ProtonMail pays $6k ransom, gets taken out by DDoS anyway • Hacker News Board

Re: ProtonMail pays $6k ransom, gets taken out by DDoS anyway

#151

Post by treenyc » Sun, Nov 08, 2015, 1:20 PM UTC

tomjen3 wrote: post #143

geofft wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Poems by the man who romanticized the colonization of my grandparents' country are always cool, but the logic doesn't hold up. If you're not as well-armed as the British Empire, and you very much do not have the resources to defeat the Dane, it's nice that the end of the game is oppression and shame, but you're going to lose well before you even get to endgame.

You do realize why the British called it the "dane geld" and not tribute right? Because the Dane used to plounder the English and demand gold to go away, and the English learned to their sorrow what happens when you pay the dane geld. And I say that as a Dane.

This is told to me by a Danish classmate (while intoxicated at a party).

He asked me: do you know why we say "Skull" when we drink? I said: No I don't.

He Said: Well, back then during the Viking times. The Danes would fight all the way to the kingdom and cut the off the Skulls of the English princes; Dump out their brains and use the skull as cup for drinks. Hence the word "Skull".

I said: Huh? Interesting!

"And then we also took all their good looking women. And that's why all the Danish girls are soo good looking" Add him.

You got love the Danish people!

Re: ProtonMail pays $6k ransom, gets taken out by DDoS anyway

#152

Post by JupiterMoon » Sun, Nov 08, 2015, 1:28 PM UTC

jacquesm wrote: post #141

SeanDav wrote: post #137

Earlier quoted context omitted.

(Note - I am from one of the countries invaded and occupied by Britain) I must come to Britain's defence here - it's behaviour was normal in those times but it did eventually give up most of its "ownership" without actually being defeated in wars. That was pretty amazing. By modern standards, British behaviour was despicable, but a lot of the invaded countries got enormous benefits - rule of law, economic infrastruct…

See also: The life of Brian, 'What have the Romans ever done for us'. As for Britain giving up its ownership: To this date formally England lays claim to a whole bunch of places that they have colonized and in some cases it has gone to war to keep that situation as it is. That the UK gave up India is a pretty complex affair but you can bet that the 'let's fight' option was only taken off the table when someone did so…

I seriously doubt that the "let's fight" option was anywhere near the table when India gained independence. The records will all be public by now.

> As for Britain giving up its ownership: To this date formally England lays claim to a whole bunch of places that they have colonized and in some cases it has gone to war to keep that situation as it is.

Examples in post Suez history include?

Re: ProtonMail pays $6k ransom, gets taken out by DDoS anyway

#153

Post by nugga » Sun, Nov 08, 2015, 1:49 PM UTC

JupiterMoon wrote: post #152

jacquesm wrote: post #141

Earlier quoted context omitted.

See also: The life of Brian, 'What have the Romans ever done for us'. As for Britain giving up its ownership: To this date formally England lays claim to a whole bunch of places that they have colonized and in some cases it has gone to war to keep that situation as it is. That the UK gave up India is a pretty complex affair but you can bet that the 'let's fight' option was only taken off the table when someone did so…

I seriously doubt that the "let's fight" option was anywhere near the table when India gained independence. The records will all be public by now. > As for Britain giving up its ownership: To this date formally England lays claim to a whole bunch of places that they have colonized and in some cases it has gone to war to keep that situation as it is. Examples in post Suez history include?

He's probably talking about Malvinas (Falklands) among other places.

Re: ProtonMail pays $6k ransom, gets taken out by DDoS anyway

#154

Post by troels » Sun, Nov 08, 2015, 1:49 PM UTC

throwaway09128 wrote: post #34

rcurry wrote: post #32

It is always a temptation to an armed and agile nation To call upon a neighbour and to say: -- "We invaded you last night--we are quite prepared to fight, Unless you pay us cash to go away." And that is called asking for Dane-geld, And the people who ask it explain That you've only to pay 'em the Dane-geld And then you'll get rid of the Dane! It is always a temptation for a rich and lazy nation, To puff and look impo…

never deal with terrorists

They are not terrorists though. Their goal isn't to harm their target - their goal is to enrich them selves through ransom.

Re: ProtonMail pays $6k ransom, gets taken out by DDoS anyway

#155

Post by teddyh » Sun, Nov 08, 2015, 1:52 PM UTC

treenyc wrote: post #151

tomjen3 wrote: post #143

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You do realize why the British called it the "dane geld" and not tribute right? Because the Dane used to plounder the English and demand gold to go away, and the English learned to their sorrow what happens when you pay the dane geld. And I say that as a Dane.

This is told to me by a Danish classmate (while intoxicated at a party). He asked me: do you know why we say "Skull" when we drink? I said: No I don't. He Said: Well, back then during the Viking times. The Danes would fight all the way to the kingdom and cut the off the Skulls of the English princes; Dump out their brains and use the skull as cup for drinks. Hence the word "Skull". I said: Huh? Interesting! "And then…

That is all bullshit. The word is not “Skull”, it is “Skål”, and it is a normal noun, meaning “Bowl”.

Re: ProtonMail pays $6k ransom, gets taken out by DDoS anyway

#156

Post by swombat » Sun, Nov 08, 2015, 1:52 PM UTC

mtgx wrote: post #135

jacquesm wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They put their customers in charge of the company? This gets weirder all the time. The problem is that they asked their customers in the first place. They should have simply communicated the fact that they would be under attack shortly and indicate that they would never ever pay a red cent . That would give their customers time to batten the hatches and/or migrate off the system for the time being while sending a cle…

ProtonMail can't be trusted with any decisions about its business going forward, no matter how good their service (of which I still have doubts anyway). I mean, who knows what kind of compromises they will make next if they get "pressured" by the government or whoever to put a backdoor in their service.

I always find that the best way to make a decision about who to trust is on the basis of a brief article by a third party that, in a 2 minute read, covers high pressure events that spanned many hours. Even better if you throw in some highly informed opinions by random people in an online community. It's a very reliable way to decide on important things like trust.

Re: ProtonMail pays $6k ransom, gets taken out by DDoS anyway

#157

Post by kawsper » Sun, Nov 08, 2015, 1:54 PM UTC

treenyc wrote: post #151

tomjen3 wrote: post #143

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You do realize why the British called it the "dane geld" and not tribute right? Because the Dane used to plounder the English and demand gold to go away, and the English learned to their sorrow what happens when you pay the dane geld. And I say that as a Dane.

This is told to me by a Danish classmate (while intoxicated at a party). He asked me: do you know why we say "Skull" when we drink? I said: No I don't. He Said: Well, back then during the Viking times. The Danes would fight all the way to the kingdom and cut the off the Skulls of the English princes; Dump out their brains and use the skull as cup for drinks. Hence the word "Skull". I said: Huh? Interesting! "And then…

There is a lot of debate about the origins of the word, and the skull story is a nice (but brutal) party story. Let me give you another version.

Back in the days people were drinking off bowls, instead of cups as we do today. And guess what the danish word for bowl is? "Skål".

A "skål" is a flat version of "trebolle". You can see one if you Google Image search for "trebolle" to get an idea of how it looks.

Re: ProtonMail pays $6k ransom, gets taken out by DDoS anyway

#158

Post by Paradigma11 » Sun, Nov 08, 2015, 2:05 PM UTC

jacquesm wrote: post #141

SeanDav wrote: post #137

Earlier quoted context omitted.

(Note - I am from one of the countries invaded and occupied by Britain) I must come to Britain's defence here - it's behaviour was normal in those times but it did eventually give up most of its "ownership" without actually being defeated in wars. That was pretty amazing. By modern standards, British behaviour was despicable, but a lot of the invaded countries got enormous benefits - rule of law, economic infrastruct…

See also: The life of Brian, 'What have the Romans ever done for us'. As for Britain giving up its ownership: To this date formally England lays claim to a whole bunch of places that they have colonized and in some cases it has gone to war to keep that situation as it is. That the UK gave up India is a pretty complex affair but you can bet that the 'let's fight' option was only taken off the table when someone did so…

But the grandparent was talking about systematic extortion. Which is a specific allegation that i understand to mean bleeding the colony dry under threat of force. The parent states that this specific allegation is not true and that many countries were better off than before or counterfactual without colony rule.

Re: ProtonMail pays $6k ransom, gets taken out by DDoS anyway

#159

Post by srean » Sun, Nov 08, 2015, 2:06 PM UTC

littletimmy wrote: post #101

geofft wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Poems by the man who romanticized the colonization of my grandparents' country are always cool, but the logic doesn't hold up. If you're not as well-armed as the British Empire, and you very much do not have the resources to defeat the Dane, it's nice that the end of the game is oppression and shame, but you're going to lose well before you even get to endgame.

If you are talking about India, it wasn't a "country" before the British. It was a mixture of disparate kingdoms and sultanates. Not to mention that before the British, most of India was under Muslim colonizers i.e. the Mughals. The Indians have always been a conquered people, it is only in the last 70 years that they have had freedom; you should thank the British for it.

Define "country". To make your statement above to be true you will need a pretty narrow and tautological definition.

I presume you are not the brightest bulb as far as Indian history is concerned so it will help a bit if you read up a bit on Indian history, even Wikipedia would be a good start.

Re: ProtonMail pays $6k ransom, gets taken out by DDoS anyway

#160

Post by snowy » Sun, Nov 08, 2015, 2:13 PM UTC

Does any one know the technical details of the attack? The article simply refers to it as 'highly advanced denial-of-service attacks'.

From the fact that it knocked off their upstream providers also means it was probably just a simple volumetric attack like an NTP or DNS reflection attack. These are relatively easy to defend against.

I work for an ISP that gets hit with 5 or 6 of these a week, but because of the mitigation strategies we have in place our customers don't even notice...