Slashdot Mirror
Evidence of Russian Cyberwarfare Against Georgia
An anonymous reader writes "In what seems to be a repeat of what happened in July, a few news sites have mentioned that there is evidence of a campaign against Georgia. For example, both the government's and the president's sites are inaccessible, among other official websites. For some analysis, the RBN Exploit blog demonstrates various traceroutes that have failed to several sites. They also claim that the RBN (Russian Business Network cyber-crime organisation) are behind the attacks, and that 'Many of Georgia's internet servers were under external control from late Thursday,' before the actual war began. Finally, according to this Twitter account of someone in Georgia (written in Russian), he claims that 'Russia has blocked access to Georgian websites from within Russia' (rough translation)."
Gotta give credit to the Presidents of Latvia, Estonia, Lithuania, and Poland. They may be small nations, but they talk like they've got a pair...
http://www.president.lt/en/news.full/9475 [Joint Press Release on the Lithuanian President's Webpage]
I know it's not so slashdotty, but it's relevant to the conflict in general and interesting nonetheless.
The territory claimed independence back in 1991. Kinda late to stake claim to it again, don't you think?
Good translation, and thanks for the twitters.
The person also mentions that protesters are out in Tbilisi, notwithstanding Russian bombing runs, that Russian hackers are attacking any news site that relates what is really going on in Georgia, that he has asked some hacker friends to attack CMI (rough translation of a Russian news site) and they have (seemingly) complied, that he hears rumblings - the light has been knocked out, as well as telephone towers and no TV exists now, and finally asks for humanity to help. He provides a link to bombed out suburbs, here: http://newsimg.bbc.co.uk/media/images/44907000/jpg/_44907206_rubbleafp466.jpg.
To understand how Russian "justice" works, read the shocking story published by "The Washington Post" (TWP). Natalia Trufanova was driving a Zhiguli (a lightweight Russian car) with her family in Moscow in September of 2007. She was minding her own business and dutifully obeying the traffic laws. Then, suddenly, a motorcade carrying Supreme Court President Vyacheslav Lebedev and coming from the opposite direction entered the wrong lane -- the lane in which Trufanova was driving. A vehicle in the motorcade smashed into the Zhiguli, killing Trufanova and her family. The Russian police wrote a false report, claiming that Trufanov drove into the wrong lane.
TWP notes, "When angry witnesses started posting video on the Web clearly showing that it was the motorcade that was driving in the wrong lane, the lead investigator looking into the accident said that he didn't have access to the Internet."
I would not be surprised, given the history of Kremlin behavior, I could not read any Georgian sites cuz they (FSB or russian GRU etc) wanted to spread their well-thought of plan of bashing Georgia and its government of so called "alleged act of war against Russian civilians and all that nonsense", which is obviously not true, since I know Georgians would never do that (I've been there many times). Few of Georgian friends called me this afternoon and requested to help them out to stop DDoS attacks on Debian servers which hosted Georgian sites, and they were trying to tell their side of story of what actually happened and put more information about casualties etc, but unfortunately I could not think of anything, can anyone of you recommend any good means of defending Debian servers against such attacks? I was trying to help out Georgian friend.
You can also send me an email to bubba_bubu@yahoo.com
By the way, for those who wanted to know what's going on, here events that led to a full scale war between Georgia and Russia:
1) August 6th, Georgian part/villages of South Ossetia was constantly shelled from a separatist artillery; although Russians were supposed to be a peace keepers but they did not interfered, neither stopped separatist from shelling Georgian villages;
2) August 6th, georgian president pleaded and called on unilateral cease fire by Georgians and ordered not to respond to any provocation by separatist;
3) Few Georgian civilian bystanders were hit by shrapnel and apparently died; some Georgian military troops were hit as well, few houses were demolished;
4) Georgian envoy sent by president to separatist for negotiation to stand down weapons and cease fire immediately;
5) Allegedly russian party agrees on this, but Georgian envoy car was stopped in checkpoint and blatantly forced back by separatist stating they would not talk to any Georgians, so this attempt was failed.
6) To stop continuous bomb shelling Georgian president calls to restore a constitutional order and military action to drive out criminal structure of South Ossetia. Russian were requested not to intervene.
7) Russia reported that there were many civilian casualties in Tskinvali and apparently 12 Russian peace keepers were wounded or died as a result of military operation; Georgia denied this allegation.
8) Russian prime minister Putin orders full scale military operation against Georgia. Russian strategic bombers start bombing territories deep in Georgia far from conflict zone of South Ossetia i.e. Gory (fully demolished), airport near Tbilisi, Kutaisi (2nd largest city), port Poti located in coast of Black Sea, and South Abkazia (kodori region);
9) All Georgian internet portal were attacked and could not be accessed. Georgian government portal were hijacked by Russians and poster of Hitler and Saakashvili were placed side by side;
Now, since all Russian media and internet is fully controlled by Kremlin (btw there's no freedom of speech in Russia) there is no independent source on Russian side), so all separatist and Russian casualties were blown out of proportion in order to legitimize this invasion;
cheers,
bubzie
The owners of the pipeline say it has not been bombed. See http://ca.news.yahoo.com/s/afp/080809/world/georgia_sossetia_russia_unrest_oil_bp
The report about the pipeline attack is almost certainly Georgian propaganda (unless it's simply unsubstantiated rumors) - and it looks like the British journos fell for it. But hey, in this modern world of journalism 2.0, who cares about truth and fact-checking, as long as you can get the pageviews?
What own territory? Osetia is de-facto independent country since 1992. You are afraid of next year Russian ride? Well, let's see what US was doing in Georgia since 2002: military training and aid, CIA presence, etc. Any comments on that, Mr. So-Smart-Man?
Take care, Cos
Anyone who is surprised at this is probably unaware that disruption, denial and subversion of communications is a common factor in all modern (as in more modern than two groups of grunting and growling rock throwers) warfare. Telegraph and phone lines got cut. Radio got jammed. Alexander had fires built upwind of enemy columns to make it hard for them to see each other easily. The US Army confiscated the radio of the British ham operator on Grenada that was broadcasting a running commentary of infantry firing over the heads of the medical students being "rescued". The US news broadcast footage clearly showed them being forced to run under a line of firing (most likely blanks) M-16s; the early news shows broadcast the ham operator's reports along with the footage, but his reports were absent from the late news broadcasts.
Command and control (C2) refers to the ability of military commanders to carry out strategy and tactics. The addition of Communications (C3) refers to inclusion of the ability to carry out C2 without being present on the battlefield and the ability of units to coordinate over distance. That's the US version, the NATO version of C3 being "Consultation, Command and Control", just a different label for the same process. It's now frequently referred to as C4 because it includes computers. Since they are used for more than communication, the fourth C is not redundant. The other thing they're used for is data analysis for intelligence generation, so the "I" in "C4I" *is* redundant. And all the other extensions out to C4ISTAR is just showing off.
Being "cyber", it's pertinent to /. but it's not news unless one assumes that one particular form of communication should be immune to this "time honored tradition".
"I may be synthetic, but I'm not stupid." -- Bishop 341-B
But now that Russia has sent an army brigade into South Ossetia, the Ossetian independence movement no longer looks genuine (some Western observers have compared it to a Russian land-grab), and as a result, there is now a good chance that Georgia will be let into NATO. Given that starting this war would make it much harder to achieve Russia's foreign policy goals, do you really think Russia would have wanted to start it?
Actually, it's the opposite. NATO does not approve new members, who have territorial disputes with their neighbours (for obvious reasons). So, yes, it is in Russia's interests to keep things unsettled in Georgia.
The owner of the Twitter account is also publishing in English: http://twitter.com/wardirect_en
I've got to get back to work. When I stop rowing, the slaveship just goes in circles.
Anyone else seeing Georgia, Armenia and Azerbaijan as blank areas with no towns or roads in Google Maps? The change happened sometime in the last few hours.
Umm...WRONG!
As someone who was born and raised in Armenia and often visits Google Maps to see if the map data or satellite imagery has been updated, I can definitively say that throughout the entire existence of Google Maps, all three Transcaucasian republics have always been blank with no road and city data.