The Original Freeloader

We've been having some problems with vandalism. There are plenty of resources available for legitimate users, but automated attacks - they surely are automated when we get 500 requests within a 3 seconds, aren't they? - can bring not only that site but the entire server to a crawl.

I've been trying to play games with the vandals. If I move the site to a different IP, you should be able to access the site, but someone with an automated script may have to rewrite their script.

The message "The publisher ides.observerco.com is unknown" results because you're going to the wrong server, and the server ides.observerco.com doesn't have the updated IP information yet.

We're also getting mailbombed pretty regularly. This afternoon, the craig server was being hit with thousands of spam per minute, which slowed things to the point of unusability.

Trying to respond on this subject is very difficult to do in a family-safe format. My real sentiments would make a sailor blush. Commercial interests have been sending out extremely high levels of spam since Halloween - gotta stock up on little blue pills for the Holiday season, I guess - and attacks always skyrocket whenever school lets out, and the kiddies have nothing else to do but vandalize things. And when they shut down that botnet headquartered in New Zealand, all the guys' competitors have been trying to expand operations to fill the void.

This is not a fun time to be a sysop.

You're probably going to see intermittant availability of the Freeloader until spring break is over. Sorry. And the problem is worse at MagickStudio.com; it may simply go pfffft, since there are so many other Image Magick sites available.

I wish I were insane

Sanity is just so boring

Thank you for the explanation. I hope you get it back to normal.

Nightwing

Hello;

Here it is a month later and it's still down. I don't see any updates about d21c.com at all. I feel totally deserted, by whomever owns this service now. When our current period of membership expires, we'll probably just move on to another service. I feel everyday that all our files will just vanish, so I've already taken steps to remedy that possibility.

A very P O'd, Nightwing

I'm not sure why you're still getting that "The Publisher ides.observerco.com is unknown" message, Nightwing. Freeloader is on mabel.observerco.com, not ides. And it works just fine when I try it. Perhaps the problem is at WebTV? They haven't made WebTV in years, dialup nodes are getting fewer in number and smaller in capacity, and most manufacturers don't make analog televisions any longer. If I were working for Microsoft, I sure wouldn't want to be assigned to maintaining WebTV, as it would be a career deadend. If the only people maintaining it are those that can't finagle a better job, it's no wonder that WebTV has so many problems these days.

However, Freeloader isn't part of D21C. It's a free service, available to all, without even any support from advertising. It's not cheap to provide Freeloader, especially with the amount of abuse involved, and yes, the owners have questioned whether we want to keep running that site, because it's not clear that there's ANY benefit to Domania at all.

But there's a difference between a business and a hobby. If you aren't watching HBO, you probably ought to drop it from your cable package to save some money. If the price of gas goes to $4 a gallon, you don't save money by staying home instead of going to your job. I can't say that D21C is growing, because all new customers go on DOMANIA.US instead, but overall, D21C/DOMUS is busier than it's ever been.

I'm curious, Nightwing. We don't have a Nightwing account at D21C, nor at DOMUS, and there's no account associated with your email address. How are you going to leave D21C if you're not here in the first place?

I wish I were insane

Sanity is just so boring

]I'm not sure why you're still getting that "The
] Publisher ides.observerco.com is unknown" message,
] Nightwing. Freeloader is on mabel.observerco.com, not
] ides. And it works just fine when I try it. Perhaps
] the problem is at WebTV?

I don't know either, but I do. How do you, "try it?"

]I'm curious, Nightwing. We don't have a Nightwing
] account at D21C, nor at DOMUS, and there's no account
] associated with your email address. How are you going
] to leave D21C if you're not here in the first place?

That's very true. The name Nightwing has nothing to do with our paid account, but we do pay for one.

Nightwing

Pleasant coincidence. I can now access the Freeloader. Don*t know if it works, but I can access it.

Nightwing.