Hackers attack Twitter, Facebook also slows down

[mayor_brando 8]

"NEW YORK – A hacker attack Thursday shut down the fast-growing messaging service Twitter, and Facebook also said it was looking into possible site problems.

Twitter said in its status blog Thursday that it was "defending against a denial-of-service attack," in which hackers command scores of computers to a single site at the same time, preventing legitimate traffic from getting through.

For Twitter users, the outage meant no tweeting about lunch plans, the weather or the fact that Twitter is down.

The Twitter outage began at about 9 a.m. EDT, said Ken Godskind, chief strategy officer at Web performance monitoring company AlertSite.

The site still had lingering access problems midday, though both Twitter and Facebook seemed to be functioning at least intermittently, giving cubicle-bound social media addicts a collective sigh of relief.

Allison Koski, a public-relations manager in Manhattan, said she felt "completely lost" without Twitter.

"I had to Google search Twitter to find out what was going on, when normally my Twitter feed gives me all the breaking news I need," Koski said.

Incidentally, Facebook also seemed to be experiencing problems. Company spokeswoman Brandee Barker said the company was looking into it and would have an update "as soon as possible."

Technology business analyst Shelly Palmer told AP Radio that denial-of-service attacks are a reality of the information age.

"People tend to want to take sites that are very public and go after them," said Palmer, managing director of Advanced Media Ventures Group. "In fact you'd be surprised how many sites for major companies are really attacked on a daily basis. This is a crime, it's a real crime and it should be treated that way."

Earlier this week, Gawker Media, which owns the eponymous media commentary blog and other sites, was also attacked. In a blog post, Gawker said Tuesday it was attacked by "dastardly hackers," leading to server problems that caused network-wide outages Sunday and Monday. It was not immediately clear whether those attacks were related to Twitter's."

Link

I wonder if these are the same hackers who shut down Imageshack a few weeks ago...

 

[Kryptowhite 9]

thought facebook seemed buggy today. Everyonce in a while it just froze up on me.

[Easy Bakes 253]

Now mabey  these people will actulay go and meet some real people.

Or get out side for a bit.

[hamsterTK 93]

that'd be good advice for the people hacking the site though, don't you think?

[Legosim 14]

Originally posted by: Easy Bakes

Now mabey  these people will actulay go and meet some real people.

Or get out side for a bit.

quote>

So true, but very unlikely, they should play simcity     then go out in the real world

[Aontan 0]

Seems the attack was intended for just one blogger:

Pro-Georgian tweeter 'target of attack'

Fri, Aug 07, 2009

Hackers attempting to silence a pro-Georgian blogger may have been behind yesterday's cyber attack which affected up to 35 million worldwide users of Google, Twitter and Facebook.

Twitter and Facebook suffered service problems from hacker attacks yesterday, raising speculation about a coordinated campaign against the world's most popular online social networks.

A Facebook executive said yesterday's denial of service attacks were aimed at a Georgian blogger with accounts at the various affected sites, according to a report on technology news site CNET. 

Yesterday, Twitter co-founder Biz Stone said the company preferred not to speculate about the motivation behind the malicious attack. 

"Twitter has been working closely with other companies and services affected by what appears to be a single, massively coordinated attack," said Mr Stone. 

Members of Facebook, the world's largest Internet social network with more than 250 million active users, saw delays logging in and posting to their online profiles. Like Twitter, Facebook said the problems appeared to stem from a so-called denial of service attack, a technique in which hackers overwhelm a website's servers with communications requests. 

Google said in an emailed statement that it was in contact with some non-Google sites that were impacted by Thursday's attacks to help investigate. 

"Google systems prevented substantive impact to our services," the statement said. 

Motives for denial-of-service attacks range from political to rabble-rousing to extortion, with criminal groups increasingly threatening to hobble popular websites that don't pay demanded fees, according to security experts. 

In July a wave of similar attacks disrupted access to several high-profile U.S. and South Korean websites, including the White House site. South Korea's spy agency said at the time that North Korea might have been behind the attacks. 

Twitter's newfound fame makes it an easy target for hackers, said Steve Gibson, the president of Internet security research firm Gibson Research Corp. 

The number of worldwide unique visitors to the Twitter website reached 44.5 million in June, up 15-fold year-on-year, according to comScore data. 

© 2009 irishtimes.com

quote>

[hamsterTK 93]

gee I wonder who did it?

typical

[refriedbussy 7]

Although I hardly use Facebook anymore, I think the hacking was a sign. A sign that some people can go completely insane when their "needs" are confided with. I feel like Twitter, MySpace, Facebook, and other socializing sites what I call "drug sites." Mainly because people waste their time thinking that other people will care to see what they are doing online. Whatever happened to downtime?

[Duke87 1,070]

Originally posted by: mayor_brando

Allison Koski, a public-relations manager in Manhattan, said she felt "completely lost" without Twitter.quote>

And the site was down for what, a few hours?

Take a crackhead's crack away from them for five seconds and they go nuts.

[SimRabbit 48]

Originally posted by: hamsterTK

gee I wonder who did it?

typicalquote>

I NOW know who did it.....

[blade2k5 1,523]

All that trouble to shut one person up...some people need to get out once in awhile.

[Easy Bakes 253]

Originally posted by: Duke87

Originally posted by: mayor_brando

Allison Koski, a public-relations manager in Manhattan, said she felt "completely lost" without Twitter.quote>

And the site was down for what, a few hours?

Take a crackhead's crack away from them for five seconds and they go nuts.

quote>

These people are insane,"Completely los with out twittert" Realy? Twitters been around for how long? less then a year?

and you cant function with out it? Reminds me of the South park episode were the entire Internet went down.

"Were head'in out californy way, heard there was some internet there"

[screamingman12 30]

These people are insane,"Completely los with out twittert" Realy? Twitters been around for how long? less then a year?

and you cant function with out it? Reminds me of the South park episode were the entire Internet went down.

"Were head'in out californy way, heard there was some internet there"

quote>

Sometimes I wonder what would happen if you took a bunch of people and put them in a house without computers or mobile phones. TV and radio can stay, those have been around long enough, but it can't be digital cable/HD only basic cable or antenna with four channels. 

[Easy Bakes 253]

Originally posted by: screamingman12

These people are insane,"Completely los with out twittert" Realy? Twitters been around for how long? less then a year?

and you cant function with out it? Reminds me of the South park episode were the entire Internet went down.

"Were head'in out californy way, heard there was some internet there"

quote>

Sometimes I wonder what would happen if you took a bunch of people and put them in a house without computers or mobile phones. TV and radio can stay, those have been around long enough, but it can't be digital cable/HD only basic cable or antenna with four channels. 

quote>

They would kill each other with in the 1st week.

[mayor_brando 8]

I agree that it's pathetic that some people are so addicted to it; it's not like they need it to survive, but some people seem to think so.

[SimRabbit 48]

Allison Koski, a public-relations manager in Manhattan, said she felt "completely lost" without Twitter.

"I had to

Google search

Twitter to find out what was going on, when normally my Twitter feed gives me all the breaking news I need," Koski said.

I completely raged right there.

[Patricius Maximus 236]

While all cyber attacks are despicable, dishonorable, and disrespectful, I find myself fortunate to be one that hardly ever utilizes Twitter.

[bluemoose 223]

I am not a twit, so i am completely unaffected. I do use facebook, but i just went a week without using the internet, and ... ... I AM STILL ALIVE!!!

[Explodingsims 3]

Ugh..Twitter and its users...

Is it still too late to say that this is a fad?

Seriously, if you're THAT reliant on Twitter, you might wanna look at yourself.

And as far as taking it all away goes, maybe they should try a "Monsters of Maple Street" approach for giggles.

[Follarch 327]

What does Twitter even do? Tell people what others are doing? Hmm what else could people use for that, oh i don't know, a phone?

[Patricius Maximus 236]

According to Wikipedia, it is a social networking and micro-blogging service. I'm not that social of a person, so I'm not interested in any social networking, let alone Twitter.

[mayor_brando 8]

Yeah, I've never used Twitter, or Facebook for that matter. I'm not that a social person, either, but if I was I might have a different view.