bugtraq - Re: Is this the first case of a Distributed Denial of Physical Service?

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Message-ID: <3FD61B0A.9050809@notdot.net>
Date: Wed, 10 Dec 2003 07:57:14 +1300
From: Nick Johnson <arachnid@...dot.net>
To: tonyl@....ltd.uk, bugtraq@...urityfocus.com
Subject: Re: Is this the first case of a Distributed Denial of Physical Service?

This isn't the first use of the internet to attempt a Denial of Service 
style attack on something in the physical world. In late 2002, people 
from http://slashdot.org teamed together and executed a 
postal-service-DoS on a spammer. After obtaining his physical address, 
they signed him up for thousands of free catalog mailings and the like.
More details, including a link to a paper written about how such attacks 
could be executed automatically here:
http://slashdot.org/articles/03/04/15/2027225.shtml?tid=111&tid=172

tonyl@....ltd.uk wrote:

>Hi,
>
>
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>Please see:
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>http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/6/34388.html
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>http://www.cambs.police.uk/camops/press_releases/press_releases.asp?ID=1992
>
>
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>It appears that an individual has successfully socially engineered a distributed denial of physical service (DDoPS?).
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>A (hoax) email had been sent out to individuals informing them of their latest purchase and that their credit card had been charged accordingly.
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>As the individuals had not ordered iPods at £399.95, they were socially engineered into calling the customer service line given in the email.
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>This telephone number happened to be for the UK's Cambridgeshire Constabulary (police) Main Switchboard.
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>At the peak of this DDoPS, the switchboard was receiving 500 calls an hour, effectively denying the usual use of this telephone service.
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>It appears that a whole range of "systems" and processes may be vulnerable to this type of attack and raises some interesting points to consider...
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>Kind regards,
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>
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>Tony Langley
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>Systems Architect
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>S2S Limited
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>  
>