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ccmcacollister
11/16/2007
14:42:21
[ report abuse ] |
 Subject: WOW: Deniel of Service ATTACK~!!
Message:
Wow ... Beloved gameknot, and chesscolony were under siege!??! by a Denial of Service Attack! Looks like the GoodGuys won and we are back. But hoping we get to hear all the details from GK!?
Nice handling GK, getting us back up in such a short time. And the time added to avoid timeouts ... outstanding.
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8ballphoenix
11/16/2007
14:46:50
[ report abuse ] | GK still under seige
Message:
Don't know about in the states, but here in the UK GK is still not available. Chesscolony is OK though.
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knightnothorse
11/16/2007
14:48:05
[ report abuse ] | In Virginia, still can't get GK...
Message:
...but Chesscolony works fine....
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ccmcacollister
11/16/2007
14:52:28
[ report abuse ] | Here in Iowa ...
Message:
I can access via GK , but not chesscolony at this moment!
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ccmcacollister
11/16/2007
14:55:52
[ report abuse ] | However ...
Message:
I dont fully understand it, and should probably say that it SEEMS to say that. Earlier when I would try to access via chesscolony .... it would convert my URL request to one for the GK/DOSattack URL automatically when it tried....after that sign did get posted. For awhile we simply got That Ugly White Page that says site not available
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sorceress_queen
11/16/2007
15:02:55
[ report abuse ] | No timeouts this time...
Message:
"Please rest assured that we are working around the clock to resolve this situation and that no games will be lost by time out because of it."
Great decision.
Well done.
BTW:
GK is out, but the frontend changes.
CC is reachable (sure), but last time was not; this is the big difference
And, maybe, Mike can traceback the source of the attack.
ATB
Keni
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ccmcacollister
11/16/2007
15:04:56
[ report abuse ] | I
Message:
now have BOTH. Tho it asks me to login for Colony, as I'm only logged to GK. I suppose I dont want to log in there and add any numbers to it, in case that is a factor. But suppose I need not log out of GK , since it already fixed for me?! Guess I will go blitz awhile on the other site to help deplete the numbers here by one for awhile .... just an case anyone is still having trouble getting it .. then maybe they can get on? bye for now
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tim_b
11/16/2007
15:29:13
[ report abuse ] |
Message:
Well done, GK, I would just point out before I go to bed that the rating graphs in the profiles are not there, just in case it's of any consequence. Good night from Wales.
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sorceress_queen
11/16/2007
15:33:06
[ report abuse ] | GK is back
Message:
This post is from the main site.
BTW the page still named "under_attack.html"
:)
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rt4sm
11/16/2007
15:51:08
[ report abuse ] | Hooray!!!
Message:
Hope GK name and shame the bad guys. It was a DDoS, which means it was a really determined assault, but GK managed to clear them out within about half and hour, that's pretty neat! Horrid visions were going through my mind of GK getting completely destroyed. Not that i'm addicted of course??? It would have just been a shame to see all my efforts to improve lost forever...
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lighttotheright
11/16/2007
15:52:14
[ report abuse ] |
Message:
Back on-line as if normal...just a few minutes ago. The last time I tried was about 20 to 30 minutes ago at most.
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lighttotheright
11/16/2007
15:53:58
[ report abuse ] |
Message:
It has been down a lot longer than 30 minutes for me. It's been more like 3 to 4 hours of unable to connect.
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lighttotheright
11/16/2007
15:59:17
[ report abuse ] |
Message:
I am glad that everything seems OK. GK has been lucky...or its admin are extremely good or both. My wife's site had the same kind of attack on it and it was down for 3 months! That was 3 months ago. We just now got it back on-line.
Ken
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heinzkat
11/16/2007
16:20:24
[ report abuse ] | All works fine for me
Message:
... and I haven't even noticed anything. :-)
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gameknot_com
11/16/2007
16:27:45
[ report abuse ] |
Message:
GameKnot is still being subjected to a large scale denial of service attack, but we are managing to filter most of it more or less. Our website is be back to normal and fully functional as of a couple of hours ago.
Please rest assured that no data was lost or compromised in any way. The only negative result was that the players could not connect to our website for about 2 hours. Needless to say that 24 hours of extra time was added to all games to prevent any time-outs because of the attack.
It is still not clear who or why is doing this, but we will be collecting all the evidence of this attack and passing it to the FBI's cybercrime division. I believe the authorities are starting to take it seriously as there've been more and more reports of various criminals going to jail for cybercrimes in the recent months. If you have any information on who might be behind the attack, please write to us via:  gameknot.com Complete anonymity is of course guaranteed.
Please accept our apologies for any inconvenience this attack might have caused anyone and thank you for your understanding.
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heinzkat
11/16/2007
16:54:58
[ report abuse ] | For those,
Message:
like me, who have no idea what is going on:
en.wikipedia.org
'A denial-of-service attack (DoS attack) is an attempt to make a computer resource unavailable to its intended users. Although the means to, motives for and targets of a DoS attack may vary, it generally comprises the concerted, malevolent efforts of a person or persons to prevent an Internet site or service from functioning efficiently or at all, temporarily or indefinitely.'
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chessnovice
11/16/2007
17:41:48
[ report abuse ] | I've heard of sore losers, but...
Message:
...this is ridiculous. :p
Best thing you can do as a popular website is to just be prepared. Considering how quick the site was brought back to functionality, it's safe to say Mike was pretty well prepared. Good luck with finding whoever did it. I'll let you know if I hear anything... though I'm rarely in the know about anything.
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ganstaman
11/16/2007
22:44:01
[ report abuse ] |
Message:
And for those who don't want to read through the wiki article, here's what I learned a DOS attack was (there are other methods, but this brings out the main idea).
Pretend gk.com is a post office. We send envelopes of mail there, gk.com sorts through the mail and then sends the mail back out. In other words, it's like we mail in our moves, gk.com records them, and then sends the moves out to our opponents. You know, almost like real correspondence chess...
A DoS would be some mean person sending the gk.com post office a ton of envelopes. The mean person isn't trying to make moves or anything. But gk.com doesn't know which envelopes are from him (he can right down different addresses on the envelopes) and which are from us the players. So gk.com has to sort through all the extra envelopes and figure out which ones are legitimate so it can record those moves and notify the opponents.
But sorting through that extra ton of envelopes takes time. So if you send gk.com a real move in an envelope, it may sit on the counter for days before gk.com has time to look at it. All good mail gets delayed because the mean person has flooded the gk.com post office.
Now I only hope no one who knows stuff about computers reads this so I can continue to think that it makes sense and is correct...
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lighttotheright
11/17/2007
00:13:04
[ report abuse ] |
Message:
This will explain things a bit.
www.grc.com
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lighttotheright
11/17/2007
00:27:30
[ report abuse ] |
Message:
I suspect that whoever is doing the attack is currently trying to overwhelm Gk's filters. The reason I say this is that it used to take only a second or two to get onto GK using my book mark. Yesterday evening when I was finally let back onto the system, it took maybe 3 or 4 seconds. It is currently taking 10 or more seconds to get through. Once logged into the site, there is no problem. It is only a problem getting to the log in page.
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gameknot_com
11/17/2007
01:20:05
[ report abuse ] |
Message:
Thank you everyone for your kind words of support! We've never had to deal with a denial of service attack before in over 7 years of GameKnot's existence, so a few things had to be learned as it was happening...
We are not seeing any performance degradation on any of the servers due to filtering at this time, so if you are experience any slowness, it is most likely local to either your computer or your ISP, and is probably temporary.
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lighttotheright
11/17/2007
19:58:58
[ report abuse ] |
Message:
I got here through the profile page from a link sent from gameknot about a drawn game. The home page is still being attacked and the filters must have been overwhelmed. I've been denied service from the home page nearly all day. If I had not found a link to my profile page, then I would still have been locked out of this site.
When I click on the link to the home page, the website is found very quickly; but gameknot is not responding to my computer from the home page. Something is wrong. I've check out my service. There is no problem with any other site that I know of. It is only gameknot. This means that the DOS attack has overwhelmed the filter to some extent or another. It is not a local problem on my end.
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lighttotheright
11/18/2007
00:55:46
[ report abuse ] |
Message:
The main page is finally working again. That's good.
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spymaster
11/18/2007
03:40:54
[ report abuse ] | What???!!!
Message:
Goodness gracious ....
I did not log in for one day and I missed all this excitement?
wow ... and I would have been worried too!
Good work, Mike.
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ctrl-reset
11/19/2007
01:37:29
[ report abuse ] | Maybe...
Message:
...maybe it was from someone who's duplicate membership was removed by GK :)
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