Posted on 09/17/2008 10:28:43 AM PDT by KayEyeDoubleDee
This is what the Nut Roots are doing to WGN-AM in Chicago:
Obama vs. WGN-AMIf you guys in the Robinson family don't get your act together, and get it together soon, then the Nut Roots are going to take down this site, and take it down hard, for the next two months.
The station is coming under attack for offering airtime to controversial author.
by John McCormick and Steven Schmadeke | Tribune staff reporters
September 16, 2008
chicagotribune.comChicago radio station WGN-AM is again coming under attack from the presidential campaign of Sen. Barack Obama for offering airtime to a controversial author. It is the second time in recent weeks the station has been the target of an "Obama Action Wire" alert to supporters of the Illinois Democrat.
Monday night's target was David Freddoso, who the campaign said was scheduled to be on the station from 9 p.m. to 11 p.m. Chicago time.
Obama mobilizes rapid response on Web
Campaign targets media when attacks aired By John McCormick | Chicago Tribune reporter
12:32 AM CDT, September 17, 2008
chicagotribune.comMuch of Barack Obama's political success can be traced to a database listing contact information for millions of people, a tool that has proved invaluable in raising record sums of money and organizing a national volunteer network.
Now Obama's presidential campaign is increasingly using the list to beat back media messages it does not like, calling on supporters to flood radio and television stations when those opposed to him run anti-Obama ads or appear on talk shows.
It did so as recently as Monday night, when it orchestrated a massive stream of complaints on the phone lines of Tribune Co.-owned WGN-AM in Chicago when the radio station hosted author David Freddoso, who has written a controversial book about the Illinois Democrat.
You need to do several things to the Free Republic infrastructure and have them in place no later than about October 1; among them:
1) Mirror Free Republic to at least two other physical locations around the country - one on the east coast [Washington/NYC/Atlanta], and the other maybe more central [Texas has some large colo's with backbone connectivity].
Right now, I am seeing only two IP resolutions for "www.freerepublic.com" - 209.147.64.200 & 209.147.64.201 - and traceroutes have them [predictably] on the same physical network [I imagine that they are sitting right next to one another in the same server rack]:
2) Turn off as much of the relational structure at Free Republic as is possible, and return to a strictly flat file structure for as much of the content at Free Republic as is possible.[n - 2] mg-1.a01.mlpsca01.us.da.verio.net [n - 1] 128.242.105.82 [n] 209.147.64.200 The current relational structure is hopelessly broken, and the negotiations between the caching frontend and the relational backend are breaking down multiple times a day.
Again: THE RELATION STRUCTURE MUST BE DISCARDED - THIS IS IMPERATIVE.
[Furthermore, it is vastly easier to propagate a flat file structure to multiple physical sites around the country; trying to propagate a relational structure, in real time, with relatively limited funds for bandwidth, is essentially impossible.]
3) As things really heat up in October & November, I'd consider banning [temporarily] all non-political content, and instituting an aggressive policy of putting on probation the accounts of users who post lengthy, inane, unfocused, meandering, off-topic soliloquies - concentrating instead on promoting the work of people [like Kristinn] who are doing original investigative reporting and who are presenting their results in simple, straightforward, declarative arguments.
Along those lines, I'd move aggressively to upgrade the quality of the moderators who are policing the content at Free Republic - the quality of the moderation is utterly unpredictable from hour to hour - one hour there will seem to be a moderator who "gets it", and the next hour, it's as if that moderator's shift suddenly ended, and we have an utterly clueless moderator in charge of things.
I don't care if you're worried about hurting Granny's feelings if you tell her that she can't moderate for the next two months - we have to get some moderators in here who are up-to-date on current events and who understand the difference between original investigative reporting [regarding e.g. DEM/Obama treason & Bolshevik/Gramscian subterfuge] and the kinds of "Pray for my Kitty who is having feline leukemia chemotherapy tomorrow morning" threads which seem to waste so much CPU time & bandwidth at this site.
And the hardware for a local cache of a flat file structure shouldn't cost more than $1000 or so [and that's for new equipment - used equipment would be essentially costless].
I'm sure there are countless telecomm/database guys at Free Republic who have excellent 1U/2U servers lying around, unused, in their offices, or their garages, with dual gigabit ethernet, capable of supporting 16GB+ of RAM, which wouldn't have any problem serving up flat file structures on any major backbone in the USA.
This should be a fun thread...
I’ve been wanting to ask for a couple of weeks and this looks like a good opportunity:
Is there an alternative ip for FR?
Thanks.
Incoming...
Actually, you could move the “Pray for my kitty” threads to another database. You don’t want to turn this place into a another Lucy
LOL!
I don’t know if it’s an alternative IP but a great poster on the Yahoo Group gave us this...
http://beta.freerepublic.com/tag/news-forum/index
I can always get in.
IBTZ!!!
There may be a few security improvements that the Robinsons can make but they have their act together already.
Oh, the human atee of it all. This is gonna be interesting fer sure... :)
why?
Totally agree with Kidd. Get ‘er done. Also, you should be preparing for the future. Get the word out. If you need more dough say so and get the money, make the upgrades. Many of us are already seeing FR crashing mulple times per day, or at least slowing down.
um...read the thread, it is a quote from a news article.
<P.IBTZ is not applicable here.
I do believe that spreading mirrors across sites would be a great idea. I just dont think its something you can just do on a whim without exploding the whole darn thing.
But apparently accepting funding immediately removes your ability to be impartial and unbiased... or something like that.
Ask JimRob. He seems to think this site could not be kept the same if it was well-funded
“Is there an alternative ip for FR?”
Yes. IIRC, it is on AOL.
We use it when the normal link goes down.
I’ve forgotten the actual URL.
Why? It's a constructive suggestion arosen from a legitimate concern.
I don’t believe you really know, as much as you think you know, on this subject.
You do know that JIMROB and staff have been working on installing some new servers, don’t you?
That is what has been causing the double posts, I believe.
JimRob and John Robinson:
Are those new servers Apple Macintosh computer servers? If so, Apple computers as servers are among the best. Plus Apple has a great track record to having the least problems with hacking attacks. Thanks for the response.
From A Apple Fan. :) =^..^=
Probably not a bad idea to ping them both. I’d like to see what John thinks.....
Agreed.
Need to have at least 1 mirror site and perhaps a COOP site besides.
I have noticed recently a good bit of timeouts and double postings from timeouts lately, and suspect we’re getting DOS attacks right now.
We’re be probed. Make no mistake
Thanks, guys!
LOL!
What we had seen early in the week should serve as a warning, not just to FR but to ANY conservitive website.
Did you consider sending this in Freep mail first by chance?
I’m sure they have the sandbags in place with the .50 cal installed. They know there will be zappers in the weeks to come.
http://beta.freerepublic.com/ = http://209.157.64.204/
http://www.freerepublic.com/ = http://209.157.64.200/
Bookmark the direct IP addresses if the DNS listing gets hacked.
“It’s a constructive suggestion arosen from a legitimate concern. “
How much better to see someone offer some SOLUTIONS, instead of just whining about it.
Thank You, KIDD.
OK, since no one else has done it....
Jim and John, PING!!!
The “pray for my kitty” threads are important. Seriously, those threads help posters who are energetically opposed to each on particular political points, to remember that they’re both human and have some things in common that are important to them and that they agree on. The sense of community that such threads help build, improve the cultural foundations of FR and the overall tone of the discourse here.
But Kitty was just recruited and registered to vote by my local Democrats. Little do they know Kitty will vote for McCain.
Have a heart.
But Kitty was just recruited and registered to vote by my local Democrats. Little do they know Kitty will vote for McCain.
Have a heart.
Y’all might consider putting all n00bs on a probationary status for the duration. Maybe their posts can be subject to review prior to posting, or some such thing.
Ever hear of Gridscale?
Makes relational DB propagation seamless and very bandwidth/cost efficient. But it only works with IBM DB2 platforms currently. I doubt that is what FR’s backend is built on.
Other than that, these are good suggestions. If I still worked for an ISP I’d be happy to facilitate the colo...but alas I don’t.
This thread isn't about Hillary. Please stay on topic... :)
Typo...
I’m sure Jim, John and company are way ahead of the game on this. This site has been around for a long time and has seen much worse attacks that Obamalamadingdong can do.
Jim and John, I hope you are reading this thread and taking it to heart.
Free Republic has gone from a place for conservative to hang out to a major disseminator of conservative thought, ideas, news, etc. Free Republic today is essential to the conservative cause.
Please be proactive in protecting Free Republic from left wing attacks. If this means a special FReepathon to buy equipment or pay for colos, then so be it.
Oh yeah! That alternative is a keeper...thanks.
Put me down for a donation over and above my monthly.
I am not the only one having problems getting onto and posting on FR?
Yup, me too.
Sometimes it's on JimRob's end ~ sometimes it's just California.
Double posts don't worry me.
Thank you so much! I now have four bookmarks in my FR folder!
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