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How strong is Google? I am curious, how much defense do they have?

Also, do ISPs give users tiny upload capacity because they worry about DDoSes?

Adel
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Q1:

In truth, I highly doubt it. All servers are susceptible to a DDoS. The reason why it doesn't happen is because the amount of computers doing requests would probably have to be more than the server count that they have. Google has thousands of servers and receives enough requests a second to take out a number of smaller sites. In truth, it would take a large team (not 10-20, more like in the hundreds of thousands) working together running a simultaneousness attack. I'm sure right now, hundreds of people are running their own DDoS attacks to no avail. DDoS, keep in mind, isn't illegal*.

Q2:

This is possible, it is more likely the fact that they don't want to waste bandwidth. With hundreds of users signing up for (commonly free) accounts, they don't need people uploading gigabytes of data to later be request. Another reason is because they don't need gigabytes of "dead" data (data that is no longer being used) all over their servers.

*Based on the computer abuse act, unless you do damages amounting over $5,000 USD or DDoS a hospital/government agency it is legal.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Computer_Fraud_and_Abuse_Act#Criminal_offenses_under_the_Act

Freesnöw
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  • This clears things up a lot! Hmmm, I didn't know DDoS is not illegal. Very informative, Thank You Very Much! – Adel Apr 27 '11 at 16:49
  • DDoS is not illegal because there really is no difference between it and a ton of requests. It is, however, illegal to create viruses that perform DDoS attacks from other computers. This is the main way groups try to take down a site because the average person (or even persons) won't have the resources to take down these smaller (and more susceptible) sites. – Freesnöw Apr 27 '11 at 16:51
  • Aah I see, that makes a lot of sense now. Viruses and botnets, yeah those are sinister. Cool information , Thanks A Lot ! – Adel Apr 27 '11 at 16:53
  • No problem :) Remember to mark a question as answered (press the checkmark) if it has answered your question. If you do this, it will keep your score high so people will want to answer your questions in the future :) – Freesnöw Apr 27 '11 at 16:54
  • @Dlamk, can you cite a source? Attempting to prevent access to protected computers is definitely illegal right? – Pacerier Jul 17 '12 at 17:21
  • @Pacerier, there you go. It took me a while to actually get to doing it but there is your source. It's not necessarily preventing access, it's simply abusing the limited resources that the machines can handle. If these people have no way to block traffic, it is their own fault for allowing somebody to hang their servers. – Freesnöw Jul 26 '12 at 16:40