back to article Academic network Janet clobbered with DDoS attacks – again

Blighty's government-funded educational network Janet has once again been hit by a cyber attack, with a fresh wave of DDoS attacks launched against the network this morning. The issue first began on Friday 15 April, with the body reporting it had been hit by a DDoS attack. "We are seeing another targeted attack. This may …

  1. Nik 2

    Well, I don't know about you but around here term only started a week ago...

    1. Nevermind

      end of term?

      I'm with Nik, term started 11/04 and runs to July here.

    2. Dabooka

      Term times vary...

      and a lot of HE institutions, which JANET is aimed at, will be preparing for final submissions around the end of May (especially final year programmes)

    3. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Around here, term starts next week!

    4. PickledAardvark

      Walk around a few more departments. Ask students and academics about work expected over the holiday.

  2. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Joint Academic NETwork ?

    Does JANET still stand for anything, or has it gone "BT" and "BP" ?

    Fond memories of clandestinely using JANET in the 1980s to explore places we weren't supposed to explore. And the reason my name is immortalised in a post dated 1987 (which is before some of my colleagues were born.

    @UK.AC.TPB

    1. Rich 11

      Re: Joint Academic NETwork ?

      Yeah, I still have fond memories of remembering where to put the % character.

      @UK.AC.CHELT

      1. TRT Silver badge

        Re: Joint Academic NETwork ?

        Dammit, JANET, we love you...

        1. Trigonoceps occipitalis

          Re: Joint Academic NETwork ?

          I always thought that the reply to JANET was "SLUT".

    2. cantankerous swineherd

      Re: Joint Academic NETwork ?

      istr (but going daft now) that visits to the higher education national software archive at Lancaster involved shelling out of turboc and running an incomprehensible batch file supplied by a more worldly member of our group.

  3. theOtherJT Silver badge

    Less dramatic this time

    I'm seeing pretty much normal service now, and at it's worst earlier it was nothing like as bad as last time. Whatever they're doing to mitigate this, it's clearly working.

  4. joeldillon

    Easter was in the past, not in the future. Students are just getting back from Easter break.

    1. Mark 85

      Hmm... interesting time frame. Is this a bunch student script kiddy types who want some extra time off from classes? Since Anonymous and certain other groups think that DDoS will change the world, maybe the students think this will work also.

  5. Matthew Smith

    Is janet still an actual thing?!

    (__) / \

    (oo) ( Lets party like its 1994. )

    /-------\/ --'\____________________/

    / | ||

    * ||----||

    ^^ ^^

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      1994 ?

      I was on JANET in 19*8*4 .....

    2. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Is janet still an actual thing?!

      cowsay doesn't work very well in a proportional font and leading spaces removed.

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: Is janet still an actual thing?!

        Around about that time, I got a message from RAL asking me to stop routing email via their server...

        ... Imagine my surprise a few months later when I met the person who had asked to to desist, at work... we'd both joined the same company

  6. Andy The Hat Silver badge

    Valid excuse?

    "I can't hand in my dissertation due an extended DDOS barring access to the wider interweb and thus my research materials"

    Never had that in my day ... best we could do was 'I didn't have time to complete as there wasn't terminal access available for the VAX at 2am - everyone was playing Rogue, drinking beer and listening to Pink Floyd.'

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Valid excuse?

      In my uni the sys admins did a regular netstat to check for people playing MUDs and kick them off. They rather laughably said it was because of bandwidth issues, but even in the early 90s a single download would use up as much bandwidth as a MUD session would in an entire day. I think they just had an issue with people using uni systems to play games rather than serious research. Shame.

      1. Michael H.F. Wilkinson Silver badge

        Re: Valid excuse?

        That, or they weren't invited to join in. Alternatively, the MUDs were hogging too much CPU time and that got in the way of the sysadmin's MUDs

      2. Rich 11

        Re: Valid excuse?

        They rather laughably said it was because of bandwidth issues

        Since some of the terminals were still on 1200 baud lines, they may have had a point.

        1. Anonymous Coward
          Anonymous Coward

          Re: Valid excuse?

          "Since some of the terminals were still on 1200 baud lines, they may have had a point."

          Ours weren't , we had nice X25 pads. Anyway, slow terminal sessions only affected the person using that terminal, no one else.

          1. fwadman

            Re: Valid excuse?

            ah JANet .... so I came a bit late to the party, but I remember the late night quake sessions during my degree fragging all the normal people on dialup, not because of skill, but because our pings were an order of magnitude lower.

        2. apepper

          Re: Valid excuse?

          Back in the day, universities had a 64k link to JANET. Imperial, where I worked, had a 64k bps line for (ISTR 5000 staff and students).

      3. Chris King
        Pint

        Re: Valid excuse?

        Even in the 90's, some JANET sites still only had 2Mbit/sec or 8Mbit/sec MegaStream lines for the entire site. Hell, I worked on one site that had a 64Kbit/sec link to the Uni across the road, and that was one of the last X25 sites on JANET - beer icon, for being reminded about Camtec PADs and other X25 kit.

    2. PickledAardvark

      Re: Valid excuse?

      They didn't accept excuses like it in your day and many do not do so today.

      If your dog ate your homework, show us the dog vomit as proof.

      1. BebopWeBop
        Happy

        Re: Valid excuse?

        Well to address two posts with one

        1. Early 80s, Academic and admin staff were at least as bad as the students

        2. What wusses, we would have been required to disembowel the dog, and if the resulting work was only semi readable, supply said removals with written submission

      2. Dr. G. Freeman

        Re: Valid excuse?

        I was asked to bring in the dog when used that excuse.

        Only time I saw the Prof smile was when the dog barked at him.

      3. Mark 85

        Re: Valid excuse?

        I always found it helped to smear bacon grease on the papers first...

      4. Chris King

        Re: Valid excuse?

        "They didn't accept excuses like it in your day and many do not do so today.

        If your dog ate your homework, show us the dog vomit as proof.

        And that's just the departmental administrators - the profs want something more conclusive !

        Every year, the ikkle firsties think they're so original with their excuses, failing to realise the people they're trying to hoodwink probably tried them thirty years ago, on staff who tried to use them thirty years before and so on back to the dawn of humanity...

        "Wolf ate Ug's stone tablet !"

        "Ug better go look for constipated wolf and get it back then !"

        (The departmental admins were probably allowed to carry clubs and spears back then too)

      5. John Brown (no body) Silver badge

        Re: Valid excuse?

        "If your dog ate your homework, show us the dog vomit as proof."

        What if your research is canine nutrition levels? Probably have to hand in a load of shit at the end of term.

  7. thondwe

    Terms and Semesters

    Many Uni's run two semesters spread over 3 terms. So we're in the latter part of the teaching period of the 2nd semester with exams starting mid May - so it's last couple of weeks of writing up course work...

  8. Anonymous Coward
    Happy

    Once again...

    ...Someone's managed to intercept the pigeons.

    1. Warren Sealey
      Linux

      Re: Once again...

      http://www.blug.linux.no/rfc1149/

POST COMMENT House rules

Not a member of The Register? Create a new account here.

  • Enter your comment

  • Add an icon

Anonymous cowards cannot choose their icon

Other stories you might like