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DDOS Attacks, Server Load Issues and Donations.

the site has been running SO much better in the last few days I've been browsing so whatever change was made was good in my book. and those operating costs aren't THAT much... surely a few whales could keep the site running all year? where do we even donate? does it have to be in btc or something weird like that
 
I do want to remind everyone that this thread is publicly accessible without an account, so whoever is doing DoS or other operations gets direct feedback here.

I would suggest shuttering clearnet access and completely migrating to TOR. Would also partially resolve DoS attacks, or at least make them more annoying to execute.
 
krtx said:
I would suggest shuttering clearnet access and completely migrating to TOR. Would also partially resolve DoS attacks, or at least make them more annoying to execute.
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Not really, the clearnet site and the TOR site run on the same server. If the DDOS attackers can overwhelm the server... the load will be too high to serve TOR requests quickly. TOR as a ddos prevention only works if there isn't clearnet access to a site.
 
JustAGSDEnjoyer said:
While going to TOR only would have some benefits, it would probably also remove like 90% of the users here (which you may or may not see as a benefit depending)
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If the only thing keeping this forum alive is providing easy access to porn, then it has missed its objective of being a community platform and is frankly just another porn repository.

I can acknowledge that the problem stems from the userbase, but we also need to ask ourselves if we want to have those users, as they at best provide nothing, or are woefully irresponsible and do more harm than good.

Leaving a clearnet wiki / static site to educate and eventually provide a means to the TOR forum would be my opinionated compromise.

Then again, it's not my problem to solve, and the administration has their own ideas and plans on how to manage it.

tbh I'm figuring out that I'm on the wrong forum, as the more I care about zoo, the less I care about porn.
 
krtx said:
tbh I'm figuring out that I'm on the wrong forum, as the more I care about zoo, the less I care about porn.
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You are not the only one who has come to this conclusion.
Zoocadia was created for just this reason. It's a lot less active than Zooville, but is more focused on discussions and I personally like it better.
There is also a decent overlap of users between the two.
 
JustAGSDEnjoyer said:
While going to TOR only would have some benefits, it would probably also remove like 90% of the users here (which you may or may not see as a benefit depending)
Click to expand...
If such a large number of users disappeared, it would be impossible to pay the server costs and the server would shut down permanently.
This method is good as it works now, it just needs to be taken out of the hands of the current operator and some members should pay the costs.
 
MashaSobaka said:
If such a large number of users disappeared, it would be impossible to pay the server costs and the server would shut down permanently.
This method is good as it works now, it just needs to be taken out of the hands of the current operator and some members should pay the costs.
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I do wonder how big is the intersection of users that do not care for their own privacy / lack the skills to protect their privacy AND are willing to financially support this forum using crypto.

Note that dropping userbase would also allow scaling back on server capacity, so even if we loose a "potential" random patron, we might actually have a greater net positive.
 
JustAGSDEnjoyer said:
While going to TOR only would have some benefits, it would probably also remove like 90% of the users here (which you may or may not see as a benefit depending)
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The cake can be eaten and had at the same time so long as the traffic is distinguished.

The priority can go to Tor requests, a first chance queue that ensures Tor users get served whether or not the attack spam is happening or not.
 
ADreamOfLiberty said:
The priority can go to Tor requests, a first chance queue that ensures Tor users get served whether or not the attack spam is happening or not.
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I mean, that is basically how it works already. They have a frontend that has DDoS prevention services built in and hides the true server IP. Kinda like Cloudflare, but a different company (I forget the name of it)
When that gets overloaded, you can still access the TOR service. This is exactly what happened earlier this year.
 
JustAGSDEnjoyer said:
When that gets overloaded, you can still access the TOR service. This is exactly what happened earlier this year.
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If its just limited to the front end sure, but you can take down a server without touching the exposed website. Indirect DDOS is a thing, Also, it's not hard to create accounts and have them submit tons of requests that overwhelm the database at the same time you're engaging in another DDOS technique. There are a lot of times where even over TOR the site is slow as crap. There's times uploading a 2mb image would take 30 minutes because it'd keep failing due to lag and timeouts, and in these cases it was not related to anything related to my TOR relay, I could connect to other tor hidden services fine and upload/download fine elsewhere.
 
ADreamOfLiberty said:
If there is an .onion route (Tor hidden service) my Tor browser isn't finding it; but I suppose what you describe could be the case even without an onion route.
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The link is at the very bottom of the page in small letters. The server is not configured properly to announce it though.
And there are some site functions (like search) that still fall back on the public site address.
 
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