DU.

I didn't save any of that stuff, because there's no way to ID the culprits, really. But, it was definitely right wing gunhead hackers on 4-Chan and a couple of off-the-wall gun sites.

Lots of 4-Chan folks are also active on other sites. I don't think it was the Russians at all. I think it was for the LULZ, actually, along with the fun of taking down a liberal discussion site.

After a couple of hours, though, I shut down and stopped messing with it.

[Henry Krinkle]

77. From the screenshot of the edited video

I don't think this person had anything to do with the hack, he just happened to capture a live
stream before the site was taken offline, and he posted it for the LULZ.


1st tab: https://www.ar15.com/forums/general/At-the-bar-already/5-1928790/?

2nd tab: https://www.ar15.com

3'rd tab: https://www.democraticunderground.com

4th tab: https://www.google.com

5th tab: https://www.chase.com/

6th tab: https://stackoverflow.com

7th tab: 'Assange Denies' (looks like CNN)

8th tab: https://www.americanrifleman.org

9th tab: https://www.google.com

10th tab: http://www.armslist.com/classifieds/kentucky

1tth tab: https://www.ringcentral.com

[MineralMan]

80. As I said, I passed along some specific links and posts.

None of them are any of those links you posted. In fact, nothing much at all is in those links you posted. It's a long time since November.

Again, after I sent links to admins, I shut down and didn't pursue things any further. I did, however, catch someone talking about a precursor to the hack that shut down DU, and that was actually a significant find, since it had to do with how they got the kind of access they had. More, I won't disclose, nor did I disclose it then, except to the admins.

The exploit was significant, but I don't know how it worked exactly. The result, however, demonstrated its effectiveness.

At this point, the DU admins have taken care of the method used and patched DU up to prevent that exploit from ever being used again.

I do not know who did it or who they represented, if anyone. However, it seemed more like people from places that have long held DU in contempt, rather than anyone who thought DU had any particular influence on the election. The date of the hack was effective in hitting DU at its busiest, though, which is probably the reason for it happening on Election Day.

More than that I do not know, and I never followed up any further, since I was busy with a work contract at the time.

[Henry Krinkle]

81. True, but I find it interesting that you mentioned "cross-chatter on 4-Chan and some gun sites"

and that person is showing 4 browser tabs pointing to firearms related websites.
There's also the link for Stackoverflow.com which has me curious.

Again, I don't think this person was involved, but they may have stumbled across the same info
leading up to the hack that you did.

[MineralMan]

83. I have no idea, and could make no sense of your links.

I'm not actively interested in that Election night hack anymore. DU is back. I'm back on DU. That's all that matters to me. While DU was down, I went elsewhere. When DU is up, I'm here exclusively.

I did some sleuthing that day and the next day. What I found, I passed along. If it was useful, that's great, but I've long since cleared my history, which I do fairly frequently, and most of that stuff is probably no longer accessible anyhow. I like DU. It's always open in a tab on my PC. I'm active here. But, when DU isn't available, I do other things. In fact, I do other things all the time. DU is a fun place to discuss politics, but I don't actually know anybody here, nor do they actually know me, although many know my name and where I'm located. It's just a discussion forum.

It doesn't matter. That's the bottom line. DU is a great political discussion site. But that's all it is. It was down. It's back. While it was down, that didn't matter, in the larger scheme of things. Now it's back up, which also doesn't matter in the grand scheme of things. It's a gathering place for a motley group of political geeks. That's all.

[Madam45for2923]

87. Interesting. MM there was also another hack here more recently. What do you think about that one?

[MineralMan]

88. I don't know. I didn't do any searching on that one.

I was busy with work.

I suspect it was an offshoot of the earlier one, but I don't know. More patches. There are always patches that are needed. Every Internet website is vulnerable to some degree.

[lunatica]

79. I didn't buy that as soon as I couldn't get on DU

Way too coincidental.

[scarletlib]

91. Yes.