Thread: Need...more...speed!

I am participating in a cyber-sec course at the local uni. Our first project involves a web server that has a submission form and students scors reflected on it. You gain points by submitting the hash value of a secret word of a fellow student. For every point you gain, they lose a point.

One of the aspects of the project is automation. I noticed that if I just refresh the submission confirmed page, it resubmits my points. So, I wrote a simple java program that just access this page as fast as it can.

My question: Can any of you spot a way to make this faster? It seems it takes almost a second or two for each submission. Is the u.openStream(); waiting for a response? Is there a way to make it just submit, then ignore a response? Is this the most efficient way to be doing this?

URL I am submitting is as follows:
http://um.cyber.rose.edu/TNSubmissio...h=STUDENTSHASH

The code I have thus far is below.

import java.net.MalformedURLException;
import java.net.URL;
import java.net.URLConnection;
import java.io.IOException;
 
import java.io.BufferedInputStream;
 
class XThread extends Thread {
 
	XThread() {
	}
	XThread(String threadName) {
		super(threadName); // Initialize thread.
		//System.out.println(this);
		start();
	}
	public void run() {
		//Display info about this particular thread
         URL u;
	      BufferedInputStream is = null;
	      String myNAME = new String("me");
	      String vNAME = new String("andrew");
	      String vHASH = new String("4252943e53d9677d1ef12f4fad9e026b");//me
 
 
	    //  int wall=1;
 
	      try {
	        u = new URL("http://um.cyber.rose.edu/TNSubmissionHandler.aspx?Name="+myNAME+"&Victim="+vNAME+"&VictimHash="+vHASH);
 
 
		for (int i = 0; i < 1000000; i++) {
	        	is = new BufferedInputStream(u.openStream());
	        	System.out.println(i);
	        	is.close();
}
 
	      } catch (MalformedURLException mue) {
 
	         System.out.println("Ouch - a MalformedURLException happened.");
	         mue.printStackTrace();
	         System.exit(1);
 
	      } catch (IOException ioe) {
 
	         System.out.println("Oops- an IOException happened.");
	         ioe.printStackTrace();
	         System.exit(1);
 
	      } finally {
 
	         try {
	            is.close();
	         } catch (IOException ioe) {
	            // just going to ignore this one
	         }
	      } // end of 'finally' clause
   }
}
 
public class SingleUser {
 
	public static void main(String[] args) {
Thread thread1 = new XThread();
Thread thread2 = new XThread();
Thread thread3 = new XThread();
Thread thread4 = new XThread();
Thread thread5 = new XThread();
Thread thread6 = new XThread();
Thread thread7 = new XThread();
Thread thread8 = new XThread();
Thread thread9 = new XThread();
Thread thread10 = new XThread();
Thread thread11 = new XThread();
Thread thread12 = new XThread();
Thread thread13 = new XThread();
Thread thread14 = new XThread();
Thread thread15 = new XThread();
Thread thread16 = new XThread();
Thread thread17 = new XThread();
Thread thread18 = new XThread();
Thread thread19 = new XThread();
Thread thread20 = new XThread();
 
 
		//Start the threads
thread1.start();
thread2.start();
thread3.start();
thread4.start();
thread5.start();
thread6.start();
thread7.start();
thread8.start();
thread9.start();
thread10.start();
thread11.start();
thread12.start();
thread13.start();
thread14.start();
thread15.start();
thread16.start();
thread17.start();
thread18.start();
thread19.start();
thread20.start();
 
}

Basically, start twenty (or more) threads, and in each thread loop the openStream().

Is this a way to cheat?

Originally Posted by nPeep

You gain points by submitting the hash value of a secret word of a fellow student. For every point you gain, they lose a point.

One of the aspects of the project is automation.

No. It is within the scope of the project. In fact, the database and webfront-end were written and optimized for this to be possible.

Cross posted at Need..more...speed! - CodeGuru Forums

Originally Posted by Norm

Cross posted at Need..more...speed! - CodeGuru Forums

Yeah....yeah it is. Not seperate sites, then? Just looking to poll the opinions of two seperate communities, but thanks for the notification, Norm.

Originally Posted by helloworld922

As long as we're aware of where else this same discussion is taking place, we're ok with cross posting

Unless your computer has 20 physical cores, it makes no sense to have that many threads in your application. These are just a waste of memory and cpu time.

The number of cores you use should closely match the number of physical cores you have (the exception being threads that don't try to utilize 100% cpu core usage). You'll also be limited by your network connection speed (as well as the server's network speed).

Gotcha

I figure that a thread to access the site shouldn't take up much CPU usage. But I have definitely noticed a performance boost between two and 20 threads.

Another question: Would there be a way to just open one connection and continuously submit this url with it? If I understand it correctly, I think the current code is opening a new connection everytime.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ddos#Distributed_attack

DDOS is punishable for 5 years, I'm pretty sure. BE CAREFUL