The Baader-Meinhof Phenomenon describes the trick your mind plays on itself whenever it discovers something new, only for that exact thing to seemingly appear absolutely bloody everywhere shortly after.
Welp, the recent increase in high profile Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) attacks is not an example of that mental foolery. They really, truly are happening more often of late: after the Census site carked it under the weight of millions of users, it now appears Swimming Australia’s site is undergoing a similar lashing.
But why, pray tell, would our nation’s finest amphibians come under such intense internet scrutiny? What recent and globally-publicised event could inspire many thousands of internet denizens to smash against Australia’s online swimming portal at once? Could one of our nation’s representatives have pissed off the people of a global superpo- oh.
Speaking to the ABC, he said “it’s possibly more likely just a large amount of interested people who are expressing themselves in possibly posting comments” are causing the problems, instead of “state-sanctioned attackers causing trouble for Swimming Australia.”
We’ll keep an eye on the sitch, but take note, Australian Bureau Of Statistics – even when a site is getting pummelled, there is apparently still a way to allow genuine users in. And that is a feature we’d like to see more of, psychological tricks aside.
Source: ABC.
Photo: Swimming Australia.
