eToys Attack

The word is out that 1999 was a banner year on the Net for Christmas shopping.  Although the numbers remain sketchy, it appears cyber-purchases tripled in 1999 over 1998.  One of the big holiday stories appeared in the Washington Post.  Mike May, an Internet analyst for Jupiter Communications, proclaimed, “Toysrus.com has become the poster child for holiday snafus.”  For the second straight year, the high profile toy vendor stumbled on the Web.  It was widely reported that Toysrus.com would not deliver in time for presents to find their way under the Christmas tree, but $100 gift certificates were cyber-mailed to irate e-shoppers.  In the faddish world of toy buying, harried Toys R Us cyber-buyers discovered other vendors (either in c-space or at the mall) had also run out of hot items (Game Boy Color video systems, interactive dolls, and even some Furbies).

The Big Guy

Toysrus.com plays second fiddle to eToys.com, the leading cyber toy vendor with problems of its own.  In 1995 a small international art group registered a domain named eToy.com.  eToys.com, the multi-billion dollar toy vendor, ran to the California courts to have the eToy.com domain moniker obliterated from cyberspace.  The reason given: it would confuse eToys customers.  The fact that the big toy company registered the domain name two years after eToy.com appeared on the Web carried no weight.  The InterNIC removed the eToy.com domain from all the routers on the Web when eToys won the court order preventing eToy from using the name.  EToy.com disappeared in a cyber-black hole.  This action resulted in the cyber equivalent of the Seattle WTO civil disobedience riots.  When the artists at etoy turned down $50,000 and a chunk of eToys.com stock for the domain name, they mounted an electronic war against eToys.com.  EToy.com reincarnated with the disturbing name toywar.com.  As the new domain implies, the etoy gang does not carry a Boy Scout image.  An early volley fired by one etoy member on the Web site contained profanity.  The act appears to have contributed to the court ruling against etoy.  However, Internet activist groups have jumped in on the side of David-esque eToy.com with state-of-the-art electronic attacks on eToys.com. Detailed descriptions of the hand-to-hand combat are chronicled on the Network World (http://www.nwfusion.com) Web site.

Denial-Of-Service - Weapon Of Choice

The most common method of “bringing down” a Web site involves having the attacker overwhelm a server with so much junk it cannot process legitimate requests.  Named “denial-of-service,” this ploy is not a new Net strategy.  Attackers try to flood a server with corrupted packets, spam and other annoyances in the attempt to choke off bandwidth with garbage.  The Web sites have protected themselves by instructing the hardware/software to disregard requests from rogue sources.  In the words of Emeril Lagasse, eToy.com (and its cohorts) have kicked the warfare “up a notch.”  Instead of sending junk from a single source, savvy hackers launch multiple attacks simultaneously.  Here is how they do it.  Secretly, junk producing software gets planted on non-secure (compromised) Web servers (most commonly found at universities and weak Webhosting sites).  At a predetermined time, a coordinated attack is triggered.  You may recall that the Lopht hackers testified before Congress they could shut down the whole Internet in 30 minutes.  Undoubtedly, the advanced denial-of-service attack makes the list of weapons of choice should they be challenged to carry out the boast.  Scary.

An Important Issue

Frankly, wiping out the eToy.com domain by the InterNIC in the United States raises disturbing and thorny issues.  This matter, discussed previously, comes under the heading of pagejacking.  Recent televised images (early December) of tear-gassed WTO crowds in Seattle, Washington remain fresh in the cyber-conscience. Will eToys.com sustain long term damage from the eToy.com Jihad?  The toy world incubates this type of altercation.  A rag tag bunch of “get a life crowd” guerillas can still be found in alt.barney.dinosaur.die.die.die newsgroup.  Perhaps an avalanche of $100 coupons will make the whole thing go away by this time next year.  But then again, maybe not.

On this happy note, my best New Year wishes to all.

URLs (Uniform Resource Locators) of interest:

http://www.etoys.com

http://www.toywar.com

http://www.villagevoice.com/issues/9948/barliant.shtml

Note: This is the 186th of a series of elementary articles designed for surfing the Internet.  Next, Letters from Cyberspace is the subject on tap.  Stay Tuned.  Until next week, happy travels through cyberspace.  Previous issues of Internet Info for Real People can be found: http://www.thebee.com.  Please e-mail comments and suggestions: rbrand@JUNO.com or editor@thebee.com.