musicNEWS:
Concert Suicide May Have Taken Place Despite Hacker Attack
10-05-03
Keavin
.
Update 9:16 PM PST 10/05: The controversial
onstage suicide that was supposed to be webcast may have occurred after
all. The concert and the suicide were scheduled to take place at different
locations and the band planned to broadcast a video of both from their
website on Saturday night. However, those plans were sabotaged by a denial
of service attack against the bands website.
Billy Tourtelot , he lead singer of
the band Hell On Earth told the Associated Press that the concert still
went on as planned but he was unsure where the suicide occurred or not.
Jason Trindade, the operator of the web
hosting company that serves Hellonearth.net told the press about the attack
early Saturday evening. At that time he said that Tourtelot told him that
the events would be postponed because of the inability to broadcast them.
Tourtelot told an Associated Press reporter
that he did not know about the problems with the website until after the
band performed. He also said that despite the suicide not being broadcast
from the other secret location that did not mean that it did not take
place. He further said that there are no other performances planned for
his group.
AP further reported that authorities in
St. Petersburg and Pinellas County had no reports of a suicide at least
four hours after the event was scheduled to take place.
Concert
Suicide Postponed Due to Web Attack
Update 7:03 PM PST 10/04: The planned onstage
suicide that has been stirring up controversy has been postponed because
of a web attack against the server that was supposed to webcast the event.
Jason Trindade, who operates the company
that hosts Hellonearth.net, told the Associated Press that the server has
been flooded with data by computers originating somewhere in Hong Kong.
"There's been a huge amount of traffic
which causes the server to lock up," Trindade said.
AP also reports that Trindade was told
by the groups leadsinger Billy Tourtelot that because of the attack, the
event would be postponed.
Article published earlier today:
Hell on Earth vocalist Billy Tourtelot
said on Saturday that despite legal threats the planned onstage suicide
will take place on Saturday.
antiMUSIC has been following this story
for the past couple of weeks, and here are the latest developments for
those morbidly curious.
The associated press reports that Tourtelot
said in a phone interview on Saturday that the concert and suicide are
still planned for Saturday night. Although it looks like plans have changed
slightly. According to Tourtelot the suicide will take place at different
location than the concert, but both will occur at undisclosed locations
within the St. Petersburg city limits. The band plans to broadcast both
events live over their website (hellonearth.net.)
Tourtelot has said previously that the
group planned the onstage suicide to bring attention to right to die issues.
The unnamed person who plans to commit the act is reportedly terminally
ill.
The Florida Attorney General Charlie Crist
stated a warning that it is a felony to assist a suicide in Florida and
anyone who does so may face up to 15 years in prison. Tourtelot insists
that the band is not aiding the person in the act; that the terminally
ill person will die by their own hand.
Tourtelot has retained a criminal defense
lawyer, Kevin Hayslett, who says he advised his client not to go forward
with the staged suicide. But it appears that Tourtelot is hell bent on
the event taking place. Perhaps he was acting under advice of council when
the decision was made to stage the concert and the suicide at two different
locations, thus separating the band physically from the suicide.
"It appears that everybody I talked to
is trying to advise it not to take place," Hayslett said. "I don't think
any sane person wants it to go forward."
A court issued an injunction earlier this
week baring the event from taking place (see
story).
One avenue explored, at least by the press
was to contact the groups web hosting provider. AP reports that Jason
Trindade, the operator of the web hosting company said that unless he receives
complaints from law enforcement representatives the company would keep
the bands site online.
"They haven't broken any law and I can't
just turn them off," he said. "Myself, I think it's pretty twisted."
At 4:30 PST, the groups website was not
accessible. That may be due to server overload issues or Trindade may have
pulled the plug. That issue was uncertain at press time.
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