I read on Instapundit this morning that Tim Blair’s site has been hacked and all his posts forever destroyed. (Go have a look — it’s eerie.) The individual(s) who did this are basically rapists; the violation is almost that personal. But I hope Tim does not take it that way and is up and blogging in ten minutes. I’ll be over there gobbling up what he has to say. He’s indispensable.
UPDATE: Well, maybe it wasn’t a “thought crime” after all. Blair’s back! [Boy, were you hot under the collar.-ed. Hey, I'm sensitive about these things.]
Blair’s new site has been wiped, but the old site, which he used from March 2003 through Dec. 13, 2004, is unscathed. Let’s hope he can recover the missing month and get rolling again.
Well, that explains it. I have a rotating order of which of seven blogs I go to first, and today it was 1. Tim Blair 2. Roger Simon. I am relieved to know that at least most of his history has been salvaged.
Hacker. I’ve always thought the initial letter of that word should be “j,” as that’s what it amounts to.
Wankers.
I would hope that blog hosting companies are properly backing up content: ie, periodically writing it to a tape (or equivalent) which is stored physically separate from the server and hence is beyond the reach of malevolent individuals. This would be a good time for blog hosts to make statements about their backup policies.
As someone pointed out here a couple of weeks ago, there are already fairly severe criminal penalties for interfering with computer systems. However, they probably need to be increased. This kind of thing strikes directly a freedom of the press. I don’t think 10 years in prison would be at all inappropriate.
Make it a felony — in most states it would cost your vote, too. Seems appropriate that someone trying to silence others would lose their voice.
A similar “zeroing out” of Tim’s site happened a few days ago for a few minutes, and then the site came back intact. I had just assumed this morning’s attack was a similar instance. Too bad. Tim’s a gem, and so are a few of his hilarious commenters. Could possibly love his blog even more were audio available of him reading posts in his Downunder accent and personal inflection.
(For that matter, why not have a certain novelist and Hollywood screenwriter/insider read his posts, too, for full effect? This could be the new wave of blogging. If hackers want to try to silence writers’ voices, then those writers should come back with even a greater voice—)
It’s back!
Automatic backup of blogs should be a civil right. The government should take care of it. If anyone or anything interferes with your blog, the death penalty. Yah, that’ll fix the problem. It would be a crime against humanity if this posted comment was lost to history!
But I just copied this comment to a Word document on my computer for spell checking. Maybe it won’t be lost forever. Or will it? (insert dramatic musical interlude here)
It’s back? Um, never mind.
Mr. Simon,
I should think hosting your own blog (particularly if you control the domain) would come under the same precautions you should take with the computer you are using to read your blog: regular backups. Roger, I hope you get all your posts into a backup ASAP before the vandals who did this come after you.
BTW, does anyone have any information on how this hack was accomplished?
Well, false alarm (sorta).According to Andrea Harris, the Avenging Angel for the spleenville domain, it was a “settings problem” involving databases, PHP scripts, and similar arcane stuff:
Whew!
Would it be possible to recover Tim’s posts from Google cache?
On the internet, a lot of things can never truly be erased.
Well now I feel like an idiot! I went to Tim’s site early this morning without trouble, later saw Instapundit’s post and tried Tim’s site, again without trouble, so I sent Tim and email telling him about Instapundit’s post, thinking somebody was pulling someone’s leg. It’s all timing, isn’t it? And the race is not to those who attend Monday morning meetings!
Charles at LGF has been threatened. [on line]
Does it strike you all that our ciritcs are a tad intolerant?