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4l-j4z333ra 0wn3d 1346

Posted by chrisd from the he-who-controls-the-spice dept.
gobbo writes "The buzz amongst my Muslim acquaintances is that the al-Jazeera site is under "cyber-attack." Shortly after posting photos of mangled Iraqi children the server became unavailable. I don't have satellite TV to see if they are reporting anything on al-Jazeera itself, but pinging their name servers fails too. For those who don't already know, the al-Jazeera channel is a pan-Arabic satellite TV channel out of Qatar." While I am certain many h4x0rs are political, I can't help thinking that script kiddies are like moths to the flame of rising page views. (this was initially posted incorrectly, and has been moved to the proper date)
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  • First Post?!? (Score:3, Informative)

    by Deven ( 13090 ) <deven@ties.org> on Wednesday March 26, 2003 @07:18PM (#5601159) Homepage
    How is it that any story on Slashdot can survive without any comments at all for nearly 24 hours? Is the system broken? This is unusual!

  • Military targets? (Score:5, Interesting)

    by twemperor ( 626154 ) on Wednesday March 26, 2003 @07:46PM (#5601325) Homepage
    I think this raises some new interesting questions.

    For example, the US military claimed that Iraqi TV, as it was providing information and instruction to Iraqi troops, was a legitimate military command and control target. Would similar online media outlets be similarly classified?

    More importantly, would hackers, even script kiddies, be considered combatants if they attack such a military target in a time of war?

    I don't think this has any practical implications, just philosophical...

    • Re:Military targets? (Score:5, Insightful)

      by 1u3hr ( 530656 ) on Wednesday March 26, 2003 @09:48PM (#5602019)
      Would similar online media outlets be similarly classified?

      It's not a "similar" outlet. Unless you mean to bomb any foreign media that don't toe Rumsfeld's line. In spite of David Letterman sketches, al-Jazeera is neither Afghani or Iraqi, but is based in Qatar.

      See this article [msnbc.com] on its origins.

      Today, al-Jazeera is staffed by many of the same [BBC] journalists I saw weeping in London that day, including Azar. It is the lone Arabic broadcast outlet to put truth and objectivity above even its survival. For its pains during the five years of its existence, it has been attacked by virtually every government in the Middle East.
      They've also got a new English service [aljazeera.net]. (Which was heavily overloaded even before this, so you'll have a hard time seeing it.)

      • Re:Military targets? (Score:5, Insightful)

        by YrWrstNtmr ( 564987 ) on Wednesday March 26, 2003 @11:04PM (#5602628)
        www.arabnews.com had an article [arabnews.com] comparing al-Jazeera and CNN.

        CNN portrayed as lying, deceitful, mouthpiece of the US administration.

        al-Jazeera portrayed as a font of wisdom and truth.

        Both statements are crap CNN may well sanitise its stories, and portray the US side (hey..it's a US company)

        But al-Jazeera is at least equally as bad.

        In reference to the current fighting...
        Does AJ show pics and video of Iraqi troops hiding among civilians and using them as shields? No
        Does AJ show report on the Iraqi troops using a hospital for a weapons cache? No
        Does AJ report on the use of explosives at the oil well heads? No.
        Does AJ report on the ecological disaster of lighting oil filled trenches on fire? No

        If you want to say CNN is not reporting 'fairly', OK..that may well be true.

        But please do NOT hold up AJ as the bastion of truth and objectivity.

        • Excellent story on NPR (Score:3, Insightful)

          by sterno ( 16320 )
          I forget what show I was listening to, but on NPR yesterday, there was an interview with somebody in charge of an english language newspaper in the middle east. He had a really good perspective on this. Basically what it boils down to is that both CNN and Al Jazeera are commercial operations and it is in their best interest to present news that caters to the views of their audiences. So you see and endless stream of armchair quarterback generals on CNN and you see bloodied civilians on Al Jazeera.

          One th

        • Re:Military targets? (Score:5, Interesting)

          by sould ( 301844 ) on Thursday March 27, 2003 @03:00AM (#5604643) Homepage

          Does AJ show pics and video of Iraqi troops hiding among civilians and using them as shields? No


          Has this been independantly corroborated? No.


          Does AJ show report on the Iraqi troops using a hospital for a weapons cache? No


          Has this been independantly corroborated? No.


          Does AJ report on the use of explosives at the oil well heads? No.

          Yes. Yes they do


          Does AJ report on the ecological disaster of lighting oil filled trenches on fire? No


          Yes. Yes they do.


          Who modded this retard and her/his americentric point of view up?


          Few people think al-Jazeera is unbiased, to compare it to CNN is frankly laughable.

        • al-Jazeera is the Fox News of the Arab world or Fox news is the al-Jazeera of the Western world.

        • CNN and al-Jazeera (Score:3, Interesting)

          by _Sprocket_ ( 42527 )
          I saw something kind of odd last night on CNN. At the close of one of the news personalities nightly shows (I believe it was Aaron Brown), they ran a piece (with dubed translation) from al-Jazeera over the Brittish actions in umm Qasar. The reporting of that particular story seemed rather fair and straight forward. If it hadn't been for the origional arabic language and writing, I might have mistaken it for a BBC piece.

          Now the interesting bit is that Aaron Brown pointed out that their newsroom monitors
      • You obviously haven't heard their translations of press conferences. When Rumsfeld says "coalition forces", it's translated on al-Jazeera as "occupation forces". Everyone is going to have their individual slant on how things are, but when you mangle a translation in that way, it shows intent. I find that disturbing.

    • Re:Military targets? (Score:5, Informative)

      by lunartik ( 94926 ) on Wednesday March 26, 2003 @10:55PM (#5602504) Homepage Journal
      For example, the US military claimed that Iraqi TV, as it was providing information and instruction to Iraqi troops, was a legitimate military command and control target. Would similar online media outlets be similarly classified?

      Yes.

      If it was also a state owned mouthpiece of the government, of course.

      Iraqi TV and al-Jazzera are different things, which some posters seem to have confused.

  • Weird (Score:5, Insightful)

    by bleckywelcky ( 518520 ) on Wednesday March 26, 2003 @08:00PM (#5601404)

    First time I've seen a story that doesn't appear on the main /. page but ends up surfacing in the Older Stuff side bar.

    I do have to say that I am saddened to see this happen because although Al Jazeera may have been biased on the side of Iraq, it is good to have alternative news sources to get the other side's story from. And despite what many people may whole-heartedly claim, CNN, MSNBC, FOX, NBC, etc all do have a sense of American bias in them. That's besides the fact that half of their reporting is so horrible, it is actually hard to watch sometimes. I've found myself turning off the TV numerous times in response to my disgust for some of the stuff they hack out as "news". Although, I have found the embedded reporter's reports quite interesting, and you can always catch the various briefings, latest field updates, and general news easily enough. But, these agencies spend way to much time on sensationalism, heart-string-picking, etc.

    I hope Al Jazeera can get their site back up soon.

    • I don't know how biased they are towards Iraq. They are based in Qatar, and funded by that government. The Qatar government is allied with the United States here.

      • Re:Weird (Score:5, Informative)

        by hazem ( 472289 ) on Wednesday March 26, 2003 @09:48PM (#5602020) Journal
        Al-Jazeera's pretty interesting. I've been watching it for about 3 years now. My Arabic isn't stellar, but I'm able to keep up with it pretty well.

        Before the current war, it was a lot like a cross between CNN, with news & comentary, and Discovery, with documentaries.

        It has an interesting history. As I understand it, the prince of Qatar funds it, but leaves it in the hands of the station to do all their own editorial control.

        It definitely had an Arab point of view, but to me that makes sense. Looking at it from that point of view, I would almost say that it is fairly balanced. Just as an American would probably find CNN fairly balanced.

        They don't hesitate to put Americans on (translated - unless you're former embassador Dennis Ross - he showed up on a debate show and handled it all in BEATUFIUL Arabic!). Rice and Powell have both been on there, but so has Saddam, and Tariq Aziz.

        Is there an anti-American slant? Well, even though few Arabs like Saddam and his regime, very few are very keen on the idea of a superpower coming in and taking out an Arab regime. The whole region has an unpleasant history of colonialism and occupation, and for many, this just appears to be another chapter in it. A lot will depend on how we handle the post-Saddam iraq.

        Another thing that is interesting... it's not a new thing that they're showing dead bodies and such. For as long as I've watched, they've not had a probelm with showing dead Palestinians or dead Israelis in that conflict. They don't talk over it either - sometimes just several minutes of showing what is going on or what has happened.

        So, I've rambled on, not really answering your question, but I don't often get to talk about Al-Jazeera.
        • Link [msn.com]: ... You can add the Iraq Satellite Channel to your 500-channel universe with a little tinkering. Iraqi television is rebroadcast onto the Net by the Dutch service DSL-TV, in both Real and Windows Media formats. The catch is that unlike ish.com's Al Jazeera stream from Germany, DSL-TV tries to limit its service to computers inside the Netherlands as part of its terms of service...

        • Re:Weird (Score:5, Informative)

          by Junta ( 36770 ) on Wednesday March 26, 2003 @10:41PM (#5602388)
          I just want to state right now that I am an American and recognize that CNN, especially as of late, is little more that an outlet for propaganda. The 'patriotic' stories get huge press, while those that point out potential problems are glossed over and presented with such a slant as to minimize damage. I have stopped using cnn at all for news since their coverage of this situation began. I guess being 'unpatriotic' is jsut too dangerous. I am ashamed of an America where expressing a dissenting view is called unpatriotic...

          • Not Weird (Score:3, Funny)

            by blazerw11 ( 68928 )
            Ladies and Gentlemen, please.
            CNN is an American company. I'm an American. I don't want to see negative stories about my country. If they show me negative stories, I might change the channel. CNN knows this. CNN's advertiser's know this.

            Does CNN broadcast biased stories? Probably Not.
            Is CNN biased in its choice of stories? Definitely Yes.

    • I like ABC and CBC, they are pretty good.

    • Re:Weird (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Kasperitus ( 316050 ) on Wednesday March 26, 2003 @09:38PM (#5601956)
      There was an article in the Wall St Journal a few days ago discussing the bias of US reporters. They mentioned that many of the "embedded" journalists use the personal pronoun "we" all the time. They compared that with a clip from a British reporter who was careful enough to detach himself, referring to the soldiers using "they". "They are encountering resistance..." "They are approaching Baghdad..." etc. Its a noticable difference.

      The article also mentioned that BBC seems to be doing a better job trying objective than US stations.

      • Re:Weird (Score:3, Insightful)

        by pavera ( 320634 )
        The BBC saying that the coalition is taking "heavy losses for small gains" is not objective reporting.
        the US has lost 24 soldiers and has gained a large portion of Iraqi territory, and has killed at least 1000 Iraqi soldiers, (fox is reporting something like 35,000 dead Iraqis, but I don't buy that at all) but the 3ID estimates that it has killed 800 Iraqis at the cost of 1 American... how is that heavy losses for small gains??!!

      • Re:Weird (Score:3, Insightful)

        by Havokmon ( 89874 )
        They mentioned that many of the "embedded" journalists use the personal pronoun "we" all the time. They compared that with a clip from a British reporter who was careful enough to detach himself, referring to the soldiers using "they". "They are encountering resistance..." "They are approaching Baghdad..." etc. Its a noticable difference.

        Makes sense to me both ways. The radio operator is 'embedded', but would be considered part of the 'force'. Do you really think after 4 journalists being killed, if th

      • Re:Weird (Score:4, Interesting)

        by Chacham ( 981 ) on Thursday March 27, 2003 @12:07PM (#5607582) Homepage Journal
        I don't have a problem with bias, as long as it's known. Everyone knows CNN is extremely liberal. Everyone knows Fox News is somewhat conservative. Everyone knows that the BBC is pro-Arab and anti-Israel. Everyone knows that Al-Jazeera is mostly pro-arab. Who cares? If anyone reported just facts, there'd either be too many bits or no connection in between them. In order to get a true picture of what is going on, you need to read news that is slanted both ways. So, read an American news source, and then ArabicNews.com (a pretty decent source). Or check Lebanon's Daily Star for a very much Arab slant.

        Everyone thinks that they are centrist. Anyone right of them is conservative, anyone left is them is liberal. Which is why Democrats call ABC, CBS, and NBC conservative news, yet Republicans call it liberal news. That is also why Democrats call Fox News very conservative, and Republicans call in "balanced". But, the important thing is, that both the liberal and the conservative views are legitamite.

        In order to report the news in an unbiased way, the reporter must assume an equidistant view from both warring sides. That is, the American news sources would have to decide that the Americans aren't automatically correct, and that Saddam isn't automatically wrong. The problem is, that legitamizes Saddam's regime to many who think it illegitamite, and that is something many do not want to do.

        Also, unbiased reporting (which I don't believe exists) wouldn't have the flare behind it the biased reporting does. When people are biased, they go the extra mile to prove their point. I like that a lot better.
    • ...although Al Jazeera may have been biased on the side of Iraq, it is good to have alternative news sources to get the other side's story from.

      I don't know if it's fair to call Al Jazeera a "news" source. It's pure political propaganda...Jihad TV [nationalreview.com]. If you want to see what Middle Easterners are seeing and reading, that's cool, but calling it news is unfair. It's beyond biased.

    • Journalism? (Score:3, Insightful)

      by The Tyro ( 247333 )
      I don't think Al Jazeera can be legitimately considered an unbiased news source. They have repeatedly rebroadcast Iraqi TV (the state-controlled news organ of Saddam's regime... Pravda for Iraqis), essentially spreading Saddam's propaganda for him.

      Parading POWs before the cameras is a violation of the Geneva conventions regarding the treatment of those prisoners. Subjecting them to humiliation or public curiosity is not allowed. Of course, I don't think anyone really thought that Saddam would follow ANY

    • Re:Weird (Score:5, Insightful)

      by transient ( 232842 ) on Wednesday March 26, 2003 @10:17PM (#5602225)
      CNN, et al have more than "a sense" of American bias. The real problem with our news networks is that they fail to practice critical journalism. They make no effort to verify what they're being told by various public information officers. As soon as Ari Fleischer says something, it becomes fact in the minds of most American journalists. Even when the press doubts what they're hearing -- a rare event -- no attempt is made to uncover the truth.

      News networks aren't evil. And they aren't really biased. They're just fucking lazy.

      • Re:Weird (Score:3, Interesting)

        by superyooser ( 100462 )
        they fail to practice critical journalism.

        I heard on Rush Limbaugh that Bush's administration was really wanting those critical questions from Arab journalists. They want to answer the tough, accusatory questions in order to get their message out to the anti-Bush protesters.

        News networks are ... lazy.

        Lazy? They're risking the lives of their best reporters to find out what's going on! It's not like they can speed-dial Saddam's henchmen on a cell phone from their humvee (or newsroom, for that matter). I

  • Poor topic, never got a chance to be discussed... anyhow, my 2c:


    It's funny to watch how righteous some authorities in the US are getting about Al-Jazeera. I mean, they describe it as a propaganda machine whose credibility is based on being an independant station... sounds like CNN, right? So now we have two CNNs dueling for the plaque-congested hearts and couch-deadened minds of the people! That's a danger that's new to the history of warfare, innit?

    • CNN has been fairly critical of the government. For instance they (along with many other outlets) have been criticizing them for a plan without enough ground troops, for allowing supply lines to be undefended, and so forth.

      I'll criticize both CNN, FOX and NBC for not being clear enough at times distinguishing what is "confirmed" from what is an initial report. The pundits have been even worse. The "chemical weapons plan" from Sunday night was very embarrassing. So was the "uprising" in Basra. Of cour

  • Not to be picky but... (Score:3, Insightful)

    by /dev/trash ( 182850 ) on Wednesday March 26, 2003 @08:34PM (#5601586) Homepage Journal
    What was the question?

  • English Al-Jazeera (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Drunken Coward ( 574991 ) on Wednesday March 26, 2003 @08:37PM (#5601595)
    More pointedly, the DOS'ing of the Al-Jazeera web site coincides with the debut of its English counterpart [aljazeera.net].

    The truth will remain elusive.

    • I know...I've been waiting for this for a long time. I try to read as much as I can from a variety of viewpoints. There's not too much in the way of english language arab news. Well, there is the Arab News [arabnews.com] of saudi arabia. But al Jazeera seems to be quite popular and it would have been interesting to see what all the fuss is about.

      It does make you wonder who the attackers are.

  • Writing the headline in "|-|@X0R" speak or whatever is pretty stupid here.

    This is a serious issue that should be generating lively debate here on /. - and the hackerspeak is probably the number one reason why no comments are floating up in moderation.

    I rather doubt "script-kiddies" are involved in this, and as I write this the sites are even more down than they were yesterday (DNS lookups fail).

    Regardless of what you think of this development, it's pretty obviously both "news for nerds" and "stuff that m
    • I have to respond, just because of my sig, which is not new.

      Perhaps 133t speak presents a problem moderation by increasing the pool of comments that cry out for negative moderation, but there's nothing official Slashdot can do about it other than create some sort of auto-censoring l33t filter.

      And it's not as if entire front page postings are in 133t, either. It was just a headline, and a headline's only job is to draw your attention to the body alone. And it did, so it worked.

      Also it made sense - grant
  • Yeah, this sucks- I was using washingtonpost.com, guardian.co.uk, and english.ajazeera.net to balance my view of the world. I figure 3 lies == 1 truth?! This suxx0rz.

    And yes- what is up with slashdot?! But at least this story made it into the older stuff pile- for the past two days I've been constantly loading english.ajazeera.net and checking the google cache for the regular aljazeera.net- nope- its days old.

    At least I'm not the only one...

    all your jazeera are belong to us.

  • More (Score:5, Informative)

    by Trogre ( 513942 ) on Wednesday March 26, 2003 @08:48PM (#5601652) Homepage
    More on this here [stuff.co.nz]

    • Great link... That's INSANE! Their website hasn't just been hacked (I assumed they had just been slashdotted...) but their press had their credentials revoked from the N.Y. Stock Exchange- that's a petty low-blow.

  • Slashdot effect on a global scale? (Score:5, Interesting)

    by alienmole ( 15522 ) on Wednesday March 26, 2003 @08:51PM (#5601665)
    According to an Infoworld article [infoworld.com], Al Jazeera had just published photos of the U.S. soldiers who were allegedly executed. In the U.S., these pictures have effectively been censored - the major media don't want to touch them. Mightn't Al-Jazeera simply be suffering from a large-scale Slashdot effect, as people around the world try to download photos?

    While consulting, I've come across companies doing all sorts of dumb or just lazy things which make their sites slow and not very scalable. Then they get a big burst of unusual activity for whatever reason, their site crashes, and they like to claim conspiracy because it means it's not their fault.

    I'll believe this is a DDOS when I see the IRC transcripts from the people claiming to be the perpetrators (if that's not proof, I don't know what is :) Till then, this is Al-Jazeera crying because their site couldn't handle sudden worldwide interest.

    • Re:Slashdot effect on a global scale? (Score:5, Insightful)

      by EZCheese ( 235320 ) on Wednesday March 26, 2003 @09:30PM (#5601890)
      I'll believe this is a DDOS when I see the IRC transcripts from the people claiming to be the perpetrators (if that's not proof, I don't know what is :) Till then, this is Al-Jazeera crying because their site couldn't handle sudden worldwide interest.

      According to the article you cited, the DDOS attack is being directed at their name servers, and not the web server (which is why I'm not getting "unable to resolve host" messages). Name servers generally don't wither under high volume - this seems more like a deliberate attack than a large-scale Slashdot effect.
      • So if you know the ip address you should be able to get through, right. Well does anyone know the ip for any of their sites.
        • 217.26.193.10 [217.26.193.10]

          I had some friends discussing this yesterday and someone was quick enough to snag the IP from cache and email it to a few of us. I haven't looked at the photos myself, but I did verify that this IP worked yesterday. Now, it appears to be not responding any better than its name servers did yesterday.

          • Did you trace to that? (Score:3, Interesting)

            by jafiwam ( 310805 )
            From where I am (Norlight, Central WI) that connection stops dead at the NAP in Chicago.

            Someone is either shut some pipes off to stop the problem, it's REALLY big, or the IP is a typo.

            My bets are on a typo. Did you modify a hosts file and use that? or just the IP in a browser...
    • According to an Infoworld article [infoworld.com], Al Jazeera had just published photos of the U.S. soldiers who were allegedly executed. In the U.S., these pictures have effectively been censored - the major media don't want to touch them.

      Maybe rotten.com will pick them up.

      GF.
  • More info, and a better written submission, can be found in Doktor Memory's journal [slashdot.org].

    Ah, how I wish that ./ had a k5-type article submission system.

    Yes I know, don't complain, get off your ass and write it. I know, I know...
    • Ah, how I wish that ./ had a k5-type article submission system.

      I used to wish that too, but then I realized that there are pros and cons to a moderated submission queue. For one thing, Slashdot is less self-indulgent and "clique-ish" than k5. For another, the constant "editorial" staff means that /. unlikely to change in character too much -- as an example, there's k5's recent decision to add Fiction as a section, something the site's originator Rusty opposed. Another side-effect is the demagouge and a

  • Freedom of the Press (Score:5, Insightful)

    by ewe2 ( 47163 ) <ewetoo@gmail . c om> on Wednesday March 26, 2003 @09:32PM (#5601903) Homepage Journal

    I find the apathy on this site towards the possible gagging of a media organization disturbing. On a TV report [abc.net.au] this week, I learnt a lot about al-Jazzeera. Yes, they are pan-Arabic. Yes, they are critical of the US. They've also been threatened by every single Arab country in the region - closed down, ambassadors recalled, physical attacks. And it was bombed by the US in the first Gulf War when it reported the killing of civilians in a supposedly military target.

    You can't have it both ways, even in a war. The Net is being used for some of the most blatant propaganda I've ever seen, but shutting down the Arab side of the argument isn't going avoid bigger problems later.

  • until they get posted to the front page of /.

    Score another one for the USA!
  • When slashdot post an article point to any site and effectively denies anyone to access it, by a massive slashdot effect, nobody talks about it, even you can be modded down if you suggest that... but when some amateurish script kiddies do the same they deserve the front page? That's unfair.

    Anyway, considering the very few unbiased news on the war available, DOSing the one that can give another point of view is even dumber than simply DOSing any site.

  • The buzz amongst my Muslim acquaintances is that the al-Jazeera site is under "cyber-attack."

    And I'm sure they'll appreciate you causing the additional of ./ing the server as well :)
  • I just poked around kazaa a bit and found the video of US soldiers that was shown to most of the world but censored in the US. Perhaps p2p could be used to distribute images from al-jazeera as well?

    Yes p2p can be used for more than just music, movies, and porn...

  • Freedom Of Speech (Score:2, Interesting)

    by N8F8 ( 4562 )
    I read a story today that Al-Jazeera was pleading with the US goverment to do somthing about the attacks and about two Al-Jazeera reporters bering kicked out of the NYSE. In the past week Al-Gazeera has gained 4 million subscribers in Europe but only 100K in the US.

    All I have to say to all this is welcome to free speech. People can't stand in front of the Al-Jazeera ofices since they are in Quatar. Personally I think their broadcasts encite riots and extremists actions. They get the inside scoop with wonde


  • Damn kick them while they are down. First a DoS from script kiddies, then the slashdot effect.
  • It certainly is, now that you've slashdotted it.

    -Omar

  • Freenet? (Score:5, Interesting)

    by gfilion ( 80497 ) on Wednesday March 26, 2003 @09:43PM (#5601987) Homepage

    Would it be a good idea for Al-jazeera to publish their content on freenet [sf.net]? Their articles would then be immune to any kind of censorship like they claim they are victim of.

  • ABC cuts gore from injured child's Iraq war photo (Score:5, Informative)

    by ivi ( 126837 ) on Wednesday March 26, 2003 @09:46PM (#5602003)

    Australia's ABC (TV, I suppose) has reportedly
    cropped the portion of a picture of a young
    girl's feet, which were to be seen dangling,
    after apparently having been blown loose by
    an explosion, in the ongoing Irag war.

    The report of this "editting" the gore away,
    to make a photo more acceptible to Australian
    viewing audiences, as well as other revealing
    aspects of media censorship, were mentioned on
    this morning's Media Report, now available via
    audio-on-demand, in RealAudio format, at:
    http://www.abc.net.au/rn/talks/8.30/mediarpt/audio /mediarpt_27032003_2856.ram

    This 27 March program included British photo-
    journalist Tim Page talking about this kind
    of selective reporting & sanitizing of war
    images, eg, from Vietnam to Iraq.

    Come back in about a week for the transcript,
    eg at URL:

    http://www.abc.net.au/rn/talks/8.30/mediarpt/sto ri es/s815573.htm

    War solves nothing... unless, of course,
    your company is selling to Defense...

  • Fox News (Score:2, Funny)

    by HillBilly ( 120575 )
    Now if people did the same to Fox News the world would be a better place.

  • Four weeks later...

    "No, really, this time we actually are being DDOSed!"

    Said the IT guy at Aljazeera. 3 weeks ago he admitted to wanting a little free publicity when one of his co workers mentioned that they were surprised no one was trying any serious computer hacking on either side of the war. "Sometimes the copy cats just need a little kick."

    </tongueincheek>

    I'm sincerely sorry to see this happen. I hadn't realized they had an english arm, I've been going to the arabic site just to see
  • I'd be willing to bet a small amount that most commercial servers in foreign countries aren't built to handle the type of traffic that, for instance, MSNBC's or Fox's servers can. Link to some more of those in Slashdot articles and keep them hammered... Eh, an idea. Perhaps a silly one.
  • Here's a clue for you: Al-Jazeera is /not/ on the best server out there. Going there last week the server was already slow- no doubt under heavy load. Posting controversial things drives traffic up. So the server is down. THIS IS NOT NEWS.
    Hey look, the last thing slashdot linked to is also down. Good job at not understanding the concept of the internet. Kill yourself.

  • Slashdot (Score:3, Informative)

    by Pros_n_Cons ( 535669 ) on Wednesday March 26, 2003 @10:13PM (#5602202)
    The other day when loading up slashdot (like I've done everyday for years)
    I noticed an add on /. for place to purchace PeacePins [peacepins.com]so I
    went out of curiosity and saw "We help fund anti-war organizations
    like EndTheWar.org" EndTheWar.org This site is truely disturbing,Using the
    Al Jazeera photos of young kids with their heads blown off for propaganda.
    After doing some more digging on just who these people are I found links
    all over the place for WPK (workers party korea) led by General Secretary
    Kim Jong il and International A.N.S.W.E.R. headed by Brian Becker who just
    with a simple google search [google.com]shows up ties to WPK. Other more disturbing things that
    I do not want to say because this was a few days ago and I cannot provide
    links until I get access back the machine I was using at the time.Feel free to
    look it up yourselvs you may find something I didn't.

    I hope slashdot will pay closer attention to who's adds they are promoting

  • Content still available... (Score:3, Informative)

    by chhamilton ( 264664 ) on Wednesday March 26, 2003 @10:17PM (#5602224)
    From what I understand, the Al-Jazeera channel is available unencumbered off of some satellite, so given $200 worth of hardware (I'm sure many satellite junkies have the necessary hardware) their news content is readily available.

    I'm not sure I'd buy into the organized DDOS, but rather into a (near) world-wide slashdotting type effect. I've been frequenting their website quite a bit over the last week, and it's been fading in and out of existence (at least for my locale) quite often.

    Most of the 'scandalous' images have been slurped from various sources and they're available in plenty of places. One such site is http://www.thememoryhole.org/war/gulfwar2/ [thememoryhole.org] (be gentle!), which includes the pictures of the supposedly executed soldiers.

    I hope Al-Jazeera beefs up their infrastructure and expands their newly launched minimal english service... it's nice to have news from outside sources (ie: outside the US sphere of influence) with an opposite view-point.
    • ... it's nice to have news from outside sources (ie: outside the US sphere of influence) with an opposite view-point.

      Wrong in a couple of ways, I think. First, Al Jazeera, while most cerainly outside U.S. control, is far from being outside U.S. influence. It is truly said that "he who angers you controls you". Al Jazeera is run by people so opposed to the United States and its policies that they violate every tenet of journalistic professionalism in their efforts to make Americans look bad. The result

  • declare fatwah on Microsoft (Score:4, Interesting)

    by 1u3hr ( 530656 ) on Wednesday March 26, 2003 @10:27PM (#5602293)
    A story on the Melbourne Age [theage.com.au] notes that:
    The English website of the TV station disappeared from the web yesterday. It was running on Windows 2000 with the web server software used being IIS 5.0.

    Al Jazeerah has been more circumspect about its Arabic website - it runs on FreeBSD and Apache....
    While malicious attackers may have played a role, Al Jazeera (and many other websites which anticipated heavy traffic as a result of the invasion of Iraq) has other weak links - its DNS servers. The time to live for its domain records was 15 minutes, making it all the more vulnerable to increasing the load on its systems.

    • Point of fact (Score:3, Informative)

      by Sycraft-fu ( 314770 )
      You don't declare fatwa, a fatwa IS a declaration by an Islamic religious leader, generally a cleric. The word has gotten a little skewed since bin LAden was real fond of issuing fatwas.

  • IP Address was 217.26.193.10 (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday March 26, 2003 @10:35PM (#5602345)
    I found it way back in an xterm from last night..

    I investigated that IP earlier today via several international Looking Glasses with no luck at all. As was pointed out elsewhere, there ain't no routes..

  • A short history of how the U.S. got into this mess (Score:3, Informative)

    by Futurepower(R) ( 558542 ) on Thursday March 27, 2003 @12:12AM (#5603443) Homepage

    From reading the comments, I've realized that few Slashdot commenters know much about the history that leads to the present war in Iraq. So, here is a very short recounting. The details given here have been reported by many reputable news sources. There seems to be no disagreement about these facts.

    All the actions by the U.S. government mentioned here were largely hidden from U.S. citizens. United States citizens paid the bill, but were mostly unaware of what their government was doing. Even though the U.S. government is presently at war with Iraq, only a small percentage of Americans can find Iraq on a map. It is said that a high percentage support the U.S. government's war in Iraq, but this is a blind kind of support that does not mean that there is comprehension.

    Thread 1, Iran: Hidden elements of the U.S. government overthrew a democratically elected president of Iran (Mossadegh) because he wanted to reduce the profits of U.S. and British oil companies doing business in Iran. The U.S. government supported a very weak man, the Shah of Iran, who became very brutal toward his own citizens. Eventually, people in Iraq overthrew the Shah. The U.S. government's actions de-stabilized the country and encouraged the violence to come.

    People in Iran began supporting terrorism against the United States, in retaliaton for hidden U.S. government interference with the Iranian government.

    To counteract Iranian support of violence against the U.S., the U.S. goverment began supporting and encouraging Iraq in a war against Iran. This was very profitable for U.S. weapons manufacturers. Weapons manufacturers in the U.S. were delivering weapons to Iraq under long-term contracts up until the same month as the U.S. began war on Iraq the first time.

    April Glaspie, US Ambassador to Iraq, encouraged Saddam Hussein to invade Kuwait. She said,

    "I admire your extraordinary efforts to rebuild your country. I know you need funds. We understand that and our opinion is that you should have the opportunity to rebuild your country. But we have no opinion on the Arab-Arab conflicts, like your border disagreement with Kuwait." [my emphasis]

    She also said, "I was in the American Embassy in Kuwait during the late 60's. The instruction we had during this period was that we should express no opinion on this issue and that the issue is not associated with America. James Baker has directed our official spokesmen to emphasize this instruction. [my emphasis]

    Here is a complete transcript of the meeting [montclair.edu] between the U.S. ambassador and Saddam Hussein. (http://www.chss.montclair.edu/english/furr/glaspi e.html)

    Ambassador Glaspie acted on instructions from Secretary of State James Baker [infoplease.com], as she said. Later, she denied knowing that she was encouraging war. (Mr. Baker is a friend of George Bush and was later White House Chief of Staff.)

    It is not known why the U.S. government would support Iraq's invasion of Kuwait. However, in the meeting mentioned above, April Glaspie said, "We have many Americans who would like to see the price [of oil] go above $25 because they come from oil-producing states."

    The fortune of George H. W. Bush was heavily dependent on oil profits, and Texas is an oil-producing state. If the U.S. government is successful at gaining control of Iraq, profits for some companies in the U.S. will increase enormously because Iraqi oil will be sold directly to U.S. companies, rather than to Turkish companies, as it is now.

    Thread #2, Afghanistan: There is a huge amount of oil in one of the countries inland from Afghanistan. However, the only good way to get the oil to people who would buy it is to build a pipeline through Afghanistan. The Soviets wanted to get

    • Re:A short history of how the U.S. got into this m (Score:5, Insightful)

      by ainsoph ( 2216 ) on Thursday March 27, 2003 @12:32AM (#5603621) Homepage
      I will add to this if you please. The portion I am adding reads like a conspiracy theory. Its not. It has been documented in many places, including PBS and the White House itself.

      I wont go into details here, I will allow one to read the material themselves. You can also watch the video as PBS online is currently hosting a story frontline did about the mess.

      In brief:

      The Project for the New American Century [newamericancentury.org] is a DC based think tank that has imagined a world under complete US military and economic domination (or "freedom" as it were). They have fiddled with and written documents concerning a post cold war world where the USA has become the Worlds Only Superpower and what that means from a Strategic viewpoint.

      In the early days, Paul Wolfowitz produced a document that detailed the expansion of the American empire that seemed too radical at the time and was cleaned up and rewritten and stowed away. Over time, and through the most recent Coup by this incredibly radical group of men, this updated document, with the help of the PNAC, became the National Security Strategy Of the United States [whitehouse.gov]. Most chilling about this turn of eventls and policy is the new found policy of "pre-emption". Which I think we are seeing now in the creation of the 51st state [nytimes.com].

      Also chilling (to me anyway) is the fact that this is the "official story", the one being reported by the obviously biased media.

      Anyway.. some more links..

      CBC.ca's [www.cbc.ca] take.

      More Canadian Insight [thestar.com]

      The Frontline Special [pbs.org]
      • And might I add that as someone that was in the theater before and after the invasion of Kuwait...

        You people are full of shit...

      • I think we are seeing now in the creation of the 51st state [nytimes.com]

        LOL. Yeah, just like temporary military rule turned Japan into the 51st state. Oops, that makes Iraq the 52nd state. Oh yeah, I forgot, we also conqured Afghanistan. That makes Iraq the 53rd state. Wait a minute, I forgot South Korea. Iraq is what, the 54 state? 55th? 56th?

        You can certainly be opposed to the war, but assuming the US does in fact win the war then what would you suggest they do differently than described in the NY times article? I

  • Al-Jazeera changes DNS and backbone providers (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Animats ( 122034 ) on Thursday March 27, 2003 @04:14AM (#5604919) Homepage
    It's back up [aljazeera.net], at least intermittently. The "english" site is currently all in Arabic, though.

    Al-Jazeera has changed DNS providers. Their "whois" data changed in the last update. Datapipe and Nav-Link are out, MyDomain is in. Four different DNS servers are listed, in different netblocks.

    They've also switched to the Telia backbone. Telia is Scandanavia's largest backbone carrier, and is headquartered in Sweden.

    It looks like they're getting the connectivity problem fixed. They're still on overload, with frequent "connection refused" messages, but sometimes you can get through.

  • Say what you want about Canadians... (Score:3, Informative)

    by CrazyLegs ( 257161 ) <crazylegstoo@gmail.com> on Thursday March 27, 2003 @10:47AM (#5606846) Homepage
    ...but their war coverage is not too bad. Check out:

    http://www.cbc.ca/news/iraq/

    http://www.canada.com/national/features/iraq/

    http://iraq.ctv.ca/

    Pretty well balanced sites IMHO.

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