Paraguay Telco Hijacks DNS Before Elections

MrJones writes "In Paraguay we are at T-9 days to national elections. The ruling party has been in power for nearly 61 years (including more than 30 years of dictatorship). Now the state-run ADSL company is hijacking the DNS nationwide of a site that denounces the corruption in the party."

Comments

Down with goverment censorship

[bumof2005]

It's amazing how easily entire countries of people can be manipulated. China is in the spotlight now but it is nothing compared to countries like North Korea who will get thrown in jail if they have a cell phone for fear that people will actually figure out that nothing they are told is true.

TOR

[explosivejared]

Get the word out about tor. Vidalia is an easy to use controller. This is the exact sort of time when a network and protocol like onion routing is extremely valuable.

Re:TOR

[PopeRatzo]

perhaps someone else has a better idea on how to get some of these fundamental technologies out there to the unwashed masses?

Yes. We first have to stop electing corporatist authoritarians who believe they have a God-given right to meddle in the affairs of other sovereign countries.

You can look at almost every single right-wing dictatorship and tin-pot tyrant in the world and find the fingerprints of the Nixon, Reagan, Bush I or Bush II administrations. Iran-Contra, Noriega, Saddam, Osama, Musharraf, Columbia, Bolivia, etc etc. The list goes on forever.

Last week, in testimony before Congress, we were told that the President no longer has to abide by treaties because it's a "time of war". That includes trade and environmental treaties.

After World War II, the United States was really considered a beacon of freedom around the world. We had the respect of everyone. Even after Viet Nam, there was a significant amount of Good Will toward the United States. Starting in 1980, we began squandering that good will, and in the last seven years, George Bush has destroyed every last bit of good faith that the international community had for us. Throw in a 12 trillion dollar debt and millions of lost industrial jobs, a phony war with somewhere between 1/2 million and a million civilian deaths, secret prisons and torture, and there is no longer any doubt that this administration has by far done more damage to our own country than any enemy could possibly do.

Heckuva job, Chippy McSnort.The fact that he and Cheney will retire rich and happy to their respective ranches is absolute proof that there is no God.

You better bet that the citizens of poor little countries like Paraguay are just keeping their heads down and trembling with fear until the day these monsters leave office.

Re:No oil

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually, the US is about to open a military base in Paraguay, to have a tight leash on Bolivian oil fields, I guess.

So, I think we will side with the ruling party in this one.

so what can we do?

[gibbsjoh]

a. What is known about this in Paraguay? Are people aware that this is going on?
b. What can those of us outside Paraguay do to help? Mirror sites, etc?

JG

Re:so what can we do?

[Anonymous Coward]

I am from Paraguay, and no. People (the vast percentage without internet access) is not aware of what is going on (was, they 'fixed the unfortunate mistake' already). Internet access here is very expensive, restricting it to the wealthier population.

It really didn't do much harm, because the ones with internet access tend to be the more critical to the way things are here, with or without having access to the hikacked sites.

It is well known to the ruling party (Partido Colorado) that once internet gets cheap enough for people in the middle/lower classes, their everlasting rule will come to an end. Because it is an information source that can't be controlled.

But hey, let them try. This is not the great firewall of China. It is just a bunch of idiots thinking they can hijack DNS entries and go unnoticed.

Unfortunately it isn't much you can do to help. It is us that need to wake up and put an end to 61+ years of corruption and oppression.

Elections here are going to be very similar to those in Zimbabwe. The ruling party has taken all kinds of dirty measures to control the election process. Partial judges, excessive number of reception tables, news fabrication, threats to people working in public institutions... business as usual.

Maybe this time the difference against them will be so overwhelming they won't be able to change the outcome.

Wish us luck...

put it everywhere

[kris.montpetit]

If I were Paraguayan right now I would be spamming every forum I knew of with the argument of corruption, regardless of what the forum was about, so anyone using the net in Paraguay/the world is likely to see part of the message at least once.. If they couldn't post the whole idea at once, I would do it in parts, on a stay tuned kind of basis, and just keep the coverage of your spamming campaign as diverse as possible so no single entity can silence it...Think anonymous.

Seriously, Paraguayans should be spamming this news story..right now.

Re:put it everywhere

[orasio]

This is not that kind of government.
Of course, they _could_ kill you (they have the ability, but it's not their m.o.), but they don't need to. Think of it as a conservative government that is friends with all the media. They don't need to actively censor a lot of people.
The internet is an issue, because it doesn't respond that much to corporate interests. That's why they are censoring this. That, and because they just don't know how the internet works, and don't know about the Streissand effect.

Dig output

[Anonymous Coward]

http://img292.imageshack.us/img292/5845/extenso2rk7.png

Re:They should host the site on high-profile domai

[jmnormand]

might also catch googles attention, who happens to have a market cap 400% greater the gdp of paraguay...

Re:They should host the site on high-profile domai

[mysidia]

The only people they have to prevent noticing it are a majority of the population of their country.

And they probably have control of the media there, so this probably will go unnoticied by most people, until some time long after the elections, if ever.

They might not care if a few dozen technically-inclined people in their country happen to notice, or if people in other countries notice.

Govt' can explain away the "hijacking" as a technical problem, and people may buy the government's technical explanations over anything "some Americans" or some DNS nerds have to say about it. The gov't can just throw in jail or use ad-hominem attacks to marginalize the folks that claim they did something bad.

After all, the government is known by most to be a more "trustworthy" and "valid" source for that type of information.

Billy Bob just accusing the gov't folks of wrongdonig because he's a protestor, extremist, seditionist, has a beef with the gov't, etc.

They will either convince their people to believe it or intimidate their people into believing it, and either approach works all the same.

OpenDNS

[davidu]

They are using our OpenDNS servers as the control group. We've been noticing that a lot lately.

Plus, a lot of folks are using http://cache.opendns.com/ to start checking the records of their personal site from around the world.

Oh, and George Bush...

[Anonymous Coward]

And George Bush bought 100000 acres in Paraguay,
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2006/oct/23/mainsection.tomphillips

Re:They should host the site on high-profile domai

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually, I doubt that the people there trust the Colorado Party. My father grew up in Paraguay under Stroessner's rule, and the main effect that had on him was imparting a deep distrust of all government. Now, he has a very firm belief that no one can have any effect on a government save for those already working inside of it, and that all government workers are corrupt as all hell. He said that growing up, he had no idea that the stuff that Stroessner did wasn't happening everywhere else in the world.

Re:They should host the site on high-profile domai

[Portal1]

Actually they don't have control over the media

Most news papers are in the hands of rich people.
They are more in favor of the blue party here.

This incident was on television here last night.