CloudFlare, a web security company, is initiating Project Galileo to protect news gathering, political and artistic speech on the web. CloudFlare is providing their protection technology against denial-of-service attacks (DDoS) free of charge. (CSO, June 14, 2014, by Lucian Constantin of IDG News Service)
The attacks overload websites with requests for information thereby putting them out of service. News organizations have been particularly prone to suffer from DDoS. CloudFlare intends to offer protection to a website regardless of political viewpoint if the site meets certain criteria:
- “It is engaged in news gathering, civil society, or political/artistic speech.
- It is the subject of online attacks related to its news gathering, civil society, or political/artistic speech.
- It is a not-for-profit organization or a small commercial entity.
- It acts in the public interest, broadly defined.”
(SLATE, June 12, 2014, by Dan Gillmor)