Why Can't Net Attacks Bring Down Iran Big Brother Site?

Despite calls for denial-0f-service attacks, where users try to bring down a site by flooding it with traffic, all over the blogosphere and "twitterverse", Gerdab.ir is still up. The Iranian government site has photos of protesters and requests the publics assistance in identifying these "monarchists" and "counter-revolutionaries".

I am a bit suprised that all these have proven ineffective. The strongest of the attacks are not coming from users just reloading their browsers but from botnets. Users load a program onto their computer, or someone else's computer with or without their knowledge, and then it continually loads address. If you can get enough of these zombie computers together you can bring down very large sites.

In the past criminals have done these attacks against online casinos, shutting down the sites and then extorting big cash in exchange for letting the online dice roll again, according to Ethan Zuckerman, social media guru at Harvard's Berkman Center.

But the political uses, which we have seen on both sides of the Gaza War are not often effective says Zuckerman. “All you are doing is knocking the site off the web for a short time systems until the admin finds a way to block your bots. And then they go back up again think it’s a stupid tactic and ineffectve. I am not a fan of censorship of any kind this is a way that silences speech and just makes administator's life miserable. I think there is a much stronger statement going on right now."

But is it censorship to try to knockdown a site used to hunt protesters? And if it's possible to attack casino's why hasn't anyone been able to nail this site? Thoughts?

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