GitHub under ongoing DDoS attack • Hacker News Board

Re: GitHub under ongoing DDoS attack

#281

Post by svckr » Sun, Mar 29, 2015, 8:57 PM UTC

TazeTSchnitzel wrote: post #238

aliakhtar wrote: post #235

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They might be using jquery because it abstracts away the quirks of different browsers (I seem to remember that old versions of firefox and IE had different APIs for making XHR requests).

But in this case there are no meaningful browser differences: var tag = document.createElement('script'); tag.src = 'https://github.com/greatfire/'; document.body.appendChild(tag); This works on any browser. Even IE6.

Which, ironically, is not so different from what they are doing to get jQuery in the first place.

Re: GitHub under ongoing DDoS attack

#282

Post by gtremper » Sun, Mar 29, 2015, 8:57 PM UTC

trekky1700 wrote: post #246

Qantourisc wrote: post #226

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We should never take up arms for a thread that has no human casualties, especially when there are alternatives. If your neighbour enter your home uninvited, because the door is not locked, the first thing you do is ask nicely not to do that. The next thing you do is lock the door. You don't start shooting at them first ...

They didn't just enter an unlocked door. They're smashing GitHub's windows, kicking GitHub's dog and flipping over furniture.

I don't think they're breaking into their system at all. They're just abusing a public interface on their sight. A more apt analogy would be repeatedly calling their phone, or ringing their doorbell nonstop. Your analogy implies they are destroying GitHub's property, which they aren't.

Re: GitHub under ongoing DDoS attack

#283

Post by vacri » Sun, Mar 29, 2015, 9:00 PM UTC

freshyill wrote: post #78

wongarsu wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>when will the rest of the world kick China of the internet? One day we're advocating net neutrality and the next day we want to ban entire countries from the internet? I still prefer net neutrality, thank you.

I don't think banning countries from the Internet is the answer, but net neutrality seems like a completely separate issue.

So because the Chinese government are being hostile, all the chinese companies innocently doing their own business should have their comms cut off as well? Chinese families should not be able to contact their travelling members? This is definitively the exact same issue - the Chinese government is not the only entity to use the Chinese intertubes.

Re: GitHub under ongoing DDoS attack

#284

Post by tracker1 » Sun, Mar 29, 2015, 9:01 PM UTC

tracker1 wrote: post #277

Qantourisc wrote: post #226

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We should never take up arms for a thread that has no human casualties, especially when there are alternatives. If your neighbour enter your home uninvited, because the door is not locked, the first thing you do is ask nicely not to do that. The next thing you do is lock the door. You don't start shooting at them first ...

I'd say cut the internet trunk lines to China... period.. end of story. That would seem to be an appropriate response. Blacklist China's internet traffic completely.

@vacri, can't reply directly to you... but here goes.

If China was loading missiles into cargo ships that fire at northern california, we wouldn't continue to let ships enter/leave China. As to the debt that China owns, they're already in a position of playing games with currency and resources to assert a dominant position.

Eventually you have to stand up for yourself. As to the do-dad manufacture costs, well I think we'd be okay if we had to go a couple years without any new do-dads.

Re: GitHub under ongoing DDoS attack

#285

Post by aceperry » Sun, Mar 29, 2015, 9:02 PM UTC

gclaramunt wrote: post #248

Qantourisc wrote: post #226

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We should never take up arms for a thread that has no human casualties, especially when there are alternatives. If your neighbour enter your home uninvited, because the door is not locked, the first thing you do is ask nicely not to do that. The next thing you do is lock the door. You don't start shooting at them first ...

This is america, we shoot first, no questions asked!

That's George W. Bush's america. Get it straight pilgrim!

Re: GitHub under ongoing DDoS attack

#286

Post by csense » Sun, Mar 29, 2015, 9:04 PM UTC

wongarsu wrote: post #41

higherpurpose wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nothing another surveill...I mean cyber law can't "fix".

Yeah, if we had a way for governments to legally and openly block arbitrary IP traffic we could prevent this. It's all necessary to fight against these commu... terrorists. It's totally necessary if we want to keep our freedom. /s

Commu-terrorists? It sounds like they're members of an Abelian terrorist group

Re: GitHub under ongoing DDoS attack

#287

Post by xorcist » Sun, Mar 29, 2015, 9:17 PM UTC

semi-extrinsic wrote: post #267

xorcist wrote: post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That doesn't look anything like the attack on GitHub. His server buckled from a couple of thousand requests because his webserver was misconfigured. GitHub probably handles an order of magnitude more requests on any normal day.

I'm not sure you understand the concept of "order of magnitude". Taken literally, you're saying you think Github handles 10 000 requests per day, which is about a factor of 10 000 to 100 000 (4-5 orders of magnitude) too low.

No. Per second. That would work out to ~ 1 M req/day. I have absolutely no idea if that's in the right ballpark or not, my point was that the misconfiguration that took down some guy's web server has absolutely nothing in common with what Github faces.

Re: GitHub under ongoing DDoS attack

#288

Post by prawn » Sun, Mar 29, 2015, 9:17 PM UTC

gtremper wrote: post #282

trekky1700 wrote: post #246

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They didn't just enter an unlocked door. They're smashing GitHub's windows, kicking GitHub's dog and flipping over furniture.

I don't think they're breaking into their system at all. They're just abusing a public interface on their sight. A more apt analogy would be repeatedly calling their phone, or ringing their doorbell nonstop. Your analogy implies they are destroying GitHub's property, which they aren't.

Bit further than that. They're crowding your front porch with the explicit purpose of preventing any of your friends, family or customers actually getting to your front door. I think the intent is important to note. It's not a child who likes the sound of a doorbell, but an adult employed to achieve a very negative outcome.

Re: GitHub under ongoing DDoS attack

#289

Post by semi-extrinsic » Sun, Mar 29, 2015, 9:28 PM UTC

xorcist wrote: post #287

semi-extrinsic wrote: post #267

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not sure you understand the concept of "order of magnitude". Taken literally, you're saying you think Github handles 10 000 requests per day, which is about a factor of 10 000 to 100 000 (4-5 orders of magnitude) too low.

No. Per second. That would work out to ~ 1 M req/day. I have absolutely no idea if that's in the right ballpark or not, my point was that the misconfiguration that took down some guy's web server has absolutely nothing in common with what Github faces.

Ok, per second it makes more sense. I couldn't find hard stats either, but one semi-dubious-looking traffic tracker said github.com sees 10 million req/day. It looked like that was for just the front page; how do we even define what a request is? For more reliable sources such as Alexa you have to pay to get these numbers.

Re: GitHub under ongoing DDoS attack

#290

Post by sqren » Sun, Mar 29, 2015, 9:32 PM UTC

rst wrote: post #271

SXX wrote: post #200

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I do understand this, but if it's Chinese government behind attack the reason why they doing this it's these anti-censorship projects hosted on GitHub. Considering GitHub already supported censorship in Russia I see no reason why don't they just block access from China to projects that Chinese gov don't like.

Because Github does not want to be complicit in Chinese government censorship, and if they blocked what that government obviously wants them to block, then they would be.

> Because Github does not want to be complicit in Chinese government censorship

I think you are missing the guy's point: what is the difference between Russian censorship and Chinese censorship? Github made a deal with Russia - why not also China?