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CNN Website Targeted by DoS
antifoidulus writes "CNN is reporting that they were the target of a Denial of Service attack yesterday. According to the article, there have been reports on Asian tech sites that Chinese hackers were targeting CNN for their coverage of the unrest in Tibet. One has to wonder if this hacking attempt was government sponsored or not. The Chinese government hasn't been very happy with CNN -- in fact, the Beijing Bureau Chief has been summoned about a day before this happened."
Slashdot is working with the Chinese government to further the DOS attack on CNN by leveraging it's large and generally under-sexed user base!
If it wasn't government sponsored, then it was promulgated by some individual or group with substantial resources (a hitherto-unknown botnet, perhaps.) They need to be found out and put away for a few years. On the other hand, if it was sponsored by the Chinese leadership it means they're attempting to extend their brand of censorship worldwide. In which case, they also need to be put away for a few years.
The higher the technology, the sharper that two-edged sword.
No, I don't, and nor does anybody else. Since when did an attack coming from a country mean the government was involved? How many domestic hacking attempts have there been against the government? Was the government hacking the government? Hardly. Given the public Chinese outcry against the West for the way we've treated the Tibet issue, isn't it quite possible, quite plausible, that a few people out of 1 321 851 888 candidates took it just a wee bit too far? Why on earth must the government be under suspicion before we even have a clue as to who did it?
-Devin Jeanpierre
The funny thing is, China is one of the few countries in the world that truly has a great big firewall sat at the border of it's internet, so is one of the few countries that actually could do something about massive unexpected loads of outgoing traffic from it's internet.
;)
I'm not defending the great firewall of China, but I think it's worth pointing out that when the goverment has that kind of control over what does and doesn't go in and out if they wanted to they could easily do something to stop these kind of accusations surrounding large scale DoS attacks unless they're happy for them to continue in which case may the stories continue.
Of course there's always captured zombie machines outside the great firewall to do the trick, but certainly here in the UK many ISPs take note of which computers are sending out suspicious traffic, I've known a couple of people have their net access disabled by their ISP for throwing out known virus traffic at least. Most responsible ISPs worldwide could no doubt do exactly the same things.
The real question is could ISPs do this without introducing "feature" creep? My guess is, no, they'd quickly use the tools for blocking bad traffic for blocking things like BitTorrent, well, those few that don't already of course
It's a shame really that the tools are out there to prevent this kind of bad traffic, and yet the bad traffic is all to often allowed through and the tools are used to filter good traffic which is certainly the case with China. There's a question of what's good and bad traffic of course, but that's a debate for another day I think.
If it is a government sponsored attack, then it's really not very smart. It just serves to bring attention to the issue, not bury it.
Poking at big news bureaus like this doesn't make them back down. It makes them more resolute in their reporting and possibly (probably) more biased against your cause.
-S
--- What parts of "shall make no law", "shall not be infringed", and "shall not be violated" don't you understand?
I'm not saying this DoS attack is justified. However, one cannot deny that many of the CNN reports were either falsified or out of context.
I ask CNN not to look for a scapegoat on this issue ... Knowing how US companies have exhibited incompetence in the past, I will not be surprised if it is the case this time round
Right! Who needs a scapegoat? Obviously this is likely the fault of US companies. There's no point blaming someone when we can blame someone that it's more slashdot-friendly to blame. The man! Teh evil corporations!
For what it's worth, I spent most of my day yesterday in rent-a-brain mode mopping up after a web site defacement that was attempted from half a dozen Chinese IP addresses, succeeded from another one, and which was throwing JS-based redirects at browsers so they'd wind up on web sites hosted in China, where trojan-flavored malware was being served up. There's no way that a country with Draconian content sniffing and a country-wide firewall like China's doesn't know when operations like that are flourishing. FWIW, the demographics targeted in this case were mil/defense types, and the visible content on the redirected target was meant to momentarily confuse people expecting that the specific content they'd have been expecting. Year Of The Rat, indeed.
Don't disappoint your bird dog. Go to the range.
Run! The Germa^WCommu^WChinese are coming!
I hate printers.
I doubt they will implode. They now have amazing manufacturing capabilities -- all thanks to the many high-tech companies that outsourced everything to China.
And the way the government works over there, maybe they will just go out and kill anyone who dares to starve and charge the family for the bullet.
If China implodes, chances are good the US will have imploded before they do. And if it comes to that, do you really want any nuclear power to implode? I'm betting they would make demands of Taiwan and Tibet and if there was not cooperation, China would go to war to secure the resources.
And as to time not being on China's side, that's one thing China has always used to advantage. The plan ahead and they wait. They make 5 year plans look like child's play. Think of the Chinese water torture. They use time as an ally.
Yes, that would be interesting to know. But one of the more insightful views I've heard recently in the China vs. Tibet matter, is that "after so many years of communist rule, it is hard for Chinese people to make a distinction between government, communist party, policy and country". As a result, criticism of Chinese actions concerning Tibet may be felt not as attacks on policy, but attacks on the Chinese people and country. Don't know if that is true, but I'd welcome readers from China to comment on that.
There is a big difference between saying "you are bad" and saying "you are doing something bad". I guess the real gain is that more people (including the Chinese) are talking about Tibet now, and maybe someday the Chinese *people* will realize that Tibetans just want the same thing as the Chinese: run their own affairs, be left alone, and live in peace with their neighbors.
In general I feel that whenever 'weapons' (DoS attacks, censorship, physical force) are used to end a discussion, it means that party has run out of reasonable arguments (and in a way, admits moral defeat).
We can rest assured that state sponsored hacking is going on. We're doing it. Google "AF Cyber Command" As to whether the Chinese government is involved, that will be difficult to ascertain with any confidence for several reasons (see Great Firewall posts above). Foremost, we didn't invent pausible deniability. The Chinese have perfected inscrutability across the centuries.
Invenio via vel creo
Only in the most capitalistic sense of the word :P
No - !! Not the... comfy packets?!?
http://bbs.sina.com.cn/zt/w/08/attackcnn/index.shtml The banner at the top says: "Rise up! Resist the demonization of the Tibet incident! Chinese netizens, open fire on CNN and other western media!"
Lived in Beijing for a few years now and it's scary how the government controls and spins information. They allow protests when convenient, recently Careforre (bigger than CNN issue) because of the torch relay demonstrations. So it would be interesting to see if these attackers also try to take down the Careforre website. Nationalism is borderline crazy around here lately...not sure if it's the government or individuals who launched the attack...but in China the government controls the people so it all boils down to one suspect.
New View Media - Custom Website Design
Am I correct in assuming that you're saying slashdot users are normal visitors?
woah.
Ice Cream has no bones.
``One has to wonder if this hacking attempt was government sponsored or not.''
There's probably no need. The thing that many people don't seem to realize that the information chinese people in China get and the information people outside China get are very different, and what the implications of this are. I've met a number of people from China, and, simply put, there is a world of difference between what is common knowledge here and what is common knowledge there.
Where many Americans see the chinese government as a repressive tyranny that needs to be overthrown to allow the chinese people to be free, the chinese see huge economic development and modernization. Where I've heard Europeans call the One Child Policy a crime against humanity, I've heard chinese people call it an unfortunate necessity, put in place for the good of the people. The Dalai Lama? How dare he criticize the chinese who have done so many good things for him! And you may not realize it, but the chinese government is actually doing a lot of good things for the environment.
Of course, the chinese government isn't perfect, and I think everybody will agree. But, knowing what a chinese person in China does, some of the things that foreign press agencies have been saying about China are completely outrageous. And when they are also critical of your country, some people will get angry. In a large country like China, that means a lot of angry people.
Remember the flame wars that were all over the net and the media when foreigners criticized the Bush government, its warlike policies, and their attempts to deceive the American people and the world? The same thing is now happening in China. The good thing about it all is that it raises awareness, in China, about issues that are important to the rest of the world. The bad thing about it is that it seems that the criticism is being turned into evidence of a worldwide conspiracy against China.
Of course, this is the wrong way to deal with criticism. The right response would be to find the cause of the criticism and only then decide on an appropriate action. Perhaps the critics have a point and the situation should be improved. Perhaps the critics are misguided and they should be corrected. Or perhaps their criticism is unfounded - in which case the appropriate response may be to ignore them or to criticize them in turn. Silencing critics is not, I think, an appropriate response.
One really interesting question is, though, how well informed are the critics? How sure are _you_ about the real situation over in China?
Please correct me if I got my facts wrong.
"I'd rather be a lightning rod than a seismometer." -Ken Kesey
I am glad they left FOX News alone, at least they can still be contacted for news.
Every time someone stands up to the US (or CNN) and thoroughly pwns them, it makes me chuckle-especially when you can see that it was such a blatantly bad idea (even if it was free speech, they had to see this coming)
China and the US have both done some grievous things in our day, but there is a reason I would never blame China or expect it to act otherwise, while I will always be outraged when the US pulls off something similar.:
The US is a democracy..China is no such thing and never has beenChina has never, EVER been a soft, benevolent country. In Ancient times Emperor Xi Huangdi (the guy who built the great wall, was buried with the clay soldiers, and is seen in the movie Hero) used the exact same strong arm tactics to build and protect China. The Chinese have always played hardball and placed the value of human life as a *very* distant second to the sanctity and wellbeing of their nation and its people as a whole. Yes, sometimes this makes them do horrible, horrible things-especially by our western standards, but as a person I respect them for it. Its not like they try and make out their human rights violations as being in the name of 'Freedom and Justice.' Their reactions are also always quite predictable and they always live up to the letter of their word when dealing politically. In summary, their ways and values are radically different, but they are consistent and if I was charged with governing a quarter of the world's population, my policies would be very similar.
The US on the other hand is supposed to be a democracy and all about the individual and their rights. Anyone can see, however that in practice this is almost never the case. Capitalism and democracy didn't mix quite well and frankly its difficult to do anything unless corporations or the government deem it ok. How is this different from China? Actually its very similar. The thing is that the US government pulls the 1984 move of making all of their human rights violations in the name of Freedom, when clearly it is quite the opposite. When The US went into Iraq, we all know that Bush claimed it was to free the oppressed Iraqi people, find the weapons of mass destruction, and apparently save the world from evil terrorists. We all now know it was for oil and a vantage point in the Middle East. The reason for China being in Tibet is quite plainly because of an age old conflict and an assertion that is was at one point theirs and a valuable strategic position. (am i saying they are right?? NO! I'm just pointing out the lack of equivocation, although they are trying to avoid the subject with Olympic committees)Both countries also censor and coach their media to varying degrees. The difference here? China doesn't claim that they aren't censoring-they claim (validly in some cases)that the do it to prevent mass hysteria, political unrest often due to international criticism (which as you see they take very seriously). The US pulls the same shit, but they do it while touting freedom and democracy. Which in turn leaves me quite angry and bitter as i sit around wondering where in the world all the freedom and democracy is.
In short, at least the Chinese are honest!