Bonum Certa Men Certa

Techrights Flooded by Microsoft Bots

Summary: Technical problems all day today (so far) are caused by bots that identify themselves as "MSIE 4.01; Windows NT; MS Search 6.0 Robot"

MICROSOFT KEEPS reminding us why it is cancer on the Web. For about 5 hours thus far today we have had our server hardly capable of serving pages. Microsoft bots keep hammering on it and there is no simple solution to this. We occasionally have problems with Windows zombies (sometimes lasting days and forcing us to move between hosts), but so do many other Web sites, including goodbyemicrosoft.net. Earlier today we found out more about those zombie attacks goodbyemicrosoft.net has been subjected to for weeks. Interestingly enough, in the latest post which discusses this ongoing issue the administrator of goodbyemicrosoft.net points out that Microsoft bought goodbyemicrosoft.com. That's right. And the zombie attacks on goodbyemicrosoft.net have been so persistent and long that its owner considered just shutting it down.



But now I've invested some time in it, so I don't want to just shut it down. Hence the search for a new domain name. goodbyemicrosoft.com was taken, so I registered goodbyemicrosoft.org. (Not yet active...give me a few weeks.)

Then I began to wonder...was goodbyemicrosoft.com a kindred spirit? Visiting that web address just returns a Bing search page, so I figured the domain had been registered and parked. So I decided to try a whois search, where I found the owner is:

Domain Administrator Microsoft Corporation One Microsoft Way Redmond WA 98052 US


In other Windows vulnerabilities news, this week we have:

i. Spy rootkit goes after key Indian, Iranian systems

Sophisticated malicious software which infects critical infrastructure systems is spreading in the wild, according to security companies.


ii. Internet Worm Targets SCADA

Stuxnet is a new Internet worm that specifically targets Siemens WinCC SCADA systems: used to control production at industrial plants such as oil rigs, refineries, electronics production, and so on. The worm seems to uploads plant info (schematics and production information) to an external website. Moreover, owners of these SCADA systems cannot change the default password because it would cause the software to break down.


iii. Stuxnet malware threat continues, targets control systems

The recently discovered Stuxnet malware, which takes advantage of a zero-day Microsoft Windows Shell vulnerability, is being used in targeted attacks to penetrate industrial control systems, particularly in the United States, according to security researchers.


Microsoft is cancer on the Web and until it fixes its broken operating system (it probably won't ever happen) webmasters will continue to live in fear and agony (the agony of having to waste valuable time dealing with Windows bots). We believe we may have found a temporary way of filtering out the junk (screenshot below), but it takes a lot of time and bots find ways around the limitations that also block genuine requests (update: and at the moment of posting the hammering/attacks resume again). In another site of mine I had to change files/addresses in order to escape months of traffic abuse/DDOS against the Wiki -- abuse which cost a lot of time and money for extra bandwidth. That ended last month. Microsoft's real cost to the economy is immeasurable.

KDE console

Recent Techrights' Posts

Links 06/07/2025: Climate Change and "The Right to Criticise"
Links for the day
The Mainstream Media Took 4 Days to Realise Microsoft Shut Down Its Operations in Pakistan and Fired Everybody
We estimate that Microsoft has had about 29,000 layoffs since January
“Twibel” Actions Against Comedians (and Why It's a Truly Low Blow)
they try to make up in quantities for a lack of merit or quality
 
Links 06/07/2025: End to End Encryption at Risk, Reuters Twitter ("X") Account Withheld in India
Links for the day
Gemini Links 06/07/2025: Tinylog and Certification Rotation
Links for the day
PCLinuxOS Sites Coming Back, Gradually
let's just be patient
Social Control Media, Even If Based on Free Software, Still Has Many Problems
a distraction from what actually mattered and still matters
IBM is Not Your Master
IBM makes friends with people who exclude the majority of the population: women
Help Fund the Free Software Foundation (FSF)
If you have some dollars to spare, go support the FSF
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Saturday, July 05, 2025
IRC logs for Saturday, July 05, 2025
A Short History of Attacks on Techrights (and Boycott Novell Before That)
good opportunity to tell again the story of several (not all) attempts to silence us
Leadership in Free Software
Don't let IBM lead. It's a terrible flag bearer.
Linux Foundation Apparently Flirting With Slop (Marketing by LLM-Generated SPAM)
The Web is in a really bad state!
COVID-19 Sped Up Site Improvements in Techrights
A few months later we created our very own IRC network
Gemini Links 05/07/2025: Negative Questions and 'Touching Grass' (Going Outside)
Links for the day
Links 05/07/2025: Dalai Lama Succession as 90th Birthday Approaches, 40 deg C in China
Links for the day
Links 05/07/2025: Hungary and US Defecting to Russia, "Google's Hotseat Hypocrisy"
Links for the day
Gemini Links 05/07/2025: 4th of July 2025 and "Zig Roadmap 2026"
Links for the day
How to Combat the Exploitation and Abuse by Microsoft GitHub
Not to mention corruption and crimes against women
Bryan Lunduke is Actually Sending His Audience to Attack People
"[Lunduke] is actually sending his audience to attack people."
Even The Right Wing is Rejecting Bryan Lunduke
no wonder he became so irrelevant and marginal
Microsoft's MSN Helps Microsoft Spread Lies About the Layoffs' Scale (Well Over 25,000 People Laid Off This Year)
There seem to be monopolies on lies and on truth
The Death of X Has Been Greatly Exaggerated (by Compromised Media)
X.Org Server is alive and well
Rewriting Things in Rust
How far would you go?
In 2025 Everything is "AI". Remember Blockchains?
Talk about what companies and things (services, products, software) actually do, not the labels they use
Julian Assange Has Been Free for a Year
Julian Assange and I disagreed on some things
Monopolies and Scalping
Monopolies gravitate towards price hikes
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Friday, July 04, 2025
IRC logs for Friday, July 04, 2025
Microsoft's August Layoffs Wave: "August is Confirmed for Additional Performance Based Cuts"
"August is confirmed for additional performance based cuts from the recent connects along with additional organizational cuts."
What Microsoft Reputation Laundering (With a Weaponised Law Degree) Looks Like in a Foreign Continent
You would expect this in uncivilised and primitive countries
Slopwatch: LLMs 'Write' Fake or Distorted 'News' About "Linux"
LLM slop disguised as news
Links 04/07/2025: Google Replaces the Web With Slop, "AI Might Kill Us All"
Links for the day
Gemini Links 04/07/2025: Mindfulness and F1
Links for the day
Weeks After Microsoft Bankruptcy in Russia the Company Shuts Down in Pakistan, Too
Last month Windows' share in Pakistan fell to an all-time low
Rob Musial's June 2025 Additions of Malware in Proprietary Software
Via the GNU Web site this week
Links 04/07/2025: Microsoft's H-1B Visa Applications Show Another Crisis Unfolding, Many More Deep Cuts and Shutdowns Revealed, Complete Microsoft Exits
Links for the day
Gemini Links 04/07/2025: A Day To Remember and "Stop Killing Games"
Links for the day
Crime and Corruption at Microsoft GitHub Cannot be Covered Up by SLAPPs in Another Continent
We'll write about this for a long time to come
Slop Videos Are Disappointing Garbage, Nothing New, Just Brute Force up on Display or a Pedestal of Slop
Slop videos aren't a new thing
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Thursday, July 03, 2025
IRC logs for Thursday, July 03, 2025
The War on Local Storage (People Hosting Their Files Locally and Privately)
There's nothing wrong with controlling one's computing
What Digital Independence Means
Independence in the digital realms means abandoning platforms like GitHub, not just rejecting proprietary software
NVidia is a Bubble
they temporarily see fortunes and wrongly assume perpetuity thereof
Fedora Does Not Care About Diversity and Inclusion, It's About Optics (Corporate Image)
any notion of inclusion is superficial and misleading
Don't Buy the Excuses for Microsoft's Mass Layoffs
Back in the 90s, Microsoft bought a lot of companies to get and stay ahead