I'm putting this question out to the more knowledgeable networking people out there.

Is Al Jazeera (at least their net presence) under a DOS attack?


German website Spiegel Online is reporting that Al-Jazeera.net is under hacker attack.
(http://www.spiegel.de/kultur/gesellschaft/0,1518,242155,00.html) Here is Babelfish's translation of the relevant section...

"Since the start of the English-language expenditure, which http://english.al jazeera.net from Monday under be attainable should, the Website is supposed the goal of hacker attacks."


This week, Al Jazeera announced an English version of their news site (http://english.aljazeera.net). I have not been able to access it even once in two days.

Prior to Tuesday, I was able to access http://www.aljazeera.net any time I wanted. Not anymore.


Is this Government sponsored hacking?

I find it questionable that CNN and the other corporate media outlets started running Al Jazeera videos more since Tuesday. So, we're able to see what CNN wants us to see, but if we want to go to the source, we are blocked by our own government?

Censorship is taking new forms here. And it sucks.

Richard

I have not been able to access the English version of the Aljazeera site at all since I heard of its existence last weekend. There can be many reasons a site goes down, for example, an overload of requests from people who want to read the site (not disrupt it) can shut servers down. DOS attacks are relatively easy to start and if the servers aren't properly protected, or the people running the site don't have staff to combat it, this can also bring down a site.

Similarly, access to certain IP addresses can be blocked by a service provider. For example, the Chinese government blocks access to Falung Gong web sites and struck a deal with Google to allow limited access to their site (i.e., in China you can go to Google but certain things you look up will not display any results). For you conspiracy theorists out there, there are plenty of opportunities for the U.S. government to block access to this site, but I personally doubt that is what happening. More likely it's a third party DOS and/or too many people have been trying to get the site since it was publicized.

Cheers

As you can see, I'm even putting my name to this.

Just after 9/11, while I was the director of the programming department for a defense contractor working on projects that later became the Information Awareness Office, the president of our company announced at a management meeting that an intelligence agency (which must have been a US intelligence agency) was seeking to contract this employer to engaged in cyber warfare against enemies of the United States. That is the extent of the information we (the managers) were given.

When individuals at this meeting, myself for example, asked whether the targets were governmental or private / foreign or domestic, we were not given an answer. We pointed out to upper management that involvement in such a project might lead to an eventual backlash should it be revealed that we were using our technology perniciously. As a consequence of the discussion, we turned down the contract.

Since that time private groups have been involved in launching denial of service attacks, online psyops operations, and harassment campaigns against dissidents in the US. I cannot prove beyond the shadow of a doubt that these operations are government sponsored. However, I can prove that they are illegal, that the FBI has been informed of them, and that the FBI has refused to take action against them.

I can also verify that I and my websites have been one of the victims of this campaign. Here is documentation of some of the harassment:

http://www.breakyourchains.org/the_operation.htm

The initial harassment came from IP addresses belonging to the following corporations:

"The Technology Advancement Group" (TAG)
"Cryptek"

If you investigate these companies you will find that they are owned by the NSA.

Just went to the URL and displayed what appears to be the Arabic version of the site, or there's a dummy copy.

Look at the site now...

"Future Home of a Dotster Registered Domain"?

WTF?!

I did a WHOIS on aljazeera.net and the domain is registered to Verisign. Would they do this at the request of the government?

------------------------------------------
Registrant:
Jazeera Space Channel TV station (ALJAZEERA2-DOM)
P.O. Box 231234
Doha
QA

Domain Name: ALJAZEERA.NET

Administrative Contact:
AlaliAJ7476, MJ (HCSGDXPWTI) mj_alali@hotmail.com
Al Jazeera Space TV Station
Po Box. 211234
Doha, QT 7476
QA
+974 07 04 17761 +999 999 9999
Technical Contact:
VeriSign, Inc. (HOST-ORG) namehost@WORLDNIC.NET
VeriSign, Inc.
21355 Ridgetop Circle
Dulles, VA 20166
US
1-888-642-9675

Record expires on 31-Aug-2010.
Record created on 30-Aug-1996.
Database last updated on 27-Mar-2003 14:20:36 EST.

Domain servers in listed order:

NS3.ALJAZEERA.NET 213.30.180.218
ALJNS1SA.NAV-LINK.NET 217.26.193.15
------------------------------------------

It's war what do you expect?
"Hackers replaced the English-language Web site for Arab satellite television network Al-Jazeera with a U.S. flag and the message 'Let Freedom Ring' as seen in this image taken fom a computer Thursday, March 27, 2003. Calling themselves the 'Freedom Cyber Force Militia,' the hackers briefly hijacked Internet traffic destined for Al-Jazeera's Web site and to a different Web page on computers operated by Networld Connections Inc., an Internet provider in Salt Lake City. (AP Photo)"

Found this on http://www.cursor.org/aljazeera.htm (there are links there to the source articles)

------------------------------
Al-Jazeera suffers DoS attack
Thursday 27th March 2003, Patrick Gray, ZDNet Australia and Ian Fried, CNET News.com

Within hours of an English version of Al-Jazeera's Web site coming online, it was blown away by a denial of service attack

The Web sites of Al-Jazeera have been taken offline, in what has been confirmed by the Qatar- based media organisation as a distributed denial of service (DDoS) attack against the company's Domain Name Servers (DNS).

Al-Jazeera Calls on U.S. to Ensure Free Press
Reuters / Merissa Marr, European Media Correspondent /Wed March 26, 2003

Banned on Wall Street and wiped off the Internet, Arab news channel al-Jazeera defended its controversial coverage of the Iraq war on Wednesday and demanded the United States come to its aid in the name of a free press.

Al-Jazeera, which angered Washington by showing footage of dead and captured American soldiers, voiced concern after two of its reporters were banned from the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) and its Web sites were hacked.
------------------------------

Now I wonder. Is this punishment for Al Jazeera showing the dead and captured Americans early this week.

Or, is there something there right now that we're not "supposed" to see.

How are Americans expected to make informed decisions about this war without seeing both sides. Someone here at la.indymedia.org wrote a while back "watch CNN and Al Jazeera. The truth is somewhere in between." This is a rational viewpoint.

Pictures don't lie! Americans deserve to see everything their administration is doing.

http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/6/29984.html


-----------------------------
Al Jazeera's web site - DDoSed or unplugged?
By John Lettice
Posted: 27/03/2003 at 16:17 GMT


The launch of Arab satellite TV network Al Jazeera's new Web site on Monday drew immediate hack attacks, but this has been swiftly followed up by the disappearance of the site's DNS records. These now point to mydomain.com nameservers, but this company's site is also currently inaccessible; as you might expect, under the circumstances.

Al Jazeera (aljazeera.net, for the record) could have been taken offline by DDoS attacks, but considering the timing one is also drawn to the possibility that something involving a Big Red Switch might have been involved. Prior to the site's complete removal company IT manager Salah Al Seddiqui told Reuters that its Qatar-based vendor had said "US-based DataPipe could no longer host its site from the end of this month," and that Al Jazeera would be moving its servers to Europe.

Al Jazeera had two listed nameservers - one at datapipe.com and one at nav-link.net. NavLink has offices in the US (it's incorporated in Delaware), Europe and the Middle East (the UAE and Lebanon), so there's a logic to Al Jazeera using it. However if the dual-server system is intended to provide some form of resilience it clearly hasn't worked.

The problem seems to have taken Al Jazeera unawares. When The Register spoke to the company's London office earlier today they said that their most recent information from Qatar had been that the site was unavailable because of heavy demand, and that they were trying to get through to Qatar for an update.

Al Jazeera is not, as you will no doubt have noticed, universally popular, and today in particular it has been heavily criticised by UK military spokesmen for screening pictures of dead British servicemen. But even at the best of times the network is not a customer that many hosting companies in the US would want to boast about. At the worst of times - which probably includes now - it's unlikely the company would stand any chance whatsoever of being accepted by US providers.

So it's perfectly possible that someone along the line decided, owing to pressure and/or common prudence, not to continue involvement with the company. This sort of thing might of course trigger legal action, but Al Jazeera itself is well-aware that it treads a very tricky line, so probably won't want to make unnecessary waves. And as its site was already pretty unavailable because of the attacks, and it's said it's heading off to Europe, what difference would it make?

That you will note is one of two possible conspiracy theories, and does not necessarily involve US.gov. But we expect that if the site hadn't disappeared already, pretty soon US.gov would get involved until it did - which is conspiracy theory two.

The alternative to the conspiracy theories is that weaknesses in Al Jazeera's DNS meant they were vulnerable to load, and that the disappearance of the DNS was therefore a consequence of the attack. As we understand it, this is technically possible, although it has also been suggested to us that the company's DNS did not come under an insupportable load during the attacks.

So right now we think the jury is still out. But in the long run the question of whether the company was DDoSed or unplugged will be fairly academic. Given that it's pretty much unthinkable that it could have been allowed to continue running via US companies, it was going to go anyway, one way or the other. Europe might be some form of solution, but one might estimate that here too quite a few hosting outfits will view Al Jazeera as a poisoned chalice, a customer with a profile several notches to high.

And even if it does get itself sorted out on the other side of the pond, it will still be likely to gain experience of how much of the Internet, when it comes down to it, is actually US-owned. But perhaps it has some cards. US companies wanting to play in the Middle East are unlikely to find their local operations going down a storm if they're refusing to do business with a popular TV station like Al Jazeera, so they'll be pressured in both directions. That's the trouble with the Internet - it connects things that sometimes you'd rather didn't get connected. ®

We have the ability to send up killer satellites which we place into orbit next to a satellite we want to destroy and then blow it up. Hopefully if we haven't done this already, we will. Killing their propaghanda machine is part of the deal whether you like it or not. And don't be surprised if the Arab leaders aren't happy about this or played a part. The less their people see, the easier it will be for them to control the Arab streets.

Earlier, forged DNS records were used to misdirect people to this URL:

http://members.networld.com/freedom2003/Images/3.swf

I saved a copy of it, and have posted it here, since the screenshot above isn't crystal-clear. (Save it, rename it 3.swf and then look at it -- swf files apparently aren't allowed to be uploaded directly here.)

Here is the link for the above image:

http://la.indymedia.org/uploads/3swf.gif

Save it as "3.swf" and then view it. IndyMedia apparently recognizes it as a flash movie (see image annotation), but doesn't allow me to upload it as 3.swf. Since it ends in .gif, their server naturally sends it back as Content-Type: image/gif which screws everything up (if their server is smart enough to recognize "SWF Movie", why can't it get Content-Type right?).

So what if the U.S. Government IS behind this?

Not that you have ANY proof that they are.

One good propaganda twist deserves another.

I would just like to say a word of thanks to the hackers who made the al jazeera network pay for their showing of our troops in Iraq. They have a major influence in the Arab world and have directed public opinion against us causing a longer war. I'm surprised all of you ant-war people like them because of how they will prolong the war with the information they provide. We are now in war that has a lot to do with propaganda and Al Jazeera has been on the wrong side since the beginning. They never should have showed those pictures of our troops and should never deliver a message for bin Laden. I never knew that hackers could use they're knowledge of computers for such great purposes.

Thank you again and I think that you should all recieve medals for your service. Keep up the good work.

God Bless America

yes, the american people have been sold some florida swamp, little do they know or relize how much freedom they have lost and will be long time fore they get it back. Then still back the almighty flag not knowing that is has been impregnated with a virus so vicious and harmful it will turn on anything and seek to destroy it, that suggests the USA is wrong. America has reached a state of alarm. The whole world is watching in amazement as it self destructs.

I would just like everyone to know that I support free press. I am glad that the Al-Jazeera news network exists. I for one find value in other peoples opinions and if I were the president, I would use Al-Jazeera, among other sources, to gain a feel for Arab opinion in order to create a much more sensible foreign policy.

The New X

Alt 2600 have written in an article that:

"The danger here is that people will believe that hackers exist to do this kind of thing. Nothing could be further from the truth. Launching a denial of service attack is almost universally looked down upon by the hacker community, much like credit card fraud has been. And, since such an attack is relatively simple, it's not hard to imagine that anyone with enough bandwidth and the right commands could pull it off. "

http://www.2600.com/news/view/article/1592

so lets get it straight.....its a military hack and DOS against al-jazeera. probably israeli. Core hackerz are not responsible.

if people want al-jazeera to survive, it needs some good people to defend a server. i fear al-jazeera's tech staff are out of their depth....

Radio Free Europe will prevail.

I think we should get all the gory images stateside. The narrative to the bomb reports of tanks & soldiers splattering about everywhere.

Saddams got a cave by his Atomic reactor plant where we wont bomb so that he will have to be captured. Theres alot of spy dirt here we won't know for a long time.

Your war is illegal and George W. Bush could as well be Saddams and Osamas son... He´s not any better than them.

As USA breaking the UN law , has attacked Iraq it will be good for the rest of the world to isolate it from all respects. I think then MR.BUSH and his pet dog BLAIR
will understand the power of the rest of the world. All peace loving men and women need to boycott US and Uk products to teach them a good lesson.

There isn't much useful made is the States anymore that the free world could boycot.

Whats G B have...Callard & Bowser Toffee.

I probably will lean towards Fischer, Atomic or K2 skis next year. Rossignol, Dynastar & Salomon are out. I really did'nt want to bring the Ski companies into this...