# The Techno-Peasant is Puzzled:  What is a Denial of Service attack, please?

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-techno-peasant-is-puzzled-what-is-a-denial-of-service-attack-please/752856>\
**Category:** Factual Questions\
**Created:** [April 23, 2016, 1:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-techno-peasant-is-puzzled-what-is-a-denial-of-service-attack-please/752856 "2016-04-23T01:19:49Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 1\
**Showing post:** 15

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![Dr.Strangelove](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dr.strangelove/32/6613_2.png) [@Dr.Strangelove](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dr.Strangelove)\
**Post date:** [April 23, 2016, 2:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-techno-peasant-is-puzzled-what-is-a-denial-of-service-attack-please/752856/15 "2016-04-23T02:29:29Z")

</div>

> [@Northern\_Piper](#):
>
> **Ed Zotti** recommends it in the thread in ATMB.

Ahh, I see the message now. But he also says:

> [@Info about the outage](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/info-about-the-outage/752843/26):
>
> We have no reason to think anyone got unauthorized access or stole passwords.

This could mean a lot of things, but I personally would only say that if I could verify from the logs that the login requests all used the same dummy password (only intending to trigger the login counter), and didn’t try to cover a range of passwords.

Regardless, changing your password is hardly ever a bad idea.

I wouldn’t be surprised if it was an ex-Doper. Slightly different situation, but an ex-coworker of mine launched a DDoS attack against the company that fired him (not who I work for). That little stunt earned him a felony.

---

_[View the full topic](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-techno-peasant-is-puzzled-what-is-a-denial-of-service-attack-please/752856)._