In computer news this week, 07/25/2001

DOS attack on the internet; computers made robot captives, and you might be part of it ....

You might wonder what the word DOS is doing related to the internet; many of us old timers automatically interpret DOS as meaning Microsoft's disk operating system. But the internet, as it changes and redefines our world, is creating its own dictionary of terms.

Dos Attack in internet terms means a denial of service, or hackers bringing down a website so that noone can access it. This has happened to many of the biggest websites, including CNN, Microsoft, and most recently the White House, so nobody is exempt. Most website managers when attacked try to figure out ways around the attack, rather than dealing with the cause.

The cause of the DOS attacks almost seems so far-fetched as to be unbelievable. Imagine if you will a virus with a made-for-the-movies name; Code Red, and a made-for-the-movies mission of infecting hundreds of thousands of business and individuals computers unknowingly, and then at a certain doomsday date - instructing all these computers to attack one single website, flooding it with traffic that it cannot handle, and bringing the website down. Sounds Orwellian, sounds like a bad science fiction novel you say. Well folks, it's true, and happening today. The story behind all this is one of the most fascinating tales of sleuthing I have ever read related to the pc industry.

The best book of all so far has been The Cuckoo's Egg by Cliff Stoll; how his discovering a tiny accounting error developed into an incredible discovery of East German hackers trying to hack into U.S. government computers, and this book should be part of your computer library.

Steve Gibson, creator of the utility program Spinrite, had his own company website brought down by an Internet DOS attack and decided to fight back. Steve has told his story in electronic format - you can read it at his website of grc.com and click on the Denial of Service story, to read his amazing adventure.

The gist of his story is that he discovered that hundreds of pc's were attacking his site, and that all these pc's had been infected by a computer virus that turned them into attack robots. A 13 year old hacker could issue a directive to all these computers through the internet, and they would all begin attacking a single website. Steve Gibson wrote his own programs to discover what was going on, and soon found out that he was being attacked because of an article he had written which some hackers took offense to.

He engaged the hacker in an internet conversation, and was able to resolve and stop the attacks against his own web site, but they still continue against others.

Perhaps the most chilling statement he makes in his tale is:

"I hope it is becoming clear to everyone reading this,
that we can not have a stable Internet economy
while 13 year-old children are free to deny arbitrary
Internet services with impunity"

Steve puts the blame equally on the hackers themselves, and on Microsoft, for its many security holes in its operating systems that hackers exploit. All these security issues, and also how to check to see if your computer is attacking websites on its own - is in this fascinating tale.

Go read it - you really need to be aware of these issues.

For Raw Bytes, This is Frank Delaney

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