Common Dreams

This weekend the Common Dreams website came under the biggest attack we have endured since we started publishing 16 years ago. Unknown attackers launched a massive, coordinated Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) attack on our website. The DDoS attack came as a flood of 'visitors' all at the same time which overloaded, slowed and eventually brought down our servers. The attack took us offline for hours and greatly slowed our services throughout the weekend. The good news is that this morning our server consultants assured us that they now have our servers stabilized and safe. The bad news is we have no way to know who our attackers are - and no guarantee that more attacks aren't forthcoming. It came at a bad time. First, our on-going coverage of the Edward Snowden story was being widely-forwarded and shared. But when potential new readers would click a link to one of our articles they would get an "Article Does Not Exist" message. Not a good first impression. Secondly, our critical Mid-Year fundraising drive, which was picking up momentum Friday, dropped to a trickle over the last 3 days. The unknown attackers may succeed in knocking us down for a few hours. But the only thing that will knock us down for good is if our reader-supported news model fails us. Tonight, we are still $11,000 shy of meeting our budget. Can you help us get there? We can't do it without you! Gratefully, Craig Brown for the whole Common Dreams team P.S. Our online donations are processed by a very secure third party vendor which was not part of the DDoS attack on our website. Your donations are safe, tax-deductible and deeply appreciated.