One method is called RPF check or reverse patch forwarding check.
A internet router looks at his routing table and decides if the source address of a packet coming in an interface is truly coming from where it should.
For example - ip source of 5.5.5.5 comes in interface 3, but the routers routing table says that the route to 5.5.5.5 is on interface 5. Well the packet is dropped because if failed the RPF check. This can help on the spoofed addresses.
Anyother DDoS must be dealt with from a provider level as there really isn't anything a customer can do. Also hosts are the only things attacked.
Internet routers themselves can be the destination and overloaded as well - processor goes thru the roof and traffic slows to a crawl.
-edit- for the truly geeky folks....the RPF check is critical with multicast routes and one of the reasons why properly designing multicast networks is so difficult. To much redundancy will reak havoc on the mcast routes because of a RPF problem. I learned that one the hard way.
