h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Starting Sat 25th many routers have been hit.The net was seriously slowed. Sites monitoring the health of the Internet reported significant slowdowns globally. Experts said the electronic attack bore remarkable similarities to the "Code Red" virus during the summer of 2001 which also ground traffic to a halt on much of the Internet. from CNN REPORTS

Oh dear...is it going to take long to fix?

I haven't noticed anything, though I only just got online. I don't really understand, how would a virus slow down servers?

*Gets very confused*

Basically by sending them lots of traffic.

If you have lots of traffic at a road junction, you get a jam on the roads when the traffic gets to the point where the junction is too busy... It's similar with the internet, if there is lots of traffic at key points (servers) then there's a jam on the network and everything slows down, in fact some computers don't cope and will crash.

This worm, as I understand it on a fairly basic level, pretends to be a server (a) and sends out a signal to a known server (b), the known server replies to the real server (a) which replies to (b) which replies to (a) and so on. Enough instances of the worm, means that lots of servers get really busy and the internet slows down.

It's basically a "denial of service" attack - the usual meaning being a computer is sent lots of packets/information and asked for lots of packets/information till it can't cope.

I hope that was clear, I'm just learning about this stuff.

Well I would be the last person to understand what it meansto the computer world. It was reported in the cnn morning news, there was a comment to follow. Pararphrased: The perfect reason why a the new internet security package the president wanted should be enacted, ignoring the fears sited previously, as inadequate.

Oh by the way h2g2 is slowing down.

Is it?
I suppose that makes sense, but I wouldn't call it a virus.

I don't like the sound of 'internet controls'. Cyberspace must be free, wild and dangerous. On behalf of the internet, I'd like to say, "Go away government; the web is beyond law's control. All data will be free, regardless of attempts to restrict us. The state is defunct."

grey maduin

No, it's a "worm" really.

It actually works because of a bug in the code in a software for "MS SQL servers" - and there was a patch last June.

If people who ran (important, network server) computers ran them well and compentently, a lot of the problems with things like this worm would go away.

If people who run any computer that connects to the internet run them well and competently (up to date virus software, not opening files they didn't ask for etc) then a lot of viruses would not spread.

A lot of the malicious harm done is only able to be done because others are lazy or incompetent. Sounds harsh, but I reckon it's true.

[Of course, if people were competent, the malicious souls who write viruses and worms would come up with other ways of making things break...]

thanks for explaining !

so.....what do U think about additional government controls,see any need?

I found it intruiging that the worm does nothing apart from spread... they can tell this quite accurately because the worm itself is only 360 odd bytes -- a very short program indeed.

If there were so many vulnerable servers, something much worse could have been done -- but it wasn't. This should alert pretty much everyone with an insecure server to the problem.

So in the long run, it may be beneficial...

One major network, UUNET, is still feeling the effects:

http://www.internetpulse.net/

This gives a good graph showing the severity of the problem, and subsequent recovery:

http://average.matrixnetsystems.com/Daily/markR.html

Yep, Intruiging .

I'd be surprised if the Irish government decided to impose additional controls on the global internet. I don't think people in the UK or America would be too happy. And if such controls are not acceptable from the Irish government, then who are they acceptable from?

Not being certain of the specifics of said controls, but in the context of above - if people were more sensible/competent then controls to reduce that problem would not be required. (Anyway, whose to say that the controls will cover making everybody apply a patch when it comes out or even should.)

The internet can run quite happily without said controls - as it has been doing for quite a while and it recovered pretty quickly after this worm. Probably would have done even faster if it had been a weekday, as 9-5ers could shutdown/fix their computers too. The people to blame for the worm are (a) the writers and (b) the people who didn't patch. In the case of internet terrorism, well they wouldn't get anywhere without (b).

If a govt is worried about general collapse in an attack, then they should only depend on their own networking and not the general internet - and then can control what's important to them. I wouldn't be entirely surprised if govt computers of a number of different govts worldwide aren't up to date with all security patches and bug fixes.

so are individuals at home supposed to be doing something ? i have no idea what.

i'm on a mac so i tend to ignore the whole virus thing (though i only open email attachments from people i know and if i know what the attachment is)

i bought virus protection software but it created an extension conflict so its turned off.

beyond that i don't know what else there is to do. kind of know what a patch is, but not sure how relevant it is to me and my system.

The patches are mainly for the servers.

oh good, so i can go back to being complacent then

Its an SQL worm - not a real threat to home users.

Just a question, on topic I believe since the worm was based on an MS flaw. Is H2G2 on an Apple server? I automatically thought it might be given DNA's love of all things Mac.