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SCO DOS Harming Innocent Bystanders 422

Posted by CmdrTaco from the scoop-of-sco-every-day dept.
An anonymous reader writes "The SCO-IBM-Linux controversy has certainly caused quite a stir. Unfortunately the vigilantes conducting the DOS attacks against SCO are harming innocent by-standers as described in this e-Week story. " Choice conspiracy theory quote: 'Given SCO's behavior recently, it's just as likely that they're attacking themselves in their continued attempt to pump up their stock price'
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SCO DOS Harming Innocent Bystanders More

SCO DOS Harming Innocent Bystanders

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  • Smoking crack poll (Score:3, Funny)

    by RedWizzard ( 192002 ) on Thursday August 28, 2003 @05:00PM (#6818900)
    I like their poll. I wonder how SCO's PR department would spin the fact that 96% of people think SCO are smoking crack.
    • well it's pretty obvious that ibm paid some hippies to vote.

      .
      you mean you didn't get your cheque?

    • Re:Smoking crack poll (Score:5, Funny)

      by nocomment ( 239368 ) on Thursday August 28, 2003 @05:23PM (#6819129) Homepage Journal
      probably in one of 2 ways.

      1> They will blame it on IBM

      2> They will say that since they are known for vaporware, that any derivitive "vapors" belong to them. Then they will start to sue drug dealers and junkies charging them a license fee to to continue smoking their crack.
      • "2> They will say that since they are known for vaporware, that any derivitive "vapors" belong to them. Then they will start to sue drug dealers and junkies charging them a license fee to to continue smoking their crack."

        I wouldn't put it past them to go after the drug cartels.... in most cases their enforcers are preferable to IBM's lawyers.

  • DOS too? (Score:5, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Thursday August 28, 2003 @05:00PM (#6818902)
    Oh, as if the UNIX scandal wasn't bad enough... now they are after DOS as well!!!

  • Typical zealot reaction (Score:5, Insightful)

    by tomstdenis ( 446163 ) <tomstdenis&gmail,com> on Thursday August 28, 2003 @05:00PM (#6818907) Homepage
    This is why script kiddies are annoying. They find exploits and other scripts/tools and then randomly use them thinking they know what they're doing.

    This is why armchair slashdot readers typically shouldn't be lawyers [myself included], doctors, etc...

    I hope they catch the people doing the DoS attack [probably as they brag how cool the attack is over some l33t IRC channelz] and beat their heads into the ground.

    SCO maybe "evil" but you gotta think before you act!

    Tom
    • armchair slashdot readers typically shouldn't be lawyers

      I'm sitting in one of those fold up camp chairs which fit in a long tubular bag, and which my company gave me before laying me off...

      Does that count as an armchair? Cuz I *so* like giving completely incompetent legal advice to fellow /. readers... oh, and IANAL...

    • I hope they catch the people doing the DoS attack [probably as they brag how cool the attack is over some l33t IRC channelz] and beat their heads into the ground.

      Sure, script kiddies deserve whatever knocks they get, but has anyone really shown these are DDoS attacks? What if they are just good, old-fashioned slashdottings? Slashdot often carries two SCO stories a day, and even if the main article doesn't have a link to SCO, one of the links or comments will. I know, I click on them (several times) ju

      • >> ...I don't feel guilty at all about sucking up their bandwidth by viewing their web pages with the reload button.

        Boy, that'll tell 'em!

        SCO might be threatening to sue you, but it seems to me they've already got you wasting your time.

        • SCO might be threatening to sue you, but it seems to me they've already got you wasting your time.

          And we're both reading SCO stories on Slashdot and posting comments about same, and you're talking about someone wasting time? :)

        • ...I don't feel guilty at all about sucking up their bandwidth by viewing their web pages with the reload button.

          Boy, that'll tell 'em!

          SCO might be threatening to sue you, but it seems to me they've already got you wasting your time.

          Guess he didn't tell you he had his reload key remapped to a script:

          #!/bin/bash
          while true
          do
          wget --no-http-keep-alive --delete-after -m -p http://www.sco.com
          done

          and it was on a dual cpu box parked on an OC-3, so maybe his time wasn't completely wasted ;)

          Don't do this at

  • Yeah well (Score:5, Funny)

    by pclminion ( 145572 ) on Thursday August 28, 2003 @05:00PM (#6818911)
    <sarcasm>
    Yeah, well tough shit. If they don't like it, they can complain to their ISP to get those SCO criminals booted off their network.
    </sarcasm>

    Sorry, I was just trying to imitate the SPEWS guys ;-)

    • Re:Yeah well (Score:5, Informative)

      by MuParadigm ( 687680 ) <jgabriel66@yahoo.com> on Thursday August 28, 2003 @11:02PM (#6821174) Homepage Journal
      "'Stepping aside from the issues of how, architecturally, this would have spilled over into Centershift's domain, it should be known that bystanders are being injured as this war rages on,' Hafen added."

      Problem is, you can't really "step aside" from the architectural issues given the point he is making. The DDoS attacks on SCO have been exclusively aimed, as far as I can tell from the reports, at their *web* sites -- which appear to be located in a Denver co-location.

      If the attacks had been aimed at SCO's mail server, or local ISP connection, then then Hafen might have a point. But unless he's using the Denver co-lo for his office connection and e-mail, then I think he just has a problem with his ISP that is unrelated to the DDoS attacks on SCO.

      Besides which, I'm still not convinced SCO experienced any kind of DoS last weekend. I think they just came down for maintenance, and have since used misleading - but not outright mendacious - statements to "confirm" that they were attacked:

      a) "SCO considered issuing a formal statement in the matter,
      said Stowell, but decided against it."

      Because a formal statement would have been a denial of the
      attack?

      b) Stowell has also told the press that the "latest" attack
      has been reported to "law enforcement authorities".

      If the "latest" attack was in May, then Stowell's statement
      would remain as true as if the attack was in August. Note also
      the vague phrase "law enforcement authorities" rather than
      specifying which agency was contacted, as if Stowell didn't
      want anyone following up on the matter. In the May attack,
      Stowell was very specific as to which agency the attack had
      been reported to - the FBI Cyber Crimes division.

      c) When called, people working for SCO either don't know why the
      web site is down, or say it was down for an upgrade or
      maintenance. I know, because I was one of the people who
      called, and I documented the conversation at Groklaw
      (http://radio.weblogs.com/0120124/, about 2/3 down the page).

      d) The recent outages generally start during non-business hours.
      SCO possibly had a short DoS attack on Friday afternoon, but
      there is no way it kept them down for 3 days; the utter
      vagueness of their public announcements regarding it do not
      lend confidence to the idea that they experienced any DoS
      attack at all; their own employees have consistently told
      callers that the site is/was down for maintenance; sites on
      the same Center 7 network (canopy.com) were responding
      without problems during the SCO outages; and even SCO's
      public statements have confirmed that outages since the
      weekend outage were for maintenance:

      The outage prompted Netcraft to declare that
      SCO was again the target of a DoS attack. However,
      the outage was actually due to preventative
      measures taken by SCO and its hosting service to
      mitigate the effects of future attacks, according
      to company spokesman Marc Modersitzki.
      (http://www.eweek.com/article2/0,3959,1233231,00.a sp)

      So, in short, I think that a) SCO didn't experience any DoS attacks, and b) that Centershift / Hafen has problems with their ISP and should get a new one rather than making statements to the press that their Internet problems are due to inadequately verified DoS attacks on SCO's webserver in Denver, hundreds of miles away from Centershift's Salt Lake City offices.

    • Their ISP? (Score:3, Funny)

      by base2_celtic ( 56328 ) *
      A comment in a recent article here pointed out that their upstream ISP seems to be IBM. I wouldn't want to be the IT guy at SCO who has to raise that issue.

      "Uh, hi... is this IBM?"
      Yes, it is; what can I do for you?"
      "Uh, this is, uh, [edited] at SCO. Someone's DOSing us, and..."
      [uproarious laughter from IBM rep]
      [CLICK]

  • Who takes the fall? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Bonker ( 243350 ) on Thursday August 28, 2003 @05:01PM (#6818917)
    I highly doubt that SCO is peforming this attack themselves. There are simply too many others willing to do it for them.

    If a SCO executive ordered the self-attack, and a loyal SCO IT person (I want a shot of what he's drinking) carried it out, when the FBI comes calling, how far up the tree would the IT person point when he was arrested?

    If a SCO executive was pinpointed in ordering a DOS (unlikely, but hey, Enron being publicly exposed was unlikely), how would that affect the Linux lawsuit? IANAL, but it seems like SCO execs would have nothing to gain from DOSing theirselves and only fines or Jail-time to face.
    • SCO execs would have nothing to gain from DOSing theirselves and only fines or Jail-time to face.

      What does it matter if a self-DOS charge gets piled on top of fraud charges? We all know that the SCO execs are going to jail anyway. =)

    • How much you want to bet it's niether SCO nor Script kiddies attacking, but a good ol' slashdotting?!?

      I mean, if they are hiring "pattern recognition" experts to determine if code has been copied or changed, a good and proper slashdotting sure has a lot of similarity to a DDoS attack.
      I figure, just by reading what those SCO people release to the press, they not only have trouble distinguishing truth from bull shit, but couldn't tell a slashdotting from a real DDoS attack. Soon, we'll get a press release
    • But this begs the question: Uh... what have they been doing lately to prevent it? It seems every day that we keep hearing about DOS attacks on them... For crying out loud... If it's broken, FIX IT!

      No wonder they weren't making any money on their UNIX sales.

  • DOS? Perhaps not. (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Picass0 ( 147474 ) on Thursday August 28, 2003 @05:02PM (#6818921) Homepage Journal
    http://news.netcraft.com/

    The SCO site has been up during business hours in Utah, but has since failed again. Many news sites carried the story that Eric Raymond had spoken to agroup responsible for a Distributed Denial of Service attack on the www.sco.com site and that they agreed to stop. However it appears that this may have been a hoax, or they subsequently changed their minds, or another person decided to continue the attack, or that the timeout on the attack has not yet been reached.

    In a similar situation 10 days ago Microsoft chose to deploy Akamai's caching service, which has successfully averted any outages.

    Akamai would be more dependable at warding off Distributed Denial of Service attacks than favours from Eric Raymond, but concievably SCO may have difficulty swallowing its pride and buying a service that uses tens of thousands of Linux servers, for which Akamai presumably has not purchased a SCO licence.
    • I honestly don't think Eric Raymond can stop the DoS attackers to stop.. It's like telling everyone not to speed on the highways.

      As much others respect Eric Raymond, I don't think he will have any influence..

      In fact, by publishing the article, it may even produce the opposite results... More people now know that SCO is being attacked and want to join in.

      No, I'm not attacking...

      ChiefArcher
      • I honestly don't think Eric Raymond can stop the DoS attackers to stop..

        I think honestly words above english proper not.

        Not a gramma nazi... just thought that sentance read funny enough to point out. Don't hate me =)

        And, no, I'm not off topic, moderators. At this point I would comment on how commenting on a moderator giving me an off topic mod would be self fulling, but I won't, since then it would happen.... oh wait... damn.

  • If every website hosting company shuns SCO due to the attacks then they won't have a website.

    They'll have nowhere to post their FUD.

  • Maybe it's a subtle plan (Score:5, Funny)

    by lgordon ( 103004 ) <larry.gordon@gmailTEA.com minus caffeine> on Thursday August 28, 2003 @05:03PM (#6818936) Journal
    Perhaps SCO placed the alleged IP infringing code into the linux kernel themselves. Maybe the code contains a timebomb so as to cause a distributed denial of service attack against SCO, giving them more publicity. I wonder when the Underpants Gnomes are going to sue SCO for patent infringement for their unique business model...

    So much for trying to be funny...

  • Economics (Score:5, Interesting)

    by luzrek ( 570886 ) on Thursday August 28, 2003 @05:03PM (#6818937) Journal
    I think that if I were and ISP, and SCO was continually being hammered by denial of service attacks, I would kick them off my servers. If I were a customer of said ISP, or shared the same chunks of cable, I would look for a different way to get service.

    Not that I want to endorce vigialantism, but DOS attacks on SCO and its partners could be used to stop other corporations from doing business with them. Perhaps that is the DOS attackers' goal. However, I do not think that the DOS attacks are productive to the goal of getting rid of SCO's attacks on Linux.

    IMO, a much better strategy would be for everyone using Linux to start buying SCO stock, and then, as a stock holder action, vote all of SCO's patents and copyrights into the public domain (and then disolve the company).

    • Just thought of this. If the attempt to public domain the whole of SCO fails, and the do win their lawsuit or get some sort of footing to start enforcing their claims on the end users, then the stock price will skyrocket. The SCO stock could then be sold, and the profits used to pay the licensing fees.

    • Re:Economics (Score:2, Insightful)

      by Sloppy ( 14984 ) *
      IMO, a much better strategy would be for everyone using Linux to start buying SCO stock, and then, as a stock holder action, vote all of SCO's patents and copyrights into the public domain (and then disolve the company).
      You would reward fraud? Who do you think would be selling all that stock that Linux users would buy?
      • Apparently, many of the big holders of SCO stock have already sold. Anyway, my bet is that the corporate executives have large loans from the company. If enough of the stock holders hate the corporate exectuives, those loans could be recalled. Even if someone is worth a lot on paper, the ussually arn't sitting on a huge pile of cash, the loan recall would (hopefully) break the exectives.

        Regardless of weither or not it rewards the current SCO stock holders, it is by far fastest legal way to get rid of SC

    • Re:Economics (Score:5, Insightful)

      by kardar ( 636122 ) on Thursday August 28, 2003 @05:59PM (#6819411)
      These attacks are just making a bad situation worse. The SCO Group has many lawsuits that have been filed against it; it looks like they don't really have any evidence, and none of this would have happened at all if they had been bought like they wanted to be in the first place.

      Some people may feel that "something needs to be done" about this SCO Group, but I would imagine that the large organizations that have big money backing them are not worried at all. Can we keep using Linux? Yes. Is anyone going to stop us? No. Can the SCO Group file a lawsuit? Yes, they can file it, but that doesn't mean they are going to win. How much money has been saved (and will be saved in the future) by using Linux? It's almost more of a case that Linux is a wonderful operating system that just happens to be free - not that people are putting up with an inferior operating system just so they don't have to pay money. Obviously, Linux is worth the effort defending - it has, does, and will continue to provide millions of people and organizations across the world an excellent value. If someone needs to foot the bill to keep Linux healthy, they would be doing a great service that will benefit all of mankind for decades to come.

      A significant problem is that if the SCO Group goes under, and they have sued you and you have spent money on legal fees, or you have given up and bought their "product", they may be unable to pay those legal fees for you, or refund the license you have been paying them to use their "IP" that was never theirs. This could probably be prevented by requiring the SCO Group to sign an NDA with an arbitration clause prior to disclosing (or attempting to disclose) confidential network data, in order to get an estimate of how much you "owe" them. The NDA and the arbitration clause could be intended for any vendor that would like to give an estimate and could include a "third party", such as a governmental agency, that could handle any legal problems, such as IP violations or unregistered software.

      Or maybe the defendant could ask the judge to allow legal fees to be placed in escrow by the SCO group in case they lose?

      Whether or not the DDOS attacks continue, The SCO Group is in a very bad place right now and the future looks pretty bleak for that organization. DDOS attacks are just making an already pothetic situation even worse. I wonder what's going to happen when they finally go poof? The license reverts back to Novell?

  • The Fault of the Apache Server (Score:5, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Thursday August 28, 2003 @05:04PM (#6818948)

    Well, if their server had been running proper licensed SCO code then it would not only have survived the continual DoS, but would have shot down the attacking machines in droves...

    ...but no, they just want to demonstrate how crap Apache & Linux is, especially since it is stolen perversion of all of SCO's IP. And what an effective demonstaration it is, why that must be propping up the stock value by about 99%

    ;-)

  • It just so happens... (Score:3, Funny)

    by cerebralsugar ( 203167 ) on Thursday August 28, 2003 @05:04PM (#6818949)
    That the concept of DOS attacks is owned by SCO! SCO developed this technology very early on.

    All those running worms/shell scripts used in DOS attacks can license the IP behind it now! Only $799! (Special Introductory Price).

  • Eh? (Score:5, Interesting)

    by MrKinkade ( 676107 ) on Thursday August 28, 2003 @05:05PM (#6818959)
    Since when was there conclusive proof that SCO were actually being hit by DoS/DDoS?

    I remember reading elsewhere that it's entirely possible that they've just taken down there site of their own accord.
    • It really doesn't matter wheter proven or not. What matters is that public opinion changes upon such acts.

      Few more and SCO will be having all hands full of saying what Linux community has done to them.
    • Unless of course you are claiming that SCO taking down their website of their own accord would magically make other peoples websites at the same location disappear.....

  • ca-ching... (Score:5, Funny)

    by donnz ( 135658 ) on Thursday August 28, 2003 @05:05PM (#6818960) Homepage Journal
    Another US$100k to the senior VP on Tuesday last week [yahoo.com].

    Makes it One Million Dollars [yahoo.com]in two months.

    Reginald C. Broughton...come on down!

    (so it's OT, but keep watching these bastards).

  • Bad publicity (Score:5, Insightful)

    by stretch0611 ( 603238 ) on Thursday August 28, 2003 @05:06PM (#6818967) Journal
    Even though SCO is pretty scummy for its lawsuit, that does not give us the right to attack it with a DoS.

    Eventually SCO will go broke trying to win its laughable lawsuit. IBM has the resources to fight the case and the Open Source Community shouldn't worry about a few lost revenues in the meantime. One of the reasons why Linux has been able to take on Microsoft is the fact the M$ can't undermine the open source revenue stream when it is practically non-existant.

    In the meantime, is there any reason why we should stoop to SCO's level?

    • There is just as much reason to believe that SCO set this whole thing up as that FS/OSS advocates DoS'ed them. Even if FS/OSS advocate did DoS them, that's not "us". That is specific individuals taking part in a certain activity. There is no "us" about it, so stop defaming the FS/OSS community.
      • Yep, especially after MSN, ZDNet and CNet news publish SCO story.

        You know average people don't read Linuxtoday and /. and their thoughts on this subject are based upon a media they read. And to be as hellish as possible, local papers probably reffer to this subject based on this stories too

  • Question (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Gzip Christ ( 683175 ) on Thursday August 28, 2003 @05:07PM (#6818974) Homepage
    Who exactly isn't an innocent bystander here, besides SCO and IBM? SCO has been harming a massive number of innocent bystanders throughout this whole process (for example, the 1,500 Linux-using companies that they sent letters to, costing them legal time at the very least). No, two wrongs don't make a right and it sucks that the DOS attacks are harming innocent bystanders, but why is eWeek focusing on that when SCO is harming so many more innocents?

  • Server Stats and relevance (Score:5, Funny)

    by Camel Pilot ( 78781 ) on Thursday August 28, 2003 @05:11PM (#6819004) Homepage Journal
    Next McBribe will be showing off a server stats chart to stock holders as proof of sco's growing relevance in the high tech world.

  • Net packet loss (Score:5, Interesting)

    by pknut ( 571294 ) on Thursday August 28, 2003 @05:16PM (#6819058) Homepage
    I've noticed that the net seems to have been particularly slow recently. Checking on Xaffire Inc.'s Internet Average [matrix.net] it's obvious that there are a few problems. Could this be a combination of the various DDoS's occuring at the moment and the recent worms?

    • Re:Net packet loss (Score:4, Funny)

      by suss ( 158993 ) on Thursday August 28, 2003 @07:52PM (#6820225)
      Checking on Xaffire Inc.'s Internet Average it's obvious that there are a few problems.

      Slashdotting a site about internet statistics via a link on a thread about DDoS...

      Now, *that's* Irony for ya, Alanis! (I hope you get it now)

  • There is 0 justification for DOS'ing SCO (Score:5, Insightful)

    by tarranp ( 676762 ) on Thursday August 28, 2003 @05:21PM (#6819109)
    There is absolutley no justification for DOS'ing SCO.

    DOS attacks are the internet equivalent of standing outside someones home playing heavy metal at 140 dB.

    I'm puzzled as to what the guys making the attack hoped to accomplish.

    To punish them for lying about linux? Their reputations are already in the toilet. Only ignorant fools are buying into their claims anyway.

    To protect Linux? If one thinks about it, SCO has not harmed Linux in any meaningful way! The free distro's are there, and will be there for a long time. All they've done is slowed down adoption by the more clueless managers, which is really no big deal. Their legal claims about the GPL being invalid are such arrant nonsense: they won't stand in court. No matter what happens there will always be a GPLed kernel we can use.

    To let them know we think they suck? Well, considering the increasingly defensive and irrational stances that they are taking, I think they already know that. The rest of the world is not buying into their claims. Even if their claims of hundreds of "licenses" sold are not wildly exagerated, that would mean 1% adoption rate.

    To prevent people from doing business with SCO? I think that's pretty unethical. If people want to do business with SCO, let them. It's their choice if they want to throw good money away on vapor-ware of bad product. Would you prevent a stranger from buying cigarettes with his own money?

    I know alot of people think using force to shut people up who say things you don't like is OK. But those people should take a look at the impression this gives to the non-geek world. They just reinforced the impression that OSS proponents are whiny immature people.

    I think the guys behind the attacks scored an own goal.

    • Um, no... (Score:5, Funny)

      by msimm ( 580077 ) on Thursday August 28, 2003 @06:07PM (#6819489) Homepage
      DOS attacks are the internet equivalent of standing outside someones home playing heavy metal at 140 dB.

      Obviously you missed the whole heavy metal thing. Standing outside of someones home playing heavy metal would be about picking up chicks (most likely the daughter of the family who's house your serenading). The SCO/DDOS equivalent would be something like driving around in a drunken stupor taking mailboxes off their posts with a baseball bat (or something equally annoying).

  • Hmmmmm (Score:2)

    by Thagg ( 9904 )
    It doesn't appear to me that centershift has been down at all, based on the netcraft pages...

    Do I smell a rat?

    thad

  • Not Exactly Innocent... (Score:3, Interesting)

    by yoyoboy ( 21613 ) on Thursday August 28, 2003 @05:23PM (#6819132) Homepage
    The SCO's hosting facility (formerly known as Center7, later spun off as via west) is owned and operated by the Canopy Group [canopy.com]. So if the attack is effecting the hosting company, then it is causing harm to SCO indirectly. CenterShift should choose a hosting company that isn't owned by SCO's parent company. If you click on the canopy group link you will see a few other choice companies you might want to choose NOT to do business with: Linux Networx, shame on you - But TrollTech, on the same page as SCO??? All you KDE guys out there might want to think about switching to Gnome, otherwise you are giving a SCO your support.

  • Sheesh (Score:4, Interesting)

    by xihr ( 556141 ) on Thursday August 28, 2003 @05:25PM (#6819146) Homepage
    Are people really naive enough to think that DOS attacks don't almost always harm innocent bystanders?
  • http://uptime.netcraft.com/up/graph/?host=www.sco. com Sco hosts their site on linux, and not OpenServer.

  • Good excuse... (Score:4, Funny)

    by EverDense ( 575518 ) on Thursday August 28, 2003 @05:26PM (#6819152) Homepage
    Our corporate e-mail was out for a couple of days earlier this week.
    I'm blaming SCO for it.

    "Sir, looks like a friendly fire incident"

  • Canopy is their hosting company... (Score:3, Informative)

    by kuwan ( 443684 ) on Thursday August 28, 2003 @05:35PM (#6819220) Homepage
    Well, sort of anyway. Center 7 [center7.com] is actually their hosting company, but Center 7 is one of Canopy's main companies, in fact it may be one of the only ones that really makes money which Canopy then uses to fund all the other ones.

    So while Centershift may want to change ISPs, Canopy will probably sue them if they do. Hell, they may even sue them if they don't. That's what seems to happen to anyone [informationweek.com] that has a contract with a Canopy company.
  • We all heard the story here before fo a certain talk/chat servie cut off from ISP service becuase they were DDoS attacked repeatedly..

    Given that this is a startup iSP ..SCO Group woudl have been kicked off their network already for the maount of DDoS attacks..they will probably have given back the amount paid but voided the contract..most ISP contracts have an out for this set of circumstances..

    So where is the real truth here?

  • Groklaw skeptical about Dos (Score:5, Informative)

    by gvc ( 167165 ) on Thursday August 28, 2003 @05:38PM (#6819241)
    This piece in Groklaw [weblogs.com] makes a pretty good case that SCO's problems are unlikely due to DoS. Among their points:
    • SCO refraining from putting out a press release? Anything wrong with this picture?
    • One thing is clear, if it were a denial of service attack, it'd be one for the record books.

    • We Got DoS'd (Score:5, Informative)

      by weston ( 16146 ) <(westonsd) (at) (canncentral.org)> on Thursday August 28, 2003 @06:35PM (#6819683) Homepage
      I work for a small logo design and creative services shop [logoworks.com] in a Canopy Group office building (emphasis: we're not a Canopy company, we just rent office space here, because the combination of connectivity and nice space makes sense). A call to our ISP verified last Friday's attack was real; the effects were undeniable. We lost the ability to get in or out of the network for much of the day.

      That might not seem too significant, until I mention the fact that all our sales happen through the web -- not to mention most of our project management interaction with our customers. Hence, we were paralyzed pretty well by the attack. If Friday was going to be a typical day, we lost $4000-$5000 is sales. Not to mention lost money due to lost productive time on projects.

      I don't know how SCO's bottom line was hit, but that was ours, and because we don't have huge padded bank accounts or support of shell-game investors, we really can't afford that.

      Not to mention that the bad publicity is real. Sure, some of us here understand the situation and understand the childish folks who undertook the attack only represent a small portion of open source contributors, users, and supporters. But our VP of tech had some negative things to say about them.

      Moral of the story: yep, DoS attacks hurt innocent bystanders, even some slashdot fanboys who dislike SCO's tactics as much as the next guy but spent too much time unemployed last year and really don't want their current employer hurt. And transitively, DoS attacks hurt the rep of the Open Source community. Really. If you're one of the people inclined to do something like that, think twice.

  • I Got Sued By SCO...... (Score:5, Funny)

    by CoyoteGuy ( 524946 ) on Thursday August 28, 2003 @05:39PM (#6819256)
    and all I got was this lousy T-Shirt [members.shaw.ca].

  • What DDoS (Score:5, Informative)

    by Anonymous Coward on Thursday August 28, 2003 @05:41PM (#6819264)
    My company hosts at the same Data Center. That center is a professional setup. They have good redundant internet pipes from multiple providers. A DoS attack based on flooding would be quite difficult. Some other big players are there as well. No one has recieved this collateral damage. I believe CenterShift is having trouble with poor server administration, maybe even some problems with Sobig or variants and are trying to blame someone else for their down time. We keep a close eye on things and if something is happening to SCO it is not hitting other customers.

    On another note, the center is also owned by the Canopy Group and is very Linux friendly. Many of thier comercial offerings involve Linux and their monitoring is based on Cricket. I wonder how they (and other Canopy Group companies) are feeling about this whole mess.

  • Found on the SCOX yahoo msg board (Score:4, Interesting)

    by earthforce_1 ( 454968 ) <earthforce_1@y a h oo.com> on Thursday August 28, 2003 @05:54PM (#6819365) Journal
    IANAL, and this is slightly off topic, (mod me down if you must, but it is interesting SCO related material I haven't seen here) but I found this little gem, which could could spike SCO's guns even if they won:

    >>For instance, did you know that, because SCO filed its initial Complaint before it registered its copyright, it's therefore limited by statute to recovering merely $150,000 for any infringements? There are several such Aha! moments awaiting an assiduous reader of this analysis.

    Anybody know if this is true?
  • This is not the way to fight back. If this is a set of GNU/Linux users, then please understand that they do not represent the majority of us.

    GJC

  • DOS has nothing to do with Linux (Score:5, Insightful)

    by penguin7of9 ( 697383 ) on Thursday August 28, 2003 @06:21PM (#6819580)
    The tactic of associating peaceful populations with the antisocial or criminal acts of a few militant people is standard behavior in international politics. Politically, it plays really well to one's own crowd to say "the others are evil terrorists, therefore we are justified in 'protecting' ourselves by any means possible".

    We don't assume that Microsoft endorses or orchestrates DOS attacks against Linux sites when attacks occur against Linux sites. Similarly, we shouldn't tie DOS attacks against SCO to the Linux community. People who are launching DOS attacks against anybody are just uncivilized script kiddies. If they happen to be Linux users as well, that's incidental.

    DOS attacks on SCO have nothing to do with Linux or the Linux community. SCO's legal attacks on Linux are outrageous and unfounded, but the Linux community is responding to them with facts and will, if ever presented with a real legal challenge, respond in court.

  • SCO Source (Score:5, Interesting)

    by El ( 94934 ) on Thursday August 28, 2003 @06:59PM (#6819842)
    From the SCO website: SCOsource is a new business division to manage its UNIX(R) System intellectual property. The charter of the new division is to create new and innovative licensing programs to meet the changing demands of today's market and to protect its intellectual property asset.

    SCO is the owner of the UNIX Operating System Intellectual Property that dates all the way back 1969, when the UNIX System was created at Bell Laboratories. Through a series of mergers and acquisitions, SCO has acquired ownership of the patents, copyrights and core technology associated with the UNIX System. The SCO source division will continue to offer traditional UNIX System licenses to preserve, protect and enhance shareholder value.

    Darl, I can tell you're lying... your lips are moving! Care to list exactly which patents SCO owns?

  • No jobs at SCO (Score:3, Funny)

    by overbyj ( 696078 ) on Thursday August 28, 2003 @07:02PM (#6819876)
    Go to sco.com and take a look at the employment section. It says "There are currently no job openings at SCO." I wonder why. Aren't they going to be focusing on updating their products soon? Shouldn't they at least be hiring some movers to help clean out their stuff after the big fire sale once they are crushed?

  • Please STOP! (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Maul ( 83993 ) on Thursday August 28, 2003 @08:23PM (#6820399) Journal
    I know that a lot of people are pissed off at SCO for all of their rampant BS, but DOS attacks do not do jack squat to "help" Linux, Open Source, or otherwise because it makes Linux users look like a bunch of criminals, which is exactly what SCO wants people to think.

  • SCO mess is actually raising awareness (Score:3, Interesting)

    by CySurflex ( 564206 ) on Friday August 29, 2003 @01:59AM (#6821760)
    I know quite a few people who all of a sudden know a lot more about the GPL than they ever did, thanks to SCO. One of them even installed Linux for the first time, and realized what a great thing open source is.

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