Dos attack

[Jeff]

The server is a latent at the moment due to a dos attack on this network block of I.P's . Should clear up as the offending I.P. numbers are blocked.

[Tom]

I figured as much.  I was being hung for minutes at a time.

There's people in this world that I'd like to hurt real bad. >:(

One of these days, the technology is going to be able to pinpoint these guys and there's going to be the devil to pay.

[isawlogs]

  Some need to get a life real bad .. Jeff ... disregard the last message

   

[getoverit]

It seems better tonight than it did earlier this afternoon... they must have found the offending IP's

[PineNut]

I knew it was slow and was about to blame my computer.  It has been doing strange things lately that it should not do.

[Bill]

DanG  -  I thought I was gettin faster . . .      ;D

[bedway]

jeff,, For those of us who lack computing skills, what does that jargon mean? On my better days i can turn this thing on and off :D

[Tom]

Bedway,
A lot goes on behind the scenes that affects the speed you experience at your computer.

There are unscrupulous sorts in this world whose main aim is to agravate others or destroy other's works.

Jeff's reference has to do with how busy the lines become between our server and  your computer.  Sometimes on of these ignorant vandals will flood a server with miscellaneous or duplicate email and clog the works so that nobody else's information can get down the line. This information is broken down into packets so it can be verified if what arrived was what was sent.  Still, the packets have to stand in line.  If the the line wraps around the block 20 or 30 times, like happens at a rock concert, then your packet has to wait.  Your message may be made up of many packets and they may all be taking different routes.  Your computer may have all but one packet and is waiting for that one that is hung up somewhere else.

If someone can "busy" a node on the internet enough, he can stop others from  being able to use it.  This is what SPAM is all about.  People will send out thousands upon thousands of email and it plugs the lines, fills the baskets at the server and cause you heartache because you have to wait.  Many of these attacks are deliberately aimed at a specific user or IP address.  The idea being to put him out of business.  Most attacks seem to be originating in the middle east and china but we have our share of unscrupulous people too.

An analogy might be that everyone in town lined up and knocked, one at a time, on your back door.  Your only option would be to answer it each time to see who was there, or discontinue the use of the door so that you could see who was at the front door.

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

The only way to protect oneself from these attacks is for the originating IP addresses to be blocked.  That is what Jeff and his cohorts on our server do.  While they can control, after a fashion, the attack on our server, they have no control over the attack on a server somewhere else in the country that is plugging other lines that you use.

While there are many types of jamming, have you ever wondered what was being impacted when you receive an email that asks you to send it to everyone in your address book?   ....and everyone of those recipients sends it to everyone in their address book, and everyone of those recipients sends it to everyone in their address book, and everyone of those recipients sends it to everyone in their address book, etc., etc,.

Some poor computer has to handle all of that stuff.  Not to mention the big collection of email addresses that are being provided to a SPAMMER somewhere if he gets one of those "replies" back.

[bedway]

Tom, I really appreciate your takeing the time to explain this to me. Computers and the internet facinate me. Several months ago my old compaq died a slow death. We had a quick service for it and started the mind boggleing task of  searching for new and better one. My son in law who is computer savy helped me order one from an outfit on the west coast. Custom built to special order, i swear this thing could run NASA. The problem being, when im at the keyboard i swear this thing is rolling its eyes at me, if it had any :D Needless to say though, my son in law just loves my computer. The only real problem we have had with it thus far is that its a 64 bit operating system.  Im told that eventually software and hardware will catch up to this o/s. Well lunch is over tom and i got to get back to work. thank you,,,,,,,,,,,,,bedway

[SPIKER]

bedway:

might I ask what the 64 bit op system is named?   I know that they have been in the works for a while but hadn't heard much about them lately.

sorry to hear about the DOS attacks too, perhaps that was going on with earthlink as that is what we use and have been having bad problems for 2 weeks or more on & off.   stupidly slow DSL.   You think more companies would smarten up about better protection software to prevent these things from happeneing as often as it does.
,mark M