I turned to Amazon for help..

[SoShaan]

actually I just went to the web service support forums..
(not that any details are known so we would have an idea of where to look) but... I though this was interesting.

Network Security

The AWS network provides significant protection against traditional network security issues and the customer can implement further protection. The following are a few examples:

* Distributed Denial Of Service (DDoS) Attacks: AWS API endpoints are hosted on the same Internet-scale, world class infrastructure that supports the Amazon.com retail site. Standard DDoS mitigation techniques such as syn cookies and connection limiting are used. To further mitigate the effect of potential DDoS attacks, Amazon maintains internal bandwidth which exceeds its provider-supplied Internet bandwidth.

* Man In the Middle (MITM) Attacks: All of the AWS APIs are available via SSL-protected endpoints which provides server authentication. Amazon EC2 AMIs automatically generate new SSH host keys on first boot and log them to the console. Customers can then use the secure APIs to call the console and access the host keys before logging into the instance for the first time. Customers are encouraged to use the SSL endpoints for all of their interactions with AWS.
* IP Spoofing: Amazon EC2 instances cannot send spoofed traffic. The Amazon -controlled, host-based firewall infrastructure will not permit an instance to send traffic with a source IP or MAC address other than its own.
* Port Scanning: Port scans by Amazon EC2 customers are a violation of the Amazon EC2 Acceptable Use Policy (AUP). Violations of the AUP are taken seriously, and every reported violation is investigated. When Port scanning is detected it is stopped and blocked. Port scans of Amazon EC2 instances are generally ineffective because, by default, all inbound ports on Amazon EC2 instances are closed.

The customer’s strict management of security groups can further mitigate the threat of port scans. If the customer configures the security group to allow traffic from any source to a specific port, then that specific port will be vulnerable to a port scan. In these cases, the customer must use appropriate security measures to protect listening services that may be essential to their application from being discovered by an unauthorized port scan. For example, a web server must clearly have port 80 (HTTP) open to the world, and the administrator of this server is responsible for ensuring the security of the HTTP server software, such as Apache.

* Packet sniffing by other tenants: It is not possible for a virtual instance running in promiscuous mode to receive or “sniff” traffic that is intended for a different virtual instance. While customers can place their interfaces into promiscuous mode, the hypervisor will not deliver any traffic to them that is not addressed to them. This includes two virtual instances that are owned by the same customer, even if they are located on the same physical host. Attacks such as ARP cache poisoning do not work within EC2. While Amazon EC2 does provide ample protection against one customer inadvertently or maliciously attempting to view another’s data, as a standard practice customers should encrypt sensitive traffic.

http://developer.amazonwebservices.c...categoryID=174

[divinorum]

why is it interesting? you want omac to put utopia in the (amazon) cloud?

[VT2]

They're using it for Utopia.

[SomethingClever]

Exactly how long has utopia been running on amazon?

[TheMistressOfBaal]

Probably since the move to the utopia-game.com uri

[VT2]

Since the alpha.

[TommyB]

This is interesting, please tell me what it means ?

[Hurlin]

what I can see is its saying amazon cover their collective arses so DoS DDoS MITM attacks don't effect their network

[TheMistressOfBaal]

nothing much - just that Omac picked a good web services provider to host the game.

It's more difficult to execute a dDoS swamping attack on amazon than many others. Naturally it doesn't have any effect on a DoS attack that exploits a flaw in the public game interface.

It also means that there will never be a delay in the game that is the fault of insufficient bandwidth to the server.

It means nothing with respect to making the code execute correctly, nothing to prevent the game falling over due to one of the many potential coding errors that will bring execution to a stop.

[Givenchy]

nothing much - just that Omac picked a good web services provider to host the game.

It's more difficult to execute a dDoS swamping attack on amazon than many others. Naturally it doesn't have any effect on a DoS attack that exploits a flaw in the public game interface.

It also means that there will never be a delay in the game that is the fault of insufficient bandwidth to the server.

It means nothing with respect to making the code execute correctly, nothing to prevent the game falling over due to one of the many potential coding errors that will bring execution to a stop.

Cliffnotes version: Because the server is hosted on a extremely powerful server that has a very fast connection it is very likely that the game has flaws in the programming instead of scripts/macro users and DoS attacks.

[trollgar]

Cliffnotes version: Because the server is hosted on a extremely powerful server that has a very fast connection it is very likely that the game has flaws in the programming instead of scripts/macro users and DoS attacks.

They admitted it's their code already, came straight out and apologized for it too.

But scripts/macros/DoS would only work because of mistakes in the code either way regardless of who is hosting. If those problems exist they will be exploited so just cos its a flaw in the code doesn't mean they aren't being hit on top of it. I don't envy those two guys!

[Micke-]

where did they do this trollgar?

[Coruscale]

In there most recent announcement.

http://forums.joltonline.com/showthread.php?t=602668

[Micke-]

from my point of view it looks like they keep blaming the scripters, am I wrong?

[Sarak]

Even though the number of requests was very high the server should never come to a halt. When this happens it means there is a problem with our code, a problem with our configuration, or a problem with another component we're using... Regardless, there is a problem which we must solve.

The guts of their message is "There was a problem when we launched Utopia, we suspect it was partly caused by scripts, but our server/code should have been able to take this problem on the chin and it hasn't. Our fault, sorry."

So yeah. You're wrong! ;)