Subject:
EXTRA SHUTDOWN ISSUE
Date: Tue, 21 Dec 1999 20:04:47 -0500
From: "Lt. Crack" <crack@thing.net>
Reply-To: newsletter@listproc.thing.net
To: rstorz@xcult.ch




********************************************************************************
THE THING [newsletter] December 21, 1999
Vol.1, Nr.6
http://bbs.thing.net
********************************************************************************
EXTRA LATE EDITION
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[news]

[1] thing.net shut down by Verio after complaint by eToys

On Friday, December 17, 1999, from 2 am to 3 pm,
thing.net´s access to the internet was cut off
by its upstream bandwidth provider, Verio.

According to Verio, their Security in Dallas received
a complaint from eToys around midnight, claiming that
a "malicious attack" on etoys.com was originating
from one of the servers of thing.net.

As Verio says, they tried to contact thing.net
staff by phone, at 12:30 on a Friday morning.
Neither anyone at thing.net nor any telephone answering
machine there received any calls. Nor was any e-mail
warning or query received.

On Friday afternoon, after hours of making inquiries to
people at Verio, thing.net learned that there was apparently
an "offending site," namly:

www.thing.net/~rdom/ecd/eKillerToy/index2.html

This site had been registered as a personal web site. It was
owned by Ricardo Dominguez and contained information on how to
conduct a "virtual sit in", to be conducted with "Floodnet,"
a java applet. The applet was designed to send out
requests to a specific URL and to then load
that page repeatedly, approximately 15- 20 times a minute.

Mr. Dominguez is a member of the Electronic Disturbance
Theater (EDT). According to professional coders, the applet
that EDT was using is inefficient and has little or no impact on
a professional server. The aim of EDT, after all, is limited
to arousing attention, to prompt second thoughts, without
actually obstructing or blocking business.

After discussing the issue with Mr. Dominguez, thing.net decided to
comply with the request--in order to get the network back up.

Service was restored around 3:20 pm.

See related story at CYBERTimes:
http://www.nytimes.com/library/tech/yr/mo/cyber/articles/18etoy.html

Complete coverage of the etoys vs eToy story as it unfolds:
http://bbs.thing.net [threads]