Yesterday (July 26), New York Magazine ran an extensive cover story with 35 of Bill Cosby’s 46 alleged sexual assault victims.
The only problem is that you can’t see it, and that’s all thanks to an anti-New York digi-hacker by the name of “ThreatKing.” According to the Daily Dot, the hacker overloaded the magazine’s website servers, “overwhelming the site with with a distributed denial-of-service attack.” Visitors to the site are met with a “failure to open page” message, making the website and its access from third-party links completely unavailable. The hacker claims that the sabotage was not an attack on the women who have come out against Cosby nor the magazine itself. Instead, the hacker has a profound grudge against New York City. This means war on all of the state’s entities, so the hacker says, beginning with media outlets.
READ: Spelman College Terminates Its Bill Cosby Endowed Professorship
In a Skype chat with “ThreatKing,” he told the Daily Dot that a regrettable visit to New York two months ago spawned his hatred for the vast metropolis, adding that he was pranked by an “African-American” causing him to be humiliated. “I’ve seen many pranks gone wrong at New York. That got me pissed. That’s why I chose New York,” the hacker reportedly said. Furthering his rant against NYC, the Daily Dot reported that he said he wanted to see people die in New York. The hacker announced the site’s overthrow through @VikingKingdom, a Twitter handle belonging to a group that reportedly hacked several government websites earlier this year.
http://t.co/2ccZiBJBdj #OFFLINE #VikingDom2016 @NYMag
— Vikingdom2016 (@Vikingdom2016) July 27, 2015
READ: California Squashes Bill Cosby’s Efforts To Stop Sexual Assault Lawsuit
To add some sort of relief to the seizing of the website, NY Mag tweeted the technical difficulty with links to two of the 35 featured women’s Instagram posts where they recount their sexual assault experience with Cosby. They also posted the full cover story to their Tumblr page:
Our site is still down but you can listen to 2 women's testimony about Cosby on Instagram https://t.co/GEoDc8pMF0 + https://t.co/CLlPl40cGS
— New York Magazine (@NYMag) July 27, 2015
While we work to get our site up for everyone, we’ve published the full cover story on Tumblr: http://t.co/NdjnnS1J86 pic.twitter.com/867dgpmeUX
— New York Magazine (@NYMag) July 27, 2015
In NY Mag’s cover story, the 35 women shared their stories and aftermath of their individual incidents. Self-proclaimed pioneer supermodel Janice Dickinson and Vogue’s first black model Beverly Johnson were among the ladies to provide their testimonies. Reported through a variety of multimedia, such as videos and photo portfolios, the stories of the women are told through compelling narratives and details.
Linking to a Twitter list of other publications that he has on his hacking radar, ThreatKing added that he’s not stopping at NY Mag. The New York Post, New York Times, New York Yankees, NBC New York, New York University and NYC-based luxury fashion brand Coach are among the list of targeted entities.
Take a look at the proposed hack-attack publications for yourself here.