Why Click Frenzies shouldn't cause web scale fail
The website for last week's Click Frenzy online sale collapsed under an unexpectedly high load. It didn't have to; techniques do exist for building highly elastic web infrastructure.
The Full Tilt
Stilgherrian delivers an undiluted dose of criticism and analysis of the ways digital technology is changing our world and the spin that goes with it. Mostly in words -- sometimes in audio or video formats -- always cynical. Incorporating the Patch Monday podcast.
Stilgherrian
Stilgherrian is a freelance journalist, commentator and podcaster interested in big-picture internet issues, especially security, cybercrime and hoovering up bulldust. He studied computing science and linguistics before a wide-ranging media career and a stint at running an IT business. He can write iptables firewall rules, set a rabbit trap, clear a jam in an IBM model 026 card punch and mix a mean whiskey sour.
Latest Posts
InfoSec in flux, facing fads with FUD
Classic information security defences aren't up to the task of facing the latest fashions in attacks, according to Sourcefire founder and CTO Martin Roesch.
The law and technology behind Australia's internet filtering
Australia's newly-announced internet "filtering" plan relies on an unprecedented interpretation of the law and will do little to prevent the spread of child abuse material.
Mobile OS three-way cage fight
The pre-Christmas versions of the three major mobile operating systems have now been released. Windows Phone 8 is challenging the dominance of Google's Android and Apple's iOS. How will it play out?
Cybergeddon now? Industrial control systems targeted
Search engines can find internet-exposed industrial control systems (ICS) devices, and a newly-discovered vulnerability means that many can be hacked. Are we getting closer to cybergeddon?
Data retention's underlying attitude problems
Data retention for law enforcement is one of the most important political issues relating to our use of the internet now and as far into the future as we care to imagine — and it's being mishandled.
Identify yourself! This is the internet!
Increasingly, we're being asked to identify ourselves in situations that offline would never have required.
Partitioning porn from PowerPoint: VMware's virtualisation vision
VMware's vision of a virtualised future extends far beyond their existing desktop and server virtualisation products, to include virtualised mobile devices, and even software-defined data centres (SDD).
DDoS attacks: 150Gb per second and rising
Distributed denial of service (DDoS) attacks, favoured tactic of hacktivists and extortionists alike, are getting bigger, more numerous, and even smarter.
Apple Maps: You can't get there from here!
With iOS version 6, Apple ditched Google Maps and went DIY, with disastrous results. According to geospatial specialist Dr Michael Dobson, this was entirely predictable.