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An Unexpected Article About Our Unicorn: Who Is the PVS-Studio Mascot?

Reading time5 min
Views1.9K

PVS-Studio has a mascot that became inseparable from the brand - a unicorn. Lately we've been getting many questions about our magic steed: why the unicorn, why has he changed so much, does he have hooves, how come he doesn't wear pants, and how do we draw him. The answers are finally here, in this very article.

Attention: there will be a lot of pictures. And I mean A LOT.

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Total votes 11: ↑11 and ↓0+11
Comments0

Overview of Morris's counters

Reading time7 min
Views1.3K

On implementing streaming algorithms, counting of events often occurs, where an event means something like a packet arrival or a connection establishment. Since the number of events is large, the available memory can become a bottleneck: an ordinary n-bit counter allows to take into account no more than 2^n - 1events.
One way to handle a larger range of values using the same amount of memory would be approximate counting. This article provides an overview of the well-known Morris algorithm and some generalizations of it.

Another way to reduce the number of bits required for counting mass events is to use decay. We discuss such an approach here [3], and we are going to publish another blog post on this particular topic shortly.

In the beginning of this article, we analyse one straightforward probabilistic calculation algorithm and highlight its shortcomings (Section 2). Then (Section 3), we describe the algorithm proposed by Robert Morris in 1978 and indicate its most essential properties and advantages. For most non-trivial formulas and statements, the text contains our proofs, the demanding reader can find them in the inserts. In the following three sections, we outline valuable extensions of the classic algorithm: you can learn what Morris's counters and exponential decay have in common, how to improve the accuracy by sacrificing the maximum value, and how to handle weighted events efficiently.

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Total votes 12: ↑12 and ↓0+12
Comments0

Q1 2021 DDoS attacks and BGP incidents

Reading time6 min
Views1.6K

The year 2021 started on such a high note for Qrator Labs: on January 19, our company celebrated its 10th anniversary. Shortly after, in February, our network mitigated quite an impressive 750 Gbps DDoS attack based on old and well known DNS amplification. Furthermore, there is a constant flow of BGP incidents; some are becoming global routing anomalies. We started reporting in our newly made Twitter account for Qrator.Radar.

Nevertheless, with the first quarter of the year being over, we can take a closer look at DDoS attacks statistics and BGP incidents for January - March 2021.

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Total votes 15: ↑15 and ↓0+15
Comments0

Qrator Labs' Value Partnership Programs

Reading time3 min
Views945

Why is it valuable to get into the Qrator Labs partnership program?

In Qrator Labs, we firmly believe that working together brings a better result. Which is the reason why, for years, we were trying to find meaningful partnerships with all kinds of companies. They either seek to provide their existing customers with the top-notch DDoS mitigation technology developed at Qrator Labs with many additional ecosystem solutions or want to succeed the other way around. By getting their product available for Qrator Labs' customers by integrating into the Qrator anycast filtering network.

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Total votes 20: ↑20 and ↓0+20
Comments0

11 Kubernetes implementation mistakes – and how to avoid them

Reading time13 min
Views4.4K

I manage a team that designs and introduces in-house Kubernetes aaS at Mail.ru Cloud Solutions. And we often see a lack of understanding as to this technology, so I’d like to talk about common strategic mistakes at Kubernetes implementation in major projects.

Most of the problems arise because the technology is quite sophisticated. There are unobvious implementation and operation challenges, as well as poorly used advantages, all of those resulting in money loss. Another issue is the global lack of knowledge and experience with Kubernetes. Learning its use by the book can be tricky, and hiring qualified staff can be challenging. All the hype complicates Kubernetes-related decision making. Curiously enough, Kubernetes is often implemented rather formally – just for it to be there and make their lives better in some way.

Hopefully, this post will help you to make a decision you will feel proud of later (and won’t regret or feel like building a time machine to undo it).
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Total votes 18: ↑18 and ↓0+18
Comments1

Multiple violations of policies in RMS open letter

Reading time7 min
Views3.8K

Author: Chris Punches (@cmpunches, Silo group). License: "Please feel free to share unmodified".

The following text is an unmodified copy of now removed issue #2250 on rms-open-letter.github.io repository. The text claims multiple violations of different policies, codes of conduct and other documents in creation, content and support of the "Open letter to remove Richard M. Stallman from all leadership positions". The issue has not been addressed.

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Total votes 24: ↑20 and ↓4+16
Comments3

2020 Network Security and Availability Report

Reading time9 min
Views974

By the beginning of 2021, Qrator Labs filtering network expands to 14 scrubbing centers and a total of 3 Tbps filtering bandwidth capacity, with the San Paolo scrubbing facility fully operational in early 2021;

New partner services fully integrated into Qrator Labs infrastructure and customer dashboard throughout 2020: SolidWall WAF and RuGeeks CDN;

Upgraded filtering logic allows Qrator Labs to serve even bigger infrastructures with full-scale cybersecurity protection and DDoS attacks mitigation;

The newest AMD processors are now widely used by Qrator Labs in packet processing.

DDoS attacks were on the rise during 2020, with the most relentless attacks described as short and overwhelmingly intensive.

However, BGP incidents were an area where it was evident that some change was and still is needed, as there was a significant amount of devastating hijacks and route leaks.

In 2020, we began providing our services in Singapore under a new partnership and opened a new scrubbing center in Dubai, where our fully functioning branch is staffed by the best professionals to serve local customers.

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Total votes 17: ↑17 and ↓0+17
Comments0

OOX 2.0: Out of order execution made easy

Reading time13 min
Views2K

As Intel Threading Building Blocks (TBB) is being refreshed using new C++ standard, deprecating tbb::task interface, the need for high-level tasking interface becomes more obvious. In this article, I’m proposing yet another way of defining what a high-level parallel task programming model can look like in modern C++. I created it in 2014 and it was my last contribution to TBB project as its core developer after 9 wonderful years of working there. However, this proposal has not been used in production yet, so a new discussion might help it to be adopted.

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Total votes 10: ↑10 and ↓0+10
Comments0

NTFS Reparse Points

Reading time8 min
Views2K
Hi, Habr. Here I have prepared for you a small guide about NTFS Reparse points (hereinafter RP). This article is for those who are just starting to dive into the Windows kernel drivers development. In the beginning, I will explain the theory with examples, then I will give an interesting task to solve.


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Total votes 11: ↑11 and ↓0+11
Comments0

Ant Design Component Customization and Bundle Optimization

Reading time13 min
Views10K

I'm Ivan Kopenkov, a senior front-end developer at Mail.ru Cloud Solutions. In this article, I will tell you about the approaches we have used for the UI library components customization. You will also learn how to significantly decrease bundle size, cutting off all the unnecessary modules Ant Design takes there.

In our case, we are making wrappers for original Ant Design components inside the project, changing their appearance, and developing their logic. At the same time, we import both customized and original components right from the ant-design module. That saves tree shaking functionality and makes complex library components use our wrappers instead of original nested elements.

If you are already or about to use Ant Design, this article will provide you with a better and more effective way to do so. Even if you have chosen another UI library, you might be able to implement these ideas.

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Total votes 12: ↑12 and ↓0+12
Comments0

10(+) years in the Labs

Reading time4 min
Views1.2K

At the beginning of the year 2021, Qrator Labs is celebrating its 10 year anniversary. On January 19 our company marks the official passing of a formal 10 years longevity mark, entering its second decade of existence. 

Everything started a little bit earlier - when at the age of 10 Alex saw the Robotron K 1820 - in 2008, when Alexander Lyamin - the founder and CEO of Qrator Labs, approached the Moscow State University superiors, where he worked as a NOC engineer at the time, with an idea of a DDoS-attack mitigation research project. The MSU's network was one of the largest in the country and, as we know now, it was the best place to hatch a future technology.

That time MSU administration agreed, and Mr Lyamin took his own hardware to the university, simultaneously gathering a team. In two years, by summer 2010, the project turned out to be that successful. It courted the DDoS attack of a bandwidth exceeding the MSU's upstream bandwidth capability. And on June 22 MSU superiors gave Mr Lyamin a choice - to shut down or find money to incorporate.

Alexander Lyamin chose to incorporate with his own means, which effectively meant that the needed infrastructure must be built from scratch. The initial design should be distributed instead of concentrated within one network, which resources were not enough for this specific task. And by September 1, 2010, those first server sites were ready and running.

Flashback with us
Total votes 28: ↑28 and ↓0+28
Comments1

Robotic Floor Washer

Reading time16 min
Views1.8K

When we think about robots, the first thing that comes to mind are robotic vacuum cleaners. The reason is simple: they are the most "solid" demonstration of success of "consumer" robotics. So making one sounds like a good idea... at first.

But isn't it a bit counter productive - to build something that popular, something we can buy in a store at a commodity (small) price? Should we build something similar, but NOT a vacuum cleaner? Something like... a floor washer, perhaps? Yes, a robotic floor washer.

In this tutorial I am going to build a fully working prototype of a robotic floor washer. By "fully working" I mean that it is going to wash floor, instead of moving dirt around like most robotic "moppers" do. While by "prototype" I mean it is going to be the first step towards production-ready unit, but not a production-ready unit yet. Let me explain.

First of all, it is not going to be THAT solid. You can grab a robotic vacuum cleaner that you got from the store by any part, including wheels and bumper and lift it. It will not fall apart. Ours probably will. The reason is, to make a device "mechanically solid" is a separate task, and if we focus on it, then "robotic" tasks will become more difficult to achieve. So we are going to do what engineers usually do: first they build C3PO without the outside body, wires everywhere and so on. And only then they put a gold-covered outfit on it.

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Total votes 12: ↑12 and ↓0+12
Comments11

Tarantool: an analyst's view

Reading time8 min
Views1.9K
Hi all! I'm Andrey Kapustin. I work as a system analyst at Mail.ru Group. Our products form a unified ecosystem. Many independent infrastructures generate data in it: taxi and food delivery services, email services, social networks, etc. The faster and more precise we can predict a client's needs, the sooner and more correctly we can offer our products. 

Many system analysts and engineers are keen to know: 

  1. How to design the architecture of a trigger platform for real-time marketing?
  2. How to arrange a data structure that would be in line with the requirements of a marketing strategy for interacting with clients?
  3. How to ensure the stable operations of the  system under very heavy workloads? 

Such systems are based on technologies of high-load processing and Big Data analysis. We have accumulated considerable experience in these areas. Our expertise is in high demand on the market.  I'm going to show how we help our customers to switch from off-line to on-line in their interactions with clients using Real-Time Marketing solutions based on Tarantool.
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Total votes 26: ↑26 and ↓0+26
Comments0

Russian AI Cup 2020 — a new strategy game for developers

Reading time5 min
Views2.4K


This year, many processes transformed, with traditions and habits being modified. The rhythm of life has changed, and there's more uncertainty and strain. But IT person's soul wants diversity, and many developers have asked us if annual Russian AI Cup will be held this year. Is there going to be an announcement? What is the main theme of the upcoming championship? Should I take a vacation?

Though some changes are expected, it will be held in keeping with the best traditions. In the run-up, we will announce one of today's largest online AI programming championships — Russian AI Cup. We invite you to make history!
Total votes 15: ↑15 and ↓0+15
Comments0

How to build a high-performance application on Tarantool from scratch

Reading time33 min
Views2.8K
image

I came to Mail.ru Group in 2013, and I required a queue for one task. First of all, I decided to check what the company had already got. They told me they had this Tarantool product, and I checked how it worked and decided that adding a queue broker to it could work perfectly well.

I contacted Kostja Osipov, the senior expert in Tarantool, and the next day he gave me a 250-string script that was capable of managing almost everything I needed. Since that moment, I have been in love with Tarantool. It turned out that a small amount of code written with a quite simple script language was capable of ensuring some totally new performance for this DBMS.

Today, I’m going to tell you how to instantiate your own queue in Tarantool 2.2.
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Total votes 18: ↑18 and ↓0+18
Comments0

Linux Switchdev the Mellanox way

Reading time7 min
Views2.7K
This is a transcription of a talk that was presented at CSNOG 2020 — video is at the end of the page



Greetings! My name is Alexander Zubkov. I work at Qrator Labs, where we protect our customers against DDoS attacks and provide BGP analytics.

We started using Mellanox switches around 2 or 3 years ago. At the time we got acquainted with Switchdev in Linux and today I want to share with you our experience.
Total votes 18: ↑18 and ↓0+18
Comments0

Toxic Comments Detection in Russian

Reading time17 min
Views7.5K

Currently, social network sites tend to be one of the major communication platforms in both offline and online space. Freedom of expression of various points of view, including toxic, aggressive, and abusive comments, might have a long-term negative impact on people’s opinions and social cohesion. As a consequence, the ability to automatically identify and moderate toxic content on the Internet to eliminate the negative consequences is one of the necessary tasks for modern society. This paper aims at the automatic detection of toxic comments in the Russian language. As a source of data, we utilized anonymously published Kaggle dataset and additionally validated its annotation quality. To build a classification model, we performed fine-tuning of two versions of Multilingual Universal Sentence Encoder, Bidirectional Encoder Representations from Transformers, and ruBERT. Finetuned ruBERT achieved F1 = 92.20%, demonstrating the best classification score. We made trained models and code samples publicly available to the research community.
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Total votes 18: ↑17 and ↓1+16
Comments0