Phoning It In

Forgive me if I seem a little depressed, but it’s only because I am. The GripeLog website has been down or dysfunctional all weekend, apparently due to a link-spam posting attack that has gotten out of hand. Although I’m sure we’ll figure out how to deal with this particular problem, it spurs me to announce something while there’s still an Internet to announce it on. Starting now, in addition to posting or e-mailing your gripes, you can phone them in by leaving me a voice mail at my new toll free number: 1 888 875-7916.

As I write this Sunday night, I still do not have the ability to post anything on the GripeLog site, so I may only be able to post on InfoWorld’s Gripe Line weblog, which is unaffected. For those of you who have been trying to get through to my site, or who have found that even when you do get through that you can’t post comments, I apologize. All I can tell you for sure is that the problem lies with almost nightly attacks we’ve been suffering for over a week and that really hit us hard this weekend. Hopefully I’ll soon be able to post stories myself and our comment-posting engine will return to normal, but right now we’re still working on it.

The attacks make little sense, since, according to my webhost, they emanate primarily from Southeast Asia and appear to be trying to post link spam comments on my site, but then suddenly escalate into something that looks more like a concerted DDOS attack. But why would link spammers who are trying to take advantage of the fact that my site allows anonymous posting of comments deliberately create a surge that crashes it instead? I don’t know.

But let’s face it. In the larger picture, the spammers are winning. And the fact that their victory may very well wind up destroying the Internet, or at least Internet e-mail, isn’t going to stop them for a moment. You no doubt can see this for yourself in your own inbox, either because of the overwhelming amount of junk that’s in there or the occasional important missive that didn’t make it there when it should because of your anti-spam defenses. The growing worthlessness of Internet e-mail is a topic we should talk about, assuming we still have a way of doing so.

OK, like I said, I’m a bit depressed right now. But isn’t a toll free phone number a bit of an overreaction? Well, I don’t think so. Really long-time readers will know that when I started the Gripe Line lo those many years ago, it was with a toll free number because at the time Internet e-mail wasn’t yet universal And there’s a certain character to phoned-in gripes that I’m sure will prove valuable in and of itself. Another motivation is my desire to do a podcast version of the Gripe Line in which I’ll incorporate actual reader voices, so it’s not that I’m trying to revert completely to an analog world.

So, hey, give me a call. That number again is 1 888 875-7916. Operators are not standing by, but it will brighten my day to hear a few impassioned readers venting about what’s bothering them today.