Original million dollar homepage hijacked!
January 19, 2006The original Million Dollar Homepage of Briton Alex Tew was recently brought down by a distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attack.
Alex Tew, 21, hit the headlines at the start of the year when he revealed his Million Dollar Homepage had made him a million dollars in four months. But the publicity brought the unwanted attention of extortionists who knocked the site over with a massive denial-of-service attack.
Nearing the US$ 1,000,000 mark, Tew received demands for US$ 50,000 from what was apparently a Russian group of hackers in exchange for not continuing a planned attack to the site. He did not heed the threat, and a few days after, his site was brought to a crawling halt.
The malicious hacker’s e-mail was shared exclusively with the Financial Times, which quoted it to read:
Hello u website is under us atack to stop the DDoS send us 50000$.
You can be sure to trust kids with bad grammar to bring down an innovative, revenue-generating site.
(via DIGG)
Previous Comments
This is a very looong comment. I received one as well on my article about the Million Dollar Homepage. Like an advertisement?
Posted by Angelo, too! at January 24, 2006, 11:36 pmAll comments are moderated. Your comments will not appear here unless approved by the blog owner. Thank you.
News from http://www.millionairepixels.co.uk…
‘a Devon business with global ambition’
Date: Monday 16 January 2006
Australia asks Devon Designer for Help
Devon internet businessman and web designer Alan Wheeler has launched an innovative web advertising service which has already attracted an international company to sign up.
Bovey Tracey based Mr Wheeler has also been asked by Australian charity ‘Hope for Children’ to help them design and set up a similar web-based advertising service.
His web-service http://www.millionairepixels.co.uk… enables businesses to buy a square of pixels, on the web page. Customers click on the coloured pixels and are immediately transported to the advertiser’s web site.
With each block of 100 pixels costing just £60 (60p per unit) it is, believes Mr Wheeler, one of the best value advertising and promotion options for businesses of all sizes and a potentially valuable boost to tourism related services.
And, in the longer term, advertisers could end up bidding for space on what is being described as internet ‘real estate’.
Mr Wheeler, aged 42, said “It’s a quick and easy way for people to find a service or firm and it also gives competitive advantage to the businesses because, with the millions of web sites available, this will draw potential customers to them much more easily.”
“Without a doubt there are people globally willing to pay for quite gimmicky advertising solutions. The internet is a fast moving place with over eight million web pages added on a daily basis. For a website to stand out and generate sales it needs to stand out from the rest,” he added
Last autumn university student Alex Tew set up the Million Dollar site and since then has been overwhelmed by the success of a venture intended to raise enough money to pay for his way through university.
Alan Wheeler’s http://www.millionairepixels.co.uk… is, he says, the next big step in the concept because, in effect, businesses are ‘leasing’ virtual real estate on the web to promote their businesses.
Launched just two weeks ago, http://www.millionairepixels.co.uk… has already won the backing of international business Optis Europe Ltd, an operations management company, which is using the site to promote its business.
With more customers advertising it is, says Mr Wheeler, inevitable that like real property, some of the pixels on his site will become increasingly valuable for their ‘owners’ as more business is generated.
However, the last 1200 pixels, or advertising blocks, will eventually be auctioned off in support of the Great Ormond Street Children’s Hospital, said Mr Wheeler.
Ends…
Posted by Spider at January 24, 2006, 4:29 am