Fergie's Tech Blog

'American Idol' Voting Campaign Slammed With DDoS Attack

Dan Kaplan writes on SC Magazine Online:

A popular but controversial website that asks fans of the hit US TV show "American Idol" to vote for the least talented contestant each week continues to be slammed by a distributed denial-of-service attack, the site's manager has admitted.

VoteForTheWorst.com, said to be the programme's most popular web destination behind the official site, has angered "Idol" purists since its launch in 2004 because it seeks to keep around the most entertaining, not necessarily the most talented, singers.

And now it's apparently caught the ire of not just teenage girls, but also the hacker community.

Nathan Palmer, who manages the site and server, said in an email that the site fell victim on Wednesday to an all-day DDoS attack using spoofed IP addresses. The site was pounded by 400 megabits of traffic per second, beginning at 12:30 am, about two hours after the show went off air.

posted by Fergie @ 3/30/2007 06:16:00 AM