Call It Cynicism But I’m Calling Bullshit

Several sites are reporting about a tool aimed at performing denial of service attacks against Healthcare.gov:

Researchers have uncovered software available on the Internet designed to overload the struggling Healthcare.gov website with more traffic than it can handle.

“ObamaCare is an affront to the Constitutional rights of the people,” a screenshot from the tool, which was acquired by researchers at Arbor Networks, declares. “We HAVE the right to CIVIL disobedience!”

My gut tells me that this is bullshit. In fact, being the cynical person I am, I wouldn’t be surprised if this tool was written by somebody involved in the development of Healthcare.gov. They’re on the hot seat at the moment and probably trying to find anything to blame besides themselves. Developing and releasing a tool aimed at performing a denial of service attack against Healthcare.gov would give the developers of the website something to blame.

I do have some reason to believe this tool wasn’t developed by opponents of the Affordable Care Act (ACA). I have connections to numerous communities including groups that oppose the ACA. If this tool was really written as an act of civil disobedience against the ACA I would thinking the developers would want as many people to download it as possible. That would mean spreading the word to groups that oppose the ACA. I can’t find any mention of this tool in any of those groups.

So, for the time being, I’m calling bullshit on this.