It's a DDOS. The risk of collateral damage is high. <snip>
From what limited information is available in the articles, it doesn't sound that way. It's not really a DDoS attack, but more of a "distributed web surfing bot." <snip>
I understand this as more of a Distributed Consumption of Service attack. (Is the acronym DCoS used yet?) Real requests, downloading real data, to real computers. A lot of them. T <snip>
The big difference between Lycos Europe, and a script kiddie with zombies is that Lycos is mature enough to use restraint and not knock down websites with brute force. They're attempting to use the politically correct "grown up" way to attack someone: economics.
How is giving the spammers what they want (real web site traffic) an attack? That doesn't even qualify!
How many bogus URLs are embedded into spam content? A: Lots. They are used to obscure words to get past filters, or as red herring targets or joe-jobs. A DDoS is a DDoS, no matter how "benign" one might think it is, or how "evil/deserving" the target is perceived to be. The risk of collateral damage is way too high. -- Chuck Goolsbee V.P. Technical Operations _________________________________________________________________ digital.forest Phone: +1-877-720-0483, x2001 where Internet solutions grow Int'l: +1-425-483-0483 **** celebrating ten years of service 7/12/1994 - 7/12/2004 **** 19515 North Creek Parkway Fax: +1-425-482-6871 Suite 208 http://www.forest.net Bothell, WA 98011 email: cg@forest.net