Internet Catastrophes, Then and Now

[Designer225]

Some of you (like me) have survived the April 2013 Internet Forum Catastrophe (as in, your account didn't got deleted, regardless of the loss of threads and posts). I was wondering how could the catastrophe be possible, by hackers, maybe? Or by viruses?

This thread is pretty much discussing about the internet catastrophes, like the October 2006 Panda Virus Pandemic (It's an internet catastrophe!), which spread through China's internet, hacking and damaging softwares. The pandemic came to an end in January 2007, when someone named Li Jun and his accomplices were captured and taken to custody. Discuss the internet catastrophes and relate them to now.

(Not sure this is the right forum. Should this be in Off-Topic or the Science Lab?) (multiple choice question)

Edited April 22, 2013 by Designer225
Grammar

[ROFLCopter64bit]

The most serious one I can think of instantly is the Melissa worm.

[WestAir]

In this instance, it was a wider attack on a large group of webpages across the net. That said, the hacking group Anonymous is attempting, they said, to cripple all of the internet to protest... something... I can't seem to remember what it was.

I always wondered what type of enjoyment hackers and virus creators get out of their hobby. Unlike other troll-centric or malicious activities, hackers and virus makers never get to see the surprised/depressed/angry faces of their victims. They never get to hear the conversations made about their hours of hard work. Really, it seems to me like these guys spend countless hours every day writing malicious code or attacking countless websites to never see what happens next. Sure, a hacker can go to a website they brought down and see a big "ERROR" message pop up - but is that really gratification? They could just as easily see that same message by typing in a web address that doesn't exist. It's surely not rewarding in any way for hours of hard work. I'll never understand this breed of people, and personally, I view them in the same category as thugs and criminals who have no idea what empathy, altruism, or being human really means.

As an aside, my account got nuked Too lazy to rebuild my old signature/avatar. Going to stay empty.

/end rant

[lump]

yo e honest when it comes to hackers i think its the feeling off releasing something ad waiting to see what becomes of it, like gossip.

on a semi related note i was thigh of creating a website where hackers ad virus creates test their abilities, both create a non damaging virus that pigs its location back to you, the virus creaters see whose spreads the most or the farthest, gives them something to do that isn't ruing our lives ad they might meet friends who share their passio

[ROFLCopter64bit]

In this instance, it was a wider attack on a large group of webpages across the net. That said, the hacking group Anonymous is attempting, they said, to cripple all of the internet to protest... something... I can't seem to remember what it was.

It was an argument with a webhost provider, so it was probably targeted at them.

I always wondered what type of enjoyment hackers and virus creators get out of their hobby. Unlike other troll-centric or malicious activities, hackers and virus makers never get to see the surprised/depressed/angry faces of their victims. They never get to hear the conversations made about their hours of hard work. Really, it seems to me like these guys spend countless hours every day writing malicious code or attacking countless websites to never see what happens next.

It's called the online aspergers syndrome. The regular aspergers syndrome means that the sufferer cannot understand the current body language of another person, leading them to occasionally do something weird or hurtful, without them knowing it was weird or hurtful, because they have no way of knowing. The variant is exactly the same. People online do not know what the other person is feeling. Right now, I don't know if you are ecstatic or in misery because you haven't told me. It especially applies to trolls, as they don't know how far they are going, so they don't know when to stop. This applies to anyone on the internet.

[EchoLima]

I lost my account

[Themohawkninja]

It's called the online aspergers syndrome. The regular aspergers syndrome means that the sufferer cannot understand the current body language of another person, leading them to occasionally do something weird or hurtful, without them knowing it was weird or hurtful, because they have no way of knowing. The variant is exactly the same. People online do not know what the other person is feeling. Right now, I don't know if you are ecstatic or in misery because you haven't told me. It especially applies to trolls, as they don't know how far they are going, so they don't know when to stop. This applies to anyone on the internet.

That is a very broad stereotype you have made. From what you are saying, it could be argued that all bomber pilots have Asperger's syndrome, since they do not know the misery and anguish of the people they hurt/kill. Hackers simply like the challenge of getting into someones things. It's like pickpocketing, you might never see the victims' reaction, and you don't care, you've got money, and the satisfaction that you got into somebodies pocket, and stole their wallet without anyone seeing.

[GJames]

It's like pickpocketing, you might never see the victims' reaction, and you don't care, you've got money, and the satisfaction that you got into somebodies pocket, and stole their wallet without anyone seeing.

But with pick pocketing you have a result, a reward if you will. Most hackers seem to attack websites or networks simply to see if they can, only a few have goals of stealing data or money.

[nhnifong]

Comcast and TWC are Internet catastrophies.

[Razor235]

Some hackers (like Kevin Mitnick) just do it for the thrill. Heck, Mitnick never took anything, he was just in it for the exhilaration of getting past security systems, both in cyber- and meatspace.

[Designer225]

There are also hackers hacking for a good cause. (like finding a bloophole of a software or a system)

[deadshot462]

The first one I remember is the 2000 "ILOVEYOU" virus that was a pic/text file attached to emails. Got everyone scared off the internet and appeared on the news every week.

Wikipedia: To protect themselves, The Pentagon, CIA, the British Parliament and most large corporations decided to completely shut down their mail systems.This virus affected over 45 million computers and was one of the world's most dangerous computer related disasters.

Edited June 23, 2013 by deadshot462

[Bioman222]

I (being a Playstation user) remeber a 6 month outage of Playstation Network after a group of hackers hacked it. Good guy Sony gave all PSN users free games/dlc as an "apology" for the incident. I belive Anonymous preformed the attack.

[Kerbal01]

What about the mid 2008 ish SpamHaus DDoS that shut down most of Europe's Internet for 3 hours

[Jones-250]

Here, have some memories: http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/showthread.php/24901-Memories-from-before-the-Purge

[Gatrnerd]

I (being a Playstation user) remeber a 6 month outage of Playstation Network after a group of hackers hacked it. Good guy Sony gave all PSN users free games/dlc as an "apology" for the incident. I belive Anonymous preformed the attack.

Actually, a hacker group called "LulzSec" did it.

[falofonos]

Some attacks are for the thrill, some for ideological reasons but there are quite a large number that are just fishing for access to valuable data.

DDoS became a tool for blackmail for a while, no clue how successful it was but I assume it worked or it wouldn't have happened so often.

Most virus payloads these days are aimed at either zombifying a machine, gathering bank details, personal details, passwords or proprietary information.

It's all about the money. That or sabotaging centrifuges.

Edited July 17, 2013 by falofonos

[Themohawkninja]

But with pick pocketing you have a result, a reward if you will. Most hackers seem to attack websites or networks simply to see if they can, only a few have goals of stealing data or money.

Just as in my pickpocketing analogy, the person doing the crime is satisfied with the fact that they succeeded.

[rpayne88]

Be nice if one of the devs was a white collar hacker. For those of you that haven't herd of them (anyone) they hack into systems to find out where they are weakest. Take the movie "Shooter" as an example.

[jwenting]

most serious internet catastrophe was the say AOL went life.