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Microsoft RickRolls Wi-Fi Network Leechers
An anonymous reader writes "Microsoft has revealed that it RickRolled users that were killing its TechEd conference Wi-Fi network last year by torrenting large files. Network administrators at the event quickly built a list of all of the top torrent trackers around and got the nod to add them all to the local DNS resolver and point them at a local Web server containing some Rick Roll scripts. According to the admin: 'It killed me that I didn't see anyone getting done by this first hand, but there were hundreds of impressions in the server logs containing the Rick Roll scripts so I did get a fair amount of satisfaction at least. It was the most evil of evil Rick Roll scripts too — worse than any that anyone has used to get me in the past.' Fun and games aside, it looks like the leechers will force quotas and traffic shaping for the first time in the event's history."
At least it wasn't Soulja Boy.
Rick Rolling, told you Microsoft is evil ;-)
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Chair throwing video?
You can't take the sky from me.
Just to get things rolling. Here is the tasteful mashup with Nirvana.
I am becoming gerund, destroyer of verbs.
From TFA:
So we scheduled this script to run each minute to generate a list of offending MAC addresses.
We reasoned that if you had a lot of mappings, and that a large proportion of those mappings were to a lot of distinct remote hosts, and largely not idle, that you are probably a Torrenter. OTOH, if you had, say, 20 connections open to a single host or a low number of hosts then this is probably quite fine.
These scripts output a list of bad MACs, that we then just dropped into a block list in the core switches.
And there you have it. The culprits fingered and booted off the network. Of course, they then just changed their MAC addresses, in which case they were then re-identified as soon as their utilisation crept up, and the new MAC was banned.
This approach will work fine until one of the culprits decides to spoof the MAC address of your DNS servers (or whoever else they want to f*ck with) and gets them "booted off the network".
It looks like the news link has been Slashdotted, Here's a mirror to the link
ic news story Microsoft
I solved this problem at the local library's public access wireless with a linux router and a token bucket filter with a big bucket. Each IP address gets a 10MByte bucket that fills up at 256kbits/second. The bucket is big enough that they'll never know they are limited for normal browsing, but a torrent sucks it try really fast and drops down to a slow enough speed that it's not really worthwhile. And even if they do stick with it at least they aren't burning through tens of gigabytes per day. It beats any other filter i've ever tried.
I still fondly remember the howls of dismay from the leechers when I turned it... they just couldn't understand why their downloads start at 20mbits/second but slow down to a crawl almost straight away :)
Rick Rolling is so last year....
gee ...
"Microsoft has revealed that it RickRolled users that were killing its TechEd conference WiFi network last year ....
Look on the bright side - at least you didn't make a total ass of yourself by saying:
What did you expect? This is Microsoft we're talking about here. They're always behind by a full year or five when it comes to internet memes.
Appropriate variants of the 1984 ad.
"I still fondly remember the howls of dismay from the leechers when I turned it... they just couldn't understand why their downloads start at 20mbits/second but slow down to a crawl almost straight away :)"
You wouldn't happen to have an audio copy by any chance?
"It was the most evil of evil Rick Roll scripts too -- worse than any that anyone has used to get me in the past."
correct me if i'm wrong, but rickrolling implies its just rick astley singing about how he won't let you down, right?
so what the heck is he referring to in the quote above? did they distribute 1080p video of ballmer in his underwear singing karaoke and throwing chairs?
speaking of which, a GIS for ballmer is not exactly flattering
http://images.google.com/images?q=ballmer
who would have guessed a GOOGLE image search wouldn't be flattering to steve ballmer?
i wonder what a bing image search for ballmer would... jesus what am i doing, better stop now before i run into rule 34
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
Suggestions please for equivalent at Apple & Linux events?
Force install of Win ME.
Lars T.
To the guy who modded me down from perfect to terrible Karma - Apple haters still suck
No. As I understand it, those who are rickrolled basically get a customized DNS response that points all page requests to a local server with one web page and a blind redirect to that web page. That single web page has an embedded rickroll video.
Somewhat similar to how airports on a pay-for connection, or hotel connections work. Try to go to any website, and you get redirected to a login or purchase page.
Presumably any other connections not on port 80 (torrent, FTP, etc) are dropped.
So if you're surfing the web while torrenting, you'll get the rickroll video on the next page you load after you are detected, and you'll find that all of your torrents suddenly stop connecting.
"This post contains words, known to the State of California to cause thought. Wash brain thoroughly after reading."
that this man thinks a song from 1987 should still be earning him money
yes, LEGALLY, he has a case, but morally and philosophically, he just seems like a giant asshole
fact: there are no morally or philosophically coherent grounds that a song from 1987 should anyone anything. really
and if you believe otherwise, you very much are a good definition of what is wrong with this world, in terms of a stunning display of greed backed up with force, overwhelming the common good
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it