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TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 24, 2009
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Ahmadinejad Foes Gang Up on Websites

'Hacktivists' overload president's blog, other government outlets

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(Newser) – As protests continue on the streets of Tehran, hackers in and outside of Iran are mounting an assault on the establishment's main websites, reports ZDNet. The sites of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, and several news agencies were crippled yesterday after activists flooded them with traffic. The campaign appears to have spread on Twitter, which has become one of the most reliable forms of communication during the unrest.

Similar cyberattacks took place in 2008 during the Georgia-Russia war, the same year Chinese "hacktivists" temporarily shut down CNN's website. Those attacks came from a central source, but the onslaught on Iran has come from hundreds of individuals, each reloading pages so frequently that servers eventually crash. Their goal, according to one tweet: "Overload Iran’s propaganda websites—we can do it together!"

Iranian supporters of presidential candidate Mir Hossein Mousavi attend a protest near the Iranian embassy in Ankara, Turkey, Monday, June 15, 2009.
Iranian supporters of presidential candidate Mir Hossein Mousavi attend a protest near the Iranian embassy in Ankara, Turkey, Monday, June 15, 2009.   (AP Photo/Burhan Ozbilici)
Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad speaks to the media in Tehran, Iran, Sunday, June 14, 2009.
Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad speaks to the media in Tehran, Iran, Sunday, June 14, 2009.   (AP Photo/Ben Curtis)
Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, smiles after addressing a summit of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization in the Ural Mountains city of Yekaterinburg, Russia, Tuesday, June 16, 2009.
Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, smiles after addressing a summit of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization in the Ural Mountains city of Yekaterinburg, Russia, Tuesday, June 16, 2009.   (AP Photo/Mikhail Metzel)
Tens of thousands of supporters of pro-reform leader Mir Hossein Mousavi stream through the center of Tehran, many wearing the trademark green color of Mousavi's campaign.
Tens of thousands of supporters of pro-reform leader Mir Hossein Mousavi stream through the center of Tehran, many wearing the trademark green color of Mousavi's campaign.   (AP Photo/Kamran Jebreili)
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13 comments
VIEWING:
 
2-bits
Jun 16, 09 7:42 AM CDT
She's cute. :3 Reply
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+5
2-bits
Jun 16, 09 7:51 AM CDT
With that out of the way, can we agree that the term Hacktivist is over used? It's hardly hacking if the sophistication of your attack is limited to reloading webpages. Maybe if it was a distributed DOS attack with a botnet, or an SSH attack on a blog so that you could vandalize it, but reloading webpages? No. Reply
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+1
IN RESPONSE:
Fondue
Jun 16, 09 8:00 AM CDT
Honestly, I don't know. But, maybe it's the best legal way in accord to Iranian law.
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+4
IN RESPONSE:
Unaffiliated
Jun 16, 09 8:08 AM CDT
It certainly isn't sophisticated, but it's amazing how the populace has the ability to overwhelm the government's servers with such a simple technique that anyone can do. While they don't deserve any awards for technical merits, I give them mongo points for effectiveness.
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+5
IN RESPONSE:
DJM420
Jun 16, 09 8:25 AM CDT
i think its genius...i compare the clerics to mccain trying to use a blackberry or something
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+1

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