One man DoS/ bandwidth vampire attack?

[Rave]

I've just had to get up and answer a phone call (phone in the next room, behind two shut doors) which turned out to be a recorded message from http://www.cancelyourloan.co.uk/ . Now I'm on the TPS and yet I often get this sort of crap. In this case I especially despise the product being offered; either it's a means for the stupid and feckless to wriggle out of paying what they owe, or it's a means to rip off the stupid and feckless still further. Either way, I'm not a fan.

Anyone know a program/browser plugin etc. that I can use to cane the crap out of their server overnight using my spanky 10mb connection? Each refresh seems to be about 45KB so I could probably bump their bandwidth bill up a bit (depending on their hosting arrangements, I suppose).

I don't care if it's illegal, as it's illegal for them to cold call me when I'm on the TPS, and I'll chuck that in their faces if they complain, which I doubt they will.

[Will404]

Check for change on firefox. You can have multipule tabs open refreshing the page every second, hammering them.

[mycarsavw]

Say, 20 instances of Firefox open.

25 tabs per instance.

ReloadEvery addon reloading each tab every 10 seconds

30,000 refreshes a minute.

[TheAnimus]

Also asside from the cold calling, which is wrong. Their morally questionable service i think is needed to help balance out the morally questionable activity of lending money!

DoS'ing is wrong, remeber its all to easy to cause colateral damage in doing such an attack.

[kalniel]

Anyone know a program/browser plugin etc. that I can use to cane the crap out of their server overnight using my spanky 10mb connection? Each refresh seems to be about 45KB so I could probably bump their bandwidth bill up a bit (depending on their hosting arrangements, I suppose).

No. Your sole connection is never going to be enough to make a significant difference to their hosting bill, and breaches both the law and your ISPs terms and conditions, meaning you're quite likely to be cut off by your own ISP.

[TAKTAK]

1 measly 10Mbit connection won't even make so much as a dint, also it would be in breach of the computer misuse act, and would affect others and yourself negatively (to the point of service termination.. Or worse...), without having a noticeable effect on the target...

Put simply, it is a fruitless activity, by doing it you just make yourself worse-off, and not them.

Complain to the Information Commissioner's Office: http://www.ico.gov.uk/ or 01625 545745 and possibly the Office of Fair Trading

When we were getting crap calls (also on the TPS), I emailed head office of the 'company' and insisted that they cease and desist or legal action would be taken against them, and i don't think we've had a single nuisance call since

edit: http://www.mpsonline.org.uk/tps/news3.html

[Barrichello]

Sorry to hear, i remember the bad old days of having a land line and the annoying calls.

I was watching new series of dragons den and one invention really got the dragons interested and sounds like the perfect answer to issues such as this

About 45mins in...... http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode...s_7_Episode_1/

[Rave]

Also asside from the cold calling, which is wrong. Their morally questionable service i think is needed to help balance out the morally questionable activity of lending money!

Pfft. Don't borrow money if you can't afford to pay it back, is my rule. Since I, as a taxpayer, own a stake in many lenders through UKFI it's in my interest that they don't get ripped off by arseholes like this, is it not?

DoS'ing is wrong, remeber its all to easy to cause colateral damage in doing such an attack.

How so in this case? Serious question. If nothing else, I could block enough access to their servers that various gullible debtors can't get access to this crap. I listen to Radio 4 a lot (get me) and I'm pretty sure services like this were discussed as a ripoff preying on already vulnerable people.

1 measly 10Mbit connection won't even make so much as a dint, also it would be in breach of the computer misuse act, and would affect others and yourself negatively (to the point of service termination.. Or worse...), without having a noticeable effect on the target...

I'm probably well behind the times, but a few years ago hosting contracts were advertised with ~6GB bandwidth a month for a reasonable price. I could make a serious dent in that with a 10mb connection left on overnight. Have things moved on such that bandwidth isn't an issue in hosting any more?

Put simply, it is a fruitless activity, by doing it you just make yourself worse-off, and not them.

I could take or leave Virgin TBH. It's not like I don't have access to decent copper ADSL.

Complain to the Information Commissioner's Office: http://www.ico.gov.uk/ or 01625 545745 and possibly the Office of Fair Trading

Worth a try I suppose.

When we were getting crap calls (also on the TPS), I emailed head office of the 'company' and insisted that they cease and desist or legal action would be taken against them, and i don't think we've had a single nuisance call since

edit: http://www.mpsonline.org.uk/tps/news3.html

I'm sure these calls originate overseas to avoid the TPS legislation. Hence my desire to take revenge directly.

I mean, don't get me wrong, it's 20s out of my day and I don't care that much about my time- it's more that the calls are consistently advertising crap, ripoff services.

Sorry to hear, i remember the bad old days of having a land line and the annoying calls.

I was watching new series of dragons den and one invention really got the dragons interested and sounds like the perfect answer to issues such as this

About 45mins in...... http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode...s_7_Episode_1/

Yeah they pimped it on You And Yours (Radio 4 again). Must say I wasn't impressed.

[TheAnimus]

How so in this case? Serious question. If nothing else, I could block enough access to their servers that various gullible debtors can't get access to this crap. I listen to Radio 4 a lot (get me) and I'm pretty sure services like this were discussed as a ripoff preying on already vulnerable people.

If a massive DoS was launched, anyone else on the server, if its a shared server will suffer for a start off.

Then there are anyone on the bottlenecking routes, they will suffer too.

Plenty of online UK hosts only have one transit provider to LINX, if a DoS is done on them, its often that link that suffers, nocking out all of their customers. As plenty of web hosts are just colo'ing on someone elses rack, you can often find that you end up bringing down multiple (tiny little) hosting firms.

A little bit of knowledge is a dangerous thing, sometimes you need more to think into the possible consequences.