Talk to me about what happened to the board. Is a DOS attack easy to do?

[unsinkable]

Are people just joking when they said was it a disgruntled homeschooler?

 

Is it easy to do an attack like that? Like someone with just a home computer could do it?

[Critterfixer]

Oh, so that's what happened! They got hacked?

[unsinkable]

Oh, so that's what happened! They got hacked?

 

I read it was a DOS attack on Facebook.

 

I'm really not well versed in computer stuff.

 

Heck, I'm barely versed.

[Karen in CO]

Denial of Service attacks are rampant these days. Here is an article about why they worse right now. That dispute has been slowing down the whole internet. It didn't have to be targeted against "us." Any site is vulnerable, and most places are more vulnerable these days in addition to suffering from spillover traffic.

[Alexigail]

DDOS stands for distributed denial of service. A website can only handle so many hits at once. A DDOS is a systematic way if causing a website to get way too many hits at once, which overloads the servers and causes the site to go down. Sometimes it happens because people are protesting the site's content. Other times it's just a random attack.

[Parrothead]

DDOS stands for distributed denial of service. A website can only handle so many hits at once. A DDOS is a systematic way if causing a website to get way too many hits at once, which overloads the servers and causes the site to go down. Sometimes it happens because people are protesting the site's content. Other times it's just a random attack.

 

Sheesh. Some people need to get a life.

[Jean in Newcastle]

Ds15 (AKA "Tech support") says that he could have done it from my laptop but to do it, he would have had to infect a whole bunch of other computers with a botnet virus telling them to bombard the WTM site. He also said that it would have taken a lot of time and energy for just one person to have done it. I think that is what he said. And no, he didn't do it!

[RoughCollie]

It seems like it is very complex to figure out how to recover from a DOS attack. There are so many different kinds: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Denial-of-service_attack

[PinkInTheBlue]

It is a pain! My husband and I operate our entire business online and what some people do is almost enough to loose faith in humanity sometimes. :(

 

I didn't know that's what happened here. SO sorry!

[Wildiris]

The overloading of servers is how Bank of America was hacked and seems to be a common way to cause havoc.

[Liz CA]

Denial of Service attacks are rampant these days. Here is an article about why they worse right now. That dispute has been slowing down the whole internet. It didn't have to be targeted against "us." Any site is vulnerable, and most places are more vulnerable these days in addition to suffering from spillover traffic.

 

 

 

Thanks for the explanation!

[jhschool]

What kind of idiot/jerk would do this?

 

Why don't they go get a life...

[myfunnybunch]

It happened to our home server. Dh had to write a "poison packet" (whatever that is--he went into excruciating detail, but I was trying to fill out some paperwork, so I didn't catch most of it) and send it back to the source to get it to stop. He found out it was coming from Stanford somewhere. He said it was probably some college students who needed something more productive to do.

 

Cat

[ocelotmom]

Are people just joking when they said was it a disgruntled homeschooler?

 

Is it easy to do an attack like that? Like someone with just a home computer could do it?

 

Yes, they were joking :)

 

(I admit that I have some vague concerns that there is something more targeted going on than the Spamhaus story, as some other non-mainstream boards I'm on that aren't related to homeschooling have also been having DDOS trouble. But I googled around and found out that boards with topics as non-controversial as Super Mario Brothers are also being targeted, so who knows. It's probably more related to the timing of particular exploits/vulnerabilities)

 

Jean's DS is right - it could potentially be coordinated by an individual on their home computer, and it's not necessarily difficult if you know what you're doing, but it requires infecting a whole bunch of other computers with software that basically turns them into remote controlled drones that do your bidding. Basically, it's not all that difficult, but it's definitely something that involves premeditation, and it isn't something that's going to happen accidentally by reloading the page too often or something.

[jewellsmommy]

Perhaps it is a group of disgruntled homeschooled teens who do not want their moms finding that perfect math curriculum with which to challenge them. :tongue_smilie:

 

They know that without the hive's help no curriculum decisions could possibly be made for the next school year. :D