We're Back. But Please Read.

combo deal (0.00 / 0)

the folks at soapblox got us back up and running at the same time I had the redirect to ydoodler in place.

real thanks I think to soapblox folks.

Hope > Fear




Create a free Blue Hampshire account and join the conversation.

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by: Mike Hoefer @ Wed Jan 07, 2009 at 12:31:43 PM CST

Great job, whoever dunnit. (4.00 / 4)

What I e-mailed you both still stands. Whatever we can do to harden this resource needs doing, it's too valuable to lose.

Republicans believe government is bad - then they get into office and prove it.

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by: GreyMike @ Wed Jan 07, 2009 at 12:50:54 PM CST

Count me in n/t (4.00 / 2)

Whack-a-mole, anyone?

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by: Jack Mitchell @ Wed Jan 07, 2009 at 13:06:26 PM CST

[ Parent ]

Me too (0.00 / 0)

Even financially, if it's not too much.

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by: JimC @ Wed Jan 07, 2009 at 13:57:33 PM CST

[ Parent ]

Personally I suspect (4.00 / 1)

ErrinF.

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by: elwood @ Wed Jan 07, 2009 at 13:21:40 PM CST

elucidate professor (0.00 / 0)

do you know who hacked whom  ?

for transparency sake ~I represent Union print shops

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by: JonnyBBad @ Wed Jan 07, 2009 at 13:46:20 PM CST

[ Parent ]

Inside joke - (0.00 / 0)

Maybe 18 months ago there was a troll on DailyKos named ErrinF who posted a diary titled DELETE MY $%#@ING ACCOUNT KOS!! (Expletive not deleted in the original.)

DailyKos will close user accounts but does not delete previously posted diaries and comments - partly because that would also delete postings from other people.

ErrinF was banned, but kept creating new user IDs and posting the same demand in diary titles.

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by: elwood @ Wed Jan 07, 2009 at 14:09:05 PM CST

[ Parent ]

I wonder if one measure (4.00 / 1)

might be to purchase a copy of Offline Explorer and crawl the site, exporting pages as a static HTML site.

I'm mostly worries that the immense amount on knowledge here will disappear. An crawl archive wouldn't reduce hacking but might reduce the cost?

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by: Mike Caulfield @ Wed Jan 07, 2009 at 13:54:09 PM CST

This is a very good idea. (4.00 / 3)

The rub is, soapblox is a great software platform for the money - but the data hosting is with them, so unless they come up with a better plan we're kinda stuck if we want to keep using the scoop system.

I'm worried about the hacking far less than losing the knowledge base here.  It's easy enough to restart this community in any number of platforms.  But losing the two years of what we've done would not be cool.

btw, our little misadventure ended up in politico.  I agree with both assertions in this statement:

The attack is a reminder of how little redundancy there is in big portions of the rapidly-expanding Internet, and how fragile the systems that manage content can be.

birch, finch, beech

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by: Dean Barker @ Wed Jan 07, 2009 at 14:11:19 PM CST

[ Parent ]

I would be happy to contribute to this (0.00 / 0)

it's only 50 bucks for a single licensed copy, good cheap insurance, IMO.

Republicans believe government is bad - then they get into office and prove it.

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by: GreyMike @ Wed Jan 07, 2009 at 15:17:02 PM CST

[ Parent ]

I think it was Stoller (4.00 / 2)

"If I can't blog, no one can!"

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by: JimC @ Wed Jan 07, 2009 at 13:57:06 PM CST

But Open Left was one of the ones (4.00 / 2)

not affected.  Or is that more suspicious? :-)

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by: Laura Clawson @ Wed Jan 07, 2009 at 15:52:55 PM CST

[ Parent ]

Could be! (0.00 / 0)

But seriously, I think the hacker (my current guess is a wayward teen) just went down the blog roll on the main SoapBlox page. That would explain why Blue News Tribune was spared (it's not listed). I think he just got lazy and inconsistent after the Bs. Red Mass Group, for example, did not go down.

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by: JimC @ Wed Jan 07, 2009 at 16:01:47 PM CST

[ Parent ]

New System (0.00 / 0)

Are you guys thinking of switching to a more secure blogging service?

Something that can actively prevent hackers and has the capability to respond to attacks?

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by: sdoyle @ Wed Jan 07, 2009 at 14:05:54 PM CST

This exists? (0.00 / 0)

"Something that can actively prevent hackers and has the capability to respond to attacks?"

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by: Alex Gallichon @ Wed Jan 07, 2009 at 14:45:22 PM CST

[ Parent ]

2:14 a.m. (4.00 / 1)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v...

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by: JimC @ Wed Jan 07, 2009 at 15:28:33 PM CST

[ Parent ]

We'll Be Ok (0.00 / 0)

I have faith that the team will figure it out.  

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by: Andrew Sylvia @ Wed Jan 07, 2009 at 14:28:50 PM CST

New BNT Slogan (4.00 / 1)

"We never went down in the Blogout of '09."

(Pronounced aught nine, of course.)

Or maybe --

"Blue News Tribune: Just above the high-blog mark during the Great Silence of 2009"

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by: JimC @ Wed Jan 07, 2009 at 14:42:13 PM CST

Considering that SoapBlox is a provider for many liberal blogs, (0.00 / 0)

Why is this getting little to no media coverage?  It's very plausible that this was a deliberate attempt to deal a major blow to the progressive netroots community.

--
Hope 2012

@DougLindner

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by: Douglas E. Lindner @ Wed Jan 07, 2009 at 15:15:40 PM CST

It's starting to n/t (0.00 / 0)

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by: JimC @ Wed Jan 07, 2009 at 15:23:01 PM CST

[ Parent ]

Because The Media Doesn't Generally Care About Blogs (0.00 / 0)

Anybody can make a blog. All the soapblox blogs combined probably get a fraction of what CNN gets in traffic.

The "Blogosphere" as a whole is important to them only as something to fill up some time in the news cycle to see what the hoi polloi is thinking.

They don't care if it's broken, because if it is, something else will just replace it in their eyes.  

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by: Andrew Sylvia @ Wed Jan 07, 2009 at 15:23:56 PM CST

[ Parent ]

It has been picked up a little (4.00 / 1)

if you google soapblox in google news. But the usual suspects are behind the the curve on the story, um, as usual. Wouldn't hurt to message a few msm sources with tips, and it also wouldn't hurt for the injured parties (as in the folks that pay for/operate the service) to report it to the Feds, FWIW.

Republicans believe government is bad - then they get into office and prove it.

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by: GreyMike @ Wed Jan 07, 2009 at 15:24:36 PM CST

[ Parent ]

One more thought, (0.00 / 0)

since the WSJ ran the original "big story" on BH complete with those artful mug shots, they would have a legit reason for a followup. Just sayin'.

Republicans believe government is bad - then they get into office and prove it.

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by: GreyMike @ Wed Jan 07, 2009 at 15:26:47 PM CST

[ Parent ]

MB is on it (0.00 / 0)

Nothing new here for most of us.

http://www.mediabistro.com/fis...

It's sort of a fascinating story. I'd cover it, but I'm biased. However, it will be blogged ad infinitum, and other hacks (say, an online banking site) really don't get covered, because the corporate victims don't want them covered. So should a newspaper write about it? I could see it either way. Following the same logic, we want coverage, so we're likely to get it.

It hardly needs to be said that that is screwy logic.

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by: JimC @ Wed Jan 07, 2009 at 15:49:20 PM CST

[ Parent ]

I actually just talked to a reporter (0.00 / 0)

about it.  Don't know if anything will come of that one, but there was some interest.

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by: Laura Clawson @ Wed Jan 07, 2009 at 15:53:35 PM CST

[ Parent ]

Ditto. (0.00 / 0)

He said he had just talked to you :-)

birch, finch, beech

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by: Dean Barker @ Wed Jan 07, 2009 at 16:22:08 PM CST

[ Parent ]

I'm Really Glad I'm Wrong (0.00 / 0)

I guess i'm glad i've become more cynical over the past few months: that way, your results are always higher than your expectations. :-)

I still doubt that the big shot media moguls will care, but i'm psyched that you're getting some notice on this, as well as that it's fixed (apparently). If the big wigs do care though, that's awesome nonetheless.  

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by: Andrew Sylvia @ Wed Jan 07, 2009 at 17:10:35 PM CST

[ Parent ]

Hope that's someone with high readership (0.00 / 0)

I just searched for soapblox/"soap blox" in my Google Reader feed, and it came up empty.  And I'm one of those people who has an overwhelming number of RSS feeds such that it's impossible to read even a decent fraction of what comes in.

--
Hope 2012

@DougLindner

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by: Douglas E. Lindner @ Wed Jan 07, 2009 at 17:45:06 PM CST

[ Parent ]

Definition of "High" (0.00 / 0)

(paging Stu Cooper)

Doug, to diverge the topic here, what's the threshold of "high" in "high readership" to you?

That's another topic in itself, what media outlets are have "significant" readerships/viewerships and where the line is.

For me, if it's big enough for the Daily Show to make fun of it, it's significant. If Dailykos or the Huffington Post or the Drudge Report went down today, that might have been broadly newsworthy.

I hate to think that way, because I enjoy reading BH, but in comparison to that level, BH is still small. Indeed, that size is why there's a sense of community here.  

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by: Andrew Sylvia @ Thu Jan 08, 2009 at 01:03:24 AM CST

[ Parent ]

Wow (4.00 / 1)

Thank you for the kind words, Dean, but my slumber party pales in comparison to Skip's offer. That is quite something.

I don't think I would have done that.

But now, I will. Here's hoping we never have to, and vice versa.

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by: JimC @ Wed Jan 07, 2009 at 18:30:09 PM CST