| Topic: |
Religions > Atheism |
| User: |
"Mark K. Bilbo" |
| Date: |
03 Feb 2005 11:44:21 AM |
| Object: |
AA: Alt-atheism.org website (a bit long) |
Very briefly popping in here (the damn phone is ringing off the wall this
morning). I won't see replies to this post. Any comments should be sent
via email to the webmaster address at alt-atheism dot org.
I've run into comments on the website about the content not being updated.
Yes, that is true. And I did not expect to get this far behind.
What you may not know is I actually *physically host the site here. The
machine it runs on is less than six feet from my desk. I do *all the "back
end" work that you usually pay an ISP or hosting company to do.
Since the site went "live," there have been literally torrents of attacks.
I don't know if this is normal now for web hosting or if part is because
the website is an atheist site and linked to a very controversial Usenet
newsgroup or what. I suspect it's a combination.
Within a week of the site going live, the attacks mounted to highs of as
much as three connections *per *second. Literally. I had runs of up to a
quarter a million assaults per day.
Now I expected there to be some security issues involved but the sheer
volume took me by surprise. I was astonished. The first month the site was
online here, it spent half that time literally unplugged from the Internet
while I patched and tinkered and reworked things. My DSL line was
literally being saturated by the spammers and script kiddies and almost
rendered useless.
(On a side note, I was *very amused to see how many people were
desperately trying to proxy their way to porn via the alt-atheism site. A
not insignificant amount of traffic I was dealing with had to be
adolescent males desperate to see a boobie and trying to get around "net
nanny" software. It was a little pathetic really. <g>)
One of the major things going on out there right now are people making
*thousands upon *thousands of "brute force" attacks against Yahoo Instant
Messenger accounts. At one point, my logs were almost nothing *but
attempts to use my machine to proxy attacks on Yahoo. I assume this has to
do with "spim." One of the latest spam games. They appear to be trying
common passwords on hundreds of accounts at a time to see if one cracks so
they can hijack it and send spam to IM users.
Now, mind you, that means people were attempting to hijack the site for
*very *illegal activities. I *cannot have any of my machines nor IPAs
involved in something like that. So beating back the crackers has taken
priority over *everything else.
Apparently the site ended up on some idiot "list" that's passed around out
there and it's taken weeks for the traffic to die down. I've been manually
"riding herd" on the site. Often when I've been posting to the ng, I've
had a secure connection to the site running, watching the logs, and
squashing attacks between posts to the group.
I was stunned at the volume. It was just amazing.
Anyway, I'm explaining, not complaining. The thing is that 99.9999% of the
work that's been done since I took over is invisible to anybody browsing
the site. It looks like nothing's changed. Actually, the underlying system
has been undergoing an overhaul.
That said, if anybody actually cares enough they want to start a
discussion of moving the site to someone with more time to do the
maintenance, I will *not be offended and there won't be a "flame war" nor
hurt feelings nor anything silly like that. I'm not asking for someone
else to take over. Just noting that I'm not going to turn into a raging
***** over it if the group thought somebody else should take over.
Then again, before somebody volunteers, they might want to see the "to do"
list and some of the back end issues. There's a lot more going on than
just typing in some quotes. You might have second thoughts. <g>
I really *am trying to catch up. But first I have to prevent the site from
being hijacked. I blocked three attempts to proxy through the site during
the typing of this post. I have *got to get that automated. The traffic
has slowed considerably but they're still showing up every now and again.
Sometimes in flurries that make the router lights blink like insane
fireflies.
Anyway... the phone is ringing off the hook and paperwork stacked up that
I *must get to today...
--
Mark K. Bilbo - a.a. #1423
EAC Department of Linguistic Subversion
Alt-atheism website at: http://www.alt-atheism.org
-----------------------------------------------------------
"Religion is regarded by the common people as true,
by the wise as false, and by the rulers as useful."
-- Seneca the Younger
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| User: "Raptor514" |
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| Title: Re: Alt-atheism.org website (a bit long) |
03 Feb 2005 02:48:29 PM |
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"Mark K. Bilbo" <alt-atheism@org.webmaster> wrote in message
news:urqdnQvC3JYP_J_fRVn-jw@megapath.net...
Very briefly popping in here (the damn phone is ringing off the wall this
morning). I won't see replies to this post. Any comments should be sent
via email to the webmaster address at alt-atheism dot org.
I've run into comments on the website about the content not being updated.
Yes, that is true. And I did not expect to get this far behind.
What you may not know is I actually *physically host the site here. The
machine it runs on is less than six feet from my desk. I do *all the "back
end" work that you usually pay an ISP or hosting company to do.
Since the site went "live," there have been literally torrents of attacks.
I don't know if this is normal now for web hosting or if part is because
the website is an atheist site and linked to a very controversial Usenet
newsgroup or what. I suspect it's a combination.
Criminy Mark, thanks for the tons of good work! And, no, I'm *not*
volunteering for the job. :-)
Raptor514
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| User: "Denis Loubet" |
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| Title: Re: Alt-atheism.org website (a bit long) |
03 Feb 2005 12:21:22 PM |
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"Mark K. Bilbo" <alt-atheism@org.webmaster> wrote in message
news:urqdnQvC3JYP_J_fRVn-jw@megapath.net...
Very briefly popping in here (the damn phone is ringing off the wall this
morning). I won't see replies to this post. Any comments should be sent
via email to the webmaster address at alt-atheism dot org.
I've run into comments on the website about the content not being updated.
Yes, that is true. And I did not expect to get this far behind.
Damn! You're like the cops on COPS who have this superhuman patience in the
face of utter human stupidity and malice.
I'd go mad.
--
Denis Loubet
dloubet@io.com
http://www.io.com/~dloubet
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| User: "Al Klein" |
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| Title: Re: AA: Alt-atheism.org website (a bit long) |
03 Feb 2005 06:05:39 PM |
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Everyone ignore my last post. I *know* that was a stupid thing to do.
--
"Atheism is the world of reality, it is reason, it is freedom. Atheism is human
concern, and intellectual honesty to a degree that the religious mind cannot
begin to understand. And yet it is more than this. Atheism is not an old
religion, it is not a new and coming religion, in fact it is not, and never has
been, a religion at all. The definition of Atheism is magnificent in its
simplicity: Atheism is merely the bed-rock of sanity in a world of madness."
[Atheism: An Affirmative View, by Emmett F. Fields]
(random sig, produced by SigChanger)
rukbat at verizon dot net
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| User: "Al Klein" |
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| Title: Re: AA: Alt-atheism.org website (a bit long) |
03 Feb 2005 06:04:40 PM |
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On Thu, 03 Feb 2005 11:44:21 -0600, "Mark K. Bilbo"
<alt-atheism@org.webmaster> said in alt.atheism:
That said, if anybody actually cares enough they want to start a
discussion of moving the site to someone with more time to do the
maintenance
Mark,
Might moving the host machine to a provider save you {some|a lot of}
work? Letting their full time staff do the dirty work? Just a
thought we could discuss (in email, if you like) if there's anything
to it.
--
"Christianity has already had the chance to govern
the world according to its own ethical standards.
It was called the "Dark Ages".
- Bill, The Avender
(random sig, produced by SigChanger)
rukbat at verizon dot net
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| User: "skyeyes" |
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| Title: Re: AA: Alt-atheism.org website (a bit long) |
03 Feb 2005 11:47:34 AM |
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You're fighting the good fight, Mark. We appreciate it.
Brenda Nelson, A.A.#34
EAC Professor of Feline Thermometrics and Cat-Herder
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