FBI arrests man for plan to kill 70% of Internet in AWS bomb attack 📦

28    10 Apr 2021 06:35 by u/Drewski

13 comments

15 u/ruqqusAccount5 10 Apr 2021 07:18
Going to guess that the 'plan' went like this: FBI Agent: "Hey, can you sign off on this ridiculous terror plan? I'll be your friend." Some random guy with zero explosives experience who lives across the country from the AWS servers: "Sure, whatever."
6 u/None 10 Apr 2021 08:06
Wouldn't mind if he did tbh.
4 u/JohnnyMemeonic 10 Apr 2021 12:02
Return to monke. Seriously though, that would of sucked. Sure, the majority of the internet is trash but there's still little gems that make it worth it.
1 u/None 10 Apr 2021 13:20
How exactly did he plan to do that? It's not like those data centers are not guarded. Plus, even if he did manage to do it, he would have taken just a small bit of the Internet, not 70%.
6 u/Ryaniskira 10 Apr 2021 13:43
> Ashburn, Virginia No, that would have taken out vast swaths of the internet. You may think the internet is this huge decentralized and super redundant network that can withstand pretty much anything, but there are quite a few choke points that if attacked can cripple it. Virginia is one of such choke points and 70% of internet traffic flows through there.
2 u/None 10 Apr 2021 14:49
Yeah It's not that decentralized. Pretty scary stuff.
1 u/None 10 Apr 2021 17:01
Keep in mind that the Internet is not just US. There are plenty of other nodes in Asia, Europe and so on, and it's not that hard to set up temporary backup routes.
1 u/Ryaniskira 10 Apr 2021 17:27
That 70% of traffic includes other countries, yes there are backup routes that could kick in but the internet would still be crippled.
1 u/None 10 Apr 2021 19:00
So do you think the 'local' Internet traffic in China and India would have been affected by it?
1 u/Ryaniskira 10 Apr 2021 22:54
Yes. Simply due to fact that the routes that normally transit through those countries would experience extra load that they normally wouldn't have to. Maybe not so much China but India for sure.
1 u/None 10 Apr 2021 23:11
I don't know about that. If a node in the US fails, one would expect that the rerouting will be done mostly in and around the US, slowing down the traffic from there. Some distant routes would be used as well, but if someone from the US tries to access a server from Canada, it would most likely not go through India. Instead it would go through some other backbones, for example on the West Coast.
1 u/dreclevr0d 11 Apr 2021 09:53
you mean usa websites that are accessed by other countries, i guess. if random european websites would route through the usa, we would have a nice default ping of 100, or something.
1 u/None 10 Apr 2021 19:39
he needs an award and the dumb-ass gov't employees who ALLOW AWS to dominate such a large percentage of the internet are the ones who should be arrested. Ironic that the feds see the danger, yet do nothing to stop AWS/Amazon. So much for anti-trust, anti-monopoly laws or doing your job to enforce them.