The DNS Tales

Explaining the DNS as a story with security awareness, motivation and entertainment.

LOS CUENTOS DE DNS- Explicando el DNS como una historia con conciencia de seguridad, motivación y entretenimiento.
डीएनएस टेलस- DNS को सुरक्षा जागरूकता, प्रेरणा और मनोरंजन के साथ एक कहानी के रूप में समझाते हुए।

حكايات DNS

شرح DNS كقصة مع الوعي الأمني والدافع والترفيه.

ডিএনএস টেলস- সুরক্ষা সচেতনতা, অনুপ্রেরণা এবং বিনোদন সহ ডিএনএসকে একটি গল্প হিসাবে ব্যাখ্যা করা।
OS CONTOS DO DNS- Explicar o DNS como uma história com consciência de segurança, motivação e entretenimento.
DNS СКАЗКИ- Объясняя DNS как историю с пониманием безопасности, мотивацией и развлечением.

  -by Utpal Bhattacharjee (author)

DISCLAIMER:

This article is written only for knowledge, awareness, and entertainment purposes. Therefore, some security related topics are given and the main focus given is their mitigation techniques and awareness. So it is Pledged to use the obtained information from this article ethically and responsibly, properly observing the policy and laws. Do not attempt to violate the laws. Any wrong, unethical, harmful action or activity related to this content is solely your responsibility, the writer and owner is not responsible.
The story, places, characters (Mr Prosperous, Smith, Lily, John, Olivia, Mr Recresolber, Mr Cloudflare, Mr Itresolbar, chief, Yaphet, Abnerdous, police officer etc) events used are entirely fictitious. No identification with actual persons (living or dead), places, buildings and products is intended or should be inferred. Any similarity to actual events, persons(living or dead) or places is purely coincidental.

Once upon a time when John, Lily and Olivia lives in the Glinkleland village. They live with their grandfather Mr V. Prosperous in their house. According to the name of his business, the house is known as mybusinessji.com to all. They used to learn in the little village school named Kiddistwidi.

Mr. Prosperous used to fetch information about news, media, study materials etc from many website offices across the World and gave them to the people of Glinkleland and nearby places. They are the clients and depend on him. Also Mr Prosperous had his own website office. He was a very gentle and helpful man who had helped villagers in every situation he could. Later additionally he had some responsibilities of the security of Glinkleland.

They live in a very friendly and joyful manner.

In Glinkleland a villager Smith lived who belonged to a poor family. He used to help Mr Prosperous in his work. He used to classify the questions, and requests from the villagers and helped Mr Prosperous to fetch information from the website offices. When there is high pressure of work, they used to share the workload.

Mr Prosperous taught him many things related to his job. When Smith was a child he couldn't go to school and used to work. Then Mr Prosperous tough him and made him stay in his house. Smith obeyed him very much.

Mr Prosperous always used to say, "Be conscious about security and don't compromise unfairly whoever is doing the wrong and unjust. Keep your security tools updated. Don't overlook any fault and don't trust anyone blindly."

As Smith belong to poor family they wore old torn clothes; they can't even enjoy festivals in the village. But Mr Prosperous always helped them. Because of him Smith studied beyond high school level.

When Smith completed his study then one day Mr Prosperous brought him to the ServerOffice. Mr Prosperous showed and described everything and said to Smith that he had to operate these, and then he was frightened. He said that he couldn't do those typical jobs. As he belongs to a poor family, he couldn't learn well; and also everybody in Glinkleland used to hesitate to give Smith any important task.

Then Mr Prosperous said, "Have you ever noticed that elephants are tied with chains in their legs from their childhood? And later when they grow up to youth, they don't try to tear off the chain though they can easily do it?"

Smith said, "No. But why?"

Mr Prosperous said, "Because they can't leave their old though."

Smith said, "Ohh."

Mr Prosperous said, "Similarly society has formed these rusty, rotten ideas in your mind that you can't do it. Leave the thought and work hard with courage. Courage is not the absence of fear, it is gained by facing fear."

Smith said, "But I'm not so good at studying."

Mr Prosperous said, "Only some marks of exam can't determine anything. I've been seeing you since your childhood; you have the potential, talent and capability. So know your own strength."

Smith said, "How can I do this? I can't I can't."

Mr Prosperous said, "Always remember persistence overcomes resistance."

Then after more convinces Smith started to learn everything in the ServerOffice with a new courage and soon started working.

But after some years, everything got changed dramatically. At the night of one day, Mr Prosperous said to Smith, "Don't compromise with bad people. Sacrifice anything with smile if needed. While doing this, your heart may tremble but your hand shouldn't. So destroy me otherwise my heart will be broken."

But why? Let's see........

In the present year once on a holiday morning John, Lily and Olivia pretended to be their grandfather to describe his work. How did he fetch information from the website offices across the world? Mr. Prosperous smiled and said, "OK I shall certainly tell and describe about my business, but after the breakfast." The three kids agreed and started breakfast. After that, they came onto the balcony and sat on the chair. Mr. Prosperous started- "My business is to fetch and give information like news, media, study materials etc as per the queries of people of our village and nearby places. I fetch information from ServerOffices across the World. This is quite a complicated process and I am explaining with an example. Let, John has asked me to give you the page of the MyBusinessJi.com website. Now at the beginning, I don't know anything. To fetch the page from the website I have to know its IP address."

John asked why.

Right then Smith came and joined the discussion.

Mr. Prosperous says, "We can remember the name of websites but the devices can't understand our language. They know some special addresses called IP addresses and use them to communicate. I shall tell you about this later. Now come to my point, at first I shall search for it in the local directory book where previously used records are saved. If I get the IP address of MyBusinessJi.com there, then I can connect to the ServerOffice using this. I shall send a special type of request called http or https request to the ServerOffice which returns the webpage. But if not I shall contact Mr O.S. Grimbadoshi who has another directory book called OSCache. If he finds the desired IP there, he will give me. But if not I have to contact Mr. D.N. Recresolbar. He will fetch the desired IP address and give me. Finally, I shall contact the ServerOffice; this is my business. Also, I have my own ServerOffice."

Lily asked, "What if Mr Recresolber can't give an IP address to you?"

Mr Prosperous replied, "Then I shall contact another person Mr Recresolber who also acts as mixed mode server."

John asked, "What is mixed mode grandfa?"

Smith replied, "It means he has multiple functionality. He supports recursive queries which means he gives replies by querying from others and then saves the results on his cache for future use. And also he gives replies from his own domain for which he is authoritative."

Olivia said, "Quite interesting. But how Mr Recresolbar fetch the IP address?"

Smith said with smile, "You are too small now, it will not make any sense to you."

Mr Prosperous said, "No Smith. It's good to have an appetite for knowledge because it gives the best return."

Olivia again asked, "How Mr Recresolbar fetch the IP address?"

Mr. Prosperous said, "I don't know how. We shall go to his house to know this on another day."

Smith said, "Also we have our own ServerOffice and Authoffice. Here we use an open source software called BIND. Its full form is 'Berkeley Internet Name Domain'."

Lily asked, "What is open source?"

Mr Prosperous replied, "Open source means whose design is open. Anyone can access, modify and share this. BIND is the most popular DNS software which is open source."

Olivia said, "Ohh. So it is called open source!"

Smith said, "Yes. But we can't tailor it as we require."

Mr Prosperous said, "Yes. And we should hide the BIND version for security. And Smith, do you configured BIND?"

Smith, "Yes. But......"

John asked curiously, "You have BIND?"

Mr Prosperous said, "Yes. Smith is going to start a BIND DNS server on Linux with his own money and effort. This is going to be a big success in our village. It is his dream of many years."

Olivia said, "Amazing!"

Mr Prosperous asked, "Smith, what you have done to do this?"

Smith replied, "At first I have installed the full package. Then I have created firewall rules to accept requests on port 53 for DNS."

Mr Prosperous said, "Good. Then you must have assigned FQDN for the server."

Smith replied yes.

Olivia replied, "What is FQDN?"

Smith said, "It's a Fully Qualified Domain Name. It specifies the exact location in DNS. It contains the hostname, domain name, TLD and root. And yes, I've assigned a FQDN. Also, I've set the nameserver. Then I configured the required files including zone files."

John said, "Zone file?"

Smith replied, "Yes. It contains the domain names to IP address mappings. There are two lookups called forward and reverse lookup. So two zone files required."

Lily said, "Wow."

Mr Prosperous said, "OK. Now say, have you changed the group ownership for those two files?"

Smith said, "Yes. I've done this. And also validated the files for a syntax error."

Olivia shouted, "I can't understand anything."

Everybody laughed.

Smith said, "But the server isn't working. I've tested the configurations, and hardware multiple times, but found nothing. The server isn't working."

Mr Prosperous said, "OK, let's go there."

They again tested the server but found nothing. Smith got worried.

"What a trouble," Smith said.

Mr Prosperous replied, "The paths of our lives are not always smooth. We have to keep trying without giving up. When the server will start to run well, we and our Glinkleland will be benefited."

Smith said, "Yes I understand. But after all the efforts, it's still not working. What happened to it, I can not understand why..."

Mr Prosperous said, "Don't run away, keep trying. Of course, there is something wrong. You have the will to start the server which will take us far away."

Smith said, "I've learned worked for this since last few years. I've raised money, brought the hardware, and done everything. But now it's not working. All my efforts were wrong."

Mr Prosperous said, "See, the result takes time, but when it comes, everything got changed. Your effort, hard work, wishes will turn into success. So cool your head and start from the beginning. Find the mistake."

Smith did so. Suddenly Mr Prosperous noticed that the IP address got changed whenever the server restarted. He told this to Smith. He said, "I have configured DHCP. Maybe it is the cause..."

He then configured static IP. Later when the server restarted it started working.

Smith jumped with joy. Really his efforts, hard work, and wishes will have turned into success.

The next week they went to the house of Mr Recresolbar in the neighbouring village. Then he was cleaning his car. Seeing the guests he welcomed them and let them sit in his drawing room. After talking snack the kids asked how did he find the IP address of a website, in this case, MyBusinessJi.com.

Mr Recresolbar said, "Well this is a very good question. As I acted as a mixed-mode recursive resolver I have the responsibility to fetch the IP address of the requested website. We call it A-record. When you ask me to bring the IP of MyBusinessJi.com I see my directory book also called cache if I can find its IP address there. I create its entries according to the previously searched results. If not found then I asked the head officers to call Root. There are many head officers across the world managed by VeriSign, Cogent, NASA, Netnod, ICANN etc. I contact them by IP addresses. 13 anycast IP addresses start with alphabets A to M and to find them I have a 'root hint file'. I shall explain about anycast later."

Olivia said, "Ohhhhhh. Do you contact all 13 IP addresses?"

Mr Recresolbar replied, "No child. I use BIND software which uses the 'Smoothed Round Trip Time' method and select the root server which has lower latency SRTT value."

Mr. Prosperous says "Ohh I see."

Mr Recresolbar continued, "When I asked the Root officer about the website mybusinessji.com, he noticed that it had '.com' at the end. They have zone files and a list of Top Level Domains. From there the root sends the query to the .com who is the officer under the root server. Like him, many officers are also called TLDs. .com is called generic TLD and he is the most popular. Like him, many generic TLDs exist. Each of them has separate registries. All of them are managed by various organizations under ICANN."

Mr Prosperous said, "Ohh. Are their only generic TLDs?"

Mr Recresolbar said, "No. Their are many more like ccTLDs, sTLD, restricted TLD, internationalized TLD, one infrastructure TLD (ARPA)."

Olivia said, "Amazing."

Mr Recresolbar said, "Now come to the line, when the query goes to .com he searches his directory book and finds the IP address of the Authoffice who can give the IP of ServerOffice of the website. Next, when he sends the query to them, they tell that they are authoritative for the queried zone by setting AA bit in their response. Then they give the required IP address of the web server as a response; which is called an authoritative answer. This Authoffice is called an authoritative nameserver and its record is called NS record. Then the .com sends back the response to root and then to me. Now finally I give the IP i.e. the A-record to your grandfather."

Mr. Prosperous said, "The next steps I take..., I've already told you. Now here I have something to say. Sometimes the website have another part called subdomain. To get this I must have another record called CName record."

Lily said, "What is it?"

Mr. Prosperous said, "CName or Canonical name is a special type of record which maps the subdomain name to another; for example in south.MyBusinessJi.com 'south' is the subdomain which is written in host and points to MyBusinessJi.com"

John said, "That's very interesting."

Mr Recresolbar said, "Now, here is an important parameter called Time To Leave, in short TTL. When the IP address of MyBusinessJi.com is found, In addition to giving it to your grandfather, I store it in my directory book. But how long? -it depends on the value of TTL. If its value is less than 30 seconds, we don't understand."

John said, "Ohh. Is it very important in your business?"

Mr Recresolbar said, "Yes of course, because it directly affects the volume of queries in our authoritative service. Also when the DNS record got changed quickly, it took longer time to all users than expected. Now TTL values ​​should be between 1 hour to 24 hours for records that rarely change. But for those records who update the endpoint dynamically should have short TTL values."

Mr Prosperous said, "For the records of load balancing, failover etc; Right?"

Mr Recresolbar replied, "Yes Mr Prosperous. Now remember, the value of TTL shouldn't be too high as it further delays the propagation and causes more downtime of some critical records when traffic is moved from one server to another."

Mr Prosperous said, "Ohh you are right, I've faced this delay; maybe for the very high TTL value. But their maybe any other reason."

Mr Recresolbar said, "It's quite possible. Maybe for the DNS latency which affects the Internet speed directly. If latency is high, users will experience additional delays. As a result, they will get annoyed and switch to other DNS services. Also for a heavily trafficked website, there are many DNS queries. So if the latency is unnecessarily high, the webpages will load slower. This situation is even worse for wireless networks."

Mr Prosperous said, "Ohh I see. But how can I keep a low latency value?"

Mr Recresolbar said, "Ahh, keep the distance between the DNS server and the users as low as possible. Monitor and stop malicious DNS traffic. Scale your DNS infrastructure correctly."

Mr Prosperous said, "OK I'll."

They took some meals and again started their conversation.

Mr Recresolbar said, "Not only this. We have to be very conscious about security. We use encryption Key-pair to trust and authenticate each others. To verify root zone, root trust anchor is used. Or bad people will cheat us. Maybe they pretend to be one of us by stealing anyone's identity. Then they will misguide. Also in some cases all traffic will flow through them and as a result they can modify traffic. Information stealing is a big common problem of the unauthentication."

Olivia said, "Very bad."

Mr Prosperous said, "This has happened multiple times. Even if any stranger comes and wants to do friendship talking good, don't trust."

Mr Recresolbar said, "Yes. Also, we always have to do monitoring to know if any unethical activity happening or not.

Now if for some reason I become unavailable, then one of my friends takes the responsibility. Also, there is another person named Mr. DN. Itresolbar who gives only a reference to your grandfather. Then he has to do queries to the root, TLD, and Authoffice to get the IP address of the website."

Lily said, "What a problem. Problems are always annoying."

Mr Recresolber said, "Don't run away from the problem. Because it corrects us, teaches us, and builds our self confidence. So take the problem as an opportunity. We will shine more by solving more problems."

Mr Prosperous said, "Yes, you are right... In the case of Mr Itresolbar, I have to work a lot. Once due to Itresolbar, we have faced a big trouble."

Mr Recresolbar asked, "What? I don't know anything; say what happened?"

Mr Prosperous said, "One day Mr Itresolbar went to a night party. I also had work pressure and had to work at night. I had called him for some need and asked about some secret informations. He had told me but, but in the crowded place. Later we have found that the secret informations was stolen and we have lost some money."

Mr Recresolbar said, "Oh my goodness. That's why I always say that talk about official and confidential information in a Secluded place."

At the night of that day in the house of Mr Prosperous, he said to the threesome, "Bad people can do anything if security overlooked. Do you know, once Smith was in danger?"

Olivia said, "No. What happened?"

Mr Prosperous said, "He used to share everything with his friends; both general and confidential information. Once one thief guessed where he kept his money and stole. Later it's found that when he is talking to his friends, by mistake he gave a clue of his secret place which the thief heard."

John said to Lilly, "Hear this, don't trust strangers. That day, the stranger came and told you that Grandpa had sent him to bring you. And you trusted. If brother Smith hasn't come, you will be kidnapped."

Lily said, "He has shown me Grandpa's letter."

John said, "But you haven't read this carefully. That was a scam. Also seeing the letter, you have told the stranger about the lock of our house's Backdoor."

Mr Prosperous said, "You also have made a mistake John. Once you have dumped the Xerox copy of my important files in the dustbin. I have to pay a lot for that."

Later on the day, the server in the website office of mybusinessji.com failed to work. The villagers were shouting outside their house. Mr Prosperous and Smith were trying hard to resolve this but failed. Mr Prosperous said, "We haven't arranged a redundant server. Now here is an outage. But why?"

Smith replied, "Due to multiple causes. The AC got failed and on the day before yesterday consistent power failure occurred."

Mr Prosperous said, "And I'm seeing that there are some old and rejected parts of devices in this room. Why?"

Smith said, "Oh, last week I've changed some parts. I have thrown away these parts but some of them still remained here. I had a lot of work to do, so I didn't notice."

Mr Prosperous said, "Don't give excuses, clean this immediately. If it is important to you, you will always find a way. And also I've made the mistake of avoiding the redundancy. Now here is the single point of failure. If I had done that, it would have been more efficiency, speed and availability."

Right then the police came. They said that they had a complaint that trafficking and stealing were occurring from their house. Many villagers have complained over the last few months. Mr Prosperous denied it and said, "What are you saying? I've been working here for the last 21 years. I have the relation of the soul with villagers. Do I help to steal?"

Smith said, "We've told them multiple times to be more careful and conscious. However, most people haven't done it. As a result, they are theft. So what is our fault?"

One villager shouted, "We have kept our doors and windows secure. And also we have protected files with passwords."

Smith replied, "But with weak one, easily predictable; same password in multiple places. Have you ever searched for other vulnerable places in your home??"

Right then, the chief arrived and started to blame Mr Prosperous. He said, "I've noticed that you are doing wrong for a long time and pretending good in front of these simple and fool villagers. Tell us what are you doing wrong?"

Mr Prosperous said, "No. You are defaming me with slander. I haven't done anything wrong."

Then some more villagers arrived and supported Mr Prosperous. The dispute escalated and mayhem was about to take place which was stopped by the police. The officer said, "We have reports that important files, money of the chief and many other villagers have been trafficked out through your house. Now tell us how did it happen?"

Mr Prosperous replied, "How do I know?"

Chief said loudly, "You know all. Tell us the truth."

Smith said, "No, we've done nothing wrong. You may check." The police checked everything in their house but found no clue. Smith said softly to Mr Prosperous, "Rogues supplant justice. I think the chief has done something."

Mr Prosperous said, "I also think so."

Smith said, "Sometimes I think I'll finish him."

Mr Prosperous said, "Never. Control your thoughts because this will become your Words;

control your words because this will become your actions; control your actions because this will become your habit; control your habit because this will become your character; and control your character because this will make your fate."

Smith said, "Okay. But I've noticed that the chief has been trying to defame you from the beginning. He wants to fire you from this village and bring another person he likes to your place."

Mr Prosperous said, "Not only that, there is another reason. I help villagers as much as I can, and the chief cannot tolerate this. His fear is that I will become the chief of the village in his place with the support of the villagers."

Smith said, "He thinks to his nature. That's why maximum villagers don't like him, just fear."

Mr Prosperous said, "Now our common mindset is- it is important to harm others to win. But we lose ourselves by losing each other. It happens everywhere."

Smith said, "That's right."

Mr Prosperous said, "But if we work together, and help each other, instead of doing competition and enmity; we all shall win. We can make a lot of improvements in this village. Not just in this village, any organization can make a lot of progress."

Smith said, "And if our village gets improved, we all will be benefited. It's fine. But why do some villages go with the chief? Thought all know his nature who can do anything for his interest."

Mr Prosperous replied, "When anyone lives with wrong for a long time, then he can't see the wrong in that wrong. His brain thinks that this wrong is good for him."

Smith said, "Now what should we do for the server?"

Mr Prosperous replied, "Buy a new hardware."

Smith said, "What! Do we have to pay a lot for this? Maybe we'll face a big loss. Instead we may services it and change the damaged parts."

Mr Prosperous replied, "No Smith. It's not enough to only avoid a problem. The smartness is to face the problem and solve it. Don't worry. If our business runs well, we'll recover this. And also our BIND server is giving good profit."

Smith said, "OK. And what about the data stealing of villagers?"

Mr Prosperous replied, "This is due to the lack of consciousness of the villagers. Not for us."

Within the next two days, new hardware was installed replacing the old one. Smith cleaned the room and serviced the AC and UPS. Then everything starts working as before. Also due to lack of any proof, no charges are applied to Mr Prosperous and Smith.

Time was spent well. But in the next month, a disaster happens.

On a busy day, Mr Prosperous had a high workload as many villagers and nearby people asked for information. This was because then there was election time in that country. Mr. Prosperous was sending queries to Mr. Recresolbar as usual but suddenly he stopped and became unavailable. There were many queries sent but no response was found. Then Mr Prosperous tried to contact Mr DN. Itresolbar, but also got no response. Mr Prosperous has no other option.

On that day he couldn't give information to the people as they asked.

Later in the evening, he rushed to the house of Mr Recresolbar. He was ill then and couldn't even stand on his own feet. After inquiring it was revealed that surprisingly Mr Recresolbar had millions of requests on that day and due to the workload he got ill. It could have been worse but he was saved by a young brave man Mr. Cloudflare. He saved him with his huge strength and power.

Mr Recresolbar thanked Mr Cloudflare and said, "Many many thanks. You are the real hero. No one else could have saved me if you didn't. Also, you have destroyed some robots who have come to kill me. Our country needs brave men like you. But how have you done this impossible task?"

Mr Cloudflare said, "Believe is the difference between impossible and possible. When we know ourselves and our enemies, then we don't need to worry for the fight. There were malicious traffic coming from some enemy's devices. This is called DDoS attack."

Mr Prosperous was frightened.

Mr Cloudflare said, "But now everything is fine. I have the strength to face all the load and absorb them. Also, I can protect from bad requests by filtering them; no matter how tough they are."

Mr. Prosperous also thanked and praised the young man very much. They all became very happy.

Mr. Prosperous said to Mr. Recresolbar, "From today please remember this brave man Mr. Cloudflare; contact him whenever needed. And also I suggest that you should keep some assistants."

Mr. Recresolbar said, "Yes, I should do it. I am planning to make a network of my colleagues to balance the workload among us."

Mr Cloudflare said, "And please don't response the requests from users of unknown zone i.e. don't work as an open DNS. Also use malware protection tools."

Mr Recresolber said, "I shall definitely obey these."

Mr Cloudflare said, "Now see, there are various techniques to launch DDoS attacks. I like to tell you some more practice and techniques to be safe."

Mr Recresolber said, "Yes of course."

Mr Cloudflare said, "Firstly you should increase your bandwidth and the size of the memory buffer.

As you have said you should make a large, distributed, redundant network to balance the workload.

If possible use anycast network which I am already using.

Use anti-DDoS hardwares and software.

Please check out the reassemble process of received requests and messages."

Mr Prosperous said, "Okay."

Mr Cloudflare said, "Limit the maximum number of connections for a single IP, limit the maximum connection time for a client.

Configure the firewall properly and implement ingress filtering.

Perform a test to know how well your network will hold up against any Unexpected traffic surge.

Please disable the IP broadcast address in your network.

Use WAF, IDS, IPS and reverse proxy-based protection.

And finally, contact me and use my services."

Mr Prosperous and Mr Recresolber together said, "Of course. You are the Trustworthy saviour."

From that day everything became as previous and their job continued.

But after some weeks the chief brought a man Yaphet in Glinkleland who was in the same profession as Mr Prosperous. He and the chief rent a house and made another ServerOffice near chief's house. Yaphet started his work there.

When Smith found out he rushed to the mybusinessji.com house and told Mr Prosperous everything. After listening he said, "This is exactly what I thought."

Smith said, "But now what can we do?"

Mr Prosperous said, "Don't worry. We have sustained some of our customers because of our services and goodwill. We have always tried to help the villagers, and the maximum of them support us."

Smith said, "But I've come to know that Mr Yaphet has worked with many modern technologies and the chief has brought him from foreign."

Mr Prosperous said, "So what? Only quality of service is not enough Smith. Popularity and goodwill are also important. Because of these many people beyond Glinkleland come to us."

On the next day, chief and Yaphet brought new devices and some workers to their new ServerOffice. They started to do setup and configuration of the devices. Many villagers had noticed this and some of them informed Mr Prosperous.

Within a few days, the chief and Yaphet had inaugurated their new ServerOffice.

Some villagers started to use their service and were praised for the latest technology. They have started to give their service at a lower price and hence their users increased day by day.

Smith got worried and said this to Mr Prosperous. He replied, "This maybe good at the beginning of their business but the profit margin will not be good enough."

Smith said, "But, but our users are decreasing day by day."

Mr Prosperous said, "Relax, take it easy. We'll also grow."

Smith said, "OK but... We are losing. Here, you have a reputation but..."

Mr Prosperous replied, "Winning is not the only characteristic of a good player, he can also walk backwards- there is no shame in this. Then he finds time to prepare and starts to play with new enthusiasm."

They also started to improve their services. They had improved the policy of their firewall to stop malicious DNS traffic. Scaled up the DNS infrastructure by adding redundancy. The local directory book had been improved for faster loading and the BIND version upgraded.

Mr Prosperous wanted to scale their business beyond Glinkleland and he told this to Smith.

Smith said, "This will be too risky for us at present."

Mr Prosperous said, "Remember 'no risk, no gain'. We can't go forward in our lives, dreams and goals because of the fear of fall. But we have to remove it from our mind for the growth and the success. So don't fear and find rooms for a new office outside this village."

Smith said, "But it is not so easy. More people like us are doing the same."

Mr Prosperous said, "Be positive Smith. Planning and imagination are done before any big project. Then it is converted into reality. Willpower with strong desire is the key of any big success."

Within the next two days Smith found another room for their office outside Glinkleland; they rent this and set up new devices without knowing anyone. Now because of the positions of the two ServerOffices, their total coverage increased. Workload distributed and average ping latency decreased. Additionally Mr Prosperous started to gave some extra services free of cost; hence they had got some more users.

But when the chief came to know this he got jealous and decided to give a new offer to users- 'use service and pay later'.

The idea really worked and many villagers grabbed the opportunity. Hence gradually maximum villagers of Glinkleland became their users. On the other side, the situation of mybusinessji.com became poorer. But due to the outside users, Mr Prosperous didn't get upset. Instead, he accepted his mistakes and tried to improve.

After some months Glinkleland had flooded with heavy rainfall. One day, through some holes and cracks of the ServerOffice of the chief and Yaphet, water started to come in. As a result, the UPS got damaged and a short circuit occurred. Although maximum devices remained OK the routers and the firewall got damaged badly. Yaphet rushed to the chief's home and told all this to him. Immediate recovery was needed but due to the offer of the chief, they didn't have enough cash in their hand. He started to mourn.

From that day their service went down. When Smith found out this, he told to Mr Prosperous. He then said, "This has to be occurred due to negative cash flow. Because of the offer of the chief, they don't have enough cash in their hands for disaster recovery. Though there is margin in their account book."

Smith said, "Ohh I see. And I think due to lower prices, their total profit may not be good enough."

Mr Prosperous said, "Yes, it can be. They haven't thought about how they will recover their margin, or how they will survive in their critical time. And now they are sinking. In critical times, those who prepare to become favourable can only survive. This is a universal rule."

Smith said, "Yes. Now before some days, maximum villagers went to them. It seemed that they would take it all."
Mr Prosperous said, "No Smith, it never happened. We've started our business long time ago and have some assured users from this village and outside it. And due to fear of the chief we have increased our business outside Glinkleland, which should have been done a long time ago. By the way, we scaled up our business."
Within a few days the chief's business closed and again mybusinessji.com Prospered and regained its old glory.
After some months, one day huge quarrel occurred between Mr Prosperous and the village chief. The chief asked for a bank website but got another one having the same look. He came to Mr Prosperous's house with some boys.
Mr. Prosperous said, "You have asked me for Zeradoush bank and I have given. Then what is my mistake?"
Chief said, "You have given me a fake website and they have stolen my money. That is your mistake. Maybe you are with them. Now return my full money otherwise..."
One of the boys said, "It is your mistake to give our chief Burglar's website."
Mr. Prosperous said, "No it's not mine. See, this is the paper where chief have written that he want 'www.zeradous.com'. Read it."
Reading the paper the boy surprised and said, "Ohh, there is a spelling mistake. A 'h' is missing at the end. It should be 'www.zeradoush.com' instead."
The chief astonished. He read the paper and then agreed. But inside his mind, he was angry.
On that day they learned the importance of correct spelling. If a slight mistake happens then the website's domain name gets changed. This is called typosquatting and is a serious problem.

Later on another day, some villagers came to mybusinessji.com with some complaints that their important documents and some treasures had been stolen. Mr Prosperous asked if they had given strong passwords to protect these or not. They said with a stammering voice that they had given. Also, they had used ark and some protection tools for 2 years. Hearing this Mr Prosperous said, "This is the mistake you have made. Give a strong password and update your ark and your security tools. Or your documents and treasures will be stolen."

After some years suddenly one day, Mr Prosperous got very sick. He was taken to the hospital and seeing him the doctor got worried. He said, "Mr Prosperous is so weak that he can't even breathe well. What happened to him?"

Lily said, "Today many people came to his office. And also he has got millions of replies from Mr Recresolbar and many others. Due to the workload, he got sick. But he hasn't sent many queries for which those replies came. Then why did they come? We don't know."

Right then someone knocked on the door. Turning the neck, John said, "Oh Abnerdous. See what happened."

Abnerdous is the nephew of Mr Prosperous. After knowing the fact he rushed to their house first and now to the hospital. He heard all from Smith and said, "I think, this is an attack from any adversary. Someone wants to destroy Uncle. But who?"

Lily said, "I don't know."

Smith said, "I also don't know. The adversary can't be from our Glinkleland."

Olivia said, "I think Mr Grimbadoshi or Mr Recresolbar can tell. We should ask them."

Abnerdous said, "OK, we should go to their house. Olivia and Smith, please stay here with Uncle and we are going to Mr Grimbadoshi."

When they came to Mr Grimbadoshi's house he said that he didn't know anything.

Next they went to the house of Mr Recresolbar and said everything. After hearing all Mr Recresolbar said, "Mr Prosperous has sent huge queries about total 3000 domains, not only for single record, for the entire records of each domain. I and my other colleagues got frostbite to reply all the queries. Ahh, all total the number of replies were millions."

John said, "But grandfa has never asked, he didn't send huge queries."

Abnerdous asked for proof and it was shown. Seeing this John and Lily got worried.

Lily shouted, "It's false it's false. Grandfa has never sent these queries. But how the source addresses are of our house? Something is wrong." 

Mr Recresolbar disagreed and stayed strictly on his words. He called other colleagues and all of them said the same. They blamed Mr Prosperous for all of these and also to make them work so much.

Abnerdous got angry and blame them for all this. The quarrel continued until someone called the police. Police came and heared all. The officer told, "OK, we have to do our investigation and maybe we call anyone of you to our police station. Now go home."

On the next day, many people came to Mr Prosperous's house and started shouting, "Where is Mr Prosperous. We have many questions and he has to reply."

Lily said, "Be patient, grandfa is in the hospital. He can't work right now. In the past, he had replied to all your questions and also helped you many times in your critical situations. Then why are you questioning now?"

One of the people said, "We don't have patience. Mr Prosperous has taken money for his work in the past. He promised to give an answer. Call him right now."

John said, "Why don't you understand, he can't come now. He is sick and admitted to the hospital."

One of the people was a neighbour of the village chief. He shouted, "We don't know anything, he has to come. In the past, he has cheated our chief and many others. Due to him, our treasures are stolen multiple times. And now you are doing drama. Call him right now, otherwise we will hire someone else to do this job."

Abnerdous said, "Don't lie, you lier. Uncle has not cheated anyone in his life. Instead, he helped many people in this village. You have made some mistakes, and now you are blaming him. It seems that someone of you has done this to humiliate him."

Smith said, "Write. Mr Prosperous is very gentle and a helpful person, who helped everyone in this village. He can never cheat."

The neighbour said, "Don't say rubbish. You all are the cheater and lier........"

The quarrel continued. In the end, Smith, Abnerdous, John, Olivia and Lily had to hear many slanders. But they didn't tell these to Mr Prosperous.

After some days Mr Prosperous got recovered. He was taken to home secretly so that no one could see him. Later when he heard all the events that happened then felt very sad. He said, "Why are they telling this? I haven't done anything wrong."

Abnerdous said, "All of them are ungrateful."

John said, "Yes. And I can't understand how the huge queries went with our address as the source address? Who has sent them from our house?"

Olivia said, "Yes, how is it possible?"

Abnerdous said, "Still the police haven't got any clue."

Then someone knocked on the door. They got feared. Abnerdous opened the door and saw Smith come. When he came into the room he asked about the health of Mr Prosperous. Later after some conversation, he said, "The village chief and his followers are trying to oust us. Many villagers are afraid of the chief and just obey him. But I don't fear the chief."

Mr Prosperous said, "In the past, the chief had blamed me many times for various reasons. He also became my competitor to destroy me. He is doing these because he does not tolerate that I help the villagers."

Smith said, "Yes that's the matter. Now say what happened to you?"

Abnerdous told all.

Mr Prosperous said, "It seems that someone has made me send huge queries. I can't understand how."

On the next day again some villagers came and quarreled. It started to happen almost every day. Mr Prosperous was in emotional distress. Also, there were unknowingly huge requests. All in all, he had a trauma. The three kids were sent to their parent's house.

In the next week again huge numbers of replies started to come. They survived somehow.

One day the chief came with some villagers to oust Mr Prosperous. Abnerdous and Smith took them out of much trouble. The chief warned them while leaving the place. That night Mr Prosperous got broken. He thought that somebody had hypnotised him and made him do all this. He called Abnerdous & Smith and said, "I think somebody hypnotised me and made me do all these. As a result, the villagers are suffering and I am getting defamed. Many of their treasures got stolen. The adversary Could do something worse by using me.

So destroy me."

Smith said, "What? Why are you saying that? No one has hypnotised you."

Mr Prosperous said, "

A master shouldn't refuse his responsibility. Just as all the credit for the success goes to him, likewise he should take responsibility for all the failures and mistakes.

 A master who does not dare to admit his own failure has no right to be called a master."

Smith said, "No. You have told us to stay strict in hard times, 'face it and beat it'. And now you are losing hope?"

Mr Prosperous replied, "No, I am telling you to do the right task."

Smith said, "People are unaware of security. They don't give strong and unpredictable passwords, use the same password in multiple places, and don't change it for a long time. That's their mistake, not yours."

Abnerdous said, "Yes. Many of them use outdated tools. To secure a house only front door security is not enough. You have to secure all doors, windows, each hole & pipe outlets. So you are not guilty.

You've already said that 'don't worry about what happened, don't lose what you've got, those who don't cry in bad time and circumstance get the success.' So please don't loose hope."

Smith said, "Absolutely. And here the villagers trust unknown people as well as the chief blindly. We shouldn't trust our own shadow without proper judgment. And you shouldn't keep confidential files here and there. Now if they are stolen, it's your fault, Prosperous sir."

But Mr Prosperous didn't agree. He started to force them. He said, "Smith, I have tough you not to compromise with bad people. Sacrifice anything with smile if needed. Have you forget these all? Now do what I am saying. While destroying me, your heart may tremble but your hand shouldn't. Please destroy me otherwise my heart will be broken."

After a moment Mr Prosperous took a knife on his hand. Then, immediately Abnerdous through a flower vase towards the knife.

Smith said, "Wait I remembered. Yes, I remembered that once somebody told me that the source IP address can be changed. Wait a minute."

He ran toward the phone, called the police and told his doubts. On the other side, the officer said, "Yes this is quite possible and we also have doubts about it." The officer talked to another officer and then said, "You are absolutely right Smith. We've just talked to our cyber crime department on another phone and found that the source IP address has been changed. We shall catch the offender ASAP."

The next day the offender was caught. The police officers came to the house of mybusinessji.com and said, "The offender had learned Mr Prosperous's address and made huge requests to Mr Recresolbar and others by making that address as source IP address.

This is a combination of reflection and amplification DDoS attack. And now everything is under control."

Mr Prosperous Astonished.

The officer said, "Special thanks to Mr Cloudflare. Without his help, our job would be more difficult. Today we've instructed Mr Recresolber and others to only provide services to trusted ones i.e. don't be an open DNS. And also told them to verify if the queries of known source IP addresses originated from a known zone, not from outside."

Mr Prosperous asked, "But how have you caught the offender?"

The officer said, "That's a lot of things. Everyone thinks that he has done the wrong perfectly and hasn't left any clue. But this is always wrong. In this case, we've also used that clue to catch him. And now he will be punished very hard."

Abnerdous said, "Yes sir. Crime never pays and no one can escape from the hand of law. No matter how smart and intelligent they are, finally, they will be caught."

The officer said, "Yes. And also awareness and caution save us."

From the moment Mr Prosperous, Abnerdous and Smith got relief and become happy. Again mybusinessji.com glorified and Prospered.

On the next day, Mr Recresolbar and his colleagues came to Mr Prosperous's house and apologized. Mr Recresolbar said that They had got it all. They had learned lessons from that incident and became more conscious.

Later after some days Smith and Abnerdous started a campaign to tell the villagers about security and made them conscious about the best security practices. Villagers also apologize to Mr Prosperous.

In the next year, village election occurred in Glinkleland. The old chief lost and Smith became the new chief.

The whole of Glinkleland becomes happy again. In that joyful moment, everybody said together, "mybusinessji.com is always prosperous. Consciousness and Good courage are some of the best policies."

The End

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