[IMC-bristol] more on DDos: [CSL]: Cyber-war rages over Iraq]

[Patrice Riemens]

----- Forwarded message from J Armitage <j.armitage@UNN.AC.UK> -----

Date:         Mon, 31 Mar 2003 11:15:32 +0100
Subject: [CSL]: Cyber-war rages over Iraq
To: CYBER-SOCIETY-LIVE@JISCMAIL.AC.UK


Location: http://news.zdnet.co.uk/story/0,,t269-s2132670,00.html

Cyber-war rages over Iraq
Reuters <mailto:mailroomuk@zdnet.com>

Pro-and-anti Iraq war protesters have been making their point by hacking
into Web sites in a display of "cyber activism", rather than with the
traditional can of spray paint or placard.

Countless activists -- protesters or war hawks -- have the ability to hijack
or cripple Web sites from the opposing camp, leaving in their wake a
graveyard of busted and defaced links.

"This is the future of protest," said Roberto Preatoni, founder of Zone-H,
an Estonian firm that monitors and records hacking attacks. Since the war in
Iraq started last week, the firm has recorded over 20,000 Web site
defacements.

The most notable victim was al-Jazeera, the Qatar-based satellite TV network
that angered many Western television viewers earlier this week when it aired
footage of dead soldiers and prisoners-of-war.

The Arab-language site, www.aljazeera.net, flickered to life on Friday, but
access to the English-language version remained impossible, the result of
repeated hack attacks since Monday.

On Thursday, visitors to the site were greeted with a stars-and-stripes logo
saying "Let Freedom Ring". Earlier on Thursday, "Hacked by Patriot, Freedom
Cyber Force Militia," was scrawled on the site beneath a logo containing the
US flag.

Rife during wartime

Al-Jazeera was not alone. Sites on both sides of the war front have been
targeted, as have sites with no obvious affiliation to the war effort.

Last week, when bombs first began to drop on Baghdad, hundreds of US and
British business, government and municipal Web sites were defaced with
anti-war messages, security experts reported. Seemingly within hours, more
hawkish hackers went on the offensive against Arab sites.

Identifying themselves with such nicknames as "Hackweiser" and "DkD", hacker
and hacker groups are difficult to track down, leading victims to wonder
whether the increasingly sophisticated attacks are part of a larger military
arsenal.

In an editorial in Friday's Guardian, Faisal Bodi, senior editor for
aljazeera.net, pointed a finger at the Bush administration. "Few here doubt
that the provenance of the attack is the Pentagon," he wrote.

Security experts have been quick to dismiss the existence of state-sponsored
hacking initiatives. They are typically associated with private groups or
individuals with a particular viewpoint to communicate -- or with the aim of
gagging their opponent.

Web site defacements are often likened to digital graffiti. Being on the
Web, the message tends to get wide exposure, but remains up for a short
period. More worrying is when a hacker gains access to the computer server
behind a Web site as it is a central repository for corporate data.

A more crude but effective attack is the so-called "denial of service"
blast, when hackers blitz a site with meaningless data requests that shuts a
site down completely.

Such forms of cyber activism, or Hacktivism as it's known, is not new. But
with so many tit-for-tat attacks occurring online in the past week, there
are renewed calls from free speech activists for a cease fire.

"People wouldn't tolerate groups that burn down book shops or news agents
that sell publications they don't agree with. They shouldn't tolerate the
online equivalent," said Ian Brown, director of Foundation for Information
Policy Research, a British free speech thinktank.

But others are convinced the worst is yet to come. "If you take down
al-Jazeera, everybody around the world knows it. And you never have to leave
your house," Preatoni said.

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