Defending against cyber attacks by demanding that attackers send an even bigger deluge is surprisingly effective.

A new defense against a Denial of Service attack takes the unconventional route of saying, in essence, “What you got, sucka?” Called Speak-Up, the defense works by asking all clients connecting to a server to beef up the size of their requests.

Most of the time, the theory goes, legitimate clients have way more available bandwidth than attackers, who are probably maxing out their bandwidth while trying to shut you down. As a result, legitimate clients get more of the server’s time–enough, hopefully, to prevent a service interruption.

It’s a little bit like Homer’s punishment for selling his soul in exchange for a donut. Naturally, the devil responds with “Here’s all the donuts in the world!”

http://www.technologyreview.com/blog/mimssbits/25785/?p1=Blogs