What a Hacker Stole from Me
A beloved ambient-noise site, MyNoise, recently faced a wave of automated attacks that tried to inject code and then repeatedly downloaded its audio files, threatening bandwidth costs and the creator’s morale. Commenters describe this as largely routine “internet noise” from bots, scanners, and scrapers rather than a personal vendetta, but note that it still feels like a traumatic violation, especially for small, idealistic creators. The exchange broadens into concerns about the hostile state of the public internet, the dependence on CDNs and tools like Cloudflare and fail2ban for protection, and the emotional toll that constant low-level abuse takes on independent projects.
Love for MyNoise and Its Impact
- Many commenters describe myNoise as one of the best things on the web: highly intentional, minimal, and unusually effective for focus, sleep, and masking intrusive noise.
- People report using it for years, buying the app, becoming lifetime members, and preferring it over commercial alternatives.
- Several say the story puts a “human face” on a tool that already tangibly improved their lives.
What Actually Happened? Targeted Attack vs Background Noise
- Some readers assume this was a deliberate, malicious attack aimed specifically at the site or its creator.
- Others argue it’s almost certainly just “normal internet noise”: automated scanners, misconfigured bots, scrapers, and opportunistic vulnerability probing that every public site sees.
- A few suggest possible sources: LLM/AI scrapers, certificate-transparency-driven crawlers, generic mass scanners, or a clumsy script kiddie.
- There’s disagreement over how “personal” this kind of incident really is.
Motivations for Harmful Behavior
- Several threads explore why anyone would do this:
- Desire to make an impact or provoke any reaction at all.
- Hurt/alienated people lashing out; nihilism; “wanting to watch the world burn.”
- Gamified mindset where sites are just endpoints or puzzles, not people.
- Others push back on overly simple explanations, noting system-level factors (capitalism, institutions, incentive structures) that channel this behavior.
Emotional Impact and Loss of Trust
- Commenters relate similar feelings after hacks, vandalism, arson, and domain theft: not just material loss, but a shattering of safety and trust.
- Several note how one nasty event can outweigh years of quiet appreciation, and how open-source and small creators rarely receive thanks compared to the abuse they absorb.
Defensive Measures and Internet Infrastructure
- Practical advice: rate limiting, fail2ban, firewall rules, WAFs like ModSecurity, and CDNs such as Cloudflare.
- There’s debate over relying on Cloudflare:
- Pro: free, highly effective protection and bandwidth offload for small creators.
- Con: centralization, single point of failure, and de facto man-in-the-middle for much of the web.
Philosophical Responses: Keep Building Anyway
- Several comments frame the creator’s response as “lovely but naive” yet admirable: building is always harder than destroying, but worth continuing.
- Stoic-style attitudes are encouraged: treat obstacles as chances for virtue, focus on the journey, keep “planting trees” rather than letting vandals dictate your path.