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Manybooks.net unwittingly targeted for hack attack? IP address mixed up with ‘Georgian embassy or something’?
August 16, 2008 | 10:15 am
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By David Rothman
Manybooks.net, as we know, is back up with thousands of public domain and Creative Common titles—in scads of formats for devices ranging from the iPhone to the Kindle and Sony Reader
But why did the site go down in the first place? Matt McClintock, a real pro whom I’d trust, believes that hackers accidentally attacked him rather than another target. The lowdown:
"It turned out to be a DDoS attack. Don’t know who or why, but my guess is that it was a goof on the attacker’s part; they just mistyped an IP address and mistakenly flooded my server instead of the Georgian embassy or something. Anyway, it gave me the opportunity to learn a bit more about firewalls and apache modules before the flood suddenly stopped Monday morning. A little mopping up and everything is back to the way it was."
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Comments:
I made the same suggestion in an email to Matt when he told me what had been happening. Neither of us could see a really good reason to target Manybooks, and no one had said anything to him, claiming responsibility or making demands, which you would expect if someone carried out a DDOS attack against a site.
Another possibility is that someone picked Manybooks largely at random as a test that their botnot was working, before turning the guns on a more important target.
I don’t suppose we’ll ever know, but at least Matt learned a few things that will assist in the future.
Credit goes to DMcCunney for suggesting the “mistake” theory of attack. The arbitrary nature of the whole thing left me wondering, that’s for sure.