GoDaddy Goes Down, Anonymous Claims Responsibility 483
An anonymous reader writes "A member of the Anonymous hacktivist group appears to have taken down GoDaddy with a massive Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS). The widespread issue seems to be affecting countless websites and services around the world, although not for everyone. Godaddy.com is down, but so are some of the site's DNS servers, which means GoDaddy hosted e-mail accounts are down as well, and lots more. It's currently unclear if the servers are being unresponsive or if they are completely offline. Either way, the result is that if your DNS is hosted on GoDaddy, your site may also look as if it is down, because it cannot resolve."
This is big (Score:5, Funny)
Re:This is big (Score:4, Insightful)
I hope they lose a lot of business from it. GoDaddy is an aweful company.
WOOT! (Score:3, Informative)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
If you sleep with a whore, you can not complain if you get syphilis.
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they may be aweful, but the hosted email has been damn decent for the 4+ years I've been with them. I've always sort of snickered at the shit anonymous did, but now their vendetta against a big company fucks us little guys too.
Please don't misconstrue this as support for Anonymous' actions. You seem to forget that SOPA [gizmodo.com] would fuck the little guys, too. Perhaps you've forgotten who supported [arstechnica.com] that legislation, and why Wikipedia [zdnet.com] and many others [venturebeat.com] (including myself, a customer for over 10 years) have left GoDaddy.
Bob Parsons quote (Score:2, Insightful)
Bob Parsons, who created GoDaddy, once said "Security is for cadavers" when giving business advice to the general public.
Re:Bob Parsons quote (Score:5, Funny)
I was going to be all like "citation required" and shit, but then I looked and I found this:
Bob Parsons' 16 Rules [bobparsons.me]
(Yes. It's down at time of writing. That's the joke.)
Re:Bob Parsons quote (Score:4, Informative)
Its his only quote on wikiquote among other places: http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Bob_Parsons [wikiquote.org]
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It's online now, and that happens to be his #1 rule:
Get and stay out of your comfort zone.
I believe that not much happens of any significance when we're in our comfort zone. I hear people say, "But I'm concerned about security." My response to that is simple: "Security is for cadavers."
I guess he's not in his comfort zone. Which must mean Anonymous is doing him a favor.
Re:Bob Parsons quote (Score:5, Insightful)
+5 Insightful.
For a quote taken out of context that means nothing even close to the implication.
full quote is
I believe that not much happens of any significance when we're in our comfort zone. I hear people say, "But I'm concerned about security." My response to that is simple: "Security is for cadavers.
He is talking about your own personal comfort zone.
Of course you either already knew that or were you just ignorantly posting stuff you heard but never understood?
Of course I still do not like GoDaddy.
I just dislike liars even more.
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And its terribly out of context ... he's talking about the difference between going out on a limb to do something risky and sticking to the safe route.
It could be rephrased as "not taking risks is for cadavers."
Re:This is big (Score:5, Funny)
I hope it gets resolved soon!
*bah dum tish*?
Re:This is big (Score:5, Funny)
Re: (Score:3)
There's not much hope, as now Slashdot have also joined the attack.
You think this is a Game? (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:You think this is a Game? (Score:4, Insightful)
Hate to blame the victim but why on earth are you using godaddy who supports anyone having the ability to take your website down?
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Re:You think this is a Game? (Score:4, Insightful)
His point is that GoDaddy supported SOPA, which allowed companies to shut down websites on a whim.
If you continued to support GoDaddy after learning about this, then it is assumed you're fine with people's websites being shutdown for no good reason.
Therefore, why are you upset now?
You're the roofer on the Death Star. You knew the risks.
Re:You think this is a Game? (Score:5, Interesting)
On top of that, you didn't read the TOS from GoDaddy. That allows *them* to turn your site off on a whim without prior notice. This might just be the hackers turning on the built-in kill switch for every GoDaddy site simultaneously.
Re:You think this is a Game? (Score:5, Funny)
You're the roofer on the Death Star.
B-but... it's a sphere? How? Where... does the roof? I... i'm so confused.... Shouldn't he also be the, uh, waller... and flooring guy...? My childhood... crumbling... Nnooooooooooooo!
Oh well, at least I still have Clerks...
Re:You think this is a Game? (Score:5, Interesting)
His point is that GoDaddy supported SOPA, which allowed companies to shut down websites on a whim.
If you continued to support GoDaddy after learning about this, then it is assumed you're fine with people's websites being shutdown for no good reason.
Therefore, why are you upset now?
You're the roofer on the Death Star. You knew the risks.
Actually, his point is probably that GoDaddy's policies, regardless of SOPA/PIPA support, allow them to shut down websites on a whim. They've repeatedly demonstrated this by completely shutting down entire accounts when served a DMCA complaint for one site. http://yro.slashdot.org/story/12/05/25/1744246/photographer-threatened-with-legal-action-after-asserting-his-copyright [slashdot.org] is one example. (Part of the reason she went crazy was that all of her sites, including one regarding special needs children, were suspended after GoDaddy received the DMCA complaint over one photo on one specific site.)
GoDaddy has made it clear that it takes very little to convince them to suspend a customer's entire account. If you choose to use GoDaddy's services, that's a risk you're taking.
Re:You think this is a Game? (Score:5, Insightful)
A lot of companies (and unions) supported SOPA: http://www.scribd.com/doc/76259944/SOPA-Supporters [scribd.com]
Therefore, why are you upset now?
Do you use a MasterCard or VISA? Do you watch ABC, follow pro football or basketball, buy books published by Random House, HarperCollins or McGraw-Hill, are a paying member of any of a dozen unions, buy any products made by Revlon, Pfizer, LOreal, Sony and a hundred other companies?
According to your logic, if any of the above is true, you should not be upset if a group of random hackers shuts down your website and causes you financial harm.
Re:You think this is a Game? (Score:5, Insightful)
More to the point though, Goddaddy is simply a less efficient company compared to many, and the world would be better off without them (no offense intended, since it'd be great to free up their time for more productive tasks, or simply free time for its own sake).
Re:You think this is a Game? (Score:4, Funny)
Citation needed
Perhaps a link to a document on their web site :)
Re:You think this is a Game? (Score:5, Informative)
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Who is "everybody?" Godaddy.com hasn't been resolving for me since at least 1:30 PM EDT. It continues to not resolve for me now (5 PM EDT).
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no, that link WAS NOT functional for a great number of folks, as was the main godaddy.com site, for several hours. It may have worked for you, but no one agrees that godaddy.com stayed up, because it did not.
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Everybody agreed that godaddy.com stayed up. It was the websites they hosted which went down.
Who is this "everybody" you're referring to? GoDaddy.com itself was unresponsive when I checked it after reading this story roughly 4 hours ago.
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Did aliens just steal 50 IQ-points from everybody here?
DNS is a distributed system with caches. If your DNS-resolver (which is a cache) had the godaddy.com domain cached before the attack it will continue to resolve until the cache expires, usually 24 hours after being cached. If your DNS-resolver didn't have it cached, it will be unable to fetch the records as the authoritative DNS-servers aren't responding, and thus it will fail to resolve. Some tools, like 'dig' will tell you how long time remains on the
Re:You think this is a Game? (Score:5, Insightful)
I highly doubt that they didn't know the details of the bill. The bill was available via Thomas and it's broad strokes were known for quite some time.
GoDaddy wanted to placate the MPAA/RIAA/etc because it was a business decision. Once they realized that they had a massive exodus of customers, they made the business decision to reverse their stance.
Their decision had little to do with knowing the bill. Their decision was made because it was the fiscally responsible thing to do. They probably didn't predict that the fallout would be as drastic as it was.
Re:You think this is a Game? (Score:5, Interesting)
Their decision was made because it was the short-run profiteering thing to do.
There, fixed that for ya. The fiscally responsible thing to do is to ensure the long-run fitness of the United States and global economy.
The MPAA and RIAA are pushing for increasing the strength of their regulatory monopolies to channel a larger share of GDP into their products, which shifts us further out on the cultural supply curve. That increases units produced and per-unit price, which has the effect of increasing cultural production while reducing the per-unit cost efficiency. That would be a good thing if we were suffering from a shortage of cultural production and the economy was running strong. Since we are on the opposite side of both those balances at the moment, however, supporting that agenda to curry their favor is short-run profiteering -- not fiscal responsibility.
Re:You think this is a Game? (Score:5, Informative)
If i recall GoDaddy had a hand in writing the bill as well. they finally changed their stance after there was an exodus from their service over SOPA. and even then it seemed they only changed their stance because of their bottom dollar, and ultimately they still believed in it.
I pulled all my domains from GoDaddy a long time ago because of their SOPA support.
It seems anonymous is rather late to the party for this. all the SOPA stuff was many months ago.
Re:You think this is a Game? (Score:5, Informative)
Once they realized that they had a massive exodus of customers, they made the business decision to reverse their stance.
GoDaddy never reversed their stance on SOPA! They basically said that they will not be so upfront with their support of the bill.
Re:You think this is a Game? (Score:5, Insightful)
So, you thought giving your domain name to a bunch of clowns that support laws that they don't understand was a good plan?
Doesn't seem to be working out good.
Re: (Score:3)
Wait, you put 1500 domains on GoDady?
And you've never bothered to develop an exit strategy?
I have no idea how to respond to that.
Re:You think this is a Game? (Score:5, Insightful)
So since people stopped caring about SOPA it's not a big deal now? It's getting pushed through piecemeal. I'm gonna laugh when your precious website can't be reliably hosted anywhere in the USA.
Lesson is: Don't do important business with losers.
Re:You think this is a Game? (Score:5, Insightful)
I was giving good business advice actually, most of the time when I lose money it's because I wasn't selective who I trusted. So it's my fault for losing money because I trusted a moron with business.
Also good job with the rape out of the blue.. why don't you throw in some nazis and compare me to bush while you're at it. You're like the idiot who shops at wal-mart... except with best buy prices and customer service.
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Re:You think this is a Game? (Score:5, Insightful)
That might have mattered back when SOPA was still a thing people cared about.
This right there is why this stuff is so insidious. We have to be vigilant.
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You misunderstand. Godaddy supported SOPA. Essentially they support anyone claiming to be a content owner taking your site down for infringement while the claim is investigated. Why not go with a better cheaper provider anyhow?
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What information are you basing this one? GoDaddy itself does not appear down. This appears to be a DNS exploit. That would put .... oh I don't know... every single host on earth at risk.
The Web is falling, the Web is falling, and I have a piece of it right here.
Who instead of Go Daddy? (Score:2)
Re:Who instead of Go Daddy? (Score:4, Informative)
If you're already with Gandi, check out their Simple Hosting. It's pretty slick, as far as basic hosting goes: you get your own Apache/MySQL/PHP processes, the web server runs with the same permissions as your user account (so setting up stuff like WordPress is trivial as there's no permissions-related issues), can host multiple separate sites on a single instance, etc.
Their VPSs are pretty standard paravirtualized Xen systems which work out pretty well (I ran a Team Fortress 2 gameserver for a while on one and it was stable and reliable).
As a domain customer you get a 50% discount code for the first year ($30/year rather than $60/year).
Disclaimer: Gandi customer, not employed by them in any way.
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Personally I wouldn't put my name registrations and my hosting (ideally including DNS hosting) in the same place. There are a couple of reasons for this.
Firstly afaict when the shit hits the fan at a domain name register it is common for the entries in the registery to stay in place but the admin interface to be down. When the shit hits the fan at a hosting provider it is very likely that everything they host goes down. So if your registeration and hosting are at the same provider and the shit hits the fan
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What entry-level web hosting provider would you recommend using instead of Go Daddy?
Everyone loves hurricane electric. Rather than using a webhost everyone hates like godaddy, why not use a webhost everyone loves like he.net, even ex-customers like me? Trust me, no one is stupid enough to hire me as a booth babe, so you know this is not astroturfing.
And I don't wanna hear comments from the peanut gallery about how they're not the cheapest. Yes, not being the cheapest is often a side effect of not sucking.
Re: (Score:3)
HostGator. I've used BlueHost too, but HostGator's been more responsive and techie friendly.
Re:Who instead of Go Daddy? (Score:5, Informative)
You mean the advertising company that makes its profits by hijacking DNS requests?? The company that breaks things like MX lookups by default? The company that takes advantage of dimwits who thing anything with the word "Open" in the name is actually somehow open? That OpenDNS?
Re: (Score:3)
Comment removed (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:You think this is a Game? (Score:4, Insightful)
You could host your own dns, like a big boy.
This is what happens when you push everything out into the cloud. Somedays it rains and there ain't shit you can do about it.
Re:You think this is a Game? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3)
You don't, but if you did your DNS would still work.
I think it is bad that this happened, but this is what you get whenever you put your eggs in one basket.
It is not funny to me, other than finding out what companies my company does business with that we clearly should not be since they let godaddy host their DNS.
Re: (Score:3)
I love those naive random thoughts. As if noone ever had more than one DNS server.
Google "DNS master slave setup". "Hidden primary" is another key phrase. DNS runs the Internet. It's not some toy that can't handle every imaginable setup.
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Re:You think this is a Game? (Score:5, Interesting)
It's affecting a lot more than commerce.
My cancer research website is down, too. (Only works on computers that had cached the DNS entries.) So much for inviting seminar speakers today.
I'm an academic. I set my site up years ago (before all the SOPA business) and don't have time to muck with moving my site around, hosting DNS here and content there, and the like. I barely have time to maintain content in the middle of a busy research career. I suppose I'm now supposed to be an expert on mathematical modeling + cancer + hosting my own DNS?
It's always worth keeping in mind that these things affect far more than business sites.
Re:You think this is a Game? (Score:4, Insightful)
If you take your project seriously and believe your website is an important part of it, you simply must acquire the skill to make good decisions regarding it's implementation or hire an expert who can do this for you. You cannot stick your head in the sand and cry "I'm too busy, too important!" and expect any sympathy from me. Do you use that approach as an excuse for every area in which you fail to bring in proper expertise?
GoDaddy has a long track record of poor service and questionable practices the predates any SOPA business by many years. They offer nothing unique and have dozens of more reputable competitors. There is only one reason anyone uses GoDaddy: low cost.
This is your responsibility. Certainly you didn't end up using GoDaddy's services purely by random chance. A decision was made by someone, and it was made poorly. Probably someone trying to save a few bucks. It's highly unlikely that this will be the only ramification of that bad decision. It's also somewhat likely that other, similarly poor choices have been made in how your technical infrastructure is designed.
Re:You think this is a Game? (Score:5, Interesting)
Well, it explains why my podcast app didn't update my favorite podcast--just ran a whois to confirm that they're hosted on GoDaddy.
What's obnoxious about something like this is that the attack isn't likely to get the attention of the general public. Most people will see their favorite site is down, say "Aw, shucks," and check again later. The news likely won't even mention this, what with election season going on and giving them better yellow journalism fodder. The people who will know the reason why some of their favorite sites are down are like those here on Slashdot: The same people that already dislike GoDaddy.
I'm not saying that protest is a bad thing--far from it. But ineffective protest is. All this attack accomplishes is to hurt the little guy--the people who use GoDaddy.
But maybe I'm wrong. Maybe GoDaddy's customers will all jump ship because of this. I doubt it, though.
Re:You think this is a Game? (Score:5, Interesting)
What's obnoxious about something like this is that the attack isn't likely to get the attention of the general public. Most people will see their favorite site is down, say "Aw, shucks," and check again later.
"Most people" aren't the target audience here. The target audience is IT administrators who are given the task of choosing a domain hosting solution.
Domain hosting choice involves a lot of factors such as cost, customer satisfaction, down-time, and so on. If Anonymous can insert a new factor "being down due to backlash from unethical behaviour", they will have accomplished their goal.
Numerous studies show that tiny influences can have a noticeable effect on large populations. We see this all the time where human decision-making is involved - tiny influences will not sway any individual decision, but those same tiny effects have enough of an effect to be measurable in the population at large.
That's what Anonymous (or rather, the hacker with "Anonymous" in his name) is doing here - generating a new, tiny influence which might have an effect on the overall population.
They are bringing "company reputation" back into the purchase decision process.
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Glad I moved my domains (Score:5, Insightful)
Back when GoDaddy was publicly in support of SOPA, I moved away from them. Ended up saving a lot as well.
No regrets.
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Ditto. Tried a few different hosts, and eventually settled on gandi.net - works like a charm! A little more expensive, but I like the option of having duplicated virtual hosts on two continents just in case of failure...
Re:Glad I moved my domains (Score:5, Funny)
All seriousness aside: By looking at the scantily clad women they advertise with, is it any surprise they go down?
Re:Glad I moved my domains (Score:5, Funny)
All seriousness aside: By looking at the scantily clad women they advertise with, is it any surprise they go down?
I think those scantily clad women are very disappointed it can't stay up as well.
Re:Glad I moved my domains (Score:5, Informative)
I moved to namecheap for domains and hosting, and not only is it cheaper, but the overall experience doesn't leave sour aftertaste. They have been excellent so far.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
I moved from GoDaddy to Namecheap this summer, SOPA was the last straw for me. GoDaddy made it an unpleasant process. Good riddance.
I don't condone the Anonymous action though. There are lots of good people who use GoDaddy.
GoDaddy really are bottom feeders though. Anyone using them should go home and re-think their lives.
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I have some domains with NameCheap (which others have pointed out is quite good) and others with Gandi.net.
NameCheap has somewhat better pricing, but I prefer Gandi for most things. I rather like that Gandi's whois privacy is included by default in the cost of registration with compatible domains (.us, for example, does not allow private registration). The only public information they display is your full name and NIC handle -- the address and phone number are changed to that of their Paris headquarters and
Re:Glad I moved my domains (Score:4, Insightful)
Good for you, helping to help fund the man, giving them money so they can improve their service with wonderful investments in female nascar drivers that suck at nascar, aren't really that good looking and stick them in ads that are blatantly "sex sells" to appeal to you, the lowest common denominator.
You fight that good fight sir.
Re:Glad I moved my domains (Score:4, Interesting)
Good work! Stand by GoDaddy, pay for expensive web hosting of low quality with a long track record of bad security and customer fucking. If more people were like you folks wouldn't be so quick to shit on the little guy.
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You're an idiot.
"Activism" (Score:3, Insightful)
Hmm, attacking innocent people at random, could have sworn there was some other word for that...
Re:"Activism" (Score:5, Funny)
Hmm, attacking innocent people at random, could have sworn there was some other word for that...
"US Military Drone Attack" Hmm thats 4 words.
"Civil forfeiture" Hmm 2 words.
"Obama" or "Bush" ? Yeah I founds it.
Re: (Score:2, Informative)
The goal wasn't to instill fear or terror.
So you are wrong and stupid. You should feel bad about that.
It was NOT Anonymous. (Score:5, Informative)
Anonymous member AnonymousOwn3r has stated that this was not an Anonymous operation, and that he did this by himself.
Re:It was NOT Anonymous. (Score:5, Funny)
Should I beleive *ANY* of this or what???
Slashdot predates 4chan (Score:3)
Re:It was NOT Anonymous. (Score:5, Informative)
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what was the point of this? (Score:2, Interesting)
I guess somewhere down the line we may get an answer, but I really have to wonder: Why GoDaddy?
In other things that are totally news (Score:2)
Now how will we "see what happens next"? (Score:2)
We need a new DNS system (Score:5, Interesting)
Events like this further underline why we need a new secure, distributed DNS system, one that is not subject to tampering by either Anonymous or ICE. Yes, there's a huge installed base issue to deal with, but DNS is falling apart, and if things continue the way they have been, the Internet may be completely balkanized across national lines in a few more years.
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You mean the OpenDNS that fakes records that don't exist?
Not like Go Daddy is a "good" company.... (Score:5, Insightful)
Don't use the godaddy DNS and you'll be fine (Score:5, Insightful)
If you have registered your domain with Godaddy, and used a third party DNS, everything will be fine. I've found it's better to use a 3rd party DNS as it allows more flexibility in managing the domain name.
For shared hosting (Score:2)
Someone should email them (Score:5, Funny)
you know, to let them know their network is down.
Danica OK (Score:2, Funny)
Pachyderm's Revenge (Score:2)
Unorthodox business practices. DON'T DO BUSINESS! (Score:5, Interesting)
Try namecheap.com or internet.bs insteat. woT (Score:2)
DDoS? (Score:2)
Honestly, it looks more like a routing issue to me. Our production servers can't reach Godaddy's DNS servers at all, but other computers in the same NOC (different IP blocks) have no issue. Our in office server and desktops (as well as my home server and computers) also have no issue with contacting Godaddy's DNS servers.
I could be wrong of course. But I'm really only experiencing issues with contacting Godaddy's DNS servers from certain machines while others have no issue at all (can't get to their webs
I think this will backfire. (Score:5, Interesting)
So a bunch of non-profit groups I support are down thanks to these "activists".
SOPA opposition, "ends justify the means even if it means f*cking over everyone with our scorched earth actions", and the "if you were stupid enough to be supporting our enemy then you are just collateral damage because we are so right we're justified in harming you to make a point" aside, I don't think it will win them many fans.
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If you are a non-profit paying GoDaddy for shared hosting, that's just a waste of money. Dreamhost has free shared hosting for 501(c)(3) non-profits http://wiki.dreamhost.com/Non-profit_Discount [dreamhost.com]
If you do want to sign up consider giving me some referral money (10%): http://www.dreamhost.com/r.cgi?1066796 [dreamhost.com]
godaddy.com site (Score:2)
The Godaddy business model (Score:3)
Re:Hrmph (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: (Score:2)
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Can I wave?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S0n2vurSBIQ [youtube.com]
Anyway, my site (mrlizard.com) is hosted at GoDaddy and seems to still be up, so both my readers can rejoice.
Re: (Score:2)
Careful...say those letters three times in a row and he appears to drag the forum down into a morass of insanely long, boring and redundant posts congratulating himself for his genius in compiling a list.