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North Korean Internet Is Down
First time accepted submitter opentunings writes "Engadget and many others are reporting that North Korea's external Internet access is down. No information yet regrading whether anyone's taking responsibility. From the NYT: "Doug Madory, the director of Internet analysis at Dyn Research, an Internet performance management company, said that North Korean Internet access first became unstable late Friday. The situation worsened over the weekend, and by Monday, North Korea’s Internet was completely offline. 'Their networks are under duress,' Mr. Madory said. 'This is consistent with a DDoS attack on their routers,' he said, referring to a distributed denial of service attack, in which attackers flood a network with traffic until it collapses under the load."
Perhaps it is the PRC giving Jong Uno a little spanking...
We play the game with the bravery of being out of range
...sounds like they got it!
Sony is bigger than many countries.
The U.S. by the look of things. I think it'd be a bit heavy-handed to call it a proportional response though as Sony is a lot smaller than a country.
Physically perhaps but in terms of internet presence I would doubt it. As a non-American I'd think this was an entirely appropriate response if it were the US. It has the beauty of being non-violent, extremely humiliating and very effective at preventing them from engaging in further cyberattacks. This should send such a clear message that hopefully even their insane government can understand it. Indeed if anything it seems so well thought out and proportionate that it seems unlikely to be the US government given their previous record.
The US won't defend Americans in the USA (how many unarmed black men were killed by cops this year? How many black men were lynched this year?), but will happily start a war to defend the Right of Japan to make profit in the USA.
Actually, the police kill more white people then black people.
I'm starting to think GNU is the problem with "GNU/Linux" these days.
and very effective at preventing them from engaging in further cyberattacks.
Probably not so much. It's long been suspected that much of North Korea's cyberwarfare activity is actually based out of China, which is why the U.S. asked China for help shutting them down. I'm going to guess that this is because it's hard to get sufficient bandwidth to operate a cyberwarfare division in North Korea, and because North Korea's limited connectivity makes it too easy to shut down and isolate a team based in North Korea in precisely the scenario we are seeing here.
And North Korea can't be doing this without China's cooperation. China has one of the world's most advanced cyberwarfare capabilities, up there with other cyber-superpowers like U.S., Russia, and Israel, and they closely monitor their internet. If North Korean agents are using China as a staging ground to attack South Korea and the United States, China knows about it and is turning a blind eye.
I haven't seen mention of it on any actual news sites yet, but there's been some #tangodown messages from social media accounts supposedly controlled by Lizard Squad that are at the very least worth raising an eyebrow at. Since massive DDoS attacks have been their signature move against all of their high-profile targets (Sony, Microsoft, Blizzard, etc), which is what's happening to these routers rather then an actual sophisticated attack, and I'm currently looking at a facebook account of theirs that makes mention of an impending #tangodown that was posted a good 48 hours before North Korea went offline, I'd say this is just as likely if not even more likely then some kind of state-sponsored retaliation by the CIA/NSA/FBI/whatever.
Likely a DDOS from Anonymous....
It would be interesting if the DPRK *IS* responsible for the Sony hack.... now.... Sony is twice as big as the DPRK from a financial standpoint. Can Sony hire a bunch of mercenaries to retaliate or nuke the DPRK and call it self defense? If corporations are people and people have a right to defend themselves with weapons if necessary..... is a corporate army in the US legal?
It kind of begs the question about what the US is still doing in South Korea anyhow. South Korea is a rich country. They can afford their own defense, but its convenient for them for Uncle Sam to pick up the tab. I have stood on the North side of the DMZ and it is clear that the US is just a thorn in the situation making everybody tense. There is no doubt that the South Koreans can adequately defend themselves against any potential "invasion" from the North. There is no reason for the US to be there. The constant presence of US marines on the DMZ make the North Koreans nervous that the South will invade them.
One of the running half-jokes amongst the US troops and marines in South Korea is their primary purpose is to keep the South Korean army in the south, not the other way around. The US influence keeps the south somewhat calm, and acts as a deterrent to the north.
...si hoc legere nimium eruditionis habes...
http://www.economist.com/news/leaders/21636033-united-states-needs-overhaul-its-law-enforcement-system-americas-police-trial:
"Roughly 29% of Americans shot by the police are black, but so are about 42% of cop killers whose race is known."
So, considering the black population is ~15%, then cops shoot blacks at about 2x their representation.
Then again, blacks kill cops at nearly 3x their representation.
Sounds like the cops need to work harder, they should be killing at least 15% more black young men to represent the threat posed by them....
So is Germany, and the US has 39,000 troops there. So is Japan, and the US has 50,000 troops there. Hell, there are 11,000 US troops in Italy.
So there are 29,000 US troops in South Korea, which unlike those countries named above has a border with a fully militarized raving psychotic insane evil totalitarian state who viciously threatens South Korea constantly. The capital of South Korea, with a population of 10 million, lies only 50 km from the border and could be overrun and decimated within hours, regardless of whether or not the psychotics ultimately win the conflict.
Is any of this difficult to understand?
Absolutely correct. Blacks are statistically several times more likely to be shot by police than are whites. Concerning ages 15-19, the ratio is about 20 times more likely. But what you conveniently overlook is that blacks are FAR more likely to be murdered by other blacks than by police (many of which are themselves black). We are talking many scores of times more likely.
Could it just POSSIBLY be that blacks are far more likely than whites to be engaged in street activities that are begging to attract police attention? And that, once confronted, just maybe they might be far more threatening - as in, likely to whip out a handgun or rush the officer?
Hey, it's just a question, though I strongly suspect what the answer is. And yes, it leads directly to other questions about disadvantaged groups and vicious circles of crime and despair.
One of the most impressive dramas I ever saw dealing with blacks, antagonism between blacks and cops, and disillusionment of black cops was an episode of Dragnet from 1968 or 1969 showing the situation after the assassination of the Reverend Martin Luther King, Jr. It showed the raw hurt and grievances, but also it ended on a positive and uplifting note that mirrors my own hopes. On the other hand, every single one of the issues presented remains absolutely topical to this day. You take the afros and 60s cars out of that episode and it could have been made yesterday.