estonia

If you're going to have a revolution, it's best to leave the guns at home.

That's one of the underlying messages in The Singing Revolution, a documentary by Jim and Maureen Tusty about the birth of the Estonian Republic currently touring the independent film circuit. Funded in part by venture capitalist Steve Jurveston, the movie shows how Estonians held their national unity under Soviet domination through singing festivals. Later, during the late 80s and 90s, Estonian activists pushed for independence through parliamentary maneuvering. (Jim Tusty and Jurvetson are also Estonian.)

The film starts a one-week run Friday … Read more

Several groups of Internet organizers plan to show on Saturday that they can mobilize patriotic Chinese Internet users and wield their influence worldwide against what they say is anti-Chinese media in the Western world.

The Dark Visitor, a site that tracks the activities of Chinese computer hackers, is reporting that a distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attack on CNN.com is planned for 8 p.m. Beijing time, or 5 a.m. PT in the United States.

But the organizers themselves (Google translated page) appear to be waffling, and Jose Nazario of Arbor Networks reports that there has been little preattack activity … Read more

This week we've seen two Internet events that are more alike than dissimilar. On Wednesday, an Estonian court convicted a 20-year Russian for his part in last spring's distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attacks on that nation. On Thursday, word of mounting DDoS attacks on the Church of Scientology spread. Ultimately, both events could have larger repercussions.

The attack on the Estonian Web sites was prompted by an Estonian government plan to move a statue and grave sites honoring Russian-Estonians who died fighting the Nazis. Gadi Evron of Beyond Security said at last year's Black Hat USA that he … Read more

Dr. Jose Nazario of Arbor Networks has been looking at the technical side of the distributed denial of service (DDoS) attacks upon domain registered to the Church of Scientology International. In general he finds that while there have been a lot of DDoS attacks, the early ones were mild. They were, however, stronger than the DDoS attacks upon various Estonian sites last spring. As a protective measure, the Church of Scientology has since moved its domain to a more protected space.

Prior to the move, Nazario found that on January 19, there were 488 DDoS events, all of which appear … Read more

A 20-year-old Russian has been convicted for organizing some of the attacks on Estonia's government sites during spring 2007, the Agence France-Presse reported on Thursday.

"Dmitri Galushkevich is the first hacker to be sentenced for organizing a massive cyberattack against an Estonian Web page," Gerrit Maesalu, spokesman for the regional prosecutor's office in northeast Estonia, told the AFP. Galushkevich was fined 17,500 krooni (about $1,600). He admitted his guilt, said Maesalu.

The distributed denial of service (DDoS) attacks, which some security experts have alternatively called a flash mob or the first-ever cyberwar, was prompted … Read more

When Estonian President Toomas Ilves dropped by the Oval Office for a visit with the president on Monday, a recent wave of cyberattacks with suspected Russian origins was high on the European leader's mind.

"It is a serious issue if your most important computer systems go down in a country like mine, where 97 percent of bank transactions are done on the Internet," Ilves said, according to a transcript provided by the White House. "When you are a highly Interneted [sic] country like we are, then these kinds of attacks can do very serious damage." … Read more

Warning: disturbing a war memorial can provoke all out cyber war--at least in Estonia. On April 27, 2007, Estonia officials relocated the "Bronze Soldier," a Soviet-era war memorial commemorating an unknown Russian who died fighting the Nazis, a move that incited rioting by ethnic Russians and the blockading of the Estonian Embassy in Moscow. It also started a large and sustained distributed denial-of-service attack on several Estonian Web sites, including those of government ministries and the prime minister's Reform Party. A denial-of-service attack (DoS) occurs when someone directs a large number of requests to a target URL; … Read more