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Russian crackers get whitehouse.gov? 138

Posted by CmdrTaco from the could-it-be dept.
An anonymous reader linked us up with a wired story that talks about Russian Crackers taking down whitehouse.gov. A Russian Newspaper has claimed that it was anti-NATO folk, and the Whitehouse is claiming it was a hardware failure.
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Russian crackers get whitehouse.gov? More

Russian crackers get whitehouse.gov?

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  • Hey thanks for noticing all the hard work we do for you! Y'know if not for U.S. you'd still be singing "sieg heil in the NL" and Deutscheland uber alles. I wonder if you can appreciate that.

    Of course, our politicians are not altruists, but that doesn't make them cowardly worms like Marshall Petain, either. If we were to-the-core altruists, we'd be over there right now, kicking Serbian ass, and also taking massive casualties and deaths (again) on behalf of a people who really don't have anything to offer us in the way of material rewards. But then again by doing so we'd be practically inviting the overthrow of what little civil government Russia has left, and effectively ushering in a more militarist, Slav-supremacist dictatorship, and that might not be for the best --especially for you there below sea-level. Maybe you should be sleeping better knowing the US has very self-interested goals in its committment to keep peace in Europe. From time to time it keeps us from doing some noble but ultimately stupid things.

  • What *should* we do? Good Question (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward
    : How important to us are ethical positions which
    : we'll scrap for "pragmatic" reasons?

    A common ethical position is that murder is wrong. So, since we cannot practically enforce this on a global level, we should abandon this position at every level. Can I kill you now?
    I do not agree with your logic here. If something "wrong" occurs and it is within our power to stop it, should we? Or, since we cannot stop all things that are "wrong", should we ignore them all and go on with our lives? This stance seems incredibly immoral to me.

    : Let's be honest, Mr. President: the reason we
    : are bombing Serbia into the Stone Age is not
    : because "it's the right thing to do" but
    : because we can. And we don't do it to China
    : because we can't.

    We WOULD be bombing China except for one minor detail - it would essentially mean the end of the world. I think this is the sort of overriding pragmatic concern that one might want to take into account. But the part about Serbia throws me - we are doing it because we can? Well, we could do the same to Nigeria, but I don't see that happening in the near future. The only thing that makes sense is that it IS the right thing to do AND we can. Bombing China is the right thing to do morally(assuming they wouldn't change under threat of violence), but all of the people you would be hoping to save would die right along with you in a global nuclear war.

    God damn, what a scary friggin world this is, it is becoming increasingly easier for a small group of people to screw the entire planet. We are going to be forced into appeasing more and more countries as technology advances, and I can't imagine that some horrific consequences aren't in store.

    I do think your question of legality is interesting - what is going on in the UN? I really don't think the US or NATO should go around busting into other countries like vigilantes, but that doesnt necessarily mean that NATO's cause is unjust.

  • Ground Troops (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward
    You're right. There is only one instance in the history of war that bombing caused a surrender--Japan 1945. And I don't think anything of the sort will happen in former Yugoslavia. Even in the Gulf War the bombing had very little effect on the outcome. Air power, while important just cannot convince someone in a buried bunker to surrender!

    I do, however disagree with the idea that this will be WWIII. For one thing, the war just doesn't have a large enough scope. Slobodan (or whatever the hell his name is!) indeed is like Hitler in that he wants to exterminate a group of people, but they are extremely limited. He doesn't care about killing Asians, Americans, Russians, Canadians, or anyone else. Also, he doesn't have anywhere near the capability to wage a major war that Germany had. In short, he's a nasty guy with very little imagination and unbelievably small plans (he doesn't dream of ruling the world, only a tiny plot of land) and almost no resources. What I fear is that this *will* turn into another Vietnam. Guerilla warfare in forests and mountains, and no way to fight it but to push through with ground troops. Plus a wus President who thinks you can conduct diplomacy and war at the same time!

  • Hmm. Of course, it's easy to say everybody but your propaganda-feeding government is stupid. I just have to remember how most Americans seem to think the Gulf War was done in the name of justice and world peace.

    However, in this case, I have to agree with your assessment of the situation. However, I wouldn't be so quick to dismiss the Russsians as merely misinformed and stupid.

    The only thing Russia did as a sign of protestation was to end some bullshit peace agreements. Usually, what you do when there's a military conflict and you're opposed to it, you withdraw your ambassadors. Russia did no such thing.

    It's my strong belief that the US spoke to the Russians beforehand, explaining they need to intervene and prevent a Third World War. The Russians, being supporters of the Serbs, had to react in some way, and I wouldn't be surprised that Russia's exact reaction was discussed between US and Russia.

    Everybody's playing along nicely, and the rest is just for show. Of course, Russian media work just like in the US: the official stance is then passed down in such a way that the truth seems to be what the propaganda would have you believe.

    It's easy to call something stupid when you fail to understand it.

  • heh (Score:1)

    by drwiii ( 434 )
    I wouldn't be surprised if they did take down the machine.. Anyway, from what I hear, Clinton is quite fond of things that spontaneously "go down".

    :-)

  • Posted by Lassie:

    Listen Is clinton a stupid mother fing sob yes. Dont blame the Us. Listen I know whats going on there and I don't like it. I want ground troops in there asap. Hell I will go if it means peace. I am ashamed to have clinton as president. He has no god damn balls he waits for support till he goes. We need ground troops in there now not later. If we dont do it now to many people will die. You cant say the US has not done any good for the world myman because we have. We try are best but it all gets fucked up when we have a president who would rather play golf then save people from a painful death. Sorry Im just pissed off right now that most people in the Us dont have the balls to speak up about ground troops. If we go now we can end it but if we wait tens of thousands of people will die.
  • Posted by Lassie:

    When thousands of people die for no god damn good reason then yes it is to much to ask. Its not my fault some of you in the east are to self centered to try to help. Out yourself in the shoes of the people who are getting pushed out of the country. How would you feel if you were 8 and saw your father get killed? How would you feel if you saw your whole life gone in a blink of an eye? Yes we have messed up in the past but to say that all of the Us sucks because of an error in the past is just wrong.
  • I'm sure these machines are running a decent form of Unix or Unix relative already.

    Anyway, I believe either NetBSD or OpenBSD has a much better security rep than Linux does. Can't remember which one is the ultra-secure one and which one is the ultra-cross-platform one. :)
  • Didn't a Defcon a few years back have a seminar with a topic like 'How to wreak havoc with a well-placed pick-axe'?

    Propaganda wars have already spread to the Internet...
    --

  • This was true in Croatia and Bosnia, but not as much in this case: Albanians are not Slavs. In the former cases, however, Croats and Serbs are both Slavs, but they are of different Christian denominations, and much of the animosity stems from this fact.

    In Bosnia, there are really only two ethnic groups, the Serbs and Croats, but three religions (a Muslim contingent that converted under Ottoman rule). Actually, the fact of this conversion has led to great animosity as well: the Serbs at least resisted the Turks for centuries and refused to convert (and suffered for it), and the Muslim Slavs are often perceived as traitors.
    --

  • Nuking the Serbs isn't the answer. Napalming them is though....
  • Not really. Despite what you people like yourself think, the Internet will never become *THAT* important in people lives. If the internet does go down, you've still got radio,tv and telephone service. Add to this the millions of people who *DON'T* even acess the internet for anything whatsoever, it's pretty hard to see how any internet attack could cripple a country. Inconvince a hell of a lot people who were stupid enough to put put all their eggs in a basket labled "INTERNET" But cripple a country? That's laughable. Just look at the Melissa virus for instance. Has it really affected *YOUR* life in any meaningful fashion It's given a lot of people a very good reason to laugh at the people foolish enough to actually trust Microsoft Software,but has it really caused the end of human cilivation

  • FUD (Score:1)

    by martin ( 1336 )

    Hmm I wonder if this could be a FUD campaign - after all the US Govt has just pledged huge amounts of money to defending the IT infrastructure of the USA. Not that I'm cinical :-)

    Martin
    no I'm not paranoid - they ARE out to get me
  • Just on an aside... One of the things that surprised me during my recent visit to america were the frequent references by politicians (Bill in particular) to "god". Not to preach (no pun intended) but despite the special position of the Church of England in Britain, politicians here seem to do a much better job of keeping religon out of politics.

    --

  • Kosovo was an autonomous province of Serbia, with a relatively well integrated population. Somewhat poorer than the rest of yugoslavia, but not much. Serb nationalism started to scare some Kosovars, who began agitating for independence (actually greater autonomy until Slovenia, Croatia, et al. declared independence). In 1991?? (Not sure of exact date) Milosevich withdrew the autonomy of Kosovo, and began replacing Kosovars with Serbs in positions of power. Needless to say, such actions, combined with increasingly nationalistic Serb propaganda, increased the appeal of the KLA, which supported a violent conflict for Kosovar independence (earlier independence movements had ben centered around non-violent confrontation).

    Milosevich used the NATO bombing as an excuse and cover for his plans of decreasing the Kosovar population. It was already planned and all set to go, all he needed was a cover, and the NATO bombing was perfect. Had NATO not bombed, Milosevich's plans would've been delayed for a bit, but the flow of refugees would happened eventually, with or without bombing.
  • http://www.OCCAVIATIONANDSPACE.EDU [occaviationandspace.edu]

    The above site (at this time) hasn't changed their site back after being cracked..

    Take a look
  • You know what I would love to see.

    50 years of US non-involvement in world politics. Complete and utter, well we might be interested in just the Western Hemisphere. "Nope, we're not interested in helping you. We did that, we received criticism from the rest of the world. If it's not in our hemisphere, we're not interested at all."

    Wait ... we used to be like that. Some guy took advantage of that. Hmm... no problem, though, right?

    Our problem is that we're making the decisions, based on our morals, and only with the information that we're given. Sooo....
  • You said "why aren't they bombing Turkey and Iraq (for massacres of Kurds)"

    Just wait. We are. Well, I'm relatively sure, that we are. People I've talked to have been doing a lot of training in desert situations. No big surprise why, eh?

    And as for the US involvement in various wars. Hell, don't get self-righteous yourselves. Yeh, we may get involved in a war for less than altruistic reasons, but another government with similar military power would do the same. Any government with the built up military power as the US is bound to end up using it, eventually, to protect its own interests ... be the monetary or moral.

    And as for the Northern Ireland thing... well, tell you the truth, I'm not sure that the US understands that conflict entirely. Who are you going to bomb? It's not FUNDED by a nation, so there's no NATION to bomb.

    As for Haiti ... this is where I need to shut up, because I don't understand my nation's politics, or actions.

    You see, I'm quite happy to live in a nation where the only thing I need to pay attention to are the technical news magazines. I don't even vote. I'm one of the most irresponsible members of the "world community" because I allow my government to do what it wants... and I am not without a lot of company. (of course, I say this with the intention that I will learn more, and get involved more in the future.)
  • Indeed, there's an option in the kernel config to protect against *certain* kinds of denial-of-service attacks (SYN flooding is the first that comes to mind). Other kinds of DoS attacks don't involve the kernel in particular (e.g., issuing large amounts of connection requests, each causing the server to start a separate daemon to handle the request; continue this until the box runs out of memory).

    ^D
  • The point was not that we should nuke them.

    The point was that complete and utter destruction of that area of the world is the only way the fighting will be resolved - unless you have a few hundred years to wait.

    Some people seem to think peace talks will work.
    Some people seem to think bombing will work.

    Nothing will work save time or removal of that piece of land from the surface of the earth.

    Understand yet? It's a difficult concept for most people to wrap thier brains around. You can't think reason will work when dealing with fanatics.

    -dentin
  • I suspect you misunderstand. I do not hate these people, any more than I hate my computer or I hate the moon. I was simply trying to point out the reality that attitudes are slow to change, and that in situations like this where the attitudes have been ingrained for thousands of years there are only two solutions: lots of time, or complete annihilation of those with the attitudes.

    I should probably have labelled my post 'A modest proposal'. However, my point still stands. No matter how nice you are to people, how polite, understanding, reasonable - the stupid ones still will not change.

    Never underestimate fanatics. It's when you do that you end up with holocausts.

    -dentin
  • While I agree that the nato attacks haven't and probably won't have the desired effects, I must point out that when you get down to it there's only two real solutions to this problem. Neither of them are even remotely possible. Let me explain:

    The first solution is to wait about 500 years for all the religious bullshit to wear down, and to give technology the time it needs to wear down the locational borders. By that time, the human race might even be halfway civilized, or we'll be under police state control so strict it won't matter anyway.

    The second solution is the most realistic. Take israel, northern ireland, yugoslavia, etc... and turn them all into glass deserts. Screw small bombs, use the nukes. The 500 megaton ones.

    Give advance warning, enough time for those who want to get out to get out. Anyone idiotic enough to remain dies, along with any possible use the land might have had. These stupid people have been fighting over those worthless tracts for a thousand years - if they can't come to a reasonable conclusion, turn it to dust so noone gets it.


    As a wise man once said, 'against stupidity, the gods themselves contend in vain.' That's what we are up against here - pure stupidity from both sides. From Yugoslavia, the stupidity of the fanatics who feel they have a god given right to the land. From Nato, for thinking anything short of complete annihilation would do the job.

    -dentin
  • There's a big, big difference between politics and government.
  • so you really believe they're running a default configuration?

    Come on, all prejudices aside, I'd be willing to bet the people running that server are reasonably competent.
  • From the wired article:

    PSI.net, which provides the White House's link to the outside world, did not immediately return phone calls late Sunday. Neither did a White House spokesman.

    From everything I've seen, PSI is one of the worst backbone providers in terms of quality of service, and reliability. I wouldn't put it past PSI to have an outage that they don't manage to fix for 24hr or more, that affects the whitehouse.gov connection (or more likely, co-located machine).
  • Hmm, I get the feeling that the propaganda level in NATO countries is higher that I thought. Can anyone from inside tell how bad it is?

    And the human nature, it indeed makes me sick too. But, hehe, look at your own post will you...

    And the next WW, what USA is doing today is frightenly similar to what Germany did -30/40. They have attacked four countries in just a few months for varios imaginative reasons ("peace", "self defence", "revenge", "UN support" ...)



    And I'm human too...
  • Just read SegFault. It was all done by Rob. He took down the servers. ;)
  • I assume you mean the phrase "Separation of Church and State", not the legal protections which are provided by the 1st Amendment:

    "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof..."
  • 1- Well, could you please quote a report of ethnic cleansing, dating before western threats of involvement? Web page is preferable, but I can also some of the major english publications.
    2- Genocide is defined as killing people, while trying to kill a whole population. Mass expulsion is certainly bad, but its no genicide. If you accept that NATO leaders are lying in their claims of genocide, then my second point does become moot.

    The rest of your post is a rant that probably stems from not reading my comment, after deciding its not enough anti-Jugoslav for you, but still:
    If Milosevic planned it all in advance, why did he not do it until NATO began attacking Jugoslavia?
    To which country do you mean when you say "country formerly free"? It can't be Kosovo, since Kosovo has been a part of Serbia (itself part of Jugoslavia), at least since the first world war.
    As I said, I believe everyone would have been in a bit better state had NATO (the US actually) chose not to interfere. And, by the way, I could not understand from your comment, you are for NATO action in Jugoslavia, so are you also for action in Turkey, Spain, China?

    If you read my comment, you would have known that I do not defend Jugoslavia's actions, which are indefensible. I only say that the USA could choose a better course.
    BTW, Milosevic is not doing anything in Kosovo, he is in Belgrade (at least the Slobodan one), its Jugoslavia who is atrociting (is that a word) in Kosovo.
  • 1- Before NATO (US) threats, there was no ethnical cleansing in Kosovo, only oppression of a nationel freedom movement, similar to what happens in Turkey, North Ireland, Basque's land, Tibet, etc. Maybe a bit more cruel than in some of these examples, but still no more than that.
    2- Before NATO attack on Jugoslavia, there was no genocide, now there are allegations of genocide (which will probably be many years till we know if they are true).
    I'm not saying that what happens is NATO's fault. It is most certainly Jugoslavia's fault, but I am saying that without NATO's involvement The situation would have been much better.

    And, as for western press being free press / propaganda machine - What do you know of East Slavonia (sp?) ?
  • usually website crackers change the content to make their point instead of taking it down. Therefore I think it probably was just a hardware problem.
  • Whitehouse.net got hacked, not whitehouse.gov. The remnants of a hack (or just a satirical web design) are still on that site.

    Misunderstandings are a bitch.

  • I take everything from the Whitehouse with a grain of salt.
  • If russian crackers get so aggitated about NATO planting some bombs into "Jugoslavia", I wonder just what they think about the number of attrocties carried out by the Serbs in the name of "Ethnic cleansing".

    IMHO, It is not it was wrong and incorrect to call "Adolf Clinton". I dont usually take sides on matters like this, but it's pretty clear from what you see in this situtation that the Adolfs are actually the Serbs and Co. And not Mr. Clinton.

    Maybe Russian TV only shows NATO bombing their ex-homelands and not the number of mass murders carried out by the parties against people they called russians not that long ago. I hope crackers get a bit more clue next time they go about cracking unknown sites.

    Good luck.
    --
  • What would you have us do about this situation?

    This is a legitimate question. I don't pretend to have a pat answer to it.

    There are a couple reasons why I challenge the legitimacy of what we are doing. I suppose a valid argument for it might exist, but that's not what we are seeing so far.

    First, we have no legal standing for doing what we are doing. The United States is (allegedly; it may not be this anymore) a country governed by the rule of law. In other words, our government must act in accordance with laws -- not just the whims of the people as evidenced in polls or the whims of presidents or anyone else. So where is the legal basis for our action in Serbia?

    We have no formal declaration of war as required by the Constitution. We have no approval by the United Nations. Serbia/Yugoslavia are not members of NATO, nor did they attack NATO members. If there is a legal basis for this action, I am at a loss to identify it. Correct me if I'm wrong, but Clinton hasn't offered one, either. So I really think I am safe in saying that there is no legal basis for this action, and that is a real problem in a country that is (supposedly) governed by the principle of the rule of law.

    The best Clinton had to offer was a vague and undefined appeal to our "national interests." Really? What interests are those, pray tell? How is it in our national interest to stick our noses into this? How will the U.S. suffer by keeping out of it?

    Secondly, I have a hard time believing the "moral" claims made by our "fearless leader" as well. Our national "morals" are marvelously convenient: our leaders are aghast (and rightly so) at the killing of the Kosovars, yet they wink at the killing done by the Chinese. Worse, they grant Most Favored Nation trading status to the Chinese. This is grotesque hypocrisy, and it betrays the truth: morality has nothing whatsoever to do with what we are doing in Serbia. The only possible "morality" I can see is that of the schoolyard thug who picks only on the kids that are smaller than he is: in other words, this is no "morality" at all.

    I am not claiming that I can necessarily offer a more satisfying response to what is happening in the Balkans. But the justifications my "leaders" are offering are pathetic, and for that reason I can't support what we are doing.

    Now if anyone wants to tell me that it's better than doing nothing -- fine. So is bombing China for doing the same thing to its people. But we do even WORSE to the Chinese victims, because we look the other way. By bombing Serbia and not Beijing, we effectively deny that moral outrages are occurring in China literally every day. And to say "Well, we do what we can" is a pathetic excuse too. This is the ethics of the bully again, who won't pick on someone his own size. Let's see how seriously our "leaders" take their newfound morality: let's see them bomb Beijing. Until they do, this Serbia thing is a load of hypocritical trash.

    And it isn't making things any better, either -- as the news reports show.

  • This is exactly the problem with what is going on in Serbia. The United States government consists of moralizing hypocrites when they attempt to justify this military action as "humanitarian." We've heard this before, back in the Persian Gulf (at least then there was actually an invasion by Iraq of another country, but let's face it: that war was about oil, not Kuwaiti independence).

    Until and unless our Fearless Leaders decide to play actual hardball with the Chinese, all this talk about "preventing genocide" is just that: talk. There is nothing moral whatsoever about what the U.S. is doing there. We circumvented the U.S. Constitution, which requires a declaration of war. We ignored the U.N. charter. Unless the NATO charter has been revised, we also ignored the fact that NATO is a defensive organization.

    This is nothing more than Bill's next Excellent Adventure. It disgusts me, and I am ashamed to be an American because of it.

  • > You can't say the US has noe done any good for > the world myman because we have.....

    Yeah. Remember Vietnam? It wasnt a war, it was a peace action, right? The Americans decided that it would be better for Vietnamese not to eat rice, but try BicMac instead, so they pulled the troops in.
    Oh wait.....
    I guess Denny's wanted to open a restraunt in Iraq too, but Saddam would not let them, so Americans pulled the troops in again.

    Stop hiding behind the planes. Pull the ground troops in, so that some of them get killed, and then american public can start whining about how it's not their war, and why should the american citizens die in it. End of story, get the troops out, land the planes, leave the country.
    Is that too much to ask?
  • I think you should go back to playing your little game and wait until you grow up.
    You fail to realize that this is not YOUR war. Nobody is threatning the US. Nobody is killing AMericans there. It's the US that is screwing things up.
    Move in troops....then you'll have some dead boys, and you know what? I'll be glad if that happens. Because the US just can not keep it's hands where they belong.
    I guess Bill needed something to get people off Monica...and here Kosovo got in the way. Like I proposed earlier, maybe you should start bombing Northern Ireland too.
  • Yeah, and turn the rest of Europe into one big iceskating arena too? You stupid idiot, you can't just nuke them without having some impact on your own country. Oh wait......Oh yeah, the US is all by itself, away from the targets. Sure, why not nuke them then? You can take your europe vacations and enjoy rides through wasteland and get a whole load of fun seeing different mutants.
    Nuking is not an answer. Get the fucking planes down to the ground, and leave them alone. Or maybe US should start bombing Northern Ireland too?
  • >One more tendency in Russia is looking for one
    >'common enemy'

    Wake up. Russians (at least me and people I know) are not looking for the enemy. The NATO agression on Yugoslavia is actually a demonstration of the new world order to all the independent countries all over the world.

    That's the reason why most Russians (almost all of young people, that's for sure) are very angry about actions of NATO and Mr. Adolf Clinton.

    And about antisemitism...look around, man. It happens everywhere. What about racism in US or UK? Are trying to make me think that it does not exist?

    People target US as a object of their hate, not because they're dissatisfied in their everyday life and an enemy is needed. US and NATO are killing innocent people and that should be stopped - that's it.
  • >You'd think it should be the other way around...very odd.

    I don't think so. After all, openness = security is what open source advocates have been preaching all along, no?
  • I disagree with you there. You cant just going bombing places because there is violence there. The capacity for indiscriminate violence exists everywhere. IT exists in the US to a large extent. Given the right situation, the people of the US WILL comming terrible crimes - genocides. This is true of ALL countries. The common factor in all these situations is this: change approaches and a large section of the population is left behind, disenfranchised by the change. This is true of the serbs today. It was true of the Germans during Hitler's time. IT is true when you look at white supremacist extremism in the northern US. It is true even in my home country of India, where the dominant hindus are extremely bitter about their situation and are taking it out on the christian population there. Annihilation is not a solution. If that is the only solution you can think of, I hope I will never see the day that anybody like you will ever hold any position of power. In this situation, my anger is more toward NATO than Milosovech. You will always have madmen, they are a dime a dozen. It is up to the "intelligent" and "rational" to deal with them in a responsible way. NATO is not dealing with this situation in a responsible way at all. I even question the RIGHT of NATO to do this. The UN is where the decesion to attack must be made, if it is made at all. The UN might at least be considered half-way impartial and not completely under the sway of the doctrines of the United States. The NATO decesion is a unilateral decesion, which I am very wary of.

    By It's rash actions, NATO has significantly worsened the situation in Kosovo. I keep saying NATO, but that is a misnomer. We all know who the big guy is here: the United States of Glorious America. NATO is just a front organization for legitimizing the US's actions as "valid" in the eyes of the international community.

    This is going to be messy. People are going to die - and it could have been prevented. It is the US's (NATO's) irresponsibility that has caused the death of these people. Tribal hatred cannot be dealt with by using bombs.

    -Laxative
  • The us government deserves all that it is getting, and I hope that they get all thats coming to them. After all, their utterly STUPID, RASH, IRRESPONSIBLE move has pretty much caused the ethnic cleansing of a people. Dont get me wrong, I'm no Serb apologist - I know full well what's going on in Kosovo, and I personally compare Milosovech to a less-rabid Hitler. But the thing that really irks me is: Did NATO think for 1 minute before attacking? Does NATO care one ounce for the Albanians? NO they dont. The NATO campaign has FAILED MISERABLY, but everyone is too proud to admit it. They bring pictures of weapon silos and say "Look at how we bomb them. Look at how precisely our bombs hit their targets. Look at the big explosions. Are they not nifty?????". While NATO is busy bombing away, sporting their full fledged penile erection, more and more people are being killed.

    What do you do when you have a madman holding a country hostage - go in and start shooting indiscriminately? Make that another botch-up for the U.S. and their merry men.

    Remember this: NATO (Mainly the US and UK) is at least HALF as responsible for the slaughter going on in Kosovo as Milosovech. It showed absolutely NO responsibility in it's planning, it showed absolutely NO consideration for the situation in Kosovo, and NO consideration for what might happen if it went in and started playing the US's trademarked -COWBOY POLITICS-.

    Fuck the US. Fuck clinton. Fuck blair. Fuck milosovech.

    -Laxative
  • Nobody gives a Rat's ass anymore. The implications that Wild Bill is attacking Serbia to draw attention away from his sexual affairs is ridiculous, because in most American minds, it's a dead issue, AND his approval ratings (pre-bombing campaign) are as strong as the ever were.

  • Does the U.S. need Living Space(tm)?
  • The propaganda level is high, but there are still a lot of people against it. Especially against using ground troops...
  • I was talking about the recent rape allegation, not the impeachment trial. I agree that that is over and done with (I was in favour of censure)..
  • Of course.... seeing as how he wrote the TCP/IP protocol and built routers out of his garage, they've got the IT king of the world on staff at the white house, doing absolutely nothing.

    On the other hand, maybe Cisco et al. are all secretly run by Al Gore....
  • I'd love to see curse words accepted by media

    I agree. The media here in Central Europe use curse words quite liberally, and it doesn't look like that had an adverse effect on my education. Also, any child hears those words in school all the time, so who are they trying to protect?
    To get back on topic, the article says that there's no easy defense against denial-of-service attacks. I might be wrong, but isn't there an option in the Linux kernel against them?

    Gergo
  • I'm rather surprised that the article directly quoted words which one does not generally find in the mass media. I actually think it's somewhat refreshing, however. I'd love to see curse words accepted by media (especially goddamn.. it's a religious curse, which gov't should not affect, as per the seperation of church and state, but that's a big tangent right there..). Anyways, just my two yen.

  • Now hang on there a minute, pardner...

    I'm not happy either with NATO actions against a sovereign country's internal affairs. I can certainly see the point of the other posts about areas of the world that may deserve the same treatment, and I'll be the first to admit that it's hard to justify the US' erratic foreign policy in those cases. I would have been much happier to see the whole thing go through the UN, rather than NATO.

    That being said, I can't agree with your view that the US is somehow causing ethnic cleansing in Kosovo. People have been killing each other for centuries in Yugoslavia for the same stupid reasons. I see no reason to believe that the same thing won't continue with or without NATO actions in the area. Blaming the NATO attack for the ongoing massacre in Kosovo makes no more sense than blaming the Allies for the Holocaust during world war II. Totalitarians like Milosevich will act this way whether or not anyone opposes them.

    However, members of the international community can bring pressure to bear when dictators act like this. In most cases this pressure is limited to diplomatic action. In this case diplomacy seems to have failed, and some sort of attempt to remove the Serbian ability to attack their own citizens seems justified to me. As I said, I would have much rather seen UN action in this situation. But however unhappy I may be with the course of events leading up to the NATO air strikes, I would be much more disappointed to see the rest of mankind stand idly by during the massacre in Kosovo. Persons and nations of good conscience have a responsibility to stand up for what they think is right, and that is what we are seeing from NATO today.

  • Actually, I don't think anyone has seen footage of mass murders, because Serbia expelled all journalists a couple days ago. Reports from the refugees are pretty convincing, however. But I'm sure it's a lot easier for leaders in Russia to dismiss these reports as NATO propaganda if there is no hard evidence being shown on Russian TV.

  • Who said anything about anarchy? I'll be the first to admit that I don't want to live in one. I like my electrical power and health care highly available, thank you very much.

    If I'm incorrect about the number or nationality of the journalists, I apologize. However, while there is propaganda afoot, it isn't what you think.

    Think about it: if there is no ethnic cleansing going on, why expel any journalists at all? Certainly a nation at war expels diplomats and ambassadors from other nations it feels threatened by. But if Serbia is the victim of the evil NATO forces, why not allow all of these Western journalists to stay in the country and observe the Serb contention that there are no atrocities taking place? Surely that would be a better policy - if NATO is so clearly in the wrong, then the more journalists from different nations that point out that fact, the better.

    Instead, the government of Serbia (not necessarily the Serbian people) is doing everything necessary to show the world that they really are serious about killing a lot of civilians. They have removed any oversight by international news organizations and there are thousands of people fleeing Serbia with stories of atrocities by the "police forces". If the atrocities are being perpetrated by rioters and looters, why is only one ethnic group fleeing Kosovo? If 90% of Kosovo is Albanian, 10% is Serbian, and the province is in a state of anarchy, wouldn't you think the minority Serbians would be the people fleeing over the border into Macedonia and Albania?

    The international community can't be expected to ignore the best information available about the situation and merely hope for the best about the Serbian government's intentions. It is exteremely difficult to believe that Serbia is the victim under these circumstances - after all, if it walks like a genocidal totalitarian regime and talks like a genocidal totalitarian regime, it probably is a genocidal totalitarian regime.

  • I realized how the Whitehouse says "It was hardware failure." Heh... They are so full of it, they are starting to believe it.Its typical government work.
  • I agree. A politician can say what he wants about God, Satan, the Tooth Fairy. It is protected speech under the First Ammendment. Congress passing laws prohibiting or encouraging religion is what is illegal.

    By the way, Separation of Church and State for those of you who are not in the know (if you are not then you need to be) is in no way mentioned in the Constitution of the United States. It was mentioned in a personal letter of Thomas Jefferson. Just an added tidbit of trivia knowledge.
  • Yes I was talking about that specific phrase. The first ammendment, however does not prohibit politicians, leaders, or governemental officials from talking religously. It prohibits Congress and Congress only from passing legislation respecting or prohibiting religious establishments and excerise. Separation of Church and State has worked its way into law by case law and precedence. That is why you can outlaw prayer in school, not because of the First Ammendment.
  • You, sir or m'am have no clue what you are talking about. Get one or don't post anonymously. I am surprised that post wasn't moderated.
  • That's the first or second website everyone goes to when they get an internet account, and they never visit again.

    No kidding. And the Wired story is hardly what I would call `well-researched'. Sounds like rumors and speculation based on a minimal set of facts. Knocking out a server that no one uses while not touching the related e-mail server makes absolutely no sense. I'm willing to believe it was a hardware failure -- computer hardware does in fact fail.

    Mike
    --

  • First of all, it's not crackers -- it's HACKERS. Hasn't anyone noticed how lagging the news on Slashdot are? For a truly spirited discussion, stop wasting your time and read Virtual Russia: Saving NATO Prestige [anyforum.com]
  • That could possibley explain why it was down all day, Al was the one fixing it.

    He spent all day on hold calling tech support.

  • Go read some more New York Times... "In the media we trust!"

    As mother Pilar used to say, "go defile thyself."

  • However,

    Suppose the sysadmins for whitehouse.gov discovered an "about to be successfull" cracking attempt in progress. (Perhaps they caught a web page being replaced with a modified one. They might even run a deamon that emails a sysadmin if any online page gets modified without pre-authorization.)

    They might have deliberately shut the server down while they figured out how to plug the security hole that the crackers were exploiting.

    BTW: my opinion of the credibility of the whitehouse varies depending on the subject matter.

    In this case, if whitehouse.gov was cracked, or ALMOST cracked. There's NO WAY IN HELL I think the whitehouse would openly admit to it.
  • The whitehouse.gov servers are run by a federal bureacracy for essentially public relation purposes. No national or presidential security issues are relevant here, so the people running the servers are, most likely, not very-highly-super-duper security conscious.

    Of course, if the server was hacked, it's a major loss of face for the White House, but it should be used to it by now, shouldn't it? ;)

    Kaa
  • Usually, what you do when there's a military conflict and

    Actually, re-calling your ambassador is a prelude to war. Once the ambassador has returned home, a declaration or war and/or mobilization willl occur.

    The Russians are opposing the attack on the Serbs for the same reason they back them in WWI, Pan-Slavism, "the brotherhood of Slavic nations." The Russians feel united with the Serbs, much the same way we feel connected with England and other English-speaking countries.

    War with Russia is still very far off, however. The need for the money that the NATO nations represent FAR outweighs the Pan-slavic feelings in Russia.

  • Many people on /. have commented about Desert Storm being about oil. However, I think they're misunderstanding what oil we were protecting. At the time of the Iraq invasion, the US recieved little or no oil from Kuwait. Japan bought most Kuwaiti oil (~90%). The reason we became involved was because Hussein also threatened the oilfields of E. Saudi Arabia, which we do buy millions of barrels of oil from.

    So, we moved into a defensive position in Saudi Arabia, but we did not have enough equipment/people to defend against Hussein. So, it was obvious the only way we would be able to increase the amount of defense forces in the region would be to convince the public that Iraq must be stopped and that Kuwait must be liberated.

    That being said, the situation in Kosovo is completely different. The only people who stand to gain anything from this are the other Balkan nations (Bulgaria, etc). If these attacks were not happening, the flood of Albanian refugees would begin to destablize the entire region, setting off civil wars in the adjoining countries. Has anyone seen anything that we will be getting out of this?
  • hey, somebody posted this address
    http://www.OCCAVIATIONANDSPACE.EDU

    this is the same graphic that was on
    the navy web page over the weekend!

  • I spent most of Saturday in IRC, #kosovo. There
    I found out about a navy page that had been
    "cracked". It was very funny. I captured the
    page, had to have proof. Russians took credit
    for doing it.

    Is this kind of thing easy????
  • how odd

    check out IRC #kosovo
    it's funny
  • Yes you are right. But nevertheless, the tactic of 'common enemy' is used by the media to lure the attention from our own immediate problems.


    Characteristically, Russia's unability to influence anything in Yugoslavian war proves your point of 'new world's order'.


    Yes you are right russian young people seem to be quite concerned with the issue. So i got a dozen or so of these chain letters telling me to write to President Clinton or to go to whitehouse.gov page. That can appear to be a more likely reason for the server to have had downtime: storm of email ~plus~ Melissa.


  • The anti-NATO - anti-US mood is quite common right now in Russia, and it has gone quite far: even to the point that they take volunteers to go to Kosovo. So breaking into US Gov.'s server seems logical expression of the common attitude.


    One more tendency in Russia is looking for one 'common enemy' - what US used to be during Cold War period. Having all the problems Russia has now, blaming someone certainly brings some relief, sortof.. Jews used to be main target, but now US can be as good a target to direct the fury and general dissatisfaction. Basically, it could have been anyone else.

  • According to Netcraft [netcraft.co.uk] ,
    www.whitehouse.gov is running Netscape-Communications/1.1 on IRIX     . Not that bad!
  • I wonder if I crack a goverment server and post that Zimbabve is demanding to stop agression, will you write the same reply. Or do you really think that cracking was the nation wide action involving KGB and OMON (special police forces).
    This is an act of two or three crackers that want to cover under the noise of the bombing.
    Russia indeed has problems and maybe politicians blame outside sources, common people blame those politicians.

    P.S. The only act of protest I know is that several Russian rock groups didn't come to the concers in NY this weekend. That was frustrating.

  • Posted by Lassie:

    I agree almost 100% on your post. I think the US means well but without ground troops they are not going to stop this blood bath. It makes me sick just hearing about this killing. Why can't we all just get along. I think the US and all the other countrys need to keep in mind that our actions could stop or start the next ww and that to stop the killing ground troops need to come and inforce the peace. If it means 500 million a year to keep the peace in the area it is well worth it.
  • Right away I noticed they were using the word "cracker" and not "hacker". Its about fscking time someone got it right. (Granted, this is Wired, but even they keep using the hacker==malevolent meaning all the time.)
  • If Americans were really the altruistic, mature, caring people you seem to believe them to be, why aren't they bombing Turkey and Iraq (for massacres of Kurds), Britain (for Northern Ireland), and China? Or themselves for Haiti?

    For that matter, why are they bombing at all?

    One truth is that the Americans are leading the charge back to global anarchy. They did an end-run around the UN and attacked a sovereign nation in a volatile region. Am I the only one who thought 'blitz krieg' (sp?) when NATO announced the original plan?

    If news reports are to be believed (and that's a big if), they also succeeded in accelerating the purging.
    --

  • I would dispute that there is "always" hypocrisy in government. I'm not suggesting that any government would or could consist of some saintly class of men who are untouched by human frailties, but there's a difference between being flawed, doing bad things, and being a hypocrite. We aren't required to settle for hypocrisy on this scale in our leaders. The fact that we do is a greater condemnation of us than of them.

    Morality in politics usually is soiled by appeals to pragmatism. In that you are correct. The question here is whether that is a good thing. How important to us are ethical positions which we'll scrap for "pragmatic" reasons? I submit they aren't very important to us at all. And that again demonstrates how feeble appeals to morality are in the present conflict in Serbia. Let's be honest, Mr. President: the reason we are bombing Serbia into the Stone Age is not because "it's the right thing to do" but because we can. And we don't do it to China because we can't.

    This is not an ethical position. It's laughably pathetic. It's inexcusable.

    No one ever says "the right thing to do would be to bomb China, but we just can't do it because they're too dangerous." That would betray how frail our public morals really are. The truth is something different. It's not politically expedient to bomb China, but it obviously is plenty okay to bomb Serbia.

    Again, I'm not trying to condone the killing of the Albanians by their own government. But I'm certainly not going to condone my own country's power-drunk assaults on the Balkans either -- until someone presents a valid ethical or legal argument for it. I haven't seen one, and I don't expect to see one either.

  • Human nature makes me sick

    The part of human nature that makes me especially sick is that which believes everything their television and government tells them. Another part of human nature that is annoying is hypocritical part which puts a blind eye to Northern Ireland yet bumbles around interefering with non-allied countries. Another part of human nature that is troubling is the part that prefers to spend money on blowing things up rather than supplying aid and education to those who need it.

    Of course, my favourite part of human nature is that which destroys small european natures to cover up a president's latest sexual adventures...

  • Oh yes, of course the US are stepping in to prevent the next world war. Of course. Everyone knows that politicians are just a bunch of cuddly altruists. No way would a goverment put politics in the way of the good of the people.
    That's why the lovely US fought in the Gulf as well, because they deeply care about freedom. No way did it have anything to do with nasty, dirty oil.
    I for one sleep soundly knowing that the lovely, lovely, lovely (oh and cuddly too) US is there looking out for me and evryone else on this big, silly old planet.
  • Seems like with computer guru Al Gore hanging around the white house they shouldn't have these problems. After all, he did invent the internet, right?
  • It's strange that OCC hasn't noticed their new home page... the cracked version is still up.
  • I get so tired of ignorant people. Idiot serbs take up for their crazed dictator leader. Russians don't even realize that its is almost the start of another holocaust. They are all damned idiots that don't even realize the US is stepping in to try to stop the next world war / holocaust from happening. Frankly, I think I will be glad when we don't have to live on the Earth. (Who says I'm talking about other planets?)
    Human nature makes me sick, at least the Americans in charge of this situation are the most mature of all of them involved.

  • Internet Wars (Score:3)

    by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday March 30, 1999 @07:14AM (#1957206)
    Hmm, this is really interesting. Are we seeing the dawn of an age of electronic agression? Since so much of North America and Europe is dependent on electronic communications, and Internet communications in particular, it is not impossible that in the future, individual politically-minded crackers can strike at foreign governments and take down a significant part of their infrastructure.

    The goal of the NATO bombings is to take out Yugoslavia's infrastructure... To destroy Yugoslavia's capability to produce goods and maintain a line of communication. Certainly, a dedicated group of crackers could do the same to an Internet-savvy nation.

    Is the day near when we will see a one-man war against, say, the United States? I know, it's fantasy. But this article makes it seem plausible to me.

  • Unacceptable Act of Agression (Score:3)

    by the_tsi ( 19767 ) on Tuesday March 30, 1999 @07:11AM (#1957207)
    This is a hideous act of agression with the sole intent of instigating an international incident. The United States must declare war immediately. There is no other option. Whitehouse.gov is the cornerstone of the American Internet. Without it, there would be no way for United States citizens to learn the goings-on of the President, the Vice President or the entire Executive Branch of the government.

    Premeditated acts of terrorism like this cannot be tolerated. It is time for America to stand up for itself and deal a crushing blow to the country of origin of this electronic invasion.

    Er?

    Wait a second. It's www.whitehouse.gov. That's the first or second website everyone goes to when they get an internet account, and they never visit again. It's probably the first thing that 12-year-olds try to hack as soon as they get their AOL account. There certainly isn't any worthwhile information on it that can't be obtained elsewhere.

    What a waste of a posting. :)

    -Chris

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