Hacker attacks just another bump in e-commerce's growth Feb. 13, 2000 By JIM BROOKS Unless you've been hiding out in the Himalayan Mountains the past week or so, you've heard news reports detailing how the online world has been rocked by a string of attacks on high-profile Web sites. These attacks haven't come in the form of alterations to Web sites or Web pages, or even major security problems or theft. These latest attacks have disabled Web sites by overwhelming the computers -- called servers -- that transmit the pages over the Internet. Web servers are typically high-powered computers designed for the task of answering the thousands or even millions of requests for Web pages. When a user visits a Web site, the server responds to the page requests from the visitor, and that shows up in a Web browser as a completed Web page. But even these high-powered computer servers have their limits -- limits that when exceeded can mean a Web site that disappears. The Web sites attacked are like a ``"Who's Who'' of the Web's biggest players: Yahoo.com, E-Trade.com, eBay, Amazon.com, CNN.com, and Buy.com, who held an initial public offering of its stock the day before it's site was disabled. The sites were disabled with a ``distributed denial of service'' attack. In other words, the Web sites were flooded with bogus requests for pages. The high level of incoming requests meant that users like you and me out in the cold (if we were trying to access those sites). No information was compromised, no credit card information or personal information was taken or divulged during the attacks. But still, the attacks highlight just how "young" the Internet and its technology really is. Internet pioneer Vinton Cerf said that the attacks are little more than the Web's growing pains. ``I don't mean to minimize the effects on the parties attacked,'' Cerf told the ECommerce Times. ``We'd be up in arms if people jammed the telephone network or wrecked the power networks, for instance.'' Stock values for the affected companies held fairly steady, though the values of Internet security firms soared. DELL & AOL. The biggest direct seller of PCs has inked a deal to include the world's largest Internet provider on some of its new computers. Dell will be pre-installing AOL 5.0 on computers aimed at the consumer market, and the sale price of each computer will include one year of Internet access through AOL. The move is seen by analysts as a way for Dell to attract more consumers as corporate sales slow down. For more information on Dell and its computers, visit their Web site at www.dell.com. DEPOT ONLINE. Home improvement giant Home Depot will be expanding its online presence -- thanks in part to the grandson of the company's chairman. Seems that Bernard Marcus, chairman of Home Depot, has been getting some tutoring on how to use the Internet -- from his grandkids. The expanded site will include lumber, tools, paint and more, and each Home Depot store will be linked to the site, which means you'll be able to pick up your purchases at your local store, or have them delivered. For information, visit www.homedepot.com. GORE ON THE SPOT. Democratic hopeful Vice President Al Gore had to answer the age-old computing question recently: Macintosh or PC? Gore was attending a town hall meeting in Florida when he was asked which operating platform he preferred, Microsoft or the Apple Macintosh. "That's kind of a high-tech, boxers-or-briefs question there" Gore was quoted as saying in a story by the Associated Press. Gore said he had been a Mac fan until "finally the delay in the availability of the new high-tech applications software got to be so long that I finally switched over." After his Mac-to-PC confession, he credit Apple for making a comeback with its new product lineup that includes the innovative iMac. Comments and questions about this column may be sent to jbrooks@myoldkentuckyhome.com, or visit www.myoldkentuckyhome.com on the World Wide Web. | HOME |