DoS Attacks on Estonia Were Launched by Student 184
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."
An exellent example... of what? (Score:5, Insightful)
Eh. How about the _only_ example?
Russia accused... (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
Not the first time (Score:5, Insightful)
I'm curious about all these racist/Ron Paul posts (Score:1, Insightful)
Are racists all illiterate?? I thought that was just a myth...
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.
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.
Re:Not the first time (Score:3, Insightful)
People seldom dig deeper into events than is necessary to support their programmed partisan viewpoints.
Headline *very* misleading! (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Headline *very* misleading! (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
Re:Speaking of Soviet Estonia (Score:4, Insightful)