party down?

[stoxtrader]

it's 10:37 EST and my games just froze - anyone else?

[Frozen]

yes, me too

[bigjay]

Me too. First time it's happened when I'm playing a sit and go.... this sucks.

[muzungu]

yup- mine too. looks like dinnertime.

[bsk1999]

down as well

[David]

I just won a big hand in the 200K and it won't push me the chips! Give 'em to me their MINE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Come to me my little pretties! /images/graemlins/grin.gif

[Terry]

This is my second try at a tournament on Party. The first one also crashed. /images/graemlins/frown.gif

[Sundevils21]

just sat at the multi table super qualifier with 500 people. I think it's my fault the server is down, because everytime I play in this certain tournament, it always crashes. Well, at least this time I got to hand number three!! Sorry about the inconvenience, I will play no more such qualifiers.

[wdbaker]

Makes me nervous, decided to move up to the $100 NL rings tonight and then this happens not 10 mins into the game on 3 tables, scary, i left. Maybe I just won't play on the weekends at night...

One street at a time
wdbaker

[thylacine]

stone cold dead

[dm34]

What usually happens with SnGs? Do they get cancelled, re-start, or what? And if they are cancelled, do they just split the prize among the remaining players?

[Schneids]

Hahah, same thing at my 200K table... The guy isn't from Texas though, I had to check that after seeing your post /images/graemlins/tongue.gif

[_2000Flushes]

This could be my imagination, but it seems like the Network Status used to be a constant 0% when the servers used to crash last year at Party. The servers haven't been crashing on their own at all like they used to, and during the DoS attack the other night the Network Status vasillated between 33% and 80%. That's what it looks like it's doing now. Does anyone think this is another DoS attack?

-2kF

[JDErickson]

I'm waiting for a pot to be pushed my way /images/graemlins/smile.gif

[Inthacup]

I'm currently staring at frozen screens of a 20+2 Multi, the 200k Saturday Special and the WSOP semi at Empire /images/graemlins/mad.gif


Cup

[easypete]

I think it's my fault... I won w/ my first hand at a new table in the BB, except my chips are still in the middle..... I have used photoshop to move the chips in front of me... so i'm all better now.

[paland]

I'm using Empire poker for the Sunday Qualifier and it went down at the same time (of course), but when I click on "Network Status", I get Excellent and 100%. It just can't get the tables.

[MRBAA]

seems likely they've been under ongoing attack the last few weeks.

[Thythe]

Somebody posted this a few days ago about the answers to common questions. One of them was "any post that says 'is party down' the answer is invariably yes." I tried to find it and quote it but couldn't locate it. Very funny though.

[Frozen]

This is a very keen observation. I think you're right.

[Frozen]

Is is even technically posible for party to provide a workaround for the hacker mafia DOS problem? Mirror sites? Authentification (that the pc requesting information has actually dowloaded party software)? Some other method?

[dm34]

If I go out to a party, should I expect to see money from SnGs refunded to my account later tonight, or I am better off sticking around?

[teatreeman]

BAH. I was on my biggest winning streak yet (i had $550 in the NL50) and it crashed on me. Really disappointing

[BugsBunny]

Depends on the exact method of the DOS attack. DOS attacks are some of the most difficult situations to handle.

[MRBAA]

My guess is this one will be handled via hardware, not software.

[thylacine]

Are you actually saying that someone is causing this intentionally? How do you come to this conclusion?

[Frozen]

Based on my experiences, your sng's will not resume. Any tourneys running at the time of the crash are over, and will not be restarted. Refunds are a different matter entirely. You're at the mercy of apathetic people halfway around the world, who make 80 cents an hour, and have no authority to do anything without permission from their managers (who may or may not even exist). Good luck, and welcome to party poker.

[Frozen]

The exploits of the hacker mafia have been detailed in the mainstream media...but this email from party is probably sitting unread in your inbox...

"
We experienced a DOS (Denial Of Service) attack. A DOS attack is designed to bring a network down by flooding it with useless traffic. It is performed by sending extremely large volumes of requests over a network, or Internet resulting in an obvious slowdown of the performance of the attacked server(s).

Although the DOS attack slowed down / brought down the site a few times, it did not in any way affect the integrity of the games or the information stored on our databases.

We are working hard to fend off these attacks. Our sophisticated network infrastructure had warded of many DOS attacks in the past without any problems, but the recent attacks were elaborate....."

[thylacine]

You're right. I did get that email, but I didn't understand it. It is very disturbing.

[TheNutz]

Damnit, I had a really good feeling about the 200 + 15 trny tonight. Won a single table satellite, then another single table satellite so I got the $215.00...

Then I was sitting pretty with 3K T 37 minutes into the game, getting cards, and playing well.. I really felt like tonight might of been the night, been a month since I played oneof these..

Now, I get pry 300 bux back from this chit,, what a crock /images/graemlins/frown.gif

They have the database etc.. Get this under control and restart this rny within the hour... Pull your head out of yer ass party, and pay these people off for protection, otherwise same crap will keep happening.

Your player numbers were WAY down first few days after last major dos attack, this becomes a weekly thing during trnys with 60K 1st place payouts, and you got some serious problems..

[easypete]

This is my first party crash....

I have won the pot... i have not pulled it yet...

Is it safe to leave the table? Or do I just let the window stay open?

[BugsBunny]

Yes but even hardware firewalls have to be programmed (rule sets established etc). And even then DOS attacks are very difficult to eliminate completely, the best you can really hope for is a scheme to minimize the effects. I can't even begin to speculate further without more information though.

Anybody know what OS they're using? I'm afraid of the answer though, since I suspect it's a form of Windows - which makes it that much harder to properly secure.

[Jim Easton]

It has crashed, it is safe to leave. You will receive an email saying your account was restored to the amount it had prior to the start of that hand.

[Tommie60]

I was in a tourney last week when it got cancelled 3/4 through....I was in the last 20 of 90 starters....they took 50% of total funds and split it evenly between all 20 and then paid the other 50% out pro-rata to your stack size.

[MasterShakes]

It used to be that when something like this happened, I'd have other options. Not anymore. I'm sitting here drinking beer with a couple of roommates. Why can't a company pulling in seemingly hundreds of thousands a day not keep a connection strong?

[mongeron]

[ QUOTE ]
Is is even technically posible for party to provide a workaround for the hacker mafia DOS problem? Mirror sites? Authentification (that the pc requesting information has actually dowloaded party software)? Some other method?

[/ QUOTE ]

There is no real workaround to totally prevent DDOS attacks. Mirror sites could help for a while, but since the information about mirror sites has to be stored somewhere, the information is also accessible to malicious parties.

No authentication system can help currently, since the attack is done on a lower level. There is no authentication needed to send traffic to an IP address.

In the future, when the whole Internet supports IPsec, a sort of authentication could be possible. However, I wouldn't count on this happening in the next 10 years.

But concerning today's server crash, it doesn't look like a DDOS attack, since there is always a "Connection refused" message sent by the server when I'm trying to connect. This wouldn't happen during a DDOS attack, since my initial connection attempt wouldn't reach the server.

It simply looks like that the server has really crashed, perhaps due to load from the tournaments?

- mongeron

[blackaces13]

I don't think recreational players will put up with things like the server going down every weekend. Could this DOS attack crap completely ruin party as an extremely profitable site with thousands of beginners? I'm particularily worried about it because I just made a party account and it was pain the ass to deal with credit card companies and what not and I don't want to have to do it again on another site.

[davidross]

Cup,

what's your ID at Empire? I'm in the semi too.

[TheNutz]

Sitting here pissed, couldn't find another decent mtt to play at at any other site for hours.. So I flip to paradise..

I happened to have 5.75 in pending fees with a 5.00 trny starting in 9 MINUTES!

I e-mailed support asking if it would be possible to get the money refunded to play that trny, TOOK UNDER 5 MINUTES FOR A QUICK AND COURTEOUS RESPONSE! I had 3 minutes to spare to signup for the $5.00 tourney, amazing support.. and my hats go off to them!

I told them they really need to get off their asses and do same advertising, they are bar non the best site out there and always have been (they just need MORE PLAYERS/FISH!)

[TheNutz]

Welp, atleast they are adding 30K to prize pool for the trny

[Legend27]

I was doing the $200+15 on Party and Empire's $200 WSOP tourney when it crashed. I was about 1/2 the average stack in both tournaments so for me it was probably a good thing but not for the majority of people. Of course I could have made a comeback like last night in Party's $200+15 limit tourney. I had 220 chips w/ the average stack being around 5,000 with 200 something people left. Ended up getting 61st.

[BradleyT]

Basically you get a group of 100-1,000,000 computers to repeatedly send packets to party servers that require a return packet. The party servers must acknowledge these packets and get so busy doing this they don't have time to do their normal job.

Here's an anology of how it works.

You're a telephone operator for a business and you handle phone orders. You have 10 phone lines to use.

You currently have 3 legit customers on the lines. Then the "mafia" decides to play a little joke. They get a group of 50 people and repeatedly call you and say something then hang up.

A. This causes you to divert all your attention away from legit orders (the Party server is busy processing these bogus requests and has trouble processing existing players).

B. This prevents legit customers from calling because all your phone lines are in use (the party servers are using massive bandwidth to send "ackknowlege" replies to the bogus requests).

One way to "prevent" it is to deny requests from a certain IP although they (the "mafia") most likely use many many computers in many countries with many different IP addresses that constantly change.

[TheNutz]

Great way of explaining it Simply Brad, the only problem is this is an organization that is a multi million dollar corporation and if they hired the proper programers/professional hackers themselves... This problem is solved.

A very simple equatio which could be included into their programming that would be a startup is

A) Keeping their gaming server seperate from domain server (server that hosts their site) - which they do already of course

B) Allowing only packet transmissions to players who are logged in, and limiting the packet amounts per account to a set amount which would allow the player to play say no more then 4 tables at once.

C) They should not only have to be logged in, but also sitting at a table (in order to transmit more then x packets or software closes) which Im guessing this is the upgrade they are currently making.

D) If an account exceed paramater which we'll say a number of 5 for example, they are kicked over to BACKUP server(s). At this point if the packet usage becomes excessive it is the backup server taking the hit and they also have security measures in place to shut down end user's client when the threshhold is crossed thereby releasing stress off of backup server.

This is really basic IT stuff, and I am extremely suprised they haven't put such security measures into place.

The last one was 'organized' means it is the FIRST REAL one that wasn't a kid playing around they had to deal with.

I have dealt with DOS attacks and hackers for 7 years, and seen 150,000.00 additions to networks being required to increase security because some group of ifiots decide to have fun. Bottom line, even the best hackers can be beat at their own game.

Best bet for party, hire a well known hacker t advise them if this upgrade (which expect one in the next couple of days) doesn't take care of their problems.

[SomeTimesIWin]

I think their return of investment would very soon be on the positive side if they try to combat the DOS attacks...

/SomtetimesIWin

[Tachyon]

The real question is - just how much money is Party making!

All i see in the last month or so are things like the bonus requirements going up from 5 to 7 to 10 x bonus amount and the actual rake in the games becoming the highest of any of the established sites.

It makes you wonder just how high their overheads are... advertising, affiliates, staff - well there is so many of them (!) and I am sure that the management/programmers/investigations team must be on slightly better wages!


We shall see!

[TheNutz]

Ha !

Sorry, but anything that pieces together party and overhead problems makes me laugh...

Their Overhead (including affiliate payouts, servers, technicians, and management/not including owners) is probably under 50%

[Nikita]

Hiring cheap Indian programers the way they do now will not solve the problem. I hope, I hope some Brainy O'Maley or whoever else has some power will figure out after all that it pays to keep the qualified American programmers that can save a company in crisis like this and that a quality product and good protection can never, never be created by a cheap labor from Mumbai

[UncleDuke]

[ QUOTE ]
I e-mailed support asking if it would be possible to get the money refunded to play that trny, TOOK UNDER 5 MINUTES FOR A QUICK AND COURTEOUS RESPONSE!

[/ QUOTE ]
I had a similar experience with Paradise customer service. I sent an e-mail to them, and in literally about 2 minutes, they sent a reply and had done what I asked them to. I was so stunned I sent the guy an e-mail saying how impressed I was, so he could show it to his manager.

[ QUOTE ]
I told them they really need to get off their asses and do same advertising, they are bar non the best site out there and always have been (they just need MORE PLAYERS/FISH!)

[/ QUOTE ]
Agreed. I'd gladly play there more if they reeled in some more fish.

-UD

[theBruiser500]

I was in a multitable when the site froze. Actually, the site froze exactly as I won a big hand, the chips were in the process of moving towards my stack but in the email PartyPoker sent me telling me about the refund, they don't include this hand I won. I emailed them back about this... You guys think I'll get my extra money for that hand?

danny

[La Brujita]

Take this for what you will but I find this post somewhat xeonophobic.

[ComedyLimp]

And inaccurate.

The thing that always struck me about IT is that at least 80% of people who do it for a living are somewhere between distinctly underwhelming and outright incompetant. Given that the variance between countries is a marginal effect and (all other things being equal) you might as well take the guy/gal in Mumbai who'll work staggeringly hard for a fraction of the cost of US or European equivalent.

[astroglide]

you're quite wrong. a blocked packet is still received, just not processed. you can firewall everything off as much as you want, but it's still going to slow you to a crawl because you get the packet, look at it, and decide you don't want it before dropping it on the floor. at that point, the damage is already done.

the packets aren't intended to be processed or used, only to ARRIVE. a firewall will not stop that.

the only way to prevent a DoS is to choke them off on THEIR end, not yours. this requires too much coordination to be effective, as surely one or more parties will be unavailable or uncooperative. there are thousands of such parties, because each attacker is a separate instance.

the only way to handle a DoS is to have superior bandwidth, and that is more or less impossible. did you notice when yahoo, hotmail (microsoft), etc got DoSed a while back and they all went down? notice sco taking themselves offline before the recent worm hit them with a DoS attack?

it's a huge architectural problem, and until there's better end-to-end packet tracing and cooperation between isps there's not much anyone could do about it. not microsoft, and certainly not partypoker. it has absolutely NOTHING to do with programming.

there are many ways for it to be mitigated, and they are probably taking these steps already.

[wdbaker]

just added some recent articles re: DOS attacks and gambling, see thread below

http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/showflat.php?Cat=&Number=540949&page=0&view=collap sed&sb=5&o=14&fpart=1