Thursday, December 9, 2010

Why Attackers Failed to Shutdown Amazon.com


The group calling itself Anonymous has been wreaking havoc with various internet sites in recent days by directing Denial of Service attacks on those seen as aiding governments in attempting to shutdown WikiLeaks.

Both Mastercard and Visa were down intermittently yesterday because of the DNS attacks..

A scheduled attack on Amazon.com failed this morning for the simple reason that Amazon.com has huge spare capacity.

CNN explains:

...Amazon (AMZN, Fortune 500) has spent years creating and refining an "elastic" infrastructure, called EC2, designed to automatically scale to handle giant traffic spikes. The company has so much spare server capacity, in fact, that it runs a sideline business hosting other websites. Its customers include the New York Times, Second Life, Etsy, Playfish, the Indianapolis 500 and the Washington Post...Amazon's entire business model is built around handling intense traffic spikes. The holiday shopping season essentially is a month-long DDoS attack on Amazon's servers -- so the company has spent lavishly to fortify itself.

Anonymous quickly figured that out. Less than an hour after setting its sights on Amazon, the group's organizers called off the attempt. "We don't have enough forces," they tweeted.

8 comments:

  1. These people are idiots.

    Amazon is bowing to pressure from the governments of the world. So are Mastercard, Visa, Paypal, etc. . . Why go after them? Seriously, they would gladly keep up Wikileaks if not for threat of jail and/or massive fines. So, why jack up their business and also their customers who have no idea what the hell is even happening?

    This is just stupid thuggery. This will just piss off people that don't care one way or another and serve as another reason for the governments of the world to tighten their noose around the internet.

    I'm a fan of Wikileaks and I hope they continue, but it has to be said as plain as possible--The fools engaging in this vandalism are making an already bad situation, much, much worse.

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  2. you'll note that it can be assumed that government websites are not so resilient. because where is the incentive to obtain it? "nobody would do that to us. we'll just use The Hammer."

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  3. @ Anonymous 4:11pm.

    “Amazon is bowing to pressure from the governments of the world. So are Mastercard, Visa, Paypal, etc. . . Why go after them? Seriously, they would gladly keep up Wikileaks if not for threat of jail and/or massive fines...”

    How can you know what these mega-corporations would “gladly” do, or not do, under any circumstances? These entities are now very big players and associate members of a very powerful club, with mutually beneficial ties to our banking and finance overlords and their political lackeys. Is it jail and fines they fear, or loss of their seats at the other end of the table?

    It is not as if these companies are any longer independent businesses operating in a free market and bending over backward to cater to small businesses and individuals. Their mere status as trans-national corporations give them more influence in some ways than many government agencies.

    “So, why jack up their business and also their customers who have no idea what the hell is even happening? ...This will just piss off people that don't care one way or another

    Because they are complicit with, and get favors from, a very formidable and tyrannical adversary – an enemy of everything that is right and true. And because if their customers have no idea what is happening, they better find out.

    “This is just stupid thuggery. This will just piss off people that don't care one way or another and serve as another reason for the governments of the world to tighten their noose around the internet.”

    Well, gee whiz, we wouldn't want to “piss off” the people who just don't give a damn, do we. And, by all means, let's not push the government folks over the edge. Maybe if we make just this one last concession and don't annoy them too much, they will forget all about their plans to further tighten the noose. After all, it's not as if they won't find some other reason to do so, if the current incident fails to work.

    “I'm a fan of Wikileaks and I hope they continue...,”

    Yeah, you sound like a really loyal fan.

    On no other legal basis than trumped up rape allegations having to do with broken or absent condoms by two former fans who admitted their trysts were consensual and having been charged, let alone found guilty, of absolutely nothing else, Assange is being held without bail by Scotland Yard, has had his passport revoked by his home country of Australia, will be extradited by the UK to Sweden and from there “renditioned” to the US, where he hasn't a chance in hell of avoiding God knows what kind of “enhanced interrogations,” let alone being set free ever again.

    And you blandly say you “hope” Wikileaks continues.

    “...but it has to be said as plain as possible--The fools engaging in this vandalism are making an already bad situation, much, much worse.”

    Once upon a time, two fellows named Woodward and Bernstein were hailed as heroes for their publication in the Washington Post of classified information, leaked to them by Deep Throat, about the conduct of a sitting U.S. President.

    Now, Assange alone has done what the now useless, government-controlled media throughout Europe and the US should have been doing for many years.

    We are on the verge of international economic collapse and global tyranny.

    And you fret about foolish vandals making a bad situation worse.

    Incredible.

    Andrew

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  4. Seems like the government started this little war with their own DOSAs. Didn't see anyone here complaining then? Didn't see anyone here rising to defend WikiLeak's right to a operate unimpeded then? Where were your arguments that the government had no right to attack the corporations that supported WikiLeaks business model? Washington started this war, the people are merely fighting back. It is no surprise that corporations, entities that rely on the state for charters and special protections, are getting caught in the middle. It is, after all, the CORPORATE-state that is the crucial villain in in the war. You are however correct that most likely all this is going to do is allow governments, the thugs with the bigger resources, to roll out bigger guns and stronger walls in the long run, and any short term advance will be merely illusionary. That might be a good thing though. The sooner that more people come to the realization that nation states are no longer a force for good in this world the better.

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  5. "Your comment will be visible after approval."

    That right there says a lot about the environment that has produced this situation. The entire world is scared to allow free speech on their websites for fear -- for fear.

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  6. Andrew,

    Get a grip, seriously.

    You claim that these companies are complicit. I say, if they are, it's because they had a gun to their head in the first place. Ask yourself, why so many people pay the taxes they do, even when it goes towards wars that can't stand, policies they hate, subsidies they disagree with and bailouts they revile? Because it's the stick/cage if they don't. And those are the people that care.

    But truth is, your average person doesn't care all that much about Wikileaks. Nor do they give a damn about pretty much anything that doesn't affect them immediately and directly. What they will notice is that the business they can no longer frequent was jacked and they will hate the vandals that did it, and by association, their cause.

    Exposing evil government secrecy is awesome and should be done more. But attacks on private citizens that have done nothing but try to not get crushed by a power mad government is never cool.

    As I said before, this entire episode will be used by the government to clamp down on the internet. It was one thing when it was just leaked documents, but now it's criminal vandalism against private businesses. The government already had a (fraudulent) reason to go after any internet group of leakers and/or hackers, but now there's one more (fraudulent) reason. Get ready for a TSA type of agency for the internet if the hackers you're cheering on keep attacking sites.

    Anon #1

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  7. "That right there says a lot about the environment that has produced this situation. The entire world is scared to allow free speech on their websites for fear -- for fear"

    Good god, calm down. Most people have things like that on their websites because of spam comments.

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  8. "Ask yourself, why so many people pay the taxes they do, even when it goes towards wars that can't stand, policies they hate, subsidies they disagree with and bailouts they revile? Because it's the stick/cage if they don't."

    Right, the bad guys are adding a cost for non-compliance that outweighs the benefits. If people want to see actual results, they'll have to do the same thing - make complying just as costly as not complying. Hence, stuff like DDoS attacks and boycotts.

    The "we were afraid of what the government would do to us if we didn't submit" defense is literally the same thing as "we were just following orders." It doesn't erase your culpability. Even if you're not going to stand up and fight them, don't do their dirty work.

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