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DHS Injects Itself With DDoS

Posted by CowboyNeal on from the shooting-their-own-feet dept.

An anonymous reader writes "Here's a story about what can happen to any enterprise IT department that overestimates the intelligence of its users. Only in this case, the enterprise in question is the U.S. Department of Homeland Security. The spokesman says there's no Jack Bauer mentality. No kidding!"

24 of 136 comments (clear)

  1. DDoS? by siddesu · · Score: 3, Insightful

    sounds like a bad case of misconfiguration to me.

    1. Re:DDoS? by omeomi · · Score: 4, Informative

      Yeah, a mailing list with a lot of people hitting "reply all" really isn't the same as a DDoS attack...it's just a mailing list with a lot of people hitting "reply all"

      --
      ZuluPad, the wiki notepad on crack
  2. Listserv Idiocy by astrotek · · Score: 5, Informative

    lol, happened at college all the time

    you get 5-6 idiots that reply to all
    then you get 50-60 idiots telling them not to reply to all
    and 50-60 more idiots trying to have a conversation to the first 5-6 idiots

    1. Re:Listserv Idiocy by MillionthMonkey · · Score: 5, Funny

      OK, guys, stop posting, or thousands of people are going to cumulatively spend hours reading your post and wasting their time! STOP WRITING POSTS EVERYONE!

    2. Re:Listserv Idiocy by Beryllium+Sphere(tm) · · Score: 3, Informative

      Try thousands.

      Microsoft had an email storm that took down companywide email

    3. Re:Listserv Idiocy by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

      plz UNSUBSCRIBE me from this website.

    4. Re:Listserv Idiocy by MillionthMonkey · · Score: 5, Funny

      Well now that I have everyone's address I might as well send this out... has anyone seen my pencil sharpener?

    5. Re:Listserv Idiocy by mjsottile77 · · Score: 3, Funny

      Or the other favorite, the single moron who doesn't know how to unsubscribe and sends "unsubscribe" to the list, followed by others who do the same, followed by people sending instructions to unsubscribe, followed by more "unsubscribe" messages by those who can't follow instructions.

    6. Re:Listserv Idiocy by MLease · · Score: 5, Funny

      Only a Nazi would deliberately try to invoke Godwin's Law!

      -Mike

      --
      I'm sorry; I don't know what I was thinking!
    7. Re:Listserv Idiocy by Rebelgecko · · Score: 5, Funny

      Im a little scared about clicking a link to a website called "m sex change team.com"

      --
      CATS/Diebold '08- All your vote are belong to us!
    8. Re:Listserv Idiocy by Mr.+Freeman · · Score: 4, Funny

      I have no information on the whereabouts of your pencil sharpener. However, I believe you have my stapler. It's a red swingline, I kept it because it doesn't bind up as much as the new ones.

      --
      -1 disagree is not a modifier for a reason. -1 troll, flaimbait, redundant, overrated are NOT acceptable substitutes.
    9. Re:Listserv Idiocy by tardis · · Score: 3, Funny

      My husband was once asked to design the website for a home electronics reseller:
      electronicsexchange.com
      Sadly, it appears to now be squatter-meat.

    10. Re:Listserv Idiocy by laejoh · · Score: 4, Funny

      How friggin dare anyone out there write posts after all this website has been through.

      /. lost her bandwidth, /. went through a slashdot effect. /. had two friggin sharks with lasers on their heads.

      Her administrator turned out to be a user, a cheater, and now /. going through a ddos. All you people care about is..... readers and making money off of her.

      /.'s A WEBSITE! What you don't realize is that /. is making you all this money and all you do is write a bunch of crap about her.

      /. hasn't performed on the web in years. /. songs is called "give me hotgrits" for a reason because all you people want is MORE MORE MORE MORE MORE.

      LEAVE /. ALONE! You are lucky /. even performed for you BASTARDS!

      LEEEAVE /. ALLLLLONE!.....Please.

      Cowboy Neal talked about professionalism and said if kdawson was a professional he would've pulled it off no matter what.

      Speaking of professionalism, when is it professional to publically bash someone who is going through a hard time.

      Leave /. Alone Please.... Leave /. alone...right now....I mean it.

      Anyone that has a problem with /. you deal with me, beacuse /. is not well right now.

      leave /. alone/p

    11. Re:Listserv Idiocy by telchine · · Score: 5, Funny

      http://www.therapistfinder.com/
      http://www.speedofart.com/
      http://www.penisland.net/
      http://www.whorepresents.com/

  3. DHS by Lobster+Quadrille · · Score: 5, Funny

    Well, I'm taking the DHS off my list of government organizations to be scared of. Considering recent news regarding the DoD, It's pretty much down to the CIA and the NSA, and I have my doubts about their competence.

    My tinfoil hat may be unnecessary after all.

    --
    "The cup is in turn designed for holding hot or cold liquids, and has an open rim and closed base." --US Patent #5425497
    1. Re:DHS by Garridan · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Or is it all just a ruse, to lull you into a false sense of security?

    2. Re:DHS by ScrewMaster · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Well, as others have pointed out it's better (from a civil liberties perspective) to have these people be wasteful and incompetent than highly effective and dangerous.

      --
      The higher the technology, the sharper that two-edged sword.
    3. Re:DHS by tftp · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Unfortunately, they can be incompetent and dangerous at the same time, like a drunk driver.

    4. Re:DHS by Bearhouse · · Score: 3, Insightful

      "Or is it all just a ruse, to lull you into a false sense of INsecurity?"

      Fixed that for you.

  4. Drugs are bad, Mmmmmkay? by dangitman · · Score: 3, Funny

    DHS Injects Itself With DDoS

    I yearn for the simpler days, when DOS came on floppy disks, rather than medical instruments.

    --
    ... and then they built the supercollider.
  5. Wrong character by charlesbakerharris · · Score: 5, Funny

    Sounds more like they could use a Chloe mentality. She, at least, never overestimates the intelligence of other users.

  6. Re:Feel Safer? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    October 2007
    November
    December
    January 2008
    February
    March
    April
    May
    June
    July
    August
    September
    October
    November
    December
    January 2009

    Looks like 16 months to me. Of course, I graduated before No Child Left Behind.

  7. Damn it, Chloe by patio11 · · Score: 4, Funny

    Drop the personality disorder and patch me through.

    ---

    I liked Chloe so much that I have a Cygwin alias for ssh into my VPS. It is, of course, damnitchloe. Really its more like damTAB but I get a chuckle every time I see it.

    I can also watch Season 7 of 24 in a command line, due to an extremely efficient homebrew compression scheme. Observe:

    ruby -e "(24 * 6).times do puts 'Damn it'; end"

    --
    Help poke pirates in the eyepatch, arr.
  8. I meant, "Who hasn't..." by Valdrax · · Score: 5, Funny

    Stop!
    Grammar time.

    --
    If it's for-profit but free, you're not the customer -- you're the product (e.g., the Slashdot Beta's "audience").