It looks like you're using an Ad Blocker.
Please white-list or disable AboveTopSecret.com in your ad-blocking tool.
Thank you.
Some features of ATS will be disabled while you continue to use an ad-blocker.
HONG KONG — The Chinese government has long used a sophisticated set of Internet filters known as the Great Firewall as a barrier to prevent its citizens from obtaining access to foreign websites with information it deems threatening.
But in a recent series of cyberattacks on websites that try to help Internet users in China circumvent this censorship, the Great Firewall appears to have been used instead as a weapon, diverting a portion of the torrents of Internet traffic that flow through it to overload targeted websites.
“This is a message to the people who maintain GitHub: Either you kick out GreatFire and The New York Times, or we’ll keep this up,” said Mikko Hypponen, the chief research officer at the security firm F-Secure.
originally posted by: BomSquad
HONG KONG — The Chinese government has long used a sophisticated set of Internet filters known as the Great Firewall as a barrier to prevent its citizens from obtaining access to foreign websites with information it deems threatening.
But in a recent series of cyberattacks on websites that try to help Internet users in China circumvent this censorship, the Great Firewall appears to have been used instead as a weapon, diverting a portion of the torrents of Internet traffic that flow through it to overload targeted websites.
China Appears to Attack GitHub by Diverting Web Traffic
So China is apparently attacking a company based in San Francisco (GitHub) because it has two pages on its site that allow people in China to circumvent the "Great Firewall".
In effect, China is extorting compliance from GitHub by preventing legitimate transactions from working while they perform a DDOS (Distributed Denial of Service) attack on their website. As it says in the article:
“This is a message to the people who maintain GitHub: Either you kick out GreatFire and The New York Times, or we’ll keep this up,” said Mikko Hypponen, the chief research officer at the security firm F-Secure.
What kind of response can we expect?
originally posted by: SkepticOverlord
a reply to: BomSquad
This attack on GitHub is potentially much more serious than people might realize.
For many tech startups and even large tech companies, GitHub serves as much more than code libraries; it's repositories are often used as a means to feed the code used by cloud-based hosting platforms such as Amazon Web Services and Google App Engine. If GitHub is down, and the cloud needs to access it for regular code updates (common), this could have a crippling effect on hundreds of companies, if not more.
originally posted by: ScientificRailgun
a reply to: AdamuBureido
I don't see how having information on how to bypass the "Great Firewall of China" is getting into politics, when hackers are presented with a hurdle, they are naturally tempted to overcome it. It rarely has to do with politics unless you're talking about "hacktivists". Additionally, GitHub is a site that allows user-generated content. In this sense, the company itself isn't really getting "political" if it simply allows some users to upload code that helps people bypass the firewall. In fact, REMOVING that code/instruction would bring about a whole MESS of bad press to GitHub.
originally posted by: SkepticOverlord
This attack on GitHub is potentially much more serious than people might realize.
For many tech startups and even large tech companies, GitHub serves as much more than code libraries; it's repositories are often used as a means to feed the code used by cloud-based hosting platforms such as Amazon Web Services and Google App Engine. If GitHub is down, and the cloud needs to access it for regular code updates (common), this could have a crippling effect on hundreds of companies, if not more.
originally posted by: AdamuBureido
a reply to: ScientificRailgun
freedom of speech does not allow you to scream fire in a theater
or incite to riot, neh, oni-san?
americans only bring up free speech when they're not being allowed to incite, or are propagandizing and called out on it.
and many americans confuse license with freedom
(source)
During the past two days, popular code hosting site GitHub has been under a DDoS attack, which has led to intermittent service interruptions. As blogger Anthr@X reports from traceroute lists, the attack originated from MITM-modified JavaScript files for the Chinese company Baidu's user tracking code, changing the unencrypted content as it passed through the great firewall of China to request the URLs github.com/greatfire/ and github.com/cn-nytimes/. The Chinese government's dislike of widespread VPN usage may have caused it to arrange the attack, where only people accessing Baidu's services from outside the firewall would contribute to the DDoS. This wouldn't have been the first time China arranged this kind of "protest."
originally posted by: EA006
a reply to: SkepticOverlord
I'm don't know enough about networks to comment on the attack, but I did wonder while reading if it was possible to retaliate somehow by opening China to the entire web for a day or two? Show the people what's going on?
How Democracy Destroys Families
by Jeremy Locke
share or copy this article
The premise of democracy is simple. It states that people have claim over their neighbors. It says that you have the right to vote for ideas (called "laws") that can be forced upon those around you.
Take careful note that there is nothing of love, compassion or charity in democracy. Democracy is not about making sure that people are free. Democracy in no way keeps you safe from tyranny; it simply allows you to participate in the process.
When an entire culture is built up around this premise of "moral" force, the resulting changes to society are obvious and predictable. When people start believing that it is okay to destroy the free will of others to get things they want, they will do it more and more.
Many people want roads, schools, libraries, fire departments, and all sorts of "services." Many people want to control how others live; to control what foods and drugs they consume, how they engage in sexual activity, how they speak to one another, and how they build and decorate their homes.
The merits of any of these ideas are not at issue. Maybe an idea that most people want is a good idea, maybe it isn't. The question is: what good comes from adding violence to society in order to force other people to conform to your will?
When people believe that it is their moral prerogative to force others to obey them, they will become tyrants unto themselves.
When culture dictates that a woman can hurt her husband and place him in bondage to her through alimony laws, is it any wonder that divorce increase and marriages suffer? When culture dictates that a man can wield the violence of police against his neighbors in order to achieve obedience from them, is it any wonder that violence within families increases?
When culture dictates that it is okay to use violence against children unless they attend government schools, can anyone wonder when children become more violent? When culture dictates that it is okay to use violence to plunder the labor of others, instead of laboring to support your family because of your love. can you wonder at the results? When culture dictates that the state knows better what defines a healthy family than the family does, is there any mystery to families breaking apart?
Democracy is the teaching that coercive violence against your fellow man is acceptable and honorable. The trappings of this vicious teaching are irrelevant; voting booths and policemen with shiny badges are illusions. The fundamental result is to indoctrinate people such that they proactively seek gain at other people's expense. This is the meaning of democracy's culture. To think that you can plunder your neighbors but raise your family in safety and peace is to be both blind and a fool.
Creative Commons License
This work is free to share, copy, distribute, modify, and display; please link back.
Majority rule
Democratic culture teaches the rule of law. It teaches that law
created by majority rule is morality. Any law, any demand, any
punishment is moral when implemented by the majority.
Perversions of democracy such as democratic republics and
super-majorities are no different. Any law able to be passed by
representative, majority, super-majority or any other group
becomes morality.
If you can convince 50% of a people to enslave themselves or
their neighbors, is it moral? If you can convince 66%, 75%, 99%
or everyone, is it morality? The affliction of law is a game to
evil. Evil seeks control over people in order to destroy their
worth. It does not care who enslaves whom, or why.
There is no morality in law. Democratic teaching says that as
soon as the legal voting block approves a law, it is right and
proper to inflict it upon a people. Why should the destruction of
your freedom be acceptable just because someone else says so?
Does evil become righteous when more people desire it? Would
evil be righteous if all people desire it? Tyranny by one king is
the same as tyranny by a hundred million kings. It is the nature
of compulsion in law that is evil; how the law is achieved is
meaningless.