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gobbo writes "The buzz amongst my Muslim acquaintances is that the al-Jazeera site is under "cyber-attack." Shortly after posting photos of mangled Iraqi children the server became unavailable. I don't have satellite TV to see if they are reporting anything on al-Jazeera itself, but pinging their name servers fails too. For those who don't already know, the al-Jazeera channel is a pan-Arabic satellite TV channel out of Qatar." While I am certain many h4x0rs are political, I can't help thinking that script kiddies are like moths to the flame of rising page views. (this was initially posted incorrectly, and has been moved to the proper date)

Comments

Military targets?

[twemperor]

I think this raises some new interesting questions.

For example, the US military claimed that Iraqi TV, as it was providing information and instruction to Iraqi troops, was a legitimate military command and control target. Would similar online media outlets be similarly classified?

More importantly, would hackers, even script kiddies, be considered combatants if they attack such a military target in a time of war?

I don't think this has any practical implications, just philosophical...

Re:Military targets?

[1u3hr]

Would similar online media outlets be similarly classified?

It's not a "similar" outlet. Unless you mean to bomb any foreign media that don't toe Rumsfeld's line. In spite of David Letterman sketches, al-Jazeera is neither Afghani or Iraqi, but is based in Qatar.

See this article on its origins.

Today, al-Jazeera is staffed by many of the same [BBC] journalists I saw weeping in London that day, including Azar. It is the lone Arabic broadcast outlet to put truth and objectivity above even its survival. For its pains during the five years of its existence, it has been attacked by virtually every government in the Middle East.

They've also got a new English service. (Which was heavily overloaded even before this, so you'll have a hard time seeing it.)

Re:Military targets?

[YrWrstNtmr]

www.arabnews.com had an article comparing al-Jazeera and CNN.

CNN portrayed as lying, deceitful, mouthpiece of the US administration.

al-Jazeera portrayed as a font of wisdom and truth.

Both statements are crap CNN may well sanitise its stories, and portray the US side (hey..it's a US company)

But al-Jazeera is at least equally as bad.

In reference to the current fighting...
Does AJ show pics and video of Iraqi troops hiding among civilians and using them as shields? No
Does AJ show report on the Iraqi troops using a hospital for a weapons cache? No
Does AJ report on the use of explosives at the oil well heads? No.
Does AJ report on the ecological disaster of lighting oil filled trenches on fire? No

If you want to say CNN is not reporting 'fairly', OK..that may well be true.

But please do NOT hold up AJ as the bastion of truth and objectivity.

Re:Military targets?

[Capsaicin]

My personal take is that you can never get a true picture from a single side. The world is saturated with American media. Seeing news from other sources acts as a sanity check.

Moreover to a viewer saturated with American media, these other sources are likely to appear as 'biased'

Re:Military targets?

[sould]

Does AJ show pics and video of Iraqi troops hiding among civilians and using them as shields? No

Has this been independantly corroborated? No.

Does AJ show report on the Iraqi troops using a hospital for a weapons cache? No

Has this been independantly corroborated? No.

Does AJ report on the use of explosives at the oil well heads? No.

Yes. Yes they do

Does AJ report on the ecological disaster of lighting oil filled trenches on fire? No

Yes. Yes they do.

Who modded this retard and her/his americentric point of view up?

Few people think al-Jazeera is unbiased, to compare it to CNN is frankly laughable.

Weird

[bleckywelcky]

First time I've seen a story that doesn't appear on the main /. page but ends up surfacing in the Older Stuff side bar.

I do have to say that I am saddened to see this happen because although Al Jazeera may have been biased on the side of Iraq, it is good to have alternative news sources to get the other side's story from. And despite what many people may whole-heartedly claim, CNN, MSNBC, FOX, NBC, etc all do have a sense of American bias in them. That's besides the fact that half of their reporting is so horrible, it is actually hard to watch sometimes. I've found myself turning off the TV numerous times in response to my disgust for some of the stuff they hack out as "news". Although, I have found the embedded reporter's reports quite interesting, and you can always catch the various briefings, latest field updates, and general news easily enough. But, these agencies spend way to much time on sensationalism, heart-string-picking, etc.

I hope Al Jazeera can get their site back up soon.

Re:Weird

[Kasperitus]

There was an article in the Wall St Journal a few days ago discussing the bias of US reporters. They mentioned that many of the "embedded" journalists use the personal pronoun "we" all the time. They compared that with a clip from a British reporter who was careful enough to detach himself, referring to the soldiers using "they". "They are encountering resistance..." "They are approaching Baghdad..." etc. Its a noticable difference.

The article also mentioned that BBC seems to be doing a better job trying objective than US stations.

Re:Weird

[hazem]

Al-Jazeera's pretty interesting. I've been watching it for about 3 years now. My Arabic isn't stellar, but I'm able to keep up with it pretty well.

Before the current war, it was a lot like a cross between CNN, with news & comentary, and Discovery, with documentaries.

It has an interesting history. As I understand it, the prince of Qatar funds it, but leaves it in the hands of the station to do all their own editorial control.

It definitely had an Arab point of view, but to me that makes sense. Looking at it from that point of view, I would almost say that it is fairly balanced. Just as an American would probably find CNN fairly balanced.

They don't hesitate to put Americans on (translated - unless you're former embassador Dennis Ross - he showed up on a debate show and handled it all in BEATUFIUL Arabic!). Rice and Powell have both been on there, but so has Saddam, and Tariq Aziz.

Is there an anti-American slant? Well, even though few Arabs like Saddam and his regime, very few are very keen on the idea of a superpower coming in and taking out an Arab regime. The whole region has an unpleasant history of colonialism and occupation, and for many, this just appears to be another chapter in it. A lot will depend on how we handle the post-Saddam iraq.

Another thing that is interesting... it's not a new thing that they're showing dead bodies and such. For as long as I've watched, they've not had a probelm with showing dead Palestinians or dead Israelis in that conflict. They don't talk over it either - sometimes just several minutes of showing what is going on or what has happened.

So, I've rambled on, not really answering your question, but I don't often get to talk about Al-Jazeera.

Re:Weird

[Junta]

I just want to state right now that I am an American and recognize that CNN, especially as of late, is little more that an outlet for propaganda. The 'patriotic' stories get huge press, while those that point out potential problems are glossed over and presented with such a slant as to minimize damage. I have stopped using cnn at all for news since their coverage of this situation began. I guess being 'unpatriotic' is jsut too dangerous. I am ashamed of an America where expressing a dissenting view is called unpatriotic...

Re:Weird

[Ryan Amos]

They don't really care though. :) The point of the embedded reporters is pure entertainment, you're not getting any more "accurate" reporting since the Pentagon has to okay all the satellite transmissions anyway. Embedded reporting is somewhat entertaining, but for news value, the only difference between an embedded reporter and a soldier is that the embedded reporter knows how to play the camera. :)

Re:Weird

[Chacham]

I don't have a problem with bias, as long as it's known. Everyone knows CNN is extremely liberal. Everyone knows Fox News is somewhat conservative. Everyone knows that the BBC is pro-Arab and anti-Israel. Everyone knows that Al-Jazeera is mostly pro-arab. Who cares? If anyone reported just facts, there'd either be too many bits or no connection in between them. In order to get a true picture of what is going on, you need to read news that is slanted both ways. So, read an American news source, and then ArabicNews.com (a pretty decent source). Or check Lebanon's Daily Star for a very much Arab slant.

Everyone thinks that they are centrist. Anyone right of them is conservative, anyone left is them is liberal. Which is why Democrats call ABC, CBS, and NBC conservative news, yet Republicans call it liberal news. That is also why Democrats call Fox News very conservative, and Republicans call in "balanced". But, the important thing is, that both the liberal and the conservative views are legitamite.

In order to report the news in an unbiased way, the reporter must assume an equidistant view from both warring sides. That is, the American news sources would have to decide that the Americans aren't automatically correct, and that Saddam isn't automatically wrong. The problem is, that legitamizes Saddam's regime to many who think it illegitamite, and that is something many do not want to do.

Also, unbiased reporting (which I don't believe exists) wouldn't have the flare behind it the biased reporting does. When people are biased, they go the extra mile to prove their point. I like that a lot better.

More

[Trogre]

More on this here

Slashdot effect on a global scale?

[alienmole]

According to an Infoworld article, Al Jazeera had just published photos of the U.S. soldiers who were allegedly executed. In the U.S., these pictures have effectively been censored - the major media don't want to touch them. Mightn't Al-Jazeera simply be suffering from a large-scale Slashdot effect, as people around the world try to download photos?

While consulting, I've come across companies doing all sorts of dumb or just lazy things which make their sites slow and not very scalable. Then they get a big burst of unusual activity for whatever reason, their site crashes, and they like to claim conspiracy because it means it's not their fault.

I'll believe this is a DDOS when I see the IRC transcripts from the people claiming to be the perpetrators (if that's not proof, I don't know what is :) Till then, this is Al-Jazeera crying because their site couldn't handle sudden worldwide interest.

Re:Slashdot effect on a global scale?

[EZCheese]

I'll believe this is a DDOS when I see the IRC transcripts from the people claiming to be the perpetrators (if that's not proof, I don't know what is :) Till then, this is Al-Jazeera crying because their site couldn't handle sudden worldwide interest.

According to the article you cited, the DDOS attack is being directed at their name servers, and not the web server (which is why I'm not getting "unable to resolve host" messages). Name servers generally don't wither under high volume - this seems more like a deliberate attack than a large-scale Slashdot effect.

Re:First Post?!?

[chrisd]

I screwed up with the initial date, so sorry about that.

Freedom of the Press

[ewe2]

I find the apathy on this site towards the possible gagging of a media organization disturbing. On a TV report this week, I learnt a lot about al-Jazzeera. Yes, they are pan-Arabic. Yes, they are critical of the US. They've also been threatened by every single Arab country in the region - closed down, ambassadors recalled, physical attacks. And it was bombed by the US in the first Gulf War when it reported the killing of civilians in a supposedly military target.

You can't have it both ways, even in a war. The Net is being used for some of the most blatant propaganda I've ever seen, but shutting down the Arab side of the argument isn't going avoid bigger problems later.

Freenet?

[gfilion]

Would it be a good idea for Al-jazeera to publish their content on freenet? Their articles would then be immune to any kind of censorship like they claim they are victim of.

ABC cuts gore from injured child's Iraq war photo

[ivi]

Australia's ABC (TV, I suppose) has reportedly
cropped the portion of a picture of a young
girl's feet, which were to be seen dangling,
after apparently having been blown loose by
an explosion, in the ongoing Irag war.

The report of this "editting" the gore away,
to make a photo more acceptible to Australian
viewing audiences, as well as other revealing
aspects of media censorship, were mentioned on
this morning's Media Report, now available via
audio-on-demand, in RealAudio format, at:
http://www.abc.net.au/rn/talks/8.30/mediarpt/audio /mediarpt_27032003_2856.ram

This 27 March program included British photo-
journalist Tim Page talking about this kind
of selective reporting & sanitizing of war
images, eg, from Vietnam to Iraq.

Come back in about a week for the transcript,
eg at URL:

http://www.abc.net.au/rn/talks/8.30/mediarpt/sto ri es/s815573.htm

War solves nothing... unless, of course,
your company is selling to Defense...

Re:First Post?!?

[wideBlueSkies]

Does a slashdotting constitute a DOS attack?

I guess the extra traffic couldn't help the situation.

Oh, too bad...

Re:A short history of how the U.S. got into this m

[ainsoph]

I will add to this if you please. The portion I am adding reads like a conspiracy theory. Its not. It has been documented in many places, including PBS and the White House itself.

I wont go into details here, I will allow one to read the material themselves. You can also watch the video as PBS online is currently hosting a story frontline did about the mess.

In brief:

The Project for the New American Century is a DC based think tank that has imagined a world under complete US military and economic domination (or "freedom" as it were). They have fiddled with and written documents concerning a post cold war world where the USA has become the Worlds Only Superpower and what that means from a Strategic viewpoint.

In the early days, Paul Wolfowitz produced a document that detailed the expansion of the American empire that seemed too radical at the time and was cleaned up and rewritten and stowed away. Over time, and through the most recent Coup by this incredibly radical group of men, this updated document, with the help of the PNAC, became the National Security Strategy Of the United States. Most chilling about this turn of eventls and policy is the new found policy of "pre-emption". Which I think we are seeing now in the creation of the 51st state.

Also chilling (to me anyway) is the fact that this is the "official story", the one being reported by the obviously biased media.

Anyway.. some more links..

CBC.ca's take.

More Canadian Insight

The Frontline Special