[LACNIC/Seguridad] Fwd: The MegaUpload Shutdown Effect

[Fernando Gont]

FYI.

URL:
<http://ddos.arbornetworks.com/2012/01/the-megaupload-shutdown-effect-2/>

-------- Original Message --------
Subject: 	The MegaUpload Shutdown Effect
Date: 	Sat, 21 Jan 2012 15:31:20 GMT
From: 	<Jose Nazario>



The popular file sharing site MegaUpload was shut down by the US FBI and
Department of Justice on Thursday, January 19, and executives from the
company were taken into custody. This story is very well covered by the
Wall Street Journal
<http://online.wsj.com/article_email/SB10001424052970204616504577171060611948408-lMyQjAxMTAyMDEwOTExNDkyWj.html#project%3DWSJPDF%26s%3Ddocid%253D120119203839-55f3c7eb6f724462b34bd64ce22ff1d0%257Cfile%253Dmega01192012%26articleTabs%3Darticle>
and includes a copy of the indictment for your reading.

As you would expect, this was a wildly popular site with users from all
over the world. So much so that even notable celebrities appear in a
video discussing MegaUpload, almost endorsing it. Previous work by Arbor
Networks showed that content providers and hosting sites like MegaUpload
are the new “Hyper Giants
<http://ddos.arbornetworks.com/2010/04/the-battle-of-the-hyper-giants-part-i-2/>”.
With enough global data, you can actually see the traffic drop when the
shutdown occurs. Based strictly on the traffic rates it appears that the
shutdown started just after 19:00 GMT on January 19, with traffic
plummeting down over the next two hours. The graphic here shows three
main client regions – Asia-Pacific, Europe, and the US.

Over the past 24 hours, the top countries (in aggregate) using
MegaUpload were the United States, France, Germany, Brazil, Great
Britain, Turkey, Italy, and Spain, although dozens more countries are
represented.

As for the traffic drop off, we’re not the only ones to notice. As seen
on Twitter <https://twitter.com/#!/andresmh/status/160112912487288832>,
South America experienced a dramatic traffic drop
<http://i.imgur.com/qlOtw.png> at about the same time, presumably due to
this MegaUpload shutdown. Furthermore, we’re seeing reports of a fake
MegaUpload site
<https://twitter.com/#!/NeowinFeed/status/160188388631261184> that is
supposedly a malware infection site.

Friends of mine from elsewhere in the world have been joking that the
Internet seems to be running a bit smoother today. That may be, given
how much bandwidth appears to have been freed up.

MegaUpload <http://www.flickr.com/photos/58693316@N00/6733525145/>