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A DDOS of HN is quite strange indeed. There should be some kind of ransom involved, but seeing as HN doesn't make money (I assume) from these forums, there is

by borlak 14y ago

A DDOS of HN is quite strange indeed. There should be some kind of ransom involved, but seeing as HN doesn't make money (I assume) from these forums, there is nothing to ransom.

IsTom 14y ago
Who would you DDOS if you wanted to see if your botnet works?
redthrowaway 14y ago
Why would it have to be for gain? I bet there's plenty of bored people with idle small- to medium-sized botnets who'd take down a somewhat popular site just for lulz.
manojlds 14y ago
For the people doing it, the gain can be about trying out their skills, not being bored, and getting the bragging rights of having DDoSed "Hacker" News.
- Zak 14y ago
  I'm inclined to suspect HN's design actually makes it fairly easy to DoS.
  - pmelendez 14y ago
    How come? Can you explain your point a bit further?
    - Zak 14y ago
      Sure. I didn't want to put a how-to manual in this thread on the day of the attack though. HN has a big table of closures representing actions a user can take. Loading certain pages, such as the reply link on a comment creates more of them. They time out after a while, which will get you "unknown or expired link". Intentionally creating a few million of them ought to fill up the server's memory and would be a more effective way to to impair the server's functionality than simply requesting the home page a few billion times.
- gingerlime 14y ago
  So if they then brag about it and it get posted on HN, should it get upvoted? (not a rhetorical or cynical question, I'm really curious)
  - pc86 14y ago
    I'd upvote it if it was interested and they talked about how they did it (and it didn't involve LOIC). Which is to say the blog post about it probably wouldn't be worth reading :)
snikolic 14y ago
Someone upset that they were rejected from YC?
babuskov 14y ago
or someone upset their comments were down-voted? :D
brudgers 14y ago
HN is a significant asset for YCombinator, and YC, presumably, makes significant money.

by borlak 14y ago

A DDOS of HN is quite strange indeed. There should be some kind of ransom involved, but seeing as HN doesn't make money (I assume) from these forums, there is nothing to ransom.

IsTom 14y ago

Who would you DDOS if you wanted to see if your botnet works?

redthrowaway 14y ago

Why would it have to be for gain? I bet there's plenty of bored people with idle small- to medium-sized botnets who'd take down a somewhat popular site just for lulz.

manojlds 14y ago

For the people doing it, the gain can be about trying out their skills, not being bored, and getting the bragging rights of having DDoSed "Hacker" News.

Zak 14y ago
I'm inclined to suspect HN's design actually makes it fairly easy to DoS.
- pmelendez 14y ago
  How come? Can you explain your point a bit further?
  - Zak 14y ago
    Sure. I didn't want to put a how-to manual in this thread on the day of the attack though. HN has a big table of closures representing actions a user can take. Loading certain pages, such as the reply link on a comment creates more of them. They time out after a while, which will get you "unknown or expired link". Intentionally creating a few million of them ought to fill up the server's memory and would be a more effective way to to impair the server's functionality than simply requesting the home page a few billion times.
gingerlime 14y ago
So if they then brag about it and it get posted on HN, should it get upvoted? (not a rhetorical or cynical question, I'm really curious)
- pc86 14y ago
  I'd upvote it if it was interested and they talked about how they did it (and it didn't involve LOIC). Which is to say the blog post about it probably wouldn't be worth reading :)

snikolic 14y ago

Someone upset that they were rejected from YC?

babuskov 14y ago

or someone upset their comments were down-voted? :D

brudgers 14y ago

HN is a significant asset for YCombinator, and YC, presumably, makes significant money.