A DDOS attack preventer implements an unconventional way of detecting and preventing DDOS attacks. The attack preventer receives and analyzes requests from a particular IP address or device. The attack preventer will track various characteristics of each request (e.g., characteristics of the data in the requests, characteristics of the input used to generate the requests, and characteristics of the device used to generate the requests). The attack preventer will analyze these characteristics to determine whether the requests are human-generated or machine-generated. If the requests are human-generated, the attack preventer services the requests. If the requests are machine-generated, the attack preventer rejects the requests.