Everyday in these new online lives we encounter technical glitches. Pages vanish, connections fail, bandwith stretches and servers fail. Occasionally something more dramatic happens and our complacency is kicked in the nads when we discover a favourite site has been attacked. Predominately these are carried out by hacktivists like the labyrinthine 'Anonymous' raising our awareness of the corporate soul sucking behemoths that we've signed up to and whose bland teat we greedily drink from.
'Anonymous' are legend, their attacks on the government websites in Egypt, Tunisia, Algeria, Iranian election , Zimbabwe, the hate filled Westboro Baptist church, Scientology the wonderful 'Operation Titstorm' on the Australian governments attempt at filtering content and the ongoing Operations Payback, Avenge Assenge and Bradical (the illegal detention of the alleged Wikileaks source Bradley Manning) are all excellent examples of usually young intelligent people defending democracy.
What we saw yesterday in the attack on Newsnet was not a bunch of bored kids playing at high jinks and messing with an evil big megacorp. As Newsnet say, all indications are that this was a concerted Denial of Service (DOS) attack. The sort of thing we tend to find totalitarian regimes like China doing in an attempt to shut down dissenting voices. China, for example where artist Ai Weiwei is currently imprisoned for the great crime of tweeting on his Twitter account: "I didn’t care about jasmine at first, but people who are scared by jasmine sent out information about how harmful jasmine is often, which makes me realize that jasmine is what scares them the most. What a jasmine!"
What we need to ask now is who organised this attack, which vested interest, commercial or political would decide to attack a site which is dedicated to the abiding principles of Democracy? You can knock out the eponymous 'Anonymous', they attacked Fine Gaels site and left their logo and this message "Nothing is safe, you put your faith in this political party and they take no measures to protect you. They offer you free speech yet they censor your voice. WAKE UP!"
Newsnet have put their faith in the SNP, the only credible voice on the Scottish media landscape to do so. Obviously I discount the Supersoaraway's endorsement of the SNP today, that decision has nothing to do with democracy and everything to do with business. Will they put a noose around Labour's neck on May 5th?
Newsnet back the SNP because they believe in Independence. Because they've witnessed a concerted negative attack from the moment in 2006 when the first polls suggested the SNP's positive message was winning over the electorate. They need and deserve our support.
The news of this attack, needs to be shouted from the rooftops. Whilst your talking to those who would vote Tory, remind them failing to vote SNP in their regional vote makes Iain Gray First Minister and above all else tell them about this attack on Scottish democracy, because sure as shit, their daily newspaper or state broadcaster wont.
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18 comments:
Hi Mark,
This disgraceful attack just goes to show how successful the Newsnet site has been in promoting the idea of Independence and how low our opponents will stoop in their attacks against us. They must really be cacking their pants to be driven to carry out a stunt like this.
Keep up the good work.
Regards,
Somebody's running scared Mark.
I wonder who...?
Mark.
If Newsnet has been the victim of a cyber attack then my bets are its came from the Labour party or on their behalf. They have most to lose in the Scottish election, not just in Scotland but down south it will be a kick in the teeth for Ed.
Sometimes people can't hack the truth and this looks like a class example of one political party throwing its toys out of the pram. The good news is at least Newsnet is rattling someones cage, just a question of who's?
Maybe shouldn't jump to conclusions but a cynic would say that the DoS attack, if that is what it turns out to have been, has Labour's grubby, crooked, thieving fingerprints all over it.
Labour have had Purcell, Devine and a load more swine at their helm who wouldn't bat an eyelid at breaking the law.
Of course the Labourites got going here, my only question is how did this bunch of Troggs actually organise themselves to do it. Their general incompetence... as I write, I realise that a couple of clever cloggs in NüberLabour in England might have worked out a way.
I for one will help out Newsnet financially again if they change servers to a protected server.
It is naive to imagine Labour is behind this.
Labour is merely one face of the union and the organisation which presently is being used to defend the union by the real powers behind the constitutional status quo. These same powers put a tame and unscrupulous Tory (Tony Blair) in place to run the Labour Party
McGonnagall
Probably correct.
Hmmm a recent perusal of the comments on Newsnet discovers that someone posting as 'Nomad' has informed readers that he is the Danish hostmaster (a bit too Dungeon and Dragony for me)and that, "There were no DoS attack whatsoever, and I'll leave it to the site admins to clarify the matter if they wish to do so."
Firstly I'm impressed at a Danish bods use of English particularly the use of the rather archaic 'whatsoever' or 'overhovedet' as they say in Denmark...Secondly I'm perturbed that Newsnet in their opening paragraph tell us "At approximately 12.55 pm yesterday, Newsnet's host server reported that the site had collapsed under the weight of 'unprecedented activity'." and go on to say, "our server administrator has informed us that the most likely cause is a Denial of Service (DOS) Attack. The pattern of activity which the site IT team detected points toward such an explanation."
I'm presuming Newsnet Scotland took the 'unprecedented activity' and 'likely cause is ...DOS attack' as gospel and quite rightly continued with their article.
Any investigation has to ascertain what caused the 'unprecedented activity' and why would a Danish 'hostmaster' suggest DOS attack as most likely cause of the breakdown if it were not true?
Given the constant siege on Independence it's no wonder we're all a wee bit jittery! If Newsnet can confirm that this was not a dedicated DOS attack I'll do that rare thing that usually emanates from legal threats...and pull this post.
All very odd, Mark. I suppose we will know what happened to Newsnet soon enough. The Danish webmaster thing all too odd.
I must doff my cap to you for the last few (many) articles, without fail interesting, jaunty in linguistic grace and with poignant analysis.
Where did the Braveheart blight go, btw?
Why thank you chumrade. I fear to mention his name three times will have a beetljuice effect and free him from his chains in the deep underworld cavern of Largs Labourgedden.
yes well i have it on good authority that Ed Miliband asked David Cameron if he would activate the Unionist mind bending psyche interferon ray
On moon base Alpha.
And as a Good Unionist Dave agreed
he also gave mi5/6 a bell and told them to unleash hell on Numptynet Scotland which they did.
Ha good old Mr. Mxyzptlk, how's the crossdressing weightlifting going?
Mr MixedUpHalitosis says "yes well i have it on good authority that Ed Miliband asked David Cameron if he would activate the Unionist mind bending psyche interferon ray
On moon base Alpha"
And then Ian Grey, as the signal from London was lost, did one and ran into a Subway shop, ordered a 12" Chicken Supreme with extra mince, and reversed his position on the council tax freeze, A&E units, prescription charges and tuiton fees, then likened the dangers in Glasgow Central station to Cambodia under the Khmer Rouge?
Moon base Alpha has alot to answer for.
mark
the weightlifting fine
the crossdressing we tend not to talk about openly (as Unionists are wont to do)
Ayrshire
you forget to mention he said he was 'demitted' not a word you hear banded around the works canteen.
Mind i know more Russian than gaelic these days
Hi Mark
seems that is was just an IT snafu
As I mentioned yesterday, given the current shambolic campaign being run by labour, an effective SLAB cyber-attack was unlikely
Hi Big Skelf, oddly enoght they've been on and off line already today! Somebody put a shilling in the meter...
To be honest the admins have my sympathy. The software used is pretty complex and I don't think they have the luxury of a testing server. Then add in the awkward lines of communication in a volunteer organisation, the natural state of paranoia we nationalists have and you have all the ingrediants for a first class clusterf@£k
Tend to agree with David McEwan Hill. Labour's campaign management software is pretty lousy (they can't even keep the data up to date) so I can't see them pulling off a DOS attack sufficiently stealthily to make it unclear that that's what it was. A DOS attack mounted from a few IP addresses is easily and quickly recognised as such. For success you need a lot of attacking IPs, what's called a Distributed Denial of Service attack, or DDOS. This usually means infesting a lot of home PCs with malware (making them 'zombies' in the hacker lingo). These zombies lie dormant, available to attack on any IP on receipt of an instruction from their controller.
If the NNS admins aren't sure that it was a DOS attack, then either (a) it wasn't or (b) it was a skilfully cloaked DDOS. Either way, not Labour.
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