Russia Accused of Cyber-War Against Estonia 373
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."
Russia or Russians? (Score:3, Insightful)
reminds of (Score:5, Insightful)
before 9/11 in early 2001, a chinese jet fighter bumped a us spy plane it was trying to harass away. the chinese fighter crashed and the pilot was never found, and the spy plane was forced to make an emergency landing on hainan island, where the chinese stripped the plane of equipment and then returned the crew to the usa
what happened for a few tense weeks was a lot of nationalistic chest thumping by chinese and american hackers: chinese hackers defacing poorly patched american servers, everything from small businesses to government systems, and american hackers defacing chinese servers: schools and government (i remember this well as i had a box that was hacked: my home page was replaced with a chinese flag and a "fuck usa", heh)
the point is, it's probably not official, it's probably by an independent group of weakly organized russian hackers upset due to nationalistic pride
the trigger for them is that statue that estonia got rid of in tallinn, which russians probably view as thousands of dead soldiers in the defense of estonia from the nazis, and estonia being ungrateful, and estonians viewing as an example of soviet domination, and a symbol of the past cold war era, and russians trying to retain their dominance
regardless, i expect some pissed off estonian hackers soon to plaster "in soviet russia, estonia hackers hack you!" all over pravda.ru, or something
Re:Common Sense (Score:5, Insightful)
You haven't got a clue.
A DDOS attack is basically an attempt to saturate the capacity of the target. The "distributed" part means that it is difficult to screen out the attackers because the machines are on so many different subnets. The flaws that a DDOS relies on are not in the attacked systems, but in the attacking ones which have been compromised and have had software installed that makes them a "bot". A network of these "bots" are then coordinated by the attacker.
And if you think that shutting down the websites of pretty much every government institution, bank and commercial enterprise in a highly connected country like Estonia amounts to "a few eggs thrown over the fence" then just think what it would do your nations economy.
Maybe (Score:3, Insightful)
the point is, it's probably not official, it's probably by an independent group of weakly organized russian hackers upset due to nationalistic pride
Given that it is now Putin's Russia, I'm not so sure. I wouldn't be at all surprised if there were some winking and nodding coming from the Russian security apparatus.
Racism in Estonia (Score:0, Insightful)
Re:Why Is This In Politics??!!! (Score:5, Insightful)
The politics section originally started out I believe a year or two ago to cover the election and resulting aftermath of "ZOMG BUSH GOT LESS VOTES!" type story. It has since become a more rounded section and carries stories from all over the world under it's banner, because you know "Stuff that matters" is quite often political.
I mean when people start having wars via the Internet (as this rather implies is happening in some twisted form) it starts to effect us geeks as well. So we discuss it on Slashdot and because it's political based they used the politics banner.
I feel sorry for you if you can't see that the FAQ maybe outdated and this has been this way for a good few months (maybe 12+) now, so decide to grind your axe on a stone that's been here longer than you probably have (Anoncow has no ID so I can't tell from your number, but I have to assume you're new if you don't understand the politics section).
dude (Score:3, Insightful)
bu if you ask you me anyways, my personal attitude is that you poor poles, lithuanians, latvians and estonians have been the battleground of the power struggle between berlin and moscow for centuries. i champion the underdog and the little guy, and that's obviously estonia in this case, so i'm with you:
fuck the russians (and the germans). it's easy to pick on your small neighbors isn't it, you fucking autocratic assholes
Re:They forgot something. (Score:5, Insightful)
Let me give you another perspective on this. You can decide whether or not you want to stick to your guns here. Are you by any chance married to a Russian woman? Because if you are, that will certainly inhibit your ability to see the other side.
Estonia was under Russian control until 1918. It remained an independent nation until 1940, when the USSR invaded it. Germany occupied it from 1941 to 1944. During the 1 year or so of Soviet occupation prior to the Nazi invation, the Soviets did such nice things as kill the intellectuals and forcibly conscript Estonians into the Red Army. I can't say it's any wonder that as in Ukraine (where Stalin and his henchmen had killed and starved to death millions of Ukrainians in the 1930s), the locals viewed the Nazis as liberators and then found out that they were just as bad if not worse as the Soviets. Do note that the USA never recognized the Soviet occupation of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania. NEVER. It's important to know that for over 50 years, official US policy was that the occupation of these 3 countries was illegal.
After WWII ended, Estonia was screwed. They were part of the Soviet Union. The Soviets moved hundreds of thousands of Russian speaking immigrants into Estonia in an attempt to "Russify" it and to dilute Estonian nationalism. Estonian freedom fighters fought a small scale guerilla war against the USSR into the early 1950s when they finally gave up and realized it was hopeless.
During the USSR period, Russian was the official language in education. It was possible to have education in whatever the local language was (Krushchev made some changes that allowed this), but there was a catch - if you wanted to get a good job, you absolutely had to speak Russian well. Given that Russian and Estonian are about as closely related as English is to Polish, you might understand that Estonian parents had no choice but to send their kids to Russian language schools so as to give them the best chance to prosper in the USSR.
Cut to 1991 when Estonia gets its independence. They now have a rather large Russian speaking population who they were forced to accept by a government that no longer exist. These people have never assimilated into Estonian society. In fact, they were encouraged immigrate there specifically to dilute Estonia's sense of national identity and to turn them into "good little Soviet subjects". These immigrants have never bothered to learn the Estonian language since Russian was the official language of the government prior to 1991. Now you have all these people who say "Screw you! We want to speak Russian!" in a country where the majority of citizens speak the local language, Estonian. They demand that everything be done in Russian so they can understand it. The Estonians never wanted to speak Russian to begin with, so they are promoting the use of their national language. Now you have about 26% of the population who refuses to "get with the program", demands that their language be given equal footing with the national tongue and even worse, feels that things were a lot better back when they were in charge and the stupid locals were taking orders from them. So given that Estonia never wanted the Soviets/Russians there to begin with and the Soviets weren't exactly enlightened when they ran the show, can you really blame them for not being real happy with Russia today? By the way, ethnic Russians can become Estonian citizens, but they have to take
Re:Russia or Russians? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:dude (Score:1, Insightful)
Re:They forgot something. (Score:3, Insightful)
After Estonia became independent all persons who's forefathers had been citizens of Estonia before Soviet occupation were granted automatic citizenship, this group also included Russians that had arrived before the occupation. In 1992 about 32% of peoples in Estonia didn't have any citizenship, these are the people who's forefathers became to the country Russianize the country. As Estonian government didn't want to do the same things that Russians (Soviet Union) did, that is to start mass deportations, they settled on making knowledge of Estonian language and history as a requirements on having a citizenship. To ease the task for population without citizenship, Estonian government organizes free language studies so that all willing can prepare and succeed on taking the test. In 2006 only 9% of population didn't have any citizenship and 7,4% had another citizenship. So nobody is denying Estonian citizenship, it's possible for individual to get it, some just or either lazy or stubborn. Also all children in Estonia are educated, they have a right to go to a school, and nobody is denying that. Those who's mother language is Russia get to study with their own language and they also teach Estonian as part of the curriculum.
There is nothing that Russia and Russians can complain. People can acquire citizenship, many just don't want to, and there is education for all. If you look the situation in Russia, well you won't see same things as you see in Estonia or other CIVILIZED places. In Russia minorities are suppressed, in example Mari people who are natives and who's language belongs to Finno-Ugric family are been suppressed! They don't get any education in their language, they don't get anything. If Russia and Russians want to say something about other countries and nations, they should start by cleaning their own backyard. The only thing that Russia and Russians who are complaining and putting up Soviet style crap, are only making the rest of the world more hostile against Russia.
PS. And btw. in the world you have the baddest situation with neo-nazis. In 9th of May, when you celebrate the victory on world war 2, foreign students are asked to stay inside dorms and not go out, same with other foreigners. Why? Well if you go then, or in any other day and if you are Black, Asian or Arab there is a big danger that you are beaten or stabbed. That is scary. Also how you have treated Georgians and bullied with them, just shows you that current Russia is just the fascist country that it accuses on others.
Re:Cut Russia off the net (Score:5, Insightful)
So if we cut their IP blocks off from the world beacuse of botnets, what other excuses could we use? Well, China supports terrorism, so lets cut them off too. And both Koreas. And the entire middle east. Etc.
Also, the hackers would end up proxying through another set of IPs and getting to where they need to be anyway. And could write up their bots to do the same.
That said, don't use technical solutions for social problems. The problem is the governments of the countries in question don't care. They can deny involvement but still watch their enemies writhe. It should be treated as if a stream of foreign nationals marched out of their country and into ours, guns drawn. And that their government is doing nothing to stop them.
Re:Russia or Russians? (Score:3, Insightful)
How is deporting thousands of people to Siberia "undoing his mistakes"? Stalin was just a ruthless vile dictator and IMO the Allies would have done well to destrou the russian army after they'd destroyed the german army at the end of the 2nd world war. Then we wouldn't have had 50 years of idiot communists in Moscow oppressing half of europe and threatening world peace.
Moron.
Re:They forgot something. (Score:3, Insightful)
Cases with Finland and Canada are very different (Score:3, Insightful)
PS. In Finland there has been much discussion about making Finnish the only national language and giving Swedish official minority language status. Times change, statistics change and needs change. In Estonia there is need to support the Estonian language and culture after 50 years of oppression. For this it's only natural that Estonia's only official language is Estonian. Luckily for you Russians, Estonians have been tolerant and not banned Russian language, they have assured same right to all, they have given education to all even in Russian. So shut the fuck up, and fix first problems in Russia.
Re:dude (Score:4, Insightful)
Since you remind about holocaust, remember gulag. Millions of people from Baltic states died there. And deportations started one year before Germany attacked SSSR.
Americans haven't occupied France and Belgium for 45 years. Russians haven't liberated Estonia. In 1944 Estonia one occupant was replaced by other. If Sadam's statue is erected in Kuwait, do people of Kuwait have to leave it in front of emir's palace after Iraqies are gone. Did Russians had to leave Stalin next to Lenin in Mausoleum after 1953.
This is not another perspective (Score:2, Insightful)