Slashdot Mirror
Russia and Georgia Engaged In a Cyberwar
doctorfaustus writes "I first picked this up in bits and pieces last week off Daily Rotation. A more in-depth story is available at ZDNet, which reports 'a week's worth of speculations around Russian Internet forums have finally materialized into a coordinated cyber attack against Georgia's Internet infrastructure. The attacks have already managed to compromise several government web sites, with continuing DDoS attacks against numerous other Georgian government sites, prompting the government to switch to hosting locations to the US, with Georgia's Ministry of Foreign Affairs undertaking a desperate step in order to disseminate real-time information by moving to a Blogspot account.' There is a question whether the computer work is being done by the Russian military or others. ZDNet's story offers further analysis of the attacks themselves and their origins. Some pretty good reporting." And reader redbu11 contributes the news that Georgia seems to be censoring access to all Russian websites, as confirmed by a Georgian looking glass/nslookup tool. The access is blocked on DNS level (Italy censored the Pirate Bay in the same way). Here are a couple of screenshots (in a language other than English) as of Aug 12th 5:40 pm: www.linux.ru nslookup — FAIL, www.cnn.com nslookup — OK.
ComputerWorld guy CWmike adds "In an intriguing cyberalliance, two Estonian computer experts are heading to Georgia to keep the country's networks running amid an intense military confrontation with Russia. Poland has lent space on its president's Web page for Georgia to post updates on its ongoing conflict with Russia. Estonia is also now hosting Georgia's Ministry of Foreign Affairs Web site."
ComputerWorld guy CWmike adds "In an intriguing cyberalliance, two Estonian computer experts are heading to Georgia to keep the country's networks running amid an intense military confrontation with Russia. Poland has lent space on its president's Web page for Georgia to post updates on its ongoing conflict with Russia. Estonia is also now hosting Georgia's Ministry of Foreign Affairs Web site."
I don't see why not (if there was actually a declaration of war, which we will not get into).
But since we invaded them, I would say it is absolutely reasonable for them to block our sites from their citizens.
It seems perfectly reasonable to me for one country at war with another to stop information flowing in from the enemy to the local populace.
If one country (Georgia) moves their websites to some other country (the USA) and the aggressor (Russia) continues the cyber attack, is the aggressor committing an act of war against the "other country"?
If it isn't an act of war, what should the "other country" do about the attack on their infrastructure/website.
[Fuck Beta]
o0t!
Define "legally" in a war...
Seriously, black hat, white hat, grey hat or technicolor hat, it kinda loses meaning when legality itself isn't really applicable anymore.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.