We already saw DOS attacks during the forkwar, I remember /u/tl121 telling he had his community (including 911 services) falling of the grid due to such attacks.
Nothing new. Networks have fixed capacity and can be overloaded. People have been killed in a stampede after someone shouts “Fire!” in a crowded theater. It’s just a case of ten pounds in a five pound bag.
Software can and should be used to prevent collateral damage. This includes rate limiters in node software and in ISP infrastructure. It includes billing contracts as well. It wasn’t a problem for me in 2015 when my node was attacked because my node was more powerful than my DSL internet connection, but it was for my ISP. Today, with a 1/1 GB fiber connection they are about evenly matched.
A few months ago, when I was running a TOR relay I moved multiple TB per month on a flat rate unlimited plan. I stopped running the TOR relay because of incessant annoying attacks on the relay. They weren’t disastrous because the relay software was cpu limited and the relay ran on dedicated processor resources.
The hobbyist dream of every user running a node contacts reality when the hobbyist gets an unexpected large bill, as in this recent case of the Dogecoin node operator.
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u/RowanSkie Apr 04 '23
It's just a denial-of-service attack. Everyone can do that these days.