Criminals Target Str8UpGayPorn With Multiple DDoS Attacks And Threatening Texts: “Delete All Your Posts About Our Friend”
Str8UpGayPorn.com was the victim of a distributed denial-of-service attack (DDoS attack) on Friday, March 1st, by an unknown group of criminal hackers who brought down the site for several hours by flooding our server with fake traffic, making it inaccessible for both readers and myself throughout the day.
While most of the attack is now being held back by a firewall and our hosting company’s round-the-clock efforts, there still may be interruptions in service throughout the weekend. If you had or are having delays in pages loading, it’s because the new firewall is so strict, it can inadvertently block legitimate traffic (i.e., you) in the process of blocking the malicious traffic being sent by the attacker. That malicious traffic is coming from bots directed by the attacker, and because there’s so much of it (tens of thousands of requests per second), the server that’s hosting Str8UpGayPorn becomes overwhelmed and can’t load the site. More on DDoS attacks via Wikipedia:
In a distributed denial-of-service attack (DDoS attack), the incoming traffic flooding the victim originates from many different sources. More sophisticated strategies are required to mitigate this type of attack; simply attempting to block a single source is insufficient as there are multiple sources.
A DDoS attack is analogous to a group of people crowding the entry door of a shop, making it hard for legitimate customers to enter, thus disrupting trade and losing the business money.
Criminal perpetrators of DoS attacks often target sites or services hosted on high-profile web servers such as banks or credit card payment gateways. Revenge, blackmail and hacktivism can motivate these attacks.
In addition to the attack launched yesterday, Str8UpGayPorn was also attacked with another DDoS two weeks ago, on February 16th. This first February 16th attack interrupted service on Str8Up off and on for about 36 hours, but it was eventually mitigated by our hosting company. Because the situation was brand new and the investigation into the perpetrators had just begun, I made the editorial decision to hold off on publishing anything about the first attack. After yesterday’s launch of the second attack by the same criminals, I’m obviously reporting this as news now.
The criminals who launched both the attacks also sent threatening text messages to my cell phone both times. These texts contained vague demands and threats, telling me to “delete posts” on Str8UpGayPorn, or their DDoS would be “just a taste of what’s to come.”
Below is the first text message I received on Monday, February 19th, three days after the first attack was launched. It came from what I presume is a cloned/fake number with a Russian country code, showing up as +7 (925) 745-11-65, and the text began with the Hebrew salutation, “Shalom,” followed by, “Did you enjoy your weekend? Delete all your posts about our friend. Or this weekend was just a taste of what’s to come. We know your accusers. You’ll be in jail and broke. We are watching.”
It’s unclear who the text is referring to by “accusers,” as I’ve not been accused of anything by anyone, and it’s of course funny that an actual criminal who’s literally in the process of actively committing a felony is threatening to have their victim “in jail and broke.” Also, the text doesn’t identify who their “friend” is or which specific posts they want deleted, but said friend is obviously someone in the gay porn industry who ordered the attacks.
There are three disgraced individuals who’ve made news over the last several months on Str8UpGayPorn for their harmful or horrific actions, crimes, and abusive behavior. Going back even further over the last several years, there have been dozens of people in the gay porn industry who’ve had their misdeeds reported here, and any of them could want revenge, too. Of course, many of them are either dead or in prison, and most of the rest don’t have the means, the money, or the wherewithal to orchestrate a crime like this. So, overall, I’ve narrowed it down to five possible suspects.
The second DDoS attack that was launched yesterday was done by the same criminals, as they sent yet another text to my phone yesterday morning from the same Russian number. This was sent shortly after the attack was launched, and they once again began with “Shalom.” It read, “Shalom Zach. Enjoying the party? We can go on as long as needed. Delete shit about our friend.”
As you can see, they sent an additional text that only shows up as “Ch,” but this may have been an error or a typo on their part. Who knew it would come to this. A cyber criminal is butt-texting me.
For those wondering, no, I did not and will not respond to the texts. And no, I will never delete any article on Str8UpGayPorn due to threats by criminals or anyone else. As much as this is a story about some deranged lunatic’s petty revenge scheme, it’s also been a sobering reminder of how much I value my freedom of speech here. That that speech is being threatened by someone within the pornography industry is ironic, but I suppose lowlife criminal thugs aren’t exactly known for their consistent virtues.
Before the text(s) to me yesterday morning, the attacker also sent the same message to my business partner and Str8Up co-owner Davyd Dixon, as you can see below. Here was that text, which was sent to him via WhatsApp:
Because there’s now been a second attack and more texts, that means there have been more crimes committed, so later this weekend, l’ll go to the FBI and file a second report on the latest attack and texts.
For reference, here was the first report filed by the FBI on the first DDoS attack against Str8UpGayPorn, back on February 16th:
There are millions of DDoS attacks around the world every year, so I won’t be holding my breath for the FBI to arrest Str8UpGayPorn’s attackers. That being said, there are plenty of people arrested all the time for DDoS attacks and other cyber crimes, so perhaps Str8Up’s attacker and/or their “friend” who arranged the attack will one day face justice. (DDoS attacks are punishable by up to 10 years in prison.) Assuming this “friend” is part of the gay porn industry, odds are he’s told at least one other person about his crimes. And you know the gays, they love to talk. Someone always spills. Someone’s always jaded. The truth always comes out.
To be sure, I do have solid theories as to who perpetrated this crime (of the five I suspect, I strongly suspect two in particular), but without proof, I won’t put anything in print here. Str8UpGayPorn readers, of course, are free to make their own speculations. Perhaps it will be obscenely obvious to everyone reading this? This is, as the best ones often are, a developing story…
