The Voltaire Network publishes about 20 sites in eight different languages. Over the last few weeks, this service was disturbed, including an interruption of nine days. We underwent a number of computer-related attacks during the Israeli offensive against Lebanon. Our technicians managed to stop the intrusions and reestablish the service, each time in under four hours. Nevertheless, one of our sites in Russian was hacked and a disagreeable message from an armed group was placed on the first page. The files in our online store were seriously damaged. Above all, the parameters of one of our Arab language distribution lists were changed in such a way that over 8,000 correspondents received an avalanche of spam filling their in boxes. According to an investigation done by the Lebanese daily As-Safir, these attacks were carried out by the info war unit of the Tsahal.

In early September, the functioning of our central server became chaotic. Finally our servers became desynchronized and the site was blocked. The technical examinations didn’t permit us to determine the origin of the failure and whether it was a malfunction or malevolence. We changed out equipment and material: we purchased new better performing machines and switched software. However, a certain amount of our data was lost making the process of getting things back into service more difficult. Our technicians are reinstalling our sites in such a way that our various publications will start up again this weekend. A goodly number of articles are already accessible. The Voltaire Network offers to over 2,000,000 internauts each month free access to information and analysis of international current events on its main site (voltairenet.org) and on its peripheral sites (911investigations etc). It freely publishes as well internet sites for magazines and press agencies from the Third World.

At the same time, the administrators and journalists of the Voltaire Network face strong adversity. Several of them are barred from entering the United States or the territories occupied by Israel, there names are inscribed on no fly lists for Anglo-Saxon airlines or on lists prohibiting international banking transactions. Some are confronted with serious security problems. The continuation of the work of the Voltaire Network necessitates the financial means to respond to these challenges. It is your responsibility as a user of this service and as a citizen to participate in this financing. You can make an occasional donation by PayPal, or, even better, you can commit to offering a regular contribution as if you were subscribing. The Voltaire Network is counting on you.