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GitHub under ongoing DDoS attack

status.github.com

171–180 of 352 posts

Re: GitHub under ongoing DDoS attack

#172
From looking at the Javascript injection code (http://www.theregister.co.uk/2015/03/27/github_under_fire_fr...) it seems like the quality of the script is pretty amateur.

They inject jQuery not once, but twice, and only use jQuery to make a simple XHR request. Perhaps they are worried about one instance of jQuery being taken down or made unavailable to them, but they really don't need jQuery at all for something this simple.

Re: GitHub under ongoing DDoS attack

#173
Each time i hear about DDoS attacks i wonder why we don't have serious effective mitigation strategies even though there are brilliant computer scientists out there who always come up with very smart solutions, this is a genuine question and not a rhetorical one.

Re: GitHub under ongoing DDoS attack

#174
post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

China will be kicked from the internet at about the same time US and their NSA will be kicked. Which is quite unlikely. We don't kick out USA because NSA breaks into backbone routers, steal encryption codes from sim cards, and steal traffic from google search, Gmail and Facebook. China attacks github, and the reaction will be likely the same. At some point, it is going to make a economical sense to issue a treaty aga…

If the PRC were merely snooping, and not actively attacking, that equivalence would work. I was also under the impression that this is already in violation of treaty, the only saving grace for the PRC being that it hasn't been proven it's them.

Well if it isn't proven it's them, just let's not assume guilty, right?

Re: GitHub under ongoing DDoS attack

#175
post #168

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This might be part of the attribution: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9275381

Thanks, so if I understand well, every js gotten from baidu cdn from outside China has a malicious code attacking github. Weird. It could be some test gone wrong, but I still don't buy Chinese gov attacking purposely and openly github like that. It's like showing your one time secret weapon way too early and on some wrong target. Or maybe it's a way to make some big noise to the left while the real target is discrete…

No one is buying that.

Re: GitHub under ongoing DDoS attack

#176
post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If that was what the Chinese government wanted they could simply block all access from China to github. In fact they did that once but had to undo that because the damage to the IT sector would be too big. China doesn't want github inaccessible, they want github to take down repos which the Chinese censor doesn’t like.

Hmm, maybe Github could block all access from China except for these two projects, serve a special home page with install instructions, and make it so that with either of these installed you can access all of Github from China?

They can't selectively block parts of github when it's going over HTTPS. All they see is an encrypted connection from inside China to github.com.

Re: GitHub under ongoing DDoS attack

#177
post #173

Each time i hear about DDoS attacks i wonder why we don't have serious effective mitigation strategies even though there are brilliant computer scientists out there who always come up with very smart solutions, this is a genuine question and not a rhetorical one.

Well let's brain storm! How can one improve on what is currently out there? Faster recognition and diversion of traffic flow?

Re: GitHub under ongoing DDoS attack

#178
Interestingly enough, if the attacks never stop (which is a possibility), the engineers at GitHub might still come up with a way to effectively nullify DDOS and continue their normal operations.

Which would be a massive advance in cyberdefense. It's unlikely, but it would be a great example of "natural selection" (via their intelligent engineers' efforts) at work.

It will no doubt take ingenuity, but I don't think any other website than GitHub is in the position to do this. Especially right now.

Re: GitHub under ongoing DDoS attack

#179
post #168

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This might be part of the attribution: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9275381

Thanks, so if I understand well, every js gotten from baidu cdn from outside China has a malicious code attacking github. Weird. It could be some test gone wrong, but I still don't buy Chinese gov attacking purposely and openly github like that. It's like showing your one time secret weapon way too early and on some wrong target. Or maybe it's a way to make some big noise to the left while the real target is discrete…

This isn't the first time [0] China has been accused of using it's filtering to DDoS enemies. It's not a secret weapon really, it's an obvious capability of being able to redirect a large majority of your country's internet traffic at will.

[0] http://furbo.org/2015/01/22/fear-china/

Re: GitHub under ongoing DDoS attack

#180

Why can't GitHub just serve up pages with javascript that causes the user to re-attack the source of the initial attacks?

Or mine bitcoins for them on the attacking user's machine, to pay for the increased bandwidth.

(Probably hard to do it in a way that wouldn't backfire in some way or another, but the idea still makes me smile).

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