Channing's Bluff

[Tal]

From reading a 2+2 thread a few weeks ago it seems an individual was able to bring down the entire iPoker network (among other networks) using a DDoS attack when he moved all in, therefore winning key pots deep in tourneys. Can't find the thread now but I was pretty surprised it was so easy. The evidence seemed compelling at the time as someone in the thread posted that he was about to do it in a key pot by min-raise 4 or 5 betting in a weird spot and sure enough the entire network disconnected. Think it was said he tried it on Pokerstars too but they managed to stop it and ban him.

I know something similar at a tenner game I play at the local legion sometimes with our pool team. There's a guy who seems able to release a smell on demand in a big hand once he's a few beers in that clears the room and sends the hardest blokes to the toilets in coughing fits. No one can play when Pete has one of his "episodes". He could wilt a flower at a dozen paces that bloke.

[tikay]

I'm sure you know aswell as I do, there is no way to prevent an attack ):

I was trying to be a touch discrete.......

Attacks (DDOS) cannot be prevented, they happen all the time. Defences can & do attempt to thwart them though. Not always succesfully. For every successful one, there are many unsuccessful ones. You don't get to hear about those, though.

[redsimon]

What is a DDOS?

It's the internet equivalent of a picket line.

Either one person or a group of people finding a way of stopping people using a website. Can be something like using up the bandwidth and causing the site to crash, firing lots of malware at it and ruining the site for a period or stopping the site communicating with users.

Not sure what it is in this context.

I enjoyed the article. Always an enjoyable read. More rants about miserable twentysomethings and stories about Irish gamblers though, please.

That's about the sum of it. Persistent & repeated requests gradually overload the servers. The site does not  "instantly" fail, it just sort of gets strangled slowly, as the available bandwidth is used up.

The article? I always enjoy his stuff, as it happens. I was feeling pretty pleased about mentioning it, too, as I've had a lot of clicks on that link today, more than I usually get. I can "measure" my clicks, what time they take place, from where (geographically) & from what sort of platform (a Forum, Social-Media, da de da). I get a little graphy thing, & everything.

Do you get any extra cash the more clicks you get?

[bobby1]

What is a DDOS?

It's the internet equivalent of a picket line.

Either one person or a group of people finding a way of stopping people using a website. Can be something like using up the bandwidth and causing the site to crash, firing lots of malware at it and ruining the site for a period or stopping the site communicating with users.

Not sure what it is in this context.

I enjoyed the article. Always an enjoyable read. More rants about miserable twentysomethings and stories about Irish gamblers though, please.

Or you could do summat like arrange a freeroll on your poker site that allowed  a max of 10,000 players to play in it and then get 10,000 poker players all trying to log on at the exact time that registration opened. The firms systems then  see it as the start of a DDOS attack and the firms Sportsbook and casino site go down too....and its  Champions league final night......and you are out of the country  

Ha!

There's a man who has been there, seen it, & got the t-shirt.

Its very frustrating for everyone. Poker players get very upset, of course they do, it's jolly inconvenient. 

The Sites, however, find it equally irritating, to put it mildly. Generally, on a multi-media Gaming site, such as the very fine one I think you allude to, (if we talking 7 or 8 years ago?) have far far bigger volumes through their Sports Betting & Casino Sites, by a ratio of 40 or 50 times greater, so it's a tad inconvenient for them, too. To a poker player, nothing else matters, they temporarily lose their game, & get rather cross. Can't blame them one bit. But poker is a very small part of a much much greater whole.

As you note, on a Champions League night, or before Monday Night Football, it does exercise the sites somewhat.....     

PS - I owe Adam a thank you, my "clicks" have increased noticeable since this thread burst into life. Always a silver lining, eh?

The crux of the final abusive voicemail I had was ' You have taken down the whole site for a fucking poker tournament that nobody has even paid to play in you *******  ******'

Going forward they had to find a way to allow a lot of people to sign in to the freerolls at once and differentiating between a suspected threat. I'm guessing it is still the same today in that once the reg opens for those comps they get full within seconds?

[tikay]

What is a DDOS?

It's the internet equivalent of a picket line.

Either one person or a group of people finding a way of stopping people using a website. Can be something like using up the bandwidth and causing the site to crash, firing lots of malware at it and ruining the site for a period or stopping the site communicating with users.

Not sure what it is in this context.

I enjoyed the article. Always an enjoyable read. More rants about miserable twentysomethings and stories about Irish gamblers though, please.

That's about the sum of it. Persistent & repeated requests gradually overload the servers. The site does not  "instantly" fail, it just sort of gets strangled slowly, as the available bandwidth is used up.

The article? I always enjoy his stuff, as it happens. I was feeling pretty pleased about mentioning it, too, as I've had a lot of clicks on that link today, more than I usually get. I can "measure" my clicks, what time they take place, from where (geographically) & from what sort of platform (a Forum, Social-Media, da de da). I get a little graphy thing, & everything.

Do you get any extra cash the more clicks you get?

If only. It helps me to keep my job though, I suppose.

It's standard stuff, no different to what the likes of Little Danny, Lovely Liv, Big Neil or anyone else repping a site does. Clicks are very very important, x% of them (there is a default standard ratio) carry through to acquisition, & acquisition is king.

Feel free to keep clicking, ty ty ty.

[tikay]

What is a DDOS?

It's the internet equivalent of a picket line.

Either one person or a group of people finding a way of stopping people using a website. Can be something like using up the bandwidth and causing the site to crash, firing lots of malware at it and ruining the site for a period or stopping the site communicating with users.

Not sure what it is in this context.

I enjoyed the article. Always an enjoyable read. More rants about miserable twentysomethings and stories about Irish gamblers though, please.

Or you could do summat like arrange a freeroll on your poker site that allowed  a max of 10,000 players to play in it and then get 10,000 poker players all trying to log on at the exact time that registration opened. The firms systems then  see it as the start of a DDOS attack and the firms Sportsbook and casino site go down too....and its  Champions league final night......and you are out of the country   

Ha!

There's a man who has been there, seen it, & got the t-shirt.

Its very frustrating for everyone. Poker players get very upset, of course they do, it's jolly inconvenient. 

The Sites, however, find it equally irritating, to put it mildly. Generally, on a multi-media Gaming site, such as the very fine one I think you allude to, (if we talking 7 or 8 years ago?) have far far bigger volumes through their Sports Betting & Casino Sites, by a ratio of 40 or 50 times greater, so it's a tad inconvenient for them, too. To a poker player, nothing else matters, they temporarily lose their game, & get rather cross. Can't blame them one bit. But poker is a very small part of a much much greater whole.

As you note, on a Champions League night, or before Monday Night Football, it does exercise the sites somewhat.....     

PS - I owe Adam a thank you, my "clicks" have increased noticeable since this thread burst into life. Always a silver lining, eh?

The crux of the final abusive voicemail I had was ' You have taken down the whole site for a fucking poker tournament that nobody has even paid to play in you *******  ******'

Going forward they had to find a way to allow a lot of people to sign in to the freerolls at once and differentiating between a suspected threat. I'm guessing it is still the same today in that once the reg opens for those comps they get full within seconds?

I think the same fella must have signed up Next Door, I recognize that style.......I've had a few of those in my time, I can tell you.

Same today, as to lots of people suddenly regging?

I don't think so, no, certainly not in my experience, though it may be so on the "Big Site".

Freerolls run so often now, several every day, & when there is the occasional "Biggie", Registration opens a long time in advance, which eases the load.

It was the case not so long ago though, certainly.

Really, on Multi-Media platforms, the real test is not a poker Tourney with x hundred or thousand runners, it's the peak times for Sports Betting that really tests the integrity of the site software. And that software is the WHOLE site, Sports Betting, Casino, Poker, everything, not just one "arm".

At around 2.55 on a Saturday afternoon, the Online Bookies are taking, literally, hundreds of bets per second. That is some serious load. The load then "spikes" again after full time, when most people want to withdraw their winnings.

It's even more dramatic on days like Grand National Day, & many months of planning goes into ensuring the site can take the added strain. Grand National Day is worse in some ways, as many of those with winnings to come tend to want to withdraw immediately.  It's the greatest "acquisition" opportunity of the whole year, too, so one way & another, its a very challenging & exciting day for those sort of sites. I believe at least 2 major online bookies had serious load issues on Grand National day last year.   

Fascinating discussion, or it is to me, it's rare we get chance to natter about this sort of stuff. 

[rfgqqabc]

I nearly deleted it Tikay, as I know you say you don't mind too much but I do feel guilty for as we seem to be butting horns so often. Part of my annoyance came from you posting about blonde having extremely low traffic last month, and then the first topic I opened was this! I'm not sure why blonde struggles so much, I know of clan forums on games that run at a profit, so how blonde seems to struggle does blow my mind a bit.

You made some interesting points Oxford, but I do believe they were ddosed that day, I was playing and it was all extraordinarily slow, it seems unlikely it was just the extra volume seeing as they had been planning it for months. I'd offer you a good price if we could have a bet, but who really knows I guess.

It might be better if people did write about it. If 888 had told me they were being ddosed instead of myself presuming they had terrible servers, I would have been much more sympathetic. I can understand why it wouldn't be wrote about though, no one wants people with botnets holding these sites to ransom, or some other nefarious scheme!

[redarmi]

I largely have a DDos attack to thank for my relationship with my wife.  13 years ago I was working for what was then a fairly big sportsbook in the Caribbean and my (now) wife had just started working there as a customer service manager when we got took down by a DDos on an NFL Sunday early in the season.  My wife then got an email in the generic CS email with a ransom demand to stop it.  I am sure no gaming firms do this now but at the time we decided it was probably easier for us to pay and my wife and I were tasked with taking a trip around the island and visiting various Western Unions to pay the ransom in small enough batches to evade the money laundering authorities.  We got on pretty well during that morning and by the end of it she was blown away by my wit and repartee and had agreed to have dinner with me (or something like that).

[tikay]

I largely have a DDos attack to thank for my relationship with my wife.  13 years ago I was working for what was then a fairly big sportsbook in the Caribbean and my (now) wife had just started working there as a customer service manager when we got took down by a DDos on an NFL Sunday early in the season.  My wife then got an email in the generic CS email with a ransom demand to stop it.  I am sure no gaming firms do this now but at the time we decided it was probably easier for us to pay and my wife and I were tasked with taking a trip around the island and visiting various Western Unions to pay the ransom in small enough batches to evade the money laundering authorities.  We got on pretty well during that morning and by the end of it she was blown away by my wit and repartee and had agreed to have dinner with me (or something like that).

Awesome story!

Fair to say the DDOS problem has been around for a very long time. The nature of the attacks change, & so do the defences against them. It's a never ending game.

[tikay]

I nearly deleted it Tikay, as I know you say you don't mind too much but I do feel guilty for as we seem to be butting horns so often. Part of my annoyance came from you posting about blonde having extremely low traffic last month, and then the first topic I opened was this! I'm not sure why blonde struggles so much, I know of clan forums on games that run at a profit, so how blonde seems to struggle does blow my mind a bit.

You made some interesting points Oxford, but I do believe they were ddosed that day, I was playing and it was all extraordinarily slow, it seems unlikely it was just the extra volume seeing as they had been planning it for months. I'd offer you a good price if we could have a bet, but who really knows I guess.

It might be better if people did write about it. If 888 had told me they were being ddosed instead of myself presuming they had terrible servers, I would have been much more sympathetic. I can understand why it wouldn't be wrote about though, no one wants people with botnets holding these sites to ransom, or some other nefarious scheme!

First up, having a different opinion is never a problem, providing we can debate it sensibly, & not get all shouty-wouty. I think you & I are a bit like Jack Spratt & his missus. Proper awkward pair of buggers both of them, but they generally sorted it out.

I had to re-read the next part  5 or 6 times, & I'm afraid you've completely lost me there.   

"....Part of my annoyance came from you posting about blonde having extremely low traffic last month, and then the first topic I opened was this..."

Why would that annoy you, & what is the connection & correlation between me posting that link, & low traffic numbers?

The effect of posting such a link - or ANY interesting link - is to INCREASE traffic & interaction.

This thread generated 8% of all Posts on blonde yesterday, & was the 2nd "most posted on" thread all day.

If I had the time, I'd post a lot more such links. If I could post 10 links a day & they all generated the same interest & interaction, we'd not have a traffic problem, or not to such a degree.   

It's really very interesting how we seem to see things in such polar opposite ways so often, but I have a feeling that one day we will marry, & have kids & everything.

[Ironside]

By posting the link people then click on it and leave blonde, some for 5 minutes others for the rest of day thus reducing traffic.

Yes it can produce posts but links off sites will reduce page eyeballs and is normally a negative on sites that require eyeballs for sponsors.

[Ironside]

It's like sky sports pundit saying hey look at the game  btsport is putting on tonight go have a look

It doesn't happen

[DaveShoelace]

By posting the link people then click on it and leave blonde, some for 5 minutes others for the rest of day thus reducing traffic.

Yes it can produce posts but links off sites will reduce page eyeballs and is normally a negative on sites that require eyeballs for sponsors.

That's common sense and true for a lot of sites, but not for communities like Blonde. Blonde don't rely on page views etc to keep their sponsorship deal with DTD, and the majority of Blonde's traffic is repeat visitors. Posting links as Tikay did will get people off the site.......and then back on again to discuss it. Look at Tikay's diary, tons and tons of links out etc, but we all come back to talk about it.  

As a user I'd prefer it if Teeks linked directly to the Sky Poker threads he references, then I can hop over there, see the thread, close the browser and come back. Instead if I want to see said threads, I have to spend more time on Sky trying to find them. Direct links out are fine for Blonde.

Now if a site like PokerNews constantly linked out, that's a different matter, they need you to stay on their site and sign up to 888 or whatever.

[tikay]

By posting the link people then click on it and leave blonde, some for 5 minutes others for the rest of day thus reducing traffic.

Yes it can produce posts but links off sites will reduce page eyeballs and is normally a negative on sites that require eyeballs for sponsors.

No, that's plain wrong.

Also, by posting a link to the thread on Twitter, it attracts MORE viewers (& new ones) to blonde, not less.

Our survival is not linked with page views, it's linked with interaction.

We are not run for profit, so we just need to keep people interested, & engage with them.

[Ironside]

Yeah I know that I am just saying why someone would see it as wrong

as blonde doesn't have eyeball banners and click through deals it doesn't effect us when people click away