13th October 2004

Some questions and answers from the BNP Internet team about the recent attack on the BNP website.

What happened and when?

On Friday 8th October at about 0400 BST the official BNP web site, (www.bnp.org.uk) suffered a sustained hostile attack by what is termed “denial of service”,(DoS) leading to the server on which the site is stored being closed down by our hosting providers.

As part and parcel of our contract, our hosting providers immediately responded and set up a new server (computer) to host our material. However this replacement server came under the same DoS attack early on Saturday morning, which not only affected the bnp.org.uk website but thousands of web sites belonging to American and non-US global businesses and organisations. Under the circumstances, the US based hosting provider had no choice but to close down a significant part of their network.

What exactly is a “web server”?

A web server is a powerful computer which stores the data files (images and web pages) which makes up a complete web site. It delivers or “serves” information such as one web page, an image or a video clip to the many users connected to the Internet in homes, offices, schools and colleges. Such a computer is permanently connected to the Internet and is physically located in a purpose built “data-centre” which are usually owned by large telecommunication providers.

Webserver: A super-computer which stores web sites.

What is a data-centre?

A data-centre is designed to withstand physical attack, by often being located wholly or partially underground, with very tight entry security, usually with its own power generation in the effort of a Grid power cut. Servers are not cheap and the data on those servers may be worth millions of pounds to businesses, government departments and organisations that either own their own data-centres or who pay to use the services of a data-centre. Such data-centres may house hundreds of servers and tens of thousands of customer’s web sites. There are scores of data centres in the UK, hundreds in the USA and in continental Europe and most nations now have such buildings. Just like all commercial services, some centres are better equipped and more secure and more reliable and provide better value for money than others.

What on earth is one of those DoS attacks?

A denial of service attack is an incident in which there is a deliberate (or occasionally accidental) attempt to “flood” a network, and so reduce or restrict genuine access. The server cannot cope with the huge amount of traffic flowing through the network and stops functioning. It is a bit like this: Consider yourself being asked by a friend one question at a time, it is easy to cope. Consider being asked by two or three people a question at the same time, still manageable, but when simultaneously asked by seven or eight people or one hundred people, it becomes impossible. When put into that kind of situation, most people would throw their hands up in horror and give up in protest. The same thing applies to servers. They do not have infinite capability to handle infinite requests. When subject to millions of requests the servers just give up the ghost!

Why did the BNP have a web server in the USA? That seems a bit unpatriotic coming from a party that espouses “buying British”.

The BNP would love to acquire all its products, merchandise and services from within the UK including our webservers. We cannot, because none of the hosting companies based in the UK will work with us; not that they are bothered by the political views of the BNP, far from it. They simply capitulate to threats and intimidation by the political opposition and some State security agencies. The American people and owners of businesses there, if not the Bush regime, still have a greater respect for freedom of speech than their counterparts in the UK and are not so easily beaten into submission by the threats and intimidation delivered by those that would deny free speech; regardless of the nature of the political content of such sites.

Who was responsible?

At the moment we are not aware of the identity of the attacker(s). The FBI is carrying out a thorough investigation because the server was based in the States and thousands of American businesses, individuals, organisations and charities were victims of the attack. In addition a UK police force’s “Computer Crimes Unit” is carrying out its own investigation. There have been a number of suggestions and rumours circulating on the Internet and several potentially valuable leads have been submitted to the party officers. The most likely suggestion is that it was an UK based organisation or media group hostile to Britain and the BNP. However suggestions that a foreign Government, criminal gang or terrorist outfit testing its new “cyber-weapons” should not be dismissed, neither should we dismiss the notion that it was a unaffiliated private individual who contracted a IT professional to create the new and customised program. The FBI and the UK police have been made aware of an incident of threatening behaviour which took place in June.This included a recorded threat made by the individual conducting the alleged threatening behaviour claiming to work for “Searchlight” magazine.

Why now, in October? Surely a political opponent would have attacked the BNP site just before the last election?

A very pertinent question and one that can be answered in several ways. First of all, the (Old Gang) State political opposition used many different non-Internet methods to ensure damaging the BNP vote. The use of postal ballots, attendant fraud in these areas, the delay in counting votes allowing votes to be stolen, defaced and damaged, the widespread dissemination of leaflets by third parties not contesting the election which are still the subject of ongoing legal actions, plus of course the media “hyping” of UKIP to appeal to the disaffected, patriotic anti-EU Britons who were thereto BNP voters. It is therefore possible to conclude that the political opposition simply did not need to resort to the investment in time and effort to devise something in order to attack the BNP’s internet presence. Of course if the work over the weekend was not the work of a direct political opponent, but indeed the work of a foreign Government or fundamentalist terrorist gang, then it is possible that the timing was not all relevant and that their testing phase is complete and we should now expect an all out attack on hundreds of data-centres across the UK and Europe and beyond.

What will happen now?

The investigation is in the hands of the FBI and a UK police force. We fully expect that the investigation will be undertaken with the professionalism and probity that an attack of this nature deserves. It has caused distress, suffering and huge financial loss to thousands of businesses and individuals. The hosting company themselves have submitted their own complaints, as have many of the other clients affected. All stand to gain from the results of the investigation. Whoever did carry out this attack is very much a globally “Wanted Person”, who perhaps was unaware of the devastation he/she would cause.

The BNP has a monthly newspaper and a monthly magazine so what is so important about the BNP website anyway?

The use of the Internet is so widespread that any serious political movement needs an effective web presence. We need a continuous and professional web presence. The BNP website was, in September, reported to be the most popular (in terms of visits made) of all political web sites in the UK, even beating The Guardian’s Political site. In other words the BNP site gets more visits than the three factions of the System Party(Tory, Labour and Lib-Dems). We get more visits in one day than all the subscribers to our excellent monthly glossy “Identity”. We get more visits in one week, than the entire average print run of our “Voice of Freedom” newspaper. It helps raise money, sell merchandise and delivers the BNP message to over 150,000 visitors on a weekly basis.

What about the BNP’s Internet presence? Surely “tough talk” is a waste of time, “action” is needed and desperately so?

Yes and action there has been aplenty in the past four-five days. The Internet editors, the security team and the legal team have recently met to discuss and initiate a response.

We are understandably unwilling to provide the specific details of our plans, but all we can say is that we are in the process of finalising the necessary steps which will allow us to own our very own server. We will have total ownership of such a server, allowing us to beef up security as well as seriously improving the kind of services we can offer our web users. We will have the server hosted in a different data centre to the one attacked last week and yes it will be in the US, for the same reason explained above. American hosts seem to have more backbone compared to their UK counterparts. We will further implement the strategy that is used by the likes of the BBC. The BBC doesn’t just have one server which delivers its web pages, no; it has scores of servers located throughout the globe. If one server comes under attack or as is often the case, simply cannot handle the genuine requests, the BBC site remains live because there are other servers available. It is of course possible for a sustained attack to bring down all of the BBC webservers, but the chances are currently remote. Who knows what cyber-weapons are being developed by Britain’s enemies! So, although it will cost the BNP a small fortune, we will ensure we have a number of back-up servers that in the event of our principal server being attacked we will continue to maintain our online presence. In addition we will liaise with the investigation agencies to ensure the perpetrator(s) and their sponsors are brought to justice and the BNP receives substantial financial compensation.

In addition, the existing BNP site will be radically overhauled and completed within the next few weeks. The redesign began some weeks ago but so many other demands have been placed upon us that it has not been possible to make the launch. There will be new contributors, an enhanced “Regional Voices” section, better use of multi-media and a very special mechanism to allow like-minded folk to be invited to participate in development of ideas and policy as well as a launch of a new facility by which all British patriots can buy products and services from a wholly British patriotic owned and managed “online shopping centre”. (Watch this space, this promises to be one of the most serious advances in developing a “parallel economy, run by patriotic Britons for the benefit of patriotic Britons”!)

Has my own PC been affected in any way?

Definitely not! The attack was aimed at the BNP website. It was not a virus or any bug which could have been distributed beyond our server. It did not affect the computers of any of visitors who tried to view the www.bnp.org.uk who would have just been greeted with “request timed out” or “page unavailable” message.

What can I do?

The cost of our own server and the necessary features to ensure we have a robust and secure solution is something we simply MUST have. Some strange stories circulating by email and telephone suggest that the BNP could have a hosting package for £30/month. These may be well meaning or just ill-informed, but the amount of traffic our site needs, together with the robust security demanded will cost us very much more than that. We have had to commit ourselves to a considerable expense over the next few months. We do really need your assistance. Although we hope to take the perpetrators to task and win substantial damages, such a legal task will take months, if not years to secure and succeed. We cannot wait that long. A donation of just £5 or £10 from a fraction of our daily visitors would help pay for our continued and uninterrupted Internet presence. The BNP receives no State handouts, no “bungs” from foreign magnates and no “bribes” from global corporations.

Appreciation

Thanks to all those who have sent in messages of support and offers of advice and assistance by alternative email addresses, by text and by telephone. Your patience, loyalty and support is much appreciated and we will soon have an Internet presence worthy of the party of stout-hearted patriotic Britons. It will be THE alternative to the rubbish spewed forth by the System’s Press and Media operations. It will be THE first website that hundreds of thousands of British voters soon select as their home page and develop the sense of community through the Internet that is sadly lacking in the real world.