Chinese Human Rights Orgs Hit By DDoS

Oxford_Comma_Lover writes "IDG News Service is reporting that several human rights organizations focusing on China have been hit by DDoS attacks this weekend, including Chinese Human Rights Defenders and Civil Rights and Livelihood Watch. The latter works on issues of mental persecution (dissidents being thrown into mental hospitals where they were forced onto medication or beaten with electric batons) and eminent-domain type problems (seizure of farmland or urban land without compensation when the government is working on a project)."

Comments

Seriously?

[Pojut]

Think it was the chinese again?

I wonder what a full-blown revolt in China would look like nowadays...there are so many people living in that country, it would be insane.

Re:Seriously?

[denis-The-menace]

If they give them all TV sets that should be enough to pacify enough of them so that revolts don't happen.

It works great in developed countries.

Re:Seriously?

[LWATCDR]

Why would they revolt?
The have it better now than anytime in their history. Sure a few may come to the US and the EU but they will see the improvements that they have been making over time and expect them to continue.

Not to mention that they are proud that went from being a third world nation to a super power in a generation.
I don't like the way things work in China but if you look back to how they worked before I think you will see that a DOS and great firewall are progress compared to the cultural revolution.

Re:Seriously?

[ilsaloving]

The parent has been marked funny, but I would argue that their statement is more true than most people realize.

Entertainment has a long history of use by oppressive regimes to give people something easy to focus on, and taking focus away from the terrible policies said regimes put in place.

Hell, the US has lost so many basic human rights in the last decade, that I'm amazed a civil war *didn't* break out. But hey... as long as people get to have their reality TV shows, it's all good, right?

Re:Seriously?

[sp3d2orbit]

what would they revolt for? To change Chinese culture

The current political leaders aren't "Chinese culture". Chinese culture is represented by thousands of years of history, not the last few decades. In fact, Taiwan has a better link to Chinese "culture" than mainland China as that government is older.

What would they revolt for? Stability. Authoritarian regimes are unstable. Authoritarian regimes don't allow for pressure release valves causing tensions to build and build and build until they explode, like they are in the Western Provinces.

the current Chinese government are the ones that stopped years long bloody internal wars and the dieing of millions of Chinese

I can't tell if you are trolling or if you are an agent of the Chinese government. But, let me remind you that 1) the current government started a civil war to gain power 2) killed over 30 million people during the cultural revolution and 3) continue to kill people to this day for speaking out for human rights.

I don't think the country could manage a huge change.

The Chinese are a resilient people who have dealt with many more huge changes than any Western culture can fathom. It is arrogant and condescending to imply that the Chinese people cannot "handle" a more open system.

Re:Seriously?

[stygianguest]

The Chinese are a resilient people who have dealt with many more huge changes than any Western culture can fathom.

Although I understand where the sentiment comes from, the statement is utter nonsense. Your point would be better served by leaving it out. I don't want to argue whether 'western' culture, whatever that might be, has seen more or less changes over the last few thousand years. My point is that comparing the histories of ill defined societies by equally unclear measures, is not helpful in any way.

It should suffice to say, that 'the Chinese' peoples have proven to be quite adaptable in the past, and there is little reason to assume they would be different now. Besides, China is currently undergoing enormous changes on pretty much all areas, except perhaps in the political system.

Re:Seriously?

[Anonymous Coward]

Extending your thoughts a bit: there are over 1.3 billion people in China. Most of them were poor farmers before and are still poor farmers now. Somewhere between 100-400 million are getting to experience the boom times now; but even among those, it's important to realize that only a very small fraction are riding the top of the wave. The rest are the ones who instead went from being poor farmers to being poor factory workers doing 12+ hour days and slowly dying from the crap in the air. The military and police are drawn from all walks of life, proportionally.

If a few thousand peasants or a few thousand workers revolt, it gets put down. If a few hundred million peasants or a few hundred million workers revolt, it's outright civil war. Today's elite wouldn't be able to stop it, just like past elites couldn't; they are far too few in number relative to the rest, and in any serious revolution (in any country, not just China), a huge slice of the military itself changes sides. 50 million rich with 1 million soldiers don't beat 400 million with 8 million equally armed soldiers (I assume that, as in most revolutions, the rest will be trying to keep their heads down and just hope to survive it all). And remember an oft-overlooked bit of imagery from Tienanmen: yes, a man stood in front of a tank... and the tank driver refused to run him over.

Due to China's current setup, a recession would cause their entire system to pancake. They're a net food importer and the poor farmers rely on family members in the factories to make ends meet. Fire a bunch of workers and they're going to go where and do what? And their families are going to survive how? It would get very messy, very quickly, and everywhere at once.

Looking for a fight in all the wrong places.

[DigiShaman]

I really hope this DDoS is not being sponsored by the CCP. I mean seriously, do they *want* to piss off the world? If this doesn't unite black-hats, I don't know what would. I stupid can a government be?!!

Re:Looking for a fight in all the wrong places.

[Publikwerks]

From the looks of it, I doubt they care. They are far too integrated with the world economic systems to be made a pariah of. Their biggest concern is losing control of the masses. As long as the peasants stay in line, they can sit back and not give a damn about the rest of the world.

Re:Looking for a fight in all the wrong places.

[sopssa]

It's not only Chinese government's concern, it's all of chinese. The country would drop into a total chaos if the government falls, and it would probably be bloody - history shows this. I think the citizens also understand that and think its better to live than let the bloody internal wars start again.

Re:Looking for a fight in all the wrong places.

[sopssa]

Well they do know that their government is like that, the placing of flowers outside Google China offices and the popularity of Avatar (because of unintentional references to China) show that.

They aren't stupid, you know.

Chinese Gov't Public Relations

[Orleron]

After hacking Google and 34 other companies, you would think the Chinese government would lie low for a little while to let things simmer down.... not THIS.
Sheesh... a freshman in a public relations degree program would know that.

Re:One day

[tsm_sf]

better than they where during the Cultural Revolution

Anything would be though, wouldn't it? Actually for the average "man on the ground" this is probably the best time in China's thousands year history. Doesn't mean it still doesn't suck ass.

Re:It serves then right.

[0123456]

Those damn Liberal Commies... Uhh.. Wait.. Ummm.......

Commies have generally spent more time fighting each other than the people who are supposedly their enemies. Stalin may have been a psychopath, but it's a safe bet that more than a few of the people he stabbed in the back were planning to stab him in the back if he hadn't acted first.

Re:Unlikely but possible alternative

[Ziekheid]

I agree with you and I strongly disagree with you. The chance that the Chinese government had anything to do with this seems small to me and the chance of some random scriptkid with a botnet doing this is huge.
People don't seem to realize how many botnets exist worldwide and how many individuals are involved in the botnet scene, there are plenty of people that could've done this just "for the lulz" to get some media attention and not out of a political motivation.

Not surprising

[Brazilian Geek]

China is giving the world the middle finger and not giving a shit about the repercussions.

Face it, corporations are hungry for dollars and one of the only markets left for them is China and the whole Google thing proved that it doesn't matter what China does, the corporations are going to fall in line and obediently do what China wants of them. Of all the companies affected by the breech only Google has spoken out - the rest are quiet and will remain so in fear of losing precious Chinese business.

China has seen that it has nothing to fear from the corporate world - the ones that give them money. They'll do whatever they want now - taking down sites and silencing opposition will only be met with silence and their homeland population is so docile that they'll never revolt so why the fuck should they care.

mod parent +6

[circletimessquare]

nothing makes my blood boil more than these condescending western attitudes that nonwestern places have a "special" culture that means they can't appreciate or don't deserve basic things like participatory democracy

as if you cross the ural mountains or the mediterranean or the rio grande and *poof*, magic!: those people over there have a "special" thousands of years of history and a deep intricate culture that apparently teaches us... somehow... drum roll please... that its ok for autocracies to commit horrible violations of basic human rights

wtf?!

human rights triumph culture. culture does not triumph human rights. nevermind the fucking braindead obvious observation that government != culture. is german culture the third reich? is russian culture the soviet union?

furthermore, its called HUMAN rights, not WESTERN rights. please, some of you morons out there: this attitude about "special" cultures needing our respect... translating in your ignorant mind as asshole governments needing to be excused of outrageous crimes... this attitude is really nothing more than soft racism

Re:mod parent +6

[Omnifarious]

I'm both amused and saddened that you were modded a troll when you're speaking so much truth. The "our culture is special" argument is paraded out by the Chinese government all the time, and each time they do it it stinks a little more.

Obama did it recently too, and I lost a lot of respect for him. There's being diplomatic and there's compromising your core values. I think there was more of the latter than the former in his statements.

Re:But Who?

[mcgrew]

I'd think India would be more prone to want to hurt China, considering the problems with the Dali Lama and all. Or the Thais; when I was there in 1974 I never saw such hatred toward a country. Of course, China had been screwing over Thailand for a few thousand years.

We are the new gods.

Pride comes before a fall. The overlords on Wall Street are your masters, and will continue to be your masters.