(no subject)
Hey guys!
I thought be good to explain what exactly has been going on with LJ lately, since I'm not sure everyone here is aware of the situation.
You might've heard LJ has been attacked by a DDoS attack. It happened couple weeks ago, then monday, then there was another attempt today, but LJ has seemed to got a handle of the situation very quickly.
DDoS stands for Distributed Denial of Service. Basically, it's an attack. Generally how this is done is the attackers infect random computers all over the world with some kind of malware that's designed to basically keep trying to load a website, but at a startling rate. We're talking probably far faster than any of us can mash f5 (reload shortcut). And when hundreds of computers do this at once, it's far more requests than LJ's servers (or any servers, to be honest) can possibly handle, thus they get overloaded, and thus real requests to load the website can't get through to the server, in other words, us. That's why it's called 'denial of service'. It denies the real users of being able to use the website.
It's like being in a dodgeball game and suddenly getting slammed with billions of balls from all directions. You'd just curl into a ball and pass out too. |D
But LJ has been fighting back. They're bouncing those balls away and defending itself. The problem is it has to figure out what are the fake requests and which are the real. It's a slow process of filtering and blocking, I'd imagine. It can't be easy. They don't want to block real traffic, after all.
And the worst thing is, the hackers can just infect a bunch of new computers, with completely different IP addresses, and do it all over again.
It's not really something LJ has any control over. They can only just deal with it the best they can. The fact they've been able to keep the site going at all is pretty awesome of them. They actually managed to block or stop the attack today very quickly, and even seemed to get the site loading better than it has in days. :Oa
Who's doing this? They're not sure, but it seems to have to do with Russian politics. LJ is owned by a Russian company, because LJ is HUGE in Russia. They love it, for some reason, but that means politicians and famous people also use the site. So, yeah, this attack is very possibly being setup by people with a LOT Of power. LJ is really a victim here, and unfortunately, the rest of it's world userbase is being affected right along with everyone else. (Something the Russian news doesn't seem to realize. >.>; )
So that is what's up. LJ is doing what they can, but mostly just gotta hope whoever is responsible gives up and accepts their message has been heard. :/ But unfortunately the intent here seems to be to take down LJ. orz
THUS... in light of this situation, the AC will go up at the usual date, but we will extend the end date by good few days. At least that's the proposed plan right now. We can discuss other options if LJ continues to struggle this month.
I realize this is horribly frustrating, but I'm sure it'll be sorted out soon enough. We just gotta be patient. ^_^b
I thought be good to explain what exactly has been going on with LJ lately, since I'm not sure everyone here is aware of the situation.
You might've heard LJ has been attacked by a DDoS attack. It happened couple weeks ago, then monday, then there was another attempt today, but LJ has seemed to got a handle of the situation very quickly.
DDoS stands for Distributed Denial of Service. Basically, it's an attack. Generally how this is done is the attackers infect random computers all over the world with some kind of malware that's designed to basically keep trying to load a website, but at a startling rate. We're talking probably far faster than any of us can mash f5 (reload shortcut). And when hundreds of computers do this at once, it's far more requests than LJ's servers (or any servers, to be honest) can possibly handle, thus they get overloaded, and thus real requests to load the website can't get through to the server, in other words, us. That's why it's called 'denial of service'. It denies the real users of being able to use the website.
It's like being in a dodgeball game and suddenly getting slammed with billions of balls from all directions. You'd just curl into a ball and pass out too. |D
But LJ has been fighting back. They're bouncing those balls away and defending itself. The problem is it has to figure out what are the fake requests and which are the real. It's a slow process of filtering and blocking, I'd imagine. It can't be easy. They don't want to block real traffic, after all.
And the worst thing is, the hackers can just infect a bunch of new computers, with completely different IP addresses, and do it all over again.
It's not really something LJ has any control over. They can only just deal with it the best they can. The fact they've been able to keep the site going at all is pretty awesome of them. They actually managed to block or stop the attack today very quickly, and even seemed to get the site loading better than it has in days. :Oa
Who's doing this? They're not sure, but it seems to have to do with Russian politics. LJ is owned by a Russian company, because LJ is HUGE in Russia. They love it, for some reason, but that means politicians and famous people also use the site. So, yeah, this attack is very possibly being setup by people with a LOT Of power. LJ is really a victim here, and unfortunately, the rest of it's world userbase is being affected right along with everyone else. (Something the Russian news doesn't seem to realize. >.>; )
So that is what's up. LJ is doing what they can, but mostly just gotta hope whoever is responsible gives up and accepts their message has been heard. :/ But unfortunately the intent here seems to be to take down LJ. orz
THUS... in light of this situation, the AC will go up at the usual date, but we will extend the end date by good few days. At least that's the proposed plan right now. We can discuss other options if LJ continues to struggle this month.
I realize this is horribly frustrating, but I'm sure it'll be sorted out soon enough. We just gotta be patient. ^_^b