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When RSS Traffic Looks Like a DDoS

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the which-is-most-of-the-time dept.

An anonymous reader writes "Infoworld's CTO Chad Dickerson says he has a love/hate relationship with RSS. He loves the changes to his information production and consumption, but he hates the behavior of some RSS feed readers. Every hour, Infoworld "sees a massive surge of RSS newsreader activity" that "has all the characteristics of a distributed DoS attack." So many requests in such a short period of time are creating scaling issues. " We've seen similiar problems over the years. RSS (or as it should be called, "Speedfeed") is such a useful thing, it's unfortunate that it's ultimately just very stupid.

12 of 443 comments (clear)

  1. RSS maybe by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Funny

    RSS may be ultimatly stupid but you didn't get first post did you! rookie!

  2. RHS by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Funny

    we need RHS... really HARD syndication

    1. Re:RHS by shadowcabbit · · Score: 2, Funny

      we need RHS... really HARD syndication

      That's nothing compared to RMS, which (according to RMS) stands for GNU/Recursive Meta-Syndication.

      --
      "Why Subscribe?" Good question...
  3. Re:RSS needs better TCP stacks by genixia · · Score: 3, Funny

    Yeah, because there's nothing like using a sledgehammer to crack a hazlenut.

    For starters, how about the readers play nice and spread their updates around a bit instead of all clamoring at the same time.

  4. Re:What about a scheduler? by cmdr_beeftaco · · Score: 5, Funny

    Bad idea. Everyone knows that most headlines are made at the top of the hour. Thus, A.M. radio always give news headlines "at-the-top-of-hour." RSS reader should be given the same timely updates.
    Related to this is the fact that most traffic accidents happen "on the twenties." Human nature is a curious and seemingly very predictable thing.

  5. Re:Editorializing in the blurb by sohojim · · Score: 2, Funny
    Oh, you mean editors editorializing? Probably.

  6. Re:Still haven't tried these newfangled RSS reader by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0, Funny

    It's "informative by association." His post will attract answers. (Well, answers and people who bitch about moderation.)

  7. Re:Revision of the Standard by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Funny

    that's three words, idiot

  8. I can see the Fox special now by jrexilius · · Score: 1, Funny

    "When RSS Feeders Attack".. news at 11:00..

  9. Re:Can't this be throttled? by hunterx11 · · Score: 4, Funny
    From now on, instead of telling people to fuck off I'll just say:

    User-agent: You
    Disallow: /
    --
    English is easier said than done.
  10. Re:What about a scheduler? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Funny

    maybe military time? 20 = 5 pm

    I sure hope you're not in the military. If you are then I highly recommend you make sure you haven't missed any appointments recently.

  11. Re:Still haven't tried these newfangled RSS reader by The+Grassy+Knoll · · Score: 2, Funny

    >On Windows I use RSS Bandit

    Pronounced "ArseBandit"?
    That's priceless, to a Brit at least.

    .

    --
    They will never know the simple pleasure of a monkey knife fight