Gambling Sites Battle DDoS Attacks

the-dark-kangaroo writes "Gambling sites are fighting back against extortion from hackers using Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) attacks. According to the report released by the BBC many of these attacks are coming from infected home PCs which have succumbed to a worm or virus. The gambling sites are bringing in reinforcements: Pipex, Cisco and security firm Energis are creating 'intelligent' traffic monitoring systems to help stop these attacks."

Comments

I try and try..

[XaXXon]

But I just can't feel too sorry for them.

I mean, I know it's wrong, but when you get into that business I'm sure this isn't really that uncommon. Gambling is a shady 'business' in the first place, so if you have to deal with other shady people to keep it going, then them's the breaks, buddy.

Re:I try and try..

[LordNightwalker]

Yah, and I'd feel sorry for them if they'd play nice and stop writing worms to crawl blogs and paste poker spam in the comments. You wouldn't believe the amount of spam I had to clear from my blog comment area already. Imagine my surprise when I saw the same poker spam in the comments of every single post in my blog on some computer graphics project I'm working on... Feel sorry for them? Not really.

Re:I try and try..

[really?]

Two wrongs=right?? To each his own I guess.

Re:I try and try..

[John Seminal]

But I just can't feel too sorry for them. I mean, I know it's wrong, but when you get into that business I'm sure this isn't really that uncommon. Gambling is a shady 'business' in the first place, so if you have to deal with other shady people to keep it going, then them's the breaks, buddy.

Would you prefer to deal with a bookie or a regulated buisness? At least the on-line gambling websites have to pay taxes.

Re:I try and try..

[really?]

Why is gambling a shady biz? I don't gamble myself, but as long as they don't come to my house and force me to gamble, I don't see the shady part.
Tax on those poor at math? Perhaps. But, why shady?

Re:I try and try..

[legoburner]

Though a lot of online casinos do that*, not all do that and it is somewhat unfair to lump all of them in as deserving of the dDoSes.

Some interesting stats about online gambling:
- Those dDoSes hit 2GB/sec. More than Energis' internal network can cope with.
- The primary dDoSers (some russian guys) were caught and arrested last year, there was a /. story about it too
- The mafia have been involved with some US sites, but I know of at least one that got shut down when the entire board of the company got arrested
- The WTO is trying to make the US ban on Internet gambling illegal
- The biggest online casino is israeli-founded/based www.888.com who do multiple billion per month in turnover. You can get house win from that by taking off about 98-99.5%. (turnover counts every value of every spin of a slot machine or every wager, remove the odds of winning % for the house win)

In conclusion, the world does not have the same laws as the US (gambling is perfectly fine in the UK for instance) and some people run responsible gambling sites and still have to put up with all the tiring crap from crackers and dDoSers.

* technically it is their affiliates who do it through affiliate programs, but same difference, they are all guilty and could crack down on it if they wanted.

Re:I try and try..

[queenb**ch]

Personally, I don't feel sorry for them at all. It seems like just desserts to me since they are responsible for a LARGE portion of the spyware that we end up removing from PC's on a regular basis.

My reply to them is WAAAAAA!!! We (the internet community) asked you not to do a bunch of things which were "bad" (spam and spyware). You went ahead and did the "bad" things and now someone who is "badder" is doing "bad" things to you and you want us to help you.

Hmmmm...let me think about this - help the spamming spywaring jackesses - no, not today.....eat sh**, die, turn green, and bloat. I think that about covers it. Asking us to be upset about the possible demise of gambling on the internet, with the problems you have caused, is like asking someone to be upset because their hemmorhoid has suddenly and painlessly fallen off.

In addition, I fail to see what benefit you provide anyone. Someone mentioned taxes. Most of the gambling sites are located in a few countries in Central America (like Belize) where the money is usually paid to a corrupt goverment that uses it to more efficiently repress the local population. There is strong evidence that the cocaine cartels are involved.

2 cents,

Queen B

Re:I try and try..

[WIAKywbfatw]

Sorry but you're displaying your ignorance. Gambling is legal in most societies, and in some (eg, Hong Kong) it's a common activity that the majority of the population enjoy.

Betting on the result of a sporting event, or anything else, via a legally authorised bookmaker is no more shady than having a cup of coffee.

Just because you have this image of gambling that seems to be more to do with smoke-filled secret back rooms where you have to know the password and the guy behind the bar to get in than legitimate, publicly-traded and -scrutinied businesses that doesn't make it a reality.

The gambling sites being DDOSed aren't run by crooks, they're the legitimate and legal online presences of bricks-and-mortar bookmakers as well as internet gambling start-ups.

Re:I try and try..

[QuantumG]

isn't it obvious? The Bible said so!

Re:I try and try..

[Anonymous Coward]

Dude, you just set variable Two wrongs equal to right. You just turned morality on its head.

Re:I try and try..

[lucason]

Maybe not, but a husler getting hustled does present some form of poetic justice from time to time.

Re:I try and try..

[Zooka]

"Why is gambling a shady biz?"

People like myself consider it "shady" because it preys upon human weakness. Much like the tobacco industry. Nobody forces anyone to smoke tobacco either...

One can callously point out that nobody is forced to (gamble/smoke), and that it's people's own stupidity that gets them into trouble. But I don't happen to believe that people that lack in intelligence, or have other weaknesses such as a proclivity towards (gambling/drug) addiction, deserve being taken advantage of.

I don't mean to sound like I'm preaching from my moral high horse. I just happen to have compassion for fellow human beings with imperfections and weaknesses. Hence my dislike for those who prosper by exploiting such.

Re:I try and try..

[91degrees]

It seems like just desserts to me since they are responsible for a LARGE portion of the spyware that we end up removing from PC's on a regular basis.

Some of them aren't. A lot of them run a perfectly legitimate business advertising through tradiaiton means.

In addition, I fail to see what benefit you provide anyone. Someone mentioned taxes. Most of the gambling sites are located in a few countries in Central America (like Belize) where the money is usually paid to a corrupt goverment that uses it to more efficiently repress the local population. There is strong evidence that the cocaine cartels are involved.

This is because the US is so hard on gambling. The crime organisations get involved. The ones mentioned in the article seem to be UK sites. Gambling pays a decent amount to the treasury, and it tightly regulated by the government.

Re:I try and try..

[XaXXon]

Maybe this isn't really an authority on the subject, but in SimCity, when you allow gambling in your city, your crime rate goes up significantly.

In all the gangster movies, they are always involved in gambling.

Basically anywhere that kind of money changes hands is going to attract people you wouldn't normally want to associate yourself with.

Casinos seem morally irresponsible to me, letting people run up debt to the point where they put a burdon on society in order to make a profit. I'm sure this is an argument for another place at another time, but that's how I feel.

In terms of the two wrongs making a right, that's sort of like if someone crashed a plane into an Al Qaeda camp. I wouldn't really feel too bad. People making money in an immoral way (protection money against DoSs) from a company making money in an immoral way (gambling) doesn't exactly tug on my heartstrings.

Re:I try and try..

[jasonla]

Agreed. They cry foul (or fowl, depending on the site)? Too bad. Stop spamming people's blogs.

Re:I try and try..

[a whoabot]

Do not limit beauty to only what is profoundly moral. - Baudrillard

Re:I try and try..

[wcbarksdale]

So television, chocolate, and cosmetics are a priori shady businesses as well?

Re:I try and try..

[arose]

No, I have this image with ads that say "Win now!", or do you believe that you will "Win now!"?

Re:I try and try..

[IO ERROR]

Try the WordPress SpamAssassin plugin, which has also been ported to Movable Type, to kill all that comment spam.

Re:I try and try..

[WIAKywbfatw]

Casinos seem morally irresponsible to me, letting people run up debt to the point where they put a burdon on society in order to make a profit. I'm sure this is an argument for another place at another time, but that's how I feel.

I'm sorry, but in the US couldn't you apply that label to hospitals too? Medical bills that run into 5 or 6 figures aren't uncommon and it's a sad fact that the biggest factor in personal bankrupcy in the US is unpaid (and, more importantly, unpayable) medical bills.

And, out of interest, where do you draw the line at what is and what isn't gambling? Is playing the lottery gambling? And in a so-called "free" society, shouldn't you be able to do what you want with your hard-earned cash? Does anyone really have the right to tell you how you can and can't use it to entertain (and possibly enrich) yourself if you're not hurting anyone else in the process?

To be honest, I'm not in favour of unchecked gambling, but then I'm not in favour of unchecked alcohol abuse either, but you don't see church and state bringing the roof down on that ballgame, do you?

Re:I try and try..

[Anonymous Coward]

"One can callously point out that nobody is forced to (gamble/smoke), and that it's people's own stupidity that gets them into trouble. But I don't happen to believe that people that lack in intelligence, or have other weaknesses such as a proclivity towards (gambling/drug) addiction, deserve being taken advantage of."

This is pure BS. Poeple who try to lump Gambling in with true addictions such as drugs and smoking are simply wrong. There is no physical addiction with gambling. You won't go through withdrawl if you stop it like you do with smoking and some drugs. You don't build a "tolerence" to gambling like you do with drugs requiring you to do things you wouldn't normally do just to get it (including murder).

People who are trying to make gambling into a "disease" are simply trying to get medical insurance to pay for their theropy.

Re:I try and try..

[WIAKywbfatw]

It's called gambling for a reason: sometimes you win, sometimes you don't. Unless you're mentally deficient then you know that you've got less chance of winning than losing. Duh.

Re:I try and try..

[arose]

Well I don't see "You will lose more than win!" in their ads.

Re:I try and try..

[AaronLawrence]

www.888.com is an interesting example. Went to there to see - not a terrible site as these things go but, hello, lots of Javascript popups whenver I do anything! Funny example:

Popup 1: Do you want to download our software while browsing our site? (ok/cancel)

Popup 2: Start playing poker now - no download required! (ok/cancel)

Hm... so what would OK do the second time then?

Sorry, but every gambling site I have ever seen does things that are at least annoying.

Re:I try and try..

[Anonymous Coward]

Gambling is a shady 'business' in the first place, so if you have to deal with other shady people to keep it going, then them's the breaks, buddy.

Yes. Gambling is a tax on the mathematically challenged and the weak minded. Funnily enough though, some gambling is also a fun way to make a profit for the mathematically brilliant.

Re:I try and try..

[Technician]

I look at it as a zero sum gain industry. It only re-distributes wealth. It has no wealth creation or real value growth. Many industries such as farming take labor and make a product. Other than entertainment value, gambling has no product. All gambeling money is re-distributed with no net gain. That's the thing I have against the state lottery or state video poker. The state provides no product and just takes the suckers money.

I would rather see the state earn money by providing services such as affordable broadband such as in Washington State. The state is providing $40/month broadband with telephone and 5 Gig bandwidth. It beats video poker.

Re:I try and try..

[Anonymous Coward]

www.888.com are the one of the worst by far, that is why they are still the biggest... they wouldnt do all that annoying crap if it didnt work, and that is how they became the biggest too.

Re:I try and try..

[Anonymous Coward]

Two wrongs=right?? To each his own I guess.

This is _NOT_ an example of two wrongs making a right! I can't believe the crap that gets moderated up here as insightful!

If you consider a DDoS against gambling sites to be a wrong (I don't), then fair enough. But some guy not feeling sorry for them is not a wrong! He can feel any damn way he likes. His opinion is neither a right or a wrong, it is just his opinion.

Re:I try and try..

[Anonymous Coward]

there is a GA (gamblers annonymous) though.

Re:I try and try..

[Anonymous Coward]

some people run responsible gambling sites

Oh please. Let me rephrase that...

some people exploit the weak and stupid responsibly

Re:I try and try..

[aichpvee]

mmmmmmmmm.... desserts...

Re:I try and try..

[grammar fascist]

- The WTO is trying to make the US ban on Internet gambling illegal

Sovereignty, anyone? That's the most ridiculous thing I've ever heard.

No, wait. There was that thing about the Earth being hollow, with openings at the poles and the lost ten tribes of Israel walking around upside-down on the other side of the crust.... I think that was the most ridiculous thing I've ever heard.

It was close, though.

Re:I try and try..

[grammar fascist]

Medical bills that run into 5 or 6 figures aren't uncommon and it's a sad fact that the biggest factor in personal bankrupcy in the US is unpaid (and, more importantly, unpayable) medical bills.

I'd like you to cite a source for that. I googled for it and found a few charts, most of them indicating loss of job as the #1 cause.

Re:I try and try..

[Zooka]

"This is pure BS. Poeple who try to lump Gambling in with true addictions such as drugs and smoking are simply wrong. There is no physical addiction with gambling. You won't go through withdrawl if...."

Your understanding of "addiction" is lacking. While physical dependency on a substance is indeed not the 'exact same thing' as an uncontrollable psychological compulsion, they both CORRECTLY fall under the same general definition of "addiction".

In other words, your opinion that physical addiction is the only "true addiction"... is simply wrong.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Addiction

Re:I try and try..

[vandan]

Sorry but you're displaying your ignorance. Gambling is legal in most societies ...

Sorry but you're displaying your arrogance. Just because something is legal doesn't mean it is ethical. I could give you plenty of examples, but I'll leave it up to people's imagination.

Betting on the result of a sporting event, or anything else, via a legally authorised bookmaker is no more shady than having a cup of coffee.

What sort of a dim-witted comparison is that? Gambling devastates many people's lives. That makes people who push their gambling 'services' onto us 'shady'. Having a cup of coffee has nothing to do with it.

Just because you have this image of gambling that seems to be more to do with smoke-filled secret back rooms where you have to know the password and the guy behind the bar to get in than legitimate, publicly-traded and -scrutinied businesses that doesn't make it a reality.

You don't need smoke-filled, secret rooms or passwords to have a shady business. You just need to have a deficient conscience, or excess greed, and an online gambling site. Then you sit back and wait for the poor suckers to 'click', 'click', 'click', 'click', 'click', 'click', 'click'. People don't rock up to a gambling establishment and try their luck once. They stay their until they're out of money. You can disagree with me if you like, but every time I go to a casino ( get dragged their by workmates once a year or so ), the above is what I witness.

The gambling sites being DDOSed aren't run by crooks, they're the legitimate and legal online presences of bricks-and-mortar bookmakers

I don't think so. People running gambling sites are far more likely to be dodgy than those in a physical establishment. It's far easier to police a 'real' gambling business than a virtual one, especially since a virtual one can hide it's location and reside in a place that has no regulation.

Also, I get a fucking shitload of SPAM from gambling sites. Right away that says to me that the people running the sites are far from innocent, law-abiding citizens.

You seem to try to make the point throughout your post that because something is legal, that somehow blesses the activity. I suppose the opposite of this is that everything which is illegal is patently evil. Both points are absolutely ridiculous. There are plenty of things which are legal which are evil:

- selling carcinogen-soaked cigarettes
- selling alcohol
- selling weapons
- having a monopoly ( esp. a media monopoly )

Likewise, there are plenty of things which are illegal which are quite harmless ... possibly even good ... and should be legal:

- recreational drugs
- not voting if there's no-one worth voting for ( Australia )
- being a member of the Iraqi resistance

I'm pretty sure that I'd get disagreement on all of the above points. This reinforces my argument that:

- you should never use the law to enforce ethical behaviour in private matters
- you should never use an activity's legal status as an indicator of it's ethical status

Back to the topic of the actual article ... I don't really relate to the DDOSers ( they're probably just other gambling sites or spammers who haven't been paid for their advertising services ), but I couldn't give a toss about the online gambling sites.

Re:I try and try..

[geminidomino]

You forget the #1 Rule of Republicans:

If you have enough money, you trump God.

Re:I try and try..

[Anonymous Coward]

Dude, you just set variable Two wrongs equal to right. You just turned morality on its head.

Heh. You should try False=True in Python sometimes. Or 0=1 in Scheme (or was it Ada?) for that matter. Heh.

Re:I try and try..

[csteinle]

So, selling alcohol is "evil", but recreational drug use is morally acceptable. What? Way to go on the consistent argument there.

Re:I try and try..

[csteinle]

Yes. People often hightlight the negative aspects of the product they're advertising. It's a sure fire way of selling more stuff.

Re:I try and try..

[Zerikai]

You obviously have had noone in your family, or anyone you cared for, addicted to gambling. And as much as you would like to believe it, being smarter than the average will not keep you away from the possibility of becoming an addict to anything.
You are a fool.

Re:I try and try..

[Anonymous Coward]

Well, in Hong Kong at least, gambling is illegal unless explicitly allowed in legislation, and almost all (legal) gambling activity is exclusively run by the Hong Kong Jockey Club.

There was a long debate a while ago on whether to legalize gambling on soccer matches.

To my knowledge, the only legal gambling activities in Hong Kong are: Horse Racing, Soccer Betting and the Lottery.

Correct me if I'm wrong here.

Re:I try and try..

[vandan]

Yes that's exactly what I'm saying.

Alcohol and nicotine are the worst drugs around. They are both incredibly addictive, and there is overwhelming evidence that they are very bad for your health. Millions of people die every year because of them.

While the Christian fundamentalists will tell you that smoking pot and using LSD will send you straight to hell, there is no scientific evidence to back up any of their claims. In fact, there is not one reported case of someone dying from taking either of these two substances, either immediately or over a long period of recreational use.

I therefore find my argument quite consistant. Perhaps you haven't fully considered the effects of alcohol vs other substances?

Re:I try and try..

[thej1nx]

Basically anywhere that kind of money changes hands is going to attract people you wouldn't normally want to associate yourself with.

Oye!!! :P - Stock Market Exchange people

Re:I try and try..

[arose]

If the truth is a negative aspect I would call the businesses is shady.

Re:I try and try..

[Monf]

Two wrongs don't equal a right, but three rights equal a left!!

Re:I try and try..

[Sircus]

You also don't see "Fly with us! We'll cram you into a tiny seat, next to a fat guy, have former-prison-warder-host(esses) serve you luke-warm food at 3-hour intervals and play a film with anything even potentially offensive cut from it!" ads for airlines. You see wide, open spaces, people sleeping like babies and beautiful hostesses caring for people's every need.

It's common practice to advertise an image of something which bears no relation to reality.

Re:I try and try..

[Anonymous Coward]

This is pure BS. Poeple who try to lump Gambling in with true addictions such as drugs and smoking are simply wrong. There is no physical addiction with gambling. You won't go through withdrawl if you stop it like you do with smoking and some drugs.

Addiction isn't about the withdrawl symptoms. Those are just what the name implies - symptoms that you suffer when you withdraw. Addiction manifests itself as an unbearable desire to use the substance, or behave in the manner.

Re:I try and try..

[csteinle]

Yeah. LSD's fine. No bad flashbacks for years afterwards. No-one gets those. And ecstasy - classed as a recreational drug - can kill you the very first time you take it. The effects of long term pot use on the brain are still very much unclear, although recent studies seem to show it has its own problems.

Alcohol is not addictive to the vast majority of people. It has been shown that low to moderate alcohol use has been shown to be beneficial to your health. All drugs have problems. There is a point where you draw the line, and that point is open to discussion, but it's a very odd shaped line if you're putting LSD on the good side and alcohol on the bad side.

Re:I try and try..

[csteinle]

So that's all businesses then.

"Hi, we at company X have the lowest customer satisfaction record for after sales support. Buy our stuff."

Even the best products and companies have problems.

Re:I try and try..

[Anonymous Coward]

alcohol can kill you the first time you use it too.

Re:I try and try..

[azaris]

I look at it as a zero sum gain industry. It only re-distributes wealth. It has no wealth creation or real value growth.

Well duh. Most industries today create nothing tangible. Think all of the services you can buy that generate no physical substance. Wash your car for $10, nothing of value is generated. In fact, the act of washing a car consumes large amounts of natural resources in the form of energy consumed and detergents that must be recovered before they are released into the natural water reserves. Does this mean we should abolish all carwashes?

The economy isn't really about creating goods for consumption. Yes, those things are important for sustaining people but in reality as long as there is sufficient natural resources being converted to goods, the rest of the society can just spend their time trading money from one hand to another in exchange for services like gambling. Like it or not, it IS a part of the economy and provides livelyhood for hundreds of thousands.

Many industries such as farming take labor and make a product. Other than entertainment value, gambling has no product.

You can probably come up with a dozen other industries that similarly offer only entertainment.

All gambeling money is re-distributed with no net gain. That's the thing I have against the state lottery or state video poker. The state provides no product and just takes the suckers money.

You can justify all you want, but the truth is that any objection against gambling is purely moral. I'm always amazed at how ass-backward conservative Slashdot is when it comes to things like gambling, but I guess that's the US mentality of "gambling evil" at work.

I would rather see the state earn money by providing services such as affordable broadband such as in Washington State. The state is providing $40/month broadband with telephone and 5 Gig bandwidth. It beats video poker.

Did it ever occur to you that maybe the proceeds from the state lottery are used to subsidize such projects? Duh indeed.

Re:I try and try..

[WIAKywbfatw]

"Buy our soft drink and get tooth decay and diabetes."

"Buy our car and have twice the chance that it'll get broken into or stolen."

"Buy our notebook PC and have a 1/4 chance that it'll break down within a year."

"Buy our burgers and watch your health suffer."

"Buy a ticket to come see our totally unappealing movie."

"Buy our sports shoes and clothing that were made by child labourers in a far eastern sweatshop."

"Buy our clothes that lose their colours and their shape after minimal wear."

"Buy our toothpaste, which is the least effective on the market."

Yeah, right. Business and shady go hand-in-hand 99 percent of the time.

Re:I try and try..

[CastrTroy]

It's a good idea to point out that there's a difference between state/province run lotteries and brick and mortar casinos and online casinos. The first two usually end up giving some money to charity. Online casinos always send out tons of spam. But that's the only way to compete in the online casino business. Could you imagine trying to run an online casino by following good business ethics? could it be done?

I would also like to mention that the IRS sucks. In Canada, we don't tax lottery winnings. I don't see why the IRS does. Just another cash grab.

Re:I try and try..

[csteinle]

So can water. So can salt. E can kill you with the normal dosage.

Re:I try and try..

[pk2000]

The most overlooked form of gambling is insurance. You place a bet that your house will catch fire. If it doesn't then you loose your bet. If it does you win!! But your winnings are actually less than the value of the damage.

Re:I try and try..

[91degrees]

It's only the same thing from the point of view of the business. From the PoV of the punter, if your house catches fire, you just get just to keep your house.

Re:I try and try..

[DrMrLordX]

IN SOVIET RUSSIA, God trumps . . . er . . . wait, nevermind!

Re:I try and try..

[khallow]

Gambling doesn't have to be shadier than say women's makeup or Disney resorts. They all exploit certain partly irrational needs and desires of human beings.

So who's shadier? The bookie who gives you less than generous odds or the mouse that uses your six year old kids to get into your wallet? I really don't know myself.

Re:I try and try..

[bogado]

The only problem I see with gambling is that is very easy to make everyone loose (everyone but the site/cassino owner). If the game is balanced to take out only the needed money to maintain the infrastructure and give a reasonable profit, I have nothing against it.

Also I think that since there are people who gamble until broke, there could/should probably exist some kind of safe keep for those people. To protect them of them selves.

Re:I try and try..

[Technician]

I'm always amazed at how ass-backward conservative Slashdot is when it comes to things like gambling

It's not hard to figure that one out. Most programmers have has some sort of stats class and know some math. Unless you are the house, then you don't win. The longer you play, the more money lost. Programmers know the odds, where the ohh wow, lookey at the bright blinking lights and big $$$ signs are the suckers. They actualy believe that someday it could be all theirs on a a silver platter. The rest of us know the odds are almost as bad as getting to the moon by stacking bricks high enough. The further you go the more it takes to go even higher and it's always ever so just out of reach.

Re:I try and try..

[hugzz]

He didn't say it was right for crackers to attack the website and extort money from them. He just said that he doesn't feel sorry for the victim. There's a difference.

Re:I try and try..

[Anonymous Coward]

The WTO is trying to make the US ban on Internet gambling illegal.
So let me guess this right: The WTO has a problem with internet gambling rights being stripped while the UN sits back and watches people being massacured in Africa and the Middle East?

That's some fucked up priorities right there.

Re:I try and try..

[LegendLength]

Tax on those poor at math? Perhaps.

This is the opposite when it comes to poker (the poor at math lose badly while the skillful players clean up). This is because poker is player against player; the house is not involved (besides a fixed percentage 'rake' taken for each dollar spent).

I didn't RTFA but from the comments it seems the attacks were on poker sites too.

Re:I try and try..

[strelitsa]

There is nothing in the Bible that says that gambling is a sin. Like anything else, you have to read the fine print. And there is no print in the Bible, fine or otherwise, that categorically states that gambling per se is a sin or even immoral.

Of course, gambling away the rent money or taking food out of your child's mouth to gamble IS sinful. But drowning somebody in a river does not automatically mean that water is sinful.

Re:I try and try..

[TheClassic]

The gambling sites don't write worms to paste poker spam anymore than freeipods.com does. Its the people who are trying to take advantage of affiliate programs who do it.

Re:I try and try..

[Frymaster]

He didn't say it was right for crackers to attack the website and extort money from them. He just said that he doesn't feel sorry for the victim. There's a difference.

and what if the real victim of that ddos is a charity? in the eu and other places, a lot of online lottery offerings are operated for charities.

Re:I try and try..

[robertjw]

Two wrongs don't equal a right, but three lefts do!!

Re:I try and try..

[Wescotte]

But I just can't feel too sorry for them.

I mean, I know it's wrong, but when you get into that business I'm sure this isn't really that uncommon. Gambling is a shady 'business' in the first place, so if you have to deal with other shady people to keep it going, then them's the breaks, buddy.

I play quite abit of online poker and I must say I feel more secure playing cards than I do investing in the stock market. I have much more control over my money on an online casino than any investment I would make.

Re:I try and try..

[ahodgson]

To be honest, I'm not in favour of unchecked gambling, but then I'm not in favour of unchecked alcohol abuse either, but you don't see church and state bringing the roof down on that ballgame, do you?

Well, you may recall that in the US (and Canada), they tried. Turns out people really, really like to drink. Prohibition didn't stop drinking, but it did make organized crime incredibly rich and therefore powerful. Just like the prohibitions on drugs and gambling do today.

Re:I try and try..

[Anonymous Coward]

No kidding. Some of the biggest assholes around are stock brokers and VC's. They actually make most lawyers look good.

Re:I try and try..

[quistas]

* technically it is their affiliates who do it through affiliate programs, but same difference, they are all guilty and could crack down on it if they wanted.

This is a good line, but it's not supported by evidence. On my blog, which gets attacked constantly, the comment spam for Party Poker is clean -- that is, there's no redirect, no affiliate code, nothing but a link directly to their site.

If it's a scummy affiliate, how are they getting paid? If it's a scummy incompetent affiliate, why do they persist at spamming clean URLs -- wouldn't they realize at some point that they're not getting credit for their spam, and knock it off?

Re:I try and try..

[quistas]

The only problem I see with gambling is that is very easy to make everyone loose (everyone but the site/cassino owner).

You're thinking of online pornography. Online gambling could make everyone lose.

Re:I try and try..

[Lehk228]

well since the bookie isn't paying taxes he or she would be able to offer slightly better odds due to not having to compensate for taxes, i'll go with a bookie.

Re:I try and try..

[quistas]

Two wrongs=right?? To each his own I guess.

That's not the point at all.

If you hire a bunch of unrepentant criminals to (say) go steal you a new car, get you a new stereo, and shut up the neighbor's dog, you shouldn't be surprised when they turn on you.

In the same way, to see that the online poker industry's deep ties to people who will do awful things with computers for cheap may have come back and hurt them -- I don't have any sympathy for them either.

Re:I try and try..

[Lehk228]

if everybody lost nobody would come back, if anything a system that made you win more on your first few games would be the way to maake more money.

Re:I try and try..

[HeghmoH]

Other than entertainment value, gambling has no product.

Yeah, and other than physical goods, agriculture has no product either. Entertainment value is the product. Do you look at movies, music, books, computer games, and magazines in the same way?

Re:I try and try..

[Lehk228]

it is a form of gambling, the real purpose of insurance is based on two premises.

1) Most houses/ships/etc. will not be the victem of any sort of catistophic destruction.
2) The loss incurred by the owner of whatever is destroyed will be devistating.
Therefore) it is better for people to band together and share the risk than to hope it won't be their house that burns down.

This is actually one of the major flaws in health insurance, it covers just about everything and thus most people use it at least every few years. A much better system would be insurance against only certain catistrophic medical needs, such as trauma surgery and deadly disease.

Re:I try and try..

[bogado]

$ aspell
bash: aspell: command not found

Ops... My mistake. :-P

Re:I try and try..

[bogado]

With online cassinos how can you be sure? Sure they will post testimonials of people who had win. And you can even make the program so it will give back 1% of the winnings. But it is impossible to be absolutely sure that the site is being honest.

Only a legalized site, with several checks by a trusted third party (goverment?) could offer assurance.

Re:I try and try..

[ScouseMouse]

http://www.genewatch.org/WTO/Submissions/WTO_US_Su bmission_background.htm - The US is trying to force the EU's Moritorium on GM foods declared illegal via the WTO Sovereignty, anyone? That's the most ridiculous thing I've ever heard. :-) Sorry, the WTO works both ways.

Re:I try and try..

[infinii]

If you live in the USA, you don't see the benefit because your government has abolished such gaming businesses. But rest assured, someone, somewhere does see the benefit of that revenue.

Regardless if it's mob run or there is a corrupt government, it generates wages for the residents local to those businesses. I'm not sure how you think it's going to further repress their community. You sound like the people who refuse to donate money to charities based on the argument that only a small fraction of your dollar actually goes to the needy. Guess what, at least they get something...when you refuse to donate, they get nothing. Why is it hard to believe that there are costs involved in running a charitable org? You don't think those people are actually working as volunteers do you?

It's online gambling. We're not talking about stealing every girl from a village to be a prostitute abroad, or being forced to work as slave labour in a factory. Usually it's call center work and systems admin positions that these people hire for.

Re:I try and try..

[azaris]

The only problem I see with gambling is that is very easy to make everyone loose (everyone but the site/cassino owner). If the game is balanced to take out only the needed money to maintain the infrastructure and give a reasonable profit, I have nothing against it.

Of course this requires that gambling first be legalized and then regulated and monitored by the government. Like in most European countries. Which is impossible, because of the US attitude of "gambling is a sin".

Re:I try and try..

[Headw1nd]

The iraqi resistance? Oh, yeah, because being a member of an organization that engineers the bombings of numerous, military, civil, and civilian targets, as well as assasination attempts on government officials and candidates is possibly good, and most certainly quite harmless.

I supported you right up to that point, but I can't say I do now.

Re:I try and try..

[Anonymous Coward]

While the Christian fundamentalists will tell you that smoking pot and using LSD will send you straight to hell, there is no scientific evidence to back up any of their claims. wow.

Re:I try and try..

[Yartrebo]

I totally agree.

Furthermore, that tax dollars are spent advertising to get people to throw their money away on state lotteries sickens me. That is like the government advertising in favor of people smoking tobacco in order to get more tobacco tax money.

Humans might be human, but it is society's responsibility to push people away from self destructive activities, not towards them.

Re:I try and try..

[rob_squared]

Which is more noble; to give ones life for their belief, or ones belief for their belief?

Re:I try and try..

[Yartrebo]

Normal gambling takes a sure bet (you keeping your money) and makes is a risky proposition (big chance of losing money, small chance of gaining money).

Insurace takes a risky proposition (a chance your house will burn down and you lose everything) and makes it a sure bet (you will lose $1000 in insurance premiums and keep your house, whether or not there is a calamity).

Of course, insurance companies can be very shady too, but this does not make the idea of insurance a bad one.

Re:I try and try..

[Yartrebo]

Smoking pot will contribute to lung cancer. Anything burnt, other than perhaps hydrogen, natural gas, and other substances that burn cleanly, will produce soot. The soot will deposit on your lungs and will work much the same way as air pollution will.

Granted, smoking tobacco will be a good 10 times more damaging because tobacco smokers smoke far more than pot smokers, but it isn't totally harmless.

That said, it is safe enough that people who want to make the trade off should be allowed to.

Re:I try and try..

[Anonymous Coward]

The sites themselves do not spam, that is done by their affiliates who earn 50% or a $50 payout for every sale made.

Re:I try and try..

[Anonymous Coward]

Haven't you been reading the news lately? Many businesses have been hit with these kinds of extortion, not just the "shady" ones. I suspect you'l be singing a different tune when they hold up your on-line banking site for several $million!

Microsoft has given organized crime and the protection racket the biggest boost it has had since ancient Roman times. In these days of suing gun manufacturers for producing the weapons that criminals use to kill people, why in the hell isn't Microsoft being sued for the shoddy security practices that give these thieves the weapons they need to victimize website owners?

Re:I try and try..

[Anonymous Coward]

Sovereignty? Hypocracy more like if you are a US citizen and whining about sovereignty

Re:I try and try..

[Anonymous Coward]

You're a fucking moron.

Re:I try and try..

[Anonymous Coward]

This already happens. Online poker sites have their software checked on a regular basis by several third party companies. They even have the random number generators very carefully checked (they don't used PRNGs; they actually use real, physical RNGs).

You don't need the government, since it's just as easy to pay off the government as one of the third party companies. What you need is two or three trusted companies.

Re:I try and try..

[__aailob1448]

That may be true. the same mechanisms that make gambling addictive also make MMORPGs addictive. (kill mobs with x% chance they'll drop something for example).

Re:I try and try..

[hisstory student]

If you want to be taken seriously here, you need to quit mixing facts with opinions. Just because you believe something to be true doe NOT make it so. Likewise, just because you believe something to be untrue, does NOT make it so.

"Alcohol and nicotine are the worst drugs around."

Oh, come on now! Even someone with a modicum of intelligence will recognise the ridiculousness of that statement. Some of the worst, granted, but not The worst.

"While the Christian fundamentalists will tell you that smoking pot and using LSD will send you straight to hell, .."

Being one myself, I can testify to the absolute error of this statement. "

..there is no scientific evidence to back up any of their claims."

Let me get this straight. You're asking for scientific evidence for the existance of hell? Good luck! I'm afraid that's quite a ways off at this time.

"In fact, there is not one reported case of someone dying from taking either of these two substances, either immediately or over a long period of recreational use."

Here is another example of grandiose claims, that to any intelligent person is obviously wrong.

"I therefore find my argument quite consistant."

Consistant. Well, yes, but I wouldn't be bragging about that if I were you.

"Perhaps you haven't fully considered the effects of alcohol vs other substances?"

At last! Something intelligent. Granted, a question rather than a statement.

Re:I try and try..

[vandan]

That's why I use a vaporizer.

It produces no soot. It just warms the plant material to a level where the THC evaporates, leaving the rest intact. When you've finished, the pot still looks the same as when you started.

Vaporizers also have the added advantage of not destroying most of the THC ( due to high temperatures created when you burn plant matter ), so it's much more efficient.

Also, people who you buy pot, you are absolutely guaranteed that you aren't getting a product that's been laced with over 100 additives that are all known carcinogens that are there simply to increase the level of addiction, or the strength of the initial 'hit' you get from smoking ... such as you do with cigarettes.

But yes, I'm aware burning most things produces carcinogens.

Re:I try and try..

[vandan]

They're just trying to get the illegal foreign invaders out of their country. If your country was invaded, and you had some decency and some balls, you'd do the same.

Re:I try and try..

[vandan]

Flashbacks are not fatal. I've never had one, and I've been using LSD for quite some time indeed. But for people who have experienced LSD before, I would imagine they would be a very minor inconvenience if and when they occured. They may even be a bonus.

As for ecstacy killing you the first time you take it ... I can introduce you to a plethora of people who have taken it many times and never been anywhere near death. If you are irresponsible, then that's a different story. But then the same goes for all aspects of life. The same certainly goes for alcohol. Too much of anything is bad for you ... that's why they call it "too much". People who take ecstacy typically take small, safe doses. People who take alcohol and nicotine don't - they just keep taking and taking until they're broke / pass out. Can you imagine the media frenzy that would result from a single incident where someone took so much ecstacy that they passed out? Well it happens to alcohol users every fucking day and no-one bats an eyelid.

The simple fact is that alcohol and nicotine kill more people, both percentage-wise ( ie higher death rates per user ) AND as an overall figure.

It has been shown that low to moderate alcohol use has been shown to be beneficial to your health.

What a load of trash! I'm sure the alcohol producers were the ones to 'show' this. Alcohol is a poison. ANY amount destroys brain cells and damages your liver and kidneys. That's not beneficial.

By the same token, it's also been shown that ecstacy use is beneficial to the health. It increases the likelihood of the individual getting some good exercise, and also stimulates the mind and produces new neural connections.

Re:I try and try..

[cas2000]

even the claim that "There is no physical addiction to gambling" is wrong.

one of the most addictive things about gambling is the adrenaline surge, and adrenaline is most definitely an addictive drug. the fact that it is endogenous is irrelevant, almost all manufactured addictive drugs are either identical to endogenous drugs and hormones or are extremely close analogs.

IMO, gambling is a much worse addiction than drugs like heroin - at least there is a physical limit to how much heroin you can take. take too much and you'll either pass out or die - not good, but at least your family get to keep the house and car. there is no physical limit to gambling, you can keep doing it until you've lost everything and are hundreds of thousands of dollars in debt.

and for all their protestations of innocence and just "good clean fun & entertainment", the gambling industry knows this. they prey on people stupid enough or desperate enough to gamble until they get hooked. the casual punter who has a flutter once in a while isn't important - except that they provide evidence for the "good, clean fun" and "glamour" lies.

Re:I try and try..

[csteinle]

Ha ha. Ha ha ha ha ha. Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha. Ecstasy is safe but you keep drinking alcohol forever and ever until it kills you, with a complete inability to stop, even for a moment. Okay. You're absolutely right. You win. Nobody ever died due to the fact that E buggers up your body's water retention system and you can either dehydrate or give yourself water poisoning. That's never happened to any first time users. E doesn't kill people. Ever. Never has. Never will. But alcohol is the great plague.

Re:I try and try..

[Breakfast Pants]

Most of the attacks come in retaliation to gambling sites spamming blogs and message boards. If the charity was spamming people's blogs and message boards then no, the guy doesn't have to feel sorry for them.

Re:I try and try..

[StikyPad]

You can justify all you want, but the truth is that any objection against gambling is purely moral. I'm always amazed at how ass-backward conservative Slashdot is when it comes to things like gambling, but I guess that's the US mentality of "gambling evil" at work.

Well..

I don't think that gambling in and of itself is morally or ethically wrong, but the problem is that it lends itself to addiction through a random reward stimulus, and that addiction ends up creating a burden for society.

Described here (end of second paragraph), here (fourth paragraph), and here (particularly insightful).

If you give a rat a button which randomly either provides a shock, or a reward, the rat will press it obsessively. Contrast that to a button which either provides purely reward or punishment, and the reaction will be markedly decreased. As much as we'd like to think so, we're not that different from our less talkative mammallian counterparts. Throw in the fact that gambling/casinos never close, and games never actually end per se, unless you run out of money, or you can manage your desire to keep playing and quit while you're ahead. Sure, not everybody gets addicted, just like not everybody gets addicted to the pleasure reward of alcohol, tobacco, or less socially/legally acceptable substances, but casinos and other industries profit most from the ones who do get hooked. It's their meal ticket. The people who can consistantly get up and walk away when they're up aren't the people who keep coming back, and if they do, they're asked to leave.

Online MMOGs, specifically EQ but also others, provide a random reward as well. While the short term consequences of compulsive gaming might not be glaringly obvious, in my personal experience, there's a trend for people to withdraw from their real-world responsibilities and even hobbies and interests to pursue the virtual world of "exciting," pseudo-random reward stimulus.

I don't believe that any of these activities should be illegal. Once you turn 18, the hand holding is over in my book.. if you screw up your life, that's your mistake. But to believe that gambling doesn't pose a real risk of problem behavior, and that society doesn't shoulder the burden, is simply naive.

On a related note, I can't wait to go back to Vegas. ;)

Re:I try and try..

[Lips]

"Alcohol and nicotine are the worst drugs around."

Oh, come on now! Even someone with a modicum of intelligence will recognise the ridiculousness of that statement. Some of the worst, granted, but not The worst.

Alochol and tobacco are the worst, absolutely no doubt about it. In terms of raw numbers of deaths and health problems #1. In terms of % of users experiencing death or health problems, #1. In terms of cost to society #1. Even a quick browse via google will give you numbers. sheesh

http://www.drugwarfacts.org/causes.htm

Re:I try and try..

[vandan]

Your argument is degenerating into stupidity.
I'm not saying that no-one ever died while taking ecstacy. I'm just pointing out that the statistical risk of dying from ecstacy is far lower than the risk of dying from alcohol. And you can reduce the risk to zero if you are sensible about the way you take it.

It's obvious that if you dehydrate too much you will die. This risk isn't exclusive to ecstacy. If you dehydrate under any circumstances you will die. So don't dehydrate. 99.999999% of users follow this simple rule. If the occasional idiot doesn't, that's not our fault. If they didn't know about it, it's YOUR fault, because your attitude leads to a complete lack of education so kids will experiment without knowing the precautions to take to stay safe.

Same goes for you so-called 'water poisoning'. Don't drink too much water. Simple. 99.999999% of users follow this simple rule.

Getting back to alcohol - there is NO safe way to consume it. It's a poison. It kills brain cells, liver cells, kidney cells, and most likely all types of cells it comes into contact with. It severely impares your reasoning and motor skills - far worse than ecstacy does - resulting in thousands of preventable road fatalities. It's incredibly addictive. Addicts drink every day. There is no such thing as an ecstacy addict.

Still disagree? Show me ONE location on the net that points to MILLIONS of ecstacy-related deaths every year, which would make it as dangerous as alcohol, and you may still be in the argument.

Ha ha. Ha ha ha ha ha. Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha.

Yeah laugh it up, funny boy. Great argument. Get back to drinking and watching the sports channel and remove yourself from intelligent discussion.

Re:I try and try..

[csteinle]

Ha ha. Ha ha ha ha ha. Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha.

Yeah laugh it up, funny boy. Great argument. Get back to drinking and watching the sports channel and remove yourself from intelligent discussion.

Yes. I will do that. I drink like an idiot all day and watch nothing but sports channels. You've summed me up so well. Be careful what bucket you put people in. They normally don't fit it.

Re:I try and try..

[ThePants]

I sincerely doubt it's the poker sites themselves that are writing crawlers to spam blogs. The sites ask for a lot of trust on the part of their users, and losing that trust would kill their business. More likely, poker site Affiliates, who make tons of money for referring new users, have more incentive (and less scruples) when it comes to doing something like that.

Re:I try and try..

[ThePants]

Oops... sorry. I guess others have already pointed this out. Don't often read below a score of 4. ;-)

Re:I try and try..

[flynniec6]

With all due respect, gambling sites are fully legal in Ireland and Great Britain. They are legitimate businesses and value their customers highly. Every high street in a small town will have at least one "Turf Accountant".

I have lived in the states for years and I know where gambling figures in the public mentality. But it's not the same the world over.

Re:I try and try..

[Tim C]

tobacco smokers smoke far more than pot smokers

You've clearly not smoked dope with some of the people I've smoked dope with.

[Note to mods: that's not a joke, that's a statement of fact; I've known dope smokers who smoke a lot more dope than the average cigarette smoker does tobacco]

Re:I try and try..

[vandan]

Be careful what bucket you put people in.

What 'bucket' I put people in? Never heard that one before. Maybe you meant 'basket'? Incoherent drunks :)

Re:I try and try..

[Uninvited Guest]

Gambling is a form of hedge wagering. When you own a piece of real estate, you have already gambled the value of the property that you won't lose it to catastrophic loss. Insurance allows you to make a counter wager for the value of your original stake. If your original wager (the property) loses all or part of it's value, your counter wager (insurance) restores your original stake in the first wager.

Great Idea

[IInventedTheInternet]

A moment of silence for the kneecaps of the virus writers if/when discovered.

Re:Great Idea

[bsharitt]

No, the people behind online gambling are more devious than that. They'll use hundreds of bots to spam the virus writers websites with gambling related links.

Re:Great Idea

[Hinhule]

Oh yeah, breaking their knees wouldn't make them even harder to break your business.

Crushing their hands on the other hand might have some effect on their l337 H4x0rZ abilities.

Where's my violin?

[mizhi]

I know these gambling sites are legitimate companies, but it seems the worms that most people get are advertising either porno shops or gambling shops.

It's difficult for me to feel sorry for gambling sites getting DDoSed.

Re:Where's my violin?

[mirko]

We recently argued that it was the pr0n industry that helped some new web technology to emerge.

Now, it (I associate pr0n and gambling as these both long remained the only cash making online services providers) begins developing technologies in order to make the whole ddos plague a past nuisance, so, why do you complain ? They're working for you, aren't they ?

BTW, I watched Godfather 3 yesterday, so understand I have some sympathy with folks looking to redeeming themselves.

Re:Where's my violin?

[mizhi]

Now, it (I associate pr0n and gambling as these both long remained the only cash making online services providers) begins developing technologies in order to make the whole ddos plague a past nuisance, so, why do you complain ? They're working for you, aren't they ?

Perhaps it's the fact that the impetus for developing these new technologies is for protecting their asses from outside intrusion when they (as an industry) willfully trampled over other peoples' privacy in order to shove their wares in peoples' faces.

So no, they're not working for me. They're working for themselves.

Re:Where's my violin?

[mirko]

So no, they're not working for me. They're working for themselves.

So are you, but if I incidentally benefit from your breakthrough, then it's good.

Example2 : You've got a pimp and a drug dealer in your street.
They've having a very bad impact onto the childhood.
One day, they have an argument and the pimp end killing the dealer.

Now, you've only got one problem left, and it's not as serious as the drug problem (it's easier for a teen to take drugs and to die from these than to frequent hookers).

Now, we're back on the real problem :

• Internet casino DDos'ed
• gets pissed off
• strikes back
• exit the DDos-er
• Profit!!!

Re:Where's my violin?

[mizhi]

Example2 : You've got a pimp and a drug dealer in your street.
They've having a very bad impact onto the childhood.
One day, they have an argument and the pimp end killing the dealer.

Now, you've only got one problem left, and it's not as serious as the drug problem (it's easier for a teen to take drugs and to die from these than to frequent hookers).

The pimp is extorting men and women he "employs." It might be a good thing for the drug dealer to be dead, but the pimp is still a sleazeball. Should I thank him and have sympathy for him for killing another human being before he's tossed in jail for exploiting people sexually?

I think your analogy needs work.

Re:Where's my violin?

[mirko]

No, don't thank him, just consider you have 50% less problems, which is going in the right direction, that's all.

Re:Where's my violin?

[drakethegreat]

If they are hiring all those firms to help them fix the problem then it seems like they have quite a lot of cash. So how badly could these attacks be affecting their business?

Re:Where's my violin?

[mizhi]

Except that now I have a killer as well as a pimp on the loose.

Re:Where's my violin?

[Lord Prox]

I believe the term is "self-cleaning oven"

Re:Where's my violin?

[MysteriousPreacher]

I love that analogy!

Re:Where's my violin?

[LegendLength]

Not all gambling sites are bad. Most Poker sites are just making an honest living, same as any other online service. What if your logic was used by a group who disliked 'hackers' and mistakenly attacked slashdot?

Vigilante justice has always been associated with these problems.

Re:How?

[Anonymous Coward]

Unupdated windows has atleast 2 completely open ports to push anything you don't want. At current rate it will take just seconds until you have one running and the fun part, more will follow. I actually have contatcted my ISP concerning the ports, their response: nada. Thank god the government body regulating communications here is some what interested on this case.

Legal issues?

[britneys 9th husband]

Ok, I'm not sure about those other companies that were mentioned, but Cisco is a U.S. company. And internet gambling is illegal in the United States. Now, don't get me wrong, I don't give a shit whether people gamble on the internet, and I see the anti-internet-gambling laws as having as much to do with protecting monopolies as anything else.

Now that I've said that, how is this not a legal issue for Cisco? Surely the FBI, DEA, and assorted other federal agencies would be all over Cisco if they were helping Colombian drug cartels in any way whatsoever. How do they "get away" with it? Aren't they essentially aiding and abetting what in the U.S. is considered a criminal enterprise? I mean, as an individual I can go place bets at some offshore casino and fly under the radar, but a big company like Cisco is going to have a hard time doing that, especially if their help is on the front page of Slashdot and other news sources.

Re:Legal issues?

[LordNightwalker]

Cisco is just working on solutions against DDOS attacks; it's not Cisco's responsibility if that technology is used to protect the Pentagon or some online gambling site. Following your logic, Cisco is already in trouble because those online gambling companies already use Cisco hardware in their setup... And so is Dell, 'coz they made the PCs used by the casino staff, and so is the company who made the bricks for the building their HQ is located in etc...

See how ridiculous it gets if you stop to think about it? ;)

Re:Legal issues?

[Anonymous Coward]

Those gambling companies are NOT illegal although gambling in some form might be illegal for example in USA.

Re:Legal issues?

[wildBoar]

The Colombian cartels are illegal in their own countries as well as in the US, the internet Gambling operations are legitimate companies operating in compliance with their local laws.

It is a big difference.

I'm afraid despite all attempts (wishes) to the contrary the US can't apply any law it likes on any country in the world.

Well, not without invading it first ;-)

Re:Legal issues?

[Anonymous Coward]

From the article:

But now deep defences are being put in place by some of the UK's biggest net firms to stop these attacks.

Read the article. I don't know about the law in UK but at least that answers your question about the anti-internet-gambling laws in the US. They don't apply.

Re:Legal issues?

[alw53]

And it doesn't even matter whether Cisco is a US company or not. US invaded Panama, a sovereign country, and arrested Manuel Noriega for violations of US law, so logically they could invade Great Britain and arrest all those scofflaws who are driving on the wrong side of the road!

Re:Legal issues?

[nrlightfoot]

As far as I'm aware the law commonly cited as making internet gambling illegal in the US is dubiously applied to the internet, and not likely to stand up as covering internet gambling if tested in court. As far as I know there is no legal precedent for the legality of internet gambling. There are however, states which have blanket laws prohibiting any gambling, and then they make specific exeptions to the law for casinos and lotteries and such.

Re:Legal issues?

[Warskull]

Ah, but arresting someone like Noriega gets good PR. Using out military to arrest British citizens just angers people. You have to make other people hate your target enough so you come out looking like the good guy when all is said and done. That way your department gets more funding and everyone loves you.

Re:Legal issues?

[Anonymous Coward]

And internet gambling is illegal in the United States.

<tangent>
I love the right-wing Christian nutjobs running this country. And they are hypocrites too. Let's see... playing poker and blackjack is bad and they'll probably tell you that you're going to hell, but surely it is ok if they go out to bet on some horse racing with their friends. I hate them all.
</tangent>

Re:Legal issues?

[Anonymous Coward]

How do they "get away" with it? Aren't they essentially aiding and abetting what in the U.S. is considered a criminal enterprise?

Gambling and drugs are a bit different, don't you think? They may be related, but they're different.

In Vegas, they have legal gambling. Is there a city in the US where they have legal heroin and cocaine sale and usage?

Re:Legal issues?

[smootherxp]

"Cisco is a U.S. company. And internet gambling is illegal in the United States" Really? Tell that to www.oregonlottery.org The State of Oregon doesn't know that internet gambling is illegal in the US

Re:Legal issues?

[Anonymous Coward]

I bet the cartels use cisco

Re:Legal issues?

[CmdrGravy]

There's a good chance they do, there were some articles a few years ago about how drug cartels were using all kinds of technology from mainframes down to networked pda's to help run their business.

Re:Legal issues?

[swb]

Now that I've said that, how is this not a legal issue for Cisco? Surely the FBI, DEA, and assorted other federal agencies would be all over Cisco if they were helping Colombian drug cartels in any way whatsoever. How do they "get away" with it?

The same way they "get away" with furthering Chinese censorship.

Re:Legal issues?

[Anonymous Coward]

Cisco is just working on solutions against DDOS attacks; it's not Cisco's responsibility if that technology is used to protect the Pentagon or some online gambling site.

I think the poster was refereeing with sarcasm to similar cases in regard of P2P, where many "technology provider" where found responsible for the illegal activities of the technology users.

And Yes, it is ridiculous when you think about it.

Re:Legal issues?

[18769]

Well... There are levels though, aren't there?

That is, it is different for me to develop and sell weapons to terrorists than it is for me to develop and sell those same weapons to the pentagon. It gets messier if I'm selling those weapons to both the terrorists and the pentagon...

My point is that you are over-generalizing the assessment of responsibility here. Do we want a society where companies are single-mindedly profit based and willing to directly help criminals? I'm not claiming this is what cisco is doing, but if the only practical application of anti-DDoS technologies turns out to be to protect criminals, shouldn't we worry a little?

Filtering doesn't save incoming bandwidth

[A1kmm]

The bottleneck is probably bandwidth, not CPU. A network of drones can send traffic in the GBit/s range, and even if these packets are not replied to and the CPU and memory resources can cope, a lot of damage will still be caused.

The only way to make this work is to block traffic at a site far enough back to cope with the level of traffic(and the size of botnets will only grow, so even a reasonably large network company could be knocked out).

Re:Filtering doesn't save incoming bandwidth

[jonbrewer]

The bottleneck is probably bandwidth, not CPU. A network of drones can send traffic in the GBit/s range, and even if these packets are not replied to and the CPU and memory resources can cope, a lot of damage will still be caused.

The only way to make this work is to block traffic at a site far enough back to cope with the level of traffic(and the size of botnets will only grow, so even a reasonably large network company could be knocked out).

If I were a gambling site (or a porn site for that matter), I'd get my bandwidth from a tier 1 who could help with such problems. I would say to them, "hey, I want DS3 delivered to (insert name of sufficiently warm island out of the reach of Uncle Sam) and I just want http/https 80/443 - anything else, you just chuck it". (Of course I would have an extra T1 and a second IP range for administration and failover) In the case of a tier 1 taking care of such issues, it really is a cpu bound issue, and not a terribly difficult to deal with given the right resources.

(If anyone from AT&T, MCI, or SprinkLink wants to own up to *not* being able to drop 1gbps of botnet traffic without breaking a sweat, please feel free to do so.)

Re:Filtering doesn't save incoming bandwidth

[phaze3000]

Except that many of the DDOS attacks take the form of continued HTTP requests to valid URLs. Given that you're still getting port 80/443 traffic passed across your site is still going to get taken out.

If avoiding these DDOS attacks were easy they wouldn't be newsworthy. Unfortunately it's anything but a simple problem.

Re:Filtering doesn't save incoming bandwidth

[Shanep]

If avoiding these DDOS attacks were easy they wouldn't be newsworthy. Unfortunately it's anything but a simple problem.

Exactly. If the internet provider is not willing or sufficiently capable of helping, then it is an impossible problem.

You can't save the incoming bandwidth, because you don't know what a packet is until it has already consumed that bandwidth.

Your upstream provider could help on a short term basis, but it would take a while (longer term) to implement something which works. In which case if it becomes a long term problem for you and your upstream provider, then they will be dealing with much more used bandwidth than you were willing to purchase in the first place. So why should the provider help in the long term?

Re:Filtering doesn't save incoming bandwidth

[Oddly_Drac]

"The only way to make this work is to block traffic at a site far enough back to cope with the level of traffic"

And build a list of IP addresses to allow the botnets' ISPs to cut their accounts until they speak to someone about not being a Typhoid Mary.

In fact, it's getting close to the time when we should be doing this.

Re:Filtering doesn't save incoming bandwidth

[nettdata]

Actually, for the large sites I've dealt with, it's the CPU that'll kill them first. I've seen sites with more than 150,000 bots hitting them with small, valid URL requests, and while their bandwidth took a huge hit, their web/app server front end (40x4CPU boxes for each), became CPU strained under the load, while the DB cluster was slowly becoming CPU and IO constrained.

True, bandwidth will become a huge issue, but that's usually due to the slow response times from the web/app tier(s), causing "old" connections to not be cleared out as quickly as they should be.

Obviously, other situations might be different, but I've seen 4 different companies go through this, and that's how it played out for each.

Re:Filtering doesn't save incoming bandwidth

[eKto1]

This is true, we have been doing some testing of the various DDoS solutions, (and quite frankly the Cisco/Riverhead did the worst out of any we tested). But CPU use on these devices never caused us any alarm. The battle of DOS Mitigation is 2 staged, and you need to be in conversation with your ISP, so that their backbone guys can filter out traffic once it reaches a certain level. The purpose of the mitigation device is to detect anomalous traffic, and keep your site up while your ISP tracks down the largest offenders and block them at the backbone level. Most ISP's will do this, as if I'm seeing a GBit attack coming at one of my customers, this is going to effect all of the customers within the IDC.

Passing the "buck".

[Anonymous Coward]

"The gambling sites are bringing in reinforcements: Pipex, Cisco and security firm Energis are creating 'intelligent' traffic monitoring systems to help stop these attacks.""

And your $50 game just went up $5.

NAT

[Underholdning]

I wonder if the ISP's will continue selling solutions where the PC is connected directly to the internet. We've all seen the tests. It takes less than 5 minutes for a Windows PC to be taken over (or 0wned as they say). But - a simple router with NAT helps immensly. Would it help if the ISP's were forced to only sell internet access with at least a router?

Re:NAT

[FireFury03]

But - a simple router with NAT helps immensly.

You don't need NAT (and if/when IPv6 goes mainstream you won't want NAT). All you need is a connection tracking firewall.

Re:NAT

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes they will, because that is how they make money.

Re:NAT

[ZorbaTHut]

Oh, yeah. That'd be great. Instead of having to squeeze the public services I want behind a single IP, I'd just be screwed. That's a real step up.

Encouraged? Sure. Forced? I like having my open static IP, thanks.

Re:NAT

[Anonymous Coward]

Oh, yeah. That'd be great. Instead of having to squeeze the public services I want behind a single IP, I'd just be screwed. That's a real step up.

Encouraged? Sure. Forced? I like having my open static IP, thanks.

When you walk into a club, I bet all the girls say "HAY! ITS THAT GUY. YOU KNOW, THE GUY WITH THE STATIC IP! HOLLA!"

Re:NAT

[zakezuke]

Would it help if the ISP's were forced to only sell internet access with at least a router?

Ask MSN DSL users. The last time I checked they offered an Arescom modem with nat enabled without the ability for the end user to configure it.

Re:NAT

[Anne Thwacks]

What would really help is Microsoft being forced to sell software that is reasonably fit for the purpose for which it is sold. I seem to recall they mention that Windows is meant for use with the internet - that surely implies that it ought not to be 0wned in 5 minutes.

In the UK, and most probably Europe, it is a very serious offence to sell goods unfit for the purpose for which they are advertised.

Lock them up and throw away the key. Mwa, ha, ha haaar!

Re:NAT

[Pinkfud]

I don't think so. I have such a router connected to two Windows boxes and this FreeBSD machine. Both Win boxes have BlackIce, AV, and scheduled scans, etc. I constantly find crap on them, but never on the BSD box. Seems like the bad guys can get past anything there is to protect Win.

Note: I know the reason there aren't many pieces of malware for UNIX-like systems has more to do with market share than practicality. Please don't point that out to me. I'm just saying the router idea won't solve the problem.

Re:NAT

[siliconjunkie]

I wonder if the ISP's will continue selling solutions where the PC is connected directly to the internet. ...and will they be scalable enterprise solutions?

Re:NAT

[bani]

how about fines if your pc is found to be infected and participating in ddos?

that would sure help encourage you to keep your pc clean.

otherwise, nobody is going to bother lifting a finger protecting their windoze boxen. which is the situation now. and look at the results.

Re:NAT

[ajs318]

Hear here!

It would be nice to see a law mandating that software vendors must either supply full annotated source code on request, or not be allowed to peddle their warez at all. In theory, under English Common Law you almost certainly have a right to the source code anyway {you are privy to any secret embodied in goods you rightfully own}. In practice, this might take some effort and you might have to settle for old-fashioned reverse engineering.

And I don't give a toss if it puts anyone out of business. If you have been benefitting from unfairness in any form, I have only this to say: TOUGH TITTY! Hole-in-the-wall machines put a lot of armed robbers out of business in the UK, since employers started paying straight into bank accounts and so there was no need to bring a vanload of cash into the factory every Pay Day.

Re:NAT

[bairy]

I always thought ISPs should at least be made to supply info on what a firewall, adware etc. is, and how to get the free apps (sygate etc) to combat it. I think that would help a lot.

Re:NAT

[Anonymous Coward]

{you are privy to any secret embodied in goods you rightfully own}

all you own is a license to use the software. you do not own the software at all.

Re:NAT

[ajs318]

You own the disc it's recorded on.

Re:NAT

[MysteriousPreacher]

I suppose if the owner of the computer is warned that they are infected and fail to take action, it would make sense that there is some kind of comeuppance.

I think legislating to force ISPs to terminate accounts used by infected computers should be as far as it goes though.

Re:NAT

[Dan Ost]

Note: I know the reason there aren't many pieces of malware for UNIX-like systems has more to do with market share than practicality. Please don't point that out to me. I'm just saying the router idea won't solve the problem.

Do you really believe this? Why?

Re:NAT

[Anonymous Coward]

I agree, because you know they'd make you use their craptastic, bulk firewall solution that offers just the basics. I spend more money on my router/firewall because I LIKE the extra features.

Re:NAT

[Cyn]

You do realize that NAT by itself does not in any way prevent outbound traffic, which is the problem?

They're not getting infected because someone jacks into their computer, they're getting infected because of IE or an email.

Even if you block ALL traffic except web, without special request (which can work in a business but certainly not for home users) - the DDOS is still happening on port 80 - no special tricks required.

Re:NAT

[battlemarch]

I suspect that we'll see more results if and when the ISPs that these zombie machines are on get sued.

Re:NAT

[juicyfruit]

Actually, I'd like to see ISPs monitoring for port-scanning activity or other outward evidence of infection. Infected sources go into a "sandbox" that only has proxied http access to the internet. Most infected shlubs wouldn't notice, and the rest of us can enjoy the internet in peace. (Those who do notice would have to go through a process of cleaning their machines and getting reinstated.)

That said, people running listservs and such would need to be flagged by the ISP to not get caught in the dragnet, and I'm not sure how that would work.

Re:NAT

[Anonymous Coward]

I have a static IP and that doesn't happen. it is the girls AND the guys who say that.

Re:NAT

[Tim C]

I can only speak for myself, but here goes...

In my experience, most malware gets on to PCs through user intervention. Sure, there are worms and self-propogating viruses that exploit holes, but there are also an awful lot of trojans and other crap masquerading as, or piggy-backing on, useful programs (think Kazaa and Bonzi Buddy and their ilk). There is *nothing* that can be done (by a usable system) to prevent this. Even if you're not running as root, you can compromise your own account and open ports to act as a spam really or other zombie. Add to that that most users will get used to typing in the root password when prompted to install stuff, and given sufficient market share, the situation for Linux will be nearly as bad as for Windows. Less remote exploits, but plenty enough social-engineering and trojans.

The only reason you don't see that sort of thing now is because Windows is an easier target (both in terms of itself and its users) and has vastly more market share. If/when Linux becomes mainstream and attains something like comparable market share, it'll be because more less clueful users are using it. Then it'll be worth the malware writers' time and effort to target it.

Re:NAT

[Tim C]

that surely implies that it ought not to be 0wned in 5 minutes

Well, I've had two XP machines at home connected to ADSL for 2+ years and never been "0wned". I'd say it's fit for purpose, if the user it fit to use it.

Devils advocate...

[John Seminal]

Many extortionists are targeting net-based betting firms and threatening to cripple their websites with deluges of data unless a ransom is paid.

Okay, I understand that we're talking about gambling websites. But these same methods can be used to take down just about any website. Society makes the final call on what is legal and illegal. Some might say the hackers are using their ethics to take down a vice. But if that was the hackers goal, why ask for money? Second, the tax revenue gambling generates often goes to schools. By taking them down, it would seem harm is being done in unexpected places. Politicans are responsible for planning funding, and if a bubble bursts, the community is in trouble.

Second, do we want one, or a small group of people, telling society what they can and can't do? What if a group of Jehova's Witnesses hackers decided to remove ALL porn off the web. People would freak out. One man's utopia is another mans hell.

Re:Devils advocate...

[d1v1d3byz3r0]

Gambling revenue, in this case, would not be going to schools as the revenue is not within states jurisdiction. To my knowledge, online gambling sites are illegal to be hosted in the states. So the money is going directly into the pockets of some guy with a Carribean bank account.

Re:Devils advocate...

[lineman60]

But these same methods can be used to take down just about any website. Society makes the final call on what is legal and illegal. Some might say the hackers are using their ethics to take down a vice. But if that was the hackers goal, why ask for money?

I would guess that these script kiddies want money. if they were to attack a site like http://www.amazon.com/ they would have the feds on them before they could hit the return key but, buy targeting a site like gambling.
1) the masses at best are conflicted about witch is worse. "hacking/craking/extortion" or gambaling If it were Amazon or eBay there would be a call for there heads.
2) because it is outside the US FBI, CIA, NSA and or the Department of homeland security probably will not go after them

Re:Devils advocate...

[wcbarksdale]

The reason these "hackers" are going after online casinos is simple. Their legality is shaky and they have little public sympathy. Essentially it's the same relationship as organized crime and bootleggers had during Prohibition in the US.

Re:Devils advocate...

[nbeharrytt]

Now what is wrong with that i'm from the caribbean an we host some gambling websites. The revenue might not got to american schools but i assure you they go to schools here. It's all demand and supply really.

Re:Devils advocate...

[nettdata]

That will change shortly. Take a look at the intense lobbying from all of the major casinos to have the regulations modified, and their existing on-line sites that they are deploying and developing.

I have some clients in gambling and horse racing. and from what I've seen, especially based on the successful lobbying that is ongoing (look to the increase of slot machine usage as an example), it will only be a matter of time.

But hey, I could be wrong.

Re:Devils advocate...

[Anonymous Coward]

I have some clients in gambling and horse racing. and from what I've seen, especially based on the successful lobbying that is ongoing (look to the increase of slot machine usage as an example), it will only be a matter of time. But hey, I could be wrong.

Gambling is taking off big time in the US and you're right it will continue, since the voters love it. Of course one day it will be a huge mess and the tide will turn. There's a reason gambling used to be so limited, but most of the people who remember why are dead now.

Re:Devils advocate...

[Tim C]

Rubbish - online casinos are legal in many countries, including the UK, but the bad guys are going after them here too. The real reason is that they have money and are easily attacked. Morality has nothing to do with it.

Prevention?

[peasleer]

I know Linux based servers have the ability to limit the amount of damage a DOS/DDOS can do. I do it with my server: run daemons as their own user and limit the amount of resources they can use, both CPU and memory. That way, the system may get bogged down, but will never suffer a complete failure from a DOS attack. I am curious as to why some larger sites like the gambling networks aren't using such preventative measures. Are they not effective against larger attacks?

Re:Prevention?

[gtoomey]

Working out whats network traffic is valid becomes the issue. eg you cant easily differentiate between a valid http request and one from a zombie. If you thousands of requests/second then the site may be effectively unreachable.

Re:Prevention?

[coolcold]

If each % CPU brings them 10 dollar more per hour, that would be a reason why they don't want to limit the resources. And I think the main problem is whether there are enough resource to handle request (ok, I didn't RTFA) but they are losing ALOT of money when their customers can't access them

Re:Prevention?

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually, it's quite simple to check if a packet is valid or not, just check if the evil bit is set.

I've set my firewall to drop all packets with the evil bit and I've never gotten a worm or a spam since! It's perfect. I can't imagine why everyone else isn't doing it yet ...

Re:Prevention?

[jwdb]

As someone stated in an earlier comment, the biggest problem is bandwidth. Your CPU may be able to handle the traffic, but when you've got a botnet spanning thousands of computers, sending you traffic in the Gb/sec range, even a serious backbone connection will begin to stutter.

Jw

Re:Prevention?

[Scott7477]

So it wouldn't be possible for the authorities in the US to determine which machines were zombies and have local law enforcement show up at an unsuspecting computer owner's door and say: "Your computer has been compromised, we're here to shut it down and clean it up!"?

Hackers

[jnguy]

Why are a bunch of script kiddies being called hackers again?

Re:Hackers

[Anonymous Coward]

It is a sad day when even /. misuses the word "hacker."

Re:Hackers

[DingerX]

I think the hacker line is a troll man. Just call script kiddies/crackers/wire defrauders/pirates "hackers" and you automatically generate 25 indignant posts on slashdot from folks like us who remember when hacking meant turning a spare cassette port into an audio device, and a 1200-baud touchscreen vector graphics terminal was a hotrod.

Anyway, yeah, I'm surprised online gambling hasn't been hit earlier: here you have a huge industry that relies on a single technology for all its business, and is completely unregulated. But in such an environment, cyberextortion can be a dangerous game, since unregulated companies can always fall back on "brick and mortar" security. (That is, throw bricks through your window and mortar your house) And most societies in the world have excellent non-governmental agencies who specialize in protection and kneecaps already. A few hits, a little publicity, and problem solved.

In other words, the way to extort money is to promise protection from dDOS attacks. The ones who end up getting the dough will be those who do, whether the name is Cisco or Gotti.

Re:Hackers

[Anonymous Coward]

It's not always a bunch of script kiddies, Russian mafia is consistently trying to DDoS sites that make a lot of money. Typically, they want a relatively "low" amount such as $10 k and I know that some sites have paid this, especially in a busy season when they're making lots of money. Obviously, paying means that you'll be hit again next time.. And it's not only the gambling sites, also regular financial service providers and other ecommerce sites are subject to these criminal acts.

Re:Hackers

[Ritontor]

Because a script kiddy with an obvious financial motive deserves a more serious name?

Re:Hackers

[nettdata]

The parent IS NOT a troll... I've worked with 4 large companies that have been faced with this, and it is NOT a bunch of "script kiddies".

These appeared to be highly sophisticated groups (from a technical perspective), with access to 150,000+ bots.

The extortionists in each case appeared to be Russian.

Serves them right really.

[Anonymous Coward]

They trade on the stupidity of the general public, now the extortionists are trading on the gambling co's stupidity What goes around comes around I guess. I bet this would be less of a problem if they were using Linux not Windoze!!!

The root of the problem

[KiloByte]

Can't we finally cut the problem at its roots? And the roots are a criminally insecure poor-excuse-for-an-OS.

If your car notoriously breaks causing harm to other users of the road, you won't get your car's paper prolonged. If a company keeps producing cars that damage other users of the roads, that company has to replace/fix all the cars sold. Now, tell me why exactly Microsoft can get away with selling software that's harmful for the community at large?

Re:The root of the problem

[DietCoke]

Because they keep pushing out patches. Recall statutes state that harmful products be retrofitted or replaced to remove the harm, or they must be taken off the market. However, there isn't a stated deadline on that sort of thing. Consider that a carmaker can sometimes spend 6-18 months replacing a faulty part, yet MS does it in usually no more than 3.

Not to say that MS is somehow being a good citizen, but statutes don't currently encourage them to work any faster.

Re:The root of the problem

[Anonymous Coward]

You could apply your argument to just about every aspect of modern society. The fact of the matter is that just because something causes SOME harm to society doesn't mean it should be eliminated.

A car (airplane, drug, clothing, computer, energy, food, tobacco, etc, etc) company that has defective products won't recall them unless the recall costs less than the problems caused. This includes hard costs as well as soft costs such as bad press and lower stock prices. I suppose the government could step in at some point, but between special interests and politicians unwilling to test their political spine you won't see this happen very often to a major corporation.

The fact of the matter is that the bulk of Microsoft's consumer Retail and OEM software (Windows and Office) is still quite cheap when ammortized over its lifetime (typically a few years per purchase) AND the overwhelming majority of people are fine living with the defects. Furthermore there isn't a truly viable replacement for Windows that is ready today should the market revolt against Microsoft tomorrow. Sure Linux could fit the bill much of the time, but there are billions if not trillions of dollars worldwide that are invested in 3rd party software that runs solely on Windows. Replacing that would take years.

Lastly - Windows can be made safe. It can be hardened and tweaked more than just about any other operating system out there. I don't blame Microsoft as much as I do large OEMs like Dell, Sony, HP, IBM and Gateway. These are the people who are SELLING the software, typically pre-configured, to be open. They could easily sell their products locked-down from the factory. They choose not to.

Re:The root of the problem

[Spy Handler]

Well, Windows by itself is not harmful to anyone else other than its user. It's the criminals who break into a Windows computer and hijack it that's causing the harm.

Taking your analogy further, it's a fact that some cars are easier to break into than others. Should Ford be held responsible because the Pinto has such a flimsy ignition lock that it's the preferred vehicle of bank robbers for stealing and using during robberies?

Re:The root of the problem

[Spy Hunter]

Because the Internet is not controlled and maintained by the government like the road system is. (Purposely, I might add, and with many benefits. If the government controlled the Internet it would be much different than it is today. It would probably suck.) That is why your analogy is flawed.

The market must act as the force that keeps Microsoft honest. Why the market has not done so is an interesting question. My theory is that since Windows *is* the computer for most people, any problems with Microsoft software are simply blamed on computers in general and seen as unavoidable. Though if you look at interest in Linux, a large chunk has been due to the perception that it is more secure. So there have been some effects. Apple also benefits from this, to a lesser extent I believe.

hackers?

[latroM]

"Gambling sites are fighting back against extortion from hackers using Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) attacks.

C'mon, this is slashdot and we know the difference between hackers and crackers. Main stream media is allowed to do such a mistake but not /..

Re:hackers?

[hugesmile]

C'mon, this is slashdot and we know the difference between hackers and crackers.

As a white guy, and a representative of Nabisco, I am offended by your choice of terms, you insensitive clod. ..should post this anonymously; there goes my karma... be kind, mods!

not just gambling sites

[Spy Handler]

They're going after businesses that are 100% reliant on their internet connection. Online casinos get hit a lot because they fit the bill, and they're not so big that they can put up an effective defense (and they don't have much clout with law enforcement). Plus gambling operators have been known to put up the ransom money before - they're pretty shady operators themselves so they understand this kind of tactic.

I agree with you though, gambling operators get zero sympathy from me. Just desserts I say, for their spamming us with popup ads containing spyware.

But there was an online electronics store owner who got extorted, and he does get my sympathy. And also the credit card processing company.

Re:not just gambling sites

[mizhi]

I agree with you though, gambling operators get zero sympathy from me. Just desserts I say, for their spamming us with popup ads containing spyware.

But there was an online electronics store owner who got extorted, and he does get my sympathy. And also the credit card processing company.

Okay, I have to give you that.

online poker

[davids-world.com]

How sad.

I fear this 'online poker' guy is getting attacked, too, in which case we would miss out on all the great spam comments in our blogs. Wouldn't that be a sad, sad world?

Re:online poker

[DreamerFi]

here is an interesting post about this particular spammer..

Riigghhhtttt....

[Anonymous Coward]

They are going to stop bogus inbound from consuming their bandwidth!

In other news, Acme Corp have hired Cisco, Microsoft and Intel to make one plus one equal three. Microsoft says they should have this implemented within weeks, based on predictions they have made using Microsoft Excel running on Intel Pentium processors.

PS, for the inevidible /. readers who will feel compelled to reply to this, re firewall, etc. Remember, you don't know a packet is bogus, until you receive it, in which case, that bandwidth has been used.

Re:Riigghhhtttt....

[Anonymous Coward]

Its a matter of where you put the firewalls

you need to kill the BULK OF the DDOS traffic whilst it is still on systems that can handle it. How hard this is depends on both the volume and type of traffic

on a pc based router where all traffic goes through the CPU and the PCI bus you are limited to a few hundred megabit at most.

Dedicated hardware can handle much higher traffic but at the expense of filtering flexibility.

The challange is making systems that can sort legit traffic from ddos with a high success rate AND a high speed.

Sometimes more than simple filtering may be needed (such as not allowing anything through until the client has been through the complete motions of tcp connection setup). to stop the attack traffic from reaching the main servers.

p.s. bulk of is what matters it doesn't matter if a small amount of bogus traffic hits your main server so long as it isn't flooded to oblivion

p.p.s. all of the above requires you to be able to afford siting your firewall on the end of a link capable of carrying the ddos without getting overloaded.

There is no law and order on the net

[Anonymous Coward]

sure there is the occasional bust when someone with influence pushes for it but there is no general law and order on the net. No equivilent of the local police force keeping the public safe.

In a situation where there is no meaningfull policeing you have little choice but to either fight back or allow yourself to be fucked over.

some sites that have been spammed by theese gambling sites seem to have decided to fight back.

imagine someone had been dumping thier trash on your lawn and those of all your neighbours repeatedly and the police couldn't or wouldn't do anything about it.

now imagine one of your neighbours decided enough was enough and burnt the guys house down.

would you feel sorry for them?

Legality and Cause

[robdavy]

Firstly, the legality issue is weird to me. I come from the UK were licensed gambling (be it online or in real life) is perfectly legal. I find it rather ammusing that a whole State would ban something like gambling. Anyway, people seem to think that the reason a site dies during a DDoS attack is CPU usage. It's not. It's not related to the servers at all (at least not in the case of big attacks) We were recently hit by a DDoS attack (don't ask) and we were having our 100mb uplink saturated. That's where the problem occured. Our 13 machines could cope with the requests - the pipe couldn't. Even if we went to a Gig uplink (which was considered), they'd simply saturate that. A few hundred compromised machines on DSL/Cable can easily do that. Scary stuff I must admit.

Re:Legality and Cause

[Anonymous Coward]

> I find it rather amusing that a whole State would ban something like gambling.

Yep. Cultural comparisons can be amusing at times. For example, I find it rather amusing that some governments confiscate firearms from their citizenry and restrict freedom of speech.

Re:Legality and Cause

[Silver Sloth]

I'll put five dollars on a horse race - you watch your kids being shot in the playground.

Now where do I want to live?

Re:Legality and Cause

[robdavy]

Well, when gambling starts killing people, let me know. Drugs kill people, so are controlled. Guns kill people, so are controlled. Gambling has it's risks, and is controlled too. But outlawing it?

Quite why Gambling should be outlawed yet the possesion of a deadly weapon is ok is beyond me.

Re:Legality and Cause

[Anonymous Coward]

Last time I looked, online casino gambling was illegal in the UK, sports books aren't, telephone betting isn't either. The findings from the gambling review board have not made it through parliament yet so we have to wait a little longer.

Re:Legality and Cause

[robdavy]

My local bingo hall operates an online Slot Machine site, so I made an assumption

Viruses?

[LiquidCoooled]

many of these attacks are coming from infected home PCs which have succumbed to a worm or virus.

The only virus they have succumbed to is curiosity. 90% of DDOS problems start when these things hit the news.
Then its like watching a train wreck.

Go after the botnets...

[xenobyte]

The only real way to combat DDoS through botnets is to go after the owners of the botnets... No, I'm not talking about the hackers that created or controls the botnets; taking one down only opens up a slot for someone else. No, I'm talking about the owners of the PC's that comprise the botnets. Making it a crime to participate in botnets, knowingly or not. Make people TURN OFF their PC's if they're not 200% certain they're patched and firewalled as much as possible, or face billion dollar fines and lengthy prison terms. If this forces the really lame poeple to stay off the net, so much the better.

Complain about Microsoft and others making insecure software as much as you like, but it really comes down to stupid people not living up to their obligations as netizens. I mean, you don't just buy a car and then go driving. You need a license which involves tests, you need to renew your license in time. You need to pay some fees and you need to maintain your car mechanically. And you need to follow the rules of the road or face some form of punishment.

There will never be such a thing as a secure OS, made by Microsoft or others. There will always be the possibility for problems and unless we let the manufacturer remotely go in and patch their machines (yeah, right!), it will have to be the owner that must take care of it.

As simple morals and recommendations clearly doesn't make people do what they're told, we have to to add the 'or else!' clause, in the form of punishments for those slacking off and ignoring the updates.

Re:Go after the botnets...

[AC-x]

No, I'm talking about the owners of the PC's that comprise the botnets. Making it a crime to participate in botnets, knowingly or not.

That's ridiculous, If I'm running a fully secured and patched system, but I need to run a particular web facing service, and that service happens to have an undiscovered vulnerability in it, why should I be liable for it?

A better car analogy would be making the driver liable if his car's breaks failed, it's just not fair. We can't expect everyone to be computer savy, it's really up to Microsoft to sort their OS out, and they've had a lot of time to do it, after all Apple's managed to built a pretty secure OS that is easy for average people to use.

Re:Go after the botnets...

[ajs318]

A car driver is liable if their brakes fail. This is why Third Party insurance is compulsory -- you can't be sued for money you haven't got.

However, a technological solution might actually be better in this case. It's not like spam, which is meant for human beings and hard for a machine to determine accurately. DDoS attacks are just streams of packets. Threatening hanging and flogging only works against people who take notice of what you say and who you have a reasonable chance of catching. Nailing stuff down works against everyone.

Could we build routers capable of blocking DDoS attacks? IPV4 addresses are 32 bits long so, to keep a very simple track of which ones were permitted and which weren't, you would need to address 4Gb of memory, or 512MB. That is certainly within the bounds of doability. Double it just so you can block outgoing as well as incoming traffic. Any address seen pushing suspected malicious packets gets blocked for awhile, then unblocked. Anyone getting blocked often enough gets a friendly word from their ISP.

Re:Go after the botnets...

[Anonymous Coward]

So, if you don't lock your car, someone steals it and runs over a passerby.. should you be held responsible?

Blame the right person for that

[michaelhood]

These are not the gambling sites that do this. These are affiliates. The gambling sites very much frown on spam, which is why some of them won't even accept traffic from e-mail, and other sources that is likely to be spam. But it's quite difficult for them to police traffic sources from tens of thousands of affiliates.

From the PartyPoker Affiliate Agreement:

2.13 "Spam" or "Unsolicited Promotions" means emails or any other messages that are circulated by you, directly or indirectly, including messages that are posted on newsgroups, chatboards and other types of online forums and which: 1). are directed at people who have not consented nor confirmed that they wish to receive promotional messages from you; 2). contain false or misleading statements; 3), do not truthfully identify the source or the originating IP Address; or 3). do not provide the recipient with an option to easily "Remove" them from receiving future mailings or promotions.

Re:Blame the right person for that

[geminidomino]

Yeah, because we know they'd NEVER have an AUP like that just for show.

If they don't immediately terminate spamming affiliates,they are knowingly profitting from the spam. If the actually PAY OUT to the spammer, then they are condoning it.

This tends to be the case, or else it wouldn't be a problem.

Re:Blame the right person for that

[michaelhood]

I'm an affiliate marketer.. these places would LOVE to find a reason to get out of their obligations to pay us. Think about it. We send out some spam, net 50 customers for them, AND they don't have to pay a commission? They'd trash us legitimate marketers too but word would spread too quickly and their affiliate program would fall apart.

Re:Blame the right person for that

[geminidomino]

Exactly. And yet the affiliate spam keeps going, and these spammers do get paid (this comes up often in NANAE). So it only follows to reason that they must be profiting pretty damn well from the spam.

Re:Blame the right person for that

[Anonymous Coward]

We send out some spam

You are a thief and should be in jail.

Re:Blame the right person for that

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm an affiliate marketer..

Burn in hell, mother fucker.

Re:NAT won't help

[olla podriga]

NAT won't help at all. Most malware comes through mail, browser vulnerabilities or users that click on everthing without thinking (while logged in as admin of course). Besides, with forced NAT, people would start complaining that their favourite P2P or online game won't work.

We need some "Killer" viruses

[Choroisothiazolinone]

Part of the problem these days is most virii involve smtp spam and trojan horse bot's - both of which your average punter can live with and won't notice. What I'd like to see is more viruses of the smoke your hardrive and blow up your monitor kind. People would be damn careful about popups, AV products and firewalls if this were the case.

Re:We need some "Killer" viruses

[Anonymous Coward]

1 major problem with this, just like biological virus if the effect is fatal to that sort of extent the outbreak is extremely limited.

ISPs

[gilesjuk]

It should be part of your ISPs AUP that you take precautions to prevent your computer becoming infected. In fact I would suggest that it be made possible that you aren't allowed a net account unless you pay for anti-virus software as part of the signup process (if using Windows).

Everyone I know who is using Windows is getting sick of all the viruses and junk, It tires me to hear about it and I'm now at the stage where I say "put up with it or let me install Linux". At some point the pain level will grow such that they will want to try Linux.

The Power of a press release...

[Anonymous Coward]

Amazing what a press release can do - suddenly this is 'gosh wow' they must on top of their game - the problem has been around a while now, and at least one other large hosting company in the UK has been there, fixed it and moved on, even before Cisco bought Riverhead (the company that makes the box that mitigates the DDOS).

To those who really know, this shows two companies caught on the hop, who only now have fixed it and think its worth shouting about...

Zzz's Casino

[offpath3]

You can see them going alphabetically through the list with the gambling sites, trying one after another.

We here at Zzz's Casino guarantee no interuption to our service due to DDoS attacks.

DDoS what about a Slashdot too

[whatsup_will]

just wondering if we the Slashdot help the scipt kiddies. with out Slashdot effect, or in other terms a real DDoS using html not ping. :)

Extortion?

[Anonymous Coward]

Gambling sites are fighting back against extortion from hackers using Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) attacks.

How is DDoSing them extortion?

Re:Extortion?

[robdavy]

"extorted, extorting, extorts
To obtain from another by coercion or intimidation."

They intimidate the site by saying "give us money, or we DDoS you"

Re:Extortion?

[Anonymous Coward]

The threat of DDoS'ing is extortion.

I.e., "Pay me or we DDoS your ass into oblivion."

Re:Extortion?

[salesgeek]

How is DDoSing a site extortion?
All you have to do is threaten to do something with the exception being if you pay a small fee.

Re:Extortion?

[JNighthawk]

I'd say RTFA, because I'm assuming it's explained in there, but I didn't read it either.

They say, "Pay me or your site goes down." If they do, they come back a week later saying, "Pay me more or your site goes down." When they eventually don't pay, the site comes a-tumbling down.

Extortion?

[connah0047]

How is DDoSing a site extortion? Don't you have to forcibly get money out of them for it to be extortion?

Taxes make Immoral things okay.

[emjoi_gently]

Vice tax.

Smoking and Booze bad for your health? So the Govt takes and extra cut in taxes.

Gambling sends people broke, ruins families, causes crime, targets the poor and takes money that could be spent of far more worthwhile things... tax heavy, and it's fine.

Prostitution? Hard Drugs? Let the Government be your pimp. If they can make a good buck out of it, they'll make it legal.

Good job, Virus Writers!

[Anonymous Coward]

Now when they learn how to hack into
their cement shoes under 100 feet of water,
I'll be even more impressed!

Alternative Theory

[Salamander]

On my website 90% of the comment spam was from online poker sites. That added up to hundreds of messages per day that I had to delete, and I know many others had similar experiences. I know I was thinking that they deserve a lesson, and maybe some folks decided to teach them one. While I don't necessarily approve of the method, I fully understand the impulse. Many online gambling sites are run by pricks; I won't shed a tear for them and their self-inflicted troubles any more than I would for the RIAA/MPAA.

Re:Alternative Theory

[The Good Reverend]

Most of the blog spam from Poker sites that I was getting was individuals looking for referals, not from the companies themselves. While some seemed to be from online poker rooms too, most seemed to be done by people who think they can make a quick buck telling other people to sign up using their code.

Re:Alternative Theory

[Salamander]

For me it was clearly bots. I could practically watch them crawl the site, finding the page for each post and adding a comment...each time from a different IP address even though they were obviously coordinated. I added a comment password, displayed prominently where humans can see it and paste it into the box but where a bot wouldn't have been programmed to look for it. Problem solved; haven't had a single comment spam since. :)

Re:Alternative Theory

[The Good Reverend]

Oh, the posts from my site were bots too, but the bots weren't always from the poker sites themselves, they were from individuals who set up bots to spread their "refer" links to sites, so when people clicked on them, they'd be signing up for the poker sites via those links, making the individuals money.

The IP addresses are almost always different, probably either a)spoofing or b) zombie machines all over the world are used to do the work. There'd be a LOT less spam (comment and email) if people kept their machines clean.

Blame the ISP

[Anonymous Coward]

Blame the ISP. The ISP could monitor for infected computers and then shut them off if detected.

Give me a break...

[t0mass]

Since when DDoS attacks are considered as hacking?
Every idiot with internet access can make a DoS attack, and not everyone with access is a hacker.

Re:Give me a break...

[Peter H.S.]

Since when DDoS attacks are considered as hacking?

Neither the article (BBC), nor the Slashdot headline says so. However, both claim that hackers are _using_ DDoS attacks.
Since the coordinated DDoS'ing seems to originate from from thousends of compromised zombie PC's, I think it is fair call those that compromised these zombie machines for hackers.

Re:Give me a break...

[t0mass]

OK then, let it be your way. However change the term 'hacker' into 'hi-tech criminal', as it was stated in the article. Those two terms aren't synonims - hackers have better things to do than breaking into computers and making them do malicious things (like DoS attacks).
Hackers have created internet. I do not see a reason why they would want to destroy their work.

Yeah, moderate me as troll or flamebait, i don't care...

--
Tomasz Rybarski, Warsaw, PL

Bonus

[CaptainZapp]

I'll put five dollars on a horse race - you watch your kids being shot in the playground.

Maybe I can supply you with additional incentives:

I throw in dope smoking without going to the slammer for four years and the ability to sit in the park on a sunny day and quaff a bottle of Becks without being hassled by those employed to protect and serve. In addition you get to visit a health checked prostitute (male or female) in a safe and legal environment if you are so inclined without your foto appearing in the local rag under the Gotcha! section.

So, did you chose yet?

Re:Bonus

[Silver Sloth]

It sounds to me like you're describing Amsterdam, my favourite city where I would live tomorrow if I didn't have too many commitments here in the UK.

Re:Bonus

[CaptainZapp]

It sounds to me like you're describing Amsterdam, my favourite city where I would live tomorrow if I didn't have too many commitments here in the UK.

Well, it's certainly where such eeevil vice is most openly visible. But I think it goes for most of "Old Europe" now. I forgot that prostitution is still technically illegal in the UK, but never got the impression that Scotland Yard is wasting too many resources in capturing Average Q Dick. For the rest I didn't experience a reefer as something terribly naughty, nor would I think that a Bobby gives me a hard time for the atrocity of enjoying a Lager outside of a pub on the pavement.

Amsterdam does have it's merrits of course, from which I'd like to point out some really fine museums to the visiting youth of the world:

Don't just waste your time fogged away in coffeeshops when there are so much interesting things to see. Alas I would be the last to discourage a spliff prior to visiting a fine exhibition at the Stedelijk Musemum for modern art.

But I probably digress..

Hate It

[CypherXero]

I've gotten SO MUCH spam on my blog and via e-mail about online poker, that I HATE poker now, and I've never even played it. If the gambling sites are worried about DDoS, tell those bastards to stop pissing off the rest of the world.

What scares me is that you are wrong.

[hummassa]

You know, if you bash the queen, the next premier (this one is a friend) and the royal family enough in the media, you can even quote "the horrible things the royal family made to stay in power in the last 400? years"... hehehe. and voila, let's invade GB, they have WMDs, they have an evil secret police they use to crush the freedom fighters in Northern Ireland. Next, US invades Ireland too, for harbouring freedom fighters... errm terrorists.

You see, I myself don't feel a lot safe, because the US government/media sees our president as a drinking communist who is building nukes, too, even if it's all far from the truth.

Re:What scares me is that you are wrong.

[Anonymous Coward]

GB has a president?

Misconceptions

[Anonymous Coward]

What I don't get is the number of people labouring under the delusion that these DDOS attacks are the result of righteous 'hackers' out to teach a lesson to the 'spam-king' online gambling sites.

That's just not the reason! The only reason why these gambling sites are targetted is that their business relies on getting the bets in within a certain timeframe (i.e. the end of the horse race, or game, or whatever it is you're betting on the outcome of). Therefore a DDOS will severly reduce the amount of punters within the betting timeframe, drastically hitting the profits.

This opens the door to extortion and blackmail, i.e. "give us some money or watch your profits disappear..."

These are purely criminal acts, not righteous crusades.

three simple words

[hummassa]

1 and 2: connection tracking
3: throttling.

simple, uh?

Re:three simple words

[nettdata]

Uhh, no, it's not.

I've worked with a number of gambling and high-profile sites that have been approached by these on-line extortionists, and they are very real threats.

One company ignored the threats, and had in excess of 150,000 machines hammering their sites (MILLIONS of simultaneous connections) as a result, all for lack of paying the US $50,000 ransom and not planning/preparing for the onslaught.

It is NOT trivial to stop a DDOS from over 150,000 machines. Anyone who thinks it is just a matter of "connection tracking and throttling" has had no real-world experience with this stuff on large sites.

It takes specialty hardware, with specialty software/algorithms, and a SHIT LOAD of bandwidth to weather such a storm.

One of these company's employed a relatively new device last year created by an Israli company, and it was VERY successful in repelling a HUGE attack during last year's Superbowl. It resulted in a LOT of bandwidth being used, but no degredation of service to their users.

(It was actually quite funny watching the emails from the extortionists change from "WE OWN YOU" to "uhmmm... how about $25k?" to "OK, $5k and we'll leave you alone", as they turned on their attack and saw that it had no effect on the site!)

The hardware was so good at doing it's job, Microsoft bought all of the remaining available stock, worldwide, and Cisco purchased the company. (Can't remember the name of the company off hand).

Re:three simple words

[gbjbaanb]

It couldn't be this could it?

Actually, re-reading the last bit - Cisco bought it, I doubt it is, but is it something similar?

Re:three simple words

[nettdata]

Actually, I just dug through some old emails, and the company's name is Riverhead.

Re:three simple words

[nettdata]

Just found a quick link about it here.

Re:three simple words

[Shanep]

1 and 2: connection tracking
3: throttling.

simple, uh?

Effective DDoS is going to be machine gunned UDP packets which expect no reply and will typically forge the source IP anyway, from many thousands of machines.

Connection tracking a connectionless protocol?

How do you throttle a single UDP packet that suddenly appears at your external interface?

Think it through please. This is a common trap that people fall into and end up in firewall lists requesting help on doing it, only to be told that it can't be done.

Look...

1. Someone sends a single UDP packet to your IP.

2. It arrives at your external interface, you "track" it.

It wasted a packet of bandwidth, but that's okay because you're tracking it now right?

3. They send another single packet to your IP.

4. It arrives at your external interface, you know it's bogus (because you are tracking it afterall!), so you're firewall/OS drops it.

It got to your external interface again! It wasted another packet of your external pipe to the internet! An external pipe, which I would like to remind you, has a finite width. But you were tracking it! WTF!? Okay, so your firewall/OS may have dropped it this time, instead of politely replying. They still wasted another packet on the way in and there was not a god damned thing you could do about it at your end.

Got the picture now?

Now multiply those packets by a couple of million per second (lots of the smallest UDP packets they can craft) from thousands of hosts which you are never going to be able to respond to.

Good luck. You are going to need it. Because there IS NO OTHER SOLUTION TO THIS PROBLEM other than 1. having a pipe that is fatter than the deluge or 2. going upstream where the pipes are much fatter than yours and dealing with it there.

If I can fully saturate your incoming external bandwidth, you won't be using a whole lot of it or your outgoing. Unless of course you feel the need at that stage to machine gun fire off your own UDP packets (which could be nice, if you knew where the other UDP packets were coming from, but alas, you don't, they're forged.)

Ethics

[nuggz]

Ethics aren't absolute.

- selling alcohol
Excessive alcohol consumption may be damaging, but small to moderate consumption is not, and may even be beneficial.

- selling weapons
Depends on the end use. Weapons are just a tool.

Gambling does NOT destroy lives, it merely reallocates resources to those who will make better use of them.
I enjoy gambling, it can be a fun recreational activity. If I lose control that is my problem.

As for illegal but okay
recreational drugs
- Marijunna is NOT less dangerous then tobbacco
A broad selection of other drugs can cause problems, E, Acid, heroin. If you look around you can find that most have documented health risks.

I consider ethical behaviour fair behaviour.
A transaction that is a free choice, and enacted with proper knowledge (or the option to aquire such knowledge) is fair and ethical behaviour.
If the transaction is forced, or made in a way to prevent fair disclosure it is not ethical.

This is why I consider casino gambling very fair, everyone has access to the odds for the games, and I've never seen anyone forced to gamble in a Casino.

Addiction

[nuggz]

I don't care about addictions.
It just means the affected person must put out even more effort to overcome it.

Just because some people are sex addicts doesn't mean I shouldn't be allowed to sleep with my wife. (or yours for that matter)

Are you sure?

[TiggsPanther]

If online casino gambling is illegal here then why do the major online casinos get away with advertising openly?

I'd love to not see Casino-XYZ advertising on every main hoarding on the roads and above the stalls in motorway service stations toilets. And I'm sure if online gambling was illegal they'd have have to have pulled the advertising by now.

I _can_ feel sorry for them

[SunPin]

look at it this way: bookies and whores are the most honest people to do _business_ with. All the serious dirtbags I've encountered in this world have come from the allegedly legitimate side of society. Stock brokers are number one on the dirtbag list. At least bookies will quote you the odds.

In proper context.

[nurb432]

In many areas gambling is 100% legal. So its just as acceptable a 'business' as say, an auto maker.

YOU may not approve of their business model, but i bet there are things you support that other dont..

Just a guess you eat beef.. Many people in the world are morally offended about that too.. Does that make your meat packer a shady business?

Once you judge others to be unfit, then you are unfit to judge...

And you'd trust them WHY!?

[Anonymous Coward]

Perhaps because none of the games can be trusted?

Granted, there are cryptographic ways to fairly flip coins & whatnot, but I can't actually trust any of the casinos to do this, and if I play against other players, there's NOTHING the casino can do to stop them from colluding. It simply cannot know that the other 4 poker players are all working together to take my cash.

Please don't even get me started on just how far you can trust the normal, non-internet casinos. Even ignoring that they operate as statistical cash pumps that suck it out of your wallet, there are good reasons they have such a bad rep ...

[OT] Sig

[HeghmoH]

Given the fact that a pyramid scheme is guaranteed to leave the vast majority of the people who get sucked into it with absolutely nothing, do you actually expect you have a good chance to get your free stuff? What makes you luckier than the next guy?

How we block DDOS for customers

[billstewart]

Disclaimer: This is my personal commentary, not the official position of the Tier 1 ISP I work for

It's definitely an attack that benefits from upstream support at a big ISP, where you can handle gigabits per second of traffic through your filters instead of whatever size access line you use. Sometimes the attacks are simple, and you can block them by filtering out protocols other than HTTP/HTTPS, but often that's not good enough - DDOS attacks can fake those too, and there are all the usual SYN flood attacks.

Cisco's Riverhead equipment is designed to use a wide variety of filtering techniques, including passive filters, active replies, rate limitation, dynamic lists of traffic sources, etc. They may have renamed it Cisco Guard after buying Riverhead. We've got a pool of cleaner boxes hanging off the big peering points, and DDOS detection equipment in the network as well as optionally on customer premises (or the customer can just call us.) When we detect an attack on a customer who's set up for this kind of protection, we use BGP to point the customer's traffic to the Riverhead pool, and then build a GRE tunnel to the customer's port to deliver the traffic that's been cleaned up.

The other important thing we do is basic hygiene on our own networks, such as Source Address Assurance prevent forged traffic from our own customers. Customer internet ports are provisioned with specific IP address ranges, and they can only send out packets with a source address that's in their range. (Cisco routers implement this efficiently with uRPF.) This means they can't do things like DNS or SYN flood attacks that use forged source addresses, except addresses within their own address blocks, so any attacks are limited and can be traced or blocked. Customers that are dual-homed with another ISP can arrange to advertise both address ranges, so they can do whatever load-balancing tricks and redundancy they want, but that's still limited.

Parent not a troll?

[phorm]

not sure who lacked the brains enough to mark the parent as troll. Hacker is not really a proper definition (cracker perhaps better), but script-kiddy is worse. Script-kiddy implies, however, a younger or less experienced individual working from predesigned tools. An annoyance, but not a pro.

In contrast, many of the DDOS attackers are in groups of multiple individual, often with a good set of computer knowledge, and ties to organized crime. Sure, you might get the odd script-kiddy, but they're also the ones that probably get caught the easiest.

The really nasty ones are skilled, organized, offshore groups.

How about the ISPs

[phorm]

I think a big probably is not only the "clueless users" as it were, but the ISPs who put them online. They advertise all the wonders of the modern internet (blazing speeds, media downloads, etc) with complete lack of reference to such problems.

Some ISPs do offer firewall/antivirus services, though most I've seen either suck or cost an additional fee.

But the thing is, it's probably not that difficult to tell if the users on your ISP are owned. And the ISP can disconnect those users until they are patched, or at the very least stick them on a limited subnet wherein they can download patches/fixed but not continue to contribute to the degredation of the internet.

The problem is that the ISPs are following the money trail and ignoring all these problems. Cutting off a "bad" customer is risking loss of capital... nevermind the cumulative money-loss effect that ISPs share in hosting spambots, cracked machines ,etc

US-Centric Shortsightedness

[billstewart]

They're not going after the online casinos because they're opposed to vice - many of the extortionists appear to be Russian mafias, who are perfectly happy to have vice around as long as they get a piece of the action. They're going after the online casinos because they're cranking a lot of money, and they depend on the internet, and their internet connections are easily attacked, and the attacks are relatively untraceable.

You're thinking about this as a US couch potato that believes that what your government tells you applies to the rest of the world, or even to your part of the world. Stop that silliness.... In most of the world, gambling is a legal activity, though many governments require licenses for gambling houses. Tax revenue from gambling is simply tax revenue, like any other business tax revenue. The connection to schools is popularly used in the US when state lotteries are trying to convince the public that there's some moral difference between gambling with the state vs. gambling with your local bookie, which lets them continue the hypocrisy of banning the local bookie's operations.

If you don't like small groups of people telling society what they can and can't do, work on changing your government. The US Feds have tried to stop Internet gambling, and any interstate gambling activities, and are relatively successful at it within the US, and many states are pretty aggressive about it as well. Senator John Kyl is one of the worst offenders. Then there's this drug prohibition thing, which is designed to fund gangs and terrorism and cause government corruption around the world, and the US has bullied a lot of other countries and even the UN into treaties agreeing to let the US politicians' idea of good vs. bad drugs be enforced on everybody else. And then there was that sting a few years ago where the US Feds got some California pornographer to mail videotapes to Tennessee so they could bust them for obscenity, because "community standards" in Tennessee are different than in California.

Bookie, definitely

[billstewart]

Bookies have to maintain a reputation. And paying taxes just goes to governments, who typically do bad things with their money.

Here in the US we have this fiction that there's some moral difference between government-run gambling and privately-run gambling, so whenever a state wants to start a lottery and bilk the innumerate, they claim that the money will be used for schools and/or old people, though in reality it usually goes into the general fund. In New Jersey, the state lottery agency puts up posters with where the money is going, and last time I looked, more than 1/3 of it went to prisons, a bunch more to other activities that I don't like either, and very little to either schools or old people, and that's not even counting the money that goes to lottery bureaucrats or annoying dishonest TV ads.

I think they are getting what they give

[rhp110]

They try and hit my blog 3 to 4 times a week. When they hit my server, they try around 100 times from all over the world(distributed). I have keywords blocking them from doing much of anything but they still keep hitting my server. Keep it up DDoS guys they deserve it.

Show Me!

[micromuncher]

My sites get 'poked' by bots all the time. I don't have the time to automatically block every 'poker'.

What I want to know is Is the claim of extortion valid? They provide no proof or examples of such extortion in the article. And if the extorting party releases, oh, bank account information into which to transfer funds, isn't that like giving INTERPOL everything they need to go make an arrest?

What is more likely is that annoyed persons tired of el gambling spam are fighting back becase el gamgling sites are often off-shore and use dubious means to advertise.

This kinda reminds me hear-say hype. "Oooh, computer virii exist, ergo I must buy virus software, firewall, and the like to protect myself. Oh wait, my computer isn't connected to the internet, and I don't install untrusted software. Rip out the hard drive! I must be in an IBM fearmongering commercial."

click on the links.

[hummassa]

I separated the two paragraphs. para one, I was talking about GB. para two, I was talking about my country.

Cool!

[Anonymous Coward]

When asshats fight asshats, the rest of us win! Aren't most gambling sites run by mafioso? The DoSers better hope the gambling site owners never track them down, because if they do, I sincerely doubt they will stop at just notifying their ISPs...

Re:gambling ILLegal in Hong Kong

[teddemop]

Excuse me - gambling is ILLEGAL in Hong Kong. As I spent 2 years of my life there developing gambling software I know. Horse racing is considered a "game of skill" and is legal. Lottery is legal just as in many other areas where other forms of gambling are illegal. Casinos are 100% illegal.

Who gives a fuck?

[Anonymous Coward]

The cracker vs. hacker debate is over before it even started. Hacker now means "anyone who disrupts or gains illegal access to computer systems." That's now a fact, and you're wasting your time arguing about it. You have lost. Have a nice day.

You what?

[Open_The_Box]

"Sorry but you're displaying your arrogance. Just because something is legal doesn't mean it is ethical. I could give you plenty of examples, but I'll leave it up to people's imagination."

The parent post didn't say anything about ethics. Just legality. Ease down there sparky.

"What sort of a dim-witted comparison is that? Gambling devastates many people's lives. That makes people who push their gambling 'services' onto us 'shady'. Having a cup of coffee has nothing to do with it."

No. Bad poster. Bad. It's the rolled up newspaper for you! The fact that gambling has devastated peoples lives doesn't make it 'shady'. Consuming coffee is not shady and that can be addictive too. I see a link there. Neither one of them is 'shady'. Shady would be tricking someone into gambling or forcing those who are underage to gamble.

"I don't think so. People running gambling sites are far more likely to be dodgy than those in a physical establishment. It's far easier to police a 'real' gambling business than a virtual one, especially since a virtual one can hide it's location and reside in a place that has no regulation."

At last! Something I agree with! Online betting is much harder to police than the regular high street kind. Doesn't make the local betting shop a hive of scum and wossname though. None of this tarred by the same brush nonsense. The thing that's always put me off about the local bookies has generally been the drunks and persistent smell of wee. Not the most glowing recommendation, I'll admit. But the gambling itself isn't amoral.

Aaaand then we have the lists of evil legal things:

Selling cigarettes - there are laws to prevent sale to minors - ie those unable to make informed choice. Therefore, not legal if evil.
Selling alcohol - also laws. Plus Jesus drank wine - if he could, so can I. Evil be damned (by definition). Not legal if evil.
Selling weapons - Once again there are laws which prevent you selling without permits and things. And if you were talking about international arms sale then even more laws exist. Not legal if evil.
Monopolies - Not sure about this one. Possibly depends on country but there are various prohibitions on monopolies. I wouldn't class it as evil though. Dastardly maybe. Diminishing the free choice of free people, yes. But evil?

Selling things which are not all that good for the public is not evil. The public IS capable of making an informed choice in such matters (even if they often choose not to follow the safest course of action) and there are laws to prevent those incapable of making an informed choice from partaking of the various 'evils' you mentioned.

Legality of drugs, non-voting and resistance? I can't really comment. Or I'm getting bored with this rant...

I agree with your last word though. Don't really care one way or the other. Wouldn't normally have bothered replying to your soapbox bashing either if it hadn't been so... random. Yeah, random.

I have a paper on this.

[John Sokol]

http://www.dnull.com/dos/DOS-Block.htm
Proposal for a new method to block distributed denial-of-service (DOS) attacks.

Good vices

[Lord Kano]

It strikes me as funny that so many advances in internet technology are being made by the pornography and gambling industries.

LK

Ahh, jurisdiction

[pjc50]

Surprisingly, US law does not apply everywhere in the world. There are plenty of countries where gambling is legal, and they can go to their local Cisco office (which may well be a different company from Cisco US) and get help from there.

Drugs are pretty much the exception in that the US will go a long way out of its way to disrupt the drugs trade in other countries. Oh, and intellectual property. Whereas selling arms to genocidal governments is regarded as pretty harmless and will get you at worst a slap on the wrist.

This goes beyond gaming sites:

[dpplgngr]

Gaming sites are simply the most lucrative and represent the advance guard of privateering targets.

As the flood of defense ensues, smaller targets will be seen as unspoiled- anyone making money through traffic will be exploitable. This is problem that will likely be solved only by ipv6's packet frame backtracking capability, and eventually web of trust mediated QOS / DOS as it develops.

(Sidenoted- it might seem unrelated but It's possible that Google (another recent article) is earmarking fiber with an eye to the horizon of defensibility- after all this is troublesome their fundamental business model.)

And the good news...

[Ben Jao Ming]

...is that no gambling sites were /.'ed in this article.

What a relief!

As to grey business: All businesses that don't deal with outlet/demand are grey, because the only substitutes are: Fraud, manipulation and theft.

Things became even simpler.

[hummassa]

Hey, if you are an online gambling site your upstream router should be only routing 80:TCP packets to you, killing any non-trackable (SYN flood, ACK spoof) packets; all of this BEFORE they even enter your T3 or whatever.

It's your solution #2, but any good upstream ISP will deal with you.

cheap alprazolam

[Anonymous Coward]

http://alprazolam.esmartbuyer.com
http://alprazol am.esmartdesign.com
http://alprazolam.esmartbiz.c om
http://alprazolam.esmartstudent.com
http://ww w.anzwers.org/free/alprazolam