Information Security News: Hacker attack on Boxun website crashes 2,000 blogs

[InfoSec News <alerts () infosecnews org>]

http://www.boxun.us/news/publish/usa_news/CHINA-UNITES_STATES_Hacker_attack_on_Boxun_website_crashes_2_000_blogs.shtml

By RSF
Dec 27, 2007

Reporters Without Borders is outraged by a Distributed Denial of Service 
attack on the US-based, Chinese news website Boxun that was probably 
organised by hackers based in China. Some 2,000 blogs hosted on the site 
are down. Boxun editor Wei Shi told Reporters Without Borders: ?We have 
never before experienced such a DDOS attack, which consists of 
bombarding the site with an almost infinite number of connection 
requests. Our boxun.com/blog platform crashed on 24 December. We are not 
even sure if we will be able to recover all the data and we will have to 
find a new server.

This is not the first time Boxun has been hacked. An attack in August 
led to the suspension of about 10 US-based Chinese dissident sites.  
Hacker attacks on the site of dissident Huang Qi, 64tianwang.com, forced 
it to close in July. Journalists and dissidents who write for Boxun from 
China seem to be particularly targeted.

Sun Lin, who sent Boxun video reports under the name of Jie Mu, was 
arrested on 30 May in the eastern city of Nanjing after criticising 
abuse of authority. Huang Jinqiu, another regular Boxun correspondent 
was sentenced on 27 September 2004 to 12 years in prison for ?subverting 
state authority.? He was arrested in Lianyungang, in the eastern 
province of Jiangsu, in 2003.

Li Changqing, who also wrote articles for Boxun, was sentenced to three 
years in prison by a court in the city of Fuzhou, in the southeastern 
province of Fujian, for spreading ?alarmist reports.? Cyber-dissident 
and blogger He Weihua was forcibly confined to a psychiatric hospital in 
the southern province of Hunan in August. His family said it was because 
of what he had posted on his Boxun blog, www.boxun.com/hero/hewh/


__________________________________________________________________      
Visit InfoSec News
http://www.infosecnews.org/