There was no "expansion". As announced in the HM forums, today's target was the IP# the target site from last week used to occupy...which merely makes the attackers stupid, since the site in question has been moved off-network and was live in that new location as of yesterday.

Believe it or not, weblogs (particularly warblogs) are still not that important to much of anyone beyond their authors.

What Seki said.

Script Kiddies in general are feeling frisky right now. I've had 3 SubSeven trojan attacks tonight from what appear to be three separate IPs. I usually get three or so in a week, tops. And I'm on a dial-up connection!

Thank God for the firewall.

Stephen,

You're much too modest. The internet and blogosphere have totally changed information sharing.

The left can't get away with propaganda the way they used to and it's making them crazy.

We're having fun in here Florida with the DNC refusing to give Florida Democrats "permission" to have a straw vote at their upcoming convention.

As Rush says, the left is much more fun when they're out of power.

Stephen, I think that in your last paragraph you missed Dan's point:

' ... are testing the waters to see what they can do'

Also note Lileks today (scroll way down).

Man, I adore James Lileks, would possibly even take him on as Junior Husband...but, COME ON, that's idle paranoia at best.

I submit that any analysis of Arab motivations must include evidence of Arab attitudes. In this case do they look at blogs, and their efficacy, the same way we do? If so, then from what base of knowledge and experience? If not, then does that fact affect the argument?

An Arab proverb (really) says:

"Strike the head of the snake with the hand of your enemy"

I dunno, Seki. Yeah, maybe it's just paranoia. But the hairs on the back of my neck stirred a little yesterday, when it happened again. And then it happened again today.

Maybe they are just wasting their time. But a little success breeds confidence. And if they're just testing the waters, who knows what direction they are going in next.

What if the major financial institutions got wacked one day? No, it wouldn't shut down the exchanges, but an awful lot of day trades would get cut off. Just as an example.

Rantings of a lunatic? Surely! ;) But even the crazy ones are right once in a while....

-greg

One thing I have tried to stress over and over again is that if this was carried out by members of the As-Sahwah forum, these guys are not al-Qaeda, they are the organization's "groupies" for lack of a better term.

More to the point, the target was hardly "warbloggers" in general, it was likely directed against one or two websites that happened use Hosting Matters, sites like Haganah (which was one of the main targets, per Aaron and Johnathan Galt, two online experts in this particular area) that had proven to be obstructions to the dissemination of al-Qaeda propaganda by informing Western ISPs what the Arabic on these websites actually said. All of the other websites that got taken down when Hosting Matters got nailed was simply an added convenience.

More to the point, if any one thinks that from a Salafist mentality there is any difference between Talkleft or a Winds of Change user they are deluding themselves. The pretty ideological distinctions that we ascribe to ourselves matter about as much to these folks as the difference between a Deobandi, a Khomeinist, and a Takfiri do to us, so there would be no reason for them to differentiate as far as the collateral damage from such a DOS attack goes.

Pardon me if that sounds like a complete reversal of your original posting...

The fact that they've decided to expand their hacking campaign to war bloggers...

It is not fact, it is uninformed speculation.