Denial of service attack
Backing Blair was subjected to a DoS attack yesterday and the site was down for close to 18 hours as a result.
The attack came in the form of an illegitimate copyright violation complaint. We were told by our service provider that the domain was deactivated - without notice - because of:
"Excessive traffic to a potential copyright violating item - london_underground.swf"
We now know the complaint was illegitimate, as only copyright owners can legitimately complain or seek an injunction, but the moment we started questioning our provider about the nature/source of the complaint, the copyright matter was dropped entirely and the issue was reduced to excessive use alone.
This appears to be the service provider saving face (and you can't really blame them after pulling the site so quickly without checking the legalities first) but it flies in the face of reason when you consider that our service is supposed to include unlimited bandwidth.
(For the record, The London Underground Song is still offline, but we plan to bring it back today with the SWF file called up from a different provider.)
We still don't know who made the complaint, but whoever they were, they certainly scared the bejesus out of our service provider. 'Nervy' doesn't begin to describe their manner.
Many already hold the suspicion that the attack came from Labour HQ. We cannot confirm this at this stage. However, we do know that well over 100 individual visitors have viewed this site from government servers. Our tracking shows the bulk of them originate from the all-purpose HMG server gis.gov.uk, but there are also many council-level servers in the stats including surreycc.gov.uk and brighton-hove.gov.uk
There have also been a dozen or so visitors accessing the site via Telewest, who are a major service provider for the Labour Party.
Now, all this proves is that certain people are taking an interest, but the factor of motivation needs to be considered. Unless the attack originated from a deranged Paul Weller fan, the only people we see who would have cause to disable the site would be ardent (and/or paid) supporters of Tony Blair.
If it's not someone from the Labour Party then they should be feeling pretty stupid right now, as the site was downed for less than a day and - as we have pointed out - the result is that many suspect Labour was behind this cowardly attack.
Great favour you did them, buddy. Congratulations for not having the guts/ability to take us head-on.
The attack came in the form of an illegitimate copyright violation complaint. We were told by our service provider that the domain was deactivated - without notice - because of:
"Excessive traffic to a potential copyright violating item - london_underground.swf"
We now know the complaint was illegitimate, as only copyright owners can legitimately complain or seek an injunction, but the moment we started questioning our provider about the nature/source of the complaint, the copyright matter was dropped entirely and the issue was reduced to excessive use alone.
This appears to be the service provider saving face (and you can't really blame them after pulling the site so quickly without checking the legalities first) but it flies in the face of reason when you consider that our service is supposed to include unlimited bandwidth.
(For the record, The London Underground Song is still offline, but we plan to bring it back today with the SWF file called up from a different provider.)
We still don't know who made the complaint, but whoever they were, they certainly scared the bejesus out of our service provider. 'Nervy' doesn't begin to describe their manner.
Many already hold the suspicion that the attack came from Labour HQ. We cannot confirm this at this stage. However, we do know that well over 100 individual visitors have viewed this site from government servers. Our tracking shows the bulk of them originate from the all-purpose HMG server gis.gov.uk, but there are also many council-level servers in the stats including surreycc.gov.uk and brighton-hove.gov.uk
There have also been a dozen or so visitors accessing the site via Telewest, who are a major service provider for the Labour Party.
Now, all this proves is that certain people are taking an interest, but the factor of motivation needs to be considered. Unless the attack originated from a deranged Paul Weller fan, the only people we see who would have cause to disable the site would be ardent (and/or paid) supporters of Tony Blair.
If it's not someone from the Labour Party then they should be feeling pretty stupid right now, as the site was downed for less than a day and - as we have pointed out - the result is that many suspect Labour was behind this cowardly attack.
Great favour you did them, buddy. Congratulations for not having the guts/ability to take us head-on.
36 Comments:
I was wondering what happened to the site yesterday!
Don't get too paranoid, though. Stuff happens - rise above it and we'll respect you even more :)
We're just making a comment for the record. Nobody here lost any sleep over it.
:o)
So you've no evidence for your claim that the Labour Party made a complaint about your site, jou're just assuming that.
About the usual standard of your claims and assertions then....
Do you actually reads posts before you comment on them, Cramlington?
Not a good idea to get us started on claims and assertions, BTW.
I have to back the Village Cllr on this. I know you’d really, really like it if Labour had made a complaint, but that's a serious accusation. There's no mention of Labour's response or how you've tried really, really hard to get a response from them...
Fasthosts’s unlimited bandwidth policy is not without catches. For example, ‘When a website is found to be monopolising the resources available Fasthosts reserves the right to suspend that site immediately’. Popular viral media files -- like the London Underground song -- will be just the sort of thing they’ll be trying to avoid here.
You don’t explain why the London Underground song is still offline. Is the reason that Fasthosts have asked for additional hosting fee?
Why do you think it is suspicious that you had about 100 hits from people with gsi.gov.uk addresses? There must be several hundred thousand people who have a gsi address. I am one. They are civil servants, and nothing to do with Labour HQ.
Serious accusation? Who made an accusation? I demand that you withdraw the accusation that we made an accusation! Unless of course, you were only making a suggestion.
Your comment could be read one of two ways, you see. While our post, on the other hand, uses words like "We still don't know who made the complaint" and; "Many already hold the suspicion that the attack came from Labour HQ. We cannot confirm this at this stage."
If you read the post again, you may also notice scraps of information that explain *exactly* what is happening to the SWF file... but I will repeat for you the bit where all of this began with a complaint. From persons unknown.
Oh, and with regards to gis.gov.uk, I believe we used the words; "all this proves is that certain people are taking an interest"... yes?
Read post, then comment. Please. If you have problems with this, then have someone read the post for you.
I did read the post. It said:
"Many already hold the suspicion that the attack came from Labour HQ. We cannot confirm this at this stage. However, we do know that well over 100 individual visitors have viewed this site from government servers."
Why the juxtaposition and why the "however" if this is not the inference?
I very much doubt anybody made a complaint. I suspect that Fasthosts noticed excessive traffic generated by the London Underground song and decided to pull it for that reason. Now they’re asking for an additional hosting fee to put it back up (which is why you’re looking for another host).
Mark: juxstaposition required to show that at least one person working for Labour has seen the site.
Stephen: That's an interesting idea. Quite possible, too. But nobody is asking for any money as you so recklessly assume.
People with gsi adddresses are not (with a small number of exceptions) "working for Labour". They are working for the Government. Different concept.
Okay. So if Fasthosts are not willing to host the file, what reason have they given? If they are willing to host it, why are you looking for a new host?
I assume you've demonstrated you own the work and so copyright is not an issue.
I find it odd that you concede the possibility that nobody made a complaint.
Stephen: You're asking for answers I can't give. Many mysteries vex us. And our provider acting without receiving a complaint? It's possible, certainly. But to withdraw the site without notice and lie about getting a complaint? Seems pretty unlikely to me.
You tempt me to outline a far more likely scenario. But I won't.
Glad to see you are back online; I wondered what could be behind your sudden disappearance. Maybe it was entirely innocent, but like you I do wonder ...
I think you should outline the ‘far more likely scenario’. Did Fasthosts actually say they’d received a complaint? They would act against excessive traffic on their own initiative after seeing it recorded on their server stats.
If they are they refusing to host the London Underground song because it generates excessive traffic, that’s up to them. If the file does generate excessive traffic, I think you’ll find it very difficult to find a host who doesn’t want to be paid by the megabyte. That’s not a political thing: why should they bear the cost of hosting it?
Stephen: I find it odd that you seem so desperate to blame the provider when you accuse us of being desperate to blame Labour, but feel free to keep thinking out loud or blowing smoke or whatever it is that you're doing.
Oh dear, oh dear. Why are you so evasive?
Stephen, the complaint covered both "excessive use of system resources" which is understandable given that the video is 728Kb and received in excess of 250,000 hits in two weeks (I'll leave you to work out the bandwidth on that one), and also "material may well constitute a violation of copyright". Now the former I can understand, but the latter was a bit confusing. And when challenged on who had raised the copyright issue, the matter was dropped.
Now there could be a multitude of reasons, including nothing more sinister than some over-zealous busybody, new to the job and trying to make an impression. The end result is that we don't know who made the copyright complaint, and it does seem a bit of an afterthought.
Anyway, people are going to draw their own conclusions, regardless. The important thing is that the site is back up.
PS - We weren't asked for more money to cover the traffic at all. Never mentioned. Plain and simple. I even asked them, and they weren't even interested in quoting.
I am guessing you are not too surprised about this? Considering the nature of the site, this sort of rubbish was merely a matter of time really. Glad to see you back up and running.
Wot no Trackback?!?
BackingBlair.co.uk… not exactly trustworthy
I admit it, it was me.
I have copyright over the color black in the republic of Djibouti.
Only kidding.
Does no one remember this:
Dear Sir,
There is currently a photograph on the main page of the website, proudofbritain.net, which I believe you are author of. There has been no permission sought either from the photographer who owns the copyright nor the Labour Party who hold license on the image. You are currently in breach of copyright law and could be prosecuted for copyright theft ... please remove the image immediately.
Yours sincerely,
Melanie Onn
Constitutional and Legal Officer
Legal and Financial Compliance Taskforce
Tel: 020 7802 1220
Fax: 020 7802 1506
http://www.labour.org.uk
Old Queen Street
London
SW1H 9HP
That was in November 2004, while Campbell was on sabbatical. I doubt the taskforce has time for such niceties today.
Charlie, nice reminder that whilst a coincidence may just be a coincidence, sometimes there may be an ulterior motive.
Stephen, BackingBlair is costing a lot more than £3.99 per month, believe me. A lot more. And so far we've spent a fair bit of our own money on various things, money that we could be quite happily spending on ourselves and our families. And if it was simple notoriety that we wanted, I can think of cheaper ways of going about it :^)
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I think it’s fair to say you lied when claiming to have unlimited bandwidth, your bandwidth usage was clearly excessive and you must have known this was the reason for the outage. Your motivation was the reckless promotion of a nonsensical conspiracy theory.
Hell, I can think of more *profitable* ways of going about it. I could start by selling child tracking (and perhaps bar-code tattoos) on my website.
LoL. Handbags at dawn it is.
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Stephen, hope you don't mind if I conceal a brick in my handbag :^)
My final statement on the matter: Had the original issue been purely a matter of excessive bandwidth usage, then there would have been no confusion. The Ts&Cs do indeed make no reference to bandwidth limits, instead refering only to excessive usage, so we could argue semantics all day and come no nearer to agreement. It was the addition of a copyright challenge - which typically is instigated by a third party complaint - which caused some consternation. Especially in light of the fact that the video had been hosted for more than two weeks without issue, yet the site went down within 2 working days of the campaign going live.
Coincidence? Very likely with hindsight. But at the time, given the nature of the complaint and the timing it did seem odd.
Now I guess we're not going to agree on this one, but what the heck. As the French say, "That's life".
The French? Why bring the French up? Mmm, how very curious you should choose the French when there are so many other nations to choose from...
;o)
Still no trackback?!?
Protecting Animals in Democracy
Calm down, Mr Newton, you'll burst something in a minute over a rather trivial matter.
It's sad how people get more right wing as they get older.
Just thought I'd let you know - I sent a link to your site to a mate who works at Telewest in Bournemouth (or is it Slough?).
Whatever.
That may explain why Telewest shows up on your log.
Keep up the good work.
Remember this one?
Preparing for Emergencies
He received a fair bit of hassle from The Man after putting that site up - why do some people put so much effort into trying to deny that the Labour Party would stoop to trying to silence criticism?
Of course they have before and of course they would again.
Crikey, after what they did to Dr Kelly, anything is possible....
Just who is Stephen Newton the apologist for? Is it the Labour Party or Fasthosts? I can't seem to work it out.
Answers on a postcard...
Many web pages are 728k in size without a download. It is my suggestion that the hosting server should be capable of handling the traffic. Why offer people free webspace and then take them offline if it is popular? Don't want to hear about the disruption in service story, as it's YOUR responsibility to make sure your equipment is up to snuff. If it isn't, then don't take it out on the customer.
****
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Regarding Blair, he's Bush's puppy dog. He will also do whatever he damn well pleases, has and will do what he pleases and sometimes with the majority of the people of England opposing him.
He isn't just a Prime Minister, in my opinion. He is a tyrant of sorts. Labor needs voted out.
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