BBC Taken Offline By 'Anti-IS' Group (bbc.co.uk) 150
New submitter shilly writes: The BBC is reporting that all its websites were taken offline on New Year's Eve for several hours, and the attack appears to be from a group calling itself New World Hacking. The group claims its raison d'être is to attack IS, but wanted to test out its capabilities first and chose the BBC as a target. A member of the group said, "We realize sometimes what we do is not always the right choice, but without cyber hackers... who is there to fight off online terrorists?"
fight off online terrorists (Score:5, Insightful)
so just terrorists then?
annoy the terrorists (Score:5, Insightful)
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I also fail to see how these guys are any danger to real terrorists.
They aren't, they are a benefit to IS. IS's raison d'etre is the conspiracy against Sunni Islam by the alliance of Shias and the Western World. By attempting to silence them, they are just giving IS more credibility in the eyes of their adherents, by validating the conspiracy theory. Even for groups as odious as IS, it is better to let them speak freely, and then counter their claims with more speech.
Btw, Saudi Arabia, a staunch American ally, beheaded 47 dissidents and apostates [nbcnews.com] yesterday, including a l
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Let's hope so.
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In what possible way? They are an independent public corporation, not a state broadcaster.
Re: annoy the terrorists (Score:1)
http://www.henrymakow.com/comm... [henrymakow.com]
Re: annoy the terrorists (Score:1)
http://www.henrymakow.com/comm... [henrymakow.com]
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The actual people in charge may have some degree of independence, but they are still owned and controlled by the government.
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Christ, it's really irritating when people who don't know shit talk pontificate about a subject, and pray Wikipedia in aid. The BBC is publicly funded, but not a state broadcaster. This is true both in terms of its structure and its behaviour. If the BBC were a state broadcaster, it would take a pro-government line. That is not the case. We have a right-wing government in power in the UK, and the BBC is famously accused of being biased to the left. When the centre-left Labour party was in power, the BBC got
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That's a statement like: "has golden hair, but not a blond".
Again. There is no difference.
Please, don't hate.
The difference is entirely from the differences between UK and Russia. BBC may have a higher deg
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The government does have some control. The government accused the BBC of being London-centric, they were forced to move jobs up north. Now the government is controlling the BBC of the price of the TV Licence.
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None of this is material to the crucial questions of editorial independence, impartiality, and willingness to critique the government. The BBC is *the* global example of a media organisation committed to those principles and behaviours. It is this that distinguishes public service broadcasting from both state broadcasters (who are beholden to governments) and commercial broadcasters (who are beholden to their commercial interests, e.g. advertisers).
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So they are not connected to the government in any way at all EXCEPT most of their funding comes from a tax collected by the government on its behalf? Not exactly a model of independence.
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The government sets the fee http://www.bbc.co.uk/abouttheb... [bbc.co.uk]
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In other words: you don't agree with them.
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The bbc is very quickly becoming an obsolete white elephant that produces 95% crap.
Better than the 100 % crap produced by the other channels.
Re: annoy the terrorists (Score:4, Insightful)
they seem to target those who struggle to afford the licence fee
No, they target everyone who does not have a licence. They assume everyone watches TV and should therefore have one. I owned an empty house for 2 years while trying to find a buyer. I'd check the post there every week and there was always a threatening letter written with successively increasing levels of hysteria. They would stop after a while, and then resume starting at the bottom of the hysteria scale again. I ignored them all because I did not wish to spend money on a stamp and envelope to reply. I did try a phone call once and it said contact via the website; the website said I should phone.
These prosecutions account for the vast majority of local magistrate time.
Rubbish.
Without online terrorists... who is there to fight (Score:5, Insightful)
Or maybe it should be "without cyber terrorists... who is there to fight online hackers?"
Did their mothers never tell them that two wrongs don't make a right? You need at least three lefts to make a right, or something.
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Or maybe it should be "without cyber terrorists... who is there to fight online hackers?"
Did their mothers never tell them that two wrongs don't make a right? You need at least three lefts to make a right, or something.
The correct quotation (from The Harvard Lampoon's Deterioata) is "Two wrongs don't make a right, but three lefts do."
Also, no decapitation. (Score:5, Funny)
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Jeremy Clarkson may argue that point with you.
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If you ever were to have someone decapitate you, Jeremy Clarkson might be your best option, given he is more likely to hit an innocent bystander than you.
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Guy gets paid thousands of pounds to drive fast cars fast all day. Has a history of being a bigot and general arsehole. Eventually descends to physical violence and is finally, after multiple warnings and fourth and fifth chances.
He only has himself to blame.
On the plus side we now have an interesting experiment. Can the trio's star power make people pay Amazon £80 up front to watch them on their PC, or add another £30 for a Fire TV stick? I expect Amazon will heavily discount before
Re: Also, no decapitation. (Score:2)
Not that anon, but dump your sources here. You ain't doing any favors to your argument by trying to keep your evidence secret.
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It was me, I admit it. Please enlighten me anally with evidence.
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Here you go. This is a UID. I'll take those citations. Thanks.
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I for one am comforted (Score:2)
that our {s}most brilliant minds{/s} are fighting IS online.
IS? (Score:2)
Are they the terrorist group previously known as ISIS?
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ISIS, IS, Islamic State, and Daesh are all names for the same assholes. -PCP
The Caliphate (Score:3, Informative)
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Actually, no. The model under which this caliphate is operating ain't much different from the ones in the 8th to 10th centuries that ran out of Dimashq, Raqqa(!) and Baghdad.
In that era, the way the Caliph was chosen was usually a bloody process w/ plenty of internecine fighting. In fact, after Abu Baqr, the first Caliph (according to Sunnis), the next 3 Caliphs at least were murdered. However, once a Caliph emerged after the succession wars, his dictat was issued to Muslims everywhere, and they were t
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Thank you that was very insightful and informative. ..and it just goes to show what a bunch of ignorant, mindless sheep still living in the dark ages most muslims really (still) are.
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One more thing in addition to what I wrote above: there is ONE condition that ISIS doesn't satisfy to qualify as a Caliphate. One of Mohammed's directives is supposed to have been that the Caliph has to preferably come from the Quraysh Arab tribe - the one that Mohammed was from, and should be from the Arabian peninsula - something that was satisfied by the first few Caliphs. Since ISIS is from the Mesopotamian area, that's one condition that they don't satisfy.
This is similar to what al Qaeda had, when
Re: IS? (Score:1)
they change the name everytime proof emerges that they were funded by the US UK oil families. Bushs windsors etc.
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Err... I've been a member of the Libertarian Party since the start of it and while you are certainly quite ignorant I'll give you just the very start of a clue - I won't even charge you money for it.
Nobody, under any circumstances, has the right to use religion as a means to take away the liberties of another. In fact, I can't think of any reasons where the taking away of liberty en mass is acceptable - even without religion as the motivator.
If you'd like to know more about what Libertarianism is, what we b
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Attention seekers. (Score:5, Insightful)
If they wanted to 'test their capabilities' they could have just hit some obscure and unimportant site that no-one would even notice being down. Or they could have picked a target that would be a plausible target for Anonymous and let the world blame it on them - hit Sony again, perhaps, or some state-owned company in Russia. Attacking one of the world's most read and respected news organisations and the claiming credit for it publicly (Or, more likely, claiming the credit after someone else takes the BBC site down) just seems like a plea for attention.
Does IS even have websites? I've been lead by various news reports to conclude that they have an extensive social media propaganda campaign, but it isn't run through their own websites. Just an ever-shifting set of youtube channels, facebook pages, twitter accounts and so forth.
I'm guessing New World Hacking is following news of their exploits, which includes reading the comments here, so: Knock it off. You want to attack Islamic State? Go have a try at following their social media presence and report as many of their accounts as you can find to the service operators. You will probably have to learn a few additional languages though - Arabic does not do well on machine translation, and even in the areas IS operates Arabic isn't always the most commonly spoken of languages. That sounds like a better idea, with the added bonus of being legal so you can operate in the open and recruit a few more people - and you'll need them. Use those people to promote a countering narrative - spread word of their atrocities, and make fun of their idiotic proclamations. Religion is always week against mockery - once it loses respect it loses authority too.
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The BBC is the one seeking attention, claiming they were attacked, when it turns out somebody pulled the plug by accident. Take down an "ISIS" site, who's gonna know without a big announcement from the attackers?
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Conspiracy theories are interesting, but let's just skip to the facts:
http://www.truthandaction.org/... [truthandaction.org]
http://www.globalresearch.ca/t... [globalresearch.ca]
http://www.independent.co.uk/n... [independent.co.uk]
You can go on growsing about who borders on what with whom and Russia wanting to trash talk or whatever else now.
E
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(You can see also that ISIS isn't bordering with Turkey, so Russia didn't bomb an oil convoy from ISIS to Turkey, Russia just wanted to trash talk Turkey over the shooting of its jet).
This claim ain't a tough one to shoot down: ISIS is present in North Eastern Syria and Northern and Western Iraq. While al Anbar province may not border Turkey, Northern Syria definitely does. Turkey has been the transit point for the world's Jihadis to get to Raqqa. One doesn't need Russian trash talking to observe these basic facts. One DOES need to be informed about Erdogan to recognize that his vision of Turkey is a return to its Ottoman and Seljuk roots, and disowning its more recent Kemalesque sec
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You better be quick though, because you are just as bad as IS in the eyes of the UK people.
No they're not. Bad, yes, but not even in the same league of bad as IS in the eyes of the UK people.
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DDOS = Cyberattack?!? (Score:2)
Oh so just kids mucking about with scripts to get a DDOS going... move along nothing to see here...
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Easily enough done. I've ended up part of one twice - once at home due to a misconfigured NTP server, and once at work after we upgraded a firewall and some of the rules were not copied over by the migration tool allowing us to be used for DNS amplification.
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Why was a test required? (Score:2, Insightful)
Just try it on the real target and if it works it works. Doing this really makes them lose any credibility.
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Re:Claim != actual (Score:5, Insightful)
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I currently view BBC and Al Jazeera for world news. Not that I think either is perfect, but relative to the rest that I've found these two are pretty good.
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I take it you also think it's a "fucking disgrace" that the organisation which trained Osama in guerilla tactics continues to receive funding from the US government? The CIA is a much bigger problem (and better recruiter for jihadist terrorists) than Al Jazeera.
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You mistake objectivity for support.
Failing to go 'Al Qaeda are evil and must be destroyed' is not supporting them.
My experience is that Al Jazeera is far more objective than most UK news sources, let alone US ones.
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Idiots (Score:1)
Call it like it is. These scripts kiddies ain't no heroes.
Unfortunately someone always makes a better idiot.
Hacking practice with a DOS on friendless? (Score:4, Interesting)
So now what? (Score:2)
Okay, so now the test has been successful, they can go ahead and take down... uh... what? isis.com? For a couple of hours?
It's just (Score:2)
I can think of better websites (Score:1)
to bring down.
Healthcare.gov immediately comes to mind.
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Please explain how you come to that decision. I'm sure the world would like to know.
Oh, perhaps it is because it covers the 'real world' and not hicksville USA. It is also not afraid to take the UK Government to task.
To many people in the world, the BBC is a fountain of information and not propaganda like the US equivalent.
CNN-International used to be good but has gone down hill rapidly in recent years.
But hey, carry on thinking that it is some commie/socialist propaganda machine. There are a lot of people
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Please explain how you come to that decision. I'm sure the world would like to know..
Probably was brainwashed by Fox News and talk radio.
Of course, people like that don't have much in the way of brains to wash.
Re:BBC (Score:4, Insightful)
What in the name of sweet Jeezus has your very exciting rant about all the perceived evils of US liberal politics got to do with the BBC?
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He was waiting for an opening. Speech was ready to go and only needed an audience.
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Re:BBC (Score:4, Insightful)
To be fair, post-Hutton the BBC toes the government line in a way it hasn't since before the hippies invaded the ranks in the '60s. What is more, much of its research and technical infrastructure - including the transmitter network itself - has been sold off since the '90s. It really isn't the BBC it once was, which in turn wasn't the BBC that once was, but the privatisation is a real shift of control from something that had for three quarters of a century been about public broadcasting at arms' length from the State.
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You seem to have it backwards. In the 50s the BBC was very supportive of the government. In the 60s t started to be more irreverent, and really began to hold ministers to account in the 70s when Newsnight and Question Time stated.
I agree it has become more tame lately.
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BBC is nothing more than Marxist-Leninist rubbish.
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The BBC is a British version of PBS and NPR. Has always had a pretty blatantly Leftist agenda, and in the Middle East, have been squarely on the side of the Palestinian Jihadis. Watching the BBC, for example, there is no way one would ever come to a conclusion that Israeli operations in Gaza would be in retaliation for daily rockets fired into Sderot.
Not just that, they are apologists for Muslims everywhere - from Britain to Europe to India and the Americas. Any anti ISIS/ISIL group that took down t
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I am a listener to, fan of, and financial supporter of NPR. I consider it one of many news sources. NPR does, indeed, have a Left-leaning slant and I am aware of the bias and try to use multiple sources to get informed. A recent example was a piece about Trump. I am not a Trump supporter but I am a fan of honesty. I do not recall the exact quote but they were accusing Trump of wanting to do something about internet communications. I decided to go online and have a look. I found said quote and it was not onl
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Those are good sources. I'm aware of the biases and acknowledge them which is why I'd say that I find al Jazeera to be an acceptable source. I'm not suggesting that one take them at face value and to the exclusion of all others but that one at least consider their information and seek to find more information as needed. Some days I may find a single story, and just that one story, and spend as many as a few hours learning about the background, opinions, and even delve into the history of that region. I'll t
Re:BBC (Score:5, Informative)
"To many people in the world, the BBC is a fountain of information and not propaganda like the US equivalent."
The beauty of our system is that there IS no US equivalent. Each private station is just as biased, but competition produces a diversity of bias.
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I'd love to try whatever you're smoking
The current Director General of the BBC is also a Director of HSBC Bank (Those lovely people who fucked the global economy), a Tory party donor and a personal friend of David Cameron. So of course there's no bias on the BBC!
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the most famous example in recent history: the Savile coverup [telegraph.co.uk]. Other famous examples: the priest and a small boy in relief with his cock hanging out above the main entrance to the BBC London headquarters at Broadcasting House (NSFW [wordpress.com]). Building 7 WTC [youtube.com] falling on its own footprint twenty six minutes earlier than it actually did (1:17 in, it's RIGHT THERE as she's pointing to the spot where it "was"!).
Re: BBC (Score:2)
bbc was bought by the UK monarchy in 1927 and has been running the bull of that extreme mafia family the US fought a war to escape ever since.
start there and work your way through another world war and countless manipulation campaigns and the cover up of all the pedophilia that family has been involved in (such as her kids regularly visiting Jeffrey epsteins island and going crazy when the media hacked their phones)
and you'll probably come to the same conclusion.
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Hmm... Not sure if serious or if just not inclined to learn some history.
See the use of the BBC during WWII. They were used to spread both propaganda on their own channels but also set up channels just for the propagation of propaganda. Additionally, they were used to convey secret messages. One of the more interesting was a bit of poetry to signal the French Resistance folks to start preparing for the arrival of troops in Normandy - known as D-Day. They were also heavily censored during that time, an effor