STATEMENT: ‘Swarm’ Affects PP Blog Publishing Operations

STATEMENT: At approximately 8:33 a.m. today, a sudden swarm of international traffic affected the PP Blog’s server and its publishing operations. Like previous unusual incidents, the swarm consisted almost entirely of international IPs, many of which were recording their first “visit” to the Blog.

This morning’s swarm appears to have been almost exclusively targeted at the Blog’s archive and “tag” URLs. Tag URLs load archives of stories that reference specific subjects.

Today’s incident appears to have been particularly intense for a period of about five minutes. Although the intense swarm appears to have abated at approximately 8:38 a.m., certain swarm signatures continue to appear.

As of this post, the Blog’s server is functional — though sluggish.

Here is a screen shot that shows part of the swarm: