Science Fiction Dictionary
A  B  C  D  E  F  G  H  I  J  K  L  M  N  O  P  Q  R  S  T  U  V  W  X  Y  Z

 

Automatic Bot Traffic Is 38 Percent Of HTTP Requests

In its latest State of Application Security Report, Cloudflare, one of the world's largest networks, says 6.8% of traffic on the internet is malicious.

Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) attacks continue to be cybercriminals' weapon of choice, making up over 37% of all mitigated traffic. The scale of these attacks is staggering. In the first quarter of 2024 alone, Cloudflare blocked 4.5 million unique DDoS attacks. That total is nearly a third of all the DDoS attacks they mitigated the previous year. But it's not just about the sheer volume of DDoS attacks. The sophistication of these attacks is increasing, too.

...about 38% of all HTTP requests processed by Cloudflare are classified as automated bot traffic. Some bots are good and perform a needed service, such as customer service chatbots, or are authorized search engine crawlers. However, as many as 93% of bots are potentially bad.

(Via Slashdot)

Incredibly, this turn of events was predicted by science fiction author John Brunner fifty years ago in his prescient novel The Shockwave Rider.

In the novel, while impersonating a minister, computer genius Nickie Haflinger happened to offend a certain Shad Fluckner, an employee of Anti-Trauma, Inc. When Haflinger woke up in the morning to find his power out, he took steps to discover the source of the problem.

A sweet recorded voice told him his phone credit was in abeyance pending judgment in the lawsuit that was apt to end with all his assets being garnisheed...

Lawsuit? What lawsuit?...

Then the answer dawned on him, and he almost laughed. Fluckner had resorted to one of the oldest tricks in the store and turned loose in the continental net a self-perpetuating tapeworm, probably headed by a denuciation group "borrowed" from a major corporation, which would shunt itself from one nexus to another every time his credit-code was punched into a keyboard. It could take days to kill a worm like that, and sometimes weeks.

He sent a retaliatory worm chasing Fluckner's. That should take care of the immediate problem in three to thirty minutes, depending on whether or not he beat the inevitable Monday morning circuit overload... According to recent report, there were so many worms and counterworms loose in the data-net now, the machines had been instructed to give them low priority unless they related to a medical emergency.

Scroll down for more stories in the same category. (Story submitted 7/4/2024)

Follow this kind of news @Technovelgy.

| Email | RSS | Blog It | Stumble | del.icio.us | Digg | Reddit |

Would you like to contribute a story tip? It's easy:
Get the URL of the story, and the related sf author, and add it here.

Comment/Join discussion ( 0 )

Related News Stories - (" Computer ")

Automatic Bot Traffic Is 38 Percent Of HTTP Requests
'there were so many worms and counterworms loose in the data-net...' - John Brunner, 1975

Neuroplatform Human Brain Organoid Bioprocessor Uses Less Electricity
'Cultured brains on a slab.'- Peter Watts, 1999

AI Worms That Spread
'...there were so many worms and counterworms loose in the data-net now' - John Brunner, 1975.

Great. Now AIs Have Access To Hacking Tools
'... when you and the Flatline punch through that ice and scramble the cores.' - William Gibson, 1984.

 

Google
  Web TechNovelgy.com   

Technovelgy (that's tech-novel-gee!) is devoted to the creative science inventions and ideas of sf authors. Look for the Invention Category that interests you, the Glossary, the Invention Timeline, or see what's New.

 

 

 

 

Science Fiction Timeline
1600-1899
1900-1939
1940's   1950's
1960's   1970's
1980's   1990's
2000's   2010's

Current News

Biohybrid Robots Made Of Living And Synthetic Materials
'If the biological robots were not living creatures, they were certainly very good imitations.'

Drug Induces Hibernation-Like State In Humans
'... drugged and chilled and stowed in sleep tanks.'

Poul Anderson's 'Brain Wave'
"Everybody and his dog, it seemed, wanted to live out in the country; transportation and communication were no longer isolating factors."

AI Note-Taking From Google Meet
'... the new typewriter that could be talked to, and which transposed the spoken sound into typed words.'

Qore IcePlates Are Personal Cooling Suits
'... underneath they consisted of networks of cooling tubes against the skin.'

P1 Just The Latest Robot To Take A Beating From Humans
'...we mere people come second.'

Waymo Cars Shout At Each Other, Autonomously
'My cars talk to one another. I have no doubt about it...'

Your Solar Electric Paint Is Ready, Larry Niven
'...you spray it on.'

How Long Till We Have These Tattoos?
Truth or fiction?

Seeing Faces On Grains Of Sand (AI Pareidolia)
'... the imprint of her image on the telephoto cell.'

Lunar Biorepository Proposed For Cryo-Preservation Of Earth Species
'...there was no one alive who had ever seen them. But they existed in the Life Bank.'

Tele-Driving Offers Jobs For Tele-Drivers, Not AIs
''...some bored drone pusher in a remote driving centre...'

Autonomous Robotic Dentist - Would You Say 'Ahhh'?
You might be surprised at how much more efficient this could be.

GM Scraps Cruise Origin Robotaxi With No Steering Wheel
'Ames tinkered around with something on the instrument board when he got in; and in a few moments we were off.'

Taza Aya Air-Curtain Tech Protects Turkey Workers
'I'm going to have to buy a filter-mask.'

Torobo Humanoid Robot Hammers A Nail
7-axis dual arms, 3-axis waist (pitch, pitch, yaw), 3-axis neck (yaw, pitch, roll), and 4-axis undercarriage!

More SF in the News Stories

More Beyond Technovelgy science news stories

Home | Glossary | Invention Timeline | Category | New | Contact Us | FAQ | Advertise |
Technovelgy.com - where science meets fiction™

Copyright© Technovelgy LLC; all rights reserved.