CRACKED

Sorry for the downtime.

While I was attending a ridiculous conference for world peace down in Puerto Rico this weekend, a group of crackers from Brazil successfully cracked my webhoster’s linux box, rendering this site and about 50 others unusable for the last few days.

I don’t care so much for my part – it’s nice to have my website working 24/7, but chances are none of the students using its resources for book reports or journalists ripping “Rushkoff” quotes were too inconvenienced by the interruption. It would have helped not to have my landline go down at precisely the same time (it’s still down — thanks for trying to fix it, Verizon, but I’ll be voice-over-IP in another week, anyway, so seeya).

The person who was truly inconvenienced was my dear webmaster, Dan Sieradski, a genuine Internet altruist who has made most of his server space and all of his time available to those who can’t really afford to get web space on their own.

Attacking a Linux box is bad enough – but one that’s used to host mostly artists, activists, and non-profit orgs is really beyond the pale. Looks like Dan will have to move all of our sites to a box that’s got better protection, which means it will cost him more money.

So, if any of you are looking for a spectacular webmaster and dedicated webhost who deserves our support, please consider giving your business to Dan. You won’t find a cheaper, better, or more karmically sound webhost, anywhere.

(And if you’re one of those people dedicated to proving how well you can hack into other people’s boxes, please pick on someone who isn’t so nice. Dan needs his sleep so he can help more people get online and express themselves in more constructive ways than you do.)