Popular online rumour mill Kuro5hin.org has signed off as the latest victim of a denial of service attack.
And, according to an emotionally worded billboard posting on the non-profit operation's interim website, the US-based IT user commentary site --a friendly competitor of Slashdot-- may never return.
It is believed that user discussion threads gathered over a period of nine hours were lost permanently. However, a K5 spokesperson said the organisation was still unable to access any data.
"For the past three days, Kuro5hin has been subject to a series of automated spam' type attacks by persons currently unknown," the K5 posting said.
"The story queue has been filled with crap, the comments have been filled with crap We've been hit with denial of service flood attacks, presumably intended to crash the server. We're tired of this shit.
"If we can figure out a way to keep the quality of discussion on K5 at a level that is worth supporting, we will return."
No suspects have been found yet, but discussions on slashdot.org suggest the perpetrator's primary motive was attention.