Overcoming DDoS Problems

Day 792, 02:56 • Published in USA USA • by Lieutenant Scheisskopf

This is in response to the Admins' message noting that another distributed denial of service (DDoS) attack targeted the New World yesterday from Turkey, and likely annoyed several players in Europe and Asia. I wanted to offer some tips on overcoming the burdens of a DDoS so that you can still advance in eRepublik and not feel out of the loop, if and when the next attack happens.


Maybe one user can't stop this, but they can plan around it

1. Vary login times
This is probably the most important tip. Depending on the attacker's intent, the DDoS was either triggered to coincide with citizens' likely online time, or could have been arranged to disrupt a region of people by targeting the website when its web traffic from a given portion of the world is expected to be higher (for example, 15:00-20:00 eRep server time are above average traffic times for Americans). Such an attack could have been the case in a previous DDoS attack which impacted the Battle for Jharkhand 4 weeks ago. If an attack is aiming to target certain portions of eRep players, then consider logging into eRepublik at different times. Military branches encourage or outright require multiple logins to check for orders and to stay on top of New World developments. Varying login times also increases the probability that you can login successfully at least once during the course of a New World day, making sure that you can work for your Hard Worker medal, train towards your Battle Heroes, manage your companies, and fight to gain rank on the battlefields.

2. Try different languages
During the first DDoS, it seemed that not all languages were targeted. eUSA President Jewitt is a talented individual, but I doubt he speaks Swedish-- for some reason, that particular DDoS did not target all the eRepublik language varieties. Swedish, Romanian, and I believe Hungarian versions of eRepublik were still functional, and if you had an idea of where to click, you could still do your eRep surfing in another language. When you type in www.erepublik.com/*language*, just try any of the following instead (just note that this did not work during more recent DDoS attacks):
de= German
en= English, and default
es= Spanish
fr= French
hu= Hungarian
it= Italian
pl= Polish
pt= Portuguese
ro= Romanian
ru= Russian
se= Swedish

The horror!

3. Get involved on IRC
eRepublik's community networking takes place outside of eRepublik. It is no surprise to most readers that many countries have their own forum websites which run independently of eRep. However, this does not guarantee that the sites will not be targeted, themselves, as could be seen by an attack last month. Joining an eRepublik-dedicated channel on the Internet Relay Chat (IRC) protocol is not only encouraged for improving your in-game experience, but it will also help you to stay in contact with your military, economic, or political colleagues even without the site operating at its full capacity. If you're a first-timer to IRC (I took these instructions from Josh Frost's article):
1. Visit http://rizon.net
2. On the right side of the main page, click "Launch Rizon IRC"
3. On the next page, enter your eRepublik name and enter the channel you wish to enter (#usa, for example)
4. You will now be on the IRC Channel you selected.
5. To register your nickname, type "/msg NickServ register NAME" (Where NAME is your nickname) The server will guide you from here.
6. Subsequent logons will require you to verify your nickname, type "/msg NickServ IDENTIFY Password" (and then you enter a password)

4. Help the admins
This one should be intuitive, but it may still need to be said. The admins have a very thankless job when things are not going well, since upwards of 350,000 citizens could come breathing down their necks and telling them to fix the game. If you think you can offer information (maybe a responsible party for the DDoS) or maybe some computer-related expertise to lighten their burden, then reach out to the admins-- the worst that can happen is they tell you "thanks, but no thanks." The admins, in my experience, have been very receptive to feedback and suggestions to improving the game, and would likely be thrilled to get some talented citizens helping them when their job is more difficult and even more thankless than usual.



DDoS attacks do not benefit anyone in this game since it takes the game away from everyone and is a cheap-- not to mention illegal-- tactic. But by trying these ideas, you can make it harder to let a DDoS ruin your eRepublik experience. If you have any other advice that has worked for you, feel free to post it here to help others who may have been burdened by the inconvenience of a DDoS.

Lt. Scheisskopf

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