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Twitter, Facebook DDoS Attack Targeted One User
An anonymous reader writes "A Georgian blogger with accounts on Twitter, Facebook, LiveJournal, and Google's Blogger and YouTube was targeted in a denial of service attack that led to yesterday's site-wide outage at Twitter and problems at the other sites on, according to a Facebook executive. The blogger, who uses the account name 'Cyxymu' (the name of a town in the Republic of Georgia), had accounts on all of the different sites that were attacked at the same time, Max Kelly, chief security officer at Facebook, told CNet News." Here are user Cyxymu's LiveJournal Google cache and LiveJournal account (unreachable at this writing). Larry Magid writes on CNet that this individual blogs about independence of a breakaway region of Georgia. Macworld has some speculation in other directions on the motivations behind the DDoS attack.
Update: 08/07 19:52 GMT by KD : Cyber attacks on Cyxymu are not new. For over a year Evgeny Morozov has been calling attention to him as the first digital refugee.
Update: 08/07 19:52 GMT by KD : Cyber attacks on Cyxymu are not new. For over a year Evgeny Morozov has been calling attention to him as the first digital refugee.
Any guesses as to how many more people will start following "Cyxymu" solely because of this attack? It's called The Streisand Effect, Russia, and it's very real.
"Only two things are infinite, the universe and human stupidity, and I'm not sure about the former."
Some people didn't like what was posted to twitter in the past 24 hours and had other people take it down. It's a distraction. Scrutinize what happened before it down and not the distraction of it going down and you'll have your answer.
Wasn't yesterday the anniversary of the Russian military incursion in South Ossetia in Georgia? Perhaps after Twitter's widespread involvement with the events in Iran, certain political elements didn't want it happening there as well?
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Are you sure Russia attacked first? According to my own understanding of the situation, it's Georgia that invaded South Ossetia, a territory that declared independence from Georgia since the mid-1990's and has many Russian citizens within its territory. You can understand Russia's interest in those two territories.
So it's not as simple as declaring "Georgia's territory is sacrosanct therefore Georgia should be united".
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And tyrants as always don't much like anyone else's freedom.
All the more reason to oppose tyranny. Wherever it is found.
Now to get the Internet to recognize tyranny as damage and route around it...
deleting the extra space after periods so i can stay relevant, yeah.
because pre-soviet history allows for excusing any crimes russia commits
additionally, america does bad things. therefore, its ok for russia to do bad things
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
"america does bad things. therefore, its ok for russia to do bad things"
assume america is the most bloodthirsty, vile evil empire that ever existed in the history of the world
ok
in what way does this validate anything bad russia does?
"well see my neighbor, he stabbed his wife to death. therefore when i cut your arm off, that's excuseable"
very shallow efforts at rationalization, no?
a strong people are a people who can engage in self-criticism and take criticism from others. in fact, this is probably the most effective metric for true strength in the world, on any issue, from individuals to entire nations
so you have criticisms of the usa? good, fine, lets hear them. i welcome your criticisms. the usa is not perfect. i have plenty of problems with american behavior too. i spit on the gw bush administration. i recognize every subject of american aggression you raise in your comment and a whole bunch more you didn't mention
and now, guess what... its your turn. let us hear YOU criticize russia. let us hear you address my criticisms of russia. directly, rather than deflecting my words back emptily: "well, america is bad too, so you can't criticize"
what is this, kindergarten? are you 5 years old?
is it impossible for a russian to self-criticize or hear criticism of russia?
do you think this is a sign of strength on your part?
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
how does responsibility and accountability work?
you take stock of events, and you admit where you have done wrong
but there is an alternative line of thought, that losers engages in, which is: you take stock of events, and you explain away everything as completely not your fault
"If you cannot condemn American actions when they are obviously done for selfish reasons (operation Ajax?) then you can't condemn Russian actions when they are done for what you consider to be selfish reasons."
what the hell does that have to do with anything? give me a list of every single crime america ever did. i admit to all of them. at this point you can criticize russia? or: give me a list of every single crime america ever did. i admit to none of them. so russia can now commit horrible crimes? what the hell does anything america ever did, whether america is the devil himself or a complete innocent angel, have to do with the evil russia did?
basically what you are saying is "russia doesn't have to be accountable for anything bad it ever did, because somebody, somewhere else, did something bad once"
this is how you think about the world. this is the paraphrasing of your words above
the way you think is the path of ruin for us all. we need people in this world to take MORE responsiblity and accountability, not less. and all your thinking is "this is how you take less responsibility: you observe somebody else did someting bad, so now its ok i did something bad"
no, idiot: america does plenty of bad things. russia does plenty of bad things. you admit to them. that russia did bad things does not excuse the usa. that america did bad things does not excuse russia. get it idiot? you don't read the histories of the world to explain why no one is responsible for anything in this world, you read it to understand the context of certain vile actions and behaviors, but it doesn't excuse ANYONE
here's a random bit of history:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Katyn_massacre
now, according to you, and the way you think above, this bit of history gives america the right to do evil without explaining itself. why? because russia did something bad once. fucking bullshit, right? well that fucking bullshit is exactly your words above, in reverse
for example, you point out operation ajax. ok, and? this was something evil america did. so now what? now we can't criticize russia? now russia is allowed to do evil things? because operation ajax happened once? wtf?
you don't have any intellectual honesty. we need MORE repsonsibility taking in this world, not less, and your whole way of thinking is all about tearing down accountability and responsibility
you are what's wrong with this world. no, i really mean that. your rationalization is the exact same rationalization that goes through the mind of anyone right before they commit any crime in this world: "well someone else did something bad, so this crime is ok"
i have a job for you to do: criticize russia. criticize something bad it did. you will find out an amazing thing: you can still criticize the usa after you do that. that you can criticize BOTH the usa and russia, and that criticizing russia doesn't mean you're an american neocon, and that criticizing america doesn't mean your a russian apologist
isn't that fucking amazing you moron?
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it