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Some idiot is trying to download the whole site

Tom Coates

23:03 / 31.08.06

Some bloody idiot out there on the wider web is hammering Barbelith this evening - downloading roughly ten-twenty pages a second with his bloody wget installation. It is pretty much bringing everything to a standstill. If you see problems around the place, this is why.

paranoidwriter waves hello

23:15 / 31.08.06

Thanks for the heads-up, Tom. I thought Barbelith was slow tonight. However, I don't know if you know, but it seems to have been like this on and off for a little while now.

Has this downloading thing been happening a lot lately, do you know?

Hope it's OK to ask, but I'm curious as to why someone would bother to do this. Seems like a waste of MB, etc, especially when it's all online to read whenever anyone wants to.

I'm therefore inclined to think you might be being a bit generous when you say "idiot". But then, I always suspect foul play when it comes to dodgy computer problems type stuff (I'm pretty crap at technology.)

Olulabelle

23:24 / 31.08.06

Thanks for that Tom.

Can we find out why this person is downloading the whole site?

pony

00:12 / 01.09.06

wasn't there a post/situation nearly identical to this a few months ago?

Less searchable M0rd4nt

00:14 / 01.09.06

Yeah, I'm thinking DOS attack.

jamesPD

07:46 / 01.09.06

Presuming that the issue is 'just' an idiot with a copy of wget.exe, is it not possible to get the Barbelith webhosting company to block an IP whenever you first detect an attempt at a websuck?

Alternatively isn't is possible to ban a particular user agent, such as 'User-Agent: Wget/1.10.2'? I know this won't stop other recursive download managers and a user could always use the '--user-agent' parameter to wget which lets you mimic IE/Firefox/etc, but perhaps it might help in the short run?

Finally, some websites use fake circular reference URLs which cause wget requests to get stuck in a loop. (Obviously this can be disastrous if the leecher doesn't notice and just leaves the request on overnight, but it might be enough to deter some people.)

Just a few thoughts off the top of my head...

Tom Coates

14:46 / 01.09.06

I know that Barbelith gets hit pretty regularly by someone doing this kind of thing. Each time the IP range is a bit different, so I'm working on the principle that it's not the same guy each time. It could be a few DOSing people, of course, but I dunno. Seems overly paranoid to me.

grant

15:06 / 01.09.06

U.S. State Department?

Phex: Dorset Doom

17:12 / 01.09.06

If only it were that mundane... Using the incredible power of Science I have determined that our attacker is attempting to skrink Barbelith down to microscopic size where he can rule this message board as its overlord.
I have formulated a counter-attack, but it won't be easy. To power my B-cannon I will need hundreds, perhaps thousands of pictures of Eliza Dushku in various states of undress. Also a No-CD crack for Rome: Total War.
Hurry! Time is short!

Our Lady Has Left the Building

17:30 / 01.09.06

Eliza, you say?

paranoidwriter waves hello

18:12 / 01.09.06

Please go on.

Yeah, but Tom's probably right and it's just an idiot.

Mind you, didn't a mysterious someone threaten legal action against a certain message board around the same time as the last time someone apparently tried to download the whole of that said board?

Me, paranoid? Who said that?

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