[NTLUG:Discuss] irc.openprojects.net

[Steve Baker]

terry wrote:

> Okay, I'm really confused now...
> MS DOS as in Microsoft Disk Operating System?  or
> d.o.s. as in denile of service   ???
> 
> Sounds like two different acronyms that have little or nothing to do 
> with each other.  (I don't see the relationship or what your trying to 
> tell me here.)
> 
> Although I've heard of a denial of service attack, I'm not clear on what 
> it is.  I envision it as just repeatedly pinging a server or something 
> to that effect.  Right?  If so, is that what's happening here? And if 
> so, why on earth would anyone do something like that?  What on earth 
> could they gain from doing it?

Correctly speaking, a DOS (Denial Of Service) attack is when one computer
tries to shut out another by sending it a bunch of junk to deal with.  It
could be an insane number of HTTP requests or tons of email or something.
However, the sending computer also gets pretty bogged down by doing it -
and it's not all that effective at shutting down large, well set up servers
connected to big, fast Internet connections.

The thing that's much more scarey is when some evil cracker breaks into
a few hundred PC's that are lightly protected - and plants software that
causes them (on some command) to launch CONCERTED attacks on one or more
servers.  That's called a DISTRIBUTED Denial of Service (DDoS) attack -
and it's much more worrying.

Hence (mostly) the acronym DOS means Disk Operating System and DoS
(rarely used - and with different capitalization) means Denial of Service -
with DDoS being the more common term for a *Distributed* Denial of Service
attack.

Also (strictly speaking) DOS could mean any Disk Operating System - and
MS-DOS means the one we know and hate.  There was a DOS before that which
ran on ancient DEC PDP-11's, also PC-DOS which was the ancestor of MS-DOS,
and was also commonly shortened to just 'DOS'.

There just aren't enough free TLA's left in the world!

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