Cyber plot aims to flood Mighty River

A group protesting Mighty River Power's plans to fire up the Marsden B power station near Whangarei are attempting to co-ordinate a denial of service attack on the company.

Mighty Power People has called for a cyber sit-in on the mightyriverpower.co.nz website from 7am on Friday. On its site, the group claims the action is not a denial of service attack.

"Mighty People Power is not responsible for any denial of service or server bogging caused by this action - that can only come about due to the overwhelming international opposition to the Mighty River Power climate-changing proposal," it said.

The site claims Marsden B will release up to 2 million tonnes of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere every year, along with mercury, arsenic and dioxin.

The site includes a zipped script, which when installed on a PC, will keep reloading the Mighty River Power front page, and a list of anonymous proxies if people want to shield their IP address from detection.

Mighty River general manager of external affairs Neil Williams said the site was hosted by a third party, and any attack would not affect the company's operations.

"It is an information site about the company. People do use it to look at things like lake levels," Williams said.

"We are vigilant about internet security and confident we have industry best practice security."

"We would rather engage meaningfully with people to discuss their concerns.

"Already 4000 people have made their submissions through the consent process, and these will be heard within the framework of the Resource Management Act.

"We welcome people's participation in that. That is the democratic process at work."

Electronic sit-ins are becoming a popular tool for protest groups, but their effectiveness is in doubt.

Last year the Takutai United Hacktivits Association organised a cyber sit-in of the Government's foreshore and seabed website, however Government web managers said any attack was unnoticeable.

Said one staffer: "If you just have a few hundred people sitting on a site hitting the refresh button, any well-configured web server should be able to cope with that.