Is DDOS illegal

[Frankie_Xenon]

A few months back I was hosting a game server off of my computer, but then someone decided to DDOS the server which then caused me to loose connection for a few minutes. I read somewhere online that DDOSING is only illegal if it actually affects the individual physically, government related, or cause $5,000 worth of damage

I found this yahoo answers

1.Loss to one or more persons during any one-year period (and, for purposes of an investigation, prosecution, or other proceeding brought by the United States only, loss resulting from a related course of conduct affecting one or more other protected computers) aggregating at least $5,000 in value.

2.The modification or impairment, or potential modification or impairment, of the medical examination, diagnosis, treatment, or care of one or more individuals.

3.Physical injury to any person.

4.A threat to public health or safety.

5.Damage affecting a computer system used by or for a government entity in furtherance of the administration of justice, national defense, or national security.

 

[i7Baby]

Any hacking is illegal. But hard to prove who and how.

 

[Vosgy]

Another key thing to think of is most people who will attempt to DDOS you will have to go though Illegal measures in order to DDOS. It is in the name "Distributed" meaning they have to send redundant information in waves from lots of locations in order to have an effect, most people will no be able to organize 1000's of people to pull this off so they tend to do it though a "bot net" a network of computers infected with a virus that gives the virus owner a level of control over them, they use these infected computers to send the worthless packets which also covers them more as they never directly attack the server.

 

[bill001g]

Of course it is but you will never get a case that will hold up in court unless the person is a total fool. Almost all this happens from compromised machines controlled by people in countries that you will never get any form of law enforcements action. You would have to prove someone paid a company that in turn has the ability to actually conduct the attack.

You can not run a ddos from a single machine in your house against someone. The upload speed is almost always less than download speed of the machine you are attacking.

 

[Vosgy]

I will also give you the same advice I received from one of my Computer Science lectures, "Please don't attempt to build a bot net, I don't want to hear in the new about you being killed as some crime ring wants to take it from you".

 

[Frankie_Xenon]

Another key thing to think of is most people who will attempt to DDOS you will have to go though Illegal measures in order to DDOS. It is in the name "Distributed" meaning they have to send redundant information in waves from lots of locations in order to have an effect, most people will no be able to organize 1000's of people to pull this off so they tend to do it though a "bot net" a network of computers infected with a virus that gives the virus owner a level of control over them, they use these infected computers to send the worthless packets which also covers them more as they never directly attack the server.

I will also give you the same advice I received from one of my Computer Science lectures, "Please don't attempt to build a bot net, I don't want to hear in the new about you being killed as some crime ring wants to take it from you".

So DDOSING someone is only illegal after a certain point/measure? Let say I attempt to DDOS a friend with a program off of my OWN computer, would that be considered Illegal or Legal? Because im confused on if its illegal or not illegal since you said to a certain measure.

 

[USAFRet]

So DDOSING someone is only illegal after a certain point/measure? Let say I attempt to DDOS a friend with a program off of my OWN computer, would that be considered Illegal or Legal?

Yes. You are attempting to deprive someone else of their own resources.

And you can't do it from one PC.
1. Physically, not enough resources from a single PC
2. Your ISP will spank you
3. It is illegal.

 

[KrakowKaz]

It's illegal, and the IP is easily traced (can't use a proxy, else you just end up DDOS'ing the proxy). Unless it's something major, though, it'll take a lot of work to take it to prosecution.

 

[bill001g]

It's illegal, and the IP is easily traced (can't use a proxy, else you just end up DDOS'ing the proxy). Unless it's something major, though, it'll take a lot of work to take it to prosecution.

makes me laugh .....proxy to hide ip........

Only a stupid fool would send it from their own IP even the script kiddies who think they are hacker know enough to use the neighbors open wifi. If your ISP is stupid you can set your IP to anything you like and change it on every packet since you do not actually need any response.

Still it is not even done that way nobody has enough upload bandwidth. To be "Distributed" denial of service you need to control other machines. This is normally done by criminal organizations that have taken control of people machines with a virus or malware. This way the traffic comes from thousands of actually different machines all of which are owned by people that have no clue.