Re: Why would someone DoS a free-lance writer?

[gabriel rosenkoetter <gr () eclipsed net>]

On Sat, Jun 30, 2001 at 03:25:35PM -0400, Jim Starke wrote:
> Possibly the previous person who had the IP Address that you were
> assigned when you connected to your ISP was running Gnutella. It wasn't
> a DoS but just the fallout of other computers thinking that you were
> sharing files because they didn't know the previous user disconnected.
> I'm presuming that you are assigned a dynamic ip address by your ISP.
>
> Normally disconnecting and dialing back into your ISP will fix the
> problem because it will assign you a new ip address.

Um, is the fact that Gnutella use by users in a DHCP range an
effective DoS of future users of that IP from their ISP not,
perhaps, bearing of discussion?

Gnutella has the ability to make even my ADSL go chunky style long
after the user of it within the apartment has quit the program. I
don't even want to *think* about what it would do to a PPP/SLIP
modem link.

I really have felt like I was being DoSed because of this in the
past, in that my service was denied, not in that someone was out to
get me. Perhaps not the easiest security compromise ("Get someone to
run Gnutella!"), but it seems like changes could be requested in the
way Gnutella clients cache and rebroadcast IP addresses...

-- 
       ~ g r @ eclipsed.net


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