Chapter 3. History of DoS and DDoS

In this chapter we will discuss the origins of Internet denial of service, based on the historical aspects of the Internet and its design principles, as well as the events that led to major DDoS attacks on Internet sites and beyond, up to today. We describe the motivations of both the Internet designers and the attackers.

3.1 Motivation

It is human nature that when groups of people get together, there is bound to be disagreement and conflict. This conflict can take many forms: glaring at someone who is crowding you in line to get them to back off, cutting someone off in traffic, using the favorite national hand gesture that shows the utmost contempt possible for them. Or even worse acts: slashing someone’s tires, ...

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