Bonum Certa Men Certa

The EPO's Digital War (Censorship) Against Staff Web Site

Benoit Battistelli



Summary: The EPO's management has been blacklisting dissent and increasingly relying on censorship as means of eliminating opposing voices

A LOT has been happening in the EPO regime in recent weeks, culminating in resignations or firings from one side and protests from the other (up to a third of all staff), resulting in an assault on the press (paid 'articles') from one side and DDOS attacks on the other. There is a war between staff and the crooked managers who attack the staff's rights, break the rules, and operate a tyranny that betrays principles of scope and even, based on numerous criteria, violates EU law.



Based on an E-mail from the webhost of SUEPO, the attacks on their site is quite serious. Here are some enumerable details:

Subject: Server blocked due to DoS attack

thank you for your request.

The attack appears to be over. We were able to unblock your IP-Addresses.

Your server should be reachable again. Detailed information about the attack: Type UDP Packetflood Traffic: 3,5G with 8MPacket/s Random external IP Sources Destination 87.106.183.86 Port 80,5190 Start-Date 2015-02-05 05:18:41+0100


In simple terms, there is no denying that this was a DDOS attack. We would love to know the outcome of the investigation as we too came under heavy DDOS attacks, lasting months (keeping my wife and I awake at night and causing serious financial damage), ever since we started criticising EPO management. We can't tell if there is a correlation between these attacks (SUEPO and us), but if there is a correlation between those two, then we can deduce something about the motivation (or source).

A source told us that an investigation is underway, citing SUEPO as stating: "By flooding our server with external requests in this manner the attackers rendered it unavailable. As soon as our server was reachable again, the attackers attempted an SSH brute-force attack to take control of the server.

"Such attacks constitute a violation of law and SUEPO has filed criminal charges against unknown and will cooperate with the German and Dutch authorities, who are now investigating the matter."

Our source further indicated that there had been other oppressive measures against SUEPO, so the above would not be exactly unprecedented. To quote further:

What happened to SUEPO until now?

Communication with our members has become extremely difficult. In particular, we cannot reach our members on their EPO email address because of the measures applied by the Office since 2013, such as:

- The domain name suepo.org is blacklisted in the email server of the EPO since 2013. A sender from @suepo.org cannot reach a recipient @epo.org

- Many colleagues have reported that external emails containing the word “SUEPO” in the subject line or body do not reach a recipient @epo.org. Despite several requests for clarification, the administration has remained silent on the matter.

What next?

Your committee will strive to maintain its communication means with staff and to continue to inform them promptly of what is really happening in the Office. We would like to encourage you to provide your local SUEPO Committee with your private email address if you haven’t done it yet. Given the current context, we think it makes sense.


This in its own right serves to show that the EPO already engages in digital war against SUEPO. It's a war of censorship. Would the EPO go as far we paying crackers? That's an important question. Some people deem DDOS attacks "just a sit-in/protest". Such people rarely (if ever) had to respond to an actual DDOS attack; these can persist for weeks or months.

"Some people deem DDOS attacks "just a sit-in/protest".""In the meantime," said our source, "SUEPO has issued the statement" (above).

"Some people," our source added, "are currently trying to investigate whether there is any similarity between the recent cyberattacks on the server of the Croatian web portal dnevno.hr.

"An open question here is whether or not EPO funds are being used to finance these attacks."

As we noted earlier today, Željko Topić is alleged to have covered up for his predecessor/s. Is the EPO now covering up its own misconduct, by covert, subversive or aggressive means also? If so, Topić may have plenty of "work experience" to offer the EPO after all.

Recent Techrights' Posts

How to Tackle Corruption Effectively and Gradually
In my personal, humble experience
European Patent Office (EPO) Series: A Tale of Two Antónios
"Campaign for the Re-Appointment of the President"
 
Julian Assange's Counsel Jennifer Robinson Has Just Won an Award
Jennifer Robinson is relatively young
Schweizerische Bundesbahnen (Swiss Federal Railways) and Richard Stallman
It seems like RMS is receiving endorsement or at least belated recognition from very high-profile institutions
Almost 30 Years After Rob Malda Made Slashdot It Still Inspires New Implementations
Maybe the issue isn't Slash per se, just the complexity of it (which SoylentNews complained about in the past)
Links 02/06/2026: "The Infosec Phrasebook", 'Perfect Randomness' and "Leaving the Tech World Professionally"
Links for the day
Faking Demand for Slop: Google's Search Prompt Becomes Slop Prompt (Bait, Switch, Fake Usage)
If there is no consent, then it's unsustainable
When You Give People (or Companies) Money to Buy Your Own Products and Then Call It "Revenue"
A lot of modern "economics" don't benefit ordinary people (all they get is high inflation rates); they're devaluing money by faking economic activity
IBM is Self-Detonating, the Cheeto-Infused Rally is Another Con by Don
pump and dump
"Quantum" as the "Next Big" Bubble
disappointing and delivering nothing
Links 02/06/2026: "$1.5 Trillion Defense Budget Benefits Billionaire Cheeto Mussolini Supporters", US "Plans to Criminalize Sleeping Outside"
Links for the day
Gemini Links 02/06/2026: Organising Oneself and Killing Off Distracting "Notifications"
Links for the day
SLAPP Censorship - Part 95 Out of 200: The Growing Risk of Tolerating Men Who Abuse and Physically Assault Women
FOSS should not be a "safe harbour" or "hideout" for criminals
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Monday, June 01, 2026
IRC logs for Monday, June 01, 2026
Rust is a Disaster for Both GNU and Linux, But 'Linux' Foundation (GKH) Keeps Promoting It Despite the Problems
And non-GPL licences
IBM's CEO and his "pump and dump scheme" ("Arvind's lies about quantum")
Don't be misled by Wall Street
Gemini Links 01/06/2026: Xylophone Essay, Ham Radio, and Slop Contaminating USENET/Newsgroups
Links for the day
Links 01/06/2026: Patent Applicant Disclosures Drop After the January 2025 IDS Surcharge, "China Exports Surveillance"
Links for the day
Links 01/06/2026: Irreversible GAFAM Bans and "The Pirate Bay Remains Resilient"
Links for the day
Running and Writing Sites for People, Not Bots (Including Search Engines)
Had those sites spent more time focusing on RSS feeds (not social control media "games") and less on SEO (trying to game search engines), they wouldn't be sobbing now
SBB, the Swiss Railroads, Want to Hear Richard Stallman
Can Dr. Stallman persuade key decision makers to adopt not only "Linux" but also Software Freedom (not the same thing), as he did in South American before? Or like he did in Kerala?
Resumes and Vanity Pages
Wikipedia is fast becoming a glorified marketing company
Trusting Microsoft is Foolish
Mr. Rossmann says they "gaslight customers" in their Web site, but it goes a lot further than this
Techrights in a Nutshell, in Very Generic Terms
"for dummies"
SLAPP Censorship - Part 94 Out of 200: SLAPP by Garrett's Litigation Buddy Started 20 Months Ago, He Has Not Even Put in His Defence Yet!
This is what happens when one deals with incels and misogynists who promote slop and Microsoft
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Sunday, May 31, 2026
IRC logs for Sunday, May 31, 2026
Gemini Links 01/06/2026: Buckingham Palace Garden Party, TUI Annoyances, Lateral Thinking with Withered Technology
Links for the day
Links 31/05/2026: Heat Wave Grips France and Edgar Morin Dies
Links for the day
Gemini Links 31/05/2026: Backup vs. Mirror, Year of the Death of a Euphemism, Slop Makes Only Yet Another (Untested) Calculator
Links for the day
IBM Red Hat Has a Long History or Track Record of Misusing Trademarks to Send Lawyers to Try to Take Down Pages and Web Sites of Critics
Red Hat claims to own words; IBM thinks it owns names
Richard Stallman is Coming Back to Bern to Give a Talk Next Month
another big talk coming up
Gravitating Towards What Your Role in Society May Be (or What You're Truly Good At)
Many IBMers already realise that they spent years if not decades of their lives working on mostly meaningless products/projects
900 Days Later
900 days is a very long time (almost 1,000)
Cybershow Requires Free Software to Record Shows
Cybershow is run by people who understand that without Software Freedom there can be no sovereignty
Losses at Microsoft's GitHub Seem to be Deepening
How many billions of dollars has Microsoft lost by betting on the false prediction that it can somehow "monetise" public code by LLMs?
Links 31/05/2026: Slop 'Code' (Junk) "Increasingly Leads to Production Failures" and "Huge Slop Costs With No Clear Benefits"
Links for the day
European Patent Office Strikes Intensify Tomorrow, Huge Strikes Planned for June, 10,000 Strike Participations Registered
Campinos may well be ousted soon
SLAPP Censorship - Part 93 Out of 200: A Blueprint of Reckless Lawfare in the UK, Waged and Funded by Americans (in Another Continent)
Lawfare powered by slop companies (including Microsoft) from America, targetting British people who consistently oppose slop because it's objectively terrible
Links 31/05/2026: Watershed Moment, Traveller RPG Book Binding, and GUI Annoyances
Links for the day
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Saturday, May 30, 2026
IRC logs for Saturday, May 30, 2026