MANY of our readers have been struggling to get access to The National since the January 9.
Our network has been under the strain of repeated Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) attacks online, which have attempted to bring our website down.
DDoS attacks aim to disrupt a website by flooding it with traffic from multiple servers and sources, making it impossible for our systems to respond.
Think of it like being stuck on the Edinburgh ring-road at rush hour. It's a traffic jam.
We still don't know who is responsible, but somebody clearly doesn't want us online...
The National has been hit with several attacks over the last weeks, meaning that access to the site from outside the UK has been restricted.
You may have also noticed time-out errors or long load times for the site as a result of this too.
We apologise for any inconvenience this may have caused, and we are working hard to resolve it.
Why are you making commenting on The National only available to subscribers?
We know there are thousands of National readers who want to debate, argue and go back and forth in the comments section of our stories. We’ve got the most informed readers in Scotland, asking each other the big questions about the future of our country.
Unfortunately, though, these important debates are being spoiled by a vocal minority of trolls who aren’t really interested in the issues, try to derail the conversations, register under fake names, and post vile abuse.
So that’s why we’ve decided to make the ability to comment only available to our paying subscribers. That way, all the trolls who post abuse on our website will have to pay if they want to join the debate – and risk a permanent ban from the account that they subscribe with.
The conversation will go back to what it should be about – people who care passionately about the issues, but disagree constructively on what we should do about them. Let’s get that debate started!
Callum Baird, Editor of The National
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