Attrition is worn out

Attrition.org, which tracks web site defacements, will close its service due to overwhelming workload and hostile readership.

By Pia Heikkila, 23 May 2001 10:52

NEWS In a statement posted on the Attrition site it admitted the volunteer run service had grown too big and without funding, it is impossible to continue. The site has also been subject to much abuse which the owners found particularly discouraging. The statement said: "The abuse and ignorance we deal with from defacers and defacement victims is staggering, and some of that abuse spills over into actual attacks. Attrition has been taken down more than once by massive denial of service attacks which have inconvenienced our generous upstream provider, hundreds of other co-location customers, and thousands of dialup customers, making our job even more difficult." The security industry greeted the news with mixed reactions. David Wray, the CTO of Authorizor, a denial of service specialist said services such as attrition.org can feed the hackers' desire for five minutes of fame: "It's a good thing they are stopping their service because hackers won't get a chance to promote their work," he said. But Ian Peacock, a security consultant at Defcom, mourned the loss of a useful work tool, he said: "I used their site daily in my work. It is a real shame that there is no longer a decent archive available, especially since web site defacement is a fast growing menace,".

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