HELP! I’m being attacked by the Daily Caller!

Quite innocently, I went to Memeorandum earlier and clicked on the top link, which is headlined

Book bombshell: Obama canceled Bin Laden ‘kill’ raid three times at Jarrett’s urging

Just wanted to read it, OK? The link was supposed to go to the Daily Caller, of which I’m a regular reader. Instead of being directed there, I got this scary-looking icon:

Reported Attack Page!                                                            This web page at dailycaller.com has been reported as an attack page and has been blocked based on your security preferences.
Attack pages try to install programs that steal private information, use your computer to attack others, or damage your system.Some attack pages intentionally distribute harmful software, but many are compromised without the knowledge or permission of their owners.

Odd, because my antivirus is usually very sensitive (if anything, overly sensitive) to malware-infected pages, and it it had done nothing at all.

So I clicked on the “Why was this page blocked?” button, which directed me to a purportedly helpful “Google Advisory” which stated this:

Safe Browsing

Diagnostic page for dailycaller.com

What is the current listing status for dailycaller.com?

Site is listed as suspicious – visiting this web site may harm your computer.

Part of this site was listed for suspicious activity 3 time(s) over the past 90 days.

Listed? Precisely what does that mean? Listed by whom?

Inquiring minds want to know.

Thinking it might just be a Firefox problem, I clicked on the same link from Google Chrome, and this time, the warning was even more menacing:

Warning: Something’s Not Right Here!
dailycaller.com contains malware. Your computer might catch a virus if you visit this site.
Google has found malicious software may be installed onto your computer if you proceed. If you’ve visited this site in the past or you trust this site, it’s possible that it has just recently been compromised by a hacker. You should not proceed, and perhaps try again tomorrow or go somewhere else.
We have already notified dailycaller.com that we found malware on the site. For more about the problems found on dailycaller.com, visit the Google Safe Browsing diagnostic page.

If you understand that visiting this site may harm your computer, proceed anyway.

Should I, um, proceed?

What I want to know is has the Daily Caller actually been infected with malware, or has someone only reported it as infected?

There’s just something about the highly political nature of the article which raises my suspicions that politics might just somehow be involved.

MORE: It isn’t just the article that is being flagged by the Google advisory. Even the Daily Caller home page triggers the warning.

Maybe I’ll try using Ubuntu and see what happens.

AND MORE: Just booted up the basement computer in Ubuntu 11.04 and both the Daily Caller link and the website work fine. But on this computer, running Windows XP, it is still blocked.

Hmmm…

Is this a Windows only issue?

AND EVEN MORE: Just tried a different computer, a more modern machine running Windows 7. The Daily Caller main page and the link are still blocked in Firefox, but open fine in Chrome. On this computer, no such luck with either Forefox or Chrome. Next step is to reboot both browsers.

I’m very curious about this.

AFTER REBOOT: Still no change in either browser. Every other website I’ve been to this morning works fine, so I doubt it’s a browser or computer issue.

I suspect someone does not want traffic going to the Daily Caller.

MORE: Google very helpfully makes it a snap to report a malware-infected site. All you do is enter the URL and fill in the capcha!

And at the Democratic Underground, a discussion of what’s being called a “nasty new troll attack” as well as an observation:

There has to be a technological fix for this problem of politically motivated false malware reports

for this problem of politically motivated false malware reports.

If the webmasters of targeted sites had an easy way to complain to Google about false malware reports, then Google could run its own sophisticated scans of the site and remove the false reports.

Is Google aware of the problem?

I don’t know, but I was glad to see that Memeorandum had bumped this story (which had moved down) back to the top.

No doubt the unbiased techies at Google are working hard to fix the problem.

(Meanwhile, I’m intrigued as to why the Google warnings don’t work in Firefox in Ubuntu.)

UPDATE: I am not alone in noticing this:

It is evident that someone on the left was sufficiently angry and alarmed by the Daily Caller’s scoop that a false malware complaint was filed to deter traffic.

And this:

For those of you having trouble getting into The Daily Caller, @DailyCaller reports on Twitter, that they came under malware attack. They claim to have ” turned back the enemy & reclaimed our land. Site is safe to visit. Thanks 4 your patience.”

-I’m still seeing the Attack Site notice, however.-

There are no coincidences is politics, folks.

And of course the unbiased techies at Google are no doubt working hard to solve the problem