How is it that the Toronto Star and Eye Weekly (Torstar), the Globe and Mail (CTVglobemedia), and CityNews (Rogers) websites went offline with technical troubles this afternoon... all at the same time?

The "media blackout" was relatively short-lived, with all sites coming back online in under an hour, but it got me wondering.

Was this some sort of multi-targeted DoS cyber-attack? Do all of the bigger Toronto-based media companies use the same web hosting providers? Was this was all just some sort of freaky coincidence?

(The Globe and Mail didn't Tweet about their technical problems.)

Not all of the majors got knocked offline though. The National Post appears to have stayed online throughout the mayhem, and in humorous, opportunistic style, had this to say:

I'm thinking that if it was a cyber-attack, we're sure to hear more about it soon from the horses' mouths. If, on the other hand, all of the above are hosted on the same racks, well... isn't that something we should be concerned about (in a too-many-eggs-in-one-basket kind of way)? If it's just a coincidence (and I'm having a hard time imagining that this is the case)... well, I'll be darned.

On a related note, Gmail was down the other day and is down for some people again today, and I've been having data and voice connectivity problems on Rogers mobile lately. Tech failures aplenty are indeed part of life nowadays.

Which reminds me... I should do some file backups on my personal computer. It's been a while.