How to take down a website

What's the easiest way to take down a web site? Do you:

a) write your own app to exploit a new vulnerability in the web server, give yourself super user rights to the box, and then just run amok modifying and deleting files?

b) Do you just ping flood the server using a whole bunch of zombie nodes using a tool you downloaded from 1337hax0rsgetse.cx?

No. You sent the host a single email from a Hotmail account telling them that you're a law firm, and the content is in breach of copyright law.

"Bits of Freedom signed up with 10 Dutch ISPs and used the websites to host text by Dutch author Multatuli, dating from 1871. Multatuli died in 1887 and his works are now in the public domain. A notice to that effect was attached to the published content.

The organisation then posed as the copyright holders of the work. A "legal representative" of the fake E.D. Dekkers society sent a "complaint" demanding that "copyright infringing" content be pulled forthwith to the 10 ISPs. The complaint - sent via a Hotmail account - cited notice and takedown provisions in the recent European E-commerce Directive."