Myer, David Jones among top 20 Australian online retailers | Crikey

A decade after shutting down its original digital strategy, David Jones has come back with a vengeance. The retailer, along with department store rival Myer, has spent tens of millions of dollars in buffing up its online presence. Woolworths and Wesfarmers have started giving regular updates on online sales in their financial updates. Chains like Speciality Retail and Country Road are reporting sales increases, or actual revenue figures from digital sources

Even though Harvey Norman boss Gerry Harvey still decries the use of the internet, Harvey Norman is turning over several million dollars a year in online sales. That?s not forgetting pure play online retailers like electronics retailer Kogan, Shoes of Prey, or Appliances Online. These companies, like StyleTread, are not only making a huge stamp on the retail consumer space, but they?re demonstrating retail is able to attract serious venture capital money.

As Telsyte senior research manager Sam Yip says, it?s been a ?very big year of change?. ?There have been players early in the space that have dropped out, and a lot of bricks-and-mortar retailers are doing more.?We?re not hearing any more Gerry Harvey stories; everyone acknowledges that this is the channel to be operating in,? he said.

The debate over the GST threshold has largely disappeared, although the industry at large is still hopeful of some government relief. At the very least, most have accepted a 10% change in price isn?t going to help much of anyone. The smarter retailers are simply getting on with the job.

If there?s any evidence the online retail revolution is taking hold, look no further than Australia Post?s reaction. It is investing more money in parcel lockers and out-of-hours delivery services to cater for the huge number of parcels being delivered. So much so, the majority of its revenue is now being made from these types of parcel deliveries. Experts believe online retail in Australia has tipped over the top of the hill, so to speak. The hard work is being done already. Now, Yip argues, the next challenge is to transition that success to platforms like mobile.

The other big challenge here is around delivery. ?In the past year we?ve seen horror stories of where logistics have gone wrong, with people getting wrong orders all the time,? Yip said. ?There?s a need to really refine that back-end logistics functionality.?

We?ve created a list based on a mixture of different metrics, including traffic data from Experian, revenue, and any sort of noteworthy achievement. Local divisions of global companies, such as Apple and Amazon, are excluded, along with auction sites such as eBay and Gumtree So in no particular order ?

1. Kogan

If not the most popular, Kogan is one of the best-known homegrown online retailers in Australia. Mostly thanks to founder and CEO Ruslan Kogan?s insistence on putting himself and his business in the news through quirky???and sometimes weird???comments and campaigns. More recently the?Internet Explorer tax?got a mention in several international news outlets.?It?s difficult not to be impressed by Kogan?s reach. After shipping a single container of televisions five years ago, Kogan has transformed into a $250 million business with more on the way.?Spars with Gerry Harvey aside, Kogan has maintained a solid footing, with Ruslan saying he?s ?happy to be everybody?s first choice for a second television?. With a view to growing into a billion-dollar business, and expansion into services like mobile, Kogan will be around for a while yet.

2. Milan Direct

The other half of Ruslan Kogan?s online empire, Milan Direct, was initially an odd proposition. Selling furniture online back in 2007 wasn?t done very much in Australia, if at all. But Dean Ramler and Kogan have managed to turn the business into a $12 million powerhouse.?The company?s success has spawned some eager competitors. But with growth of 100% last year and international expansion ahead, Milan Direct seems set to hold on to its strong market position for a while.

3. Catch of the Day

Perhaps the largest online retail success story in Australia, Catch of the Day continues to grow from strength to strength. After starting as an eBay business, Gabby and Hezi Leibovich have managed to transform the company into a $350 million powerhouse, complete with funding from one James Packer.?Part of the success of the Catch Group can be attributed to its savvy expansion plans. Rather than start a business for every category, the team has been able to pick up start-ups and nurture success from there. After expanding into grocery and wine, it seems natural the business could continue to thrive???and all signs are pointing to an eventual float.

4. Booktopia

Given books are one of the cheapest things to buy from offshore retailers, it?s surprising any local online store has managed to create a thriving business. But Tony Nash at Booktopia has been able to do just that, on track to turn over $28 million in 2012-13.?There isn?t much complicated strategy here. A focus on clean design, good customer service management and an ever-present need to reduce shipping times has kept Booktopia at the top.

5. JB Hi-Fi

One of the larger businesses in Australia to actually understand how online retailing works; JB Hi-Fi is making a good name for itself online. With more than $37 million in digital revenue in the first half of the year alone, at 2% of total sales, the company is proving itself as a good example for dedicated bricks-and-mortar stores heading online.?In fact, JB Hi-Fi perhaps encapsulates what retailers need to be doing online. With the ability to check stock, ?click and collect? and some pretty fast customer service, chief executive Terry Smart seems to be doing a good job in transforming the iconic business into a powerhouse online.

6. Officeworks

Office supplies are a boring topic, but Officeworks has at least managed to make the buying process as easy as it can. After all, office supplies are something you should be able to buy online instead of heading to a store.?The company won?t confirm how much revenue the business makes online, although reports indicate it could be anywhere up to $150 million, equivalent to 13-14% of revenue. That?s an astonishing figure for an office supplies store, but it does make sense???the company understands how people shop online. ?Just like JB Hi-Fi, Officeworks shows it understands how to not only get people browsing on a site, but makes sure it knows how to capture their money.

7. Specialty Fashion

Although the retail and fashion industries obviously haven?t been having the best time, Speciality Fashion has been working on its digital presence???and it?s doing very well.?The company, which operates the Millers, Katies and Crossroads brands, recorded $11.3 million in online revenue during the first half of the year, representing 3.6% of total value. It isn?t the biggest online retailer around, but the fact the company has been so successful with its digital push???and is willing to disclose just how much money it makes online???is a good step in the right direction.

8. Big W

While the company doesn?t divulge how much of its revenue is made online, the popularity of Big W?s site indicates it could be making quite a lot of cash. In any case, Woolworths is giving DealsDirect a run for its money with the Big W online store, which doesn?t have many frills but is focused on simplicity of use and cheaper prices.

9. BrandsExclusive

BrandsExclusive has been at the forefront of the private shopping club scene in Australia. The business, which has mostly focused on fashion, quickly found a loyal user base and has been growing ever since.?Perhaps the company?s biggest success has been its ability to leverage demand for private shopping networks into cash. Even last year APN News & Media announced a massive $36 million stake.?The business was aiming to turn over $70 million last year.

10. The Iconic

The Iconic certainly isn?t divulging much with regard to revenue, but it seems outrageous to leave the company off a list detailing the most important online retailers in Australia.?The business has made a huge splash in Australia with its bright marketing tactics, but it?s also gained a reputation for securing not only one $25 million funding round, but a second earlier this year.?The Iconic certainly has enough money to make a dent on the online retail market. It remains to be seen whether that success will continue.

*For the full list read the rest of this article at SmartCompany

Source: http://www.crikey.com.au/2013/03/28/whos-cashing-in-online-the-top-20-australian-retailers/

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Gay marriage at high court: How a case can fizzle

WASHINGTON (AP) ? Late in the oral argument over same-sex marriage in California, Justice Anthony Kennedy made a startling comment, given the months of buildup and mountain of legal briefs that have descended on the justices.

"You might address why you think we should take and decide this case," Kennedy said to lawyer Charles Cooper, representing opponents of same-sex marriage.

One might have thought the court had already crossed that bridge.

But now the justices were openly discussing essentially walking away from the case over California's Proposition 8, a voter-approved ban on gay marriage, without deciding anything at all about such unions.

Indeed, this case offers a rare glimpse at the court's opaque internal workings, in which justices make cold political calculations about what to do and Kennedy's often-decisive vote can never be far from his colleagues' minds.

The court on Wednesday concluded two days of arguments involving gay marriage. In the second case, a constitutional challenge to a portion of the federal Defense of Marriage Act, a majority of the court appeared likely to rule that legally married gay couples should be able to receive a range of benefits that the law currently reserves for straight married couples.

The decision to hear the DOMA case was easy. The Supreme Court almost always has the final word when lower courts strike down a federal law, as they did in this case.

Proposition 8's route to the Supreme Court was not as obvious. The appeals court ruling under review by the justices seems to have been written to discourage the high court from ever taking up the case because it applies only to California and limited a much broader opinion that had emerged earlier from the trial court.

And yet in December, the court decided it would hear the case. It takes a majority of five to decide a case a particular way, but just four justices can vote to add a case to the calendar. And the court does not disclose how the justices vote at this stage.

It seems apparent after the argument, though, that it was the conservative justices who opted to hear Proposition 8. It also seems that one factor in their decision was that this could be their last, best opportunity to slow the nation's march toward recognition of gay marriage at a time when only nine states and the District of Columbia allow gays and lesbians to marry ? despite a rapid swing in public opinion in favor of gay marriage.

From their comments and questions Tuesday, Justices Samuel Alito and Antonin Scalia indicated they preferred what they called the cautious approach: allowing the debate over gay marriage to play out in the states and not overturning by judicial fiat the will of California voters who approved Proposition 8 in 2008. Justice Clarence Thomas, as is his custom, said nothing during the argument, but he and Scalia were dissenters in the court's earlier two gay rights cases in 1996 and 2003.

Chief Justice John Roberts also had tough questions for lawyers for the same-sex couples who sued for the right to marry, and for the Obama administration.

Scalia sought to counter Kennedy's comment, and a similar one from Justice Sonia Sotomayor, that maybe the court should get rid of the case.

"It's too late for that, too late for that now, isn't it? I mean, we granted cert," Scalia said, using the legal shorthand for the court's decision to hear a case. "We have crossed that river, I think."

Once or twice a term, occasionally more often, the justices do dismiss cases after they have been argued, without rendering opinions and establishing a rule for the whole nation. The language they use is the wonderfully vague "dismissed as improvidently granted." Roughly translated, it means "sorry for wasting everyone's time."

That is one potential outcome, discussed publicly by Kennedy and Sotomayor.

Another possibility would be a decision limited to the technical legal question of whether the Proposition 8 supporters have the right to defend the measure in court. If they don't, the court can't reach the broader issues in the case.

On this point, Roberts' view seemed more in line with questions from some of the liberal justices.

So why would a justice who appeared favorably inclined to California's ban on gay marriage want to rule that the case should not even be in front of the court?

The answer is that Roberts might want to dispose of the case in this narrow way if he saw a decision in support of gay marriage emerging and wanted to block it. Or, he might choose this route if the justices appeared unable to reach a decisive ruling of any kind.

Narrowly based decisions sometimes seem more attractive to the justices than fractured rulings.

One example is the court's 2009 decision in a voting rights case in which eight of the justices agreed to sidestep the looming and major constitutional issue in the case after an argument in which the court appeared sharply split along ideological lines.

___

Follow Mark Sherman on Twitter: www.twitter.com/shermancourt

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/gay-marriage-high-court-case-fizzle-065952825--politics.html

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Disabled surfers brave the waves in Brazil

In this March 10, 2013 photo, Renata Glasner, is helped by AdaptSurf volunteers into the water at Leblon beach in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. Glasner, who was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis four years ago, is one of dozens of disabled people on this special strip of Rio de Janeiro beach who is conquering the waves. Glasner is able to savor that experience on a weekly basis thanks to AdaptSurf, a Rio-based non-governmental organization that aims to make beaches accessible to the disabled and encourage them to practice water sports. (AP Photo/Felipe Dana)

In this March 10, 2013 photo, Renata Glasner, is helped by AdaptSurf volunteers into the water at Leblon beach in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. Glasner, who was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis four years ago, is one of dozens of disabled people on this special strip of Rio de Janeiro beach who is conquering the waves. Glasner is able to savor that experience on a weekly basis thanks to AdaptSurf, a Rio-based non-governmental organization that aims to make beaches accessible to the disabled and encourage them to practice water sports. (AP Photo/Felipe Dana)

In this March 10, 2013 photo, a surfboard tagged with a disabled symbol sits on the sand in Leblon beach in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. Dozens of disabled people on this special strip of Rio de Janeiro beach are conquering the waves. Men and women with cerebral palsy, Down syndrome, people missing a limb, the blind, the deaf and even the paralyzed all hit the waves at Leblon. They all require a different kind of assistance depending on their disabilities and maneuver their boards in different ways - some standing, some on their knees, others flat on their bellies and using their body weight to steer the boards. (AP Photo/Felipe Dana)

In this March 16, 2013 photo, AdaptSurf co-founder and physical therapist Luiz Phelipe Nobre, center, teaches surfing lessons at Barra da Tijuca beach in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. AdaptSurf is a Rio-based non-governmental organization that aims to make beaches accessible to the disabled and encourage them to practice water sports. (AP Photo/Felipe Dana)

In this March 10, 2013 photo, AdaptSurf co-founder and physical therapist Luiz Phelipe Nobre pulls the wheelchair holding Renata Glasner, on Leblon beach in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. Glasner, who was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis four years ago, is one of dozens of disabled people on this special strip of Rio de Janeiro beach who is conquering the waves. Glasner is able to savor that experience on a weekly basis thanks to AdaptSurf, a Rio-based non-governmental organization that aims to make beaches accessible to the disabled and encourage them to practice water sports. (AP Photo/Felipe Dana)

In this March 16, 2013 photo, Camila Fuchs, right, is accompanied by an AdaptSurf volunteer as they head out to sea to catch some waves, at Barra da Tijuca beach in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. AdaptSurf is a Rio-based non-governmental organization that aims to make beaches accessible to the disabled and encourage them to practice water sports. The organization is the first of its kind in Brazil. (AP Photo/Felipe Dana)

RIO DE JANEIRO (AP) ? One minute, Renata Glasner is watching the waves crash on Leblon beach from her wheelchair. The next, she's plowing through the turbulent waters on a specially adapted surfboard.

Glasner, a 35-year-old graphic designer who was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis four years ago, is one of dozens of disabled people on this special strip of Rio de Janeiro beach who are conquering the waves. Men and women with cerebral palsy, Down syndrome, people missing a limb, the blind, the deaf and even the paralyzed all hit the water here.

They all require a different kind of assistance depending on their disabilities and maneuver their boards in different ways ? some standing, some on their knees, others like Glasner flat on their bellies and using their body weight to steer the boards. But every one of them emerges from the ocean beaming.

"The taste of salt water has no price," said Glasner, who began to lose control over her legs shortly after the birth of her first child and now requires a helper to hoist her from her amphibious wheelchair onto the surfboard. "It's the taste of freedom. After you're diagnosed with a disease like mine, you can't even imagine you're ever again going to experience that taste."

Glasner is able to savor that experience on a weekly basis thanks to AdaptSurf, a Rio-based non-governmental organization that aims to make beaches accessible to the disabled and encourage them to practice water sports.

In a country where the lack of ramps and working elevators, the shoddy state of sidewalks and the shortage of pedestrian crossings make just leaving home risky for many disabled people, lobbying for their beach accessibility may seem like something of a frivolity.

But in Brazil, with its nearly 4,660 mile-long (7,500 kilometer-long) coastline, the beach is center stage for social interactions of all sorts: It's largely there that families reunite, that friendships are forged, that couples come together or dissolve and deals are struck. For the disabled to be deprived of the physical benefits of the beach and also all the socializing that goes on there is doubly isolating, says AdaptSurf co-founder Henrique Saraiva.

"Imagine, you're in a country that's surrounded by beaches, where the beach is an almost mystical place. But when you're confined to a chair, the farthest you can get is the sidewalk, and you sit there sweating under the sun and watching everyone play in the water," said Saraiva. "It's the most supremely frustrating experience."

He and two friends created the organization in 2007, some 10 years after a mugging left him partially paralyzed.

The then-18-year-old Saraiva was cycling near his home in an upscale Rio neighborhood when he was set upon by several young men who were after his bike. One of them pulled a gun.

"I saw it and kind of froze and he fired. A single shot went in through my stomach and lodged in my spinal column," he said. "Lying there on the street, I felt right away that I wasn't able to move my legs."

An extended hospitalization, a series of surgeries and months of uncertainty followed, with doctors unable to predict whether Saraiva would ever walk again. But the intense physical therapy sessions paid off and Saraiva eventually traded his wheelchair for the crutches that he still uses to get around.

Despite his badly atrophied right leg, Saraiva pulled out his old board and tried to surf again.

"It was magical. The water is the one place where I can forget about my handicap," said Saraiva. "It's the one place where I can feel like I'm just one of the guys, just like everybody else."

In a bid to share that experience with others, Saraiva founded AdaptSurf with the help of two friends. Similar organizations already existed in other places with vibrant beach cultures, such as California and Australia, but Saraiva says AdaptSurf was the first of its kind in Brazil. And it convenes every Saturday and Sunday of the year, weather permitting, he added.

"It was really touch and go at first," Saraiva said. The group would show up at a designated spot on Rio's upscale Leblon beach with one used surfboard and a couple of parasols. At first, there were just three participants, but AdaptSurf has steadily grown and recently received a generous donation to buy new mesh ramps and runways to help people cross the fine white sand and a fleet of special wheelchairs made from a fast-drying mesh and all-terrain monster tires.

"People who spend their whole lives in a wheelchair get on a board and manage to catch a wave and their self-esteem goes through the roof," Saraiva said, adding that even for those participants with disabilities so severe they can't do more than be wheeled, knee-deep, into the water, just being on the beach does a world of good.

Now several dozen disabled people come from across this metropolis of 6 million to attend AdaptSurf, some braving hours-long bus rides to be there every weekend. The group has even had people come from as far as the capital, Brasilia, some 725 miles (1,170 kilometers) away.

Though they set up their parasols directly in front of a lifeguard station, AdaptSurf has never required its services ? a fact Saraiva attributes to the care the group takes. When the ocean's too choppy or the undertow too threatening, they forgo the water and practice their moves on land. Even when the water's at its calmest, participants generally surf one at a time, with at least one able-bodied helper.

Andre Souza, a 33-year-old who was paralyzed from the waist down in a 2001 motorcycle accident, had never surfed before he chanced upon AdaptSurf. Now, he hopes to enter the Guinness Book of World Records as the disabled surfer who's spent the most time on a wave. While the typical disabled surfer spends an average of about 10 to 15 seconds on any given wave, Souza last year spent slightly over three minutes riding a "pororoca," a giant wave that sweeps up rivers in the Amazon region at certain times a year. He hopes to surf another pororoca later this year.

"The first time I caught a wave I can only describe as the happiest moment in my life," said Souza, a lean, strong man with a quick smile and dark, sparkling eyes. "It's the place where I feel the most freedom I've experienced since my accident. All day long, all night long, you are literally a prisoner in your chair, in your bed, in your body. I don't have words to describe the sensation of liberty I feel on my surfboard."

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/cae69a7523db45408eeb2b3a98c0c9c5/Article_2013-03-27-LT-Brazil-Disabled-Surfers/id-949b4965747e49afaa91a2455d71f0f7

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Understanding Reseller Web Hosting | eWealthToday

Reseller web hosting is a type of website hosting in which an account owner can use the allotted bandwidth and hard drive space they lease to host web pages for a third party. This type of hosting can contribute greatly to a website?s success. For more information that can help you truly understand reseller web hosting, read below.

The Basics of Reseller Web Hosting

The person handling this type of web hosting is called a reseller. The basic concept behind reseller web hosting is that the reseller purchases a host?s services and then sells them to his or her own customers, usually in exchange for a certain fee. Typically, resellers are represented by either companies that own a dedicated server or businesses that have purchased reseller hosting plans for a particular web hosting service. The original service provider takes care of any issues relating to hardware, software, and connectivity, while the reseller is responsible for building a customer base with whom to interact and sell the service. A reseller is able to set up and maintain customer accounts via a web interface, commonly referred to as a ?control panel?.

The Benefits of Reseller Web Hosting

For the reseller, the benefit of using reseller web hosting is more than obvious: this type of web hosting is a relatively easy way to increase an income, without all the effort, time, and money usually associated with opening an online business. It can be the perfect starting point for anyone wanting to make money online. For customers, choosing to use a reseller web hosting provider as opposed to a standard hosting service can be a way to save a couple of bucks, because this type of hosting tends to be cheaper. Reseller web hosting, with the right amount of dedication, can be quite a lucrative business venture because every web page needs hosting, so the potential customer base is virtually infinite.

Is It Hard to Get Into Reseller Web Hosting Business?

Not at all. This type of business venture does not require extensive technological knowledge, so anybody serious about making an income from this can certainly succeed. For anyone interested in becoming a reseller, a few steps must be undertaken. Firstly, a thorough market research is required. Browse through several web hosting providers and compare their offers and fees.

After finding the perfect provider, the next step involves establishing the medium through which you can sell the services, typically a web page. Some web hosting services offer resellers the possibility to create their own pricing structure and business plans. Some even offer discounts for those wishing to get in the reselling business. After picking a provider, the final step requires paying attention to marketing strategies, which can help bring clients in and keep them.

Conclusion

These represent some of the most important things needed to be known in order to understand reseller web hosting. If you are interested in either opening or using this type of service, the info provided in this article should help you get started.

Source: http://www.ewealthtoday.com/online-business/web-hosting/understanding-reseller-web-hosting/

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Google picks 8,000 Americans to test Google Glass - Need to know ...

SAN FRANCISCO ? Google has picked 8,000 people in the U.S. who will have?

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SAN FRANCISCO ? Google has picked 8,000 people in the U.S. who will have a chance to wear the company?s new Internet-connected glasses, which are being described as the next breakthrough in mobile computing.

Google Inc. began notifying contest winners Tuesday.

The winners will have to pay $1,500 apiece if they want a test version of the product, called ?Google Glass.? They also will have to travel to New York, Los Angeles or the San Francisco Bay area to pick up the device, which isn?t expected to be available on the mass market until late this year or early next year.

The excitement stems from the belief that Google Glass is at the forefront of a new wave of technology known as ?wearable computing.? Google, Apple Inc. and several other companies also are working on Internet-connected wristwatches, according to published reports that have cited anonymous people familiar with the projects.

Google Glass is supposed to perform many of the same tasks as smartphones, except the glasses respond to voice commands instead of fingers touching a display screen. The glasses are equipped with a hidden camera and tiny display screen attached to a rim above the right eye.

The engineers who have been building Google Glass tout the technology as a way to keep people connected to their email, online social networks and other crucial information without having to frequently gaze down at the small screen on a smartphone. The hidden camera is designed to make it easy for people to take hands-free photos or video of whatever they are doing.

Privacy watchdogs, though, are already worried that Google Glass will make it even more difficult for people to know when they are on camera.

One contest winner promised to take Google Glass to Veteran Administration hospitals so soldiers who fought in World War II can see their memorials before they die. Another plans to wear Google Glass during a trip to Japan so she can take video and pictures that she can share with her grandmother, who lives in the U.S. but would like to see her native country again. A zookeeper plans to use Google Glass to show what it?s like to feed penguins, and another contest winner wants to use the technology to provide maps that will help firefighters in emergencies.

Google said the test, or ?Explorer,? version of Glass will help its engineers get a better understanding of how the technology might be used and make any necessary adjustments before the device hits the mass market.

The company sold an unspecified number of ?Explorer? models to computer programmers last year. The finished product is expected to cost from $700 to $1,500.

Source: http://www2.macleans.ca/2013/03/27/google-picks-8000-americans-to-test-google-glass/

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The Truth Behind the 'Biggest Cyberattack in History'

Is it "the biggest cyberattack in history"? Or just routine flak that network-security providers face all the time?

News websites across the Western world proclaimed Internet Armageddon today (March 27), largely due to a New York Times story detailing a "squabble" between the spam-fighting vigilantes at Spamhaus and the dodgy Dutch Web-hosting company Cyberbunker.

"Fight Jams Internet," the Times headline said. "Global Internet slows," the BBC proclaimed in the wake of the Times' story. Both websites alleged that Netflix streaming was slowing down as a result.

The reality is less exciting, though still serious. The Internet disruptions, which were centered in Western Europe, appear to be largely over, and were largely unnoticed even when occurring.

But, if anything, the incident may prompt a fix for a basic security flaw in the Domain Name System that serves as one of the underpinnings of the Internet.

"Despite the work that has gone into making the Internet extremely resilient, these attacks underscore the fact that there are still some aspects of it that are relatively fragile," said Andrew Storms, director of security operations at San Francisco-based network-security provider nCircle.

Too much information

Cyberbunker appears to be behind a massive distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attack that first tried to first take down Spamhaus, then Spamhaus' network-reliability provider CloudFlare, and finally this past Saturday (March 23) hit CloudFlare's own bandwidth providers in Europe.

Boston-based Akamai Networks told the Times, and Spamhaus told the BBC, that the last round of attacks peaked at 300 gigabits per second, possibly the largest amount of bandwidth ever recorded during a DDoS attack.

According to a CloudFlare blog posting, the attack was launched on March 18 and immediately involved a tactic called DNS amplification, in which unprotected Domain Name System (DNS) servers are used to flood targeted servers with huge amounts of useless information, tying up bandwidth and processing time.

The attacks increased in volume during the week, finally peaking on Saturday when, according to CloudFlare, half of the infrastructure on the London Internet Exchange, an Internet node connecting several large-scale networks, was tied up by the attack. (CloudFlare is based in Palo Alto, Calif., but runs a global network.)

DNS servers are essentially the phone books of the Internet. Every Internet-connected device, from your computer to your smartphone, uses them to match a website address that humans use, such as "www.technewsdaily.com," with an Internet Protocol address that computers and routers use, such as "207.86.128.60."

DNS servers are essential, yet many remain "open," which means they will accept lookup requests from anyone, not just their specified clients.

Attackers make lookup requests using the IP addresses of their targets, then request tons of information, which ends up flooding the targeted servers with huge amounts of DNS information.

[5 (Probably) American Cyberweapons]

Did two wrongs make a bigger wrong?

Spamhaus, a group of related companies based in London and Geneva, was started in 1998 to track and combat email spam and spammers. It maintains a blacklist of Web-hosting companies known to host spammers, and a whitelist of known "clean" Web hosts.

Both lists are used by Internet service providers around the world, and Spamhaus is partly responsible for the huge drop in email spam in recent years.

Some Web-hosting companies have complained they've been unfairly placed on the Spamhaus blacklist. Spammers have launched DDoS attacks against Spamhaus' website and servers. (There's even a "Stophaus" website based in Russia and dedicated to combating what it calls Spamhaus' "underhanded extortion tactics.")

It appears Cyberbunker has both complained and attacked.

Cyberbunker bases its operations in a decommissioned NATO bunker, built to withstand a nuclear war, in the southern Netherlands. The company was founded in 1998 by a group of hackers who proclaimed the "Republic of Cyberbunker," a sovereign state "surrounded by the Netherlands on all borders."

The company pledges not to ask questions about what its clients are up to.

"In most cases we have no idea as to who or where our customers actually are," the Cyberbunker site proclaims. "Customers are allowed to host any content they like, except child porn and anything related to terrorism. Everything else is fine."

Such a policy has attracted some unsavory clients, including the file-sharing site The Pirate Bay, and, according to Spamhaus, the cybercrime gang known as the Russian Business Network. Cyberbunker also claims to have been raided by a Dutch police SWAT team, which apparently found nothing incriminating on the premises.

It was Cyberbunker's alleged hosting of spammers that caused Spamhaus to place both Cyberbunker and its ISP on the Spamhaus blacklist in the fall of 2011.

As a result, Cyberbunker's ISP dropped it as a client, but both the ISP and Cyberbunker posted long manifestos about why Spamhaus was evil.

The issue seems to have lain dormant until March 18, when a false Anonymous campaign called "Operation Stophaus" was proclaimed on the online bulletin board Pastebin.

It listed a litany of complaints against the "tax-circumventing self-declared Internet terrorists" of Spamhaus, then added a variant of the Anonymous "We Are Legion" tagline.

That posting may have been cover for the DDoS attacks that began the same day. In a statement to the New York Times, Sven Olaf Kamphuis, who claimed to speak for Cyberbunker, and whose Google+ page gives his residence as "Republic Cyberbunker," affirmed that the Dutch hosting company was behind the attacks.

"Nobody ever deputized Spamhaus to determine what goes and does not go on the Internet," Kamphuis told the newspaper. "They worked themselves into that position by pretending to fight spam."

It's hard to see how such an attack can be legally justified. The Netherlands has famously lax laws governing the Internet and other digital communications, but odds are Cyberbunker will be facing another SWAT raid very soon.

Fixing a hole

For his blog posting, CloudFlare's Matthew Prince used the headline "The DDoS That Almost Broke the Internet." That's not entirely accurate, since the problems were rather localized.

However, the attack may prompt an overhaul of the DNS system. Prince and others have been vocal about the need to lock down most or all DNS servers so they no longer respond to lookup requests from anyone.

That move would go against the model of openness and accessibility that's guided the Internet for 40 years. The idea has always been that any Internet-connected device can reach any other using any path, and open DNS servers are essential to that model.

But the problem of DNS-amplified attacks has been growing exponentially in just the past few months.

The ongoing attacks against U.S. bank websites which began last September use the tactic, and have reached 100 Gbps at times.

If this week's unrelated attacks truly did hit 300 Gbps, the end to the open-DNS server model may be inevitable.

This story was provided by TechNewsDaily, a sister site to LiveScience. Follow Paul Wagenseil?@snd_wagenseil. Follow us?@TechNewsDaily,?Facebook?or?Google+.

Copyright 2013 LiveScience, a TechMediaNetwork company. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/truth-behind-biggest-cyberattack-history-210723787.html

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