The Twitter attacks could be our fault

John, Some of us are getting weird messages from google when we try to access blogger pages. Is something similar happening there today? Is google just trying to protect itself?

It may depend on the actual blogging websites. It shouldn't be a problem on googles part, and definitely not google trying to "protect itself".

A DOS attack does not hack the servers. It just overwhelms them. It is the same thing if I have a shared file on my computer with other computers on my network. Say for instance though I get allot of request for that shared file on my computer, more than my PC can handle. Will my PC is either going to crash as it tries to deal with the demand or severely slow down and handle the request in groups at a time causing network timeouts for request that are still in que.

So you questioning Twitter and Facebook about user information being compromised was just useless. This is completely a different type of attack.

One thing to add though is that I would of expected Twitter to handle the situation better or have a better back up. If you have a website with so many ways to post to it and that is that popular it should of been able to handle the DOS attacks as just normal traffic.

I bet Googles global traffic is about the same as the DOS. They handle the load with multiple servers.

I just think Twitters servers should of been able to shift the load or a resolve could of been found quickly. I heard Facebook only slowed down, so what does that say to Twitter which was unresponsive.

Strengthening your password, using anti-virus software, and reducing spam are the three most useless security tips I've ever heard.

If people want to really protect themselves, they first need to be educated on how exactly these attacks occur in the first place. For example, these stories of people breaking into others emails has zero, zilch, nothing to do with a bad password. This is just the assumption by non-technical users who don't understand a thing about how these attacks occur, or how they are even possible.

I totally disagree with the headline over this article. There is a HUGE difference in being complicit and being at fault. Just because so many users do not follow best practices for computer security does not mean they are to blame for the latest DOS attack on Twitter. You might as well blame Twitter and say the attacks were their fault for letting so many ignorant computer users sign up for their services. Get real, education is must for any computer user, but with today's society, people are just to busy to learn how to safely use a computer, drive a car, use a blender, etc. The solution is not to blame the people, we just make the computers, cars, appliances, etc, safer, so it will take less intelligence to use them.

Oh. The horror. The horror.
Will we be faced with actual discussions with actual human beings... even *gasp* face to face?

Such a panic over a minor loss of contact for a whole couple of hours.

IMHO, there are lots of folks out there in desperate need of getting a life.

You forgot a very important step: keep all the software on your computer current with patches!

Anti-Virus 101. If people are too ignorant to already know everything that has been said in this article then they deserve to be terrorised.

Anybody remember Iran? Twitter helped report the story as it happened. This was a test by the Russian military to see if they could disable it when they need to.

To Jay: They tried that once, it was called AOL and it sucked. People need to be smarter than the technology they use, maybe not faster, maybe not as good at high speed mathematical computations. but wiser for sure. there is power in control. That is why hackers can do what they do, they are smarter than you, and smarter than the software, they always will be.

Koray, please educate us briefly on how we can best protect our computers.

1) Always show file extensions for everything on you computer. Viruses are executables just like any other program, so if you're downloading a "picture" and its called "something.exe," you know its BS.

2) Make sure your secret questions to your emails don't suck. Malicious users can easily break into your account by using the "Forgot your password?" option which is on ALL email providers. How? Well almost all the information they need on it can probably be found on your social networking sites, especially Facebook. The only thing lacking usually is the the secret question, so make sure it isn't something like "What was your high school mascot?" That's easily something they can get off wikipedia

3) This is related to #2, be careful how information your share about yourself on social networking sites. It's so easily accessible, and it is also very easy to impersonate people on Facebook - in order to get access to a person's page so you can view their information. Every detail you share can be used against you.

4) If you have personal websites, for God's sake privatize your WHOIS.net account details? Don't know what that is? Basically if you register a site, and you own it, the registration details that you specified when you purchased it from the hosting provider, are immediately accessible PUBLICLY through the WHOIS.net database. Anybody with an itch against you automatically will know where you live, what your phone number is, everything. You can specify to the hosting provider that you would like this information hidden (it'll cost extra), or you can pay for other 3rd party services that will do the same thing for you.

Those are real security tips.

Honestly, people are better off without Twitter.

Twitter's down? Oh what a loss.... a load of twatters won't be twittering about nothing... more bandwidth for the rest of us!

NO NO NO.

FIREWALL. anti-virus are only as good as the firewall keep them out.Not to mention this is an 'AFTER' responce.Either don't open the email, don't run M$ email software, which by default INFECTS machines(say no to windows), or run something like ZONEALARM or ubuntu firewall(ufw on the command console)

KEEP IT OUT.KEEP file sharing OFF, THEN THEN use an anti-virus.Using this method my computer has not had a single virus, and only ONE BSOD since pre-1995.I have only had one virus scare on 8088 level programs since 1981.ONE.

All this talk about worm and crap and I have not been even near an affected system ONCE.Not to say these attacks are not real.They are.

Half the time botnets attack high speed cable lines with the cable company stopping them.FIREWALL. NEVER NEVER connect the line directly to the cable.dsl box.ALWAYS use a hard or wifi router and enable the SPI firewall. ALWAYS.

Sometimes I run behind TWO.Haven't had a single issue yet due to such.Been total stealth since pre-1995.Test with grc.com/shields up.

XP pre-SP3 will FAIL this test,BTW.