Broken?

[Nolfar]

Is it just me or does the board seem inordinately slow today? Thusfar I've gotten more than a dozen proken pages ("This page cannot be displayed") and it takes on average a minte or more for my browser (IE on a cable modem) to pull up anything at all, despite all my other sites being fine.

Just wondering because it's getting annoying. If it's a problem, I hope you guys can get it fixed soon, if it's just extra traffic then them's the ropes I suppose.

[RawBearNYC]

The denial of service attack is back. It's not as successful as before, but it is having an effect.

[Zherog]

* weeps *

Mommy, make the bad people stop...

[Invariel]

It's becoming clear that it's a targeted DoS attack, but is it from a competitor? A rival webcomic, determined to sway us away from OotS? Someone banned from the boards and feeling so slighted as to want to prevent everyone else from observing the wonderfulness of the comic?

And, have ISPs been notified as to what's happening? While having a server more capable of preventing this sort of thing is quite useful, contacting the ISP should be more effective; I'm pretty sure that targeted DDoS'ing is illegal.

[Rei_Jin]

I wish people had something better to do than dDoS this website, mind you, the rest of us spend an unhealthy amount of time here...

let's just say we all need to spend less time on the computer, eh?

I was so cranky from this dDoS, I have a t3 connection and I couldn't get on. Do you know how frustrating that is? If I find out who's doing the attacks, ggrrr...

I need to get out more. Definitely.

[Tharr]

The site tonight was attacked.
I saw lots of extremly weird things.
Has to be a ton of weird ascii symbols.

[Nolfar]

Not sure if I should feel better or worse then. At least I don't have to find a new provider yet. ><

But yeah, DoS strikes suck hard. I hope whoever has been doing them gets caught and punished and all, as I'm more than a little sure that they're also illegal.

[Rei_Jin]

Yeah, they are illegal, but the FBI only act on it once there has been over $5,000 worth of damage caused. The only way these people get shut down is to hack the wrong person, like Microsoft, or the FBI. Normally when that happens, they get a job out of it.

[Deuce]

Yeah, they are illegal, but the FBI only act on it once there has been over $5,000 worth of damage caused. The only way these people get shut down is to hack the wrong person, like Microsoft, or the FBI. Normally when that happens, they get a job out of it.


DoS isn't hacking, at least not in any sense of the word that conveys the idea of skill. DoS is just low-grade easy to do cyber vandalism. Not even the creative kind of vanalism, like a mural on an alley wall - more like busting out car windows. :'(

[RawBearNYC]

It's becoming clear that it's a targeted DoS attack, but is it from a competitor? A rival webcomic, determined to sway us away from OotS? Someone banned from the boards and feeling so slighted as to want to prevent everyone else from observing the wonderfulness of the comic?

And, have ISPs been notified as to what's happening? While having a server more capable of preventing this sort of thing is quite useful, contacting the ISP should be more effective; I'm pretty sure that targeted DDoS'ing is illegal.

We have no idea who's doing it. A SYN flood can happen from a single computer or from a bunch of hacked computers. The information we have has spoofed IP addresses (the spoofed IP addresses are part of the how the flood words). The only way to trace such a thing is to trace the packets back router to router, which involves the assistance of the owners of those routers.

We did, however, ask for the assitance of our ISP. There are some router level fixes that can halt a SYN flood. Unfortunately their reponse to any suck hack is to cut off service to that machine until the hack subsides, which they did at about 9:00 est last night. Upsetting, because we were better off with the attack than we were with the ISP's "solution". But I talked to a friend at another managed server provider, and he told me that that's a pretty standard response. We won't be asking them for help again.


DoS isn't hacking, at least not in any sense of the word that conveys the idea of skill. DoS is just low-grade easy to do cyber vandalism. Not even the creative kind of vanalism, like a mural on an alley wall - more like busting out car windows. :'(

Actually, a DoS can be a part of a hack. it can be a tool to attempt to gain access to a machine by tying up too many of it's resources, then exploiting a vulnerability in that situation. This doesn't seem to be that tho.

[nightfire8199]

I hope the one/ones responsible get punished. if not. i will give them whats coming to them. and then some.

[Ilover_Juventad]

Cursed nerd- I mean, technically adept attackers! Can't they just go outside and have some healthy air and spend time with friends? Bah, someone really has emotional issues if they do nothing better than just DoS attack us.

[kriebly]

The site tonight was attacked.
I saw lots of extremly weird things.
Has to be a ton of weird ascii symbols.

(You weren't trying for a haiku, were you?)

Hopefully that was just your web browser getting upset. If the web site's content was changed, that is no longer a denial-of-service; the web server, and possibly the system, have been hacked.

It doesn't look like that is what happened, though.

[Tharr]

Things are better now service.
Bored people hackers are bad.
I hope things go better.

[Jack Squat]

In light of DoS attacks, and how they can be used for hacking, and/or planting a virus/worm I hope for the sake of the site that the important content is backed up in an untouchable location. As long as the Comics and such are safe I can sleep. It wouldn't be too much trouble to have to reregister for the forums.