MetaFilter Server Issues

December 23, 2012 9:12 AM

We're having a few technical glitches with the MetaFilter servers so you might experience a few problems.

Yesterday our ISP detected a DDoS attack aimed at MetaFilter. They immediately started filtering traffic that flows to our system. There are a few side-effects of this filtering that you might be experiencing: intermittent connection timeouts, odd File Not Found (404) errors, and problems uploading files.

Our ISP automatically puts our system into this mode for 24 hours. So it's possible this will clear up later today. It's also possible that we'll need to run like this for a while. Thanks for your patience while we weather this.

posted by pb (staff) to Uptime at 9:12 AM (24 comments total)

Yes, I noticed this, so thanks for the heads-up pb.
posted by carter at 9:16 AM on December 23, 2012

Any theories on the origin/reasoning behind the DDoS? Someone just having fun over the holidays, or is it a jealous ex-MeFite, or what?
posted by carsonb at 9:16 AM on December 23, 2012

tricksy hobbitses perhaps.
posted by elizardbits at 9:18 AM on December 23, 2012 [9 favorites]

No, we don't have any idea on the origin/reasoning. And by its nature a distributed attack doesn't have a single point of origin. It's frustrating, but we're very happy the ISP caught this and that we can be here talking at all.
posted by pb (staff) at 9:19 AM on December 23, 2012 [1 favorite]

The only place I've noticed this so far is in MeMail, which seems to suddenly have a built-in time limit between reading a message and sending the reply.
posted by shakespeherian at 9:23 AM on December 23, 2012

I was getting weird 404s yesterday, but the site seemed otherwise fine.
posted by yeoz at 9:24 AM on December 23, 2012

Thanks for the heads-up; here's hoping you get some time to rest and relax this weekend, too!
posted by Elsa at 9:40 AM on December 23, 2012

Note: Everyone needs a hug.

ftfy
posted by infini at 9:48 AM on December 23, 2012 [3 favorites]

KHAAAN!
posted by Dr. Zira at 10:03 AM on December 23, 2012 [1 favorite]

We had a few people come into Chat last night wondering why they were having issues getting to MeFi - someone reported mathowie's tweet about the DDoS attack.

pb just stopped in to let us know we might get kicked from Chat from time to time today, but it's up.
posted by flex at 10:04 AM on December 23, 2012

Ha, yes. I've been trying to send MeFi mails all day today, with unhappy timeouts. I think everyserver needs a hug.
posted by iamkimiam at 10:35 AM on December 23, 2012 [1 favorite]

We just got word from our host that it seems things are back to normal so they've lifted the blocks they had in place that was making the site problematic.

Things should be back to normal now.
posted by mathowie (staff) at 10:52 AM on December 23, 2012

WHAT
THE
FUCK
MA—

> Things should be back to normal now.

Oh. OK, then! Thanks!
posted by languagehat at 11:27 AM on December 23, 2012 [1 favorite]

Why would anyone want to pick on Metafilter?

OOoooo, I bet it was over something cortex deleted.
posted by Toekneesan at 12:10 PM on December 23, 2012 [1 favorite]

I seriously feared a DDoS from reddit fans after The Verge made their interview headline "guy from MetaFilter says Reddit is really creepy and awful and should feel bad and die".

Seemed unnecessarily provoking of them to do.
posted by mathowie (staff) at 12:14 PM on December 23, 2012 [3 favorites]

I had a few of these yesterday. Glad it's back to normal. Reddit is just upset that they haven't been Quonsed.
posted by arcticseal at 12:29 PM on December 23, 2012

So, I can't post the Treaty of Westphalia?
posted by Smedleyman at 12:45 PM on December 23, 2012

Smedleyman: "So, I can't post the Treaty of Westphalia?"

Just don't forget to bring the pickled herring.
posted by Dr. Zira at 2:16 PM on December 23, 2012

Well that explains what had been going on. Hadn't seen the Verge headline - not the most helpful thing they could do!
posted by leslies at 3:28 PM on December 23, 2012

To be clear, there's no indication that anyone from reddit got up to any trouble. There were a few mentions of the Verge article on reddit the day it went up, which generated maybe 20 comments total between five threads over there and people were mostly annoyed at the headline and not really discussing Metafilter at all.

Compare that with the 700+ comments on the main reddit thread about the Scott Adams event, in which a few odd ducks seemed to assume Team Mod had a personal vendetta against Adams, anonymity, internet freedom, and all famous people everywhere because of reasons, from which there was zero barnstorming reactionary behavior.

The possibility of some redditors flipping out about that Verge pullquote definitely occurred to me just like it did to Matt, but that's all there is to it, that vague concern rather than any indication that that's what happened here. Probably we'll never know what happened, and it could be a nutter or some nutters legitimately DDOSing the site for some unannounced reason but it could also be e.g. some guy's experimental web spider running unthrottled, something we've actually had serious site-stability-effecting problems with in the past.
posted by cortex (staff) at 12:05 AM on December 24, 2012

". some guy's experimental web spider running unthrottled,

Oh God, not that Australian guy again?
posted by marienbad at 10:39 AM on December 24, 2012

Cthulhu awakens.
posted by Wordshore at 3:37 PM on December 24, 2012 [1 favorite]

Why is the Verge talking about Mefi so much? Not that it's a bad thing, it just seems like that's the third Mefi article I've heard about on Verge in the past month or so.
posted by IndigoRain at 7:07 PM on December 24, 2012

Why is the Verge talking about Mefi so much?

They're building brand value for some sort of takeover/buy-out.
Follow the money trail!
posted by Mezentian at 6:06 AM on December 26, 2012 [1 favorite]