Forum behaviour change?

[thatkeith]

I don't know when this happened or what might have caused it, but the forum behaviour is really frustrating! When I'm browsing for info I will often command-click discussion links to open them in different tabs. Now when I try to do that I get this result:

Forbidden
You don't have permission to access this resource.
Additionally, a 403 Forbidden error was encountered while trying to use an ErrorDocument to handle the request.

This happens if I right-click and copy a link and paste it into a different tab, or even a different browser. It even happens if I copy the link and paste it into the SAME browser tab address field! Even weirder, if I reload a forum by hitting the Reload Page shortcut it reloads fine, but if I click into the address field and hit return I get the Forbidden result again.

This means that to have a few tabs with different threads I need to start in each one from the 'top' of the forum and click through from there. It's weird, it's annoying, it slows me down tremendously, and it seems like broken forum behaviour! Whatever did this, PLEASE someone fix it!

k

[SparkOut]

Yes, I am getting 403 errors on some pages and links. The "exclamation mark" icon for reporting a post as spam also. I suspect there's some attempt to harden the forum against spammers but I can't find a consistent explanation.

[jacque]

This happened before and Heather said it was a bug in CPanel. Now it's worse. I'm getting 403 on just about everything. I get the daily digest and none of those links work.

[heatherlaine]

Unfortunately this is a change in the forum behavior yes. At present it is necessary. It is preventing an ongoing ddos attack from taking down the server. This has been ongoing for several weeks with no sign of it letting up, so until it stops or we find another route to prevent the damage, the limitation on access via direct link to posts has to stay. This does affect the RSS feed as well, sorry about that.

Best Regards,

Heather

[jacque]

I can't understand why a DDoS attack would want to target LC.

[FourthWorld]

Yeah, it's weird. Unless LC Ltd is secretly working for MI6 they're a low-value target. Botfarms are lucrative rental commodities. The owner is losing more money than the hosting company. Sustained attacks happening so frequently throughout the year are very rare.

Clearly the bot control has an error. I wonder if the host can change IPs to something not on the errant hitlist.

[jacque]

I haven't been able to access the forums or any Livecode site page for 2 days, the connection always times out. I tried 3 different browsers on several devices with the same result. Today I used a VPN to access a server in Germany and got through immediately. My VPN is still on as I write this.

Anyone know what's going on?

[FourthWorld]

DDoS attacks are definitely on the rise.

But unlike spam, there's no money to be made doing it, other than by renting out the infrastructure needed to pull it off.

LC Ltd is not involved in any political or ideological controversy, and even if they were they're not big enough to warrant attack.

Any DDoS affecting such a small target represents a cost to the botnet owner, and therefore is either a mistake (IP address formerly used by a worthwhile target) or collateral damage (host provider involved in targetable controversy).

Requesting an IP change with the host provider would rule out the former. And if the latter isn't a concern (and it probably isn't) that would likely fix the issue altogether, no?


https://www.f5.com/labs/articles/threat ... ack-trends