Posted on 07/29/2017 10:09:09 PM PDT by Jim Robinson
Wanted to avoid running a thread on this, but seeing as how it continues dragging on, guess I'd better. The DOS attacker obviously knows by now that he's hurting us.
Have no idea when he/they started the attack, but we discovered it a few days ago. And John has been fighting it ever since. Says it's like whack-a-mole. Every time John gets him blocked or knocked out, he pops up again with a new modified attack. John thought he had a good solution a couple days ago, and we did enjoy one night and most of the next day with good response time, but then the guy popped up again with a fresh attack.
Don't mind telling you that John is getting very frustrated over this. In fact, the last time we discussed it tonight, he finally told me he could do better if I'd just get off the phone and let him work.
Praying John gets him permanently blocked soon and then we can get back to the more mundane hardware and systems problems that have been plaguing us lately.
And I'm sorry about being sorry. Again. Seems like every month and every week a new problem. But we're stubborn and we're not going to quit. We've managed to solve lots of problems over the last twenty years and we'll solve these too. Eventually. Praying not too many of our participants quit either. We absolutely can't get a long without you.
Hang in there everyone, we'll get this behind us soon.
Also, there are some (not to name names, Boomer) who are claiming we make "millions" off this site. If so, it must be government millions, because we don't see much of it. Nowhere close to millions anyway.
Our estimated ongoing budget of expenses is linked on our donate page. I suppose if you total up the gross income for the last 20 years and assume we have no expenses it could add up to a couple million. But anyone whose been in business for any period of time, knows that's not likely.
There are also posters (Boomer again among others) claiming they could do this on cloud for just a few hundred per year. Well, maybe so. I wish them luck.
Prayers up.
Malevolent hackers, virus authors, and their nefarious ilk should be executed.
In public.
Televised.
/.02
Thanks for posting that.
A few here are ignorant to the costs (time and $$) associated with providing this great site.
And, I agree, ‘even IF they were making a fortune, they would’ve earned it’ (not that they are).
I was just thinking that, earlier this morning. What other conservative website has provided SO much, in the fight against the socialists/Marxists? Worth it’s weight in gold.
Seems like these attacks happen every time there is big news we are all interested in, so it’s definitely a well thought out attack, surely dem liberal operatives. This is part of their war on us.
This is such a rational post, explained kindly, politely, by a well rounded, intelligent synthesizer of info the way one expects FReepers to be. No one should take offense by these loving suggestions made with wisdom and common sense. Hell, we love this place and we just don’t understand why wheels that have already been invented aren’t utilized.
Not surprised. Any decent conservative website is going to come under attack more by deep state.
I will be praying there is a solution without using enemy platforms too. There has to be.
Never say your sorry Jim.
Ever.
It has puzzled me for a long time now, why such offers of help go unaccepted. I've seen Freepers with solid professional qualifications openly offer to lend their time and expertise to handle the technical issues here, time and time again, with no response.
I could understand such refusals if the operators had matters well in hand and under control, but the last several years of chronic, intermittent breakdowns and performance failures proves that that is not the case.
By any objective measure, the technical site issues are of a magnitude that is beyond the operators' ability to overcome in a reasonable and timely fashion. The reasons for that are unclear, as situation reports are somewhat sketchy and thin on details, hence the constant speculation and wide ranging assumptions by us lay Freepers.
Point is, I've been around the block enough to know when a unit, department, or segment of infrastructure is in a chronic state of crisis, and could benefit from outside intervention. This is one of those.
Doubt it is the FBI.
Looks like the DEEP STATE folks of the Dems,RYNOS, those 7 RYNOS in the Senate.
Praying God gives John innovative solutions.
Maybe a group powwow with several long trusted members with ideas and up to date experience. A brainstorming session with reliability, independence, freedom, and the Robinsons’ ability to remain wholly in charge as goals.
Many very high quality, trained, high level IT experts have said something similar for a very long time, to no avail.
Looks more like the need to call in outside tech help. This looks like possible hacking.
Humility is ALWAYS in order, and Godly.
Nice idea, would be great to see some interaction. We’ve had our own challenges over the years with my business. I know running the same tests on freerepublic.com that we regularly run on my company’s sites shows a number of server and domain configuration issues and security concerns, plus obviously there is no roll-over redundancy, no backup to keep FR operational. Lots of IT experts on FR, all happy to contribute to discussions if they were entertained.
Nice idea, would be great to see some interaction. We’ve had our own challenges over the years with my business. I know running the same tests on freerepublic.com that we regularly run on my company’s sites shows a number of server and domain configuration issues and security concerns, plus obviously there is no roll-over redundancy, no backup to keep FR operational. Lots of IT experts on FR, all happy to contribute to discussions if they were entertained.
I’m not sure that being rational is always the strategy of choice.
To my knowledge FR has never been hacked in 20+ years. That alone is a huge success considering how much we are disliked in some circles. The DOS attack is a malicious outsider sending data specifically to overload the server. The DOS attack may also crash some processes to enhance the disruption. A hacking attack may also crash processes but the specific goal of hacking is to run foreign code on the server to gain control. Gaining control and running the foreign code is actually the same thing.
I'm sure the site gets a lot of "probing" all the time. My nothing-special sites certainly do. That can be a prelude to an attack, looking for weaknesses. But if the current attack is more or less the same thing over and over, but from different source addresses, then it is probably not a hacking attempt, but a DOS campaign. John can look at logs and see the difference.
Jim
Your Hosting Provider should be helping with this. Check your contract.
And, a persistent DOS attack should be reported to authorities. They have the ability to determine true origin, if they choose to.
Amen.
Haven’t heard from John yet today, but the system is flying!
Prayers up!
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