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BBC Taken Offline By 'Anti-IS' Group (bbc.co.uk)
New submitter shilly writes: The BBC is reporting that all its websites were taken offline on New Year's Eve for several hours, and the attack appears to be from a group calling itself New World Hacking. The group claims its raison d'être is to attack IS, but wanted to test out its capabilities first and chose the BBC as a target. A member of the group said, "We realize sometimes what we do is not always the right choice, but without cyber hackers... who is there to fight off online terrorists?"
so just terrorists then?
[The Universe] has gone offline.
Or maybe it should be "without cyber terrorists... who is there to fight online hackers?"
Did their mothers never tell them that two wrongs don't make a right? You need at least three lefts to make a right, or something.
On the plus side, the BBC won't cut your head off if they find you.
Who ordered that?
I can't see how a non-government backed cyber-attack can work against a group with a distributed online presence. If you take down one site, wouldn't they just pop up another and use social media, or more old fashioned communications methods like email, to spread word about the new site. So are these New World hackers planning to also take down Facebook, Twitter, Sony or even the almighty Google?
Are they the terrorist group previously known as ISIS?
Please explain how you come to that decision. I'm sure the world would like to know.
Oh, perhaps it is because it covers the 'real world' and not hicksville USA. It is also not afraid to take the UK Government to task.
To many people in the world, the BBC is a fountain of information and not propaganda like the US equivalent.
CNN-International used to be good but has gone down hill rapidly in recent years.
But hey, carry on thinking that it is some commie/socialist propaganda machine. There are a lot of people who think that the BBC is a right wing propaganda machine. Perhaps the truth lies somewhere in the middle.
If they wanted to 'test their capabilities' they could have just hit some obscure and unimportant site that no-one would even notice being down. Or they could have picked a target that would be a plausible target for Anonymous and let the world blame it on them - hit Sony again, perhaps, or some state-owned company in Russia. Attacking one of the world's most read and respected news organisations and the claiming credit for it publicly (Or, more likely, claiming the credit after someone else takes the BBC site down) just seems like a plea for attention.
Does IS even have websites? I've been lead by various news reports to conclude that they have an extensive social media propaganda campaign, but it isn't run through their own websites. Just an ever-shifting set of youtube channels, facebook pages, twitter accounts and so forth.
I'm guessing New World Hacking is following news of their exploits, which includes reading the comments here, so: Knock it off. You want to attack Islamic State? Go have a try at following their social media presence and report as many of their accounts as you can find to the service operators. You will probably have to learn a few additional languages though - Arabic does not do well on machine translation, and even in the areas IS operates Arabic isn't always the most commonly spoken of languages. That sounds like a better idea, with the added bonus of being legal so you can operate in the open and recruit a few more people - and you'll need them. Use those people to promote a countering narrative - spread word of their atrocities, and make fun of their idiotic proclamations. Religion is always week against mockery - once it loses respect it loses authority too.
Please explain how you come to that decision. I'm sure the world would like to know..
Probably was brainwashed by Fox News and talk radio.
Of course, people like that don't have much in the way of brains to wash.
To be fair, post-Hutton the BBC toes the government line in a way it hasn't since before the hippies invaded the ranks in the '60s. What is more, much of its research and technical infrastructure - including the transmitter network itself - has been sold off since the '90s. It really isn't the BBC it once was, which in turn wasn't the BBC that once was, but the privatisation is a real shift of control from something that had for three quarters of a century been about public broadcasting at arms' length from the State.
Oh so just kids mucking about with scripts to get a DDOS going... move along nothing to see here...
You better be quick though, because you are just as bad as IS in the eyes of the UK people.
No they're not. Bad, yes, but not even in the same league of bad as IS in the eyes of the UK people.
Quidnam Latine loqui modo coepi?
but without cyber hackers... who is there to fight off online terrorists?
I understand the goal of these cyber hackers but they need to be very careful messing with the BBC...Jeremy Clarkson isnt up to much these days and i hear he's got a real mean right hook.
Good people go to bed earlier.
Just try it on the real target and if it works it works. Doing this really makes them lose any credibility.
BBC is nothing more than Marxist-Leninist rubbish.
The BBC is a British version of PBS and NPR. Has always had a pretty blatantly Leftist agenda, and in the Middle East, have been squarely on the side of the Palestinian Jihadis. Watching the BBC, for example, there is no way one would ever come to a conclusion that Israeli operations in Gaza would be in retaliation for daily rockets fired into Sderot.
Not just that, they are apologists for Muslims everywhere - from Britain to Europe to India and the Americas. Any anti ISIS/ISIL group that took down their site made the right choice for a test target. Good luck to them disrupting ISIS so that they don't get to convert our kids and friends to Islam and wage Jihad while here.
Just the sort of moral equivalence one has come to expect from the cretins who must defend the rights of Muslims all the time
People accuse those of us opposed to Islam as equating ISIS w/ Muslims. You are going the other way and equating all UK citizens w/ the BBC.
It isn't like a ddos even affects online hackers. They aren't using their website as a their point of attack.
Precisely! This group should follow up w/ going after PBS, NPR, Guardian, Huffington Post, and a whole lot of others.
ISIS implies Islamic State in Iraq & Syria. ISIL expands it a bit to mean Iraq & the Levant, which would toss in Lebanon, Israel and the Pali authority as well. But now they claim to lead all Muslims worldwide, and you have Jihadi groups like Boko Haram, Abu Sayyaf, Islamic movement of Uzbekistan as well as splinter Jihadi groups in Libya, Afghanistan, Pakistan and Bangladesh all affiliated to ISIS. And of course, the armies of 1 or 2 popping up throughout the West, like in Paris and San Bernardino. This is the closest thing to the Abbasid Caliphate that existed in the 9th century.
Call it like it is. These scripts kiddies ain't no heroes.
Unfortunately someone always makes a better idiot.
Their hearts *might* be in the right place, but not their packets. If they wanted some real practice they would do some serious old fashion investigative work and dig up any and every detail they can on the Linode attack and then give that information to the company so that they might mount a better defense strategy and perhaps help the law enforcement side of things. After all, these gray hats are running with the right circles, no...? Then again, their "practice attack" was something script kiddies could have likely pulled off. I'll bet this is all about ego. They are playing with fire.
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Okay, so now the test has been successful, they can go ahead and take down... uh... what? isis.com? For a couple of hours?
systemd is Roko's Basilisk.
Al Jazeera is one of the largest news organizations with over 80 bureaus around the world. The North American version is actually quite liberal and certainly much more reputable than Fox News. We hosted those videos too, and Fox News has never had a problem interviewing people spouting the same sick conspiracy theories and anti-Semites of the like that are only evil to interview outside of the United States. Not to mention they have a light-weight website. They reported on the 47 executed in Saudi Arabia, which included Al Qaeda members, and they did so in a straight forward and unbiased way. Feel free to defend your argument. There certainly are a lot of things you could cite. I have errands to run and will counter later.
Brought to you by Carl's Junior.
that our {s}most brilliant minds{/s} are fighting IS online.
Where are we going and why are we in a handbasket?
I also fail to see how these guys are any danger to real terrorists.
They aren't, they are a benefit to IS. IS's raison d'etre is the conspiracy against Sunni Islam by the alliance of Shias and the Western World. By attempting to silence them, they are just giving IS more credibility in the eyes of their adherents, by validating the conspiracy theory. Even for groups as odious as IS, it is better to let them speak freely, and then counter their claims with more speech.
Btw, Saudi Arabia, a staunch American ally, beheaded 47 dissidents and apostates yesterday, including a leading Shia cleric. So on a moral basis, how is our enemy any worse than our ally?
"To many people in the world, the BBC is a fountain of information and not propaganda like the US equivalent."
The beauty of our system is that there IS no US equivalent. Each private station is just as biased, but competition produces a diversity of bias.
I take it you also think it's a "fucking disgrace" that the organisation which trained Osama in guerilla tactics continues to receive funding from the US government? The CIA is a much bigger problem (and better recruiter for jihadist terrorists) than Al Jazeera.
What in the name of sweet Jeezus has your very exciting rant about all the perceived evils of US liberal politics got to do with the BBC?
bbc was bought by the UK monarchy in 1927 and has been running the bull of that extreme mafia family the US fought a war to escape ever since.
start there and work your way through another world war and countless manipulation campaigns and the cover up of all the pedophilia that family has been involved in (such as her kids regularly visiting Jeffrey epsteins island and going crazy when the media hacked their phones)
and you'll probably come to the same conclusion.
It's just like that line the song by the Ramones "Mr Loboto" "BBC did a job on me"
rewriting history since 2109
I never said anything denying that. I know that the Bushes have ties to the various Sheikhdoms in the region, and probably extended ties to Osama. I stated that al Jazeera is the news organization that promotes al Qaeda, and I have a bunch of Jihadi apologists above describing how great they are.
Who said that Fox is what I follow? It's not the only news that people who are not baptised Marxists follow
He was waiting for an opening. Speech was ready to go and only needed an audience.
I currently view BBC and Al Jazeera for world news. Not that I think either is perfect, but relative to the rest that I've found these two are pretty good.
You seem to have it backwards. In the 50s the BBC was very supportive of the government. In the 60s t started to be more irreverent, and really began to hold ministers to account in the 70s when Newsnight and Question Time stated.
I agree it has become more tame lately.
const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
Years of having potent arguments answered with "but YOUR side has problems too, LOOK!" and the subject being changed. He simply has given in to the new way of argument and is now surprised that you consider it invalid. Just think of how many "Islamic terrorism is a bad thing and we need to think of how to end it" arguments have been answered with "The Crusades were worse and killed more people so STFU". This has been going on for years and years.
Shutting down free speech with violence isn't fighting fascism. It IS fascism!
Sorry, that's a favorite myth of you Leftists that was never borne out. By the time Osama moved to Afghanistan, the US had already disengaged from that country, as the Soviets were already gone and the Afghan Communist regime was coming apart.
Or maybe it should be "without cyber terrorists... who is there to fight online hackers?"
Did their mothers never tell them that two wrongs don't make a right? You need at least three lefts to make a right, or something.
The correct quotation (from The Harvard Lampoon's Deterioata) is "Two wrongs don't make a right, but three lefts do."
Kevin Oberman, Network Engineer, Retired
See above! I do NOT follow Fox News for precisely THAT reason!
You mistake objectivity for support.
Failing to go 'Al Qaeda are evil and must be destroyed' is not supporting them.
My experience is that Al Jazeera is far more objective than most UK news sources, let alone US ones.
Hmm... Not sure if serious or if just not inclined to learn some history.
See the use of the BBC during WWII. They were used to spread both propaganda on their own channels but also set up channels just for the propagation of propaganda. Additionally, they were used to convey secret messages. One of the more interesting was a bit of poetry to signal the French Resistance folks to start preparing for the arrival of troops in Normandy - known as D-Day. They were also heavily censored during that time, an effort to control the population's thoughts and opinions could be called "brainwashing," no?
So, sure, the AC you're responding to is (quite probably) out to lunch - it's not really out of character for the BBC to be used for propaganda and an attempt to control a population. It's probably not at all what the AC was referencing but, well, there it is.
"So long and thanks for all the fish."
I am a listener to, fan of, and financial supporter of NPR. I consider it one of many news sources. NPR does, indeed, have a Left-leaning slant and I am aware of the bias and try to use multiple sources to get informed. A recent example was a piece about Trump. I am not a Trump supporter but I am a fan of honesty. I do not recall the exact quote but they were accusing Trump of wanting to do something about internet communications. I decided to go online and have a look. I found said quote and it was not only out of context, it was more quoting insinuations made by the interviewer than the interviewee. I've never heard a retraction.
I'm aware of the bias and I'm pretty sure that, even if just by omission, you will not find an unbiased news source. I don't think it's really possible to eradicate biases completely. Thus, I prefer to get news from multiple sources - including overseas media about current events in the US. Your statement about the NPR is, in my opinion, accurate and that's why people should try to use more than one news source. I've even listened to Fox (I don't watch much television, I haven't watched much for most of my life and almost none since the 1980s - I do like talk/news radio, however) and found nuggets of facts and objective reporting. Yet it's obvious that Fox is biased as well.
So, if nothing else, this is some attempt to be objective - NPR is biased. I'd say it's not heavily biased but I think evidence suggests that they're biased. It's not surprising or unusual. It's just what it is. If your goal is to have your opinion read back to you and supported then stick to the source that tells you what you want to hear. If you want to expand your views then listen to the sources that you believe to be biased in the opposite direction. If you're interested in making up your own mind and having as much information as possible then use multiple news sources and listen for the things that aren't said and pay attention to the way things are being said.
Err... That is all... What is it that you kids do? Something about dropping a mic? Err... Will it suffice if I just turn it off and place it back into the stand properly and gently? 'Cause, yeah, it's not really nice to go damaging other people's stuff and I imagine the noise will be unruly and the potential feedback could be annoying to some of the older members of the audience.
"So long and thanks for all the fish."
Multiple sources is a good criteria. I pick my news from multiple sources, but excluding al Jazeera, which despite their fanbois here, has a record for pushing al Qaeda. BBC is good for SOME coverage of world news, like when they cover European or Arab affairs. But I don't trust them in their coverage of the US, Israel or India, due to their pro-Muslim biases. Typically for world events, I check out the leading news organizations for countries I'm interested in, as opposed to the BBC's Economist like opinionated pieces of them. Like say Jerusalem Post for what happens in the Middle East. For the US, I check out the websites of people who I trust as being more objective. I don't do Facebook or Twitter, but if I did, then I'd follow directly the people I support, and ignore the media altogether.
They don't have to state that 'al Qaeda is evil and must be destroyed'. But everytime Osama released a video, they'd run it, and it would be world news. At the time, there was suspicion in intelligence circles that those videos contained secret messages, which is why the DHS would ask US news organizations to wait for any clearance before running them. I expect al Jazeera, as an Arab organization, to be pro Arab: that ain't the issue here. The issue here is them being the water boys for al Qaeda propaganda, which could potentially include terror plots
Those are good sources. I'm aware of the biases and acknowledge them which is why I'd say that I find al Jazeera to be an acceptable source. I'm not suggesting that one take them at face value and to the exclusion of all others but that one at least consider their information and seek to find more information as needed. Some days I may find a single story, and just that one story, and spend as many as a few hours learning about the background, opinions, and even delve into the history of that region. I'll then draw my own conclusions but I don't exclude al Jazeera as an informations source by default.
Hell, I'll even go to Democracy Now! as a source of news. I've caught them, more than once, so abusing editorial methods as to make things seem exactly opposite what reality is. However, I'll still go see what information they have. I don't really exclude anyone - if that makes sense? I am just aware that they're biased or might even be outright dishonest. Which leads to this:
I guess, I don't even really have a set group that I use. It really depends and I do have preferences but no exclusions (other than some obvious not-news sources). I'll even make use of Russia Today. True, I probably avoid drawing conclusions based on those sources but that doesn't mean I'll exclude them. I'll visit various sites, some not in English, and see what I can find out. I make use of machine translation a lot and sometimes will even use multiple translation services. (I use something simply called Translator by someone named SailorMax. I also *read,* but not speak well, a few other languages and can often get by without it.)
Fortunately, I'm retired. I can get away with spending that much time keeping up with things of interest. I'm in a position where I can spend that time and think for myself. I've often pondered actually putting those thoughts to keyboard and sharing the fruits of my research with others but, frankly, I'm both a bit lazy and aware of my own biases. I am sort of working on a project that enables such but it may be a while coming and may never reach fruition though it may make a repository of my thoughts which, I suppose, probably isn't of much value to anyone else but will certainly offer a feedback mechanism because I enjoy having my beliefs challenged and having to defend them as being logically consistent and well reasoned. (As an aside: That's one of the reasons that I'm here and one of the reasons that I do share as much as I do.)
Oh, the linked extension is for Opera. I don't know if there is a Chrome/Chromium version but it should work if you simply download it and import it as an unpacked extension? Prior to being able to directly use Chrome extensions, that's how I was able to get the extensions work in reverse. I've not poked at Vivaldi for a little while but worked for Vivaldi as well. I suspect that there's something similar for Firefox, Pale Moon, and whatnot - I don't know of something of that nature for Midori and I've no clue what works with IE/Edge or Safari. It's sometimes rather interesting to read news articles with one translation and then use a different translation service to check against it. Sometimes the resulting differences can be a bit interesting. The conclusions you draw are your own and you don't have to rely on someone else telling you what to think - so there's that.
"So long and thanks for all the fish."
I'd love to try whatever you're smoking
I'd love to try whatever you're smoking
The current Director General of the BBC is also a Director of HSBC Bank (Those lovely people who fucked the global economy), a Tory party donor and a personal friend of David Cameron. So of course there's no bias on the BBC!
Build a Man a Fire, and He'll Be Warm for a Day. Set a Man on Fire, and He'll Be Warm for the Rest of His Life.
to bring down.
Healthcare.gov immediately comes to mind.
Have you ever fallen asleep at the keybhanusdiog?