Is Ron Paul's site ready for a potential denial of service attack?

[curtisag]

I'm worried some other campaign may have someone launch such a DOS attack on the 16th. I'm afraid dirty tricks like this are the wave of the future for internet campaigns. I just hope Ron Paul's site has plenty of bandwidth, and they have a solid provider who can track down and stop any attack quickly. DOS attacks are really quite easy to do with a little technical knowledge.

[literatim]

Why ask this here? Why would any of us know the answer to it?

Seriously, if you are worried, contact the campaign.

[curtisag]

Hopefully, someone has already contacted the campaign and knows. But I guess I'll do it.

[bobmurph]

Do a search...I believe this was discussed at length before Nov 5th

[hawkeyenick]

Any newbie can get around ddos attacks

[ionlyknowy]

there was an IT guy the other day that said that a DOS attack is unlikely.

The reasons for this are because anyone that network of computers that could do the attack would risk losing the network of computers, and these networks are hard to come by and they cost tons of money.

And something that is as high profile as this, they would most likely lose the networked computers. So unless someone essentially paid for the networked computers in full, then the operator of the network would not do it.

Plus the operaters of such networks are pro internet and many would know RP's internet policy of no regulation and would have a moral dilemma doing such an attack.

[szczebrzeszyn]

Any newbie can get around ddos attacks
good joke :D

[hawkeyenick]

good joke :D

not a joke, it's networking 101 in cisco classes

[curtisag]

Any newbie can get around ddos attacks

Well my friend knows a lot about DOS attacks. He can have a bot net attack you from about 10,000 different machines that are just waiting for the command to initiate the coordinated attack. It's very difficult to stop 10,000 different connections all hitting you at once. To say that it's easy to get around I think is somewhat naive.

[szczebrzeszyn]

not a joke, it's networking 101 in cisco classes
So I guess all those DDOSed sites' admins (including Microsoft) never attended it...

[dirka]

DDOS attacks are so 2006

[Cowlesy]

DOS?

Disk Operating System?

[curtisag]

DOS?

Disk Operating System?

Denial of Service.

[szczebrzeszyn]

Well my friend knows a lot about DOS attacks. He can have a bot net attack you from about 10,000 different machines that are just waiting for the command to initiate the coordinated attack. It's very difficult to stop 10,000 different connections all hitting you at once. To say that it's easy to get around I think is somewhat naive.
Botnets are the real threat, because they can be totally decentralized with random IP ranges from around the world (and the owners of the machines are usually ordinary people). And I'd like to see how some newbie after Cisco 101 class deals with 5GB constant traffic from tens of thousands of machines from random IPs and in the same time keeps the site usable :)
google PharmaMaster for some nice stories in this topic

[hawkeyenick]

Denial of Service.

DDOS, distributed denial of service

[hawkeyenick]

Botnets are the real threat, because they can be totally decentralized with random IP ranges from around the world (and the owners of the machines are usually ordinary people). And I'd like to see how some newbie after Cisco 101 class deals with 5GB constant traffic from tens of thousands of machines from random IPs and in the same time keeps the site usable :)
google PharmaMaster for some nice stories in this topic


Turn off responding to direct pings...solved

[PatriotOne]

I'm really worried about this also. I did send HQ an email several weeks ago warning them about this kind of thing and other general things like the site being able to handle what is going to be MASSIVE traffic (not just from donator's). Never heard back from them.

[ronpaulyourmom]

I'm worried some other campaign may have someone launch such a DOS attack on the 16th. I'm afraid dirty tricks like this are the wave of the future for internet campaigns. I just hope Ron Paul's site has plenty of bandwidth, and they have a solid provider who can track down and stop any attack quickly. DOS attacks are really quite easy to do with a little technical knowledge.

If it makes you feel any better I think they did an upgrade two days ago, though that's more to do with increased number of legit users than it is about DDOS.

[szczebrzeszyn]

Turn off responding to direct pings...solved
PINGS? And how would you get around GET requests for the valid document? Turn off web server? :)

[curtisag]

PINGS? And how would you get around GET requests for the valid document? Turn off web server? :)

^^^ Truth is being spoken. The threat is real when someone knows what to do. I promise you I could tell my friend to take down Ron Paul's site for 30 minutes the day before Tea Party as proof it's possible. But I would never do that.

[a4ronpaul]

One simple way for HQ to get around DDOS, is disabling all the images/flash apps associated with the site. Just link to a simple donations page, and put a simple text message saying "Due to Tea Party....".

This is one way to get around DDOS. Even if you have lots of computers connecting, the server is only handling very small files/processes. Paypal/CC transactions is another problem =/

[szczebrzeszyn]

One simple way for HQ to get around DDOS, is disabling all the images/flash apps associated with the site. Just link to a simple donations page, and put a simple text message saying "Due to Tea Party....".

This is one way to get around DDOS. Even if you have lots of computers connecting, the server is only handling very small files/processes. Paypal/CC transactions is another problem =/
They can't mention tea party for legal reasons (I guess). And removing media files doesn't help if you send a traffic bigger then your hosting company could bear (that's usually the biggest problem - server load can be balanced). But I don't think DDOS is an issue here and we shouldn't worry about it.

[Birdlady]

A few months ago mercola.com was attacked by a flood of requests. I am not sure if this is the same thing as DDOS. However, it just so happened that he had put out a really important article that day. This can definitely happen to any website someone wishes to do so.

This was an article about it. It took about 5 hours for him to get his site back up and working. 5 hours on the 16 could drastically affect donations.

http://v.mercola.com/blogs/public_blog/Mercola-com-Is-Under-Attack--United----We-Stand--24655.aspx

[szczebrzeszyn]

A few months ago mercola.com was attacked by a flood of requests. I am not sure if this is the same thing as DDOS. However, it just so happened that he had put out a really important article that day. This can definitely happen to any website someone wishes to do so.
Well, it's usually not an attack. I don't know anything about this particular case, but high traffic of legitimate users can bring the site to its knees as well. It's known as slashdot or digg effect :)

EDIT: I don't think we gonna see the teaparty effect on the 16th though.

[dsentell]

I had a real panic attack over this type issue a couple of weeks ago. I PMed with a techie on this site and he seemed to know quite a bit about the campaign setup. He assured me that he really knew of no additional preparations that they could take to have everything secured. Eased my mind SOMEWHAT.

By the way WELCOME a4ronpaul!