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How the Syrian Electronic Army Hacked The Onion
Nerval's Lobster writes "For comedy publication The Onion, a recent cyber-attack by the Syrian Electronic Army was no laughing matter. The SEA managed to compromise The Onion's Twitter account, plastering it with insults aimed at the United Nations, Israel, and Syrian rebels. 'UN retracts report of Syrian chemical weapon use: "Lab tests confirm it is Jihadi body odor,"' read a typical (and perhaps one of the more printable) ones. When the Tweets appeared, some Onion Twitter-followers questioned whether the newspaper was playing some sort of elaborate meta-joke, perhaps riffing on a recent series of high-profile cyber attacks. But the SEA was serious, and so was The Onion about flushing the attackers from its systems. In a new posting on theonion.github.io, the publication's IT crew details exactly what happened. On May 3, attackers from the SEA fired off phishing emails to Onion employees, at least one of whom clicked on a malicious link. From there, the attackers compromised a handful of systems. 'In total, the attacker compromised at least 5 accounts,' the account concluded. 'The attacker logged in to compromised accounts from 46.17.103.125 which is also where the SEA hosts a website.' But following the crisis, The Onion couldn't resist swiping at its attackers. 'Syrian Electronic Army Has a Little Fun Before Inevitable Upcoming Deaths at Hands of Rebels,' read the headline for a May 6 article that described a fictional massacre of the SEA in gruesome detail."
In related Onion news: We Were Going To Take Over The ‘Onion’ Website, But It’s A Real Mess With All Those Ads
I'm not sure what the SEA really expected to accomplish here.
The funny part is that if the Onion had just remained silent on this subject people would still be wondering whether they had actually been hacked or whether this is simply gigantic practical joke.
Why would they target the Onion!? Do they not 'get it'?
Chances are, no, they seriously don't get it.
Think about it: In that area of the world, news is generally controlled by official government channels. I'm talking supposedly-legitimate sources which unironically use definitive, unambiguous phrases like "The Truth Of $NATION", "$NATION's One Voice", or The Onion's own "$NATION's Finest News Source" as their taglines. Then, add in the fact that a lot of what The Onion and other humor sources (i.e. The Daily Show) do are largely unheard of in these nations; direct mockery of the government is the sort of thing that gets a guy and his whole family beheaded in public out there. They might plain and simply not be used to that manner of humor.
So, without the benefit of a culture that's accustomed to ironic sarcasm and mocking tones in print, combined with a lack of knowledge of how the US really works, and definitely without understanding the counter-cultural significance of The Onion in the first place, I can imagine them looking at this site which boldly proclaims itself to be "America's Finest News Source", presenting articles in a very dry, almost authoritative tone (to people unfamiliar with the English language or American culture), and seemingly chock full of news, and assuming this is a real thing and that attacking it will help get their message out to the important, news-reading people of what they consider to be the most powerful nation in the world.
How would the Onion look then?
Prescient?
How can we continue to believe in a just universe and freedom to eat crackers if we have no ale?
Perhaps the revolution ISN'T for the good of the Syrian people, but good for the US, EU, and Israel?
There's no reason it can't be both, there's also no reason to mod your factual observations as "flamebait". We are going to have to wait a decade or more to find out if the "Arab spring" changed anything for the better, I clearly recall people (as opposed to governments) in the west celebrating because Mugabe had come to power in Zimbabwe (Rhodesia), Stevie Wonder went so far as to sing about it. Their moral reasoning was sound at that time in history, but with 20/20 hindsight Stevie's claim that "Peace has come to Zimbawe" sounds foolish.
The political cynic in me thinks that western governments see two enemies fighting each other on their own territory. they are in no hurry to pull them apart.
And did you exchange a walk on part in the war for a lead role in a cage? - Pink Floyd.
This is wildly incorrect. You could tell form their posts that the Syrians knew exactly what the Onion was and were actually writing Onion-style headlines to promote their point of view. "UN admonishes Syria for getting in way of Jewish missles," that sort of thing.