Slashdot Mirror
Taking on an Online Extortionist
An anonymous reader writes "When an online exortionist comes a knocking, threatining a DDoS, do you pay or fight? For many, paying may seem like a sensible option when compared to going out of buisness. CSO Magazine has a riveting article about how an online gambling site and a DDoS specialist teamed up to take on such an extortionist. When everybody else was rolling over and paying, this company risked its very existence to fight back. From the article: '"The attack went to 1.5Gb, with bursts up to 3Gb. It wasn't targeted at one thing. It was going to routers, DNS servers, mail servers, websites. It was like a battlefield, where there's an explosion over here, then over there, then it's quiet, then another explosion somewhere else," says Lyon. "They threw everything they had at us. I was just in shock."'"
"We will fight them in the CAT5, on the routers, in the packets. We will never surrender"
:)
Or however he said it
I enjoy large posteriors and I cannot prevaricate.
"They threw everything they had at us. I was just in shock."
I guess that includes getting a mention on Slashdot?
Troc
Troc's dubious podcast and blog: http://www.trocnet.net
Seems kinda brutal to hit them with another DDOS.
Slashdot's name? When my compiler sees
Find out where they live and call their mom.
Extorting a gambling site? That strikes me as a LLM (life limiting move, c.f. career limiting move).
Many gambling sites still have connections to, shall we say, respectible businessmen of the Italian or Asian pursuasion, who are used to handling such matters extra-legally.
You might just wake up one day with your computer's monitor (cables severed with an ax) in bed with you.
Or Guido and Nunzio standing over you, giving you tips on the finer points of extortion while they wait for the concrete to set.
www.eFax.com are spammers
Wormholes.
That's the trick. Most people would say "bigger servers" and "bigger bandwidth". But I know the real reason. Notice how you get 'Service Unavailable'? Every so often? I found that if more than 50 people are accessing Slashdot at the same time, that their database cannot handle it. In reality, this site is hosted on an Amiga. Only 50 users you say? That can't be.... just look at my User ID!
All the 813,621 users before you don't really exist. These messages are randomly generated geek buzzwords. "Users" are given personalities, ranging from "Linux lover" to "Windows loser", from "I'm just a troll" to "IAARS", from "Funny" to "I take myself serious, but no one else does".
Those "personalities" alter the pre-populated phrase list according to topic (actually, I am not even sure the topic matters). Think of it as an advanced Turing simulation.
I was fooled for my first three months. Then, I saw the predictable responses, and realized that there was no actual intellegence here. Just the occassional real life person who wanders in and is fooled for a while. The auto-misspell feature was a nice addition, I have to admit.
Want proof? Pick a user id. Peruse messge list. Notice the lack of variety? Notice the lack of real meaning behind each message? And when there is real content, try browsing earlier messages. You will find phrases ripped verbatim from an earlier post.
Of course, you may also be a bot. CommanderTaco is always making tweaks to the message generation algorithm (though his posts, too, are mostly generated by code). I will have to peruse your message history when I am done posting here.
See my journal for slashdot ID's by year. Mine created in 2005. http://slashdot.org/journal/289875/slashdot-ids-by-year
Okay, I first read that as "Online Exorcist." I'm thinking, how does THAT work? TO: Satan@littlegirlshead.com
From: Father Mayai (Yes, you may!)
Subject: Notice of Eviction
If only there was some kind of online medium for news articles where answers to questions like these could be answered!
... without concern for U.S. bookmaking laws
Oh wait...
You can send us $40K by Western Union [and] your site will be protected
Richardson runs BetCris.com, an online wagering site, one of hundreds of sites ensconced in Costa Rica that take bets from Americans
Lyon says, "I could have left it alone, but I had gotten attached, and I started investigating. I came up with some interesting techniques to trace back the attacks." He turned over his work to several law enforcement agencies, but he never heard about it again.
"Um, hello - FBI? Hi. Yes I run a website gambling business offshore in Costa Rica and I just got threated by someone who says they will shut me down unless I wire fourty thousand via Western Union to someone in Belarus who *click* Hello?"
There is much cruelty in the universe, John.
Yeah, we seem to have the tour map.
Because, sometimes that Windows box crashes one time to many...
09 F9 11 02 9D 74 E3 5B D8 41 56 C5 63 56 88 C0
*grumble* . . . get off my web site, you damn kids!
I'm proud of my Northern Tibetian Heritage