Part of today's unusual traffic pattern of multiple international IPs simultaneously pulling the same "old" story. (Also see screen shot below.)

At approximately 2:06 p.m. EDT Monday, the PP Blog began to experience an unusual traffic pattern. In the past, such patterns have been the precursors of sustained electronic assaults against the Blog.

The unusual pattern reoccurred yesterday, and the Blog contacted a federal law-enforcement agency.  The agency is aware of a server-killing assault on the Blog that began a year ago this week. It also is aware of subsequent attacks. The Blog believes that one or more criminals is responsible for the unusual traffic pattern, which mostly features multiple international IPs attempting to pull the same “old” stories simultaneously.

Although Monday and Tuesday’s unusual traffic eventually dissipated, the pattern resumed today and caused the Blog’s server briefly to exceed its normal operating parameters. Not all of the unusual activity is captured in the screen shots published in this post.

PP Blog Today Discloses Nature Of April Incident

In April 2011, the Blog reported an unusual incident to the same federal law-enforcement agency referenced above.  The incident involved a claim of responsibility for a crippling springtime botnet flood against the Blog by a person who claimed to have carried out the attack on behalf of a specific, U.S.-based company with an international presence. The “opportunity” purportedly provided by the company was widely promoted on Ponzi scheme boards earlier this year, and the person also claimed to represent other companies. In making the claim of responsibility, the person described the Blog as “your little vicious blog.”

The Blog provided the agency information about the April event, which the Blog viewed as a bid to chill its reporting. The implication of the April incident was that the attacks could continue at the will of a self-described “master of execution” for online investment schemes until such a time the Blog devoted between $60,000 and $72,000 a year to deflect the traffic.

In the claim of responsibility, the self-described attacker used the phrase “TOP HYIPs” and the name of an HYIP purveyor.  He described himself in menacing language.

Although the Blog is maintaining a full publishing schedule and its server has returned to normal operating parameters today, the signatures of certain “calls” to the Blog’s editorial well are troublesome and will be monitored closely in the coming hours and days.