The Mis-Adventures in Technology of an Old Dog Learning New Tricks…

Posts tagged ‘gaming’

The Biggest Cyber War in History! Cyber-attack on Spamhaus slows down the internet

(RT) The biggest cyber-attack in history has caused a worldwide web slowdown as the battle between an anti-spam group and a Dutch web host continues to heat up.

The largest known distributed-denial-of-service (DDoS) attack in history was sparked when the non-profit group Spamhaus placed CyberBunker on a real-time blacklist of sites to be blocked for spreading spam earlier this month.

The (DDoS) attacks – which flood targeted web servers with fake traffic to make them inaccessible – have reportedly caused millions to experience delays with services such as the Netflix video-streaming service and made other sites temporarily unavailable. Experts fear the web congestion could lead to banking and email system slowdowns around the world.

Spamhaus servers were at one point being inundated with 300 billion bits per second (300Gbps) of data, three times larger than the previous record attack of 100 Gbps, Darren Anstee from Arbor Networks Solutions told IBTimes UK.

Image from cyberbunker.com

Image from cyberbunker.com

Spamhaus, which helps email providers filter out spam and other questionable content, first reported the attacks on March 20.

Steve Linford, chief executive for Spamhaus, told the BBC that this scale of attack could knock down government Internet infrastructure.

“If you aimed this at Downing Street they would be down instantly,” he said. “They would be completely off the Internet.”

Linford noted that “when there are attacks against major banks, we’re talking about 50 gbs.”

Five separate cyber-police-forces are investigating the incident, he added, though he could not disclose any further details.

Spamhaus further accused Cyberbunker of collaborating with criminal gangs from Eastern Europe and Russia to carry out the attacks.

Image from cyberbunker.com

Image from cyberbunker.com

‘Cyberbunker not behind current attacks’

Cyberbunker, which operates out of a “secretive nuclear bunker,” prides itself on rebuking “authorities regarding the rights of individuals. ” The firm, boasts they will provide bandwidth to anything but child pornography or terrorism related content.

Sven Olaf Kamphuis, an internet activist and self-described spokesman for Cyberbunker, reportedly told the New York Times the ongoing attack was retaliation for Spamhaus “abusing their influence.”However, later on Wednesday Kamphuis told RT’s news video agency RUPTLY via Skype that quotes attributed to him by the NYT were part of a campaign of “misinformation” against Cyberbunker, which he says is not currently carrying out DDos attacks against Spamhaus.

“There has been some misinformation from the New York Times that it’s me carrying out the attacks. Spamhaus have pissed off a lot of people over the past few years by blackmailing ISPs and carriers into disconnecting clients without court orders or legal process whatsoever,” he said.

“At this moment we are not even conducting any attacks because people from our group stopped any attack yesterday morning,” he said. “So if they are still under attack which I think they are because I get news feeds that they are still under attack then it’s now other people attacking them.” He argues that such publicized cyber-attacks do serve a function, as they put the “mafia tactics” of Spamhaus in the public spotlight, which he claims are currently “the largest threat” to Internet freedom.

“Well, I think the cyber-attacks do put things under public discussion and that in the case of Spamhaus was urgently needed, because they have been operating in the background, claiming to be spam fighters and a little non-profit and at the moment it is becoming all the more clear what they really are. People that work at internet providers have always known this,” Kamphuis said.

“People who work at abuse desks or as providers, know that if you don’t give Spamhaus their way, they will list your entire provider and at that point all of your customers will start to complain that 1/3 of the internet no longer accepts email to start with. If they put you on drop a whole bunch of American providers no longer accept your backups, so you can no longer communicate with half of the sites hosted in the United States. It is a massive problem when one little offshore from the Bahamas gains such an influence on the internet that they can have such an impact.”

Image from cyberbunker.com

Image from cyberbunker.com

SpaceX’s capsule arrives at ISS

A privately-owned unmanned US space capsule docked at the International Space Station bringing food, scientific materials and crucial equipment to the space outpost.

Demonoid suffers DDoS attack

Demonoid hit by DDoS attack

My favorite website, Demonoid, had been under attack for the past few days.

(via ZDNet) Demonoid has been hit by a massive Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) attack, bringing down the famous BitTorrent tracker to its knees. The torrent website has been inaccessible to its millions of users for more than a day and is expected to remain offline for quite some time.

As you can see in the screenshot above, Demonoid is currently serving up the following error message:

Server too busy

The action you requested could not be completed because the server is too busy.

Please try again in a few minutes

Do not click reload – Use the following links
Clicking reload will get you this page again

Click here to return to the homepage or Click here to go back

I said this attack was “massive” because it has resulted in a series of problems that may take a while to address. Over the years, Demonoid has been down many times, sometimes disappearing for months.

“It started as a DDoS but then it caused a series of problems,” Demonoid’s admin told TorrentFreak. “These problems need to be fixed before the site can go back up, and it’s a complicated fix this time. There might have been an attack from another angle, an exploit of sorts, but it’s hard to tell right now without a full check of everything. Our human resources became limited in the last few months. All tech issues are handled just by me now and there is no one else to take the job. I’ll fix the site as soon as possible, but it might be a while this time.”

It’s currently unclear whether or not the attack against Demonoid was anti-piracy related. Either way, Demonoid’s users have to find an alternative for their downloading needs while they wait for its return. (By Emil Protalinski )

See also:

Yes Virginia, Apple’s really do get viruses! Apple Hit by Botnet Trojan, Proves Mac is Vulnerable

Apple computer users have often felt their operating system was less vulnerable to attack than the average PC and for years they were right. However a new virus called Flashback may be proving that Apple, the Mercedes of the computer world, can be just as vulnerable to botnets and trojans as the rest of the computer world. So download the patches Apple made last week, download some anti-virus software and prepare for invasion.

Registered Sex Offenders Banished from Online Gaming Sites

Video game companies like Sony’s PlayStation Network, Microsoft’s xbox live, Electronic Arts, Warner Brothers, Apple, Blizzard Entertainment and Disney Interactive Media Group, have decided to shut down the accounts of registered sex offenders in the state of New York, to prevent unsuspecting children from having contact with these offenders. New York is the first state to ban sex offenders from online gaming sites.

Criminalizing Free Speech- Arizona to outlaw annoying Internet comments

Arizona‘s House Bill 2549 on the surface is designed to combat bullying and stalking, making it a crime to use an electronic device to talk to someone in a way that would terrify, intimidate, threaten, harass, annoy, or offend. But lawmakers are saying that commenting repeatedly on the Internet is the same thing as calling someone over and over on the phone. So those ‘annoying’ or ‘lewd’ comments on Youtube or facebook would be a crime in Arizona.

Best Linux Games of GDC 2012

Just because you’re running Linux doesn’t mean you have to sacrifice playing good games. http://bit.ly/follownix Check out this video from this year’s Game Developer’s Conference to see how games for Linux don’t have to suck. While AAA games are still mostly available for Windows, indie deveolopers are pushing the envelope when it comes to native linux games.

Gamer lies dead in internet cafe for 9 HOURS after playing League of Legends 23 Hours Straight

A Gamer is thought to have suffered a heart attack after playing League of Legends for 23 hours.

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