Slashdot Mirror
"E-Jihad" Exaggerated by Russian Media Spin
decompiler writes "Earlier reports that cyber-terrorists would be bringing down the internet today have now been denounced as "Russian media sensationalist spin", and Jose Nazario of Arbor Networks says, "There have been no precursors to a large-scale attack.""
And I used to figure, if it's on the internet it must be true! There goes that theory...
CARRIER LOST
Hmmm.
Sounds like a "E-Jihadn't"
News Media
and
Exaggerated
From yesterday's
Diary:
"The ISC would like to go out on a limb and predict that the Internet will not vaporize into a cloud of nothingness this Thursday, but if it does, it's been our pleasure to help stave off its inevitable annihilation this long. "
---- join dshield.org Distributed Intrusion Detec
in soviet russia jokes...
I took work off today because I thought the internet was gonna go down. I didn't mention my absence to any of my supervisors, because I figured they would all be freaking out because the internet is down so they wouldn't notice I was missing.
I should either:
A) Go to work.
B) Bring in some pruning shears and re-create the effect of the internet being down on a much more local scale by severing the fiber line.
Where are those shears at?
Except maybe for a couple of russian jetliners going down simultaneously out of the same airport.
In Mother Russia, the Internet attacks you....
wait a minute... my box gets port probed all day and I'm not even in Russia. grrrrrrrr
The E-Terror level has subsequently been lowered to #FFFF00
Johnkoerner.com
Does this make a prophet or what?? http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=119300&cid=100 68965
...) How about some critical screening guys?
Frankly I am dissapointed that something like that showed-up on Slashdot (makes it almost feel like the editors go by the idea that "if it's printed, then it MUST be true"
Fourty-two!
about two weeks ago...
"If you think you have things under control, you're not going fast enough." --Mario Andretti
At least not here in the US. And who knows, maybe the "cyber-terrorists" would like to lull us into a false sense of security this way.
Don't blame me -- I voted for Roslin.
Is e-jihad a characteristic of the E-slam faith?
did I miss it? Everything looks so different when the internet is down?
I knew it was just a big lie... There was no way those cowards were going to sd #4f d# $ i%5@
NO CARRIER
Dedicated Cthulhu Cultist since 4523 BC.
They were going to launch the attack, but the amazing security of XP SP2 has made potential victims impenetrable fortresses!
Well, look at the bright side. The fact that a lot of the news sources had denounced this as bullshit for the most part, and even made fun of it - is something positive.
:)
A while ago, something like this would have been treated a whole lot more seriously - the fact that people (especially some of the media) are realizing not all of the stuff that comes on the net needs to make sense is a slight silver lining
They were off by a day, and they brought down two airplanes instead of the internet...
Maybe there was a translation error in their intelligence?
Check out the best P2P sharing website: MEDIACHEST.COM
...we're the Slashdot editors. Most of us smelled bullshit the second this crap hit the main page.
news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/3596354.stm
So they didn't crash the internet. They do seem to have crashed a couple of planes though.
I just spent the last 4 hours hermetically sealing my linux box with duct tabe and plastic wrap.
Is this why I've been getting those '503 Error' messages when I try to hit Slashdot?
CB
free ipod and free gmail!
too bad i was looking forward to the internet go down..... and seeing what would happen, everything relys on the net and e-mail now a days..... it would probally be declared a national emergency probally.... any thoughts what we would do?
Loading Please Wait....
I bet Al Gore is releived to hear is was a hoax, his baby was in jeopardy.
You mean to tell me that the thing that, according ot the media, "may or may not happen" didn't actually happen?
So in that case, the media was right. Why are we upset with them?
I think I may or may not get back to work now. Hey, at least I'm not lying.
Moo.
Earlier reports that cyber-terrorists would be bringing down the internet today have now been denounced as "Slashdot editors complete lack of common sense or fact checking".
"I'll take diaper brands for $100, Alex."
I just realized it was a normal day...despite the threat of a cyber-attack today.
Move along people nothing to see here...
Tomorrow Tom Ridge will probably announce that the United States could be under attack soon by a bunch off terrorists arriving in flying pigs...*sigh*
...in bed
The world was saved from E-Jihad because informed slashdotters were not induced to browse related websites without big images.
Next thing you know, we're going to find out Iraq didn't have any WMDs. It's almost as if somebody actually BENEFITS from creating unsubstantiated media scares. Anyway, I gotta get back to duct taping my windows.
Now we have to say:
Al Gore bless this e-jihad!
Bullwinkle used to say, "If it's in the newspapers, it must be true!"
Other Classic Exaggerations:
Swine Flu Scare (1976) IIRC in the USA more people died from the shots than the disease.
Earthquake Predictions (various)
WMD ('nuff said)
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
the attack will be tomorrow to throw everyone off... The one thing that makes a 'terrorist' attack such a big thing, is the element of surprise. If we all know its coming, we can prepare and arrange for counter attack efforts, which i am sure some security specialists had at least thought about yesterday/early today. Do you think if people had a hint that 9/11 might happen, some people would err on the side of cauti.... oh wait
Sneaky fuckin Russian media...
If other reasons we do lack, we swear no one will die when we attack
Copying press release with zero verification of the claims in said press release. See RIAA/MPAA piracy claims and the reporting of those by ALL MEDIA.
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
Slashdot is probably read my a mostly American crowd, and only can bring down small servers. But considering the important articles being posted today, we may have a few "large chunks" on their way down.
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CEE5210S The signal SIGHUP was received.
People have been predicting the end of the internet as we know it for 20 years now (remember the cutover date 20 1/2 years ago ?) and somehow it still hasn't happened.
Somehow I don't think it ever will
I have mod points and I am not afraid to use them
That's Dr. Jose Nazario to you :-)
(Friendly props, Dr. J. See ya at Toor.)
--Dan
partycat.us was recently attacked by an Islamic cyber terrorist group calling themselves the 'sacred internet order of mohammed tuvai'.
This was in response to the heavily anti-islamist writings published on the site in recent months, which resulted in a large scale DDOS which crippled the site for more than 3 days, this threat is real folks, and can only increase with time as more and more of the eastern world becomes computer literate.
It is about TERROR! It is about emotional manipulation. I'm sorry, but no matter how financially devastating a loss of internet might be, it really doesn't compare to the emotional effect of watching two towers in New York getting hit by jumbo jets and falling to the ground. Not to mention the symbolism behind the world trade center. This whole idea of "cyber-terrorism" is a big joke perpetuated by the ignorant. I'm not saying that nobody will evertry to DDoS the Internet, but I don't really think it would have much to do with a "Jihad" or whatever. And it would be a mistake to lump it in with terrorism. I'm sure terrorists will stick to much more visible and non-virtual acts to get their point across.
-matthew
"THERE IS NO JUSTICE, THERE IS ONLY ME." -Death
So you mean that burning sensation in the back of my skull is not from the internet melting dow...*thud*
SIGFAULT
Reminds me of all those people talking about the evil hackers targeting airports and cereal factories...
This sucks! I scheduled my ENTIRE day around this event actually going as planned. WTF kind of quality control are these cyber-terrorist using, eh??!
"Klaatu, verada, necktie!" -Ash
Professor Frink: "This isn't the Monsterometer, it's the E-Jihad Exaggerator!"
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/1580 535372/103-2200213-9517444?v=glance
Vmyths also had a very good write up on this with their usual counterspinning: http://vmyths.com/hoax.cfm?id=281&page=3
Correct me if I'm wrong, but didn't the Slashdot Community predict yesterday that this may or may not be the outcome?
www.wavefront-av.com
There's lies, damn lies, statistics, and then there's Russian media.
I do not moderate.
what, Slashdot is a Russian news site now?
"I am not surprised at all. I grew up in Soviet Union and if you think U.S. media is unfair and biased you can only imagine what it would be like in a post-communist state ruled by mafia and corruption." How right you are. In the Soviet era, the media was known for its accuracy, diversity of viewpoints, and willingness to criticize government leaders.
A long while back, I've heard/read that hackers (computer crackers?) at L0pht Heavy Industries (now apparantly http://www.atstake.com/) claimed that they could bring down the Internet within a half hour or so. My guess is that their plan involved attacking the DNS root servers. They didn't carry out their 'threat' which proves that they are being responsible with their 'dangerous' knowledge.
have been greatly exaggerated.
but no internet is pretty damn terrifying to me.
! ("That's just what we WANT you to think!")
--- Asking inconvenient questions for over 30 years...
We knew it was a hoax yesterday.
Hot news! Obvious hoax TURNS OUT TO BE HOAX!
*sigh*
Click here to see the type of attack that causes a grape terror alert.
It was in 1917 that Lenin overthrew the democratic Russian government and instituted his corrupt mafia-type government. Not 1930.
This is somewhat likely to be an innoculation against a real threat being taken seriously. Oh, the warning was likely "real", in the sense that those who made it probably spoke those words, but it was probably "amplified" by press so that we'd watch it fail and not trust the next warning.
There's really a fine art of preventing panic. This is part of how it's done.
--Dan
... cuz that nonsense was "denounced" about 30 seconds after being posted to Slashdot yesterday.
But I guess it's not an official denounciation until it gets "printed" in the The Register, huh?
>:-(
"Congratulations, sir. If another 50% of your kind thinks the same as you do, then your country is doomed." Try 90%+ of every country who knows about the WMDs used against the Kurds. The remaining 10% are probably north koreans and Cargo Cult islanders.
Or maybe they were bullshitting.
I'm seeing it everywhere nowadays, and it's just stupid.. it makes absolutely no sense in this context.
I am the maverick of Slashdot
It isn't reasonable to expect someone to be able to predict attacks with 100% accuracy.
IMHO what _is_ reasonable, that they can come up with reasonable odds over time. Maybe there _was_ an increased chance of an e-attack today and we just got lucky. Personally, I would think a guy that could name 10 days with a 10% chance of terrorism and get a resonable number right was doing _very_ good.
It couldnt have been DNS, TTLs would ensure that some functionality would remain for a while... they must have been talking about being able to disable big routers all over or something similar.
Someone already took out 11 of the 13 Root servers a while back, Joe User didn't even notice.
We now return you to your regularly scheduled spam.
I'm not a doctor, but I play one in bed.
Seems to me that the 'terrorists' wanted the authorities to be focusing on the rumored Internet attack while they in fact smuggled themselves and/or bombs onto aircraft.
O'WONDERWe're working on it.
Independent of government interests, but not independent of corporate interests.
The U.S. public broadcasters seem to have a similar flavour and freedom as the BBC.
While Fox, CNN MSNBC et. al. exist entirely for profit and they're not judged on the quality of their news, but the palatability of thier content to their advertisers. The correlation between news and the public is a secondary effect of what the networks feel the advertisers feel the public wants to see... curbed by the advertisers' tendency to not want the public to see things which make the public adverse to particular forms of spending.
There are notable exceptions to the rule, but there are a lot of big stories which go ignored on "slow news days"
Man, I would've wanted to see that. Just imagine, thousands of basements open, out come countless geeks who have not seen a ray of light in years.
No more than five minutes, though. That would've been unbearable.
or, they were talking out there ass. Based on what I know about them, I'd say that is the most likley answer. Ass-Talking.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
The only reason that the US media can currently be considered as independent from the government is that a Republican is in office. Only in China can you find journalism with such an overtly obvious slant. Same direction too, come to think of it.
so the US media has an obvious slant? Tell me. I'm really waiting to see this single slant shared by Dan Rather, the Washington Times, the Washington Post, "The Nation", "National Review", Rush Limbaugh, NPR, Fox News, CNN, indymedia.org, and newsmax.com.
d3y Brokeded teh 1ntarw3b!!!!111!!eleven!!!
Through the accountability of the free marketplace of ideas, the corporate interest is to give in to the public interest.
"While Fox, CNN MSNBC et. al. exist entirely for profit and they're not judged on the quality of their news"
All of these are judged entirely on the quality of their news. That is how they live or die. The only "but the palatability of thier content to their advertisers" that matters is whether or not the public wants the content.
"The correlation between news and the public is a secondary effect"
It is primary. It is the hard-hitting interview style of a Bill O'Reilly or insight/humor of an Al Franken that attracts the public or drives them away. Not the ads.
http://www.internettrafficreport.com/main.htm Shows a little hiccup, or something? What's that blip?
Error: 401 Authorization Required
Address: http://www.e-jihad.net/securebbs/
Your IP Address: xx.xx.xx.xx
You do not have authorisation to the requested resource.
You may want to visit the main page and then retry from there.
If we knew what we were doing, it wouldn't be called research, would it? ~ Albert Einstein
Yeah. I was going to add that part :) but figured I couldn't resist bitching about them charging high prices to run a stupid web server penetration script and charging $2k for the priviledge of spreading FUD amongst my web customers.
Get it right, will ya!
Why bother.
Now what the Crap am i supposed to do with the 5000 cans of beans i bought?!
... on the internet traffic report graphs right now? What happened to cause them?
Obviously you've never actually had to cut fiberoptic cabling before. It's a royal bitch to cut through, even with the proper tools. All the fiber optic cable I've ever worked with is full of yellow Kevlar fibers as packing & support material (talking about real fiber cable here, not just simple patch cords), and even with a brand new pair of fiber splicer's shears, you have to knaw at it for a couple minutes to finish cutting it. The optic strands themselves are easily cut, but the jacketing and the kevlar are pretty doggone tough stuff!
I've gone Jihad electronicaly before
This was, by far, one of the cheesiest (legitimate) tactics I ever used in that game! I've won a game with nothing more than Jihad peasants!!! I'd build dozens of town centers (terrorist training facilities), and bumb rush the enemy town, burning down all of their buildings with nothing more than peasants!!!
JIHAD!!!!
*Please ignore this if you haven't played Age of Empires*
HallmarkOrnaments.Com
It is about TERROR! It is about emotional manipulation.
The terracist HATES our perfect platonic mountains. Their goals are to ruin the perfect geometric harmony of our hills with earth-dams. This will them to move agriculture from the sacred plains into the mountains. THIS MUST BE STOPPED. They need flatness, they cannot stand the majestry of our beautiful american landscape!
On second thoughts, I take that back - he just posts random stories based on old random stories. When he's not too busy being a petulant, weiner-necked ponce, that is.
At the bottom of the
... the original poster was necessarily female?
Ewwwwww!!! Yeah, I know that was gross.
Anything hackers can do can be sensed, and the appropriate code put in place to stop the leak.
I go to bed peacefully knowing the internet runs on a series of protocols that is just about as secure as knowing the English language will still exist tomorrow. Someone may misuse it, but that does not render the whole shebang moot.
As long as the Internet is the property of the commons, no one can do much harm to it.
We have a really nice series of plumbing in place now to route information, just as we have plumbing in place to route water and power. Enough people understand how it works that any malfunction can be properly addressed.
If anything brings down the internet, it will be politicians, passing law to grant exclusive controls to certain corporations, which can then fund volleys of lawyers to use the court systems to destroy anything in their path.
Yes, you can see planes crashing into towers, and you see rubble where a magnificient building once stood.. and there is lots of evidence scattered all over of the disaster that took place there, but there is little to see after a swarm of lawyers devastate a small business, but the damage is just as real.
If we don't hold our elected officials to the welfare of this country soon, it appears ownership/litigation will become the only viable way of "earning" an income.
"Prove all things; hold fast that which is good." [KJV: I Thessalonians 5:21]
as I type, a big-ass piece of AT&T's backbone is having major problems.
Portable versions of Firefox, GIMP, LibreOffice, etc
It's going to take a hell of alot more then that to secure Windows ;).
Considering the majority of so-called cyber terrorists are actually in Russia, where they're pretty much safe from the law (at least safer than they would be in, say, the United States). For example, a lot of DDoS groups reside in Russia -- you know, the ones who extort money out of websites by threatening to DDoS them repeatedly.
That means I gotta work today!
Exactly how were they going to "bring down the internet"? (No, I havent RTFA)
^^
My guess is that they just needed a publicity stunt to get some fame and had run out of "friends" to grass up to the FBI that month.
:-)
And no, this isn't flamebait, see.
Puts things in perspective huh
Last friday one of the largest credit card processors in the world had their entire IP commerce network shut down due to DOS attacks.
Yeah right. The US media is in the hands of large coporations that are interested in making money. They are not to be interested in proper journalism but in getting as many viewers as they can. As a result the news is sensationalized, dumbed down and news that seems too negative or unpatriotic is not reported or twisted to avoid upsetting the viewers. Call that independence?
It seems more like someone just wanted to get his name published. Notice the description "computer expert".
So "growing up" somehow has something to do with not questioning what people say, going along with being mislead or deceived, or having a knee-jerk reaction to everything that falls outside your myopic world view? (These are personal observations I've made of Fox "news".) Right. No thanks; I'll stick to liberalism. Sure, all the thinking takes a lot more effort, but it's worth it in the long run.
Why bother.
Free in the sense that no one will break down their door and shoot them in the head for publishing a story.
Our media is "free" but it operates in an environment in which the results will be desirable to those in power. It's not in the corporate interest to have a truely independent and diverse media.
Propaganda doesn't have to come from official government sources or a Pravda-style outlet. It can be more subtle and complex in nature.
----
This concludes our transmission to Oceania.
There was suppose to be an earth shattering Kaboom!
No, the US media is in the hands of thousands of organizations and companies, who are accountable to the public.
"They are not to be interested in proper journalism but in getting as many viewers as they can"
Knock knock. Hello? anyone in there? You are missing the obvious that it is the viewers who best determine what proper journalism is.
"As a result the news is sensationalized, dumbed down and news that seems too negative or unpatriotic is not reported or twisted to avoid upsetting the viewers"
This does not happen at all. There is no media control.
"Our media is "free" but it operates in an environment in which the results will be desirable to those in power."
In our system, if those in power do not like it, you can print/say it anyway.
"It's not in the corporate interest to have a truely independent and diverse media."
I guess the corporations have no power then, because the media is truly independent and remarkably diverse. What else can you say of a situation where the voices of Limbaugh, Susan Ehrenreich, "The Nation", "The National Review" all flourish?
"That must have been why Bush ran on the "invade Iraq" platform in 2000."
He didn't. He ran on an all-out sensible domestic and foreign policy platform. In fact, he gave Saddam plenty of ample time to comply with cease-fire resolutions that he should have complied with years ago. Saddam flat out refused, basically ending the cease-fire.
Thankfully, the war in Iraq is winding down, thanks to Bush. Saddam's war against his and other countries often killed 20,000 per year. His terrorist forces are on the run now, and cannot block food from reaching people. If you had your way, Saddam would still be in power.
"Our media is "free" but it operates in an environment in which the results will be desirable to those in power. It's not in the corporate interest to have a truely independent and diverse media."
How many tens of millions does Michael Moore have to make before he is no longer oppressed and marginalized? How many box-office-record breaking movies does he have to make before someone FINALLY hears his message?
"Propaganda [thirdworldtraveler.com] doesn't have to come from official government sources or a Pravda-style outlet. It can be more subtle and complex in nature."
Translation: even if it does not exist at all, you will argue that it does. Thanks for linking to specific article by a fascist who makes up whacky theories to deal with the fact that hardly anyone agrees with his pro-fascist views. He even bothers to include his usual arguments for and justification for genocide in Southeastern Asia. Way to go, Foamin' Noam!
"The U.S. public broadcasters seem to have a similar flavour and freedom as the BBC."
I assuming that you are referring to PBS and NPR. They are well known for their strongly pro-government, left-wing, big-state bias. It is not surprising: they are government-controlled and funded. The BBC is government-controlled as well.
Yeah, if I had my way, Saddam would be torturing prisoners in Iraq instead of the United States
Probably true, as it is all the same to you. No difference between Saddam torturing and slaughtering several hundred thousand over many years, and the brief and now ended US-led prison torture that mostly involved laughing at naked guys and left 20 or so dead. No difference at all.
"If I had my way, Iraq would be run by Saddam Hussein instead of Al Qaeda"
It's run by neither. Your point?
" If I had my way, the Iraqi people could possibly be fighting against Saddam Hussein instead of the United States occupying forces."
You are, of course, speaking of a small number of terrorists fighting against the libertating forces.
"Oh wait, if I had my way, nearly a thousand US soldiers would still be alive today."
Using this logic, I guess we should have stayed out of WW2 ! Your pro-Saddam logic is quite twisted.
... that WinNuke doesn't work as well as it used to.
The Russians practically invented media spin, aka propaganda. Of course, on the flip side, most Russians don't blindly believe their media, so maybe they're better off than Americans in this regard.
sig != null
You know, not to interrupt our little making-fun--of-the-Russians discussion, it looks like terrorists brought down two of their planes yesterday.
Maybe, and this is just a thought, the idea of the internet being brought down was part of the chatter that the Russians had picked up on, and turned out to be a distraction-tactic for something a whole hell of a lot worse.
--------
Bleah! Heh heh heh... BLEAH BLEAH!!! Ha ha ha ha...
Only in China can you find journalism with such an overtly obvious slant
Well, there and Slashdot.