# Sorry, but anyone know why Live Journal is down???? **URL:** \ **Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share\ **Created:** [February 20, 2003, 6:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sorry-but-anyone-know-why-live-journal-is-down/156280 "2003-02-20T06:04:20Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 16\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![djxiii](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/6f9a4e/32.png) [@djxiii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/djxiii)\ **Post date:** [February 20, 2003, 7:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sorry-but-anyone-know-why-live-journal-is-down/156280/21 "2003-02-20T19:59:21Z")
From [status.livejournal.com](http://status.livejournal.com) > [@](#): > > At 1:05 pm EST on Thursday, February 20th, Admin lisa writes : > LiveJournal is currently under a Distributed Denial of Service attack, and has been since about 5:30pm PST (1:30 AM GMT) tonight. We have been working with our upstream providers (including several major backbones) to filter traffic as quickly and effectively as possible. > > Due to the fact that a DDOS attack involves potentially tens of thousands of hosts all working together against a single target (in this case, us), it is extremely difficult to find one group of IP addresses to block to prevent the attack from affecting our services any further. Our upstream providers are currently filtering somewhere around 1/4 of the IPs on the internet from reaching LiveJournal. Unfortunately, these filters also block legitimate traffic from some users. When the attack has subsided we will remove the filters. > > We will continue to monitor and block hosts as we gather more information regarding this attack. We seriously apologize for the inconvenience, and hope you understand we are doing everything in our power to get the site back functioning as normal. > > Additionally, if you have any information as to who or what may be responsible for this attack, please email [attack\_info@livejournal.com](mailto:attack_info@livejournal.com). bah. ---
**Author:** ![Catamount](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/catamount/32/2840_2.png) [@Catamount](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Catamount)\ **Post date:** [February 20, 2003, 9:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sorry-but-anyone-know-why-live-journal-is-down/156280/22 "2003-02-20T21:54:19Z")
Wasn’t this what they were trying to prevent with that whole limits fiasco a while back? Or is the withdrawal affecting my memory. I hope whoever did this is eaten by rabid pitbulls. ---
**Author:** ![OpalCat](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/8edcca/32.png) [@OpalCat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/OpalCat)\ **Post date:** [February 21, 2003, 12:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sorry-but-anyone-know-why-live-journal-is-down/156280/23 "2003-02-21T00:24:56Z")
I just got to my journal. ---
**Author:** ![Catamount](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/catamount/32/2840_2.png) [@Catamount](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Catamount)\ **Post date:** [February 21, 2003, 3:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sorry-but-anyone-know-why-live-journal-is-down/156280/24 "2003-02-21T03:00:51Z")
Just what exactly is a DDOS attack? The status page tells us why it made the site crash, but not what it is. ---
**Author:** ![OpalCat](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/8edcca/32.png) [@OpalCat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/OpalCat)\ **Post date:** [February 21, 2003, 3:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sorry-but-anyone-know-why-live-journal-is-down/156280/25 "2003-02-21T03:44:22Z")
Distributed Denial of Service = DDOS From [whatis.com](http://whatis.com): \*On the Internet, a distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attack is one in which a multitude of compromised systems attack a single target, thereby causing denial of service for users of the targeted system. The flood of incoming messages to the target system essentially forces it to shut down, thereby denying service to the system to legitimate users. \* ---
**Author:** ![OpalCat](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/8edcca/32.png) [@OpalCat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/OpalCat)\ **Post date:** [February 21, 2003, 3:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sorry-but-anyone-know-why-live-journal-is-down/156280/26 "2003-02-21T03:49:28Z")
a lot of trojan horse programs allow your computer to become part of a DDOS attack, btw. ---
**Author:** ![techchick68](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/ea5d25/32.png) [@techchick68](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/techchick68)\ **Post date:** [February 21, 2003, 5:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sorry-but-anyone-know-why-live-journal-is-down/156280/27 "2003-02-21T05:56:41Z")
It’s still acting funky tonight. ☹ ---
**Author:** ![Sapphire\_Bullet](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/96bed5/32.png) [@Sapphire\_Bullet](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sapphire_Bullet)\ **Post date:** [February 21, 2003, 6:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sorry-but-anyone-know-why-live-journal-is-down/156280/28 "2003-02-21T06:48:34Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Anahita \* > \*\ ***Saph** , I’m in a state of shock to see you posting. > > I miss you, Wah. \*\* Well, I felt the need to shout into the void and LJ was down. Moment of weakness and all that. 😉 ---
**Author:** ![Jessity](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/c67d28/32.png) [@Jessity](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jessity)\ **Post date:** [February 21, 2003, 7:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sorry-but-anyone-know-why-live-journal-is-down/156280/29 "2003-02-21T07:00:55Z")
**Spah!** I miss you too! Waaaaaaaah! ---
**Author:** ![OpalCat](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/8edcca/32.png) [@OpalCat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/OpalCat)\ **Post date:** [February 21, 2003, 8:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sorry-but-anyone-know-why-live-journal-is-down/156280/30 "2003-02-21T08:28:43Z")
At this point I think it’s all a matter of what your IP is. If you are in a block of IP addresses that is being blocked, you can’t get in. Fortunately I’m not, so I’m not having problems. ---
**Author:** ![Improbability](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/cc9497/32.png) [@Improbability](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Improbability)\ **Post date:** [February 21, 2003, 11:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sorry-but-anyone-know-why-live-journal-is-down/156280/31 "2003-02-21T11:13:00Z")
Yes, they did say that some IPs would be blocked by default in the process. Mine was for ages, but this morning it’s all back according to plan again. ---
**Author:** ![callie](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/2acd7d/32.png) [@callie](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/callie)\ **Post date:** [February 21, 2003, 12:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sorry-but-anyone-know-why-live-journal-is-down/156280/32 "2003-02-21T12:21:14Z")
Mine is STILL down! I’m going through withdrawals as I type. ---
**Author:** ![Second\_Guest](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/87869e/32.png) [@Second\_Guest](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Second_Guest)\ **Post date:** [February 21, 2003, 6:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sorry-but-anyone-know-why-live-journal-is-down/156280/33 "2003-02-21T18:51:45Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by OpalCat \* > \*\*At this point I think it’s all a matter of what your IP is. If you are in a block of IP addresses that is being blocked, you can’t get in. Fortunately I’m not, so I’m not having problems. \*\* That seems to be true for me. When I dial up, I get logged on through one of two different IP addresses (I know there’s a different unique address for each dial-up session–I mean the root numbers vary–for example: 207.xxx.xxx.xx or 119.xxx.xxx.xxx), and with one root IP, I can access LJ every time; with the other, I can’t. For the last couple of days, if I’ve needed to get into LJ, I’ve just kept dialing up until I’ve connected with the right one. It’s only mildly inconvenient. ---
**Author:** ![XJETGIRLX](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/x/9fc29f/32.png) [@XJETGIRLX](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/XJETGIRLX)\ **Post date:** [February 21, 2003, 7:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sorry-but-anyone-know-why-live-journal-is-down/156280/34 "2003-02-21T19:13:01Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by OpalCat \* > At this point I think it’s all a matter of what your IP is. If you are in a block of IP addresses that is being blocked, you can’t get in. Fortunately I’m not, so I’m not having problems. That makes sense, but I’m curious about the sporadic access I’ve had last night and this morning. Even now, I can get to my own journal page, but can’t get to see comments, or the SDMB pages. I can link to and read comments pages that are e-mailed to me, but can’t get to the original journal entry page. Quel strange. ---
**Author:** ![Super\_Gnat](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/e274bd/32.png) [@Super\_Gnat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Super_Gnat)\ **Post date:** [February 21, 2003, 8:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sorry-but-anyone-know-why-live-journal-is-down/156280/35 "2003-02-21T20:34:49Z")
☹ I still can’t get in. ---
**Author:** ![techchick68](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/ea5d25/32.png) [@techchick68](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/techchick68)\ **Post date:** [February 21, 2003, 10:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sorry-but-anyone-know-why-live-journal-is-down/156280/36 "2003-02-21T22:52:17Z")
**Super Gnat** , Here’s a message from Brad (LJ main dude) > [@](#): > > We have to reboot our load balancer to boot into a new kernel. Site should only be down 45 seconds, if all goes well. > > Update: 49 seconds. Close enough. > > If you get any “Browser sent malformed request” error, please email [corrupt\_request@livejournal.com](mailto:corrupt_request@livejournal.com) with details of your browser, operating system, personal firewall software, and internet provider. Thanks! (but hopefully, it should be fixed now) Not sure if your browser is the issue but use that address if it is. If not, your IP address may still be blocked. Also, they are stated that some IP addresses are still blocked: [http://status.livejournal.com/](http://status.livejournal.com/) [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sorry-but-anyone-know-why-live-journal-is-down/156280.md?page=1)