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The DDOS attack on SendGrid's web and mail servers stopped about an hour and a half after they announced that they were firing Richards. Also the community back

The DDOS attack on SendGrid's web and mail servers stopped about an hour and a half after they announced that they were firing Richards. Also the community backlash against Richards was huge, while there weren't many supporting her actions. From SendGrid's point of view, this was a good business decision.

bcoates 14y ago
I'm more worried about this than I am about the pointless drama that lead up to it. That sort of provocative weakness is going to have externalities on the Internet at large and shouldn't be tolerated.
blindhippo 14y ago
No, it sure as hell was not a "good business decision". They got attacked by errant children expressing sad rage at something that while bad, was not deserving of retaliation against the company. So the result: the company ditches one of their employees for very dubious reasons. Basically they caved to internet bullying and validated every sexist moron on the internet. Well done Sendgrid. Well done.
- dubfan 14y ago
  How do we know that SendGrid fired her to stop the DDOS, and it wasn't due to her poor conduct on Twitter? (calling herself Joan of Arc, posting email and IP addresses of blog commenters, baiting trolls, etc.)
  - nettdata 14y ago
    Agreed. It seems that she involved them in a battle not of their choosing, one that they apparently don't want to fight, and she has since suffered the consequences.
- brador 14y ago
  Every hour let's say they're losing 1% of their customer base. What would you do?
  - danielweber 14y ago
    Contact the FBI to report the DDOS attack?
    - canttestthis 14y ago
      Whats the FBI going to do? Revolutionize a new way of countering DDOS attacks in a few hours?
    - jeremyjh 14y ago
      I want to hang out in your NOC.
- RougeFemme 14y ago
  Maybe not a "good" business decision, but an "understandable" one. If the "errant children" are among the group she was evangelizing to, she clearly could not have been effective in her job, especially since the "errant children's" peers were not coming to her defense - at least not in large numbers, as far as Sendgrid was concerned. I do hate that they caved to bullying/blackmail. I would like to see both fired parties re-hired after the dust settles, but I know that's very unlikely.
  - jiggy2011 14y ago
    Most of the DDOS stuff probably came from teenage 4channers rather than professional python developers. At least I hope so.
- nettdata 14y ago
  No. She made a big stink about what she overheard in a private conversation between two friends, and posted it on Twitter. Probably would not have been a big deal except that one of them, a father of three, was fired as a result. Not her direct doing, but seemingly a consequence of her actions. She then was found to be a bit of a hypocrite, based on her own tweets: https://twitter.com/adriarichards/status/312265091791847425 https://twitter.com/adriarichards/status/312265091791847425 (she makes her own dick joke) Some more digging found that she's made some strangely bizarre comments about racism, saying "Black people can't be racist". https://twitter.com/adriarichards/statuses/6039856858 https://twitter.com/adriarichards/statuses/6039856858 She then says that her company stands behind her, bringing them into the mix. https://twitter.com/adriarichards/status/314452708549603328 https://twitter.com/adriarichards/status/314452708549603328 That was her undoing. She made a big deal out of something that shouldn't have been, handled it in a totally unprofessional manner, brought a bunch of unwanted attention to her and her employer, and made her association to her employer a problem for her employer. She was the author of her demise, nobody else. EDIT: Edited to better reflect the timeline, which I totally mis-tense-ified initially.
  - tomp 14y ago
    > She then makes some strangely bizarre comments about racism Actually, that was not "then", that was 4 years ago. Doesn't make it any less wrong or racist, just saying that it's not connected to this scandal.
    - nettdata 14y ago
      True. My bad, and edited previous comment appropriately. Seems that she got the attention she sought, but it quickly became a case of "be careful what you wish for". A little bit of digging into her tweet history brought some real gems to the forefront which didn't help her current situation.
deleted 14y ago
[deleted]

bcoates 14y ago

I'm more worried about this than I am about the pointless drama that lead up to it. That sort of provocative weakness is going to have externalities on the Internet at large and shouldn't be tolerated.

blindhippo 14y ago

No, it sure as hell was not a "good business decision". They got attacked by errant children expressing sad rage at something that while bad, was not deserving of retaliation against the company. So the result: the company ditches one of their employees for very dubious reasons. Basically they caved to internet bullying and validated every sexist moron on the internet. Well done Sendgrid. Well done.

dubfan 14y ago
How do we know that SendGrid fired her to stop the DDOS, and it wasn't due to her poor conduct on Twitter? (calling herself Joan of Arc, posting email and IP addresses of blog commenters, baiting trolls, etc.)
- nettdata 14y ago
  Agreed. It seems that she involved them in a battle not of their choosing, one that they apparently don't want to fight, and she has since suffered the consequences.
brador 14y ago
Every hour let's say they're losing 1% of their customer base. What would you do?
- danielweber 14y ago
  Contact the FBI to report the DDOS attack?
  - canttestthis 14y ago
    Whats the FBI going to do? Revolutionize a new way of countering DDOS attacks in a few hours?
  - jeremyjh 14y ago
    I want to hang out in your NOC.
RougeFemme 14y ago
Maybe not a "good" business decision, but an "understandable" one. If the "errant children" are among the group she was evangelizing to, she clearly could not have been effective in her job, especially since the "errant children's" peers were not coming to her defense - at least not in large numbers, as far as Sendgrid was concerned. I do hate that they caved to bullying/blackmail. I would like to see both fired parties re-hired after the dust settles, but I know that's very unlikely.
- jiggy2011 14y ago
  Most of the DDOS stuff probably came from teenage 4channers rather than professional python developers. At least I hope so.
nettdata 14y ago
No. She made a big stink about what she overheard in a private conversation between two friends, and posted it on Twitter. Probably would not have been a big deal except that one of them, a father of three, was fired as a result. Not her direct doing, but seemingly a consequence of her actions. She then was found to be a bit of a hypocrite, based on her own tweets: https://twitter.com/adriarichards/status/312265091791847425 https://twitter.com/adriarichards/status/312265091791847425 (she makes her own dick joke) Some more digging found that she's made some strangely bizarre comments about racism, saying "Black people can't be racist". https://twitter.com/adriarichards/statuses/6039856858 https://twitter.com/adriarichards/statuses/6039856858 She then says that her company stands behind her, bringing them into the mix. https://twitter.com/adriarichards/status/314452708549603328 https://twitter.com/adriarichards/status/314452708549603328 That was her undoing. She made a big deal out of something that shouldn't have been, handled it in a totally unprofessional manner, brought a bunch of unwanted attention to her and her employer, and made her association to her employer a problem for her employer. She was the author of her demise, nobody else. EDIT: Edited to better reflect the timeline, which I totally mis-tense-ified initially.
- tomp 14y ago
  > She then makes some strangely bizarre comments about racism Actually, that was not "then", that was 4 years ago. Doesn't make it any less wrong or racist, just saying that it's not connected to this scandal.
  - nettdata 14y ago
    True. My bad, and edited previous comment appropriately. Seems that she got the attention she sought, but it quickly became a case of "be careful what you wish for". A little bit of digging into her tweet history brought some real gems to the forefront which didn't help her current situation.

deleted 14y ago

[deleted]