Party server problems... perhaps they are getting DOSed?
 

They insist it's not their fault... I think it is fairly likely that it is a DDOS attack. This happens all the time to companies whose income depend on their uptime. Some hackers launch an attack from thousands of zombie (trojaned) computers and demand a small ransom to halt the attack (valued at much less than the company's projected loss if the downtime continues, thus making it worthwhile to pay the ransom rather than fight back). There's no logical reason for Party to be having "server problems." With their infinite funding, I think we can most definitely rule that out. Thoughts?

Re: Party server problems... perhaps they are getting DOSed?
 

So they get DOSd: do we get our money back in tournaments and SnGs.

Re: Party server problems... perhaps they are getting DOSed?
 

Who knows.

In the past when party has gone down in the middle of a tourney, they sent an email out the next day or so refunding what was owed to me. Maybe they will do the same for you.

Regardless, there are plenty of threads to complain and whine about refunds and that sort of thing. Not this one.

Re: Party server problems... perhaps they are getting DOSed?
 

[ QUOTE ]
So they get DOSd: do we get our money back in tournaments and SnGs.

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We better...

Re: Party server problems... perhaps they are getting DOSed?
 

I'm fairly certain this is what is happening. Google dug this up from earlier this year:

[ QUOTE ]
Dear XXXXXXX,

You are probably aware that PartyPoker.com experienced network problems recently (February 9th and 10th) that had caused disruptions in play.

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.

We apologize for the inconvenience that the down time may have caused to you. We have received a large amount of emails and messages from our customers in the last 2 days and our customer care team is currently backlogged. You may therefore have to wait for a couple of days for a response if you have sent us an email.

We have refunded all the games and tournaments that were cancelled because of the network disturbances. If you were involved in any tournament that was cancelled, you will find a confirmation email of the refund in your email box.

If you have any further queries apart from the ones you have already sent, please send us an email at info@PartyPoker.com.

Sincerely,
Customer Care Team
www.PartyPoker.com


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Re: Party server problems... perhaps they are getting DOSed?
 

I don't know a whole lot about DOS attacks, but using the network status button I have an excellent connection, it's the loading the tables part that doesn't come up. Doesn't seem like bandwidth is really the issue.

Re: Party server problems... perhaps they are getting DOSed?
 

I get 0% connection to testpfr.cepoker.com on my status window.

Re: Party server problems... perhaps they are getting DOSed?
 

[ QUOTE ]
I don't know a whole lot about DOS attacks, but using the network status button I have an excellent connection, it's the loading the tables part that doesn't come up. Doesn't seem like bandwidth is really the issue.

[/ QUOTE ]

I also don't kno wmuch about DOS's, but the tables run on different servers from each other I believe, or at least in groups on different servers. So if it was just the table servers being DOS'd that might explain what has been happenning.