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My theory is either a ruthless competitor has been trying to destroy linode for years, this is a distraction to cover a different attack on them, or at some poi

My theory is either a ruthless competitor has been trying to destroy linode for years, this is a distraction to cover a different attack on them, or at some point in the past someone attacked and blackmailed them and Linode paid to make it stop. Once you set that president, it's hard to make it stop.

jacquesm 10y ago
It's 'precedent' and without any evidence these theories are mostly worthless.
- deftnerd 10y ago
  You're correct in both regards. As for the first point, that was just an auto correct mistake. My apologies. On the second point, you're correct that my theories are entirely unsubstantiated. I'm just trying to guess why Linode seems to be the victim of these kinds of attacks a lot more than other providers.
  - jacquesm 10y ago
    The first would be fairly unprecedented and would eventually come out, besides, whichever 'ruthless competitor' would initiate it, it would help all the other competitors equally so I think you can simply forget about that one. A 'distraction to cover a different attack': The more obvious explanation is simply to deny control to people who wish to take down or re-image hosts that have already been hacked, that's much more direct, distraction alone of course could be a factor but is less likely if there is a more plausible explanation. Finally, linode is on the record as not paying attackers on principle in spite of being DDOS's within an inch of their lives, so that's a pretty bad thing to say about them unless you have evidence that they did in fact pay attackers in the past. What it could be is a high profile example to scare smaller companies into paying saying 'you don't want to happen to you what happened to Linode'.
    - ryanlol 10y ago
      >Finally, linode is on the record as not paying attackers on principle in spite of being DDOS's within an inch of their lives, so that's a pretty bad thing to say about them unless you have evidence that they did in fact pay attackers in the past. Not DDoS but they've got a history of doing somewhat similar things re: hacks in the past.
sintaxi 10y ago
It's more likely a customer of Linode who is the target.
- wepple 10y ago
  You don't think a direct attack against the customer would be better spent energy than hitting Linodes APIs?

jacquesm 10y ago

It's 'precedent' and without any evidence these theories are mostly worthless.

deftnerd 10y ago
You're correct in both regards. As for the first point, that was just an auto correct mistake. My apologies. On the second point, you're correct that my theories are entirely unsubstantiated. I'm just trying to guess why Linode seems to be the victim of these kinds of attacks a lot more than other providers.
- jacquesm 10y ago
  The first would be fairly unprecedented and would eventually come out, besides, whichever 'ruthless competitor' would initiate it, it would help all the other competitors equally so I think you can simply forget about that one. A 'distraction to cover a different attack': The more obvious explanation is simply to deny control to people who wish to take down or re-image hosts that have already been hacked, that's much more direct, distraction alone of course could be a factor but is less likely if there is a more plausible explanation. Finally, linode is on the record as not paying attackers on principle in spite of being DDOS's within an inch of their lives, so that's a pretty bad thing to say about them unless you have evidence that they did in fact pay attackers in the past. What it could be is a high profile example to scare smaller companies into paying saying 'you don't want to happen to you what happened to Linode'.
  - ryanlol 10y ago
    >Finally, linode is on the record as not paying attackers on principle in spite of being DDOS's within an inch of their lives, so that's a pretty bad thing to say about them unless you have evidence that they did in fact pay attackers in the past. Not DDoS but they've got a history of doing somewhat similar things re: hacks in the past.

sintaxi 10y ago

It's more likely a customer of Linode who is the target.

wepple 10y ago
You don't think a direct attack against the customer would be better spent energy than hitting Linodes APIs?