Gambling Sites Battle DDoS Attacks 296
the-dark-kangaroo writes "Gambling sites are fighting back against extortion from hackers using Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) attacks. According to the report released by the BBC many of these attacks are coming from infected home PCs which have succumbed to a worm or virus. The gambling sites are bringing in reinforcements: Pipex, Cisco and security firm Energis are creating 'intelligent' traffic monitoring systems to help stop these attacks."
I try and try.. (Score:3, Interesting)
I mean, I know it's wrong, but when you get into that business I'm sure this isn't really that uncommon. Gambling is a shady 'business' in the first place, so if you have to deal with other shady people to keep it going, then them's the breaks, buddy.
Re:I try and try.. (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:I try and try.. (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:I try and try.. (Score:3, Funny)
Re:I try and try.. (Score:2)
Re:I try and try.. (Score:5, Informative)
Some interesting stats about online gambling:
- Those dDoSes hit 2GB/sec. More than Energis' internal network can cope with.
- The primary dDoSers (some russian guys) were caught and arrested last year, there was a
- The mafia have been involved with some US sites, but I know of at least one that got shut down when the entire board of the company got arrested
- The WTO is trying to make the US ban on Internet gambling illegal
- The biggest online casino is israeli-founded/based www.888.com who do multiple billion per month in turnover. You can get house win from that by taking off about 98-99.5%. (turnover counts every value of every spin of a slot machine or every wager, remove the odds of winning % for the house win)
In conclusion, the world does not have the same laws as the US (gambling is perfectly fine in the UK for instance) and some people run responsible gambling sites and still have to put up with all the tiring crap from crackers and dDoSers.
* technically it is their affiliates who do it through affiliate programs, but same difference, they are all guilty and could crack down on it if they wanted.
Re:I try and try.. (Score:2)
Sovereignty, anyone? That's the most ridiculous thing I've ever heard.
No, wait. There was that thing about the Earth being hollow, with openings at the poles and the lost ten tribes of Israel walking around upside-down on the other side of the crust.... I think that was the most ridiculous thing I've ever heard.
It was close, though.
Re:I try and try.. (Score:2)
My reply to them is WAAAAAA!!! We (the internet community) asked you not to do a bunch of things which were "bad" (spam and spyware). You went ahead and did the "bad" things and now someone who is "badder" is doing "bad" things to you and you want us to help you.
Hmmmm...let me think about this - help the spam
Re:I try and try.. (Score:2, Informative)
Some of them aren't. A lot of them run a perfectly legitimate business advertising through tradiaiton means.
In addition, I fail to see what benefit you provide anyone. Someone mentioned taxes. Most of the gambling sites are located in a few countries in Central America (like Belize) where the money is usually paid to a corrupt goverment that uses it to mo
Re:I try and try.. (Score:2)
Blame the right person for that (Score:2, Informative)
From the PartyPoker Affiliate Agreement [iglobalmedia.com]:
Re:Blame the right person for that (Score:3, Insightful)
If they don't immediately terminate spamming affiliates,they are knowingly profitting from the spam. If the actually PAY OUT to the spammer, then they are condoning it.
This tends to be the case, or else it wouldn't be a problem.
Re:Blame the right person for that (Score:2)
Re:I try and try.. (Score:4, Insightful)
Would you prefer to deal with a bookie or a regulated buisness? At least the on-line gambling websites have to pay taxes.
Re:I try and try.. (Score:5, Insightful)
Tax on those poor at math? Perhaps. But, why shady?
Re:I try and try.. (Score:2)
Re:I try and try.. (Score:2, Funny)
If you have enough money, you trump God.
Re:I try and try.. (Score:3, Interesting)
I would rather see the state earn money by providing services such as af
Re:I try and try.. (Score:4, Insightful)
I look at it as a zero sum gain industry. It only re-distributes wealth. It has no wealth creation or real value growth.
Well duh. Most industries today create nothing tangible. Think all of the services you can buy that generate no physical substance. Wash your car for $10, nothing of value is generated. In fact, the act of washing a car consumes large amounts of natural resources in the form of energy consumed and detergents that must be recovered before they are released into the natural water reserves. Does this mean we should abolish all carwashes?
The economy isn't really about creating goods for consumption. Yes, those things are important for sustaining people but in reality as long as there is sufficient natural resources being converted to goods, the rest of the society can just spend their time trading money from one hand to another in exchange for services like gambling. Like it or not, it IS a part of the economy and provides livelyhood for hundreds of thousands.
Many industries such as farming take labor and make a product. Other than entertainment value, gambling has no product.
You can probably come up with a dozen other industries that similarly offer only entertainment.
All gambeling money is re-distributed with no net gain. That's the thing I have against the state lottery or state video poker. The state provides no product and just takes the suckers money.
You can justify all you want, but the truth is that any objection against gambling is purely moral. I'm always amazed at how ass-backward conservative Slashdot is when it comes to things like gambling, but I guess that's the US mentality of "gambling evil" at work.
I would rather see the state earn money by providing services such as affordable broadband such as in Washington State. The state is providing $40/month broadband with telephone and 5 Gig bandwidth. It beats video poker.
Did it ever occur to you that maybe the proceeds from the state lottery are used to subsidize such projects? Duh indeed.
Re:I try and try.. (Score:2)
Also I think that since there are people who gamble until broke, there could/should probably exist some kind of safe keep for those people. To protect them of them selves.
Re:I try and try.. (Score:2)
Re:I try and try.. (Score:5, Informative)
Your understanding of "addiction" is lacking. While physical dependency on a substance is indeed not the 'exact same thing' as an uncontrollable psychological compulsion, they both CORRECTLY fall under the same general definition of "addiction".
In other words, your opinion that physical addiction is the only "true addiction"... is simply wrong.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Addiction [wikipedia.org]
Addiction (Score:5, Interesting)
It just means the affected person must put out even more effort to overcome it.
Just because some people are sex addicts doesn't mean I shouldn't be allowed to sleep with my wife. (or yours for that matter)
Re:I try and try.. (Score:5, Insightful)
Betting on the result of a sporting event, or anything else, via a legally authorised bookmaker is no more shady than having a cup of coffee.
Just because you have this image of gambling that seems to be more to do with smoke-filled secret back rooms where you have to know the password and the guy behind the bar to get in than legitimate, publicly-traded and -scrutinied businesses that doesn't make it a reality.
The gambling sites being DDOSed aren't run by crooks, they're the legitimate and legal online presences of bricks-and-mortar bookmakers as well as internet gambling start-ups.
Re:I try and try.. (Score:2)
In all the gangster movies, they are always involved in gambling.
Basically anywhere that kind of money changes hands is going to attract people you wouldn't normally want to associate yourself with.
Casinos seem morally irresponsible to me, letting people run up debt to the point where they put a burdon on society in order to make a profit. I'm sure this is an a
Re:I try and try.. (Score:5, Insightful)
I'm sorry, but in the US couldn't you apply that label to hospitals too? Medical bills that run into 5 or 6 figures aren't uncommon and it's a sad fact that the biggest factor in personal bankrupcy in the US is unpaid (and, more importantly, unpayable) medical bills.
And, out of interest, where do you draw the line at what is and what isn't gambling? Is playing the lottery gambling? And in a so-called "free" society, shouldn't you be able to do what you want with your hard-earned cash? Does anyone really have the right to tell you how you can and can't use it to entertain (and possibly enrich) yourself if you're not hurting anyone else in the process?
To be honest, I'm not in favour of unchecked gambling, but then I'm not in favour of unchecked alcohol abuse either, but you don't see church and state bringing the roof down on that ballgame, do you?
Re:I try and try.. (Score:3, Informative)
I'd like you to cite a source for that. I googled for it and found a few charts, most of them indicating loss of job as the #1 cause.
Re:I try and try.. (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:I try and try.. (Score:2)
Re:I try and try.. (Score:2)
Re:I try and try.. (Score:2)
Re:I try and try.. (Score:2)
Re:I try and try.. (Score:2)
Re:I try and try.. (Score:2)
"Hi, we at company X have the lowest customer satisfaction record for after sales support. Buy our stuff."
Even the best products and companies have problems.
Re:I try and try.. (Score:2)
"Buy our car and have twice the chance that it'll get broken into or stolen."
"Buy our notebook PC and have a 1/4 chance that it'll break down within a year."
"Buy our burgers and watch your health suffer."
"Buy a ticket to come see our totally unappealing movie."
"Buy our sports shoes and clothing that were made by child labourers in a far eastern sweatshop."
"Buy our clothes that lose their colours and their shape after minimal wear."
"Buy our toothpa
Re:I try and try.. (Score:4, Insightful)
It's common practice to advertise an image of something which bears no relation to reality.
Re:I try and try.. (Score:4, Insightful)
Sorry but you're displaying your arrogance. Just because something is legal doesn't mean it is ethical. I could give you plenty of examples, but I'll leave it up to people's imagination.
What sort of a dim-witted comparison is that? Gambling devastates many people's lives. That makes people who push their gambling 'services' onto us 'shady'. Having a cup of coffee has nothing to do with it.
You don't need smoke-filled, secret rooms or passwords to have a shady business. You just need to have a deficient conscience, or excess greed, and an online gambling site. Then you sit back and wait for the poor suckers to 'click', 'click', 'click', 'click', 'click', 'click', 'click'. People don't rock up to a gambling establishment and try their luck once. They stay their until they're out of money. You can disagree with me if you like, but every time I go to a casino ( get dragged their by workmates once a year or so ), the above is what I witness.
I don't think so. People running gambling sites are far more likely to be dodgy than those in a physical establishment. It's far easier to police a 'real' gambling business than a virtual one, especially since a virtual one can hide it's location and reside in a place that has no regulation.
Also, I get a fucking shitload of SPAM from gambling sites. Right away that says to me that the people running the sites are far from innocent, law-abiding citizens.
You seem to try to make the point throughout your post that because something is legal, that somehow blesses the activity. I suppose the opposite of this is that everything which is illegal is patently evil. Both points are absolutely ridiculous. There are plenty of things which are legal which are evil:
- selling carcinogen-soaked cigarettes
- selling alcohol
- selling weapons
- having a monopoly ( esp. a media monopoly )
Likewise, there are plenty of things which are illegal which are quite harmless
- recreational drugs
- not voting if there's no-one worth voting for ( Australia )
- being a member of the Iraqi resistance
I'm pretty sure that I'd get disagreement on all of the above points. This reinforces my argument that:
- you should never use the law to enforce ethical behaviour in private matters
- you should never use an activity's legal status as an indicator of it's ethical status
Back to the topic of the actual article
Re:I try and try.. (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:I try and try.. (Score:2)
Alcohol is not addictive to the vast majority of people. It has been shown that low to moderate alcohol use has been shown to be beneficial to your health. All drugs have problems. There is a point where y
Re:I try and try.. (Score:2)
Re:I try and try.. (Score:2)
I would also like to mention that the IRS sucks. In Canada, we don't tax lottery winnings.
Re:I try and try.. (Score:2)
So who's shadier? The bookie who gives you less than generous odds or the mouse that uses your six year old kids to get into your wallet? I really don't know myself.
Great Idea (Score:5, Funny)
A moment of silence for the kneecaps of the virus writers if/when discovered.
Re:Great Idea (Score:2, Funny)
Good job, Virus Writers! (Score:2, Funny)
their cement shoes under 100 feet of water,
I'll be even more impressed!
Where's my violin? (Score:4, Insightful)
It's difficult for me to feel sorry for gambling sites getting DDoSed.
not just gambling sites (Score:2)
I agree with you though, gambling operators get zero sympathy from me. Just desserts I say, fo
Re:Where's my violin? (Score:2)
Perhaps it's the fact that the impetus for developing these new technologies is for protecting their asses from outside intrusion when they (as an industry) willfully trampled over other peoples' privacy in order to shove their wares in peoples
Re:Where's my violin? (Score:2)
The pimp is extorting men and women he "employs." It might be a good thing for the drug dealer to be dead, but the pimp is still a sleazeball. Should I thank
Re:Where's my violin? (Score:2)
Re:Where's my violin? (Score:2)
Legal issues? (Score:5, Interesting)
Now that I've said that, how is this not a legal issue for Cisco? Surely the FBI, DEA, and assorted other federal agencies would be all over Cisco if they were helping Colombian drug cartels in any way whatsoever. How do they "get away" with it? Aren't they essentially aiding and abetting what in the U.S. is considered a criminal enterprise? I mean, as an individual I can go place bets at some offshore casino and fly under the radar, but a big company like Cisco is going to have a hard time doing that, especially if their help is on the front page of Slashdot and other news sources.
Re:Legal issues? (Score:5, Insightful)
Cisco is just working on solutions against DDOS attacks; it's not Cisco's responsibility if that technology is used to protect the Pentagon or some online gambling site. Following your logic, Cisco is already in trouble because those online gambling companies already use Cisco hardware in their setup... And so is Dell, 'coz they made the PCs used by the casino staff, and so is the company who made the bricks for the building their HQ is located in etc...
See how ridiculous it gets if you stop to think about it? ;)
Re:Legal issues? (Score:3, Insightful)
It is a big difference.
I'm afraid despite all attempts (wishes) to the contrary the US can't apply any law it likes on any country in the world.
Well, not without invading it first
Re:Legal issues? (Score:2)
Re:Legal issues? (Score:2)
What scares me is that you are wrong. (Score:3, Informative)
You see, I myself don't feel a lot safe, because the US governme
Re:Legal issues? (Score:4, Informative)
Filtering doesn't save incoming bandwidth (Score:4, Insightful)
The only way to make this work is to block traffic at a site far enough back to cope with the level of traffic(and the size of botnets will only grow, so even a reasonably large network company could be knocked out).
Re:Filtering doesn't save incoming bandwidth (Score:2)
The only way to make this work is to block traffic at a site far enough back to cope with the level of traffic(and the size of botnets will only grow, so even a reasonably large network company could be knocked out).
If I were a gambling site (or a porn site for that matter), I'd
Re:Filtering doesn't save incoming bandwidth (Score:2)
If avoiding these DDOS attacks were easy they wouldn't be newsworthy. Unfortunately it's anything but a simple problem.
Re:Filtering doesn't save incoming bandwidth (Score:2)
Exactly. If the internet provider is not willing or sufficiently capable of helping, then it is an impossible problem.
You can't save the incoming bandwidth, because you don't know what a packet is until it has already consumed that bandwidth.
Your upstream provider could help on a short term basis, but it would take a while (longer term) to implement something which works. In which case
Re:Filtering doesn't save incoming bandwidth (Score:3, Insightful)
And build a list of IP addresses to allow the botnets' ISPs to cut their accounts until they speak to someone about not being a Typhoid Mary.
In fact, it's getting close to the time when we should be doing this.
NAT (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:NAT (Score:2)
You don't need NAT (and if/when IPv6 goes mainstream you won't want NAT). All you need is a connection tracking firewall.
Re:NAT (Score:4, Insightful)
Encouraged? Sure. Forced? I like having my open static IP, thanks.
Re:NAT (Score:3, Interesting)
that would sure help encourage you to keep your pc clean.
otherwise, nobody is going to bother lifting a finger protecting their windoze boxen. which is the situation now. and look at the results.
Re:NAT (Score:2)
Ask MSN DSL users. The last time I checked they offered an Arescom modem [arescom.com] with nat enabled without the ability for the end user to configure it.
Re:NAT (Score:4, Interesting)
In the UK, and most probably Europe, it is a very serious offence to sell goods unfit for the purpose for which they are advertised.
Lock them up and throw away the key. Mwa, ha, ha haaar!
ISPs (Score:3, Insightful)
Everyone I know who is using Windows is getting sick of all the viruses and junk, It tires me to hear about it and I'm now at the stage where I say "put up with it or let me install Linux". At some point the pain level will grow su
Re:NAT (Score:2)
Re:NAT (Score:2)
Re:NAT (Score:2)
Re:NAT won't help (Score:2, Insightful)
Devils advocate... (Score:5, Insightful)
Okay, I understand that we're talking about gambling websites. But these same methods can be used to take down just about any website. Society makes the final call on what is legal and illegal. Some might say the hackers are using their ethics to take down a vice. But if that was the hackers goal, why ask for money? Second, the tax revenue gambling generates often goes to schools. By taking them down, it would seem harm is being done in unexpected places. Politicans are responsible for planning funding, and if a bubble bursts, the community is in trouble.
Second, do we want one, or a small group of people, telling society what they can and can't do? What if a group of Jehova's Witnesses hackers decided to remove ALL porn off the web. People would freak out. One man's utopia is another mans hell.
Re:Devils advocate... (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Devils advocate... (Score:2)
US-Centric Shortsightedness (Score:3, Insightful)
You're thinking about this as a US couch potato that believes that what your gover
Prevention? (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Prevention? (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Prevention? (Score:5, Informative)
Jw
Hackers (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Hackers (Score:2, Insightful)
Anyway, yeah, I'm surprised online gambling hasn't been hit earlier: here you have a huge industry that relies on a single technology for all its business, and is complet
The root of the problem (Score:2, Insightful)
If your car notoriously breaks causing harm to other users of the road, you won't get your car's paper prolonged. If a company keeps producing cars that damage other users of the roads, that company has to replace/fix all the cars sold. Now, tell me why exactly Microsoft can get away with selling software that's harmful for the community at large?
Re:The root of the problem (Score:2)
Taking your analogy further, it's a fact that some cars are easier to break into than others. Should Ford be held responsible because the Pinto has such a flimsy ignition lock that it's the preferred vehicle of bank robbers for stealing and using during robberies?
Re:The root of the problem (Score:3, Insightful)
The market must act as the force that keeps Microsoft honest. Why the market has not done so is an interesting question. My theory is that since Windows *is* the computer for most people, any problems with Micro
online poker (Score:3, Funny)
I fear this 'online poker' guy is getting attacked, too, in which case we would miss out on all the great spam comments in our blogs. Wouldn't that be a sad, sad world?
Re:online poker (Score:2)
Legality and Cause (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Bonus (Score:2)
Go after the botnets... (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Go after the botnets... (Score:2)
That's ridiculous, If I'm running a fully secured and patched system, but I need to run a particular web facing service, and that service happens to have an undiscovered vulnerability in it, why should I be liable for it?
A better car analogy would be making the driver liable if his car's breaks failed, it's just not fair. We can't expect everyone to be computer savy, it'
Re:Go after the botnets... (Score:3, Interesting)
However, a technological solution might actually be better in this case. It's not like spam, which is meant for human beings and hard for a machine to determine accurately. DDoS attacks are just streams of packets. Threatening hanging and flogging only works against people who take notice of what you say and who you have a reasonable chance of catching. Nailing s
How about the ISPs (Score:3, Interesting)
Some ISPs do offer firewall/antivirus services, though most I've seen either suck or cost an additional fee.
But the thing is, it's probably not that difficult to tell if the users on your ISP are owned. And the ISP can disconnect those users until they are patche
We need some "Killer" viruses (Score:2, Interesting)
Zzz's Casino (Score:4, Funny)
We here at Zzz's Casino guarantee no interuption to our service due to DDoS attacks.
Alternative Theory (Score:5, Interesting)
On my website 90% of the comment spam was from online poker sites. That added up to hundreds of messages per day that I had to delete, and I know many others had similar experiences. I know I was thinking that they deserve a lesson, and maybe some folks decided to teach them one. While I don't necessarily approve of the method, I fully understand the impulse. Many online gambling sites are run by pricks; I won't shed a tear for them and their self-inflicted troubles any more than I would for the RIAA/MPAA.
Give me a break... (Score:2, Informative)
Every idiot with internet access can make a DoS attack, and not everyone with access is a hacker.
Hate It (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Extortion? (Score:2)
All you have to do is threaten to do something with the exception being if you pay a small fee.