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.

Comments

Asymmetrical warfare

[Hawthorne01]

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.

Re:Just like rs79 said yesterday

[vmxeo]

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?

right

[circletimessquare]

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

Re:right

[Runaway1956]

Still to black and white. There isn't a "right" and a "wrong" side in every issue. You can bet your ass though, that there are always multiple political sides to every issue, all of which are probably "wrong".

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.

Georgia being under discussion here, it is easy to compare Russian intervention on behalf of ethnic Russians (many of whom carried dual citizenship, by the way) to the United States intervention in Beirut City in 1978 to rescue American nationals. We didn't want to see Americans killed in 78, Russia didn't want to see Russians killed last year. Same-o same-o.

Maybe not pertinent to this conversation, I was awarded my first Humanitarian Service Award for participating in the evacuation of Beirut. Maybe that helps understand my perspective, maybe not. But, I can see right and wrong on the part of the Russians, just as I can see right and wrong on our part. We ain't lily-white, and they ain't deep-space black.

your deflections are so typical and predictable

[circletimessquare]

"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?