Multimediashooter.com is Hacked to Death

Multimediashooter.com, which has been a multimedia showcase and invaluable font of commentary, information, and tutorials on multimedia production for the past two years, died an ignoble death at the hands of a hacker over the weekend.

Fans of the site are now greeted by this message from site owner Richard Koci Hernandez:

"I write this with a heavy heart: I am sorry to report that this website is down for the count. The site was recently hacked several times this weekend and severe damage was done. I do not have the time or resources at this time to continue. I wish you all the best. I only wish this hadn’t happened.[To the ‘hacker’ I hope it makes you happy to destroy something that people put their heart and soul into...just to have you destroy it for no reason. You win. There is a special place in hell for you.]"

Koci Hernandez explained to PDN that the site was a on a shared server, owned by a third party. Based on conversations he had with that ISP, Koci Hernandez says he got the impression the hacker found the server vulnerable and attacked a number of sites, not just his. "I don't know that I was specifically targetted."

As he was trying to save the site by locking the hacker out, the hacker turned the tables, locked him out of his own site, and began destroying files wholesale. It was all too much for Koci Hernandez, who had no backup files for his site and admits that security was never something he gave much thought to. "I was like, man, I can't deal with this. It's so devastating. To do it all over again, I don't have the smarts or know-how to keep it protected."

Another factor is his lack of time. The demands of his job as a multimedia producer at the San Jose Mercury News have increased in the wake of recent layoffs at the paper, he explains. "It's a matter of resources right now."

But fans of multimediashooter.com, take heart. That site may be finished, but the multimedia community is far too big and resilient to die at the hands of hackers. Andrew DeVigal is about to re-launch Interactive Narratives, a multimedia resource site that went dormant a couple of years ago when DeVigal joined The New York Times as a multimedia producer.