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Web Site Hacks Rise as War Rages in Iraq
An anonymous reader noted a Reuters news story talking about Website Defacement during the war. Apparently protesters and hackers are defacing hundreds of US and UK sites, both corporate and government.
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Yeah, I thought that it was really interesting that CNN's website immediately switched to a smaller version of their usual website; fewer stories, fewer pictures, less to load, with links from there at 9:30pm EST Wednesday. Instead of waiting for the slowdown, they anticipated it. I don't think I've ever seen that happen before-- not that there have been so many incidents that have generated that kind of blanket interest since the web became a major news source for the masses. The only one, in fact, that I can think of was Sept. 11th; these measures were definitely not taken then until sites had already started going down.
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You voted, your leader chose to go to war, what is your problem?
Um... Last time I checked, Bush wasn't the majority elected president. He was selected by the supreme court. He legitimately lost the election, he just got put into power by the supreme court.
Also, hey, our economy is doing poorly, lets deface some corporate sites in a hope they lose millions to lots sales and extra security costs.
Umm... you know, there are lots of people outside the states who could be defacing your sites. Yep, it's true, there is technology outside of the US.
Protesting a war by doing illegal and hurtful things is the pot calling the kettle black.
Ummm... Protesting an illegal war by doing illegal things. So kinda closer to having the pot call another pot black. This war is far from a "kettle"
These people lose all public respect and support by doing stupid, negative things.
Americans have lost all public respect (outside the states) the minute they started this illegal war.
Huh?
Which news sites are you visiting? No major news outlet that I know of streams RealMedia on the front page until it's explicitly asked to do so. Both CNN and MSNBC are approximately 30k in size. Slashdot's front page is nearly double that.
I have to admit I can't explain why we're truly at war either, economicly it will be disasterous, it has ruined the international diplomatic ties the US once had, and it makes the citizens of the Uninted States more at risk to future terrorist attacks and in the worst case senario could start World War III
No, I can't explain why we're truly at war either, it baffles me. It is the most ill-conceived thing our government has done in my lifetime. Pray tell, why are we REALLY at war?
It isn't because Iraq has violated UN mandates, Isreal has violated more, and we still support them. It isn't because they have weapons of mass destruction, North Korea has more in that catagory, and we're trying "diplomatic means" to deal with them. It isn't because of Saddam's human rights record, or we'd be at war with China, not granting them favoured trade status. It isn't because the inspections were failing, the inspectors themselves thought the process was working, and shouldn't they know? Come, come, since you're so ready to critisize others for being unable to explain the cause of this war, explain the real reason we are at war, instead of alluding to it in an ambigious manner...
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Can you explain the current fiscal policy that the national reserve has put in place of lowering interest rates to stimulate economy growth? Do you know why they dont just set them to 0 in times of good growth? Maybe if you have studied economics.
Can the average American dictate foreign policy for the United States? Same answer, no, unless you did your doctoral in polysci and are smart++.
Can the average joe schmoe vote and decide who is best to lead them and make such decisions? Yes.
Don't hate the player, hate the game...democracy is what we stand for and seem to be criticizing lately?
[I can picture a world without war, without hate. I can picture us attacking that world, because they'd never expect it]
OK. I had a hard time driving around SF yesterday because of people doing more or less the same thing. On the one hand, they are blocking access to cyber places - and on the other they are blocking access to real ones. I was wondering if anyone could explain the logic behind protesting a war that is already started? Does anyone really believe that our government is going to stop and say, "Gee, we better stop this war so that those guys from Berkley will move off the Altimont Expressway..."
All I can see here is people giving Saddam (or what's left of his regime) fuel for his fight. He can say, "Look, the American people don't believe what their government is doing. Stop surendering and kill kill kill!!!" This would cause more loss of life to american soldiers. So... Can anyone explain what the protesters are hoping to get out of this? (Other than a permanent record...)
-anocelot
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Not a damn thing. 76% of Americans approve of the war, but the protesters want to make it seem like they are the majority rather than a (shrinking) minority.
Username taken, please choose another one.
I'm not saying the protesters aren't entitled to their opinions. I'm just angry that the "hax0rz" are creating so much more work for th IT folks who have nothing to do with this war. Rallies in public places are fine. Creating gridlock and giving police a hard time is bad. Some of these people have no clue what they're protesting against and are just part of a flock rebeling against anything they deem evil. When I see these college and highschool kids protesting by blocking streets during rush hour or monopolizing the police (taking them away from REAL crimes) I just wish I could make their lives more difficult with more homework or something. Everyone is entitled to their opinion, but for cryin' out loud, don't make others miserable trying to drive your point home.
1) Saddam is far more likely to use his weapons than North Korea is.
2) Isreal has violated tons of mandates, and has a particularly sinister leader right now. We don't attack them because they're simply not a threat. Though there is a good case to stop supporting them.
3) Saddam isn't linked to 9/11. But I'm sure he wouldn't mind it one bit if some Al Quaeda boys borrowed some weapons to blow up New York. Oh please, you say? Al Quaeda doesn't like the beer-drinking, cursing, sacreligious Saddam? Well guess what? They hate us more.
4) China's government is on a remarkable progression to more Democracy and free thinking. I know because I lived there (I'm not Chinese either). Their human rights records are bad, but they'll get better.
5) The majority of the world isn't ready to cut off all diplomatic ties to the US because of the war (they might disagree, but only a few countries like France and Russia are really rabidly anti-war). That would be political suicide for them. Also, let's take France for instance. I thear a lot of folks saying "it's all about the oil." It is. France gets most of their oil from Iraq. It's no wonder they don't want us in there. Do you really believe the French are so anti-us involvement because they sympathize for the people in Iraq? Come on!
6) Iraq does pose a threat. They've got the weapons, and Saddam is crazy enough to use them. Don't believe me? We gave him weapons of mass destruction in the early 80's when he was fighting Iran. He used some against Iran, but there are others that are unaccounted for. Don't blame me as an American for being a little bit worried that he could use them (or being extremely pissed off at the lack of foresight the Reagan Administration had for giving them to him). Hell he's been dodging weapons inspectors for some time.
Slashdot: Where people pretend to be twice as smart as they really are by behaving like children.
Wow. The people that hacked seabornes.com must be really intelligent. At the bottom it says USG (Unix Security Guards). But viewing source comes up with this:
meta name=ProgId content=Word.Document
meta name=Generator content="Microsoft Word 9"
meta name=Originator content="Microsoft Word 9"
I'm not saying people who use Unix don't use Windows, but how many use Word to write HTML pages? What ever happened to notepad?
You're right. The US Army is unquestionably concerned with soldiers' lives, more than any army in history. A very small percentage of soldiers in modern conflict actually see combat, which is a Good Idea when it comes to bringing our boys home alive. Unfortunately, it has the side effect of requiring an alternative form of pacification -- which takes the form of bombing campaigns. These campaigns often start as so-called "precision" campaigns (like what we are seeing now) then if that doesn't work, they switch to good old-fashioned carpet bombing. There were reports of B-52's taking off from Britain... I have not read anything indicating they have entered the conflict yet. If they do, that is the end of the precision phase of the campaign. The B-52 is NOT a precision instrument... a single sortie creates a "box" 1kmx2km in which nothing gets out alive. The government weighs civillian life vs. the lives of our troops, and generally ends up favoring the latter.
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Like I said, that's what my brain does to try to 'justify' something so that it doesn't bother me so much.
Personally I think that American citizens should rise up in mass protest and remove the current administration from office. Others... disagree to say the least. In the end, the best thing for *me* to do is probably go about my business while trying to ignore something I cannot help. So that's what I do. (besides complaining about it on slashdot)
There was also a rumor spreading around Europe and Russia (primarily Germany and Russia) that the White House web page had been hacked. This rumor was false; the URL reported was http://www.whitehouse.net/index2.html
The rumor was enough to generate 4,600,000 hits in a 72-hour period that normally sees only 100,000.
I thought it was a DDOS until I analyzed the logs. It was about 75% folks linking from email and 25% folks linking from various web based message boards. About 60% went straight to index2.html while 40% went to the home page.
Moderating "-1, Disagree" is simple censorship. Have the guts to post your opinion.
There were 'hawks' and 'doves' during Vietnam, amongst the elite. The hawks viewed protesters as communist sympathizers (i.e. pretty much what the right thinks of them today). The doves looked at them more as misguided young people. Think Hubert Humphrey here.
In the end, most common folk had little sympathy for the protesters during Vietnam, as today. They're too wacky and weird to appeal to the mainstream, and then as now, they derive most of their sense of moral superiority by their close association with opinions voiced by foreign leaders. Hence, the appearance of being unpatriotic.
Having Jacques Chirac on your side isn't exactly guaranteed to endear you to the American public.
My opinion is that they generally make their own bed and I don't have a lot of sympathy for them. They can lie in it now. If they wanted to be popular they'd make their point in a more acceptable manner to the US public.
This is a perfect application of the First Amendment. The Dixie Chicks or Martin Sheen can say whatever antiwar drivel they want, and the US public can choose to not buy their stuff, and thereby hurt them economically. Or not. But the system works just fine.
HBI's Law: Frequency of calling others Nazis is directly correlated with the likelihood of the accuser being Communist.
I was trying to find a webcam located in Iraq but to no avail. Dont they have computers there??
I haven't forgotten this. I think we should have killed him 12 years ago. We were stupid not to.
This is hardly a reason to go to war. There is no reason why someone is his own country should not be allowed to tell the US to 'stick it' once and a while. Additionally the demand that Hussein leave Iraq is insane.
Oh great guru, I have seen the light! YOu are correct.. a man who gassed his own people, and practiced genocide against another, and has consistantly warred with his neighbors to the point of requiring coalition action should be allowed to reign unchecked. And the Holy UN, which imposed sanctions on him 12 years ago and now refuses to even honor or look at those sanctions which have been broken time and again, and refuses to take any action other than followign a rather scripted show of giving "neutral inspectors" things to see but keeping them away from certain areas. You are right.. there is no reason for war here.. let him continue beheading women on the street, and imprisoning and torturing people for 14 years because they sold a roll of film to an undercover military agent.
I agree that Hussein probably has ties to what America has defined as terrorism, but so what? How many puppet regimes have we propped up? How many American dollars buy weaponry for foreign nations as we watch the bloodshed from afar. How many countries must we occupy before we can truly feel safe about the state of the world? All of them?
You counter-argue against yourself in this statement. If we "occupy" a country, we are evil.. because we are taking them over. If we hand the country over to the best pro-tem government we can find or allow to be created from the residents, and arm them so they can _keep_ their country (which is the real issue in that part of the world) we are also evil when we find out they have gone bad. (See also, Shah, Ayatollah, Hussein, Noriega.)
Let me ask you this.. how many american dollars have gone in the last 12 years for humanitarian aid to Iraq, and oil-for-food programs, only to watch it taken by the republican guard and used to feed the military, not the people? How many
"innocent civilians" have died because he wanted to test a germ weapon on someone, and had only his own people to do it with? How many people has he run through a plastic-shredding machine designed for recycling?
There are many good reasons to go to war. But one of the _most_ asinine arguments against this particular war I have seen so far is that "innocent civilians" may get hurt. As a great number of ex-pat iraqis have said, even during a war, life would be better than it was under Hussein.
It saddens me that this once great nation has now become the school yard bully of our humble ball of mud.
We arent the bully. the UN is the bully. Apparently out of its ass it pulls decisions about what countries can mass murder their citizens or other countries citizens, and who cannot. Once it has decided that, it sends in nations with their hands tied to "keep the peace". Or it refuses to enforce some embargoes
because key nations choose to get around it, but enforces others that end up destroying entire cultures and ways of life.
"we" cannot move against china. We dont have the manpower. Nor does the rest of Europe want to, due to close proximity and the chance of ass-kicking they would recieve. Of course, the way to stop it would be to bankrupt them by not buying their crappy products.. but good ole "Pro USA" Wal-Mart continues to sell crappy Chinese products at a much lower rate than comparable american products, meanwhile bemoaning the loss of jobs and manufacturing.
If 1/10th of the "protesters" realized that what they hate about this country is entirely within their control to fix (The job situation, the economy, "big business screwing the little guy") and put half as much effort into fixing it, rather than making misspelled peace signs or making themselves throw up in a federal building in California, I would have a lot more respect for their cause. But as it is, I view about half of the loudest ones as lobotomized morons who believe everything MTV has to say and could read the WSJ if they were forced to because the big words would throw them off.
Maeryk
Feminine Protection? What is that? A chartreuse flame thrower?
Is it just me, or does it seem that we would be better off if representatives actually paid attention to things like well-managed protest, letters written to them, opinions in the media and generally parts of society that can't express their views using arseloads of money?
"Saddam is a bad guy." pretty much covers the pro-war position.
This document pretty well explains the real reasons behind the war. Basically, US long-range global strategic interests (i.e. world domination) demand a massively increased military presence in the Gulf. This means invasion and occupation. And they have to justify it somehow...
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The website we run at work was defaced by "Hackers Against War", they exploited a bug in the software we use (php-nuke) to replace all the stories on the front page with an inane antiwar statement and comments in French about their feelings for some girl. The pathetic thing is that our site already had a lot of antiwar articles up on it, so if their true motives were to express an antiwar opinion they failed horribly in that they obscured substantive antiwar commentary with their drivel AND forced us to take the site offline while we fixed things.
While I'm sure there are some groups out there with genuine political motives, based on this and some other things I've seen I really believe that this is just scriptkiddies looking for something trendy to do.
Did you mention the current situation in other Arabic nations? Currently, mostly governed by non-democratic leaderships, which are slightly pro-american (at least compared to the public opinion in their nations), which are supposed to be replaced democratic goverments by the shining example Iraq is expected to set.
Noticing the current discontent of the people with their current goverments, the wished for change might even come earlier than expected and a different way than expected.
Oh, and the Palestinian situtation will be much easier to solve, after removing the dictator, who spend a good fortune on their "freedom fighters" (Well, we would call them terrorists, but still it strengthened his support among them)
What will the Kurds do when Turkey will invade in northern Iraq, or how Turkey will react, when the Kurds should found an independent state.
One thing to add:
The dictatorship actually owning a fully functionally nuclear program, quite possibly two or three nuclear bombs, rockets with enough range to strike the U.S. and also distinguished member of the Axis of Evil.
Which features a starving and supressed people, partly fleeing to its neighbouring dictatorship, which most people in our situation would think people would flee from and a dictator, who is also not a very pleasent person, to say the least.
A nation, whose corporation with the UN-inspectors culminated quite recently in kicking them out.
This esteemed nation is quite alive and kicking.
Not that I suggest waging a war with it, but one has to wonder, what consequences a dictator has to draw in having WMDs.
Of course, it is a totally different situation than Iraq, but one has always has to keep an eye what kind of impression one might make.
"Between strong and weak, between rich and poor [...], it is freedom which oppresses and the law which sets free"
"Dude.. 45 countries have supported us. thats three TIMES the number who would have had to vote positive in the UN. Of those who dont, only a handful really matter. get the facts straight. (And realize several of them are the neighboring states..w hich brings us to... )"
uhmmm I supose Canada an Mexico do not matter.
Here President Fox had a hard time deciding what to do.
By polls 75% of the populations opose the war.
All the poilitical parties oposed the war.
The congress oposed the war.
The Senate oposed the war.
Then press oposed the war
But the Canacintra (The coalition of bussines men) insist to suport USA because they fear of the economic penalties that have been warned to Mexico by the embassy of US. (The insist they were against the war, but that economic realities were more important)
Finally he decided to do what democratic contry should do... altiugh eventually Mexico did not have to cast a vote, it was no secret what it was.
So i guess that country smaller than Mexico have to face the economic realities...
Bye the way. In Japan, 70% opose the war, Spain, 69% opose, Of UK I am not shure..