16 April 2002
Stasiopfer.de, a German web site which provides information on the East German STASI, was ordered by the German government to remove a searchable database on former members of the STASI. The deadline for removal was April 12 or a large fine would be imposed. Sample news reports:
http://www.spiegel.de/netzwelt/politik/0,1518,191702,00.html
To assist Stasiopfer ("STASI Victims") Cryptome established a home for the banned databank, which has been heavily accessed since April 12:
http://jya.com/stasiopfer/infobig_neu.php
Now there are attacks on the Stasiopfer.de and the mail system of the owners which have disrupted service, and the Cryptome searchable database is under a series of denial of service attacks which are preventing access by others to the database and to the jya.com archive.
It is likely the attacks are coming from former members of the STASI, their supporters, or the German government. The primary attacker appears to be based at the University of Leipzig (www.uni-leipzig.de), although that address could be spoofed or a machine there has been compromised by an offsite user; machine address:
userv2.informatik.uni-leipzig.de
The machine address has been blocked but it continues generate unceasing error messages utilizing Wget/1.8.1 (over 60MB of log files since the attacks began yesterday) and prevents other accesses.
Emails to the university administrators have not been answered.