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Purveyor

(29,876 posts)
Thu Mar 28, 2013, 05:00 PM Mar 2013

Yeah, We Broke the Internet: The Inside Story of the Biggest Attack Ever

It’s still unclear who is behind one of the biggest attacks in Internet history, one that’s disrupting service for millions of users and has created an information superhighway traffic jam across the globe.

What is becoming clear is that the attack is an outgrowth of a little-known, but highly explosive war between two factions: on one side are the Internet service providers (ISPs) and Web hosts that don’t ask their clients too many questions about whether they are hosting spam and other kinds of malicious code; on the other are groups that try to name and shame the spammers, and stop them from infiltrating your inbox—or worse, your bank’s servers. This side is engaged in a massive game of virtual whack-a-mole, only one with no end in sight.

In this latest retaliatory attack, the spammers got the better of their opponents, shutting down servers and slowing down the entire Internet. One man so far has come forward, claiming to be the spokesman for the attackers—a man named Sven Olaf Kamphuis. A so-called Internet activist, Kamphuis disdains government regulation of the Internet and, at least according to his Facebook page, gays and Jews. In an interview with The Daily Beast, Kamphuis said he owns an ISP that was put on a blacklist by the Geneva-based anti-spam company Spamhaus. Companies on the blacklist are blocked by email providers and other Internet service companies, which means they’re essentially kicked off the Internet.

So Kamphuis and others on the blacklist formed an opposition group, Stophaus, and earlier this month, they launched the most powerful “distributed denial of service” (DDoS) attack in the history of the Internet. DDoS attacks flood a server with data—in this case, 300 billion bits of data per second—at a rate it can’t possibly handle, thereby shutting it down. Stophaus’s onslaught overwhelmed not just Spamhaus’s servers, but the rest of the Internet, too. Thus, Netflix users around the world were suddenly wondering why they couldn’t stream You’ve Got Mail.

“There are a lot of people who are really pissed off about this,” Kamphuis said of Spamhaus. “And we are the first to show some balls and do something about it.”

MORE...

http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2013/03/28/yeah-we-broke-the-internet-the-inside-story-of-the-biggest-attack-ever.html?utm_source=Newsletter+subscribers&utm_campaign=49c7813a68-JTA_Daily_Briefing_3_28_2013&utm_medium=email

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Yeah, We Broke the Internet: The Inside Story of the Biggest Attack Ever (Original Post) Purveyor Mar 2013 OP
Yes, Kamphuis, a lot of people are pissed off your spamming is being cut off. denverbill Mar 2013 #1
K&R !!! n/t RKP5637 Mar 2013 #2
I'd favor drone strikes on professional spammers. nt geek tragedy Mar 2013 #3
Spam! HappyMe Mar 2013 #4
An "internet activist" who hates gays and Jews and spams people is NOT an "internet activist." MADem Mar 2013 #5

denverbill

(11,489 posts)
1. Yes, Kamphuis, a lot of people are pissed off your spamming is being cut off.
Thu Mar 28, 2013, 05:05 PM
Mar 2013

Everyone loves spam. (cue Monty Python)

And I'm sure everyone loves you for fucking up the internet to save your spam empire.

MADem

(135,425 posts)
5. An "internet activist" who hates gays and Jews and spams people is NOT an "internet activist."
Thu Mar 28, 2013, 05:12 PM
Mar 2013
He's an asshole. If he wants to "show some balls" I hope someone hands them to him. Putz.
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