Some of you have probably read some things on this site, mostly in the editorial articles or social media links to articles, that you either didn't like or didn't agree with. It's a fact of all journalism that spin simply cannot be avoided entirely; a small degree exists in the writings of even the most seasoned and unbiased reporters. It's in their author's voice, what they choose to cover, their rapport with readers and a million other small factors that go into anybody who writes nonfiction of any sort. Some people's reaction to reading something they don't jive with is to simply leave the page, while others may leave an intelligent comment as to why they disagree. There are those out there, whoever, who would attack the site they read it on, most commonly in the form of a DDoS, or Distributed Denial of Service attack.

In short, A DDoS floods a server with requests until it overloads and shuts down and usually cannot be accomplished by a single machine working alone, thus the name. The load for the attack is distributed across many machines, in most cases. Not long ago, Google's think tank, known as Jigsaw, came up with a protection against DDoS, called Project Shield, that was aimed at online news sites. Sites that host things like news coverage, human rights speech and election monitoring are most often attacked as a form of censorship. Without special network considerations such as being on a special content distribution network or a very large host, most sites are unable to defend against DDoS attacks. Project Shield, in closed beta until now, is offered to sites in thees categories that don't otherwise have protection.


Project Shield is offered for free. If your site serves news or falls into the categories mentioned above, you're free to apply. If your application is approved, you'll receive an invitation via email. From there, the webmaster or anybody on the site with privileges to configure the site's DNS and security options will be able to get the service rolling. Whether you've suffered DDoS attacks in the past, feel your site is at risk or simply want to be protected, hit up the source link to view the official page for Project Shield and, if you're so inclined, submit your application.