Internet Scriptkiddies killed Encyclopedia Astronautica

[Fabri91]

Don't know how the author(s) of the attack could possibly justify themselves...personally I only went on astronautix two or three times, but even so it was possible to appreciate what a great repository of information the website was. Really hope it will be put up again in the future.

 

[FADEC]

5-10 years for being one of dozens, hundreds, or thousands of computers spewing traffic at a server and, gasp, taking it down for a few hours?

Are you completely and totally insane?

I don't think so. In Germany one already can get either 3 years of prison sentence or penalty charge for something like this. And with good reason. Because it is not a peccadillo. It is a serious threat not only for private sites. I bet a lot of those people would even be willing to do more, in the real world as well (radical left-wing and other subcultures).

 

[N_Molson]

Well, if the intent is really to ask for money under threat, it's racket, and then punishable by a jail sentence.

Is there anyway we could send a collective petition to Mark Wade to support him and encourage him to pursue his great endeavor ?

 

[RisingFury]

Anonymous and all the other script kiddie groups are just full of 12 year old social rejects who are teased at school and think that their online activities make them "cool".

I doubt Anonymous was behind this... not exactly their MO.

(radical left-wing and other subcultures).

Yea, that explains everything.

 

[krashkart]

Well bummer. Only found the site a couple of months ago and was nearly overwhelmed by the volume of information there. One person put all that together?

 

[DanM]

In the words of my father: cruel and unusual punishment should be reserved for hackers and those who write computer viruses.

 

[RGClark]

Just saw on NasaSpaceFlight.com that Astronautix is back up:

Re: Astronautix.com taken off-line.
http://forum.nasaspaceflight.com/index.php?topic=25956.msg784652#msg784652

Bob Clark

 

[Ghostrider]

Mirroring it locally, just in case.

 

[Artlav]

Making example out of kids that probably don't tell reality and games apart and think everything in a computer is a game?
What good could it possibly do?
They won't even notice, but everyone else would suffer.

DDoS attacks by kids can't really sustain themselves for long anyway.
It's better to accept it as imminent reality and adapt the technology - how many people proposed hanging spammers by their testicles, but in the end we got spam filters and a balanced situation.

 

[Urwumpe]

It's better to accept it as imminent reality and adapt the technology - how many people proposed hanging spammers by their testicles, but in the end we got spam filters and a balanced situation.

Doesn't mean that we are not supporting such punishments for spammers. Punish those few that you get as hard as you can... :lol:

I would suggest starting by forcing them to read every send Spam mail aloud.

 

[Linguofreak]

On the other hand, physical hard-copy of knowledge is forever.

I need you to get some scrolls from the Library of Alexandria for me.

 

[Urwumpe]

I need you to get some scrolls from the Library of Alexandria for me.

They have books already there.

 

[SandroSalgueiro]

It's back online

 

[krashkart]

Excellent!

 

[Star Voyager]

Regarding the current status of the website:

Welcome back, Astronautix, and we hope you're here to stay !

 

[FADEC]

One good news