The Nizkor Project: Remembering the Holocaust (Shoah)

"Up Yours"
A Response to Ingrid Rimland's Lie
Part 2 of 4
The background of the Malaspina attack
(Why it does not relate to Nizkor)


As Ms. Rimland points out, one of the computers used in the denial of service attack on webcom.com was a computer at Malaspina University-College (in Nanaimo, British Columbia).

She and Mr. Zundel claim that this is significant because, at one time, a mailing address for the Nizkor Project was a P.O. Box in Nanaimo.

But the Malaspina staff was not to blame, nor indeed anyone at the college, nor even in that city. As was made quite plain after the attack, "the perpetrator was not associated with the college but was using [the college's] system as the end of a string of hacked connections in order to cover his trail." That's a quote from a system administrator at Malaspina, from December 1996; see:

http://xp7.dejanews.com/dnquery.xp?search=thread&filter=&svcclass=dnold&threaded=1&recnum=%3c1996Dec20.072054@malvm1.mala.bc.ca%3e%231/1

What this means is that the person who started the attack could have been coming from any computer, anywhere on the internet, anywhere around the world.

In fact, the perpetrator has since been traced to someplace in Nova Scotia. Nanaimo is simply not an issue. Here is email from the president of Web Communications, the victim of the attack. This is the same person who Ms. Rimland says "is Jewish" and "has behaved towards us in an absolutely impeccable professional manner":

Jamie,

You are correct that we have no reason to believe that Nizkor was involved. *All* we know is that it came from a community college in B.C. (Malaspina Community College). I don't even know which town that's in. Furthermore, it was determined that the person who broke into the computer at Malaspina Community College did so from another college in Nova Scotia, so there is no geographical relevance to Malaspina.

Also, Ms. Rimland is incorrect to state that I am Jewish. I always assumed I was because my maternal grandmother died in a Nazi concentration camp. I recently looked into this a bit and discovered that my grandmother was not Jewish. She apparently was a victim of the Nazis due to her Russian nationality. So I have no reason to believe I am Jewish.

Speaking both personally as well as for the entire WebCom team, we condemn the message behind the ezundel site and the disinformation contained in it unequivocally and in the strongest terms. It is only because of our passionate belief in First Amendment rights that we even tolerate this loathsome Web site to be published through our services.

-- 
Web Communications (sm)                 Chris Schefler, President
http://www.webcom.com/			css@webcom.com

(Emphasis Nizkor's.)

Even if Nanaimo were an issue (which it's not), it should be pointed out that:

  1. this type of attack has nothing to do with mailbombing, which is the only thing "Up Yours" concerns itself with;
  2. the Nizkor computers were not in Nanaimo and in fact were a good long drive away;
  3. Nizkor did not use the same network (BCNet) as did Malaspina.

In short, there is absolutely nothing tying Nizkor to this net terrorism. Nor, we might add, to any other net terrorism -- because Nizkor's contributors do not engage in such behavior.

This is interesting mostly because it is a microcosm of Holocaust-denial and demonstrates the worth of their research. A coincidence of city is turned into a major deniers' piece of evidence on the grounds that "It would be very strange indeed if this were a coincidence." It turns out to be, in fact, coincidence; but months after this has been proved, the claim survives in deniers' propaganda.


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