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.
		Last modified: October 5, 2004 Technical/administrative contact: [email protected]