The RIAA's website was hacked on Sunday. Frankly, I'm just surprised it's been so long since the last rash of attacks--six times in as many months back in 2002. And while the RIAA hasn't issued any lawsuits or pressed charges (yet), it's unlikely an organization with that much lobbying power will stay silent.
So enjoy it while it lasts, hackers. The RIAA may not understand technology, but I'm willing to bet the big, lumbering Tyrannosaurus Rex didn't fully understand what the small creatures running around beneath it were either. It just grabbed them with its teensy, greedy arms and chowed down (not really).
A URL shortened through TinyURL was posted on Reddit two days ago with the message "This link runs a slooow SQL query on the RIAA's server. Don't click it; that would be wrong." When clicked, though, it did pretty much just that.
SQL is a fairly standard database language, and while one user running the query wouldn't even bump the RIAA's site, the hordes generated by the Reddit posting took the service down, making the attack both a nifty piece of tech work as well as an actual venting point for the masses angry with the recording industry. After spending years trying to shut down illegal music sharing (and some that seems pretty ethical, the online link-clickers have spoken. Now that's crowdsourcing.
After the site was overloaded, another user realized they could use a SQL injection attack to delete content from the website. Other users, realizing they could alter the content by playing with the URLs, which, among other things, led to this little bit of ironic commentary:
Note: While we think the use of a social news site to pull off the attack is incredibly interesting, we don't endorse it. Neither does Ron Paul.
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