Live data from Hacker News

The Internet Archive is under a DDoS attack

mastodon.archive.org

81–90 of 227 posts

Re: The Internet Archive is under a DDoS attack

#81
post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

IIUC, that's always a good theory for unexplained DDoS. Though, even if they have only profit motivations, I'm a little surprised when they don't seem to let ideology influence their selection of targets for demos. For the sake of argument (maybe not true), let's say that all techies are aware of archive.org, and consider it beneficial, probably using it themselves. Why don't they instead demo against a target that w…

Perhaps cruelty is the point. Perhaps they intentionally attack targets that are generally seen in a positive light, to prove to potential customers that morale is not an issue. Oh, you want me to DDOS a children's hospital? No problem.

Thus is the power of The Dark Side^W^W^W late-stage capitalism.

Re: The Internet Archive is under a DDoS attack

#82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are botnets usually hosted on personal computers or servers or IoT? I'm thinking maybe archive.org can block a whole range of IPs if needed.

Resistance to that kind of simple countermeasure is exactly what distinguishes a DDoS attack from a non-distributed DoS attack. The traffic basically comes from "everywhere". Not literally every IP block and route, but widespread enough that it's difficult to separate from legitimate users without actually processing the traffic (which is what you're trying to avoid by e.g. blocking an IP range).

Thanks. And I assume they mostly come from friendly countries which makes it even harder to block?

This is indeed very tough to resist.

Re: The Internet Archive is under a DDoS attack

#83

What are the ways to manage a DDoS attack, preferably using open source? Don't say Cloudflare because they're an extortionist firm.

HAProxy + DDOS protection? https://www.haproxy.com/blog/application-layer-ddos-attack-p...

Or any proof of work proxy that delays the ingress traffic. If you only have one server there is very little you can do except maybe redirect to a static page or kill the DNS entries.

Re: The Internet Archive is under a DDoS attack

#84
post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And they're curiously usually protected by Cloudflare.

Doubt cloudflare has anything to do with it. The operators most likely don't want to openly expose their website's ip addresses.

It's obvious why a DDOS provider would want to use Cloudflare, but their point is that Cloudflare turns a blind eye to DDOS providers using their services. Actively helping to keep DDOS providers online while also selling DDOS mitigation isn't a good look to say the least.

Re: The Internet Archive is under a DDoS attack

#85

What are the ways to manage a DDoS attack, preferably using open source? Don't say Cloudflare because they're an extortionist firm.

I have asked this a few times and never gotten an answer beyond "One day they could turn evil." What is the reason Cloudflare is an extortionist firm? I am way more concerned about Amazon than Cloudflare.

Beyond the upselling under duress, I've also seen complaints that Cloudflare protects the client-facing websites of DDoS-as-service operators. This enables them to sell their service, which then creates demand for Cloudflare's service from their targets.

Cloudflare describes that policy as a commitment to content neutrality rather than extortion, and I think that's more or less sincere (since they've protected many other unpopular sites that didn't give them such a benefit, with a few high-profile exceptions). It does work out very conveniently for them, though.

Re: The Internet Archive is under a DDoS attack

#86
post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And they're curiously usually protected by Cloudflare.

Doubt cloudflare has anything to do with it. The operators most likely don't want to openly expose their website's ip addresses.

That is exactly the problem. These services are constantly at war with each other and are attacked by competitors. Cloudflare provides DDoS protection to the DDoS providers so they can keep their services online, which directly benefits Cloudflare by DDoS being a bigger problem than if they were all busy attacking each other.

This is a sampling of currently available services and who they use for DDoS protection:

  stresslab.app - Cloudflare
  maxstresser.com - Cloudflare
  sunnystress.com - Cloudflare
  tresser.io - Cloudflare
  ip-stresser.net - Cloudflare
  hardstresser.com - DDoSGuard
  zdstresser.net - Cloudflare
  starkstresser.net - Cloudflare
  stresserhub.org - Cloudflare
  nightmarestresser.net - DDoSGuard
Just for fun head over to Cloudflare's abuse reporting site and try to figure out how to get one of these taken down. https://abuse.cloudflare.com/

Re: The Internet Archive is under a DDoS attack

#87
post #74

Why, what's the point in doing such nonsense? Unless it's someone with lots of money, contacts in the dark web, and some historic Barbara Streisand type chip on the shoulder.

Seriously? People do this shit for fun. There used to be a program (LOIC) popular on 4chan used for DDoS attacks all the time, it's the origin of the "firin mah lazer" meme.

The lazer meme (2006) predates LOIC (~2010) by years https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/shoop-da-whoop

Re: The Internet Archive is under a DDoS attack

#88
post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Doubt cloudflare has anything to do with it. The operators most likely don't want to openly expose their website's ip addresses.

That is exactly the problem. These services are constantly at war with each other and are attacked by competitors. Cloudflare provides DDoS protection to the DDoS providers so they can keep their services online, which directly benefits Cloudflare by DDoS being a bigger problem than if they were all busy attacking each other. This is a sampling of currently available services and who they use for DDoS protection: str…

DDoSGuard has a reputation for being The Crime CDN, disproportionately serving things like phishing campaigns, black hat forums, piracy sites, etc, so the fact that they are merely the second most popular CDN amongst DDOS providers after Cloudflare speaks volumes.

Re: The Internet Archive is under a DDoS attack

#89

How much $$ does archive.org spend on infra and such? How much does one need to endure the most damaging DDOS? I remember seeing from somewhere that Google went through some huge DDOS attack without going down. Given its benefit to the lay persons I recommend everyone who use their services give a small amount once for a while. I already did so but if not for family issues I'd donate way more.

DDoS attacks are usually volumetric attack. Send more bits than the pipe the website has to the internet.

To combat this you need to buy enough pipes to the internet for your regular internet traffic, as well as an extra 500 Gbps or so. That is a lot of unused bandwidth to be paying for every month. Then once the packets arrive at your datacenter you still need to buy dedicated appliances to scrub out the bad and let the good flow.

Google is constantly under attack, but their normal daily traffic volume (multiple Tbps) is large enough that just the extra capacity they keep on hand to deal with traffic spikes the World Cup or a popular YouTube video is larger than what most attackers can muster.

Post reply on HN