‘Virtual sit-in’ tests line between DDoS and free speech
21st May 2010
UC San Diego Professor Ricardo Dominguez spearheaded the March 4 digital protest by calling on demonstrators to visit a webpage that sent a new page request to the UC president’s website every one to six seconds. A separate function automatically sent 404 queries to the server. A “spawn” feature allowed participants to run additional pages in another window, multiplying the strain on the targeted website.
Dominguez, an associate professor in UC San Diego’s visual arts department, said the demonstration was an act of “electronic civil disobedience,” a field he’s been studying for more than a decade and for which he earned tenure in 2006. He said he’s organized or participated in at least 16 similar protests and until now has never been accused of criminal hacking.