Slashdot Mirror
Cyberwar on NASA Websites
Vexorian writes "Two NASA websites were hacked today by a group of Chilean activist hackers. The reason was to protest against the war on Lebanon. The mirror of the defaced site contains an image of an injured child and claims that the sites were running MacOSX."
On the one hand, this is news; NASA is a big target. On the other hand, why are we posting a link to the defacement? We don't need to see it -- just report the story.
Look, I seriously doubt you're going to find that many people who think the war in Lebanon is a good thing, besides anyone with a vendetta against the Lebanese or the people selling bombs and rockets. You want to protest the war, fine -- but don't exepct me to care what you have to say when you can't make your voice heard in a public and legal forum. Defacing a website, any web site, is not the way to make me feel sympathy for your point of view.
GetOuttaMySpace - The Anti-Social Network
Hacktivist hacks happen all the time. Is someone trolling for an Israeli-Lebanon Conflict discussion?
what with the shooting of Jews in chicago yesterday and now the Lebanon debacle that the US refuses to condemm even though 24 lebanese children died in a bombing in Quana this disaster of an administration have sown seeds of hate that will come back to haunt the US for years to come
staggering that in such a short time the US has gone from loved to hated , the conclusion is Bush and his cronies have put the US populace in a lot more danger than they where 5 years ago, and it is the populace that will suffer the consequences while the administrations operatives relax on their ranches in absolute luxury laughing
When last I looked into this it was a unilateral isreali action.
since when did NASA of all government agencies have to do with a war in lebanon.
It seems to me like theyre doing the cyber equivalent to nasa that isrealis are doing to lebanese civillian centers.
stupid stupid stupid stupid stupid....
VLC FOR MAC IS DYING! IF YOU DEVELOP, PLEASE SAVE IT!!
I think you need to look at some other news channels apart from Fox!
Right... and defacing a NASA website for sure is a good way to "do some good".
Although some say that only active protesting works, I'm sure they didn't mean to sit on your chair and "h4x0r" some sites. Actually it's pretty sad to see one defacing websites in name of "peace and justice". It also concerns when someone say thats hacktivism, as it can create a bad impression about legit hacktivism activities (such as providing privacy for people in China, etc.).
"Go forth, and be excellent to each other" --Bill & Ted
It is so easy to protest something that is right in your face on TV, isn't it? How about years and years of killing that have been going on in Israel by Hizballah and Hamas terrorist organizations? How about all those rockets that were launched at Israel from Lebanon within the past two decades? Maybe a UN server should be hacked, after all after 2000 UN and Lebanon was responsible for keeping Hizballah from amassing rockets and other weapons. Do these activists care when during the 'peace times' Israeli kids and adults get blown up?
If anything, these protestors should thank Israel for taking action now and preventing more carnage later. One cannot constantly procrastinate in this kind of a situation, because it is only getting worse.
Oh yes, and how about protesting where it actually makes sense: at Hizballah, at Lebanese, Iranian and Syrian governments. Protesting against regimes that allow terrorists to do what they do: use civilians AND UN folks as living shields on the battlefield. Not only are civilians used as shields, they are a great propaganda tool. When a terrorist launches a rocket at civilian targets in Israel from a busy market place in Lebanon, and Israeli army answers with fire at that place, is it the responsibility of Israel to make sure that Lebanese civilians do not suffer or is it responsibility of those, who used the civilians for their political gain around the world?
Here are a couple of caricatures that do tell something about the reality of this war.
You can't handle the truth.
When Martin Luther King led the nonviolent marches that pulled off a second American Revolution without a second Civil War, the marchers didn't trespass or tear down signs. That's why they changed the attitude and culture of America, which is the victory everyone needs in these conflicts. The victory that others who accepted or embraced violence lost, like Farrakhan's Nation of Islam, the Black Panthers, and all the hundreds of forgotten "freedom fighters". Even when their agenda and goals included important results that would be good for practically everyone, they polarized, alienated and pushed people into defensive positions on even indefensible parts of the status quo.
Chileans vandalizing America when Israel attacks Lebanon doesn't change anyone's minds for the better. It just escalates by a little bit the spiral of violence:
Ignorance -> Fear -> Anger -> Violence -> Alienation -> Ignorance
The central front in the Terror War is in our own minds, where that well-worn cycle can send us all to our doom.
--
make install -not war
The Lebanese government is in enough trouble as it is, having a radical group (Hezbollah) executing attacks on their neighbors against the government's whim. Getting civilian support for that radical group (by demonizing the aforementioned neighbor, which Israel's civilian-infrastructure-targeted attacks and utter carelessness with regard to collateral damage have been doing pretty effectively) weakens the legitimate government, giving the radicals even more of a chance to take over Lebanon completely.
Israel is off their collective rockers, and the world is standing by and letting them get away with it. It's insane.
The Israelis sent messages to the cities they intended to bomb so that the people there could leave and not get killed. Why did they bomb the buildings in those cities? Because the people who run those cities had installed thousands of rockets pointed at their neighboring country and had engaged in randomly firing those missles into civilian centers of the neighboring country without any warning!.
This is an unprovoked serious act of war, by a people who have repeatedly and openly sworn to destroy the neighboring country. Against a people who lost 90% of their population in a slaughter the last time they didn't take these warnings seriously.
If the criminal Hizba'allah organization had not repeatedly engaged in serious unprovoked acts of war against a neighboring sovereign state, the Israelis would not be currently bombing the shit out of them.
This is the way that the world works. You would be doing the exact same thing if it were you. The difference between the Israelis killing Arabs and Arabs killing Israelis is that the Arabs wrap their children in high explosives and send them off to blow themselves up in crowded public areas without warning and without mercy. Then they dance in the streets in celabration of their ' great victory'. The Israelis warn the Arabs that they are coming and if they want to live, then leave. Then they agonize over the wisdom and morality of their actions. They offer peace plans that are always rejected. The cycle of madness begins anew.
All this anti-Israeli and 'anti-Zionism' talk around the world is just anti-semitism resurfacing and trying to pretend not to be. The Israelis are great people that are surrounded by millions of people who have surrendered their minds to a death cult. The Israelis do what they must. They don't get any pleasure from it. But they don't shrink from it, either.
Every single one that U.S. citizens do, and they are numerous. Don't try to excuse the hacking as a "lack" of political access. That don't fly.
The Hezbollah army builds their bases on the ground floor of civilian apartments. They are literally hiding behind women and children. Both sides (Hezbolah and Israel) are equally to blame for the civilian deaths. And since the Syrian and Iranian government are funding the rocket attacks, shouldn't these hackers be hacking Syrian and Iranian sites as well? Could it be that hacking US sites just provides bigger bragging rights?
Disproportionality is the only way to deal with terrorists. The border was peaceful until the Hezbullah incursion. If I were an Israeli I would not relish the prospect of being terrorised forever at an ever more lethal intensity. I would want to irradicate the problem. As for civilians, they were given fair warning to leave the area and go to central Lebanon were they would not be harmed. Hezbullah uses civilians as shields, launching attacks from aprtment buildings, residential areas.. If Hezbullah stopped doing this there would be no civilian casualties. Israel's only recourse is to ignore them in pursuit of the enemy.
an ill wind that blows no good
Actually it makes complete sense if you understand the culture of that area. Hez claims victory as they touted Isreali pull out as a loss for Isreal. To that part of the world, Isreali lost face and was defeated by Hez. Hez is elected into power since they are the ONLY Arab organization ever to DEFEAT Isreal. Land for peace is now a dismal failure and Isreal has to show the Arab (sp) culture that Isreal has not been defeated and will kick them in the nuts repeatedly till they get the message.
Yes it's horrific, but it HAS to be done.
And no, I'm not a Jew.
Dammy
Yes yes, Hesbulla has been lobbing rockets at Haifa, but this was only after Israel flattened half of Beirut.
Oh sure, they kidnapped 2 Israeli soldiers, how could I forget! But is that reason enough to slaughter 450+ civilians? If a para-military group in Canada kidnaps 2 people, do you start bombing Toronto?
And now back to why the rest of the world really hates the US right now: because they could have easily supported UN resolutions or stopped Israel but they didn't. They are just letting the bloodshed continue, angering millions of muslims even more. Israel is firing US-arms in a unilateral war against a sovereign nation. Doing so, they are only strengthening the ranks of Hesbulla and isolating themselves even more. I am no Hesbulla-fan, but think about what you all are cheering for: supporting Israel at this point is no better than supporting Bin Laden when he struck New York: an unilateral, unprovoked attack on a civilian population.
And if hacking US websites is a way to get that into American heads, so be it.
This sig is intentionally left blank
No, that just creates more terrorists.
Emotional response leads to emotional response and the situation never changes.
I see that argument a lot.
If they're using civilians as "shields", but those "shields" don't stop the attacks, then why are they still using them as "shields"?
An easier explanation is that they target them where they believe they live. And if civilians also live there, too bad.
They target them where they believe they gather. And if civilians are also there, too bad.
Then, when the civilians are killed, claim that the "bad guys" were using them as "shields" again. Even when they've never worked as "shields".
And when you kill an innocent civilian, you've just given his/her family and friends a reason to join the "bad guys".
In all honesty, haven't the US and Israelis attempts at "kicking the nuts" of Hezbollah and similar organizations repeatedly failed miserably? It's a real world example of the myth of the hydra, the more heads you chop off the more there will come! Israel is selling out all their international goodwill (axcept maybe in parts of the US) for a futile attempt to kill off all of Hezbollah. It just can't be done!
It makes perfect sense that the hackers came from south america and not an arab country. My own government (the UK) is way ahead in removing that particular distinction
Seriously though, the reason they hit NASA was because they could. They almost certainly scanned through all US government sites for a vunerability they could exploit, and NASA just happened to have one.
Also, you should be thanking them for this. This form of protest hurts exactly nobody. A sysadmin gets some extra overtime, thats all. If you guys didn't have contempt for peaceful forms of protest like this, perhaps people wouldn't feel the need to murder thousands of you just to get your attention.
If we can put a man on the moon, why can't we shoot people for Apollo-related non-sequiturs?
what with the shooting of Jews in chicago yesterday
Do you actually read the news, or just go with what you're told? The shooting was in Seattle - a very different place from Chicago. And Jews have been at the bottom of some people's "favorite peoples" list for centuries - I doubt our foreign policy could really ever change that in just a few years.
The world is not nearly as petty a place as some would like to think it is. Bush hasn't helped, sure, but anti-US sentiment has been building for years. We rule the world, but spend outlandish amounts on shopping trips and vacations to countries whose people can barely afford basic food and shelter. Then, when something happens to our own, we can't take care of them either.
We'd be a whole lot better off is more Americans would stop using Bush as a scapegoat (again, he might be a good one, but that's not the point) and started changing the way they actually lived - cut back on energy consumption, buy a hybrid or use public transit, demand true equality in civil services and protection in poor neighborhoods/regions, and quit mouthing off on the Internet complaining about your government when the House has something ridiculous like a 98% re-election rate.
We don't take responsibility for our own actions - and when something goes right, take responsibility whether it was our doing or not. That's why people hate us.
It sounds like you are missing something, yes. Maybe you should follow the news? These guys in Chile clearly do. From this mornings headlines:
More than 54 civilians, at least 34 of them children, have been killed in a town in south Lebanon in the deadliest Israeli strike of the conflict so far. BBC News
This is a sadly ordinary story. I'm no fan of Hezbollah, but I cannot understand the Israeli action, or the lack of action by my (I'm British) or the US government. Just remember who are selling those bombs.
Isn't that what Israel did? They withdrew completely from Lebanon. They gave back all of the Gaza and the West Bank, and withdrew all their settlements. They gave the terrorists everything they asked for and complied with every request the UN made. So now how should the respond to continued aggression? Just throw up their hands and wait for death to come?
If you don't know where you are going, you will wind up somewhere else.
Then maybe we should have done the same to the chicago mafia in the 30's...
just shelled their places of business and damn the consequences...
Again, a non-workable analogy. The people smuggling whiskey and evading taxes in the 30's weren't launching missles from Chicago into Toledo, or proclaiming that only the destruction of Illinois is acceptable to them. They didn't randomly kill women and children, year after year, just to stoke things up (they just killed each other in a turf war over the smuggling market and related "industries").
The mafia wasn't a militant front for an oil-rich retrograde fascist theocracy that was shipping them millions of bucks and thousands of missiles.
It doesnt make sense to use millitary weaponry when surgical strikes on the ground would get things done.
If the Israelis stopped using precision weapons, you'd see the civilian deaths in the areas where Hezbollah keeps parking their weapons and launchers go from a few hundred to thousands and thousands over night. You do understand that you can't just march Israeli troops back into all of Lebanon and surgically remove Hezbollah weapons and infrastructure from the middle of the civilian presence in which they hide without an enormous invasion, right? It takes a gigantic supply chain, tons of armour, and thousands of soldiers - and it would take months and months, and many more Israeli deaths, which is exactly what Hezbollah would like to force them to have to do.
Hezbollah has had an uninterrupted six years to build bunkers, to booby-trap and mine their weapons storage sites, and to make sure that their personnel are woven completely into the fabric of the civilian population of Lebanon. Israel is being smart, and taking out the tools Hezbollah will need to re-supply themselves with weapons. Eventually they will run out, or Iran will have to more clearly show their hand by visibly pushing new weapons into the area by air - and they don't want to have that light shown on them just now. In the meantime, when Hezbollah pops out of a basement with a missle launcher, Israel hits that spot immediately, to destroy the cache that's there. They have no choice, other than to just tolerate more missles raining down on Haifa and beyond.
Don't disappoint your bird dog. Go to the range.
I'm sorry but when you try to justify the killing of innocent civilians you have already lost the argument. Surely war is war and civilians becoming victims of "collateral damage" can be explained. But it can never be justified. Once you claim that killing innocent lives is morally right you have lost all moral authority.
The best education consists in immunizing people against systematic attempts at education. - Paul Feyerabend
They gave back all of the Gaza and the West Bank, and withdrew all their settlements.
What are you talking about? They withdrew from Gaza, yes, but since then have blocked anything and anyone from entering or leaving. There is no economy, no money flow, no medicine flow, nothing going into Gaza. Yes, Israelis left, but they completely choked it up.
As for the West Bank, when did Israel withdraw from there? Most of the West Bank is currently occupied by huge Israeli settlements built on Palestinian land (as per the Oslo accords). There are also the ultra-orthdox Jewish settlers who create new "settlements" on Palestinian farmland by terrorizing its owners then erecting makeshift homes and shoot anybody who comes close. The Israeli government is trying to dismantle those, but at the same time expanding their other "legal" settlements by annexing more Palestinian land. Not to mention the completely illegal wall that is eating up even more Palestinian farm land.
They gave the terrorists everything they asked for and complied with every request the UN made.
Really? They definitely did not give back Jerusalem. They definitely did not allow UN peace inspectors into Gaza and the West Bank, and thanks to the US, they do not have any binding UN sanctions against them because of the American veto.
Stop pretending that Israel is the perfect peace loving nation. Israel does not want peace, because peace is not in its favour.
I am reminded of the Republicans clamoring bloody murder for the brief showing of U.S. flag draped coffins (of our killed in Iraq coming home to rest) in a television spot about the costs of war. Of course the Republicans scream bloody murder and do not want you to see the flag draped coffins of our fallen soldiers: that might turn your mind on the war.
And this is just recently. During 2003 and 2004 up until the election Bush personally disallowed any press to be present during the transportation of the flag draped coffins of our dead. Taking pictures was classified as a violation of national security (funny how everything the U.S. president does not want done gets classified that way -- it sure is easier than passing a law through the two legislative houses).
Part of propaganda is not just making up the message people will hear, but also suppressing the message you do not want them to hear. The Republicans do not want you to hear, or actually see, that our U.S. soldiers are dying in the war in Iraq.
Seems pretty clear-cut, doesn't it? Keep reading.
Enemy hospitals are, by default, not targets. However, if an enemy hospital has a SAM site on the roof and machine gun nests on every balcony, it becomes a legitimate military target. Any innocent civilians inside are undoubtedly aware of the military nature of their otherwise civilian location, and just in case they aren't, they are warned explicitly by the opposing forces that they are now considered hostile. If they continue to defend their position, they are no longer innocent -- they have become enemy combatants, whether they pick up a gun or not.
In this example, conducting air strikes on the hospital would be completely justified. That's why the Geneva Conventions explicitly make it legal to do so. If you don't want your civilians to get hurt, you keep them out of the fighting. You make it clear that your fight is between your army and their army. On the other hand, if you use civilians to hide your army, if you use civilians as human shields, if you use civilians to conduct suicide bombings, if you set up armories in hospitals and mosques, you leave the opposing force no choice but to kill civilians.
So, in your mind, anything critical of the policies of Israel is anti-semitism. Because that is what you have written. The Israeli people are no different from the palestine or lebanese people: Mother Theresa and that serial killer Manson belong to the same human race. There is of course ideology flung around, but labeling all arabs as being part of a death cult is "anti-arabicanism". If you think that anti-semitism is bad, then why do you exercise "anti-arabicanism"? The sole reason I put quote marks around that phrase, is because it is not even in common use to describe a behaviour that is exhibited in your own post.
I don't think the Israelis are doing what they must. I think they keep voting in politicians that act as if they and only they could protect them from a not lifethreatening (on a national scale) enemy (doesn't that sound familiar?). What the Israelis need to do is vote for less comforting, less "black-and-white" world viewed politicians, who can do their best to solve the problems on the middle east. While it might not look so good, because there are many compromises to be reached, both the israelis and palestinian/lebanese people would end up safer. If history ended up teaching something, is that unilaterialism end up in empires, and that empires fall.
It takes a man to suffer ignorance and smile
Be yourself no matter what they say
The difference between the Israelis killing Arabs and Arabs killing Israelis is that the Arabs wrap their children in high explosives and send them off to blow themselves up in crowded public areas without warning and without mercy.
A large number of those Arabs have been involved in a long running war with Israel whom they consider to have stolen their land and destroyed their livelihoods. They are fighting an enemy massively better funded and armed (by the United States) who employ tactics deemed illegal by the International Court of Justice and condemned by the Secretary General of the United Nations.
As a British person I accept that Israel exists and we must practically do everything we can to stop the violence. However, I also accept that Brtiain broke a lot of promises to Arabs in the Balfour Declaration and today the US and the UK continue to supply weapons to Israel that kill innocent women, children and now UN workers, despite the fact that Israel is in breach of international law.
Looking at the history of it and the current situation, I would have to say "we" (US/UK in particular) are responsible for a lot of deaths on both sides.
I wouldn't consider South Asia the Middle East. And our very different treatment of Iran and Israel's nuclear weapons programs just prove the GPs point.
Frosty piss posts are worthless, GNAA posts are worthless and hurtful, but they are the least of this site's neuroses.
"As many prior posters have quoted, the difference between Israeli citizens and Lebanese citizens is that "Israeli citizens are sleeping in bomb shelters; Lebanese citizens are sleeping with bombs."
Nice soundbite, it makes it sound like the children are complicit in missle launches, but of course they were just innocent victims. Did they choose or even know who was next door? You are using the vague phrase 'Lebanese citizens' to try to blanket transfer blame from SOME terrorists to A WHOLE COUNTRIES POPULATION.
This strategy can never work. Consider the case of the IRA in Northern Ireland. We faced their bombs regularly in Britain, yet we never did anything so foolish as to bomb huge sections of ireland in the hope of flushing them out. It would be counter productive, it would simply create more terrorism.
In the same way this strategy can't possibly ever fix the problem Israel has with its northern border. It will simply increase the terrorism, and decrease their security.
MacOS = BSD based = 'nix.
It's unfortunate that the world is full of so many morons who (a) cannot tell propaganda from bullshit, and (b) can't creatively channel their frustrations. Hacking a NASA website won't stop a single Israel bomb or Hezbollah rocket from falling on civilians.
First off, I want to add my voice to those that say: Fuck Israel and Fuck Hizbollah. Fuck Hizbollah for dragging Lebanese civillians into a war where they are utterly defenseless. Fuck Israel for so utterly disregarding civillian lives (accidents my fucking arse).
Fuck Israel for being so fucking dumb as to not have learnt its lesson from the last time they invaded Lebanon. Hizbollah won then and Hizbollah is no weaker now. Fuck Israel for being so stupid as to always make disgustingly bad excuses for the wholesale slaughter of civillians. Fuck Israel again for being so numbingly stupid as to not realise that every bomb that falls on Lebanon makes Hizbollah more popular in the Arab world. And again, fuck Israel for achieving what no Iranian Mullah or politician could: unifying the Shia and Sunni sects against Israel and the west.
You think Israel can disarm Hizbollah? You must have also thought that the US could pacify Iraq. Look how well that turned out and how "disarmed" they are.
And Fuck Bush and his cabal of poodles in the UK who are too stupid to see where this is going: Destroying whatever miniscule amount of credibility the US and the UK had in the Arab world and dragging us one step closer to World war 3.
And you know who must be laughing so hard at all of this that they must be pissing themselves: The Russians and the Chinese.