Not Wikileaks then. :)
That doesn't sound normal. I guess you are streaming television.
Big Brother then. :)
Actually I think the way it works is some patsy runs a program for a buck and hour that does the probing and cataloguing of vulnerable sites. The program reports back to the tech guy who plants bots at a later date. The tech guy sells lists of infected IP addresses to the really bad guys.
The attack sounds classic. Through your http connection they can tell you are using a Mozilla based browser - it's in the protocol. Perhaps they can also tell you're running Linux. Perhaps they assume Linux users are complacent and therefore likely to be vulnerable.
That won't be the objective. The objective might not be criminal but you really want to keep out of it. I could image a 'security' firm being tempted to do research this way, Likewise I can see Ebay being concerned about folks with a Paypal account and a vulnerable PC. I could also imagine government agencies preparing for the cyberwar they believe is coming.
Anyway, I'm just glad you are protected now. Myself, I'd never go near that site again. But that's just me.

