The Internet Blackout of 2003

How a worm and a virus disrupted the entire Internet

from JoeUser Forums

The internet has definitely taken a beating this week.

On Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday of this week the Internet was practically shut down for some people. Particularly Tuesday and Wednesday. The first chart represents how many people are doing stuff on the net.  The second two charts represents the lag and packet loss.  As you could see, on 9/2 and 9/3 traffic was down yet lag and packet loss were up. That spells doom for dial up users and pain for everyone else as well.

I started investigating this because our direct sales (sales via the Internet) were oddly down.  And sure enough, that damn worm and email virus are the main culprits. Whoever created those things should be shot after having been given a wedgie and then marched in front of his school (it's gotta be a high school kid as worm and virus writing is the type of thing that appeals that age -- it's like shooting windows out of an abandoned building, easy to do but yet destructive on a larger scale).

That sad thing is that the twits who create this stuff don't realize (or care) about the harm it does. People who rely on the net for their livelihood get hurt and I'm not talking about Internet companies. Anyone who relies on the Internet for their business in a major way is affected. These virus writers need to get a life and a wake up call -- writing worms and computer viruses is trivial. Any half wit software developer can make them. Get over it.

8,481 views 4 replies
Reply #1 from JoeUser Forums Top
I've got to wonder about all the PC's that have been replugged into campus networks the last week or so.

Lovely bandwith, collections of computers in various states of updates, overwhelmed admins...

Kris
Reply #2 from JoeUser Forums Top
That's a good point. I'm not sure how one fixes this kind of problem though. Each time you plug one hole some geekling finds another.
Ashes of the Singularity II
Reply #3 from JoeUser Forums Top
What I don't understand is how the mainstream media (TV, Radio, Internet News) has failed to report not just how fantastically damaging these things are, but also exactly the point you brought up - how simple it is to do.

If some loser kid in Nebraska can do it, how long will it be before Ali Baghra-Sadin of the Islamic Jyhad starts doing it every day and twice on Sundays?

It's like saying "well hell, any dumb kid can ruin our economy with little effort, so we should punish the kid read bad!" WHAT? How about fixing the problem?!!
Reply #4 from JoeUser Forums Top
Well, as sensationalist as it is for me to say it, I reckon we're going to need a 9-11 style wakeup call before the big boys realize just how serious this is. Maybe bringing the internet down for a few weeks might wake them up.

And the way you fix the problem is by making people more aware of the part they play in it. As a sysadmin, I would usually "break" someone's email for a day or so if they ignored my urgent virus warnings. My feeling is that major players need to start this sort of behavior. If a user commits any crime online (fraud, threats, illegal media, etc) they are punished by the law with the help of their provider. AOL gives it up. Verizon gave it up. And so they should. The crime in this case would be neglect, and the punishment should be meted out accordingly. You better believe AOL users would be a lot more careful opening attachments and so on if their accounts were fined or simply docked.

There is also a lot that can be done on the top levels. I'd like to see real flesh-and-blood police be able to actually GO to the physical location where the attacks originate and arrest the SOB who's doing it. Right now, if you are under a DoS attack, and you even KNOW the guy and where he is and have him on the phone - there is nothing the cops can do about it. It's just not percieved as a real crime. That could change real fast with the aforementioned 3 week outage.