Disk Boot Operating System = DOS
err...
Disk Boot Operating System would be DBOS...
Weird...Wouldn't expect a DoS to do so much damage, but would seem understandable if the servers were already taking a large burden before the attack
take for example, how the ping command sends 32 bytes of data (by default, you can change it, but for the sake of argument let's say the "hackers" have the intellectual capabilities of a water chestnut, and don't know how).
Now, if the botnet consisted of a thosand PCs, all of those sending the ping command (which I believe sends 4 32-byte ICMP packets). that would be, of course, 32000 bytes about 31K, four times, for around 128K of data being sent every few seconds. depending on the server this might not even be noticable.
But botnets are fairly easy to grow- some botnets I believe have grown to hundreds of thousands, even millions of PCs.
In a way, it's kind of like a focusing mirror. by themselves, computers and their users might seem to simply connect, request data, disconnect, semirandomly- however, a botnet can focus say, a million PCs on sending packets to a single router at their target. 32 Million bytes of data- which is 256 megabits, even on a gigabit connection that's a good chunk of bandwidth, and it's enough to bring down any 100mbps connection.
The goal of a DOS or DDOS is simply to deny service to legitimate viewers of a site/subdomain/DNS by constantly hitting a machine with pings from a large number of sources. By essentially drowning out the legitimate traffic with their redundant ping requests, they might cause the server to start throwing up errors for legitimate users.
In other instances the motive is purely for prestige. For example the fact that Microsoft.com simply doesn't respond to ping requests is because the entire "haxor" world of calculator basic programmers just learning the basics of command prompt is constantly trying out their l337 5ki11z by using the ping command on Microsoft.com.
