All 3 rep forums having issues right now..

[Dave123]

Holy moly...

All the main rep forums (Here at RWG,RG and RWI,not the small potato's guys)seem to be having serious issues all at the same time,from here and RG having this DDOS attack,to RWI having constant (the server is too busy) issues,though some say its high traffic at RWI due to the lack of RG and the issues here,i have been around a while and RWI was busier in 2007 then today (though someone will come along with some post saying i'm wrong,i'm use to that stuff).

"Col" at RWI,the new owner posted on his forum that there is a joint effort? into getting things back up an running there at RG...

" Belive me, experts from the hosting companies and three fora as well as a couple of outside consultants are working on this and it ain't an easy fix. JC and his team will get your home back up, progress is being made but it will be a couple of days yet as there is still a lot of work to be done.

Col."

While some are asking "whats up?" on each forum these days,seems someone knows whats up,hence the "three fora" bit. Is this true RWG admin?,and if so,what is up anyway,been having to login again after most posts here at RWG today and while RG doesn't have the same admin as here and cant get back up as fast (the owner/webguy at RG is gone,they will need help),what is the ties if any? Seems the members of all forums,want to know...

I am sure that anyone thats been around a while can agree,these main forums have not gone thru such thing all at the same time and if its as serious as it seems,can anyone explain outside of admin forums?....

Seems the fora is truely under attack...

[KB]

though someone will come along with some post saying i'm wrong,

Dave you're wrong...I'm just sayin'

Honestly we will never know who is behind this combined attack as there is just too many IP's to search through, however word has it that when a pimply kid actually realises there is a place outside his front door things will return to normal.

Ken

[CaptainJack]

My money is on Rolex. They got tired of us playing with their ball and are trying to close the playground down.

Jack

[stolikat]

Dave you're wrong...I'm just sayin'

Honestly we will never know who is behind this combined attack as there is just too many IP's to search through, however word has it that when a pimply kid actually realises there is a place outside his front door things will return to normal.

Ken

Sorry Ken I beg to differ. I doubt that some pimply kid would think to attack some rep watch sites and a few forums supporting the sales. This attack came from China. It is a [censored] slap in the face by the government. If that is off then is is rivels. The bottom line is this is about money. Plain and simple.

[KB]

I think it's a long shot to say where it has come from considering computers all over the world are involved.

We had some early indications that there was a lot coming from Russia but thats only speculation too.

The whole point being that it really doesn't matter where it is coming from as there is not much we can do to stop it that the different boards Admins aren't already doing.

The attack will most likely stop when whoever is behind it realises that they can not in fact take us offline for an extended period.

Ken

[wat44]

RWG was fine - wat are you talking about?

but I do think its a big coincidence that rep fora and several rep sellers are all having so much trouble

[KB]

Actually R we were (and still are) under the same attack, it's just our Admin has got all the traffic routed away.

Ken

[andygt]

I heard it was Hublot wot done it, something to do with JC Biver Cheese

Edited March 31, 2011 by andygt

[wat44]

but dont you think it strange, Ken that Lay, HouseofSouv, silix, etc plus 4 fora attacked?

[wat44]

hey andy - wat a coincidence that you joined the day after me!

P.S. do you guys here mind if I refer to you as RWGfine? (fine watches, etc)

[chefcook]

having experience in the field of IT security I can say that there are "companies" doing attacks like this for big customers. I know banks that used distributed denial of service attacks carried out by third parties to shut down phishing sites and I can imagine that there are enough other companies trying to do the same with fora like this, repgeek or rwi.

The key problem is: If someone is infringing patents, trademarks, rights or whatever the owner of those easily can bring most hosters to shutting down their customers site. Most hosters do not want any trouble and will do what the lawyer is asking for. But the rep forums are not infringing any rights as people in those forums do not deal with it (to a certain extend) and even if one of us is selling a single rep watch from time to time we are not the big fishes they are looking for. Trying to get the ID of every one of us and then take legal steps against everyone simply won't work.

But paying a third party to shut the forum down does work, at least for some time obviously.

Those offerign DDOS attacks as a service usually guarantee total confidence which is not very hard to do when attacking this way. I know at least three "companies" offering DDOS as a service, two located in Israel and one in Singapore.

In my opinion there shouldn't be dealers on our board. As said a collector to collector market is more or less OK as it won't bring big attention the forums, but any big dealer sponsoring (check the RWI / Repgeek / RWG ads on the dealer's websites!!!) and activity in the forums will cause attention and danger to the forums.

[Watchmeister]

I subscribe to the pimple-faced kid theory. These attacks started with the cartel dealers who readily advertise links to the three big forums. So then the forums themselves all get attacked at the same time. Now the dealers who show up on the forums directly are starting to have problems. In truth these attacks have happened from time to time and are pretty inevitable for many sites. It is how you handle them that matters because unfortunately there is little one can do to find the source.

[chefcook]

How long have the attacks been going on? 10 days?

I'd think that you spend about $5k for renting a botnet fo the required size for 10 days...

[KB]

I think it's closer to 2 days in regards to the forums and apparently the cost is negligible if you are part of the Bot Net.

Ken

[Noel Fleischer]

I'm not an IT guy, but it sure feels like there's a commercial motive to all this.

I don't see why a young geek would attack all the boards and several big dealers, including Angus

at the same time. Perhaps it was a show of computer prowess? But that would remain anonymous-

not much real motive there-IMO. On the other hand, the gen makers have alot more at stake.

Just my 2 cents.

[txcollector]

The question is: are DDoS attacks illegal? if they are not I can see big companies paying specialized firms to run them.

[vafarmer70]

They are apparently illegal in the U.K.

A U.K. law has been passed that makes it an offense to launch denial-of-service attacks, which experts had previously called "a legal gray area."

Among the provisions of the Police and Justice Bill 2006, which gained Royal Assent on Wednesday, is a clause that makes it an offense to impair the operation of any computer system. Other clauses prohibit preventing or hindering access to a program or data held on a computer, or impairing the operation of any program or data held on a computer.

The maximum penalty for such cybercrimes has also been increased from 5 years to 10 years.

The law that attempted previously to deal with this area of computer crime was the Computer Misuse Act 1990 (CMA), which was drafted before widespread use of the Internet began.

In a denial-of-service attack, a person attempts to make a computer system unavailable to users by overloading it with data. The CMA only prohibited unauthorized modification of a system, which opened up legal ambiguity for denial of service attacks using e-mail.

In November 2005, David Lennon was tried for sending 5 million e-mails to his former employer, causing the e-mail server to crash. His defense successfully argued that as an e-mail server exists to receive e-mail, sending e-mail to that server could not be an unauthorized modification, no matter how much mail was sent.

District Judge Kenneth Grant agreed, and concluded that sending e-mail was an authorized modification of the server, so Lennon had no case to answer. Grant's ruling was later overturned, with Lennon sentenced to two months' curfew with an electronic tag. By that time, amendments to the CMA had been included in the Police and Justice Bill.

Tom Espiner of ZDNet UK reported from London.

Read more: http://news.cnet.com/U.K.-outlaws-denial-of-service-attacks/2100-7348_3-6134472.html#ixzz1ICa1Kr7Y

[chefcook]

Illegal or not does not matter.

The companies that could have an interest in shutting down a rep forum are located in Switzerland, France, Germany and Italy. In all of those countries someone running a rep forum (or whatever) has to proof that he actually had a financial loss due to this attack and then he would get this sum in case the attacker is found guilty. That means another maybe 10k Euros all in all for attackers with billions turnover per annum for shutting down rep dealers and rep fora that would never take legal steps against a player of this size.

Laws only apply if there is someone pleading on them. In this case, there won't be anyone and the watch industry knows that.

You see: Scammers and thieves (what we are in their eyes) usually don't take legal action against someone protecting their (intellectual) property.

[mastrmindalliance]

The pimply kid theory is not out of the question. While there are commercial services of course, you don't actually need money or great resources to launch a DDoS.

For example, a couple years ago, in a another hobby, we had a kid launch a DDoS and take down half a dozen big sites that were serving files, and DoS some users offline. . We found out who it was via boasting on Efnet. A little counter hacking turned up his name, address and employer. Kid worked out Kohls (America) on the dock. I called him everyday (via the stores office number) claiming it was an urgent family matter, from Australia, just to say "hi". It worked rather well

Here's an IRC log with the "good guys" (my, and our) deets X'd out. The bad guys names are in tact.

Oh, "dozer" is an euphemism for botnet. Mind the language.

Session Start: Tue Aug 13 13:41:42 2009

Session Ident: |Bman|

[1:41pm] Session Ident: |Bman| (Bman@talk.[censored].and.feel.my.gigedos.net)

[1:41pm] <01|Bman|> hey

[1:41pm] <04********> hey

[1:41pm] <01|Bman|> ok look that was [censored] mean man

[1:42pm] <01|Bman|> you know none of you ever once asked me nicly for them

[1:42pm] <01|Bman|> **** was a [censored] to me

[1:42pm] <04********> <<see *******

[1:42pm] <01|Bman|> ?

[1:42pm] <01|Bman|> i was at work u jerk

[1:42pm] <04********> whyd you set yr dozer on us, for no good reason thats why

[1:43pm] <01|Bman|> i didnt

[1:43pm] <01|Bman|> im not friends with that [censored] anymore

[1:43pm] <04********> i know you were at work thats why i called

[1:43pm] <01|Bman|> look he scammed me out of $2550

[1:43pm] <01|Bman|> [censored] dshocker

[1:43pm] <04********> calling at home wouldnt have had the same effect would it?

[1:43pm] <01|Bman|> you dont have my home phone though

[1:44pm] <04********> dont need it

[1:44pm] <01|Bman|> if you call my work again or anyone from *** i will have you ddosed for days

[1:44pm] <01|Bman|> i swear it

[1:44pm] <01|Bman|> got it

[1:44pm] <04********> well shocker is yr mate, so if i get anymore trouble guess who im gunna take it out on? GOT IT?

[1:45pm] <01|Bman|> [censored] you man

[1:45pm] <01|Bman|> hes not with me

[1:45pm] <01|Bman|> HE SCAMMED ME

[1:45pm] <01|Bman|> i dont talk to him

[1:45pm] <01|Bman|> only person i told him to hit was *******

[1:45pm] <01|Bman|> not you

[1:45pm] <01|Bman|> NEVER u

[1:45pm] <04********> well make sure he leaves me alone

[1:46pm] <01|Bman|> how the [censored] am i to do that

[1:46pm] <01|Bman|> he wont listen to me

[1:46pm] <04********> you all brought it on yrselves, ive never talked to him ever, make sure it dont happen again and you'll be fine

[1:48pm] <01|Bman|> if you call me at my work again i will make you wish you didnt

[1:48pm] <01|Bman|> i will ddos the [censored] outta your isp

[1:50pm] <04********> well i can call your work everyday if you like, DO YOU UNDERSTAND?

[1:51pm] <01|Bman|> good think i dont work anymore

[1:51pm] <01|Bman|> i was fried today 

[1:51pm] <01|Bman|> for ditching 3 days in a row

[1:51pm] <01|Bman|> that was my fault

[1:52pm] <04********> we'll we'll see, just you and yr mates mind yr manners and there wont be anymore problems, k

[1:52pm] <01|Bman|> same to you and yours

[1:52pm] <01|Bman|> agreed?

[1:53pm] <04********> i didnt act first, i only reacted. play nice and you'll keep yr job

[1:54pm] <01|Bman|> i dont have the job

[1:54pm] <01|Bman|> i'm going to work for my mom

[1:54pm] <01|Bman|> since i cant have a real job anymore

[1:55pm] <01|Bman|> type OP in *******

[1:55pm] <04********> well if you ring the wrong kohls theyll actually say whether you work there or not, sooo...

[1:56pm] <01|Bman|> yeah i know

[1:56pm] <01|Bman|> im gonna work with my mom starting monday i think 

[1:57pm] <01|Bman|> so were agreed not to start [censored] and ill try to keep peeps off you 

[1:57pm] [1:57pm] * |Bman| puts his hand out to shake hands

[1:57pm] <04********> yeap no problems

[Ronin]

I find it hard to believe a random pimple faced hacker would be behind these attacks 'just for fun'. "Replica" oriented sites by nature operate in the spirit of hacking. Building Frankens, and 'beating the man' by acquiring replicas at 1/10th the cost is right up the average hackers ally.

IMHO, these attacks seem to coincide with Basel. It would not surprise me if someone is either operating rogue to impress the big boys at Basel, or there is some backroom 'see if we can stop them' motive. There are any number of high-rollers at Basel that could fund this attack with their Russian buddies in a matter of minutes.

[onzenuub]

˙uooooooooooooooooos pooƃ ǝq ןןıʍ ʇı ʞuıɥʇ

[mastrmindalliance]

I find it hard to believe a random pimple faced hacker would be behind these attacks 'just for fun'.

... these attacks seem to coincide with Basel

I agree. My point is simply that you don't actually need a whole lot of resources or money. Though the services can indeed be bought.

While i'm not theorising at all, i also think the timing is interesting with Basel and the Chinese crackdown.

It's unlikely the truth will ever be known so I'm just glad my favourite forum and my only dealer are working again.

[KB]

I should point out here that it does not in fact coincide with the Chinese crackdown.

The current Government action over there started last November and even then it was only the latest in a string of ongoing actions.

The point about a possible link between this and Basel is interesting but as our Admin has already pointed out there must be thousands of sites on the Net that the gen watch manufacturers would want closed before they took a shot at us.

Has anyone thought that it could just be a disgruntled customer, I speak from first hand experience when I say there are some real wacko's out there who would see this as a justified way to get even.

Ken

[Dave123]

Hmmm,if i even knew what a DDOS attack was,i think the pimples would come back out...

[KB]

Drugs Dickheads and Other Shit

Ken