I'm gonna crib 100% from the structure of this blog post by Ben Patterson (which was, itself, cribbed from this CNet News story by Elinor Mils).
New and disturbing details about Thursday's worldwide Twitter outage attacks on democratic town halls point to a single, coordinated attack targeting just one person: an outspoken Georgian blogger who goes by the handle "Cyxymu." the very fundamentals of American democracy. Also affected: millions of other Twitter users. patriotic Americans who actually believe in a robust public discourse.
According to CNET News.com, which got its information from a Facebook security executive, live video, it appears that Cyxymu's Twitter, Facebook, LiveJournal, and Blogger accounts the townhall meetings were attacked simultaneously in a massive denial-of-service democracy attack. Facebook, LiveJournal and Blogger Health care reform proponents were able to ward off the attack for the most part, but the assault brought Twitter common decency to its knees for much of Thursday.
The culprits still haven't been identified, CNET reported their faces captured on video, although an and Internet traffic experts inexplicably un-quoted by the New York Times said the attack came from Abkhazia Wingnuttia, a territory along the eastern coast of the Black Sea that exists only in the fevered brains of conservatives that's in dispute between Russia reality and the Republic of Georgia its own made-up, Leave it to Beaver fantasy world.
And why was were Cyxymu—a pro-Georgian blogger these townhalls who "has long been viewed as an antagonist by some Russian supporters," according to The Register—targeted? "To keep his other voices from being heard," the Facebook exec told CNET. said bloggers, repeatedly.
Here's what I find so chilling about yesterday's Twitter townhall attacks: that these guys, whoever they are, apparently thought nothing of taking down an entire communications network social order because they didn't like what one person was other people were saying.
Imagine if someone didn't like what you were saying, and decided to shut you up by nuking your ISP, or your wireless carrier. Or heck, the entire phone system. All for you. Because they would if they could.
America Personally, I can't survive a morning without telling my legion of followers (all couple hundred of them) that I could really, really use a cup of coffee right now. (Although I know you're all dying to hear about that, right?) democratic participation, where all voices are heard.
I'm far more disturbed by (as the Facebook exec told CNET) "the disregard for the rest of the users and the Internet" country displayed by these brazen thugs and their crude, indiscriminant attacks.