Server slowness

[Gunny]

Ahhh yes, I never thought of that. Suddenly all those old posts would show up as new posts... that would get confusing.

I suppose once Tachy does go to Coventry, it would be best to extend that ban eternally. That would be even more entertaining than miserable user.

Miserable user was easy. Tachy goes to Coventry doesn't show up those old posts as new ones. It inserts them by date and time where they were originally supposed to be.

Miserable users just timed you out trying to log in.

[LongTermGuy]

So this was YOUR fault? I was dismantling my freakin' computer and checking connections. You owe me a steak or something.

And a case of BEER!

[Max R.]

That was fun.. I've never participated in defending a site against a botnet before.

So, I'm just curious as to who the butthurt party was. Was it the hippie from CA? A random liberal that doesn't have the balls to debate?

More likely someone seeking to cash in on email addresses or other information. With bots, as with spammers, it's a net as big as the Internet.

[NightTrain]

More likely someone seeking to cash in on email addresses or other information. With bots, as with spammers, it's a net as big as the Internet.

Well... maybe, but I really don't think so.

There were over 4,000 bots all on this site, performing searches and trying to PM users. At one point, the site didn't respond to me for over 22 seconds, and a few times it actually timed out. We identified the primary offending server (most likely being used as a proxy and it has a bad reputation for allowing attacks / spam traffic) and it began to recover after Jim began blocking swaths of addresses from that server. But it wasn't just the one server, there were others from overseas doing the same thing at the same time. It seemed to me like it was coordinated botnet assault - really, you're not going to gain any information by attempting to PM members and a lot were doing that over and over.

I can see where it could have been a mistake and there were runaway spiders because someone screwed up and added a zero somewhere, but then all those users would be from the same origin and there were quite a few different origins all doing the same pattern of crippling activity here on the board.

Legitimate spiders are up front with who they are - they'll say something like rate-limited-Googlebot or Yahoo or MSN... none of these identified themselves as such, and many were duplicated IPs doing intensive queries to the site all at once.

I think it was an attack, albeit a clumsy one that was called off when countermeasures were taken... but I'm not an IT guy and Jim knows a lot more about it than I do.

[jimnyc]

Just to assure some, all data is fine, including PM's and email addresses. What these folks want to do at a time like that is to make tons and tons and tons of requests to the site, no matter the request, with the intent of making so many, that the site will be dead/unusable/slow.

But those hitting the site, whether live people or bots, have the same rights to the board as any other guest. They will see an error message if attempting to send a PM or even view something they don't have rights to. When viewing "Who's Online", it shows us the IP address of each visitor, and what they are doing. All of these visitors also had a stop sign next to their names, or an error sign, meaning they were having an error message displayed on their side. Unfortunately, although they get nothing from us, it still uses resources to go through the request. And as you can imagine, even just a few thousand over a short time can kind of cripple a smaller site like this. Imagine some of the larger sites with redundancy that get hit with millions of requests in a very large botnet attack!

All is safe and all is well, and all of your data is fine - and no one's email addresses have been compromised.

[Jeff]

Hey Jim how about y'all just keep this thing going right, heck I don't want to hear all the boring details, just keep it running right. Thank you, that will be all.


Seriously, appreciate y'all working so hard.

[jimnyc]

Hey Jim how about y'all just keep this thing going right, heck I don't want to hear all the boring details, just keep it running right. Thank you, that will be all.


Seriously, appreciate y'all working so hard.

I feel bad that I got Rick involved too! I didn't mean to "put him to work", just wanted to have someone to bounce some ideas off of, and he had texted me shortly before. But I got to hear his wife too, so I technically "met" her. And she laughed at my NY accent. Mean lady.

But poor Rick was taking forever to load page after page after page and reading IP's off to me, looking for dupes, while I was running tons of them and finding out which were the sneaky bot bastards. Hopefully we didn't block like entire countries. I don't know if anyone from Romania can get here anymore.

Worst part? I originally opened a ticket with the provider. The guy gave me a typical canned response without even visiting the site. I kinda chewed him out a tad and then asked to have the ticket sent off to an engineer or supervisor. Within 5 minutes I noticed just how many visitors we had online and that was what was causing the slowness. I had to make a quick and huge apology to them. Sucks to make an ass out of yourself!

[NightTrain]

Nah, it was fun to help defend the site.

And Sharon loves hearing people talking with NY / Jersey accents, since she grew up in Joisey!

IMO, you were right to complain to your provider... they should have seen the massive uptick in illegitimate users before even being called and started defending or at least alerted ownership that there was an assault. It had to be affecting them as well.

[Gunny]

Hey Jim how about y'all just keep this thing going right, heck I don't want to hear all the boring details, just keep it running right. Thank you, that will be all.


Seriously, appreciate y'all working so hard.

I feel bad that I got Rick involved too! I didn't mean to "put him to work", just wanted to have someone to bounce some ideas off of, and he had texted me shortly before. But I got to hear his wife too, so I technically "met" her. And she laughed at my NY accent. Mean lady.

But poor Rick was taking forever to load page after page after page and reading IP's off to me, looking for dupes, while I was running tons of them and finding out which were the sneaky bot bastards. Hopefully we didn't block like entire countries. I don't know if anyone from Romania can get here anymore.

Worst part? I originally opened a ticket with the provider. The guy gave me a typical canned response without even visiting the site. I kinda chewed him out a tad and then asked to have the ticket sent off to an engineer or supervisor. Within 5 minutes I noticed just how many visitors we had online and that was what was causing the slowness. I had to make a quick and huge apology to them. Sucks to make an ass out of yourself!

That's YOUR brother, Jim? Sounds like mine. He still has his cell phone from 1998.

[Gunny]

I feel bad that I got Rick involved too! I didn't mean to "put him to work", just wanted to have someone to bounce some ideas off of, and he had texted me shortly before. But I got to hear his wife too, so I technically "met" her. And she laughed at my NY accent. Mean lady.

But poor Rick was taking forever to load page after page after page and reading IP's off to me, looking for dupes, while I was running tons of them and finding out which were the sneaky bot bastards. Hopefully we didn't block like entire countries. I don't know if anyone from Romania can get here anymore.

Worst part? I originally opened a ticket with the provider. The guy gave me a typical canned response without even visiting the site. I kinda chewed him out a tad and then asked to have the ticket sent off to an engineer or supervisor. Within 5 minutes I noticed just how many visitors we had online and that was what was causing the slowness. I had to make a quick and huge apology to them. Sucks to make an ass out of yourself!

I remember your NY accent the one time I talked to you. I probably sounded like a total hick to you, so I figured I wouldn't bring it up at the time.

[jimnyc]

I remember your NY accent the one time I talked to you. I probably sounded like a total hick to you, so I figured I wouldn't bring it up at the time.

The best was when I first went to visit Jeff in Georgia, and it happened to be quite a time since I last saw him and the boys. I arrived midday and then Jeff and I went to pick up the boys at school. While they did politely say hello, for the next 5 minutes they just kinda stared at me. I was like WTF? Why are you guys just staring at me? They were like "Uncle Jimmy, you sure do sound funny", in their little hick voices! LOL I just started cracking up. I'm like "I'M" the one who sounds funny? Kids were a trip. At least they were well spoken and polite (till we got in private and Daddy couldn't see them), unlike Boomhaeur and Cousin It who lived down the road. I'd rather stick a knife in my ear than hear them 2 weirdos talk again!

[Gunny]

The best was when I first went to visit Jeff in Georgia, and it happened to be quite a time since I last saw him and the boys. I arrived midday and then Jeff and I went to pick up the boys at school. While they did politely say hello, for the next 5 minutes they just kinda stared at me. I was like WTF? Why are you guys just staring at me? They were like "Uncle Jimmy, you sure do sound funny", in their little hick voices! LOL I just started cracking up. I'm like "I'M" the one who sounds funny? Kids were a trip. At least they were well spoken and polite (till we got in private and Daddy couldn't see them), unlike Boomhaeur and Cousin It who lived down the road. I'd rather stick a knife in my ear than hear them 2 weirdos talk again!

LMAO. Y'all have NO idea how you sound to us. Hell, I can understand Scots better than people from NY. (Oh, and my first wife was from Rochester).

Since I know who/what Cousin It is, I'm not sure I want to know who you're calling Cousin It.

[jimnyc]

LMAO. Y'all have NO idea how you sound to us. Hell, I can understand Scots better than people from NY. (Oh, and my first wife was from Rochester).

Since I know who/what Cousin It is, I'm not sure I want to know who you're calling Cousin It.

Hell, even I think New Yorkers sounds different than me!!

Jeff had a guy that lived down the road that you literally couldn't understand. He must communicate with everyone in writing. And his wife was a hairy and scary little woman. It's actually where my Chihuahua came from!! I'm afraid he would have been Chihuahua soup if I didn't pick him.

[Gunny]

Hell, even I think New Yorkers sounds different than me!!

Jeff had a guy that lived down the road that you literally couldn't understand. He must communicate with everyone in writing. And his wife was a hairy and scary little woman. It's actually where my Chihuahua came from!! I'm afraid he would have been Chihuahua soup if I didn't pick him.

Nah. Chihuahuas are family in the South. I actually find it funny when I talk to someone on the boards who have read only what I post. I usually get "You sound like a Southerner", or "You talk funny". I'm a native Texan. What does anyone think I talk like?

The biggest problem I had with my ex was terminology. I'd always be asking "Okay, what does THAT mean?" But then, we cut the lights off and warsh our teeth.

[NightTrain]

I thought it was hilarious that Jim claimed he didn't have an accent.


FYI, Alaskans are the only ones without an accent. Honest Injun.