AOL DDOS?

[vsp]

Anyone here know anyone using AOL who's NOT having Web access problems right now?

My dad has AOL (despite my frequent pestering), and over the last two days, he's been getting blasted with ICMP Inbound traffic that Norton Firewall is catching. He can still get and send mail and IMs, but the web is one endless wall of DNS errors, even when he's opening an IE browser outside of the AOL software. (Telnet can't get out, either.)

A full virus scan with recent definitions turned up clean. His event log shows a number of blocked SubSeven attempts over the last few months, but hell, I get those too. (At least they're showing up as BLOCKED, though it's not as if Norton would say "SubSeven allowed in" if one leaked through.) The remote addresses on the pings in the event log are all from known AOL proxy blocks (64.12.*.*, 205.188.*.*, 152.163.*.*).

He's talked to a couple of people using AOL who are having similar problems, which started yesterday. I have had zero problems with my work connection or Verizon DSL.

[vsp]

Ahem.

* AOL sucks,
* Microsoft sucks,
* But you knew that already.

Dad called today -- his web browsing is still fried. (AOL 7, Windows ME, neither of which I am the least bit fond of.) A friend of his upgraded to Windows XP and that solved the problem; he was encouraged by this until I explained that doing so would cost him $100. Or, to phrase it more completely, "$100 to run the exact same program that was running fine on Thursday and that he had no part in screwing up."

So the fun begins, as I try to figure out what I can do that might rectify the problem. Upgrading AOL to version 8 is one option, but I haven't been getting my regular coasters in the mail lately and don't have an install disc handy. (Not that they're hard to find.) I looked it up and saw that he's running IE 5.5, and thought "Ah, perhaps upgrading that to IE 6.0 with the latest patches will help."

Problem: As far as I can tell, you CAN'T DIRECTLY DOWNLOAD an installable file for IE 6.x. You have to download a setup file, which then connects to MS and starts the download process for the remainder of the files. From what I can tell, the setup file doesn't simply download the newest version of IE, it also installs it as part of the same process, and since MY computer is just fine right now, I'd just as soon not fuck with it if I can help it.

Which brings me to the bigger problem with this approach:
1) I'd much rather download the files at my DSL speed (then burn them to a CDR) than on my Dad's around-28.8-speed-on-average line, and
2) If I could connect to Microsoft's website (or anywhere in the first place) on Dad's computer, I WOULDN'T NEED THE FUCKING UPGRADE.

Or I can spend five bucks and wait one to three weeks for them to ship me a CD with it on there, except then my Dad will be foaming at the mouth because he won't be able to get to eBay for a week.

Not to mention that AOL's bloatware incorporates IE into itself. If I upgrade IE separately, does that have a decent chance of making AOL even more unstable than normal?

I'm not nearly drunk enough to be ready for this aggravation.

[mbpark]

VSP,

I have it. You can DL it from MS or get it on MSDN CD's. Want a copy?

Mitch

[vsp]

Never mind about IE 6.0.

I decided to try the "is it the browser" theory firsthand. I burned Opera, Mozilla and Netscape Communicator to a CDR, took them over, installed Mozilla and connected to AOL. Same "ICMP Inbound" warning from Norton, same no-DNS problem even after I tried it again after disabling Norton.

The AOL support drone told of a way to download IE directly through AOL's software, even without using IE functionality. This worked, and we now have IE 6.0x installed on the PC. SAME PROBLEM. No DNS. (There was a seemingly non-critical "AddCRL" error during the install, but it didn't stop the process.)

There are two remaining possibilities, as far as I can tell:

1) Something within WinME is corrupted that, for whatever reason, is screwing up http traffic (though AIM and mail traffic get through fine). An upgrade to WinXP is not out of the question, albeit expensive.

2) Something within AOL was changed on the server end, and the support drones either weren't told or aren't talking. An upgrade to AOL 8.0 is a possibility, to see if that clears things up.

First things first, though -- I may subscribe for a month of dialup service from somebody local, maybe giving Avi's people a call and upgrade my shell account after all these years. If a straight DUN connection works on my system, I'll try DUN with the same settings on my Dad's, and if THAT fails, then I'll believe that it's something wrong in the OS. If it works, then AOL will have hell to pay.

[Undertoad]

Just one thing - Avi's out of the biz. Sold.

[wolf]

and the guys who bought it are fast.net

just to let you know what it's like, vsp ... I cancelled my account with them. From the day of the changeover I was unable to log in via their dialup ... could only access mail if I used someone else's (I'm actually just trying to avoid saying "aol's" dialup, and even that wasn't reliable ... I could receive mail from netaxs, but NOT send it.

Tried several times to resolve the problems with the fast.net drones, with no success. Called them up and gave them a "look and see how many years I've been a subscriber ... good see that? okay, fine. Cancel my account. NOW. You SUCK."

[vsp]

Hmmm. Is there anyone else out there who still offers a Unix shell?

Enough spam is leaking through my filters that I've been considering dropping my Netaxs shell, but after nine years of use, I have so many things pointing to those addresses that I'm liable to forget to update a few.

What all you need? I might set you up.

[vsp]

My current shell is simple: ten megs of quota and webspace, my custom procmail recipe humming away in the background, and I can telnet there from anywhere to check my mail.

At the moment, my procmail filters are dependent on a quirk of Netaxs's shell structure. They have not one but four accessable machines (unix1, unix2, unix3, unix5.netaxs.com) that users can telnet to, though the same user files are on all four. Same room -- four different doors leading in. Mail to username@netaxs.com or unixN.netaxs.com both get through fine no matter which machine you use.

I noticed that when I posted to USENET, my From: address always included the unixN I was posting from (which was almost always unix3). Therefore, I arranged everything so that unix3 was my spamtrap; email without the right cookies in the header (indicating a valid response to a USENET article) got filtered and filed. I also use it as my default address for website registrations and such, so that I can just scan the headers and find legit mail among the mountains of crap.

I've had my Netaxs shell for eight or nine years now, and it's starting to become overrun with spam. (My filters are down to catching around 50-70%.) Why do I keep using it? The usual reason -- I'm putting off the hassles of updating nine years of email pointers for mailing lists, web sites and whatnot.

This is a single server in Baltimore, connected with more bandwidth than you'll ever need. If you own a domain, we can set up email for that domain on the server. Otherwise, I can let you choose from one of our domains (I guess we have about half a dozen). The uptime on the server is pretty good, so you shouldn't need to worry about reliability. I can set you up with a subdomain for email so you have a spamtrap.

What I can't do is give you telnet access, because no authentication is done cleartext to this server. Not IMAP or POP or webmail or shell. You can use an ssh client if you like, but telnetd doesn't run on the server.

My fee is that you donate 1/2 of whatever you were paying for the netaxs.com shell to a worthwhile charity cause of your choice, be it the Cellar Tip Jar or buying a homeless guy a meal.

If you're interested, let me know.

[Undertoad]

I'm willing to sell you that service and cut out the middle man!