Those who were tuned in to the 2016 Candidates Tournament in Moscow and took note of the anger that is seething in the social media world regarding the recent attempts to censor the live game broadcasts of the tournament, may have noticed a tweet from the official account stating that the official website responsible for broadcasting the match was the victim of a Dedicated Denial of Service (DDOS) attack. The tweet was sent from the account at 0449 EST:
Denial of service attack ongoing against https://t.co/vH9hYuHJj2 – genuine chess fans suffering as a result
— World Chess (@theworldchess) March 11, 2016
World Chess site has been attacked in massive denial of service attack. Clear attempt to stop Candidates broadcast
— World Chess (@theworldchess) March 11, 2016
It is intriguing that whoever posted the tweet was specific in expressing their opinion that this was an clear attempt to stop broadcast of the Candidates Tournament. For anyone who knows anything about subversion and the attempts by shady and underhanded organizations to manipulate these kind of events knows that this is a propaganda ploy. Because, why would the chess community as a whole have any reason to bring down the single website available to broadcast the moves of one of the most important tournaments of the year?
For those of us with extensive backgrounds in information technology, we understand that it is more likely that the world chess Federation underestimated (like it usually does) the demands that would be placed on a broadcast server. If you are running one server to broadcast a series of games and it is the only place in the world where chess fans are told that they can legally obtained the moves from the event, then countless attempts to contact and connect to the server is not a DDOS! In an attempt to further their efforts to manipulate the chest broadcasting system in future tournaments, claiming that it was a dedicated denial of service attack enables them to deflect the blame from their own services and failings.
Fortunately, the chess community is brilliant and few (if any) actually believed the claims although there are some websites that have repeated the story, but almost none of them have approached it from a purely serious standpoint and are quick to note the sarcastic response from most of the chess community on social media.
@theworldchess Sure that was a DOS attack? Sure that wasn't just… everyone trying to watch the candidates in one place? Hope you're ready!
— Mano Vandemoortel (@_mano) March 11, 2016
@theworldchess pathetic, it's not a DDOS attack, it's your cheap ass server and attempt at monopolizing the broadcast.
— Campfire Chess (@CampfireChess) March 11, 2016
As my readers know, I am very passionate about this situation, which is why I offered my $0.02 above. However, I tip my hat to this tweet, which sums up everything I believe that people have come to think about professional international chess under Kirsan Ilyumzhinov:
@theworldchess Must be CIA, no? Or Kirshan's aliens?
— JazzCat (@JazzCat44) March 11, 2016
Will we see more craziness like this in the coming days? Probably so, but I can tell you that the backlash has had an effect on how the tournament and organizers are conducting business. Today, the tournament organizer, AGON, rescinded its to our release rule for the PGN file and will be releasing them immediately after the conclusion of each game in the match.
Small moves.
-w.s.