US parole board accuses Amnesty NZ of DDoS attack, blocks server

National Business Review ^ | 9/22/11 | Alex Walls

[SmithL]

UPDATED: Amnesty NZ's emails petitioning for clemency for Troy Davis were "most definitely not" a DDoS attack, Brett Roberts has said.

The former Microsoft NZ Chief Technology Officer (CTO) and current director of technology and business consultancy BusinessIQ said the US-Computer Emergency Readiness Team (CERT) defined a DDoS attack as when an attacker "attempts to prevent legitimate users accessing information or services."

He said using this definition, the Parole Board was "drawing a very long bow indeed", since the intention of the emails was to petition for clemency, rather than prevent legitimate use of the server.

Amnesty NZ said it received 800 signatures in under 12 hours before its petition was blocked by the Board's server.

. . .

The Georgia Parole Board has blocked all emails from Amnesty NZ’s sever following an accusation of a DDoS attack.

[JRandomFreeper]

800 signatures in under 12 hours

12 hours x 60 = 720 minutes. I work that out to be 1.1111etc.... signatures per minute.

If your servers can't keep up, you have weak skills, crappy servers, purchased software that is mostly kludges, or you just suck.

FR handles 800 posts in seconds.

Weak. Very weak.

But spamming up the screens for the normal users IS a valid call of DDoS. Just human run, and meant to fill up the comment space. CERT made a valid definition, vague as it is.

And honestly, I'd block any addys out of NZ myself, just because they are sanctimounious pr!cks. I have relatives there. They can't phone me, and their e-mail bounces. ;)

/johnny