This Forum Down, Two Full Days?

[Guest Tom Scully]

...can the Mods at least offer the forum members the choice of passing the hat to contribute the funds to keep this forum online until the new month begins and the new monthy bandwidth allotment kicks in?

If I am speaking out of ignorance of what the downtime was caused by, please correct me. I post this from the standpoint that either we all agree that the Education Forum is a valuable resource that should be accessible all

of the time that it is within the ability of the members to make it so, or it is not valuable enough to avoid a multi day period of inaccessibility.

I looked for other JFK venues to post on, and even on the other forums where I was already a member or where Facebook ID and password can be used to gain access, I noticed neither the level of activity we enjoy on this forum, or the

variety of topics and depth of detail in the posts I read, to persuade me to join in.

John absorbs the whole cost of keeping this going, and we should show our support by offering to build a reserve to cover the cost of excess bandwidth consumption. It is not fair for John to pay for the out of pocket costs of

maintaining this forum on the internet, only to be billed even more to keep it online for the last days of the

month.

Welcome back, Education Forum!

Edited December 1, 2010 by Tom Scully

[John Simkin]

It is not a question of paying money for extra bandwidth. I have done this several times but we still end up with the same problem. When we have complained before about this before, we are told that we have been victims of "denial of service" attacks. What happens is that our enemies use software that demands constant delivery of pages. The only way of dealing with this is to ban the IP of those doing it. However, you need someone to spend a lot of time observing what is happening. Andy Walker used to do this when he was an administrator. I am afraid I do not have time to do it. Any volunteers?

From Wikipedia:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Denial-of-service_attack

A denial-of-service attack (DoS attack) or distributed denial-of-service attack (DDoS attack) is an attempt to make a computer resource unavailable to its intended users. Although the means to carry out, motives for, and targets of a DoS attack may vary, it generally consists of the concerted efforts of a person or people to prevent an Internet site or service from functioning efficiently or at all, temporarily or indefinitely. Perpetrators of DoS attacks typically target sites or services hosted on high-profile web servers such as banks, credit card payment gateways, and even root nameservers. The term is generally used with regards to computer networks, but is not limited to this field, for example, it is also used in reference to CPU resource management.

One common method of attack involves saturating the target machine with external communications requests, such that it cannot respond to legitimate traffic, or responds so slowly as to be rendered effectively unavailable. In general terms, DoS attacks are implemented by either forcing the targeted computer(s) to reset, or consuming its resources so that it can no longer provide its intended service or obstructing the communication media between the intended users and the victim so that they can no longer communicate adequately.

Denial-of-service attacks are considered violations of the IAB's Internet proper use policy, and also violate the acceptable use policies of virtually all Internet service providers. They also commonly constitute violations of the laws of individual nations.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Denial-of-service_attack

[Peter McGuire]

Really interesting John.

There are ways you can trace IP's.

I would like to find out who was at the other end.

That would be interesting to know.

I really wanted to post about Clint Hill's interview on C Span that I viewed Sunday.

[John Dolva]

check gibson research corporation grc.com for extensive documenntation on dos attacks and locating their origins

[Guest Tom Scully]

Thank you for the explanation, John. I would be happy to volunteer to help counter the ddos problem. I am no expert, but I know some about DNS (an example http://jfk.com.index.htm.us ) and site administration. Please email me if you think I can be put to good use.

Jim, it isn't as simple as tracing who it is. This is a huge, ongoing threat to higher traffic sites and forums especially.

Here is a short exchange about the problem.:

http://community.invisionpower.com/topic/307697-ddos-protection/page__view__findpost__p__1954219

Here is an $800 per month solution, with a $500 set-up fee.

http://www.serverorigin.com/ethproxy-ddos-mitigation

Edited December 2, 2010 by Tom Scully

[Greg Burnham]

Sounds like you need a sgt-at-arms...

[Jack White]

Sounds like you need a sgt-at-arms...

Monk...a sgt-at-arms would not work here, because Burton is judge and jury. All violators are guilty until proved innocent.

Jack

[Evan Burton]

Yes Jack. You hate me for proving you wrong so often. We know that. Thank you for your contribution.

[David Butler]

I'm not a major contributor but I read the forum every day and run a women's football forum so know a bit about forum admin....Let me know if I can help as I would be happy to...

[Evan Burton]

David, Tom:

Thanks for your offers; they are very much appreciated. John will let you know.

[John Simkin]

It seems that they are using the same software that attacked this forum to bring down the websites of companies that have been hostile to Wikileeks. An expert talking on BBC radio the other day said that when the attack comes from thousands of different people, it is virtually impossible to stop it.

[William Kelly]

It seems that they are using the same software that attacked this forum to bring down the websites of companies that have been hostile to Wikileeks. An expert talking on BBC radio the other day said that when the attack comes from thousands of different people, it is virtually impossible to stop it.

John,

But the attacks on you/Ed Forum were not by thousands of people, just one person with the same downloaded software.

Why can't that person be identified?

Thanks

BK