>Not exactly vfp, but can someone explain exactly how these "hackers" are bringing the major sites down? The news reports are confusing - one report looks like slamming, another more like SQL overloads, another "death-by-pinging", another hacking into a network... Or is this still something of a secret?

Bruce, ignore my previous blathering on... here it is from
http://www.zdnet.com/zdhelp/stories/main/0,5594,2434548,00.html

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Like most DoS attacks, these attacks overran the Web sites with continuous streams of poorly formed IP packets. Here's what happens: an attacking machine generates what appear to be normal messages, such as the User Datagram Protocol (UDP) packets. In the case of a UDP DoS attack, these packets claim to come from the same server that's receiving them. In trying to respond to this influx of miscommunication, the victimized server eventually becomes unable to accept any more connections.
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