The Perfect Storm...

[liz_marcs]

Let's see if LJ lets me post this.

I've been involved off and on with fandom since...ooooo...grammar school (that would be pre-teens for you non-U.S. people). I can't say for sure, but definitely almost that long.

And I have to say, before this week the only Perfect Storm I knew about was the one I lived through back in 1991 when the No Name nor'

Comments

[postholedigger]

Power on! And to requote the often-quoted, "Just because you're paranoid does not mean someone isn't out to get you." And in the case of our government, I don't think there can be too much paranoia.

[liz_marcs]

*nods*

Especially these days.

But I honestly think that enough people start calling their reps, be it on the City Council or in Congress, you'd make them more afraid of losing their jobs than gaining some other advantage.

Nothing scares a pol more than losing their job.

[midnightsjane]

What exactly is DDoS? I'm unsure what you mean by this.
I do wholeheartedly agree that the power of the internet and Lj is immense if we can get organised. It's quite stunning to realize how interconnected we are on LJ. It's like throwing a pebble into a lake, and seeing how many ripples there are from that one little thing.
And it's international...not limited to one country.
I think that it's time we all aim to misbehave.
Word.

[liz_marcs]

A DDoS, otherwise known as a denial-of-service attack occurs when a computer network is "flooded" with virtual bots. It eats up resources, overwhelms the servers, and forces a system-wide slowdown. In worst case scenarios, it can knock a server completely off-line and bring down a whole sites, as well as related sites. (Here's a full explanation.)

The great LJ outage of 2005 was caused by a DDoS attack (LJ was offline for more than a day at that time).

In recent news, the alleged cyberwar between Estonia and Russia involved DDoS attacks that knocked government servers off-line.

There are certain protections in place, but they're not 100%.

[midnightsjane]

Ah, now I get it. Thanks for the explanation.
I vividly remember the great LJ outage of 2005. Never did understand the cause, until now.

Will there even BE a 2008 election?

[magyarok_saman]

Basically, what you've outlined here, by bringing unrelated, yet important facts together in one post, is the thinly-disguised framework of a dictatorship.

I'm sure I'm not the only one who wonders if the Bush administration will willingly surrender power, especially if a Democrat is once again elected via the popular vote...

...and let us add one more fact to your collection: Detention Facilities are already set up to handle millions of people. Some of them are converted from military bases which were shut down.

Everything is gradually moving into place. Yes - we should be afraid, people. VERY AFRAID.

L

Re: Will there even BE a 2008 election?

[prongsrini]

I looked into this, looks like a conspiracy to me. I'm not that cynical about American Government.

[anonymous]

I am not an American. In fact my favorite thing about Americans is how easy you make it for the rest of us to make fun of you. That's a lot more fun than trying to deal with our own wacky problems. But writing like this, and the sentiments behind it, show why people should aspire to become Americans. (Except for the not being a fan of Firefly part. That's just crazy. :)

Keep up the misbehavin'

[moire2]

Thanks for this valuable post. As always, you're keeping your flist informed. I'm grateful.

[liz_marcs]

The "MySpace Bill" thing happened last year (the post has been corrected and an ETA added explaining the change), but it was stopped because online peeps got together and stopped it.

The IP Bill is still a threat, tho'.