At one month of Christmas, the petition calling for a boycott of Amazon on this occasion ... has disappeared from the Net.
“NoëlsansAmazon”, posted online Tuesday, November 17, experienced a succession of bugs and malicious attacks over five days.
Leading its promoters to withdraw it and file a complaint.
"It's a blow to democracy," annoys deputy Matthieu Orphelin.
Flashback in five acts.
Act I: uploading
The initiative is rather warmly received.
Matthieu Orphelin (ex-LREM) and his colleague François Ruffin (LFI) announce the launch, Tuesday, November 17, of a petition not to use the services of the online sales giant Amazon on the occasion of the holidays of end of year.
Their idea is supported by several NGOs.
“It is estimated that a job created at Amazon means between 2.2 and 4.6 jobs destroyed elsewhere in our territories.
It's the small appliance store on your street that closes or the bookstore that lowers the curtain, ”explains Matthieu Orphelin in Le Parisien.
Act II: two "hacks"
First quack, and size.
During the night from Tuesday to Wednesday, the signatory counter climbs in a few hours from less than 10,000 to… more than 50,000 signatories.
The We Sign It teams, the platform on which the petition was filed, discovered that 218 servers were used.
Information taken from the host, all refer to a single person, who is accused of being at the origin of this "piracy".
Especially since his LinkedIn profile shows the profile of an IT entrepreneur, who also has an “Amazon web services” license.
💥We expected resistance by launching our petition https://t.co/WhMJJmzzy4 but we did not expect ... that
🪓🖥A cyber attack to try to undermine the process!
With @Francois_Ruffin we explain our survey to you on video👇https: //t.co/8aP6o7JXRh#NoelSansAmazon
- Matthieu ORPHELIN (@M_Orphelin) November 19, 2020
However, at the present time, nothing has established its direct responsibility.
And critics are starting to emerge on the “amateur” side of the platform, with a somewhat dated design and above all “technically fragile”, as Pierre Lalu, project manager at We Sign It recognizes.
The launch of a new, more secure version, initially planned for last spring, should take place in the coming weeks.
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Thursday, around 6 p.m., bis repetita.
According to Matthieu Orphelin, 4000 servers are targeting the site this time, for “three million” connections “in two hours”.
Act III: the identity of deputies usurped
Saturday evening, many LREM deputies complained for the same reason on social networks.
The object of their wrath?
They just received an email confirming… their signature to the anti-Amazon petition.
None of them however supported the initiative.
“Incredible to usurp our identity in this way!
“, Annoys Marie-Christine Verdier-Jouclas, spokesperson for the parliamentary group of the majority.
Same thing for me !
Incredible to usurp our identity in this way!
https://t.co/pZMPgN5mmS
- Marie-Christine Verdier-Jouclas (@VerdierJouclas) November 22, 2020
We Sign It apologizes directly to several of them.
"We deleted all signatures in five minutes," assures Pierre Lalu.
But the thank you email was gone in the meantime.
And for good reason: the petition does not provide for electronic confirmation before the signature is validated.
"The platform was not sufficiently prepared to face so many malicious acts", defends Matthieu Orphelin, who accuses his colleagues of overreacting.
Pierre Lalu also says he is "annoyed" by all these public messages.
The platform is taken offline overnight from Saturday to Sunday.
One question remains: who entered these addresses of deputies in the form?
Act IV: a mysterious group claims
The answer will fall overnight from Sunday to Monday.
Dozens of elected officials and journalists - including the author of these lines - receive an e-mail from the Elysee Palace, asking to confirm having sent a message to the presidency.
Nothing is further from the truth, of course.
In this text which is submitted to us for validation, a person or a group calling themselves "Covistead" says "to be at the origin of the suppression of the petition of Matthieu Orphelin and François Ruffin Noël sans Amazon".
Their motivations are varied: denouncing "the collapse of our society and its growing authoritarianism", fears of "the turn the Covid crisis is taking in our country (and beyond)", etc.
"Our site is constantly under attack and in the midst of a storm, it hasn't stopped," blows Pierre Lalu, who hopes to put the petition back online on a more solid platform at the beginning of December, by submitting the 33 764 "true »Signatures already registered.
Act V: filing a complaint
Nothing is however so certain, according to Matthieu Orphelin, who organized an “emergency meeting” on Tuesday noon with the other initiators of the petition.
“The two options were valid, but there were more people who preferred not to put the petition online for the moment,” he explains.
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The elected official tells us to file a complaint against X concerning the three attacks, in particular for "obstructing the functioning of a processing system".
"I warned the Public Prosecutor this morning and I am waiting for the appointment for the deposition", details the deputy, who defends his choice to have appealed to a "collaborative platform" and sweeps away the reproaches of "Amateurism" that many make him.
The President of the National Assembly, Richard Ferrand, has also indicated his intention to file a complaint.
