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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."
Fallout 2 or Fallout 3? This will make a very big difference in who will get angry.
No, they're not. Sony's annual revenue is $64.7 billion USD. North Korea's GDP is $12.4 billion USD. Sony's market capitalization is also larger than North Korea's entire economy. The drop in Sony's stock value after the hack was roughly a quarter of North Korea's GDP, although the stock has since recovered somewhat.
Sony is far larger than North Korea, economically.
Someone picked up the phone, that's all.
I didn't catch any stories like that. Why is China mad at them this time?
You've got it backwards. China has stated that they think the US Government's claim that NK was behind the Sony hack is bogus and lacking in facts. Since NK's internet routes through China, then the implied source (the US Government, probably the NSA) is going through Chinese servers to whack NK's internet, which will piss them off. Personally I doubt it's the US, I bet it's some hacker group like an Anonymous faction, but everyone will think it's the US.
China hates North Korea as much as everyone else. They support them because they're a convenient tool for Chinese diplomacy with the US; every so often the DPRK goes nuts and threatens to blow up South Korea, and the US gets all riled up because we've never officially stopped being at war with them (just a 60 year cease fire). Then China gets to step in and provide the peaceful solution and portrays Washington as a bunch of warmongering fools bullying smaller nations. This is just another iteration of the same tired old game going on the Northeast Pacific.
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.
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.
Did they try turning North Korea off and then back on again?
Have gnu, will travel.
He acts as if the common North Korean citizen is permitted knowledge of the internet, instead of just advanced CS students who have proven themselves indoctrinated sufficiently.
It's so easy to underestimate what such a government can do with such an ancient moral code and modern access to propaganda. The North Korean people aren't like "put yourself in their position". They have been systematically denied knowledge and education that would permit them to ask "Why don't we have the freedom to access the internet". They don't understand "freedom", they don't know that there is an "internet", and in many cases their definition of "we" will be substantially alien as well. Education is huge, and they have plenty over there- just of the wrong kind.
Protip: The North Korean media reports on US troops attacking North Korean soil and being repelled. The overwhelming majority of North Koreans believe that not only is the US at war with North Korea, but that North Korea is winning a defensive war lasting decades. That's the literal truth. That's how successful the Juche zealots have been. Internet access? Goodness, lol.
Most of the guards on the North side looked bored and didn't care particularly what you did. In contrast, the guards on the South side look like they will kill you for looking in the wrong direction.
I think that might more accurately illustrate which side suspects the other might try to invade.
I have quite a bit of extra unused CPU time. Where do I sign up to donate to such a DOS strategy?
With me its not political. I just can't stand the haircut, so I'd like to vote no.