November 02, 2004
Attacked
Jeff Jarvis says Instapundit, along with many other blogs, are suffering denial-of-service attacks today. I've noticed my own flickering in and out.
Posted by Michael J. Totten at November 2, 2004 03:02 PMHalf my blogroll was down, including Talking Points, Kevin Drum, and Talk Left.
If it's a dos attack, it seems to be non-partisan. But I'd say it's just bandwidth.
Posted by: double-plus-ungood at November 2, 2004 03:06 PMOK Kids, before we start wearing our JiffyPop beanies are you sure it's not because I and the rest of us keep trying to get to Glen and Steve's blogs on this important day? I for one an wanting my fix...
If not, maybe someone could give us a miniseminar on how you can identify a DOS.
Posted by: Bill at November 2, 2004 03:08 PMBill,
Hosting Matters says it's a dos attack. They should know, but I don't personally know the details.
I can't even post in Instapundit right now. I can't get to the login page. His Site Meter shows a sharp decrease in traffic over the past few hours.
Posted by: Michael J. Totten at November 2, 2004 03:18 PMI've been in constant touch with the people at HM and they've said nothing about a DOS attack.
All the downtime is explained here.
Posted by: michele at November 2, 2004 03:34 PMBe it a DOS attack or hyperclickin' blog readers, Hosting Matters seems to be back...
Posted by: Bill at November 2, 2004 03:35 PMAtrios is reporting that servers all over the net are failing because of bandwidth problems. Slate is down.
Posted by: double-plus-ungood at November 2, 2004 03:43 PMThe electoral-vote.com crowd is distinguishing between "flash crowds" and "denial of service attacks", for what it's worth. I'd figure way more of the former than the latter, myself.
Posted by: Michael Martin at November 2, 2004 04:02 PMFYI: A DOS attack is a denial-of-service attack. It works by repeatedly requesting replies. Usually a large scale ping attack will do. Set up a script to ping a site over and over and over with lots of tiny little packets and you'll start to overwhelm a site. Add in a few more sources and it gets worse. Fortunately, most DOS attacks are relatively easy to take care of. The most sophisticated ones... those get more difficult. Hard to say what it is, but it seems silly to do a DOS attack on someone like Hosting Matters. They're pretty broad-spectrum. Unless it is some sort of anarchist group doing it.
Posted by: Court at November 2, 2004 05:25 PM
