neowin.net no more?

[xpguy]

is neowin gone for good tell me what you think its been down for 3 days i heard it got hacked could it be ms playing nasty?? i dont think so but because neowin doesn't let ms keep any secrets of latest betas and tells where to download windows media player 9 could it be neowin has gone

[Conan]

Neowin is a victim of DOS attacks, that's why they are offline.

[xper]

From: Neobond  (Original Message) Sent: 8/10/2002 11:12 AM

Despite the attempts of a few sites that will go un-named trying to kick us while we are down I wanted to make a comment that we are still working on the server and will be back soon. Additionally I would like to show appreciation at all the sites that showed support and even wrote odes to Neowin (cheers Brad)

The rumours that Me and Redmak might have a second site that deals with pornography is not true, we do not own that site or participate in it. Emails have already been sent demanding our names be removed. Emails went to the owner and it's host. Its not surprising to us that these rumours came from a site where its members have continued to spam and attack our community for the better part of this year. They even have caused a split with the site they originate from. Ender (of neonerds.net) has assured me that he plays no part in the rumours and does not support this either.

Secondly, many tech sites reported that we closed. This I can only imagine was wishful thinking on their part. I was in no way clear about neowins predicament and everyone basically interpreted what they wanted to believe -initially.

Sites like Activewin have seen immense support on Neowin. I beg you to do a search on the term "Activewin" you will find many posts creditted to them showing our support as an affiliate. We removed their affiliate status when we found that they were copying our text news and not creditting us unless we demanded it (which mostly fell on deaf ears). We were also able to prove this although they have denied it constantly. We dont need Activewin, they are bitter because they need us because we source correctly everytime. Their initial post and the comments that followed about Neowins closure only proved to me how bitter and childish Byron can be. Kicking us while we are down and defenceless.

Sites like Activewin and SlipstreamX will never be supported by Neowin because Neowin is a hobby site, we are not a business, we don't ask for your money and you dont have to pay for our services. We try to keep a small piece of integrity in our corner of the Internet. People dont like it we don't force them to stay.

People are also just jealous at the achievements of Neowin and we are the natural focus or targets. We didnt get ranked higher than Activewin with 3 years LESS time on the Internet by spreading FUD or mis-information. We simply listened to or visitors and it helped and paid off.

I want to close this by thanking everyone that sent supportive emails to us, its that kind of support that helps us get the site back up to speed and it will be that kind of support that keeps Neowin running for years to come we hope.

-Neobond

What to say?

[xpguy]

im glad they are not closed but why would someone want to hack a tech site its stupid they gain nothing from it not even respect i hope neobond reports everyday dos attack or if the attacker slips up then neobond hopefully will catch them

[xper]

From: Neobond  (Original Message) Sent: 8/23/2002 9:14 AM

Ok, I never thought it would take this long but here it is.

We were NOT Ddos'd and if we were we would of said this if not only to gain your sympathy and support, we will not lie so again DESPITE what soime sites are reporting we were NOT Ddos'd

We were not hacked! we didn't lose any data and no-one replaced the front page or circumvented the server - it was no hack. Again this was reported by sites that don't contact me or the staff on Neowin.

So what did happen? Well it was hardware failure. I have 11 email replies from Mike @ Hosttyme who has kept me updated with the whole course of events. So far they have replaced the mainboard, ram and Harddisk and the last I heard they were setting it up (this was 9 hours ago when some were able to see the database error message)

Now I expected as everyone else that the server would be up shortly after that but it isn't so I have fired off another email to Mike who is probably sleeping now. I will have to wait at least 3 or 4 hours for a response from that.

People have also questioned why it will take so long to sort out a server problem, well to be honest I don't know either. Mike did mention that Datacolo might test it before hooking it back up. So chances are that its being tested now.

Another thing is, Yes I am sick and tired of the server and software setup problems but until we or Hosttyme sort the problems its a common fact I'm afraid.

..and stop that bs about ddos, hack etc.

Neowin will be back soon.

[lynchknot]

I'm just curious about this spike

[FthrJACK]

thats a hefty trafic jump!

maybe it was people going to see the "we have shut down message" tho?

[LS_Dragons]

Much as they deny - I think they were being ddos-ed. I hope they get back online (again) soon.

LS

[FthrJACK]

we think the same here, its just like a ddos, online, offline all the time, site goes slow then drops off the net, that huge spike in traffic etc.

now neobond can make another update denying it, and sounding more like Bill Clinton everyday

i hope they get back on soon, cos its a cool site.

[aKaFrEE]

if it is a DOS then they should stop BSing everyone. there are a lot of loyal NEOWin-ers that are just waiting and theyre getting fed this stuff. but then again it could have been what they said it was..hardware failure. Slowing down then just crapping out. and as for the server too busy messages...how many memebers do they have again?

[lynchknot]

Another look atThis traffic analysis Dam, look at the activity - unreal! I don't know anything, but it sure looks suspicious. If it is DOS, I wonder why they feel the need to hide it?

[xper]

neowin back, but to slow

[zivan56]

They are recompiling the kernel, also added 1GB of ram, and recompiled MySQL and Apache.

[lynchknot]

Geezzz back down again. Traffic analysis logs are even down now.

[xper]

Most users ever online was 114 on Aug 25 2001, 04:11 AM

At that time this site was on my home server running EnGarde Secure Linux on K62-300 with 128 MB RAM, apache, PHP and MySQL and 1 Mbit xDSL Line.

With that configuration 2x800, 1 gig ram etc on dedicated server Linux can handle thousands of requests. Something is wrong with their server or are victims of Distributed Denial Of Service.