Update on the bot attacks and the solutions
Obviously, my new plugin wasn’t sufficient to stop the problem, because the blog went down for quite a while today due to brute force bot attacks. This time, my host put up a block of some kind that has worked for now, but might not be enough in the future. If I continue to have the problem, they’ll put up something stronger, but there are some drawbacks to that, which is why I opted to see if the weaker solution will be enough.
Please bear with me, and let me know if you have further problems getting on the blog.
Was listening to a computer security podcast talking about the vast numbers of DDoS attacks which flood websites with bots to try to knock them offline.
Couldn’t access the site at 12:16 pm Eastern time today. When I came back at ~ 1:35 and 3:00 and posted, there was no Edit button.
I wonder if Neo’s site could be targeted because of harsh comments criticizing the Chinese, globalists, and Democratic Fascists of America.
Does indeed look like she’s caught someone’s attention…
Sort of a bummer that we can’t edit previously posted comments on a timer like before, but if the alternative is not being able to access the site at all I guess there’s nothing to be done.
Nonapod; Dax:
I had to reactivate comment editing, which I just did.
I really like the format and layout of this blog, including the way comments work. I hope you can keep it as you work the technical fixes.
test — of comments edit and timing function, which seem to be working fine for me in my late evening inputs.
Yep, comments box, timer, and Edit – Save function seem to be working for me.
All this may answer something I’ve encountered: I’ve attempted to comment here and gotten an “UNACCEPTABLE” response when clicking ‘post comment.” It occurs often enough that I no longer even consider wasting my time commenting at Neo. I suspect it’s because I use a VPN to access everything on the internet and limit what java scripts run in my browser with NoScript, and the anti-bot measures block everything coming in via VPN.
It’ll be interesting to see if this comment makes it in. Here goes.
It worked ! (updated with the edit option).
Cavendish, did you do something different moments ago that allowed a successful comment post?
Or are you thinking that something Neo did to overcome the bot attacks made the difference?
…
Either way, I’m glad you are able to chime in!
@Marlene – Cavendish, did you do something different moments ago that allowed a successful comment post?
Nothing different – NoScript displays what java scripts it blocks, the number of them and the script name varying by whichever server my browser connects to (most blogs run on multiple servers, the number dictated by how many the hosting service has, and how many of those it’s put the blog on). With most blogs I unblock the primary script – the one with the blog’s name – and that allows my browser to connect and, usually, me to successfully enter a comment. With Neo’s blog I have to unblock ALL java scripts to comment – usually 4-6 scripts, again depending on how the individual hosting server I’m connecting to is configured (hosting outfits have a “server farm” with multiple servers handling incoming requests for one web site) and turn off my ad blocker.
Lately, I’ve done all that and get a message “UNACCEPTABLE” in large type when I submit a comment, and the comment does not post. I’ve tried turning off my VPN and get the same result. I suspect, but haven’t looked into the code to confirm, the failed comment attempt returns a cookie, probably a “persistent cookie” noting the failed attempt, and as a result the “UNACCEPTABLE” process continues no matter what I do after that. Closing the browser and re-opening will dump cookies, even “persistent’ cookies, but since I usually have several tabs open and don’t want to lose them by closing and restarting the browser I just give up on the comment move on to the next blog I read. I’ve had this problem with Neo’s blog for a couple months so I stop in to read and move on without commenting; I’m not convinced my comments are exactly pearls of wisdom anyway, but sometimes I’d like to ask a commenter a question. Oh, well, “welcome to Planet Earth, #&$% happens here, deal with it” as they say.
VPNs can be a problem sometimes, too; I changed credit unions because my old one refused the VPN connection too many times and it became a bother to try to connect (closing the VPN connection and selecting a different VPN server – most VPNs have thousands of servers available – and closing the connection to one of the Ohio servers and selecting a server in Florida, or Texas, Illinois, etc. will provide a different IP address and that gets routed to a different server in the server farm supporting whatever web site you’re trying to connect to, and if each server doesn’t have exactly the same software configuration for that web site sometimes a connection gets accepted and sometimes rejected. Think “version 2.05a” versus “version 2.05a(1)” in the operating system scripts – one partial line of code, or even a different issue date – will change how incoming requests are processed, especially with OSes that have over a million lines of code that no one person, or any dozen, knows all of.
I allowed the one java script that loaded this time – “the new neo.com” – and my VPN is still on. Let’s see what happens.
I was just locked out again for about an hour with “Too Many Requests: The user has sent too many requests in a given amount of time.“ errors.
I’m not having this trouble with other blogs. Are you sure you’re not being specifically targeted by more-than-usual nefarious bots?
Cavendish —
“since I usually have several tabs open and don’t want to lose them by closing and restarting the browser …”
Given your clear expertise, you may already know this.
I use the Opera browser (but only occasionally use a VPN) and I can close and reopen the browser, and /or reboot my HP laptop and I still recover all of my browser tabs. Up until recently I had up to 160 tabs open at one time. Finally cleaned house by deleting some or converting them to bookmarks.
Still have the bad habit of letting tabs stay in place “to get back to later”, but for now I only have a dozen or so tabs open.
I’m visiting via Brave at the moment, rather than Firefox, and noticed my earlier comment did, indeed, post, even though I received the UNACCEPTABLE response a few hours ago.
My guess is Neo’s hosting outfit is seeing a DDOS bot attack using variable parameters to slightly change the attack profile randomly every few seconds to confuse whatever defenses the hosting servers have. Earlier I was getting severely delayed responses to read requests (that’s a ‘browser call’ requesting the server supply an existing post), indicating the server(s) are swamped; I hit several other blogs and read requests were returned in under 3 seconds, Neo’s took 30-40 seconds to respond.
I’ll see if this comment posts.
ADDED: Using the edit function, it posted. I did have to turn Shields off in Brave to see the edit function, but my comment posted with Shields Up.