DDOS

A DDOS is a "Distributed Denial Of Service attack". It's where a malicious party uses a bunch of computers that have already been compromised by viruses and are under said party's control, to send malformed information to a target computer in the hopes of crashing it or slowing it down.

My favourite video-on-demand service, Surf The Channel, was the target of a DDOS attack yesterday. The STC server stayed up, but was very slow. Right now, I can't get into Megavideo.com. Is this the work of the TV studios, a cracker sympathetic to the studios, or a cracker trying to discredit the studios?

Whoever is responsible, one thing's for sure. They could not execute a distributed denial-of-service attack without their botnet. That's right - your computer could have this attacker's software on it, and probably lots of other crackers' software on it too. If it does, then your computer has been contributing to a very serious crime.

If you suspect that your computer has any kind of virus or infection on it, DO NOT just hope it goes away on its own, because it won't! Don't just assume that you're the only victim of it and that it won't try and spread to your friends through e-mail, MSN or Facebook! Immediately take your computer offline; unplug the network cable, turn off the wireless switch, whatever it takes. Then run a virus and anti-spyware scan.

Once you have removed the infection, put your computer back online, update your virus and anti-spyware scanner, unplug the cable again and run the same scans again as they will likely find brand-new infections.

UNTIL YOU HAVE REMOVED THE INFECTION, DO NOT ALLOW YOUR COMPUTER ONLINE. Not even to chat to your friends on MSN. And don't tell me to mind my own business, or leave you alone, because your virus problem just sent a hundred thousand spams and hindered the web surfing of ten thousand people.

If every computer owner was a responsible computer owner, it would not be possible for distributed denial of service attacks to be carried out. And if I found out that your computer was involved in the attack on Surf The Channel, and is still not cleaned, I'll have some very stern words to say to you.

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Looks like Youtube's anti-piracy measures are working in time for their appeal against Viacom: (click the image to see what I'm talking about)

Oh, and I ran my CPU at 100%, both cores, for quarter of an hour last night. Core temperatures got up to 46 degress celcius, which is well within tolerance, and the CPU fan didn't shift from 1050RPM (same speed as at idle). Cold room though, we'll see when summer rolls along. No worrying noises either like I was having before, and the PSU seemed to be cooler, so maybe the rerouting of the cables helped. I really want a modular power supply.

I've also noticed a problem with my Sony Walkman. For all new albums, it doesn't want to recognise the cover art stored as ID3s. I'll have to investigate properly some time. It's probably human error of some kind.