Wasn't there a ton of drama with the SpamHaus guys a year or so ago regarding RBL's on NANOG?
On 3/27/13 2:54 PM, "Scott Weeks" <[email protected]> wrote: > >--- [email protected] wrote: >From: William Herrin <[email protected]> > >According to the New York Times it was 300 gbps and Cyberbunker was the >bad guy. >http://www.nytimes.com/2013/03/27/technology/internet/online-dispute-becom >es-internet-snarling-attack.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0 >----------------------------------------- > >Got a link that we don't have to allow cookies and have to create an >account to read? >------------------------------------------------------------ > > >I found it using startpage.com's proxy and pasted it below for >others that don't want to create accounts and all: > > >A squabble between a group fighting spam and a Dutch company that hosts >Web sites said to be sending spam has escalated into one of the largest >computer attacks on the Internet, causing widespread congestion and >jamming crucial infrastructure around the world, John Markoff and Nicole >Perlroth write on Wednesday in The New York Times. > >Millions of ordinary Internet users have experienced delays in services >like Netflix or could not reach a particular Web site for a short time. >However, for the Internet engineers who run the global network, the >problem is more worrisome. The attacks are becoming increasingly >powerful, and computer security experts worry that if they continue to >escalate, people may not be able to reach basic Internet services, like >e-mail and online banking. > >The dispute started when the spam-fighting group, called Spamhaus, added >the Dutch company Cyberbunker to its blacklist, which is used by e-mail >providers to weed out spam. Cyberbunker, named for its headquarters, a >five-story former NATO bunker, offers hosting services to any Web site >³except child porn and anything related to terrorism,² according to its >Web site. > >A spokesman for Spamhaus, which is based in Europe, said the attacks >began on March 19, but had not stopped the group from distributing its >blacklist. > >Patrick Gilmore, chief architect at Akamai Networks, a digital content >provider, said Spamhaus¹s role was to generate a list of Internet >spammers. Of Cyberbunker, he added: ³These guys are just mad. To be >frank, they got caught. They think they should be allowed to spam.² > >Mr. Gilmore said that the attacks, which are generated by swarms of >computers called botnets, concentrate data streams that are larger than >the Internet connections of entire countries. He likened the technique, >which uses a long-known flaw in the Internet¹s basic plumbing, to using a >machine gun to spray an entire crowd when the intent is to kill one >person. The so-called distributed denial of service, or DDoS, attacks >have reached previously unknown magnitudes, growing to a data stream of >300 billion bits per second. > >Questioned about the attacks, Sven Olaf Kamphuis, an Internet activist >who said he was a spokesman for the attackers, said in an online message >that, ³We are aware that this is one of the largest DDoS attacks the >world had publicly seen.² Mr. Kamphuis said Cyberbunker was retaliating >against Spamhaus for ³abusing their influence.² > > >scott
