Million Dollar Homepage's Last 100 Pixels

IamNed Peon

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#201

Aghhhhhh I hate pixels

IamNed, Jan 14, 2006 IP

Red Thunder Peon

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#202

Well, this is intresting. You think he will lend in trouble for any of this?

Red Thunder, Jan 14, 2006 IP

Johnburk Peon

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#203

Site has been offline for a few days because of DDoS attacks.

Attacks mounting on 'Million Dollar Home Page'

By Jeremy Kirk, IDG news service

The wildly successful pixel-powered Million Dollar Home Page is coming under intense DDoS (distributed denial of service) attack.

University student Alex Tew, who created the site to finance his schooling, has been selling pixels for US$1 each since September and auctioned the last 1,000 pixels earlier this week on eBay. The technicolor site resembles a well-traveled suitcase covered with stickers, ranging from Che Guevara's image to a stop-smoking ad to a yellow smiley, all leading to paid links.

Wide media coverage of the 21-year-old's project has caused high traffic to the site. At times, it has surged to 200 megabits per second, said Russell Weiss, vice president of technical services for InfoRelay Online Systems Inc., which hosts Tew's site under its Sitelutions service.

The site is hosted on a server in Ashburn, Virginia, in a data center run by Equinix., where InfoRelay has much of its hardware, Weiss said. The high bandwidth use didn't cause problems for InfoRelay, as the company has a multigigabit network and provides bandwidth for a major search engine, Weiss said.

But The Million Dollar HomePage attracted malicious attention, coming under DDoS fire late Tuesday night and early Wednesday morning, he said.

Officials from InfoRelay met to figure out what they could do to stem the attacks within the constraints of Tew's service package, Weiss said. Tew wasn't on an enterprise-level deal that often includes advanced hardware to prevent the effects of DDOS attacks, Weiss said.

Administrators implemented several proprietary internal techniques to slow and alleviate the effects, he said. "We sort of volunteered our time to do what we could," Weiss said.

The attacks are coming from computers worldwide, including the U.S., Europe and Asia, Weiss said. The attacks could be the work of a botnet - a network of computers illegally commandeered for sending spam and DDOS attacks.

InfoRelay has been in contact with law enforcement about the attacks, and has worked with the US Federal Bureau of Investigation before, Weiss said. "We don't like to see this," he said. "It is illegal."

While Tew reportedly implored friends and family to buy pixels on the site at first, and attention snowballed as the project continued. He hit his $1 million goal in ads, although Tew wrote in his blog that he was waiting to confirm bids and payment before announcing who purchased the last 1,000 pixels.

Tew has said he will keep the site up for five years, and advertisers are prohibited from reselling their pixels.
Click to expand...

Would people now want a refund?

Johnburk, Jan 16, 2006 IP

lorien1973 Notable Member

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#204

why? when the site is back up, it'll get another traffic boost from this press.

lorien1973, Jan 16, 2006 IP

IamNed Peon

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#205

Maybe people will sue, especially those who bought pixel later when they find that the pixels no longer generate much traffic that was promissed or anysales. This could happen once people move on to the next fad and stop visiting the website.

IamNed, Jan 16, 2006 IP

Notting Notable Member

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#206

Well i think this is the last well hear about this one now.....

Notting, Jan 23, 2006 IP

donwebcorleone Peon

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#207

that was a great idea, it is sad that now people want to sue him.

donwebcorleone, Jan 23, 2006 IP

MtCowboy4Life Peon

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#208

IamNed said: ↑

Marketing is expensive though. You can waste thosands of dollars on marketing and get nill.
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you must be marketing it all wrong then

MtCowboy4Life, Oct 8, 2006 IP

Tyler Banfield Well-Known Member

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#209

This thread is back from the

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Tyler Banfield, Oct 8, 2006 IP

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Million Dollar Homepage's Last 100 Pixels

IamNed Peon

Red Thunder Peon

Johnburk Peon

lorien1973 Notable Member

IamNed Peon

Notting Notable Member

donwebcorleone Peon

MtCowboy4Life Peon

Tyler Banfield Well-Known Member

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Million Dollar Homepage's Last 100 Pixels

IamNed Peon

Red Thunder Peon

Johnburk Peon

lorien1973 Notable Member

IamNed Peon

Notting Notable Member

donwebcorleone Peon

MtCowboy4Life Peon

Tyler Banfield Well-Known Member

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