Have you ever heard of the "slashdot effect"? There's a web site at
a discussion board devoted to "stuff that matters / news for nerds", that is to say, things of interest to Linux users and the like, which generates a terrific lot of traffic whenever they post a new article with a link to an outside site. slashdot is famous for inadvertently generating an ad hoc DoS attack against any site to which they refer. An ordinary hacker's DoS attack involves a lot of fake traffic; in contrast, a "slashdot effect" DoS attack comes from hundreds of legitimate readers simultaneously trying to access the victim site within minutes after the link is posted on slashdot.
Well, sometime last week - it could have been Tuesday - slashdot published an article about "Read Einstein's FBI files" which had a link to an official FBI web page at
that lists the most popular of the Freedom of Information Act files available for download. In fact I can remember some posts on slashdot under that article to the effect that "yeah, I can't get to those files, all I get is an error message, looks like the slashdot effect took another server down!" The FOIA archives are Acrobat .PDF files, great big files and lots of them. So I wonder if the server-benumbing effect of a few hundred slashdotters each simultaneously grabbing multi-megabyte files over their wide-bandwidth connections might have convinced the FBI webmasters that they were the target of some hacker's malicious DoS raid.
If you've got some time to waste, go check that FOIA web page out! Maybe if the entire subscription to lbo-talk nails their server at once, they'll think there's another DoS going down. Then they'll panic down at FBI headquarters, that's a lot of fun just to think about. Here's the index:
Alcatraz Escape 6/3/98 American Friends Service Committee 1/28/00 American POWs/MIAs in Southeast Asia 2/25/00 Animal/Cattle Mutilation 1/12/98 Atlanta Child Murders 7/30/99 Baby Face Nelson 6/3/98 Baker, Josephine 12/17/99 Ball, Lucille 1/12/98 Barbie, Klaus 7/24/97 Barker-Karpis Gang (summary) 7/30/99 Black, Hugo 2/25/00 Black Legion 7/30/99 Black Panther Party-Winston Salem, NC 12/17/99 Blunt, Anthony 12/17/99 Bonnie and Clyde (summary) 6/3/98 Booth, John Wilkes 6/3/98 Bowtie (Profumo Matter) 9/30/99 Brecht, Bertolt 9/30/99 Burgess, McLean and Philby 7/9/99 Capone, Al 2/25/00 Chavez, Cesar and United Farm Workers 7/9/99 Clergy and Laity Concerned about Vietnam 8/31/99 Custodial Detention 7/30/99 Darrow, Clarence 10/29/99 Dies, Martin 1/28/00 Dillinger, John (Summary) 1/12/98 Donovan, William J. 8/31/99 DuBois, W. E. B. 8/31/99 Earhart, Amelia 7/24/97 Einstein, Albert 1/28/00 Fard, Wallace D 6/3/98 Faulkner, William 1/28/00 Five Percenters 12/17/99 Flynn, Errol 6/3/98 Ford, Henry 12/17/99 Freedom of Information-Privacy Acts Annual Statistical Report 12/17/99 Freedom of Information-Privacy Acts Reference Manual 1/28/00 Gambino, Carlo 7/30/99 Gay Activists Alliance 12/17/99 Giancana, Sam 9/30/99 Hammer, Armand/Occidental Petroleum 9/30/99 Hanfstangl, Ernst Franz Sedwick (Putzi) 2/25/00 Highlander Folk School 11/30/99 The Hindenburg Disaster 6/3/98 Hitler, Adolph 6/3/98 Hoffman, Abbie (Abbott) 2/25/00 Hoover, J. Edgar 9/30/99 Interpol 10/29/99 Jonestown Summary 7/30/99 Kennedy, Joseph P. 11/30/99 Kennedy, Robert F. 8/31/99 Kennedy, Robert F. Assassination (Summary) 8/31/99 Kent State University 12/17/99 King, Martin Luther, Jr. 11/30/99 Krivitsky, Walter G. 11/30/99 Lattimore, Owen 10/29/99 Lennon, John 6/3/98 Levison, Stanley 10/29/99 Lewis, John L. 11/30/99 Lindbergh, Charles 11/30/99 Little, Malcolm X 11/30/99 Liuzzo, Viola Murder 11/30/99 London, Jack 1/28/00 Long, Huey 11/30/99 Majestic 12 1/12/98 Mann, Thomas 2/25/00 Mantle, Mickey 6/3/98 Marcantonio, Vito 1/28/00 Marshall, Thurgood 6/3/98 McCarthy, Joseph 1/28/00 Miami, Florida, 4/11/86 Shooting Incident 12/17/99 Miburn (Mississippi Burning) 6/3/98 Monroe, Marilyn 1/12/98 Moorish Science Temple of America 2/25/00 Muhammad, Elijah 10/29/99 Nathan Silvermaster Group 2/25/00 National Alliance 12/17/99 Ness, Eliot 6/3/98 Nureyev, Rudolph 7/9/99 Onassis, Aristotle 1/28/00 Onassis, Jacqueline Kennedy 1/28/00 Orwell, George 1/28/00 Osage Indian Murders 11/30/99 Parsons, John 12/17/99 Picasso, Pablo 6/3/98 Presley, Elvis 7/24/97 Pretty Boy Floyd and Kansas Massacre (Summary) 8/31/99 Project Blue Book 7/24/97 Purvis, Melvin 10/29/99 Reich, Wilhelm 2/25/00 Rockefeller, Nelson 2/25/00 Robeson, Paul and Eslanda 6/3/98 Robinson, Jackie 7/24/97 Rogers, Will 6/3/98 Rosenberg, Julius and Ethel (Summary) 1/12/98 Roswell 1/12/98 Rudolph, Arthur 12/17/99 Rukeyser, Muriel 2/25/00 Sacco/Vanzetti Case 11/30/99 St. Valentine's Day Massacre 1/12/98 Siegel, Bugsy 1/28/00 Sinatra, Frank 2/3/99 Smith, Clarence 13X 7/24/97 Spellman, Francis Cardinal 6/3/98 Steinbeck, John 9/30/99 Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee 2/25/00 Supreme Court 1/28/00 Surreptitious Entries 12/17/99 Tesla, Nikola 6/3/98 Tokyo Rose (Iva Ikako Toguri D'Aquino) 11/30/99 Tolson, Clyde 1/28/00 Tresca, Carlo 2/25/00 Trotsky, Leon 6/3/98 Unidentified Flying Objects 1/12/98 Venona 2/3/99 Von Braun, Wernher 7/30/99 Wayne, John 1/12/98 Weatherman Underground 2/3/99 Wilkins, Roy 1/28/00 Winchell, Walter 7/30/99 Windsor, Duke and Duchess 1/12/98 Wright, Richard Nathaniel 12/17/99
"What?!" I hear you all saying, "you mean Henwood's not on the list?" Yes, it scarcely seems possible; clearly somebody high up is covering up something, I smell a conspiracy.
Yours WDK - WKiernan at concentric.net