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DoS Attacks on Estonia Were Launched by Student
Posted by
Soulskill
on Thu Jan 24, 2008 11:04 PM
from the modern-techniques-for-making-people-hate-each-other dept.
from the modern-techniques-for-making-people-hate-each-other dept.
As_I_Please alerts us to the fact that a 20-year-old Estonian student has been fined for participating in DoS attacks against various Estonian political and governmental websites last May. The situation was notable because it escalated tensions between Estonia and Russia when the latter was accused of initiating the 'cyber-attack'. Quoting:
"The fact that a single student was able to trigger such events is particularly ominous when you consider just how many potential flashpoints exist between various countries all over the world. The DoS attack against Estonia is an excellent example of how a cyberattack carried out by a 20-year-old student in response to real-life events further exacerbated an existing problem between two nations."
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IT: Russia Accused of Cyber-War Against Estonia 373 comments
earthlingpink writes about the ongoing DDoSing of Estonia. The Guardian is reporting that Russia stands accused of engaging in a three-week-long series of cyber-attacks. Government, banking, and media websites have been targeted. It is unclear whether the attacks are sanctioned or initiated by the Russian Government, but Estonian authorities believe that to be the case. NATO has sent security experts to Tallinn to help beef up defenses. The Estonian defense minister said, "At present, NATO does not define cyber-attacks as a clear military action. This means that the provisions of... collective self-defense, will not automatically be extended to the attacked country... this matter needs to be resolved in the near future."
[+]
Your Rights Online: In Australia, Bosses May Get Power To Snoop On Emails 287 comments
Numerous readers noted the proposal by the Australian government for legislation to allow employers to snoop on employees' email and IM conversations. This is being proposed in the name of protecting the infrastructure from terrorism. The attorney-general cited the Estonian cyber-attacks as a reason why such employer monitoring is necessary in Australia — never mind that the attacks were perpetrated by a lone 20-year-old and not by a foreign government or terrorist. The law permitting intelligence agencies to snoop on citizens without permission expires this June, leading to the government's urgency to extend and expand it. The chairman of Electronic Frontiers Australia said, "These new powers will facilitate fishing expeditions into employees' emails and computer use rather than being used to protect critical infrastructure. I'm talking about corporate eavesdropping and witch-hunts... If an employer wanted to [sack] someone, they could use these powers."
[+]
News: Expert Dissects Estonian Cyber-War 172 comments
Stony Stevenson points out an iTnews summary of a security researcher's account of the cyber-attacks on Estonia last year. The full report [PDF] is also available. We've discussed this internet-based conflict in the past. From the report:
"In the days leading up to the attack, numerous clues pointed to a large-scale operation that was being planned online. Russian-language Internet discussion forums were abuzz with preparations for an online attack. Three days before the expected onslaught, Estonia planned to release the news of the coming strike in hopes that European media attention would oblige the EU to pressure the Kremlin to intervene, whether or not the attacks emanated from the Russian authorities."
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In Soviet Estonia... (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Speaking of Soviet Estonia (Score:4, Insightful)
Parent
Much worse article at News.com (Score:5, Funny)
WTF? A DDOS is a flash mob?
Re:Much worse article at News.com (Score:5, Funny)
Parent
flash mob (Score:5, Funny)
Parent
Re:Much worse article at News.com (Score:5, Funny)
Parent
In other news... (Score:2, Funny)
Re: (Score:2)
An exellent example... of what? (Score:5, Insightful)
Eh. How about the _only_ example?
There's another, I think (Score:4, Interesting)
He was using a TR(A)S(H)-80 from Radio Shack, IIRC. Probably a 1200 baud modem (not even Hayes compatible!), 64K of RAM and a CLI... He was probably a Real Programmer. Sadly I was born in '84, so I don't really remember it happening.
Parent
Re:There's another, I think (Score:5, Funny)
Parent
Re:There's another, I think (Score:5, Funny)
Parent
Interesting... (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Okay, so it's a fictional example, but it's an example.
bad information. (Score:2)
Sacrifice one student to the great god of world peace.
Russia accused... (Score:5, Insightful)
Not the first time (Score:5, Insightful)
Parent
Re: (Score:2, Informative)
Say what you want. Thats where it all started.
Re:Not the first time (Score:4, Insightful)
Say what you want. Thats where it all started.
I'm sorry, this is slashdot. Please keep the facts out it, would you? Next you're going to cite the fact that it was Bill Clinton's stated policy to see Saddam removed from power, too.
Parent
Re:Not the first time (Score:4, Interesting)
Along with just about everyone else on both sides of the political aisle.
I've noticed that now there's a "study" about all the lies that the Bush administration told about Iraq, back when almost everyone else was apparently telling the same lies, or at least believing them.
There's an excerpt on Yahoo News of an interesting interview from "60 Minutes", with the guy that interrogated Saddam after he was captured. According to this interrogator, Saddam said he didn't believe that Bush would actually order the invasion -- he thought that there would be a few days of air strikes, and it would be over. Saddam survived it when Clinton tried that, and Saddam thought he could survive it again. And he admitted that's why he continued to let everyone believe that he had various weapons of mass destruction.
I always wondered why Saddam behaved like he had something to hide, when he really didn't. I guess he thought the WMD threat would discourage his enemies -- which included most of the Middle East, various Western democracies, and a large percentage of the people in his OWN country.
Parent
Re:Not the first time (Score:5, Informative)
'Everybody'? I don't know what planet you where on back then, but most people in Europe didn't buy the theory of a link to Al-Qaeda. Most governments of Europe also wanted the weapons inspections to continue instead of invading.
Personally, I expected an invasion to become the quagmire the current Vice President of USA predicted. And I, along with a lot of people, expected it to only enrich certain oil companies. I even participated in a protest march for this.
M.
Parent
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
I have a read an explanation over at The Strategy Page [strategypage.com]. For him, it was a bluffing to win at two fronts. Iraq and everything west of it is Arab, at the east you have Iran. Arabs live in fear of the Persians. This dates back more than three thousand year.
Having his war at the beginning of the eighties with Iran gained him much respect in the Arabic world, because he stood up to them. The bluff with the WMDs was in the same category, it was to scare off the Iranians and give confidence to the Arab world that
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Probably not. (Score:5, Interesting)
In other words, there is no meaningful "first", unless you want to go back around 10,000 years. Almost everything that happened after that point was in direct retribution to what had happened before. That's one reason it will take a lot of effort to calm the region down - ten thousand years is a long time to build up grdudges and resentments -- and don't think a single one of them has been forgotten.
Getting back to the main topic, just as an aside, this is why societies can't survive for very long on a diet of paranoia, fear and resentment. Sooner or later, you'll get people who hate each other less than they hate some imagined collective enemy, and the shit will hit the fan at a speed approaching mach 2. I'm surprised that this sort of thing doesn't happen more often - students get an even rawer deal than most, even at the best of times, naturally form into groups, and generally have significant combined intellect and skills. This is probably the worst group to infuriate and should really be the first group to focus on getting support from.
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Minor correction (Score:2)
Re:Russia accused... (Score:4, Informative)
Parent
Re: (Score:2, Informative)
Maybe if you would knew a bit of that situation you wouldn't say that. Because the one who got caught was also an ethnic Russian. Born in Estonia to Russian parents.
Ah, I see. This, of course, proves beyond any doubt that he was a sleeper agent planted in Estonia by the KGB. Also, it is a well-known fact that every ethnic Russian is directly controlled by the Russian government anyway.
And he said he got the idea from various blogs and forum posts which called people to attack Estonian servers. These blogs and forums were in Russian servers.
Right. It is safe to assume that this entirely non-obvious idea was planted on those blogs by Russian secret services. Only their weird minds could have conceived of something like that.
Besides the IP addresses showed the majority of the attacks to be from Russia. The guy in Estonia was just easier to arrest.
I sincerely hope that the valiant Estonian government will ultimately manage to get them all. As a f
Not Acting Alone (Score:5, Insightful)
While they may not have found evidence of any other people involved, it's unlikely that a single person could establish a botnet large enough to overwhelm anything on his own. The only answer I can think of is education - botnets exist because the owners of the zombie PCs simply don't recognize that it's a zombie. There is certainly an overall lack of regulation, too. As a domain owner, I see lots of abusive traffic and have absolutely no legal recourse to punish a perpetrator. Responsible network owners often help, but there's so few networks that are responsible that I usually assume they're not, forcing me to do what little I can at my own site to prevent further abuse.
For the student's part, he was only fined (I couldn't find how much in TFA). Not much deterrent to prevent him from doing it again. No leverage to find out who he was working with. The lack of clear laws in any country makes prosecution of such actions impossible. As a domain owner, I'd like to see civilized countries show some direction toward making prosecution of such activities a reality. Until then, it's "you hack me, I hack you" which is completely counterproductive.
Re:Not Acting Alone (Score:4, Insightful)
I disagree. He wouldn't necessarily have to do anything to build a botnet himself, just have access to a C&C network built by someone else. He could gain access by renting the network, or even stumbling on an unprotected C&C server. There's a few out there, believe it or not. So yeah, other people may have created the botnet, but he still could have been acting alone when launching his attack.
Parent
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
You mean to tell me there is no way for a network admin to tell when a computer on their network is an infected botnet drone? I claim poppycock on that. Comcast and others for example detect BT networks enough to disrupt them why can't they do the same for the botnets? Oh, their isn't a threat of lawsuit in botnets....I see...
I, and anyone familiar with the BT protocol, can describe how to detect the BT protocol.
Would you mind sharing with us the 'botnet' protocol?
I realize there is no botnet protocol, but actually hundreds (or thousands) of them, each different, for one type of botnet drone software. These also change, in that new ones are introduced, and old ones updated. I realize that, and hope you see it now too.
What exact type of traffic are you claiming can be detected?
The 10 or 20 packets sent once that went towards t
The War on Cyber-Warfare (Score:5, Interesting)
Re: (Score:2)
You know something? The world does does revolve around the american people and their whims.
Re: (Score:2)
Obligatory Soviet Russia Jokes Thread (Score:5, Funny)
In Soviet Russia, you attack Estonia!
What do you guys got?
Re: (Score:2)
In Soviet Russia, computers hack YOU!
In Estonia, students hack you! (Score:3, Funny)
Re: (Score:2, Informative)
In Russia you always fight people that are not in your weight category.
In Russia you are the bully.
Estonia is not fighting Soviet Russia. It is fighting imperial ambitions of Russian Federation. These ambitions are continuously fueled in Russian media. How many jokes Russians have about conflicts with Georgia or Estonia? If you know Russian, find Zadornov new year's show for 2008. Russians occupied independent countries for more than half of century and expect people of those cou
Re:Obligatory Soviet Russia Jokes Thread (Score:5, Funny)
Parent
Cue the Hollywood self-adulation... (Score:2)
Well (Score:2)
Headline *very* misleading! (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Headline *very* misleading! (Score:5, Insightful)
Parent
You know what would be funny? (Score:2, Funny)
Just as I said (Score:3, Insightful)
What A Crock (Score:4, Insightful)
What nonsense. If governments put important messages on such "secure" places as roadside billboards, for example, then they should expect "hacks" like moustaches drawn on them, etc.
Others are not to blame if the government is clueless. The fact that it was so easy to do is a great indication that the government was in fact clueless. If they want to put something important somewhere and keep it "secure", then they are responsible for taking at least minimal measures to make sure that it is, in fact, secure.
They are just looking for someone to blame for their own incompetence.
Giving weapons to the irresponsible (Score:2, Flamebait)
Re: (Score:2)