ddos attack

RUTracker, Russia’s largest BitTorrent tracker, has been dealing with the effects of a DDoS attack over the past 48 hours.

When it’s your job to go around disrupting various communities on the Internet, it’s perhaps inevitable that, rightly or wrongly, you’ll become somewhat of a hate figure among some.

Dutch anti-piracy group BREIN, with chief Tim Kuik at the controls, is understandably unpopular within files-sharing circles.

That position can have its consequences.

Founded in 2004, Swebits is one of the longest-standing BitTorrent communities in Sweden.

The tracker, which limited access to Swedish users only, amassed more than 40,000 members during its active years.

But yesterday, instead of being welcomed by the usual list of freshly uploaded content, visitors to Swebits found an unexpected and ominous message posted on the site’s homepage.

While the RIAA and file-sharers have been slugging it out in settlement agreements and high-profile legal actions in recent years, at times the voices of the artists themselves have been drowned out.

Some, however, have been so loud it has proven impossible to ignore them. Whether they love file-sharing, hate it, or sit happily on the fence, the opinions of artists matter.

Over the years we have covered dozens of artists who’ve spoken out on piracy.

From Lily Allen, through 50 Cent to Radiohead, all have voiced their opinion on the topic.

Over the years there have been many ‘hacking’ incidents related to file-sharing. Some attacks are carried out in support of the activity, such as the famous MediaDefender leaked emails, multiple attacks on the IFPI, and more recently when hacktivists defaced an anti-piracy group website.

Coincidence?

Twitter.com loading slowly for you?

Can’t upload that awesome new background? Did Tweetdeck screech to a halt for you? Yeah, you’re not alone: Yes, Twitter is down.

Twitter’s had one tough week.

This morning civilization almost ground to a halt as Twitter was hit with a DDoS or Distributed Denial of