Wetpixel hit by DDoS attack last night

Sorry, guys. We were hit by a distributed denial of service attack last night, which took down the server and the switch that we are on.

Our ip address was the target, so apparently, someone out there doesn't like us very much.

"A 16-year old is a 16-year old," our server admin said.

DDoS attacks are very hard to defend against. (nearly impossible)

Sorry, guys. We were hit by a distributed denial of service attack last night, which took down the server and the switch that we are on.

 

Our ip address was the target, so apparently, someone out there doesn't like us very much.

 

"A 16-year old is a 16-year old," our server admin said.

 

DDoS attacks are very hard to defend against. (nearly impossible)

Is there any way to track where it comes from, or can they just repeatedly do this at will?

Sorry, guys. We were hit by a distributed denial of service attack last night, which took down the server and the switch that we are on.

 

Our ip address was the target, so apparently, someone out there doesn't like us very much.

 

"A 16-year old is a 16-year old," our server admin said.

 

DDoS attacks are very hard to defend against. (nearly impossible)

Eric

That sucks, sorry some jacka$$ gets their jollies that way. I can never understand that mindset. When I tried to look at Wetpixel and saw it was down thought it was the DB issue.

...someone out there doesn't like us very much.

DB...

or DS DS.... Ok, I'm going to hide now and get another ID

Good WP is running again

Is there any way to track where it comes from, or can they just repeatedly do this at will?

"They" (aka..Them) can do this repeatedly at will. It is extremely difficult to get the actual people doing this. For those people that dont know how this works, ddos stands for 'Distributed Denial of Service'. In practice this means someone is in control of a group of machines, usually just simple hacked home machines like you and I have, and tells all those machines to send an avalanche of traffic to the victim site. Each one by itself can probably not bring a site like wetpixel down, but all together they can easily. Major sites have had trouble with this in the past.

You can sometimes do something about it, but it takes a lot of resources that smaller (in the grand scheme of things) sites dont have. Our company (I work for an ISP) has very...very expensive pieces of hardware that can detect and mostly deflect ddos attacks. This often needs cooperation of other, larger, ISPs, to block this traffic closer to the source. But even that often fails. It just depends on the size of the ddos. If people are dedicated, you're powerless.

The idea that these are kids doing this is a bit of a romantic view of how things used to be. Nowadays a lot of these attacks are done by highly organized criminal groups. You can just pay for it. It's a sad world.

I cant imagine what brings someone to target wetpixel. It's not like this is a very controversial site.

Cor

I can think of a few people who really do not like us, but I'm not sure they would have the resources or desire to shut us down for only 12 hours. Strange!

Our new server is being configured now, and we'll put in as many performance-enhancing mods as we can. Outside of using the services of a content delivery network (which is out of Wetpixel's price range for services), I'm not sure what else I can do for those of you who are far away and getting nailed by long latency times for our image-heavy site.

Thanks Cor for explaining what a DDoS attack is.

Eric maybe the new server will speed your site up abit as well. Both in Cairns and here it sometimes takes it's time compared to other sites over your part of the world.

perhaps someone didnt' like that photo of Simon in a dress and got angry about it?

perhaps someone didnt' like that photo of Simon in a dress and got angry about it?

 

that's a different kind of denial

maybe it was Paul Watson...

Sure glad you're all back!

I get the same issue here in Canberra as Wagsy reports. Very slow to load.

Eric maybe the new server will speed your site up abit as well. Both in Cairns and here it sometimes takes it's time compared to other sites over your part of the world.

Wags - This seems like another good reason why you should upgrade to a MAC.

No loading issues on our connections ( home or work )

Peter maybe it's my ISP provider then, Westnet for both locations.

I have a MAC, it's kept in the cupboard.

Hey guys. We're migrating to a new, fast server soon. I've monkeyed around with some of the server cache settings, so play around some more and tell me if the speed improves!

(in theory, once you browse around for awhile, it should become fast(er) because the images will be loaded in your browser's cache)

The settings before were default, and stupid.

Oh, and if you are still getting really slow responses, please run a traceroute from your location and send it to us via our support page: http://wetpixel.com/contact

In Mac OS X, run Terminal and type "traceroute wetpixel.com"

On a PC, go to Start Menu->Run. Type "cmd" Enter. Then, at the command line, type "tracert wetpixel.com"

By the way, here's a video of how wetpixel loads from my home (post cache update).

wetpixel_speed_demo.zip

Gee Eric you are screaming over there What is your connection speed.

There is no way I'm that fast.

I will post a screen grab vid of what I normal get, I'm on 1.5mbps.

How can you type that fast.

or DS DS.... Ok, I'm going to hide now and get another ID

 

Good WP is running again

bartus - that's exactly what I thought until I saw it was a DISTRIBUTED DOS attack. Requires getting cooperation of a lot of 'bots'...and somehow I think some people can't even get automated friends to cooperate.

By the way, here's a video of how wetpixel loads from my home (post cache update).

Hmmm, I just get a blank window when I download that file which opens in Flash Player

Hmmm, I just get a blank window when I download that file which opens in Flash Player

Yup I am having issues playing it back also.

I couldn't play it either at first, but then download FLV player from http://www.applian.com/flvplayer/ and works now