UPDATE: The website is back online after technical issues were resolved.
Getting lots of notices from people via email, so figured I’d post this.
Here’s what I know:
1. Jo recently moved the entire website to a new provider to save costs.
2. There have been some technical issues with the performance of her site on the new ISP.
3. Yesterday, direct links to postings stopped working, but the main page at
http://joannenova.com.au worked OK
4. The last email I had from her last night said she was looking into the problem.
5. Since her direct email is also part of the suspended account, I don’t know yet if I can communicate with her. Emails don’t appear to be bouncing. Whether she can access email or not is another question.
6. As of this writing is about midnight in Perth, so she may not even be aware of the outage.
7. joannenova.com.au Is Hosted by SoftLayer, Inc.
- Hosting: SoftLayer, Inc. host the domain joannenova.com.au
- IP Address: 75.126.209.56
- Name Servers: ns1.easybudgetwebsites.com.au, ns2.easybudgetwebsites.com.au
Read more about hosting at www.whoishostingthis.com
I suspect technical issues over censorship, so I advise everyone not to jump to conclusions.
UPDATE: I’ve sent a query to the legal department of SoftLayer, Inc. to see if there was a legal issue of any kind. – Anthony
I’ve now heard from them:
The problem is not here with our hosting services. If it was, the website would not resolve to anything other than perhaps a “parking” page. We do not have any feature on our system that would cause the words “account suspended” to be displayed.
Let me know if you have any other questions.
Brenk Johnson
UPDATE2: I’ve heard from Jo Nova via email, it is a technical issue, not a legal takedown. It seems to be related to some cache issue with logfiles that went out of control requiring the shutdown of the specific hosting server.
It seems HTML tags aren’t allowed. How about just a plain imgur link?
http://i.imgur.com/YXrKT.jpg
Puzzling or not, this was posted on twitter half hour ago regarding her website.
DJ says: “…benevolent hacker…??”
Benevolent hacker? That’s right up there with chocolate substitute and rap music.
Sorry for the double post, refresh didn’t refresh properly, must remember ctrl/f5 before reposting. Mea Culpa
Off-topic response to Aidan’s comment above:
“the tv is a two way system and every message over the net is interceptable and readable”
Yes, but not for the same reason.
“(On the tv side – I worked many years ago in the UK TV Licensing office and I can assure you that the tv detector vans, back in the early 70?s – could and did detect not only that you were watching a tv but which channel you were watching (out of 4 channels then).”
People used to get a 20% discount on the license fee if they were registered blind …
Actual frequency converted to an intermediate frequency which is the one that is ‘tuned’. TV detector vans could pick up this intermediate frequency. So detector van receivers had to have a different intermediate frequency. Mate of mine built a device that detected the detector van intermediate frequency. Red light came on if there was a detector van anywhere near. Since the detector van’s retransmit was more powerful than that of his tv, he saw them before they saw him.
My knowledge of electronics doesn’t extend much further than the 807 valve, so I don’t know if these intermediate frequencies are generated in digital wireless devices. I keep the wireless on my router turned off since I spotted someone parked in the street trying to piggy-back off it.
It is just a standard “account suspended” page. I have seen it dozens of times, usually because people forget to pay their hosting or other hosting payment problems.
Thanks for covering this Anthony! Good to hear her site will be back soon.
Aidan,
TV signals are not 2-way. Neither can you read anyone’s thoughts with a brain wave monitor.
TV (and radio) receivers tune to the high frequency carrier wave by using something called a superhetrodyne. This is an oscillator which generates its own high frequency signal close to that of the incoming signal. This produces an intermediate ‘beat frequency’, very much like harmonic frequencies in music, which is then amplified by the IF (intermediate-frequency) stage of the receiver.
It is the internally generated superhetrodyne signal which can detected at some distance. The TV signal itself is not 2-way.
As for computer screens, I have seen a demonstration at GCHQ where the electronic signals produced by a PC monitor as it ‘paints’ the screen are be detected from a van parked a few hundred metres away and used to reproduce the exact image being displayed on the PC screen. The image was a bit fuzzy, but sufficient to read the information on the display. So be careful.
Perhaps due to an ABC virus? (wouldn’t put it past them…)
For the last two months I’ve had the privilege of being a technical support person for a local hosting company. I’ve learned a bit or so. If you have a hosting account, you want to have the account email NOT using the domain name(s) on the account. If the account gets hosed for any reason, you may not be able to get your emails. I use a gmail account so that I can still communicate if my site goes down for any reason.
It pings to 75.126.209.56 showing as “alexandria71.etcserver.com” which in Virgina, USA.
So NOT ns1.easybudgetwebsites.com.au – someone’s spoofing her IP or something?
REPLY: DNS servers and web servers reside in different locations – A
Aidan Donnelly says:
June 18, 2012 at 9:43 am
On the tv side – I worked many years ago in the UK TV Licensing office and I can assure you that the tv detector vans, back in the early 70′s – could and did detect not only that you were watching a tv but which channel you were watching (out of 4 channels then).
OT, but sorry I had to bite. Mate, that’s a crock of BS. TV detector vans were just classic big brother scare tactics. I have evaded paying the TV license all of my adult life (we’re talking well over 20 years) out of principle. I have also had a couple of TV licence inspectors knock at my door lamely requesting entry (which was refused) and countless letters (which are duly binned). These people are completely toothless, although I’m sure many of their own employees believe the hype.
http://gadgets.boingboing.net/2008/10/31/bbc-admits-that-tv-d.html
And did you know that those vans are so essential in the fight against license evasion that not once – not EVER since the first detector van in 1952 – has detector van evidence been used in court? But as admitted in the email (PDF link below) the BBC relies on intimidated occupants allowing entry to the TV Gestapo for all their evidence.
http://www.whatdotheyknow.com/request/evidence_from_tv_detection_equip
http://www.whatdotheyknow.com/request/55922/response/164153/attach/html/4/IR2011006%20TVL%20response%20following%20IR%20final.pdf.html
And here’s a scary tabloid-sponsored story on the latest hand-held phallic detector technology inspired by Gene Roddenberry, that they’ve had since 2007. So brilliant they still haven’t detected me.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-468466/The-new-TV-detector-reach-home.html
And what is my response to this barrage of super hi-tech detection: I ignore them.
Mike.. that should read
“Perhaps due to the ABC virus?”
Jo Nova’s website has always been a bit dodgy in my experience even in the wee hours. Logging on later generally resulted in normal site behaviour. As it happens, when I saw the recent posts at WUWT I logged on just fine. I assumed some routing issue between US and Oz that wasn’t happening between Tasmania and Western Australia.
AndyG55 says: Mike.. that should read “Perhaps due to the ABC virus?”
Not that ABC virus, one from the buggers at the Australian Climate Bureau who have probably developed several to meet the needs of various occasions. (oops, now they’ll have to extradite me for writing that )
My solidarity to JoNova
15. SUSPENSION.
15.1 Suspension. SoftLayer may suspend provision of Services to Customer without liability if: (i) SoftLayer reasonably believes that the Services are
being used (or have been or will be used) by Customer in violation of the MSA or any applicable law, court order, rule or regulation in any jurisdiction;
(ii) Customer does not cooperate with SoftLayer’s investigation of any suspected violation of the MSA or any applicable law, court order, rule or
regulation in any jurisdiction; (iii) SoftLayer reasonably believes that Services provided to Customer have been accessed or manipulated by a Third
Party without Customer’s consent or in violation of the MSA; (iv) SoftLayer reasonably believes that suspension of the Services is necessary to
protect SoftLayer’s network or other SoftLayer customers; (v) a payment for the Services is overdue by more than 5 days including the Anniversary
Billing Date (and in addition, SoftLayer may, in SoftLayer’s sole discretion, continue to make the Services available through the Public Network and
may suspend such access to the Private Network if the fees are not paid within 7 days of the due date); (vi) the continued use of the Services by the
Customer may adversely impact the Services or the systems or content of any other SoftLayer customer, (vii) SoftLayer reasonably believes that the
use of the Services by Customer may subject SoftLayer, its Affiliates, or any Third Party to liability; or (viii) suspension is required by law, statute,
regulation, rule or court order. SoftLayer will give Customer reasonable advance notice of a suspension under this paragraph and a chance to cure
the grounds on which the suspension are based, unless SoftLayer determines, in SoftLayer’s reasonable commercial judgment, that a suspension on
shorter or contemporaneous notice is necessary to protect SoftLayer or its other customers from operational, security, or other risk or the suspension
is ordered by a court or other judicial body. A violation of the Flow-Through Provision shall be treated the same as a violation of the MSA for this
provision. If SoftLayer suspends the Customer’s right to access or use any portion or all of the Service:
a. Customer remains responsible for all fees and charges Customer has incurred through the date of suspension;
b. Customer remains responsible for any applicable fees and charges for any Services to which Customer has continued to have access, as well
as applicable data storage fees and charges, and fees and charges for in-process tasks completed after the date of suspension;
c. Customer will not be entitled to any SLA Credits under the Service Level Agreement for any period of suspension; and
d. at SoftLayer’s sole discretion, SoftLayer may terminate Customer’s access to Customer Content stored in the Services during a suspension,
and SoftLayer shall not be liable to Customer for any damages or losses Customer may incur as a result of such suspension.
One of my favourite sites and one of my 5 that I bookmark. Hope it gets back up soon.
The page obviously exists in Softlayer’s system. Folks at the Legal Department dunno nothin.
http://50.22.154.233-static.reverse.softlayer.com/cgi-sys/suspendedpage.cgi
Anthony writes:
“UPDATE2: I’ve heard from Jo Nova via email, it is a technical issue, not a legal takedown. It seems to be related to some cache issue with logfiles that went out of control requiring the shutdown of the specific hosting server.”
I have been in contact with Jo by e-mail and it appears it was related to the restoration of the 100,000 comments that triggered the snowball effect and overwhelm the server.
It happened soon after the 100,000 comments were restored.Then it was recrawled and wordpress tried to recache EVERY single page that was recrawled.Oh what a mess it became with a massive increase of log files per day.
I wonder if she will get an artificial increase in her google rank?
Richard deSousa says:
June 18, 2012 at 9:06 am
I wouldn’t put it pass the Australian government to block or censor her website. The next to go could be Jennifer Marohasy.
David Longinotti says:
June 18, 2012 at 9:19 am
Hate to be cynical but “Account Suspended” sounds intentional to me, not a technical problem.
Sonny says:
June 18, 2012 at 9:24 am
I always thought government censorship might be a possibility in light of . . .
and others.
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Proof once more that any cause celebre has nitwits on both sides.
Complete Flannery.
Knowing lumpas from lompas would allow the conjugation of the unmix to a transcendental conflagration of the I.F. to O.O.F. and finally to an “Oops” if and only iff (IFF) one identifies friends or foe alike on the stand, witlessly bearing testimony. [sic]
Point being, I can make stuff up too.
The ‘mix’ of the station’s RF frequency (coming down the antenna cable) in a ‘mixer’ stage with an appropriate LO (Local Oscillator) produces a usually much lower-frequency “IF” (Intermediate Frequency) which is to be amplified by the several IF stages in the TV set … and after ‘detection’, the sync, color and luminance signals are ‘recovered’ for use.
This process of ‘mixing’ an RF signal with an LO in a mixer stage is referred to a ‘super-heterodyne’ technique and does NOT result in a “super-heterodyne signal”. *
The TV vans looked for the LO (Local Oscillator) signal, which I assure each and every one of you here reading this blog WAS present … not so much with today’s sets, with much smaller SMD (Surface Mount Devices as opposed to the usual wire-leaded components of yesterday) 0402 component sizes and resultant lower ‘incidental’, unintentional ‘radiation’ … but I assure you even a small Sony Walkman RADIATES an LO signal, and in the case of Sony Walkman that signal is 10.7 MHz ABOVE the station one is tuned to. One of the reasons that ELECTRONIC DEVICES are requested to be turned off during domestic airline flights; receiving a signal from 88 to 108 MHz results in an LO signal (basically an unmodulated carrier) 10.7 MHz -above- the tuned-in station’s frequency and that puts the LO signal into the civilian aircraft band of 108 – 136 MHz for FM stations tuned-in above 97.3 MHz (and this is in the NAVAIDS – NAVigation AIDS – portion at the aircraft band at the low end)!
It’s a no brainer figuring out which FM station one is listening to, again, I assure you …
* http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Superheterodyne_receiver
.
ISTR I saw something yesterday or this morning to the effect that the site would be down for maintainance for several hours due to an upgrade or a site move. Let’s not get too excited until it’s been “away” for a day or three.
Sheesh. Kids today ….
PM Gillard is jeting around the world telling Gov’t world wide how to run there finance .little do they know she is destroying Australia with the carbon tax $23 a ton starting 7/1/2012
@graphite “nitwits on both sides”.
The Finklestein report make ALP’s intention to censor media explicit based on any content deemed to be not “fair or balanced” and picks out climate as an issue.
In light of this blatant attempt at restricting free speech I think it would be a nitwit who wouldn’t at least consider the possibility that the site had been blocked intentionally. We were simply postulating alternatives and the grim reality that such censorship could well supplement our governments arsenal of climate propaganda.
Some of the above comments seem a bit confused, so I thought I’d take a look.
“whois” tells me that joannenova.com.au is Australian and all the contact and registration info is Australian.
DNS forward and reverse lookups are unremarkable on the surface:
$ host joannenova.com.au
joannenova.com.au has address 75.126.209.56
joannenova.com.au mail is handled by 0 joannenova.com.au.
$ host 75.126.209.56
56.209.126.75.in-addr.arpa domain name pointer alexandria71.etcserver.com.
Accessing her website produces a 302 response, in some cases that’s normal, in this case it’s telling:
HTTP request (informative parts):
GET / HTTP/1.1
Host: joannenova.com.au
Referer: http://wattsupwiththat.com/
Response (informative parts):
HTTP/1.1 302 Found
Date: Tue, 19 Jun 2012 00:13:47 GMT
Server: Apache/2.2.22 (Unix) mod_ssl/2.2.22 OpenSSL/0.9.8e-fips-rhel5 DAV/2 mod_auth_passthrough/2.1 mod_bwlimited/1.4 FrontPage/5.0.2.2635 mod_perl/2.0.5 Perl/v5.8.8
Location: http://joannenova.com.au/cgi-sys/suspendedpage.cgi
<html&rt;<head&rt;
<title&rt;302 Found</title&rt;
</head&rt;<body&rt;
<h1&rt;Found</h1&rt;
<p&rt;The document has moved <a href=”http://joannenova.com.au/cgi-sys/suspendedpage.cgi”&rt;here</a&rt;.</p&rt;
</body&rt;</html&rt;
The browser automatically asks for http://joannenova.com.au/cgi-sys/suspendedpage.cgi and gets what we see.
I don’t see where Anthony found SoftLayer, maybe things are being moved from there.
At any rate, Joanne has a large site and there are a myriad ways things can go wrong. Imagine how long it would take for WUWT to be relocated, with each post and comment being accounted for in the databases – it’s not just copying web pages!
Given Joanne’s comments, I think the “Account Suspended” curtain is simply to keep people from posting comments or adding bookmarks until the site is ready to go.