I’m a firm believer that the right and left are under attack by the right and left hackers in the blogosphere. As the days go by, people “I don’t give a damn” tanks are filled higher with sludge. And they spray it all over the place. Depressing.

This is very true. The better the hacker, the less likelihood you will ever know.

I remember watching in fascination one weekend someone probing every single port with grim persistence. I traced it back to a college in Santa Cruz…and sent the college’s tech support a nasty email about how their systems were being owned. Of course, it did not originate there.

I hope Joe writes more about this issue…for I imagine these attacks are likely not script kiddies or much less serious hacker crews.

These are probably targeted suppressions of political speech. A disturbing phenomenon.

This is a VERY important issue, and I hope Joe expands on this further. As the blogosphere is central to political speech these days, this is a CRITICAL issue.

I find this story particularly interesting given my interest (cough, cough) in hacking in years gone by. Streetcreds in the scene are gained from successful high-profile hacks…and most hackers don’t know or care about political blogs.

Thus, I presume these aren’t your usual hackers, but are politically motivated people with some computer skills and an axe to grind.

Thus, if hosts tighten security, it will probably be effective against this lot. Real hackers would be more of a problem. I remember one back in the day who made a major institutional database, probably a bank, somewhere in Texas his personal bitch. He stored massive piles of cracked warez there, and occasionally opened access to others for brief spans of time…the download speeds from that institution were dazzling…while at the same time masking the identity of his storage provider. Impressive.

Not much a host can do against someone like that. But hackers are a mostly apolitical crew, vaguely resenting all authority. These attacks are people with an axe to grind, I would expect.

Here’s a brief outtake:

Because it’s easy for hackers to disguise where an attack originates, Brenner said, the best course of action is to tighten up one’s own networks rather than to place blame.

The nation’s electronic systems are too easy to hack, and the number of world-class hackers is “multiplying at bewildering speed,” he said at a symposium on cyber security Friday.

Perhaps if Blackwater is banned from Iraq its personnel could be put to good use tracking down malicious hackers and spammers. I’m sure the BW people could get these high-tech lowlifes to see finding a new pastime or line of work as a survival tactic.

When Oh!pinion was hacked in July, I had to cough up $30 to my ISP for a restore. I might undertake a backup, but the way these things are set up, that’s very hard to do. My ISP will do it at his end, for a fee.

Given the risk and an ISP client’s limited ability to protect his/herself on someone else’s server, ISP’s should do more to keep the vermin out. Protective technology needs work, too.

Same goes for blocking comment spam, BTW.