Turkish Hackers Target Vatican Website After Pope's Genocide Comment 249
An anonymous reader writes Turkish hackers have brought down the official Vatican City website, following Pope Francis' statement in which he referred to mass killings of Armenians by Turks as 'genocide'. According to reports, the website www.vatican.va was first taken offline on Monday evening with a Turkish hacker, named @THTHerakles, announcing that he would continue to target the website should an official apology not be issued from the Vatican City. The hacker said that the Pope's comments were "unacceptable" for a respected religious figurehead. "Taking sides and calling what happened with the Armenians genocide is not true ... We want Pope [Francis] to apologize for his words or we will make sure the website remains offline," he added.
Mass Murder (Score:5, Informative)
Because killing over a million people of a certain way of life is not genocide...
Re:Mass Murder (Score:5, Insightful)
People who don't actually look at facts, but at feelings they have do to patriotism, ethnocentrism, or other sorts of values don't really care about accuracy in labeling. They also don't like unacknowledged but horrible national acts brought up because it stains their sense of nationalism and machismo.
It was a genocide. There may have been awful things happened to precipitate it, but it was a genocide and the record is fairly clear on this.
It would take courage for Turkey to accept this part of their past, apologize for it, and show that they are big enough to accept the bad and the good in their past. But they aren't, nationally, and these hackers are an example of that.
Until you can be brutally honest with yourself about the warts on your nation's past, you can't ever really be a great nation. You have to be able to look your mistakes and misdeeds in the eye and say 'yeah, I own that... not proud of it.... and there were reasons.... but I own that'.
When and if Turkey can ever do that, they'll show they (as a country and Turks as a national population) have grown and are not so fragile as to need to hide, deny, and otherwise act like an ostrich in the face of their darker moments in the past.
Most nations have them. The number that have the guts to face up to them and try to accept the dark parts and maybe even do something to commemorate or make restitution are not that large. Turkey is hardly alone in living in denial.
Re:Mass Murder (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Mass Murder (Score:5, Interesting)
To admit that the leaders of Turkey of the past, were involved might call into question the legitimacy of Turkey today
The past leaders of many countries have been involved in genocides. Heck, current US Law is that racial interment is legal and the wars against the previous nations here are thoroughly documented.
But say that and most Americans will say, "what assholes" (or conversely "Happy Columbus Day!") but the scimitars will remain sheathed. I seems like an awful case of fragile identity. Weird jingoistic nonsense.
Then again, most Americans don't even care that the legitimacy of the governments are called into question every time they violate their operating agreements.
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Most people that hate on Columbus are using http://theoatmeal.com/comics/c... [theoatmeal.com] as their reference. The fact is most historical figures are not saints or devils, but people with complex motivations living in a world very different than ours. (disclaimer: I still think Columbus wasn't a "good" guy.)
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One of my favorite "Fuck you, we're the USA" moments in history is the overthrow and occupation of the still technically sovereign Kingdom of Hawaii, now just nice beach real estate and a leftist paradise.
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And the answer to that is those who look at Turkey don't see a difference between the Turks under the Ottoman Empire and those in today's Turkey. They're both Turks living in Anatolia. They may have benefited from the genocide via their ancestors. Or not. Who can really say?
And let's not forget that the Turks aren't done with ethnic strife, considering their conflicts with their Kurdish population.
These Turkish hackers are proud of Turkey, and that is causing them to want to revise history. In one sens
Re:Mass Murder (Score:4, Insightful)
Where do you go to school? I had that hammered into me in grade school.
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Heard that in school (in multiple classes, not just history) in every grade level from 4th onward.
And this was in Catholic school.
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Patriotism is indeed the last refuge of the scoundrel.
Patriotism is indeed the first refuge of the scoundrel.
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I think I need to wrap myself in the flag.
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In Germany they do not deny their past or try to hide it. They do have some weird rules as they just do not want it to happen again.
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Everything Nazi-related has a big red stamp named "Es ist verbotten!" all over it.
I would call that "hiding".
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Only the things that might be considered pro-Nazi.
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Yeah, being able to visit concentration camps, having the mass graves marked with the text "here lie 1,500 dead", and museums that show photos, official documents and survivor & liberator statements. Yes, that's definitely hiding it.
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our history classes in the 80's conveniently forgot Vietnam
Re:Mass Murder (Score:4, Insightful)
For a nation in denial you should have a look at the Japanese...
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So let me get this straight...
They are okay with the deaths being politely described as "mass killing" but calling them "genocide" is too much? So they're upset about the negative connotations that "genocide" brings to the table?
Yeah... OK... They make all kinds of sense.
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First of all, genocide had a well accepted meaning before a bunch of self-appointed lexicographers in the UN or whatever got in a room to come up with their own definition. Humpty Dumpty and all that.
Second, mass killing is the reason genocide has a bad name in the first place. Most people, other than politicians, patriots, and similar freaks, have a lot bigger problem with going around shooting people in order to destroy their culture than with, say, trying to reason them out of it. The mass killing is act
Re:Mass Murder (Score:5, Insightful)
First of all, genocide had a well accepted meaning before a bunch of self-appointed lexicographers in the UN or whatever got in a room to come up with their own definition.
If you're going to argue based on the etymology of a word, maybe you should look up the etymology of the word before making crap up. The term "genocide" was coined based on the killing of Armenians by the Ottoman government. Therefore this is not only an example of genocide, it is the example of genocide.
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Yeah, I can see how the "political groups" bit would be controversial. Hell, the German attempt to stamp out Nazism would then likely be considered genocide, as would the largely successful US attempt to stamp out the Communist party.
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And turning a blind eye to Daesh is not helping the world view Turkey in a favorable light. Erdogan has no problems with Daesh killing all non-Sunnis.
Re:Mass Murder (Score:4, Informative)
Because beating up the clergy always works so well (Score:5, Insightful)
Not sure how he thinks he's going to come out on top in the public eye for attacking the clergy. Sure, he'll be the hero of his hacker friends, but most of the world has a pretty low opinion of people who attack the clergy.
Re:Because beating up the clergy always works so w (Score:5, Insightful)
I would have thought that most of his Turkish friends would have a low opinion of him already for choosing a Greek handle.
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Good catch. He might not get on well with his neighbors.
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You do of course realize that the frequency with which pedophilia occurs with clergy has been overblown by the media, right? I'm not excusing it or saying that it's ever going to be in any way acceptable, but the entire reason it that pedophilia in churches was ever such big news is not because of how frequently it was occurring, but because of the emotional response that such news effectively creates. Per capita, in fact, it is not any more probable in a church setting than what statistically occurs else
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>Incidentally,
No, call it what you like, but I think the public outrage is not because it's commonly a homosexual act, but because it's a sexual act pressured on children by an adult in a position of trust and authority.
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Who cares whether or not you believe in God. Religion is still responsible for people helping other people. Not required, of course, but it provides guidance to many.
Genocide. (Score:5, Informative)
It was a genocide. Genocide, genocide, genocide. The mass killings of the Armenians by the Turks 1925 was a genocide [wikipedia.org].
Now, vailant Turkish hax0rs, go ahead and take down the Internet.
Re:Genocide. (Score:5, Informative)
In fact, Raphael Lemkin, coined the term "genocide" in 1943 describe the slaughter of 1.5 million Armenians by the Ottoman Empire. Those acts were the inspiration for the term.
Armenian Genocide [wikipedia.org]
Raphael Lemkin was explicitly moved by the Armenian annihilation to coin the word genocide in 1943 and define systematic and premeditated exterminations within legal parameters. The Armenian Genocide is acknowledged to have been one of the first modern genocides, because scholars point to the organized manner in which the killings were carried out in order to eliminate the Armenians, and it is the second most-studied case of genocide after the Holocaust.
Re:Genocide. (Score:4, Informative)
Strictly speaking, Lemkin invented the word "genocide" to describe the Nazi's mass killings of Jews.
The killing of Armenians was "merely" used as an example of another genocide.
http://www.etymonline.com/inde... [etymonline.com]
http://www.preventgenocide.org... [preventgenocide.org]
Intellegent (Score:2, Informative)
Yeah, the best way to not get caught it to tell people you're going to continue hitting a specific target. No way you could get caught with that strategy.
Well, great (Score:2, Flamebait)
How the fuck am I supposed to get my daily "Pontiff's Postings" and "Cardinal Glick's Fav Flicks" newsletters now, you Turk cocksuckers??
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(Seems @pontifex_tr doesn't exist. Makes some sense: that's not exactly Latin-rite territory, more Byzantines and Orthodox and Syriac churches that don't go for the filoque [wikipedia.org] or the Immaculate Conception. Do any of the eastern patriarchs have Twitter accounts?)
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The Dalai Lama wanted to start a movie review newsletter, but it met a lot of resistance. Too many ohms.
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I get it.
Just curious (Score:2, Interesting)
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Murder, torture, and more murder.
Next question?
Re:Just curious (Score:5, Funny)
Unexpected.
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Christianity has long ago admitted its past mistakes, and thrives in cultures whose secular liberals endlessly rake over the evils of the past. Not so with that other religion that dogs our headlines.
To bring in some News For Nerds relevance, the Vatican made up for its treatment of Galileo by setting up its own observatory, which in modern times has stayed on the front wave of astronomical technology:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/V... [wikipedia.org]
The irony is that to get this very facility built, Rome had to wage anothe
Re:Just curious (Score:5, Informative)
Compare that with Hitler 11,000,000 and Stalin 20,000,000+, and Mao 40,000,000+ and the Inquisition begins to pale in comparison.
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Why stop there? We must consider the Romans, the Greeks, the Egyptians, Genghis Khan, etc. Let's regurgitate all the past sins from 1000s of years ago and bring them front and center so we can have new culture wars over them. Let's consider the murders Mohammed committed because the twit heard voices and presumed they were Gabriel.
Re:Just curious (Score:5, Informative)
Some of the Crusades may have been, though the intent, from Rome's side was to save Eastern Christianity, and also probably to gain the upper hand over the Byzantine Emperors, who viewed themselves (with some justification) as supreme over the Bishop of Rome. To the European Princes, this was about grabbing one of the most valuable pieces of territory on Earth, and that's the first thing they did once they had driven back the Muslims; seize land that rightfully belonged to the Byzantine Empire and set up their crusader kingdoms.
Then there's the Fourth Crusade, which never reached the Holy Land, but rather stopped in Constantinople, looted the city, killed many of the residents (all of which, one should be reminded, were Christians), and set up a puppet state. Look up the Sack of Constantinople, one of the vilest acts of treachery in the history of Christendom, and an act that almost certainly undermined the Byzantine Empire, leading to the collapse of Christendom as a political force in Anatolia and the Levant.
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The crusades were a response to 400 years of enslavement and wholesale slaughter by Muslims.
The Crusades were an attempt by a European noble class that was declining in wealth and power to find a way for their population to target their frustrations on an outside threat rather than enslavers/rulers and claim more land for themselves. When Christians would sack a town they would usually slaughter all inhabitants-man, woman, child, Christian, Muslim, or Jew (easier to loot from the dead). Muslims usually let Christians and Jews live-they might pressure them to convert or force them to pay a tax, b
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Not even close.
The noble class was NOT declining in wealth and power at the end of the 11th C. The rise in cities does not indicate a concomitant loss of power in the noble class as you put it.
There were a lot of reasons for the crusades. One minor reason was that Jerusalem was held by Muslims. Of course Muslims would have no problem if a foreign imperialist power like say, Britain, had conquered Mecca and didn't allow Muslims to do their annual pilgrimage. Why would you not thin
Hackers? (Score:3)
I really would like the media to stop referring to people who DDoS as "hackers". All they're doing is sending a pile of requests to a service and overloading it. I'm not impressed, neither is anyone else here.
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DDoS? Come to think of it, that would explain why God never answers prayers.
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He never answers YOUR prayers. He answers mine quite a bit.
The Bible says, "Therefore confess your sins to each other and pray for each other so that you may be healed. The prayer of a righteous person is powerful and effective." James 5:16
"This is the confidence we have in approaching God: that if we ask anything according to his will, he hears us." 1 John 5:14
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So what did He say?
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This.
I really pisses me off when people confuse lock picking with loud music.
You showed them! (Score:2)
Never mind that when the Pope says something into a microphone somewhere, it's rebroadcast through satellites to every corner of the globe - you took down Vatican City's web site!
That'll fix their little red wagon!
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Perfect opportunity for the Pope (Score:5, Insightful)
This would be the perfect opportunity for the Pope to fire a second salvo by commenting on the Turkish oppression of its Kurdish minority...
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Nevermind the Kurdish minority. Look at what they did to Minecraft!
The obligatory GRRM quote (Score:5, Insightful)
"When you cut out a man’s tongue, you are not proving him a liar, you’re only telling the world that you fear what he might say." -- George R. R. Martin
Don't piss off ... (Score:2)
... the Pope.
Similar activists once targeted Usenet (Score:3, Interesting)
Similar "hackers" were some of the most prolific spammers on Usenet in the early 90s. Everybody who administered a news server back in the day probably remembers the incident, and many of us felt like mass murdering these guys in response. They practically invented the spambot: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/S... [wikipedia.org]
Seder Argic (Score:3)
Re:butt-hurt Turks (Score:4, Interesting)
The Turks are hardly the only people who deny their past ill deeds. While the Japanese were forced on the international stage to admit to the atrocities they committed before and during WWII in their quest for an Asian Empire (in particular the astonishing abuses in China and Korea), at home Japanese school children by and large learn little or nothing of these evil acts.
Even in the Americas, we tend not to talk overly much of what the Europeans did to the indigenous peoples of the Western Hemisphere. The Spanish were certainly the worst, but the English colonial regimes were at times just as harsh, and superior firepower was used right from the earliest days of colonization well into the 19th century to push Indian peoples of their lands. Still, one can openly admit in most countries in the Americas that the indigenous peoples were mistreated, and in many cases whole tribes and ethnic groups were wiped out, without some crazy ass Mexican, American or Chilean hackers shutting down your website.
Re:butt-hurt Turks (Score:4, Insightful)
I agree with most of your words, but the Spanish weren't certainly the worst. In former Spanish colonies more than 70% of the population has indigenous ancestors. In English colonies the indigenous were almost exterminated, the population is mostly white or black and racism persist in one or other way until today.
Re:butt-hurt Turks (Score:4, Insightful)
The dominance of Mayan and Aztec culture is long gone, but empires rise and fall. Tho populations themselves, however, largely survived and are still the genetic backbone of the region. Have you actually been to southeastern Mexico or Central America? If you have, you'd know the Mayan bloodlines are still exceptionally common. There may be (almost certainly is) a level of economic oppression going on due to race, but as a race, Mayans are aanything but dead. I can't speak for Aztecs (although many people identify themselves as such) because I haven't been to the areas where they might claim dominance. In any case, not even the members of the class themselves claim to be endangered. They are not. Their culture is another matter.
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People of Celtic origins are still the backbone of the British Isles, and yet culturally the vast majority of that region are West Germanic. Or take the Turks and Syrian and Palestinian "Arabs" as another example. Genetically, these people are simply the descendants of the East Mediterranean populations that have lived there for thousands of years. For instance, the Palestinians and Jews are closely related, simply because they're both descendants of the Canaanite peoples that had been hanging out there sin
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Indeed. The fact that there are a lot of Mestizos and Indians in Latin America does not mean there was not a concerted effort to wipe out the indigenous cultures in the Spanish colonies. And yes, the English and their descendants in both British North America (later Canada) and the United States committed a good many atrocities as well, some that must certainly be regarded as at the very least cultural genocide.
It is actually a wonder that Indians anywhere in the Americas managed to hang on to their cultura
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And people still excuse the internment of Americans of Japanese descent in WW2. Granted, not a genocide, but people were essentially thrown in prison and expropriated for where their parents were born.
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Of course morality is relative. Three hundred years ago it was perfectly moral to purchase slaves. One hundred and fifty years ago depriving over half the population of most English speaking areas of political and even full property rights because they were born with a vagina and instead of a penis. The Spartans thought it perfectly moral 2,400 years ago to leave weak infants exposed to the elements to die. For centuries Christianity promoted ideas like anti-Semitism and the Divine Right of nobility to have
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Well, that's pretty much incorrect. The mistreatment of the natives was made pretty clear to us in public school in the 70s and 80s. I highly doubt there is any recent attempt to reverse that progress.
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There's a difference between conquering and/or outcompeting a people and lining them up for systematic mass slaughter. The Romans didn't commit genocide against the Gauls, they conquered them. I would be interested to know which part of Native American history you think remotely equates to the Armenian genocide.
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When moving up to Canada, Ontario to specific, I was surprised that this province hosts the most Native Americans up here, since in contrast there are hardly any on the East Coast and Mid-West in the US.
Re:Turkey (Score:4, Insightful)
No, it would not be "A-OK" (thanks for putting words in my mouth) but it would not be genocide. The word loses its meaning when it's overused. It's like using the word "rape" to describe a subway groping. Groping someone in a crowded subway car is not acceptable in a civilized society, but it's not rape, and you do the lexicon a disservice when you equate the two.
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To be fair, the land rights of Native Americans today are a form of recompense for acknowledged past wrongs, along with special privileges such as gambling rights that trump state law and provide income to Native American communities. The US admits and owns its mistakes. Turkey is trying to bury its past with the dead.
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"Mistakes". What a gentle word for repeatedly discarding treaties and exterminating former allies.
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It is not necessary to nuance every single thing you say. Pretty tedious, actually.
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No, actually it's pretty automatic. The tedium only comes in when you do it intentionally.
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So if he used the word betrayal instead of mistakes, you would have agreed with his post?
Because it seems you are arguing semantics.
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I'm absolutely arguing semantics - they often carry far more impact and information that the strict literal reading. Hell, deprived of semantic gymnastics most politicians would be reduced to silently flapping their jaw.
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So you do agree with his post with the substitution of that one word?
That's great!
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hardly
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Indian land rights are not what they look like. The land is normally held by the US government on behalf of the tribe, for example, so it can't be sold, and mineral extraction rights are negotiated by the US government, not tribal government. In the cases I know about (mostly Lakota), the Federal government also made commitments for things like medical care, and routinely disregards these commitments when inconvenient.
The gambling rights aren't concessions or reparations. They are the logical result o
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The Gauls literally got screwed out of existence.
That's how I want to go.
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The Gauls literally got screwed out of existence.
That's how I want to go.
Death by snoo-snoo?
Americans have been saying that (Score:2)
as have Canadians.
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Soon the Pope will be saying the US genocided the Native Americans.
That's a bit of a stretch. The aim of the US western expansion wasn't to kill all traces of Native American peoples and culture, it was to gain control of their land. While there certainly were numerous instances of massacres, they seemed to be more due to individual ignorance, prejudice, or misunderstanding than any systemic attempt to wipe out all Indians. Not even considering all the treaties and reservations set up (the quality-or lack thereof-of the land provided on the reservations can again I thin
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in that instance, the church was part of the genocide.
And the above quote is even more egregious. I don't recall the 18th century pope saying, "Go kill all the Indians". I don't even recall any religious figure saying it. Political figures and opportunists, yes.
Re:Turkey (Score:4, Informative)
Soon the Pope will be saying the US genocided the Native Americans.
That's a bit of a stretch. The aim of the US western expansion wasn't to kill all traces of Native American peoples and culture, it was to gain control of their land. While there certainly were numerous instances of massacres, they seemed to be more due to individual ignorance, prejudice, or misunderstanding than any systemic attempt to wipe out all Indians. Not even considering all the treaties and reservations set up (the quality-or lack thereof-of the land provided on the reservations can again I think be attributed mostly to apathy or ignorance as opposed to outright malice), the numerous attempts at integrating and Westernizing Native Americans shows a (misguided perhaps) desire to help them and make them become "Americans". In reality, the Western expansion was in effect a protracted, low-intensity guerrilla war, and there are plenty of cases of these types of conflicts to show that they very often lead to instances of overreactions of force, excessive non-combatant casualties, and mass killings.
Ahemm.. extermination of the American BIson... anybody? By the 1860s numerous US military figures advocated the extermination of the bison as a method to subjugate the American Aboriginals. General Philip Sheridan even stepped before Congress to plead for permissions to slaughter the bison herds to starve Native Americans into submission. There is probably about as much proof of methodical and premeditated extermination of the Native American by the US Government as there is for the genocide of the Armenians being part of some plot carefully and extensively planned and executed at government level in Turkey. It was a policy aimed at 'pacifying the native peoples', any mass deaths were probably regarded as a bonus. That having been said millions of people died as a result of the actions of a government against a certain ethnic group and we call that genocide whether it was acerbically planned like the Jewish Holocaust or a spontaneous disorganized series massacres like the Armenian Genocide or the near extermination of the Native Americans.
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Ahemm.. extermination of the American BIson... anybody? By the 1860s numerous US military figures advocated the extermination of the bison as a method to subjugate the American Aboriginals. General Philip Sheridan even stepped before Congress to plead for permissions to slaughter the bison herds to starve Native Americans into submission.
Was the blockade of the South during the Civil War an attempt at Genocide? How about blockading Germany during WWI/WWII? That's not an example of genocide, that's trying to defeat an enemy by targeting their ability to wage war (can't fight without food). As I said, it was more a low intensity guerrilla war than it was a genocide.
Re:Turkey (Score:4, Informative)
Ahemm.. extermination of the American BIson... anybody? By the 1860s numerous US military figures advocated the extermination of the bison as a method to subjugate the American Aboriginals. General Philip Sheridan even stepped before Congress to plead for permissions to slaughter the bison herds to starve Native Americans into submission.
Was the blockade of the South during the Civil War an attempt at Genocide? How about blockading Germany during WWI/WWII? That's not an example of genocide, that's trying to defeat an enemy by targeting their ability to wage war (can't fight without food). As I said, it was more a low intensity guerrilla war than it was a genocide.
Was the population of the American South reduced by 75% as a result of the blockade? No? ...because the Native American population was systematically reduced by 75-80% first by the colonial authorities and then by the US government who really stepped up the speed of the eradication process. Entire tribes were wiped out in one way or another in the name of 'Manifest destiny'. Genocide is the systematic eradication of an ethnic group by a government or other organisation and if you manage to wipe out 75-80% of the Native American population then that is genocide in my book.
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The aim of the US western expansion wasn't to kill all traces of Native American peoples and culture, it was to gain control of their land.
That was the aim, yes. And if you think that the missing millions of native americans just went away or decided to go peacefully/be assimilated/willingly handed over territory for whiskey and rifles and smallpox laced blankets......I don't know what you're smoking but man it's probably laced with some potent embalming fluid.
I didn't say they didn't kill a lot of people. The definition of a genocide is the systemic and premeditated eradication of a people based upon ethnicity/religion/other intrinsic characteristics. But it is not to just take over their land-that's simply war.
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Intent definitely matters insofar as understanding the law of unintended consequences, when pursuing similar objectives in the future.
I'm sure it doesn't matter in terms of apologies or results.
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In US History in grammar school, we learned about the Trail of Tears in explicitly negative terms. Do young Turks learn about Armenian genocide the same way? Everyone has skeletons. The difference is whether we keep them in the closet or not.
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Note that while we learn the trail of tears in explicitly negative terms, we don't apologize nor give back the land. That isn't ever going to happen. Mostly we visit the closet with the skeletons, confront the skeleton then turn around, close the door and move on.
It does very little for the Armenians or their supporters.
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Note that while we learn the trail of tears in explicitly negative terms, we don't apologize nor give back the land. That isn't ever going to happen.
It isn't land that concerned Native Americans; they did not even have a concept of land ownership. What concerns them most is that they retain ownership of sacred burial sites and objects of historical and cultural significance. Under NAGPRA, it is a criminal offense to find such items and not report them to the government for repatriation.
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Note that while we learn the trail of tears in explicitly negative terms, we don't apologize nor give back the land.
We have apologized and have tried to financially compensate for the land taken.
We are really strange winners that we continue to feel guilt for winning. It was a war for territory and we won. If the Native Americans want to wage a war to try to take back the land, they are welcome to try.
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Source, with a shit-ton more similar quotes from politicians and leading citizens: http://obrag.org/?p=1412 [obrag.org].
By the way, wiping people out has been pretty common in historical conquests in general. People only seem to have really even started feeling guilty about it in the last few hundred years.
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What do you mean "diseases which no one understood at the time."? We understood smallpox just fine - maybe not all the biological details, but we knew the avenue of infection quite well enough to intentionally infect millions(?) of natives. Then there was the buffalo extermination, encouraged in large part to collapse the economies of the tribes on the Great Plains.
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The Great Revolt that will come shall be recorded in a new Bible, but it shall be the new Catholic Bible and it will be penned in a tome of orange. We shall make war upon all machines and computers that are self aware because they are unclean.