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Linode and the Google Cyber Attacks

blog.linode.com

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Re: Linode and the Google Cyber Attacks

#31

Post by idlewords »

axod wrote: post #27
rms wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I meant cheapest per unit of RAM. Do you know of any decently reliable VPS provider with cheaper prices for 256/512/1024 MB of RAM?

Average website backends shouldn't really be limited by RAM unless you're doing some really heavy lifting, or made some bad choices. I'm more concerned about bandwidth. prgmr is close, but not quite as cheap as linode when it comes to bandwidth. Depends what your needs are though.

That's simply false. RAM is the constraint of interest for plenty of single-server websites that are running MySQL as a backend. You want a bunch of memory for the database, plus enough left over to accommodate your web app. That often means wanting a 2-4 GB machine.

Linode is something like $55/GB RAM per month, while prgmr.com is $14.

Re: Linode and the Google Cyber Attacks

#32

Post by idlewords »

donw wrote: post #4

Totally unrelated to the article, but I've got to put my good word in for Linode. I've never had such good service from a hosting provider, and frankly for a (currently) tiny account.

If you go by monthly cost per GB of memory or especially storage, Linode is one of the most expensive options out there (~$60/GB RAM, $1.25/GB storage).

They do have pretty graphs, though!

Re: Linode and the Google Cyber Attacks

#33

Post by techiferous »

slig wrote: post #22
Kilimanjaro wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is a $20 vps (360MB ram) enough for a small website? I want to get one for me but I don't want to get rammed in the ass when I realize it is not enough and need to upgrade to at least 1GB. I see I can get 1GB RAM at prgmr.com for the same $20

I used to run a create-your-own-quiz django powered site with 6k uniques/day(in the last few days), with no cache, and it barely touched my 360 vps. You can see some nice graphs here: http://slig.imgur.com/linode

Thanks for sharing! How do you interpret those graphs? How do you know when the user experience is slow or when the server is maxxed out?

Re: Linode and the Google Cyber Attacks

#34

Post by peterwwillis »

skorgu wrote: post #29
peterwwillis wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

has the cheapest prices out of any VPS by far This is not accurate. There are many VPS's which are cheaper, many of which have much greater capacity for the money. Some are fly-by-night scams. Others have several years of stability with good support. Check forums and VPS review sites to find the best match. That said, I have nothing against prgmr or linode and would use them if I needed a super-reliable VPS. (My main…

How satisfied are you with Kerplunc? Their unmetered VPSen look like an incredible bandwidth deal, almost suspiciously good.

haven't had it for long enough , but the bandwidth seems spotty (sometimes 500k, sometimes 2mbit, etc) and seemingly high ssh latency, maybe cpu load on my slice. but other'n that good so far

Re: Linode and the Google Cyber Attacks

#35

Post by glymor »

romland wrote: post #30
staunch wrote: post #2

I take it Google used Linode as a neutral/anonymous place to access stuff from?

I read it that way too. But I am still very curious where and in which context Linode was mentioned in media.

"The servers used in both attacks employ the HomeLinux DynamicDNS provider, and both are currently pointing to IP addresses owned by Linode, a US-based company that offers Virtual Private Server hosting. The IP addresses in question are within the same subnet, and they are six IP addresses apart from each other,"

Quote attributed to VeriSign's iDefense security lab in http://arstechnica.com/security/news/2010/01/researchers-ide...

Re: Linode and the Google Cyber Attacks

#36

Post by axod »

idlewords wrote: post #31
axod wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Average website backends shouldn't really be limited by RAM unless you're doing some really heavy lifting, or made some bad choices. I'm more concerned about bandwidth. prgmr is close, but not quite as cheap as linode when it comes to bandwidth. Depends what your needs are though.

That's simply false. RAM is the constraint of interest for plenty of single-server websites that are running MySQL as a backend. You want a bunch of memory for the database, plus enough left over to accommodate your web app. That often means wanting a 2-4 GB machine. Linode is something like $55/GB RAM per month, while prgmr.com is $14.

2-4GB? wth are you doing?

I remember a post on here saying how hackernews was running on a new 8GB server or something. There's no reason it couldn't run on a 200MB server easily.

(Related: Is HN really sluggish for everyone else as well? Like 3-4 seconds per page load)

Re: Linode and the Google Cyber Attacks

#37

Post by mikeliu »

tptacek wrote: post #6

One article I saw implicated a Rackspace server in the attacker's side of event. I presume that meant Slicehost. If I was breaking into computers "off the clock", I'd probably look to just-a-CC# no-questions-asked hosting providers (probably overseas) as my staging ground. This is something new. Commodity virtualized VPS systems like Slicehost are an awfully convenient way to launder attacks. It's only been in the la…

Except to pay for one of these, you still pay via credit card, paypal, etc. that links to real identifiable info. I was wondering why, if one of the attackers instances were discovered by google, they didn't just hand it over to the authorities and have them get a subpoena for the account info? or maybe they did

Re: Linode and the Google Cyber Attacks

#38

Post by rms »

mikeliu wrote: post #37
tptacek wrote: post #6

One article I saw implicated a Rackspace server in the attacker's side of event. I presume that meant Slicehost. If I was breaking into computers "off the clock", I'd probably look to just-a-CC# no-questions-asked hosting providers (probably overseas) as my staging ground. This is something new. Commodity virtualized VPS systems like Slicehost are an awfully convenient way to launder attacks. It's only been in the la…

Except to pay for one of these, you still pay via credit card, paypal, etc. that links to real identifiable info. I was wondering why, if one of the attackers instances were discovered by google, they didn't just hand it over to the authorities and have them get a subpoena for the account info? or maybe they did

If you can stage an attack like this, you can steal credit card numbers or phish your way to a Paypal account

Re: Linode and the Google Cyber Attacks

#39

Post by rms »

axod wrote: post #36
idlewords wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's simply false. RAM is the constraint of interest for plenty of single-server websites that are running MySQL as a backend. You want a bunch of memory for the database, plus enough left over to accommodate your web app. That often means wanting a 2-4 GB machine. Linode is something like $55/GB RAM per month, while prgmr.com is $14.

2-4GB? wth are you doing? I remember a post on here saying how hackernews was running on a new 8GB server or something. There's no reason it couldn't run on a 200MB server easily. (Related: Is HN really sluggish for everyone else as well? Like 3-4 seconds per page load)

If you really think you could run HN on 200MB of RAM, write a blog post about how to do it and submit it here. I'm sure the community would like to know how. I think your ability to write applications using minimal amounts of RAM is out of sync with the median RAM use here.

Re: Linode and the Google Cyber Attacks

#40

Post by tptacek »

rms wrote: post #38
mikeliu wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Except to pay for one of these, you still pay via credit card, paypal, etc. that links to real identifiable info. I was wondering why, if one of the attackers instances were discovered by google, they didn't just hand it over to the authorities and have them get a subpoena for the account info? or maybe they did

If you can stage an attack like this, you can steal credit card numbers or phish your way to a Paypal account

Not that it matters (I'm sure if they're actually paying for VM's they're using stolen cards), but you can trade cash for anonymous credit card numbers in a number of places. Simplest example: Google "Vanilla VISA".
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