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.
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."
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?
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
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.