NeoWin shut down

[olefarte]

Apparently a disgruntled 13 year old has caused the owner of NeoWin.net, to shut his site down, because of repeated DoS attacks. The owner of the site has apparently shut down maybe for good. Here's his statement posted at Warp2Search and also a statement from his attacker. Hope he gets things straightened out, it was a good site.
Edit; On the "statement", the link doesn't open right. After opening, page down about five posts to see it.
Edit again; Well, sometimes it opens dead on the spot, go figure.

Neowin admins:-
This morning when I woke up I was met with an array of problems on the site due to the fact that a member was threatening DoS (denial of service) attacks towards Neowin. This has become a tiring re-occurring problem on Neowin since January instigated by a kid with too much power and no sense to put those skills to a good cause. Despite pleas with hosts and authorities this kid has got away with his unlawful activities against Neowin and many other sites (some affiliated with neowin) and continues to control a large botnet. Due to the fact that this kid has again seen fit to use his army of bots against my site and we are powerless to stop it we have decided to close down. We informed Rackshack to power down our server until further notice

This decision wasn't easy, Neowin has been my life for the better part of 3 years, We have dedicated that time to help people and to help people stay informed about the latest news and releases for the IT sector. We don't get paid, we don't force anything on our members yet we are treated like this by a kid who doesn't even know us personally.

I am sad that one child can have so much influence on the web that he can destroy a service we offered for free to over 30,000 registrations. I have posted his details on our Neowin MSN community, you can view that here. I just want to close this message by saying thanks for your continued support over the last 3 years.

Neowin Admins

 

[StormBringer]

Looks like that kid has p***ed off a lot of people. Not to mention he's probably bought himself a lot of legal troubles.

 

[olefarte]

Looks like he thinks he's above it all and no one can find him.
I bet he can be found.

 

[RustyZip]

Tis a sad sad world...

 

[Julio Franco]

I haven't been able to access Neowin since yesterday mid-afternoon, it's a damn shame authorities haven't been able to track this kid, too bad for a great resource like Neo.

 

[olefarte]

Same here, but I've been to some other sites lately that have been down for a short time and I thought it was just one of those normal day to day problems. If I read all that right, that kids been hitting some other sites also. Might all be related.

 

[olefarte]

It really looks like this kid is bragging at a lot of different sites about what he has done, he's proud of himself. He's even saying if NeoWin comes back online, he'll do it again. This might not be over for a while. I didn't catch what po'd him off, but he sure holds a grudge.

 

[olefarte]

Well, I see NeoWin is back up again. No comment on the front page about all this that I could find. I guess it's best to let sleeping dogs lie. Hope they stay asleep.

 

[poertner_1274]

That is a shame how people like this think they are god. Unfortunately for them they think they are invisible, and they will be caught one day and pay some serious reprocussions. I hope they get this kid soon.

 

[olefarte]

From what I'm seeing at various places, the kid may have seen his reign of terror come to an end. At his site is a message saying, please stop bothering him, he's put an end to it. At another site there is a post from him, well supposedly, saying that he's going to be off the air for a couple of days talking to lawyers.

If all the info on him I've seen is true, his address, phone number, name and anything else you ever wanted to know about him can be found posted. I'm not going to post it here, but it's around for the finding. Evidently people have even called his mother and she doesn't believe it.

What could this kid do if he would put all this knowledge to good use. At any rate NeoWin's site is still up. Hope it's all over with.

 

[iss]

it is simply absurd that parents allow their kiddies unrestricted and unsupervised access to the internet. Neowin should pursue this. even though nothing really serious would come of it regarding this attack. it would put mom on notice and SHE would have no excuse the next time and SHE would be the one facing prosecution and or civil litigation for junior's activities.

it is past time for examples to be made of some of the little script kiidies and their overindulgent parents. first should be a warning putting the parents on notice. any further problems should result in the parents being prosecuted and or sued.

 

[StormBringer]

ISS, that is no solution. Many kids tend to not care if their parents go down for their actions. I have seen many references to this kind of attitude. At least one such reference can be found somewhere in these forums unless it has been deleted. I don't remember the exact thread and am too lazy to look it up but it was in reference to uncapping a connection. The person in reference was concerned whether or not he would get into trouble, but was ok if his parents got fined/jailed.

 

[poertner_1274]

Yes I remember that. It is quite a shame that people feel that way.

 

[iss]

That is why the Parents should receive official notice and a warning FIRST. if the problem continues then they SHOULD be the ones to get prosecuted or sued. they have all they need to resolve the problem and that is banning little johnny from the computer altogether. and if they cant secure their compouter enough to keep their kids off of it then they need to get rid of it.


there is NO difference between initiatind a denial of service attack against a web site that relies on visitors for income and blockading a store to prevent customers from coming in and it should be treated as such.