Blogosphere Offensive, The

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Oldrac the Chitinous
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Blogosphere Offensive, The

Post by Oldrac the Chitinous »

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Zach Weiner, in a recruiting advertisement for the Saturday Militia, wrote:For Free Speech! For your Fellows! For the Forum! Zach Weiner seeks brave volunteers for a worthy cause."
The Blogosphere Offensive was an early military campaign conducted under the authority of Zach Weiner, later alternately styled <<Zach the Magnificent>> or Zecharias Pontifex I, in the second half of 2011.

In the year preceeding the Offensive, traffic on the Inter-Net Web Site on which the SMBC forum was hosted had been increasing at an unprecedented rate, and analysts predicted that this growth would not abate before overrunning the servers. From February to May of 2011, Weiner attempted to negotiate with agents of the Corporate Barony IWeb for additional server rights, but was unable to come to an agreement.

Left with few options, Weiner placed an announcement in the Forum calling for able volunteers to undertake an unspecified mission to ensure the continued survival of the Community. By the end of August, he had recruited well over a thousand soldiers to his newly-formed military wing, which he named the <<Saturday Militia>>. In addition, using venture capital diverted from his newly started side venture, <<Emily Chickenson Restaurants>>, he was able to purchase a similar number of AK-47s with which to arm them. On 5 September, 2011, after putting his troops through a very brief training regimen, Weiner revealed his plan. The objective: Take over the Inter-Net.

The Blogosphere Offensive was conducted on two fronts. The first was a digital attack on several strategic Domain Name Servers. Edminster, one of Weiner's prominent vassals at the time, had captured and collected those Spam-bots robust enough to withstand the security measures put in place following the Annihilation of Outlandia three years prior, and had transformed them from intrusive advertisements into fearsome weapons. Weiner subsequently acquired these altered Spam-bots from Edminster, and over the following four months, he sent small waves of them to overwhelm and take control of the target servers. During the same period, he dispatched the Saturday Militia, under the command of one Gen. Winter E. Malaise, with orders to seize the offices and server hardware of IWeb and other hosting providers. Over the course of the campaign, they made a total of nine guerrilla raids on targets in four cities.

The results of the Campaign were universally unfavorable for the forum. The Spam-bots, despite their sweeping alterations, were still easily identified and disabled by server defenses. By the time the operation was over, fully 700 of the Militia had been arrested by local authorities. Twenty-five were killed, including Gen. Malaise. Weiner, now under intense scrutiny for his connection with the attacks, was forced to relinquish control of the servers he had seized, and ultimately, to shut down the Forum altogether until March of 2012.

Author's Commentary:
The Blogosphere Offensive takes its name from a postmillenial term referring to the portion of the Inter-Net of that era devoted to publishing personal digital journals. The servers that hosted these journals, termed "blogs," accounted for the vast majority of the primary targets of the Offensive. The term "Blogosphere" has long since been abandoned.

Although the Blogosphere Offensive was not a proud moment in our shared history, it bears remembering for several reasons: It was the first military action undertaken by the Community outside of the Inter-Net, and resulted in the creation of the Militia, which endured long past the campaign's end. Perhaps more significantly, Weiner's failure to acquire additional server capacity would provide much of the impetus for his subsequent campaign to construct a physical realization of the forum. And finally, the fact that the Forum survived this defeat stands as proof that His Magnificence deserves veneration not only for his genius, but for his tenacity.

Finally, I am indebted to our friend and colleague, Moderator Edminster, for his assistance in preparing this article. I refer the interested reader to his remarks, archived below, which provide a unique insight into the nature and origins of the Spam-bots used in this campaign.
Last edited by Oldrac the Chitinous on Tue Apr 28, 2009 9:11 pm, edited 4 times in total.
Police said they spent some time working out if they could charge the man with being armed with a weapon, as technically he was armed with part of a fish.

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Re: Blogosphere Offensive

Post by Edminster »

(in reference to a previous edition of the above article)
Your facts are slightly off. Weiner did not cull the spam-bots from the Annexation, he received them directly from my earliest known ancestor. You see, Edminster had captured several spam-bots that had managed to outwit the Emayle Confirmation Bureau, in an attempt to learn the Truth behind the Pure Spirit found in office30. At least, that's the story that was passed down through the generations.

The truth is much more sordid.

Edminster had once promised in one of his many failed bids for election as Moderator that he would round up as many spam-bots as possible, and 'breed' them in order to create an unstoppable army. I have reproduced the original campaign promise below. While he failed to become a Mod, he followed through with his promise. Unfortunately for the Forum, he had not been able to create the soulless killing machine that he had been trying for. In an attempt to remove the shame of this failure, Edminster joined the Saturday Militia's Bravo Company in the Meatspace assault. He was one of those twenty-five Killed In Action during the Offensive, but his genetic sequence was preserved, in case it was found that his deranged genius was ever needed again.

It was a dark and shameful part of a family history defined by its involvement in some of the more disgusting times in the History of the Forum, but at least he had the courage to stand up for what he believed in. I can only hope that I will display such fortitude should I ever be called for a cause that I believe in.
Edminster, on Tue 27 Jan, 2009 wrote:I will edit them with a cool patience, waiting for them to rear their ugly heads, only to castrate the links with my trusty knife. And, should their form be displeasing to the eye, I could reshape them. Make them more attractive. Possibly even augment them with some form of cybernetic organ, I'm not sure.

Regardless, they will be as works of Art, fit only to be viewed by the finest of our society. However, as punishment for their crime against the forum, they shall be relegated to the status of chew toys to be played with by the Blind Puppy for our entertainment. And we will laugh! Oh, how we will laugh at the antics, as the Unseeing fumblingly caresses the Unfeeling, for Justice will truly be served.

But I will not stop there! I shall then breed the Canid with the Machine, in order to create the perfect weapon. I will then unleash it upon the other forums, wreaking havoc and laying waste to all that stand in the path of The True Forum. We will hit the forums of lesser webcomics first, to insure that none shall rise to usurp SMBC.

Then, and only then, shall we annihilate our most hated foe, Christina Strawberry. Once that is accomplished, there is no end to the Utopia that shall rise with SMBC taking it's rightful place in the World of Webcomics. Surely none can deny me the right to create this Nirvana, for only I can bring this future into Reality.
ol qwerty bastard wrote:bitcoin is backed by math, and math is intrinsically perfect and logically consistent always

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Re: Blogosphere Offensive

Post by Oldrac the Chitinous »

Well! That was enlightening!
In view of this new information, I have revised the article.
Police said they spent some time working out if they could charge the man with being armed with a weapon, as technically he was armed with part of a fish.

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Re: Blogosphere Offensive

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Thank you for revising the article after the revelation of salient facts. While I cannot erase the deeds of my ancestors, I can at least ensure that their mistakes are recorded for the edification of posterity.
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Re: Blogosphere Offensive

Post by mountainmage »

I believe you might mean advertisers rather than advertisements.
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Re: Blogosphere Offensive

Post by Oldrac the Chitinous »

I believe I wrote advertisers rather than advertisements.
Police said they spent some time working out if they could charge the man with being armed with a weapon, as technically he was armed with part of a fish.

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Re: Blogosphere Offensive

Post by mountainmage »

I wonder...what is it with people and being ashamed of making horrible, horrible typos? I'm merely trying to help.
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Re: Blogosphere Offensive

Post by Edminster »

Look at the time frame, Mage. Oldrac last edited the message hours before you claimed a mistype. Clearly your accusation of fallibility is faulty.
ol qwerty bastard wrote:bitcoin is backed by math, and math is intrinsically perfect and logically consistent always

gödel stop spreading fud

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Re: Blogosphere Offensive

Post by mountainmage »

Master of Ceremonies Edminster, abetting someone who makes a typo is a serious offense. Don't let the power go to your head, or you may find yourself like your ancestor: sans one.
No more white horses ♬ ♫ ♪ ılıll|̲̅̅●̲̅̅|̲̅̅=̲̅̅|̲̅̅●̲̅̅|llılı ♪ ♫ ♬ for you to ride away

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Re: Blogosphere Offensive

Post by Edminster »

Ah, you have caught me. Clearly your discerning eye and analytical mind is a valuable asset to this endeavor. Please do not take offense at my sly editing work, and remember that typographical errors were decriminalised in the Treaty of Aol'gun twenty years ago. I understand that you voted against the aforementioned treaty, but that is no excuse to carry on as if it was never ratified.

In case I used speech a tad too flowery above: I apologise.
ol qwerty bastard wrote:bitcoin is backed by math, and math is intrinsically perfect and logically consistent always

gödel stop spreading fud

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Re: Blogosphere Offensive

Post by mountainmage »

Ah, it's all right old bean. Sometimes I let my anger get the best of me. You see, my grandfather was killed by a typo. It was one HELL of a typo.
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Re: Blogosphere Offensive

Post by Oldrac the Chitinous »

Waaaaitaminute.
I did mean advertisements, after all. The advertiser is whoever sends out the Spam-bots - the 'bots don't have the volition to be advertisers in their own right. That's why I called them weapons, not warriors.
I'm afraid I'm not going to budge on this one, gentlemen.
Police said they spent some time working out if they could charge the man with being armed with a weapon, as technically he was armed with part of a fish.

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Re: Blogosphere Offensive

Post by mountainmage »

Ok, I understand now. Thank you for elucidating, sir.
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Re: Blogosphere Offensive

Post by Edminster »

Oldrac the Chitinous wrote:the 'bots don't have the volition to be advertisers in their own right.
An argument could be made that both office30 and the spambots created by my ancestor operated under their own volition, but that is applicable only to those two examples. My apologies for looking at this through the lens of my obsessions, rather than as an objective scholar.
ol qwerty bastard wrote:bitcoin is backed by math, and math is intrinsically perfect and logically consistent always

gödel stop spreading fud

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Re: Blogosphere Offensive

Post by Oldrac the Chitinous »

Not at all, gents! Imprecise history is a far more dangerous thing than no history at all. I'm grateful for your vigilance.
All the same, I hope there aren't many more syllables as contentious as that one.
Police said they spent some time working out if they could charge the man with being armed with a weapon, as technically he was armed with part of a fish.

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