Here is the official statement from Felicia Palmer and I’ll translate it and tell you what it really means.
As many of you are already aware, SOHH.com has been under attack by hackers this week. We noticed the first wave of attacks in our vBulletins forums and as of this morning the whole site was compromised.
It appears that hackers are specifically targeting Black, Hispanic, Asian and Jewish youth who ascribe to hip hop culture. Other websites, including AllHipHop and Da Piff forums, have also been compromised or threatened this week.
We are managing this situation on several fronts. We have taken down the server to patch the security breach and put in protections for future attacks. Also, as this is an international issue, it is being addressed by The FBI and the Strategic Alliance Cyber Crime Working Group.
We realize the hackers attacked SOHH.com because of our stature in the hip hop space and the people we serve. Unfortunately, we did a poor job of protecting SOHH.com from imminent threats from people who hate our community simply because of our racial and ethnic makeup.
This has brought to light our vulnerabilities and those of the internet publisher and users as a whole. What’s possible now is for us to join together to identify and eliminate this threat.
If you are under attack and have any information about these attacks please submit a report to the FBI cyber crimes unit here: https://complaint.ic3.gov/
Alright lets break this down. SOHH was not targeted because the people who go there were black. I can’t say that 100% but anyone with a clue knows that. These guys target anyone who taunts them and if the SOHH users had been any other race that would have been used against them. It didnt matter what they were. They likely got targeted because like thousands of other internet forums they’re full of E-Thugs who talk tough on the computer. I dont advocate any of this, Im just telling you the truth.
Felicia says they did a poor job of protecting SOHH. Well the site is still down today so that means this is much worse than they’re saying. I wouldnt be surprised if they didnt have a backup of their database and they’re in real trouble trying to get almost anything back up and running. It can happen to anyone on the net, but its hilarious to watch half of this hip hop community run around claiming this is racism and that all of hip hop is being targeted. SOHH sorry.
June 29th, 2008 at 6:48 pm
Nice job providing an alternative view.
June 29th, 2008 at 6:51 pm
I put a digg in for you -
June 30th, 2008 at 1:39 am
Thanks, Im slightly biased but spoke the truth on this one. All the SOHH readers would be better off coming here for real hip hop from the south instead of gossip and rumors.
June 30th, 2008 at 12:54 pm
I agree that this was not race related. I laughed when I read them trying to spin it as such. To my knowledge, this was caused by many SOHH members, specifically those that hung out in the “Just Buggin’ Out” forum (a supposed unmoderated part of the messageboard), who were openly taunting 4chan members (on SOHH *and* 4chan boards) to “try” to hack their accounts and to hack the site.
As much blame as I put on those SOHH posters for bringing the site down, I also blame SOHH.com. Admins & mods sat there for DAYS and did NOTHING about it and allowed the verbal taunts, comments and threads continue on the message board.
At the very least, many SOHH members should’ve had their accounts banned/suspended. I’m sad SOHH is gone (temporarily only, I hope), but it was a combination of ignorance on the part of a select number of posters and SOHH itself that did it in. Perhaps SOHH will now be smart enough to see the reasons why forums *need* to be moderated.
I don’t agree with 4chan’s retaliation, but SOHH posters were *literally* begging them to hack the site. So they did.