DDoS Attacks: "15 fat men trying to get through a revolving door at the same time"

What's really happening?

Excerpt:

Someone's flooding the Web servers of the banks' websites with tons of useless requests for information that can't be fulfilled, overwhelming the servers. Experts call this a distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attack. As a tactic, it's crude but temporarily effective; it doesn't crash the servers, get into databases or cause lasting damage, but it does make the sites hard to reach by clogging the pipes. Graham Cluley, senior technology consultant at the British anti-virus company Sophos, once likened a DDoS attack to "15 fat men trying to get through a revolving door at the same time." Hacktivist groups such as Anonymous often use DDoS as a form of protest, effectively blockading the sites of organizations without damaging them. Yet well-defended sites, such as the banks presumably have, would normally be able to blunt a DDoS attack.

Comment: Little know fact: I can't go through revolving doors. Not because I'm fat (shame on you for thinking that!). I can't move fast enough and the crutches get caught up.