Archive of Our Own is down due to a DDoS attack

[just444]

Archive of Our Own is down due to a DDoS attack https://t.co/IihtOxgbms pic.twitter.com/8rh2ja0g65
- Polygon (@Polygon) July 10, 2023

source

for the not fanficton readers, Archive of Our Own (Ao3) is the site for fanfics

Comments

[willardwright]

"Experts do not believe they are honest about their motivation" - I really wonder what they mean by this. So they don't think it's a religiously/politically motivated group? What other reason is there to hack a fanfiction website? I guess they could just be bored teenagers or something.

[sillycucumber2]

I bet that's what it is.

I don't know if religious extremists care about fanfiction. Maybe they do tho? Who knows.

[willardwright]

In my country we had religious extremists who cared about a male teletubby using a woman's purse, so honestly, I'm not surprised at anything anymore. Plus controlling entertainment, especially entertainment for women, is a big deal for them.

[theylezharold]

Oh dear god that's insane. But I'm from Russia, so

[willardwright]

I hope you're staying safe and are doing well despite the current political insanity!

[britneys]

Who exactly are these experts they're citing?

[willardwright]

No idea. Maybe cybersecurity people?

[love_galore]

"Experts do not believe they are honest about their motivation"

I bet they're actually a religiously/politically motivated group claiming to fight against groomers and queers~ - aka these days' standard smokescreen.

[komnene]

I believe there's some thought they're Russia-linked.

https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2023/jun/19/hackers-behind-microsoft-outage-most-likely-russian-backed-group-aiming-to-drive-division-in-the-west

Not sure how knocking down AO3 advances Russian interests, but I guess they are homophobic shitheads who like to generally sow discord so

[soulhades]

The moral of ukranians soldiers will plummet if they can't read their daily omegaverse fics =( russia is so evil for that omg

[komnene]

Maybe someone wrote crack fic where Putin gets the shit kicked out of him.

Now that I think of it though what I'm concerned they're going for is firing up all the alt-right, conservative, q-anon, incel, anti-trans shitheads to kick off about things like fic as another way to cause conflict in society. Fic readers I imagine aren't the people they want to mislead from this - they just want every avenue to cause culture wars they can :/

Also writing this is making me quite aware that Russia owns LJ...

[siaht]

I have read Putin/Zelenskyy fic on AO3 so.........

[smilla_sini]

Russia passed several anti-LGBTQ+ laws, as well as the law banning all Trans healthcare, and Ao3 has a pretty big chunk of content in Russian.
They've been fining local and foreign streaming platforms recently for movies and songs which have ANY mentions of anything related in it.

[blood_pressures]

are you saying the russian government gives a fuck about fanfiction website? ao3 is blocked in russia anyway

[komnene]

Uhhh, I'm not the cyber security expert. I'm simply answering people's question. The group that claims to be doing this is Anonymous Sudan, and as per the article they have hacked other websites before and at the time cyber experts have stated that they think they have an ulterior motive.

[iheartmess]

Ah so it's ruse to make LJ Communities great again. I C U Llama 😒