Sunday, July 25th, 2010
Issue: 38   Editor: Nyxxie


Server down! Blog Up! Altro
On Tuesday of the past week at 6:00 AM the servers of Bootleggers appeared offline. Players were unable to connect, seeing just a browser error page, as if they were not connected to the internet. This lasted for around ten minutes before the game returned and players continued on without paying much attention. However, just twenty minutes later it happened again, and this time for several hours. It was not that the users were not connected to the internet, but rather the Bootleggers servers no longer were. Players flocked to the IRC (chat) to discuss what may have happened. With lots of guesses and many theories, no one was sure what was going on.

Nyxxie joined IRC two hours into the downtime, noticing the problems she contacted the big boss man BSF2000. From what we understand, after several exchanges between the two, he contacted the hosting company, which controls the servers for the game, to try and rectify the problem. During this period Nyxxie was informed (and in turn informed IRC members) that the server had been attacked by a hacker. The hacker used what is known as a DOS attack. This attack floods the server with requests, in order to either crash it or stop other messages getting through.

DOS (denial of service) attacks are not that rare, sites such as Google come under pressure all the time. However, being such a big company are able to defend against them easily. The members of IRC wanted to know why Bootleggers was not protected. The response was clear, the servers were protected. Unfortunately the attack was so large it overwhelmed the system. The hosting company had no choice but to take the server offline until a solution could be found. These attacks are illegal in most countries, and BSF2000 (via the game forum) said that they were going to, “Hopefully collect information regarding the culprit.” Time will tell if he or she is found, or if legal action is pursued.

With the servers down and players in desperate need for information, Nyxxie turned to the social networking. Using Twitter, Facebook and the new Blog she was able to inform gamers of the situation, keeping them up to date with developments as they happened. She also was able to give instructions about how to join chat without using the build in Bootleggers client. Since the attack BSF2000 has said, “You may want to check them out so you will have information regarding the status of the game during times when Bootleggers cannot be accessed.” Nyxxie on her own personal Blog which deals with Bootleggers issues said, “I sure am glad I took the initiative to start the blog. Without it, a lot of players would have been in the dark (...) +1 for the blog!”

Several hours after the attack at 1:50PM Bootleggers time the servers returned. BSF2000 said, “I apologize for the downtime and thank you for your patience during the attack.” He went on, “This issue is continuing to be worked on but for the time being the game has returned to normal.”

Since then the servers have remained up, either a solution has been found or the culprit has given up. Either case, many players will be happy. Just a year or two ago many players who do not venture on to IRC would have been left clueless till the servers returned. Thanks to Nyxxie and 5litre who have been running the blog a much large proportion of the players were covered.