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Cyber Attacks against Tibetan Communities
UnderAttack writes "The SANS Internet Storm Center reports about an increasing number of sophisticated and targeted cyber attacks against Tibetan NGOs. These attacks appear to be related to attacks against other anti-chinese groups like Falun Gong. 'There is lots of media coverage on the protests in Tibet. Something that lies under the surface, and rarely gets a blip in the press, are the various targeted cyber attacks that have been taking place against these various communities recently. These attacks are not limited to various Tibetan NGOs and support groups. They have been reported dating back to 2002, and even somewhat before that, and have affected several other communities, including Falun Gong and the Uyghurs.'"
Oh crap--pdf exploits. That's messed up. Ok, new rule--tell them to convert to ascii.
Just callin' it like I see it.
On the whole, I find it unlikely. When the Chinese government is involved in that sort of thing, they don't attack web servers, they bury people in unmarked holes. There is no evidence, no media coverage, no identifiable body or even any indication that there is a body. The people who offended them just don't show up for work one morning, and nobody sees them again. It doesn't even matter what country they live in - the arm of the Chinese government is very long, and law enforcement tends to turn a blind eye to it because they're either scared (nearby countries) or they just don't care about "those damn Chinese" fighting amongst themselves again (distant countries). It's always simple, quick, anonymous, pretty much untraceable, and immediately terminates the "problem".
This is something quite different: it's noisy and public and largely ineffective in the long run. The Chinese government just doesn't do noisy, public, and ineffective. They may not be very nice, but they're still in power because they are very good at what they do.
What we have here will be the same thing that it always is: a bunch of hoodlums taking the "law" into their own hands. Some people like this go out and find some random person from a group they don't like, and administer a beating, saying that they deserve it. Some attack web servers. It's all the same thing really.
The media doesn't bother reporting the beatings, because a few dozen incidents of random violence aren't news. A few dozen defaced websites still is, for some reason.
This came up recently in German media, and the response of both government and NOC officials was that if we were to boycott olympics on political reasons, calling for a boycott *now* would be double-measured. A spokesman said (and I'm forced to agree, though I don't quite like it) that if one were to call for a boycott on the grounds of China violating human rights, one should consider that there have been thousands of the usual executions and imprisonments since the games were awarded to China, and no one called for a boycott then. So, doing it now would put the human rights of the Tibetans above those of native Chinese...
Really a difficult situation. Boycotts, just like strikes, are always unjust as they mostly hit the wrong guys. I do, however, hope that western athletes will use the olympics as a forum discussing this, e.g. publicly asking why there are no teams representing Tibet and Taiwan.
You do know what sophistry is don't you?
Perhaps you should talk to a bona-fide tantric buddhist practitioner before you paint them all with one brush, based on some bizarre cooks collection of papers.
Those very same tantric buddhists, from the very highest levels, have been saying: "Don't let recent events in Tibet let anger increase in the mind through discussion or action." Obviously very dangerous people, right?
Like all pain, suffering is a signal that something isn't right
I was not defending all facets of Tibetan culture at the time of the occupation, but rather the mere right of the Tibetans to preserve their own conception of a culture distinct from that of neighbouring peoples.
Chinese claims of bilingual education are regularly criticized by linguists worldwide. Chinese schooling in practice pushes Putonghua on the local population to the detriment of their own language.
While I have not been to Tibet, I have traveled in Eastern Turkestan a.k.a. Xinjiang. It is obvious that the influx of Han people as it is currently managed is not compatible with the preservation of the indigenous language.
I am 100% sure, the Chinese army would not do that. To stop such stupid argument, you just need to know one fact (as a bottom line): the STD infection was terrible when the army came to the Tibet 1959 and the Tantra scripts probably didnt mention the receipts of penicillin.
Please read this FACT before you reply: http://www.michaelparenti.org/Tibet.html
Not all Tibetan exiles are enamoured of the old Shangri-La theocracy. Kim Lewis, who studied healing methods with a Buddhist monk in Berkeley, California, had occasion to talk at length with more than a dozen Tibetan women who lived in the monk's building. When she asked how they felt about returning to their homeland, the sentiment was unanimously negative. At first, Lewis assumed that their reluctance had to do with the Chinese occupation, but they quickly informed her otherwise. They said they were extremely grateful "not to have to marry 4 or 5 men, be pregnant almost all the time," or deal with sexually transmitted diseases contacted from a straying husband. The younger women "were delighted to be getting an education, wanted absolutely nothing to do with any religion, and wondered why Americans were so naive [about Tibet]."