FBI Raid Takes Down Mess of Websites
Curbed, Pinboard and a host of other sites went down after the FBI raided a Virginia data center and carted off three racks of servers. The Feds were reportedly targeting just one individual user. Talk about heavy handed.
Swiss web host Digital One has been telling customers that the FBI raided one of its U.S. data centers in the dead of night, apparently in an effort to seize the digital assets of "one single person." Instead they made off with three server rack enclosures stuffed to the gills with innocent bystanders' machines. The Curbed Network, whose blogs on real estate, shopping and fine dining have been offline since 3am, does not seem to be the target; co-founder Lockhart Steele gave everyone the day off to drink margaritas and is himself enjoying some steak in Brooklyn while waiting for new servers to be provisioned elsewhere. Online bookmarks site Pinboard.in also suffered collateral damage, losing 1/3rd of its Digital One servers to the raid, forcing it to shut down various features. Clipping service Instapaper lost one of five servers but no functionality. Also down were servers associated with youlookfab.com, altlabs.co.au.
Digital One told the New York Times that it lost servers used by "tens of clients" in the raid. It's not clear who the FBI was targeting — it's known to have been investigating hacker group LulzSecurity — but pretty obvious that it's done some serious, cybercriminal style damage of its own to law abiding businesses.