The Million Dollar Homepage is being hammered by extortionists who want money in return for halting the distributed denial of service (DDoS) attack that knocked down the site last week and has since made it nearly impossible to access, reports The Register (U.K.). The site's owner, Alex Tew, apparently received an email ransom note demanding $5,000, and subsequent demands of $50,000, all of which he previously ignored.

Tew said on his site that "a demand for a substantial amount of money was made which makes this a criminal act of extortion. The FBI are investigating and I'm currently working closely with my hosting company, Sitelutions, to bring the site back online as soon as possible."

Apparently, experts have told Tew that the DDoS attacks may be coming from Russia.