As some of you might know, The Wood Whisperer.com (Marc Spagnuolo and family) has been besieged by a DDoS attack this week. In fact, as I write this, I can’t even get onto his site.
As a survivor of Internet malice – remember whe
n the pornographers took over the Woodworking Magazine site for three long days? – I know these attacks are expensive, time-consuming and personally all-consuming.
I cannot think of any other Internet woodworker who has been more generous with his time, advice and technical expertise. He has personally lent a hand to many bloggers to help them tidy up their sites and get them running smoothly. And he has built perhaps the biggest and most cohesive woodworking community on the Internet.
And now he really needs our help. Consider joining his Guild, buy a shirt (thank Shiva the “May the Schwarz be With You” shirts are long gone), or do what I did: Send the dude some cash via a PayPal donation. I sent $100, which is a drop in the bucket. But put together enough drops and my basement is leaking again.
— Christopher Schwarz
I absolutely hate malicious software attacks, spyware, spam, phishing and all of the related ilk. The punishment for this kind of crime should be so astronomical that it serves as a deterrent in and of itself. What a waste of time and money.
If there were any Schwarzshirts left I’d totally buy a fistful…of course his website would have to be up to do that. I’ll paypal him something.
Hi Joe and Chris, TWWMom here and guess what I found in The Wood Whisperer inventory? SCHWARZ SHIRTS!!!! Yes, much to Chris’ dismay, we do still have “May the Schwarz be With You” tee shirts. You can find them here: http://twwstore.com/shirts/may-the-schwarz-be-with-you-shirt/ We have a limited supply, so now would be a great time to update your Spring wardrobe!
On a serious note, I would like to express my sincere thanks to Chris for putting the word out. With the support we are receiving, hopefully The Wood Whisperer website will be able to withstand this vicious onslaught and be around for many years to come!
Oh no!
Please don’t let my wife see this. She has threatened to buy them for our family members. And I thought this long national nightmare was over!
Fantastic that you have voiced your support for Marc. It can only be a great source of help for the WoodWhisperer site. Kudos to you, and to Marc that he will weather the attack.
I tried the PP link and the guild link and both failed. Maybe snail mail is the only way?
That was my fault. Link fixed!
Great to see your support for Marc. Hopefully the more people that put out the call for help, the more resources the community can bring to Marc to help him weather the attacks.
It seems that his site his having more problems today as well. It is a shame that people let there personal feelings drive them to be malicious. If you don’t like what he puts out, then don’t go to his website.
I also vote for more Schwarzshirts.
Hey Chuck, The vote is in……Schwarzshirts are still available! You can find them here: http://twwstore.com/shirts/may-the-schwarz-be-with-you-shirt/ Thank you for your support!
Saw this and wanted to pitch in. Marc and Chris have been huge in helping me get and keep going, so it seemed only right to join the Schwarzian ranks.
Thanks for the support Chris! Although we are spread across the globe, it is pretty clear that we are really one big happy woodworking family. Having the support of folks like yourself and the rest of the community really means a lot to me. Honestly, if it can happen to me, it can happen to any of us. Let’s just hope we can put this crap behind us as soon as possible!
you ninja’d me. See below for my recommendation for dealing with the DDoS problem.
Posted over on the Popular Woodworking site, I’ll repost here in case it doesn’t get read there. I’ve spoken with the people who own the IP block where Marc’s site lives. They have the capability to mitigate a DDoS attack, but they need to be informed that it’s occurring. Chances are that an attack big enough to totally sink his site is too small for them to notice.
Marc needs to talk with his hosting provider to get this attack mitigated. It’s possible that they merely lease the internet address from somebody else, but if they kick this up the line far enough they’ll get to somebody who can absolutely make the attack go away.
If that doesn’t get any traction, Verisign offers a DDoS mitigation service as well. I don’t know anything about pricing, but I do know from experience that it works really well.
I dislike the DDoS crowd as well, but that’s why I work in the business of making them go away.
Thanks for the tips Clay. We have been at this for over a week already so our mitigation efforts are already well underway. We have some well-qualified folks helping us out, thankfully.
And unfortunately, I can assure you our host offers no DDoS mitigation services and actually proved quite useless. Obviously we will be moving elsewhere soon.
Clay, I tried to shoot you an email to explain more offline but the email bounced. I don’t want to go into any detail about this stuff publicly.
clay@lazarusid.com
And I agree, this shouldn’t be discussed too openly in a public forum.
Maybe its a coincidence but much of the Pop Woodworking site is now down. Chris’ blog page is there, but the links from it lead to long time-outs.