I have found myself publicly and privately apologizing to those who have been unable to access either Luxury Home Digest or San Diego Previews this past week. It was embarrassing. It was costly. It was something that should never happen in a civilized or honorable world.
You see, we along with a dozen or so other Active Rain bloggers were hit with a malevolent hacking attack last Sunday night, whereby all of our blog and website content was deleted.
Nothing was left: Not comments, not stories, not a database--nor even a remnant of what was there before.
It was as if an identity had been stolen--along with its history, historical concerns and countless hours of thought and labor. We initally hoped it was a minor glitch that could be quickly repaired.
That was not to be the case.
But thanks to the tireless work of blogging gurus at the Real Estate Tomato, we have been able to restore most of our material.
And thanks to those who brought these web and blogsites down, I am now musing about the consequences for such actions.
Is attacking a website and deleting its content a crime? And if more than one attacker, a conspiracy?
Could such activity constitute a “restraint of trade” as defined by the Federal Trade Commission? Google definitions, as usual, provide some clues.
These are answers that should give pause to anyone even thinking of taking down the website of another.
To read the rest of this article, please click on over to the resurrected Luxury Home Digest:
Roberta, Fabulous article.
Couldn't have said it better.
If this happened in China, they may be facing the death penalty.