Posted on 03/09/2006 1:00:39 AM PST by bd476
In the early hours of March 6, 2006, a fire broke out at a warehouse complex near San Antonio International Airport, causing extensive damage to the offices of The Holocaust History Project (THHP), an organization that has been, for the last ten years, in the forefront of confronting Holocaust denial online, in addition to providing educational materials to students throughout the world. Arson investigators now have confirmed that the fire was intentionally set and are continuing their investigation.
It was just the latest in a series of attacks with the apparent intent to silence THHP. For the past 18 months, the THHP website has been under an unprecedented Distributed Denial of Service attack. This cyber attack began on September 11, 2004, and is being carried out by a specially modified version of the MyDoom computer worm, programmed to target the THHP web server. (see the THHP statement: Web attacks)
Harry Mazal, the Director of THHP said, "We have been able to defend our work against these cyber attackers. They tried, but couldn't shut us down. We have strong indications that this arson is the next step in a series of attacks against our educational and scholarly work. Although the fire caused significant damage to our offices, there is no way we will be silenced. Our web site has not been affected, and our work will continue."
While an arson attack such as this cannot be specifically anticipated, THHP has long ago taken steps to minimize the impact of any attacks, physical or virtual. Several mirror sites ensure that even as serious an attack as occurred Monday morning will be unsuccessful in forcing THHP to go offline.
Background:
THHP Holocaust History Project is one of the largest repositories of information relating to the Holocaust on the Web. For the last ten years, an international staff of volunteers has worked tirelessly to make information on the Holocaust, and on those who would deny it, easily accessible to students, scholars, and anyone who has an interest in the truth.
Among the material on the site are essays about various events and people, scientific and legal analyses, original Nazi documents, expert witness testimony, transcripts of many of the Nuremberg trials, and the complete texts of two seminal works, Jean-Claude Pressac's "Auschwitz" and Robert Jay Lifton's "The Nazi Doctors." In addition, THHP volunteers personally answer emails from thousands of students each year who are looking for information to further their studies.
The site registers more than 50 million hits a year. "Traffic to our site increases every year," said Mr. Mazal, "we intend to keep adding new content to the site. Right now we are preparing the Belsen trial transcripts, and the transcript of Adolf Eichmann's trial in Israel."
The Holocaust History Project Internet site may be reached at Holocaust History Project.
Arson damages Holocaust project
Arson damaged the offices of a Holocaust history project in San Antonio.
Monday's fire caused extensive damage to the offices of the Holocaust History Project, which works to confront Holocaust denial.
"Although the fire caused significant damage to our offices, there is no way we will be silenced," said Harry Mazal, the project's director.
The arson comes after the group's Web site, Holocaust History Project, has been repeatedly attacked by computer viruses during the past 18 months.
Police are investigating the incident, which has been confirmed as arson.
JTA.org
The denial of service attacks:
We are still online
...and we are not going away
Recently, this website has been under a sustained internet attack. A worm was released onto the net which spreads through email with text like "The holocaust is a lie." Every one of the computers it has infected -- over a thousand -- has been bombarding our website with fake information requests, to try to overwhelm it and shut it down.
The criminals who released this worm did so for two reasons. The first was to shut down our website and prevent students and researchers from learning the truth about Holocaust-denial.
The second was to spread propaganda. As the worm infects each new computer, it invites its victims to visit Holocaust-denial websites, such as Ernst Zundel's site and the Institute for Historical Review, and it tells them that "the Holocaust is an outright lie."
This represents a new low for so-called "revisionists." They are understandably frustrated at not being taken seriously by the historical community, and by failing to publish even a single peer-reviewed paper.
Without getting into the technical details, this kind of attack overloads a website with fake information requests in such a magnitude that the website is unable to process legitimate requests and has to close down. It is the equivalent of overloading a circuit. Hence, it's name, a "distributed denial of service" (DDoS) attack. It is a deliberate and offensive thing to do, and its only purpose is to deny the victim website its freedom of speech. It is also a crime.
Recovering from, and indeed surviving, an attack like this is a time consuming and difficult task, but we have done so. Throughout the attack, although we were hit hard, we were never offline for a day. We are working with the authorities and technical experts to determine the origins and, ultimately, the perpetrators of this crime and we will see them caught and punished for it.
It is no mystery that THHP has been one of the online leaders in opposing Holocaust denial and antisemitism. We provide information about deniers and their methods.
That the attack was aimed at shutting down our website is now clear. It has been reported recently on the Internet Week website. The detailed technical description of the Internet worm by anti-Virus manufacturer Symantec leaves no doubt what kind of fringe group the originators of this attack belong to. The worm is spread by emails with subject lines such as "Holohoax information", "Hackers for Historical Truth", "The holocaust is a lie", "The Germar Rudolf Report", or "Jewish Holocaust, another lie". In addition to attacking our site, the worm attempts to publicize a few obscure propaganda sites that deny historical fact.
Deniers do not like us and they would be pleased to see us shut down. But we are not. We are open for business and will stay open for business. We will continue to oppose Holocaust denial and to put the truth before people as we have always done. We are a volunteer organization. We do this because we believe the truth must continue to be told.
Note to Readers
The attack on us was facilitated by over a thousand insecure home computers around the world. As reported in a recent series in USA Today, criminals are after *your* computer so that it can be used to attack others. We urge all of you to protect your computer online.
Denial of Service
Last modified: October 5, 2004
Technical/administrative contact: webmaster@shoah.org
12 KSAT.com San Antonio
POSTED: 11:31 am CST March 6, 2006
UPDATED: 11:52 am CST March 6, 2006
SAN ANTONIO -- Arson was suspected as the cause of a massive warehouse fire on the city's Northside early Monday morning, according to San Antonio fire officials.
The fire was reported just after 3 a.m. in the 600 block of Sandau Road, near the San Antonio International Airport.
It took firefighters about two hours to contain the blaze. No one was injured.
Arson Suspected In Warehouse Fire
This is outrageous.
This was a massive arson fire which destroyed a huge warehouse holding the offices of The Holocaust History Project near the San Antonio Airport.
It gets a few paragraphs on a San Antonio television site, the story from The Holocaust History Project website itself, an Israel news site and that's it??
They need to find out who did the internet attack. I bet the arson was related and it is possible it is sponsored by foreign groups.
Anti-Bubba182 wrote: "They need to find out who did the internet attack. I bet the arson was related and it is possible it is sponsored by foreign groups."
That's absolutely right, Anti-Bubba, they should.
However, with such meager media attention do you believe that they will ever get around to it?
Are we so blinded by sensationalist stories that a deliberate terrorist act, albeit a large warehouse fire, goes completely unnoticed? /rant
I have to believe the Feds will get to this whether it gets a lot of attention in MSM or not.
Mind-numbed Robot wrote: "Holocaust denial is part of the left's tactic of creating cognitive dissonance, confusion about reality. That helps to sell their moral relativism lies. Silencing their critics is an old time practice of theirs."
If it is the left that did this, they took abass-ackwardstortuous route for deriving any propaganda. I don't give the left that much credit, MN Robot.
There are other groups, however, who are not happy about archiving historical facts of the Holocaust and at least one of those groups is in the news everyday.
Anti-Bubba182 wrote: I have to believe the Feds will get to this whether it gets a lot of attention in MSM or not."
Thanks for the reassurance, Anti-Bubba. :-) I hope you're right!
Someone set fire to the warehouse which just happened to house The Holocaust History Project, (THHP) the home of the online archival site which documents important research and essays about the Holocaust.
The arson fire on March 6th follows repeated denial of service attacks THHP has endured in the last 18 months.
Thus far I was able to find three (3) articles in the News about the fire, including the Press Release from the Holocaust History Project itself.
Oh yeah, ping. /rant
Incredible. Without FR, this is just one of the many things I would not know about. I bet this fire is going to get zero coverage nationally. It doesn't fit with the leftist/Islamic agenda that our press has adopted.
livius wrote: "Incredible. Without FR, this is just one of the many things I would not know about. I bet this fire is going to get zero coverage nationally. It doesn't fit with the leftist/Islamic agenda that our press has adopted."
They're probably too busy hand-wringing over the movie that didn't win.
Looks like another day at the office for The Religion of Peace®
d.o.l.
Criminal Number 18F
You're right. This makes me nauseous. Sometimes I feel so overwhelmed by the lies, lies of ommission, denial, and spin coming at us every day I can hardly stand it.
Groups such as our Moslem friends? Surely not! (sarcasm)
Carolyn
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Tell me about it.
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