North Korea Internet Outage == SONY testing its capabilities to bring websites down

THIS IS SPECULATION, THIS IS WHY I PUT IT IN THE GRAY AREA.

This is a list of some NK websites:

www.northkoreatech.org...

If you go there and click any of the NK website links you will see that it already craps out at the DNS, means that your browser cannot even find the NK website adresses. You can see in your browser "looking up www . cooks . org . kp" etc., a connection is not even established because it cannot get an IP.

What strikes me as VERY odd is that this type of attack is pretty much EXACTLY as what has leaked now about SONY's plans to disrupt and manipulate DNS to bring down piracy sites. (Something which was part of SOPA but was rejected but now turns out the MPAA is STILL pursuing!! Google is actually suing the MPAA about this now after those plans had been leaked and made public!)

COINCIDENCE??? Or is SONY testing it's digital cannons to bring down NK websites so as to test whether what they plan will also work with piracy sites here? Or is SONY simply applying the knowledge they have right now..and what we see is the result of this?

What is more likely? That a "15 year old in a Guy Fawkes mask" is bringing down entire NK's internet....or that it's an attack by the most capable and LIKELY attacker WHO ALREADY PLANNED TO DO EXACTLY THE SAME THING...SONY!!

a reply to: NoRulesAllowed

If it is Sony, I would say they're not "testing" anything and are just flat out going for it.

its unlikley to be one 15 year old in a guy fawkes mask, but thousands of bots, all over the world doing it, from hundreds of 15 year olds all over the world.

i don't rule out your possiblilty, but in all likely hood, the FBI would be able to tell if it was a single source.
and all reports seem to indicate a Ddos attack (just like was launched on ATS a few weeks back)

if you find anything new, post it here.

a reply to: NoRulesAllowed

Hey NRA.

Its an interesting hypothesis you put forward, and no doubt the timing of this whole thing is deeply suspect, for the reasons you outlined above.

However, one thing I think it is worth mentioning is, that wild hackers, while not having access to vast resources of money and extensive R&D facilities, like their corporate counterparts have, are usually just simply better than tame ones at what they do. A smart kid with a laptop can hack department of defence computers. It's happened before, and will likely as not happen again. It does not take a vast fortune and an army of goons to do this sort of thing.

That said, the type of attack that NK seems to be under, certainly does seem to be consistent with the sort of DNS assault that was being suggested by SONY.

" North Korea Internet Outage == SONY testing its capabilities to bring websites down "

Or the NSA is doing the "testing".

Hmmm.

Proving they can and will control the entire internet at will.

a reply to: NoRulesAllowed

The actual satellites that supply the internet service are not your run of the mill communication Satellites. But there only a few corporations that actually supply the Internet tot he world via the Communication industry i.e. verizon, Smart, AT&T and the like around the world.

So it is not hard for these corporations to just block a signal to the carrier or carriers in that country.

originally posted by: okamitengu
its unlikley to be one 15 year old in a guy fawkes mask, but thousands of bots, all over the world doing it, from hundreds of 15 year olds all over the world.

i don't rule out your possiblilty, but in all likely hood, the FBI would be able to tell if it was a single source.
and all reports seem to indicate a Ddos attack (just like was launched on ATS a few weeks back)

if you find anything new, post it here.

As far as I remember (correct me if I am wrong!) if there is a DDoS attack my browser would still find the IP, it would say "Connecting to ATS...." and then time out.

In this case I cannot even LOOK UP THE IP, it says "looking up...."..and then aborts, it doesn't even get as far as attempting a connection. I am not a hacker or anything...but would a "conventional" DDoS cause this?

a reply to: NoRulesAllowed

After Obama promised retribution,

President Barack Obama said the U.S. will respond to North Korea's cyber-assault on Sony Pictures Entertainment "in a place and time and manner that we choose,"

www.vancouversun.com...

Why would you think 'Sony' and not NSA?

originally posted by: Iamschist
a reply to: NoRulesAllowed
Why would you think 'Sony' and not NSA?

Ah Semantics...

Sony, NSA, Sonynsa, Sony and NSA....doesn't really matter.

What matters is that it doesn't look like some teenager DDoSing NK websites. But this is what we're told!

a reply to: NoRulesAllowed

It's still not being widely reported as its own story, but tacked on to the story about the UN discussing NK Human Rights abuses there is mention of it...

North Korea has meanwhile reportedly suffered a large-scale internet outage.

The US government has declined to comment on the internet outage. "We aren't going to discuss ... publicly, operational details about the possible response options or comment on those kind of reports in any way except to say that as we implement our responses, some will be seen, some may not be seen," state department spokeswoman Marie Harf said.

BBC

It looks like there might be suppression of the story, but it seems the US is sending NK a message.

a reply to: NoRulesAllowed

Huge difference between a company hacking in retribution and the United States government. Also I saw no source stating it was the work of a teenage hacker.

originally posted by: Iamschist
a reply to: NoRulesAllowed

Huge difference between a company hacking in retribution and the United States government. Also I saw no source stating it was the work of a teenage hacker.

I did. Multiple times on MSM news media.

But:

>>
A spokeswoman for the National Security Council declined to comment on the reported outage.

A State Department spokeswoman similarly deflected a question about the disruption.

"We aren't going to discuss -- you know -- publicly, operational details about the possible response options or comment on those kind of reports in any way, except to say that as we implement our responses, some will be seen, some may not be seen," Marie Harf told reporters.
>>

Is hilarious. I sorta picture this spokeswoman with a HUGE grin on their face right now when she answered this journalists.
Then again I don't see any "real life value" in this action, EXCEPT, as you pointed out already to send a message.

a forty million dollar live real world training exercise of software capable of ruling the world as we know it. That is not a bad price for this level of real world data.

a reply to: NoRulesAllowed

As far as I remember (correct me if I am wrong!) if there is a DDoS attack my browser would still find the IP, it would say "Connecting to ATS...." and then time out.

In this case I cannot even LOOK UP THE IP, it says "looking up...."..and then aborts, it doesn't even get as far as attempting a connection. I am not a hacker or anything...but would a "conventional" DDoS cause this?

A DDoS attack overloads an IP address with data to the point that the servers associated with the IP cant handle the data load. Like when your PC runs out of memory or the cpu is at 100%.

what you are describing sounds like a name resolution issue. DNS. when you ping www.abovetopsecret.com, your computer is able to resolve that name because your ISP has a DNS entry for that. So for some reason, the DNS entry might not exist for the sites you cant get to.

There was an app I had for a while that showed a "map" of the internet. In one view it showed how everything was connected together.

Most people don't know this, but at the very tippy top of everything -- is a company called L3 Communications. Literally everything on the internet is in descending order under L3.

EDIT:

Here's a picture of what I'm talking about. One of those big blue balls on the left is L3, when I was looking at it in real-time I could see that all the other large blue balls connected to it. ATT and other ISP's are a few layers down the "jellyfish".

Not trying to be dramatic...

This could cause a war.. Crazy right? Over a movie... Crazy midget over there in NoKo is just looking for a reason to try and do something. This makes dear leader look powerless. Just spit balling but it's in the realms of reason. Bet he shaking his cane in anger at the moment.

a reply to: NoRulesAllowed

Loosey goosey, no source quoted therefore it is your opinion and worth as much. Deflecting is not the same thing as publicly commenting on who they are thinking is responsible.

I didn't have any problem getting into the first page I tried from the list so maybe its just a default DNS server issue?
8.8.4.4

originally posted by: BlastedCaddy
Not trying to be dramatic...

This could cause a war.. Crazy right? Over a movie... Crazy midget over there in NoKo is just looking for a reason to try and do something. This makes dear leader look powerless. Just spit balling but it's in the realms of reason. Bet he shaking his cane in anger at the moment.

All NK wants is attention when it demands it, it's a petulant child and little more, in my opinion. The leadership there is as corrupt as they come, living in luxury at the expense of their people, enforcing mass slavery and poverty while they ship in caviar and champers. They do this all the time, screaming for attention, then when they get their shipments of luxuries from the outside world they shut up for a few months.

The only real threat from NK is it becoming a proxy for Russia or China, acting as their puppet, the idiot to manipulate and take the blame for their actions against the US.

The cyber war we're seeing starting is a worry though, from an economic position. This is a relatively new phenomenon, the first example of an international government action against the infrastructure of another. If China or Russia wanted to help our NK (which isn't as unlikely as some might think if it means something going in their favor) then NK could retaliate with more cyber warfare.

If this is the US retaliating against NK with a cyber attack, this could become something more significant, primarily with Russia or China using it as an opportunity to take their own action with NK publicly blamed.

originally posted by: ZetaRediculian
what you are describing sounds like a name resolution issue. DNS. when you ping www.abovetopsecret.com, your computer is able to resolve that name because your ISP has a DNS entry for that. So for some reason, the DNS entry might not exist for the sites you cant get to.

You are correct, it's a name resolution issue, which also means it's far "bigger" than some kid DDoSing servers in NK.
175.45.177.77 is an NK website IP.

If you do a tracert to this IP (sorry, being technical here)...it shows "destination net unreachable". They literally "wiped" their internet, alright. Scary, fascinating and hilarious all at the same time.