A note for those who are worried about DU's security tomorrow

[EarlG]

This discussion thread was locked by EarlG (a host of the Announcements group).

As many of you know, DU was vandalized on Election Day 2016 by a scripting hack that forced us to bring the site down for about a week before we could restore functionality. A recap of that situation can be found here.

I'm sure you can imagine that securing DU against a similar situation has been at the forefront of our minds for a long time, and to that end, Elad has spent a great deal of time working with our web host to make sure that DU is as well-protected as we can possibly be going into tomorrow's election.

There are two important things you need to know about DU's security:

1) Without going into any specific detail about what has been done, I can assure you that DU is significantly better protected against various types of attack than it was four years ago.

2) BUT... there is not a single site on the Internet that is invulnerable to attack by someone with enough skill and willpower. Even the giants can be brought down or hobbled by determined groups or individuals. So while I'm sure you would like to hear me guarantee that DU will stay up tomorrow, I cannot make that promise.

What I can promise you though, is that we have not been resting on our laurels -- we have taken every possible precaution that we can to prevent a repeat of 2016.

Should something beyond our control happen tomorrow, we will post updates on our Twitter and Facebook pages to keep you informed. Please bear in mind that these will be the only official sources of information should we need to get updates out that way, but we will likely not be monitoring or moderating any of the responses.

https://twitter.com/demunderground
https://www.facebook.com/democraticunderground

We remain optimistic, however, that it won't come to that.

Thank you for being with us on DU for what will no doubt be an historic day tomorrow.



-- EarlG and Elad