Seems like Joe's tech people are just plain incompetent, and his media connected people saw that they could turn a disaster into assault figuring most main stream media would be incapabale of actually researching enough to determine the truth before the polls closed.

Good Catch Matt!

Chalk another small victory to the internet overmind.

The lazy-ass media is not going to bother with that, Matt.

I saw Tim Tagaris' statement on the alleged hack. It's just about exactly what I said the Lamont campaign should have done.

The problem is, it's on the campaign blog and nobody who's not already a die-hard, web-savvy Lamont supporter's going to see it.

Ned Lamont, or his most high profile campaign staffer should directly address the media.

Treating this is no big deal won't work. The media is already treating it like a big deal. And the Lamont campaign must get a soundbite out there that the TV media can use to pair with the Lieberman campaign's accusations.

This is campaogn 101 stuff! And, you;d thnk that afetr all those blog posts moaning and groaning about the incompetent Washington Consultants on this and otrher sitres, that actual blogger/consultants wouldn't be so goddamn stupid as to fall into the exact same trap.

For the record, the last incident of hacking that I know of was criticized by the same blogs backing Lamont. Why does Lamont want to cut off the debate online, Lamont is right. It is the Lieberman people who fear knowledge (why else would they hire a campaign manager whose claim to fame is "low information voters" -- assuming the people are stoopid).

This is total B.S. and anyone who is working for Lieberman in this race should never be hired again by a Democratic campaign.

All this shows  a hokey attempt at a campaign dirty trick.

What is a notable observation about this election is the tremendous fear that the MSM and their punditocracy that the control over public opinion might be slipping from their grasp. They correctly sense a threat that the netroots offers a democratization of the political process and the flow of communication. This election could be the beginning of the end for the corporate monopoly on politics and political activity. The consultants hate it, the pundits hate it, the coporate media hacks hate it. Rock on!!

Appears to be a nearly-transparent attempt at an excuse for Lieberman to further justify running as an Independent.  

Doubt Lamont or Lieberman had anything to do with this, though: it reeks of the disingenuous drivel we've come to expect from the WH and so called intel operatives.  

No expert, but it does seem that election day would be one of the least important days for a candidate's website--haven't most folks made up their minds by now..

great reporting thanks.

I agree that the Lieberman folks appear to be milking this so that, when Joementum loses, they can blame it on the internet terrorists.

But I'm not convinced that they aren't just taking advantage of a genuine attack rather than creating one all their own.

I believe this if for no other reason that it has been reported that they have complained to the U.S. Attorney's office.  Now, maybe the reporting is wrong, but it would take a special kind of stupid to file a false report with a U.S. Attorney.  I'm not sure how many of Joe's cocktail party consultants want to throw themselves on a grenade for the next Secretary of the Defense.

Someone better explain to the Lieberman tech people that the internet is not something you just dump something onto. It's not a big truck. It's a series of tubes!

Never forget, it's all about the message. To people on the street who can't or won't get access to this site, the message stands. Netroots people are the perceived attackers of Lieberman so the best way to twofer Lieberman's victim stance is to point the finger at the internet. The Sen. Stevens'like definition of the hacked site merely makes it all obvious. But never forget, they got the message out, they timed it and they exploited it. This is the future of the netroots' participation in campaigns. One important lesson here is to get to the bottom of what happened, good or bad, right or wrong, and have the netroots shout the truth out from every keyboard.

and then they extend their "the bloggers bit us" narrative into election day.  

Looks like they're spinning their failure.  

Once this hits the right blogsphere, it will be Lieberman and the Republicans on one side attacking the Democrats on the other.  

In other words, nothing changes.
.

Stoller -- you're off base a bit here. Dan Geary does not work at or for DSG; he's a contractor. Check out their website. Its a CA-based company that does a lot of work for the Clark County Democratic party in NV and for a wide range of NV candidates, including Dina Titus who is running in a hotly-contested Democratic primary here in NV next week, and

One point that I think isn't getting enough attention: Joe Lieberman still has a working web site on the exact same server as Joe2006.com. MeetNed.com, the Lieberman's campaign anti-Lamont web site, is up and running without any problems. It's at the same IP address as Joe2006.com. This makes it seem unlikely that the server is actually having any serious problems.

Loved the technical breakdown.

Go Ned!

They are paying $15/month for hosting at a place called MyHostCamp, with a bandwidth limit of 10GB. MyHostCamp is currently down, along with all their clients.

The reporters and TV pundits you are targetting with this technical data couldn't distinguish an URL from a Bubba.

But, hey, all those undecided technogeeks out there will flood the polls for lamont now.

Something about the hacker "owning" the site?  That's what MSNBC reported.

You don't suppose Lieberman is setting himself up as being a victim for the Get Out and Vote type of phone jamming case we just saw go through with the Rep's??

The story seems to be losing steam on MSNBC.  I think that it is becoming clear that Joementum is grasping at straws to support an indie bid and to cover for signing up with an internet server that normally hosts high school garage bands.

well, all things said (lieberman's a scumbag, his campaign has broken nearly every rule of civility, etc.)  losing the website will probably significantly affect their gotv.

personally, i think the timing is far too convenient, and that it was almost certainly messed with.  i also think that joementum's crew is doing a great job of getting this to be an issue, and that it'll affect some vote intentions, swinging them into joe's column.  hopefully the damage to their gotv will offset these results.

also, i'm not sure about connecticut election law, but federally, vote suppression can't negate a primary result unless there was some tie to the opposition AND it was systematic.  hitting a website doesn't meet the threshold.

well, daily kos has just added a nice update on why the website couldn't have handled the hacking and/or overload.

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2006/8/8/1 71512/6117

personally, i've always been a lot more skeptical about lamont's prospects for victory, but this kind of thing really does just solidify the sense of utter incompetence that emanates from the lieberman campaign.

hilariously, sean smith has probably made so many connections that he'll have no problem finding a presidential campaign to work on for next cycle.  damn, and he's so pointlessly vicious.  if he was running any other campaign but lieberman's (who's too bland to be vicious) he's have turned more voters off than he mobilised.  you just shake your head.

ah, wait - so no hacking at all, "MyHostCamp is currently down, along with all their clients."

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!

the lamont folks must feel like their campaigning against a campaign from the 1970s!!!

"Someone from Dewey Square confirmed to me that Geary doesn't work for them and never has. My apologies."

Why apologize? No, if Geary wasn't working for them, why did he make this ridiculous statement, insisting that the campaign did pay for the traffic? How would he know? What's his role in this Kabuki theatre? Lieberman's staff should answer those questions if they want to counter suspicions that they deliberately mislead the public!

Tue Aug 08, 2006 at 12:38:27 PM PDT
Two posts down it's clear that Lieberman's website isn't suffering from a Denial of Service attack.

But now I have the definitive answer as to why Lieberman's site went down.

They are paying $15/month for hosting at a place called MyHostCamp, with a bandwidth limit of 10GB. MyHostCamp is currently down, along with all their clients.

Here's the deal -- you get what you pay for. My hosting bill is now over $7K per month. A smaller site doesn't need that much bandwidth, but if you're paying $15 because your $12 million campaign is too freakin' cheap to pay for quality hosting, then don't go blaming your opponent when your shitty service goes out.

For their part, the Lamont campaign has offered its technical expertise to get Lieberman's site back up (which could be done in an hour by a competent sysadmin), and has added a link to the googlecached version of Lieberman's site at the top of their blog.

One side is acting mature, the other is running around making baseless accusations.

Update: Dan Gerstein, Lieberman spokesperson, admits they have no evidence Lamont's campaign or his supporters are behind their website woes.

I'm telling you, it's down because they were too cheap to pay for quality hosting. That's a lesson to all of you campaigns skimping on hosting. $15 won't cut it.

Update II: Joe's site shares one server with 73 other sites. They pay $15/month for an overcrowded server, and then they blame others when it goes down? Full list of sites on Joe's server on the flip.

Update III: From an email:

DoS attacks don't affect particular accounts on a server. They bring down the whole server. The attack site is up, their campaign site is down. This isn't a DoS attack.

Will the Lieberman campaign reimburse state and federal investigators wasting resources to confirm that the site went down because the campaign was too cheap to hire a quality hosting provider?

Race tracker wiki: CT-Sen

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Romeo y Julieta