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)."

Comments

Of course they cut access

[ka9dgx]

I'd cut access to any country I was preparing to wage war against... it's common sense to help stop communications to fifth columnists. Of course, they'll route around it. --Mike--

Re:Of course they cut access

[tchiseen]

I also am not surprised. Thousands of people have been killed in good old fashion bombings and shootings, why wouldn't they resort to other types of warfare and propaganda. I'm just surprised they're not doing more. I'm sure if Russia were inclined to, they could do more serious damage to Georgian communications infrastructure. In war, many of peoples rights are disrupted, including freedom of information.

Re:Of course they cut access

[oliderid]

they could do more serious damage to Georgian communications infrastructure

from what I understood, Russia just bombed a relatively important Georgian port and they are actively bombing a georgian town centre close to the border. I feel like Russia forces in the area are already bombing as much as they can. The whole Russian army isn't concentrated in that part of the world.

Anyway it was truly foolish for the Georgian government to attack the rebel region if they knew that their army was no match for the Russian forces...If they didn't know, they should leave the office at once. You didn't need to be a expert to understand that.

The truth is that Russia is about to seize two ex Georgian territories for some good reasons (oppressed minorities) and somes bad ones (Russia is historically interested by southern territories near the black sea...It all started in the XIX, see the crimea war). The current Georgian state cannot do much against it. They should concentrate themselves on economic recovery (there were good signs lately), diplomacy (looking for support in the west was a good idea...But it takes time...Such a strategy requires decades of hard work and diplomatic skills) and building a better future for their citizens.

I had always some sympathy for Georgia, they used to be the last european bastion in front of invaders of all sort (mongols, muslims, etc.), I truly hope they'll get the leaders they deserve.

Re:The Spark

[Guppy06]

"I have a bad feeling that this conflict is going to spread,"

You're young. People always get a little jittery when an invasion happens somewhere and they're not the ones behind it. Now you know how the rest of the world feels.

"catalyzing all the violence that has been the undercurrent of world politics in the past few years."

Except that, if you turn off the television from time to time, you'd see that things are still rather peaceful compared to recent history.

"A possible world war."

It's difficult to have a world war without two large international factions aligned against each other. It'd be difficult (to say the least) to determine common enemies in the smattering of brushfire regional wars we're seeing.

Heck, what we're seeing in Georgia right now stands out because it's just so damned old skool: using a fifth column to destabilize a neighbor to soften them up for some good ol' fashioned land-grabbing. You gotta give credit to Putin, he knows his stuff.

Re:How about when the government is net-based?

[eltaco]

"It has been said that democracy is the worst form of government except all the others that have been tried." -Sir Winston Churchill. http://www.quotationspage.com/quotes/Sir_Winston_Churchill/ Sure, democracy kinda works. But it wasn't democracy that gave us the constitution, which in my eyes, is so much more important than a "majority vote". democracy, as soon as it gets down to simplicities, is 51% oppressing 49%. just to put that in words: the majority fucks over any minority as they please. over here in Europe, we're not even so sure that our representatives are actually acting on behalf of the 51%. What say you, America? as soon as the majority can be coerced (I study advertising, it really isn't that difficult), we're back to who has the most money and who can throw the best parties, sucking up to those people who donate the most money. ya, this ain't news. but too many act like they don't know this. anyhow, my favourite quote of the parent's link: "It is proposed that government can be successful, and even vastly superior, if it has the direct participation of all of the governed. Open source governance incorporates the best features of direct democracy and tempers the drawbacks by use of a superior participation model and community structure." Are we talking about a Grassroots Democracy? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grassroots_democracy oh, I get it! it's a government that lets the populace take part in it's decisions! Kinda like how democracy is (supposed to be). Open source government is a government that listens to it's people.. in contrast to democracy (..?!) I'm not bashing you personally, parent, but democracy isn't the A & O it makes out to be. well, in soviet russia, I give you negative karma.

Re:The Russians hit the truth.

[jd]

The Daily Mail is not known for being terribly honest. It's a tabloid. If the news isn't in at least two serious broadsheets from independent sources, or one broadsheet and either the BBC or ITN, then it should not be regarded as credible. (As for American news sources, I trust virtually nothing from any source. Most of it is reprinted from Reuters or some other news agency pool, probably misquoted, and then censored by the advertisers. If it's Fox, it's just really bad fiction.)