The Infidel Task Force

Friday, May 10, 2013

The Infidel Task Force web site has been shut down.

       The Infidel Task Force web site has been shut down. And you folks who frequent this page should know what happened.
I guess the bottom line is, the ITF site is down and out. Just like credit card thievery, you never expect to get hacked, but it happens. The site used to get an average of 250 to 300 hits a day. Pretty damn good for us. Then last November my bandwidth suddenly leaped to ten times its max.
Bandwidth is the amount of space that you're allowed to have per site. The more people who visit your site, the more bandwidth used.
I was allotted 500 GIG of bandwidth, and that is quite a lot. It accumulates for an entire month, then is wiped clean to start from zero. I would usually end the 30 day day period around 8 GIG used. That's no where near the 500 GIG allowed.
Well last November the bandwidth shot sky high (850 GIG) and the site was down for two weeks. It seems this hacker has the capability of fooling the system into thinking thousands of visitors were entering the site, thus overloading the allowed bandwidth and shutting down the site.The server...WEBS.com ..told me it was a Denial of Service attack and they would work with me.... and they did. Everyday WEBS would clear the bandwidth and keep my site up and running. The hackers got tired and soon quit. I thought that would be the end of it. It wasn't.
It happened again in February. ITF was down for three weeks. My badgering e-mails to WEBS did no good. Finally the site was cleared and back up. Since the site is not open to comments, the readers had only one way to contact me. Some did, most did not and my readership dropped way down. It never really came back. WEBS did nothing to help.
Now for the third time in six months the site was attacked again. I guess WEBS now thinks I am abusing the system and told me I was off their servers. No warning. Nothing.
I have no idea who they are or where they come from. But they do have the ability to shut sites down. The Infidel Task Force was one of them. Yes I got my share of hate mails, but you never take them serious. Until you see what they can do.
As for the future....I'm not sure at this point. I have all my interviews backed up, I felt those were the most important aspect of the site. Some graphics, at least the important ones. That's it. I must admit, I have looked into two other web hosting sites...but I'm thinking take the summer off and see what happens in the autumn. The ITF still has the other sites... Twitter and Blogspot....so I may concentrate on those for awhile. I'm really not certain. Annie is a good friend down in Florida and she runs our Facebook page. Annie does an outstanding job but asked if I could assist her this summer. She needs some breathing room for a bit, so that should keep me busy.

I have spoken to Gates of Vienna, although I cannot remember her name at this time. Pam Geller of Atlas Shrugs recommended I get with Typepad.com. Glenn from The Religion Of Peace.com said I should investigate GoDaddy.com...I might just do that. All my contributors have responded with concern, suggestions and hope.
That's it folks!! Sorry to have to give you the bad news. But until the time that the ITF rises again from the ashes....and I certainly hope it does....please visit and sign up with the Infidel Task Force Blogspot web site. That one is interactive like this.
http://infideltaskforce.blogspot.com/