---------- Forwarded message ---------- Date: Fri, 1 Feb 2002 00:33:22 -0500 Subject: Fw: Econ Forum Site Goes Down
----- Original Message ----- From: "ricardo dominguez" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Sent: Thursday, January 31, 2002 6:17 PM Subject: Econ Forum Site Goes Down > Econ Forum Site Goes Down > By Noah Shachtman > > 1:35 p.m. Jan. 31, 2002 PST > > NEW YORK -- The website of the World Economic Forum crashed > from an apparent denial-of-service attack Thursday, just as the collection > of business and corporate leaders began its meeting here. Internet > demonstrators may have been the cause of the collapse. > > Encouraged by the Electronic Disturbance Theater (EDT), RTMark, > Federation of Random Action, and other groups, online activists have > been downloading software tools that continuously reload the websites > of the World Economic Forum (WEF) and of a few of its corporate members. > > The protest --� called a "virtual sit-in" by organizers -- began Thursday > morning to coincide with the start of the WEF's meeting. > > By 10 a.m., the WEF website was offline. EDT co-founder > Ricardo Dominguez is not yet taking credit for the shutdown. > > "EDT does not know if this sit-in against the WEF is the reason for the site > going > offline. (We) don't even have the numbers of online protesters right now," > he said > in an e-mail. Those numbers would be available by midnight, Dominguez added. > > WEF spokesman Charles McClain confirmed that the group's "site is down. > We don't know when it'll be back up," he said. "We're getting hits like > we've > never had before." > > "We've been putting up the plenary sessions on the site, and that usually > brings high traffic," McClain continued. "But whether it's because of that, > or because someone hacked the site or crashed the site, we don't know yet." > > Electronic Disturbance Theater has been spearheading these sit-ins for > several years now, including ones against the President of Mexico and the > Pentagon. > But the group "has never attempted or wanted a site to go off-line. Our > actions > are not about technological force, they are about symbolic mass presence. > The > unbearable weight of human beings online disturbing the movement of virtual > power." > > Other websites targeted by the current sit-in, including those of > Goldman Sachs and Investcorp, are still up and running. > > > http://www.wired.com/news/politics/0,1283,50159,00.html > >
