Belgian Housewife Single-handedly Cripples Euro Internet Traffic With Kitten Pictures

[MrScorpio]

Last edited Fri Dec 20, 2013, 12:42 AM - Edit history (1)

Low resolution photo of Christiane van de Broeke's
two-month old kitten, Snoedles.

LYON, France (AP) — European wide Internet traffic was crippled on Tuesday for nine hours as both Google and the six most popular social networking sites on the continent were completely shut down in a major denial of service (DoS) attack from pictures of a Belgian housewife's two-month old kitten.

The massive loss of Internet access occurred shortly after a housewife living in Antwerp, Belgium, Christiane van de Broeke, began posting dazzlingly cute photos of her kitten, named Snoedles, on both her Facebook page with links to her five other social networking accounts on Twitter, Tumblr, Pinterest, Instagram and Google+.

The pictures of Snoedles, noted for both their extremely high degree of resolution and their unbearable cuteness were instrumental in causing a cascade effect of DoS outages throughout the continent. Reports from locations as various as Scandinavia to the Mediterranean island nation of Malta came in more swiftly and abundantly than ISPs could handle.

Internet Service Providers in five Central European countries reported to EuroISPA, the organization representing the European Union's ISPs and to INTERPOL's Internet Security Directorate, that a possible terrorist Denial of Service attack was underway. Repeated attempts to restore Internet service proved fruitless from around 10AM C.E.T. to just after 7PM.

Speaking from a press conference at INTERPOL Headquarters, here in Lyon, France, head of the Internet Security Directorate, Chief Inspector Jean-Louis Anderson, briefed reporters on the operations that eventually restored EuroNet access.

"Once we were able to locate the source of the attack, a joint task force of both the Belgian Federale Politie Anti-Terror Brigade and EuroNet Security INTERPOL Agents raided the home of a Mr. and Mrs. Hans and Christiane van de Broeke in Antwerp, Beligium yesterday, with a warrant that listed charges of terrorism and malicious Internet usage. Removed from the home were a laptop computer and a Nexus 5 smartphone, used by Christiane van de Broeke to take pictures of her kitten.

Once the head agent in charge realized the extremely toxic nature of the kitten photos on both the computer and the smartphone, members of an elite Hazardous Materials Control Unit were summoned to take custody of the items. Mrs. van de Broeke has been detained is now at the Criminal Jail facility in Hasselt, were she awaits arraignment before a magistrate tomorrow morning."

In response to both this latest DoS attack and the infamous Düsseldorf Toddler and Puppy Incident of 2011, President of Google's EuroNet operations, Pieter Delacroix announced the development of software that would able to lower the intensity of terribly cute photos and their disruptive effects on Internet access.

"We're almost helpless here to prevent these attacks and loss of service until we can get this crucial software up and running. We, here at Google and throughout the entire EuroNet community, consider this our highest priority, overshadowing both the problem of Net piracy and extremely bad amateur music videos."

No reports on the location of either Mr. van de Broeke or the kitten, Snoedles are available at this time.

[rurallib]

1. aOK you had me going

snoedles is CUTE!

[valerief]

2. Bwah! Kitteh!

[angstlessk]

3. You, you...I read the entire post....and looked for the link

Hell, kitteh stuff stops me in my tracks...why not a nation?

[MrScorpio]

4. The absence of links is your best clue that I wrote this stuff.

I should do this more often.

[angstlessk]

5. Yes you should...others do...and you do it well

Had me going...looking for a link...cause..well kitteh

[Tuesday Afternoon]

6. too much fluff for the tubes!

good work here, MrScorpio.