The web site of anti-spyware activist Ben Edelman is back online after an extended outage, apparently caused by a distributed denial of service (DDoS) attack. Edelman's research documents the methods used to install adware and spyware programs, and has been used in legal cases against providers of advertising software.

"For much of Monday and Tuesday, as well as several hours last week, all of benedelman.org was unreachable," Edelman writes. "My prior web host, Globat, tells me I was the target of the biggest DDoS attack they've ever suffered - some 600MB+/second."

Luckily for Edelman, his work has gained him allies with resources. Edelman said he got back online with help from Paul Vixie, author of the BIND DNS management software and president of the Internet Software Consortium, which now hosts benedelman.org.

A number of spyware critics were targeted by DDoS attacks last February, including Spyware Info.