5 ms·

Fosstodon: “We're under a sustained, targeted DDoS”

30 points by app4soft 4y ago

app4soft 4y ago
Details from admins:[0] > You probably had trouble accessing #Fosstodon for the last few hours. That's because we have (and still are) the target of a DDoS attack. Fosstodon was the target, but other Masto.Host customers were impacted because of it (sorry about that, folks!) > Unfortunately, we've had to take the decision to put Fosstodon behind #Cloudflare to mitigate the attacks. I don't like it either, but we need to do what we can to keep the lights on. > More details to follow... [0] https://fosstodon.org/@kev/109953654645367614 https://fosstodon.org/@kev/109953654645367614
- EntrePrescott 4y ago
  > we've had to take the decision to put Fosstodon behind #Cloudflare to mitigate the attacks For a moment, that had a "cui bono"(*) style conspiracy theory running through my head, along the lines of: "2025 breaking news: Scandal: Cloudflare found guilty of using covert DDOS attacks to push internet hosts into buying their protection services"… or even: new marketing slogan: "That's a nice site/service you got there. Would be a pity if it were to be made unusable by a DDOS attack, eh? But don't worry, uncle Cloudflare is here to protect… for a small fee of course" (*)"cui bono": to whom is it a benefit, cf https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cui_bono https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cui_bono
  - lapcat 4y ago
    If we're doing conspiracy theories, you have to add Twitter as a possible conspirator behind DoS attacks on Mastodon. ;-)
    - app4soft 4y ago
      > you have to add Twitter as a possible conspirator behind DoS attacks on Mastodon. As an addition to Twitter, lets add Nostr and Bluesky Social.
      - lapcat 4y ago
        Maybe, but Twitter actually did infamously censor Mastodon links for a while, so they'd have to be the prime suspect.
    - kevviiinn 4y ago
      With how many bots there are voting on the Elon polls I wouldn't be surprised at all
  - zamadatix 4y ago
    Cloudflare benefits during an attack but I'm not sure they'd benefit by secretly running attacks. Each attack would stand to gain a small number of customers at the risk of losing a huge number of customers were such a story ever true.
    - EntrePrescott 4y ago
      … were such a story ever publicly _proven_ to be true. The bar for that is much higher than for the question whether or not it _is_ true. Now just to prevent any misunderstanding: I'm not saying it _is_ actually true. It was just a humorous exercise in conspiration theory building. But technically, we don't know it isn't true. And as long as we don't, there are no consequences for them… even if it happens to be true.
  - nubinetwork 4y ago
    They don't need to when their customers already do it for them... https://krebsonsecurity.com/2015/01/spreading-the-disease-and-selling-the-cure/ https://krebsonsecurity.com/2015/01/spreading-the-disease-an...
Kye 4y ago
From their host: https://mastodon.social/@mastohost/109952579426578392 https://mastodon.social/@mastohost/109952579426578392
rvz 4y ago
From: [0] > You probably had trouble accessing #Fosstodon for the last few hours. That's because we have (and still are) the target of a DDoS attack. Fosstodon was the target, but other Masto.Host customers were impacted because of it (sorry about that, folks!) > Unfortunately, we've had to take the decision to put Fosstodon behind #Cloudflare to mitigate the attacks. I don't like it either, but we need to do what we can to keep the lights on. So the DDoS attack took out a central Mastodon hosting provider, knocking down many instances at once? So decentralized! /s Solution? Re-centralizing back to Cloudflare. [0] https://fosstodon.org/@kev/109953654645367614 https://fosstodon.org/@kev/109953654645367614
- vimda 4y ago
  Mastodon is not decentralised. Never claimed to be. It's _federated_.
  - rvz 4y ago
    Even worse. None of that remotely helps given that many instances under the umbrella of Masto.host got DDoS'd and knocked straight down and had to re-centralize to Cloudflare as a so-called 'mitigation'. Once Cloudflare goes down, so does every other instance using it. If they are not using Cloudflare, then they easily get DDoS'd just like the other vulnerable instances. Another failure and abandoning of such systems to refrain from the re-centralization of the web. As expected.
david_allison 4y ago
> All is looking good now. > For a couple of hours that I have been monitoring the situation and can't find any problems. > Hopefully the attack has been resolved but please do let me know if you notice any problems on your end. > Again, sorry to everyone on servers that were impact. > I will continue to work to make these kind of attacks less of a problem in the future but it's a hard problem to solve and it will take time. https://mastodon.social/@mastohost/109954158258873795 https://mastodon.social/@mastohost/109954158258873795
- djvdq 4y ago
  Again in "under attack" mode: https://fosstodon.org/@mike/109955156028664939 https://fosstodon.org/@mike/109955156028664939
yucky 4y ago
Somehow this is the fault of Elon Musk.

30 points by app4soft 4y ago

Details from admins:[0] > You probably had trouble accessing #Fosstodon for the last few hours. That's because we have (and still are) the target of a DDoS attack. Fosstodon was the target, but other Masto.Host customers were impacted because of it (sorry about that, folks!) > Unfortunately, we've had to take the decision to put Fosstodon behind #Cloudflare to mitigate the attacks. I don't like it either, but we need to do what we can to keep the lights on. > More details to follow... [0] https://fosstodon.org/@kev/109953654645367614 https://fosstodon.org/@kev/109953654645367614

EntrePrescott 4y ago
> we've had to take the decision to put Fosstodon behind #Cloudflare to mitigate the attacks For a moment, that had a "cui bono"(*) style conspiracy theory running through my head, along the lines of: "2025 breaking news: Scandal: Cloudflare found guilty of using covert DDOS attacks to push internet hosts into buying their protection services"… or even: new marketing slogan: "That's a nice site/service you got there. Would be a pity if it were to be made unusable by a DDOS attack, eh? But don't worry, uncle Cloudflare is here to protect… for a small fee of course" (*)"cui bono": to whom is it a benefit, cf https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cui_bono https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cui_bono
- lapcat 4y ago
  If we're doing conspiracy theories, you have to add Twitter as a possible conspirator behind DoS attacks on Mastodon. ;-)
  - app4soft 4y ago
    > you have to add Twitter as a possible conspirator behind DoS attacks on Mastodon. As an addition to Twitter, lets add Nostr and Bluesky Social.
    - lapcat 4y ago
      Maybe, but Twitter actually did infamously censor Mastodon links for a while, so they'd have to be the prime suspect.
  - kevviiinn 4y ago
    With how many bots there are voting on the Elon polls I wouldn't be surprised at all
- zamadatix 4y ago
  Cloudflare benefits during an attack but I'm not sure they'd benefit by secretly running attacks. Each attack would stand to gain a small number of customers at the risk of losing a huge number of customers were such a story ever true.
  - EntrePrescott 4y ago
    … were such a story ever publicly _proven_ to be true. The bar for that is much higher than for the question whether or not it _is_ true. Now just to prevent any misunderstanding: I'm not saying it _is_ actually true. It was just a humorous exercise in conspiration theory building. But technically, we don't know it isn't true. And as long as we don't, there are no consequences for them… even if it happens to be true.
- nubinetwork 4y ago
  They don't need to when their customers already do it for them... https://krebsonsecurity.com/2015/01/spreading-the-disease-and-selling-the-cure/ https://krebsonsecurity.com/2015/01/spreading-the-disease-an...

Kye 4y ago

From their host: https://mastodon.social/@mastohost/109952579426578392 https://mastodon.social/@mastohost/109952579426578392

rvz 4y ago

From: [0] > You probably had trouble accessing #Fosstodon for the last few hours. That's because we have (and still are) the target of a DDoS attack. Fosstodon was the target, but other Masto.Host customers were impacted because of it (sorry about that, folks!) > Unfortunately, we've had to take the decision to put Fosstodon behind #Cloudflare to mitigate the attacks. I don't like it either, but we need to do what we can to keep the lights on. So the DDoS attack took out a central Mastodon hosting provider, knocking down many instances at once? So decentralized! /s Solution? Re-centralizing back to Cloudflare. [0] https://fosstodon.org/@kev/109953654645367614 https://fosstodon.org/@kev/109953654645367614

vimda 4y ago
Mastodon is not decentralised. Never claimed to be. It's _federated_.
- rvz 4y ago
  Even worse. None of that remotely helps given that many instances under the umbrella of Masto.host got DDoS'd and knocked straight down and had to re-centralize to Cloudflare as a so-called 'mitigation'. Once Cloudflare goes down, so does every other instance using it. If they are not using Cloudflare, then they easily get DDoS'd just like the other vulnerable instances. Another failure and abandoning of such systems to refrain from the re-centralization of the web. As expected.

david_allison 4y ago

> All is looking good now. > For a couple of hours that I have been monitoring the situation and can't find any problems. > Hopefully the attack has been resolved but please do let me know if you notice any problems on your end. > Again, sorry to everyone on servers that were impact. > I will continue to work to make these kind of attacks less of a problem in the future but it's a hard problem to solve and it will take time. https://mastodon.social/@mastohost/109954158258873795 https://mastodon.social/@mastohost/109954158258873795

djvdq 4y ago
Again in "under attack" mode: https://fosstodon.org/@mike/109955156028664939 https://fosstodon.org/@mike/109955156028664939

yucky 4y ago

Somehow this is the fault of Elon Musk.