DELETE
COMMAND EXECUTED
A
frantic phone call to our Webmaster revealed the awful truth:
Antiwar.com had been wiped clean off the cyber-map, utterly
destroyed – hacked to near death in a vicious cybernetic
attack. The invaders came in through a public FTP site, utilizing
a buffer
overrun – a technique that overloads a machine until
it is just about ready to crash – to assault our
ISP's server. At that moment of weakness, with security
completely down, they gained route access – and dumped
the entire web structure. To make matters worse, our server's
hard-drive was being repaired when we were attacked and so
it was mounted – which meant that when the hackers executed
the "delete" command, everything on the server was
deleted. Antiwar.com's files were the first to be attacked,
but every one of our ISP's clients lost three and a half weeks
of data. One indication that this was not a random attack
is that another antiwar website, emperors-clothes.com,
was also targetted: the editor of that site, Jared Israel,
has been very
visible in the effort to expose NATO's lies and the victimology
of the Bosnian Muslims, especially over the issue of Srebenicia.
They also dumped the tracking info – the electronic traces
every hacker leaves behind – but, thankfully, there were
a few logs they overlooked and we were able to recover a couple
of entries. Such as this
one – which, to all you techno-geeks out there, reads
plain as day. As for the rest of us, however . . .
MISS
MARPLE IN CYBER-SPACE
Okay,
let's look at it like this: the key phrase in this shard of
evidence is the following IP address: 195.222.45.80.
This is a European address, and so we go to the database site
of ripe.net (the
European equivalent of Network
Solutions (InterNic), a central registry of IP addresses,
like a phone book) and type in the address: 1-9-5-dot-2-2-2-dot-4-5-dot-8-0,
and bingo!
A
LITTLE DETECTIVE WORK
Three
names pop up: Nedim Dzaferovic, Samir Mekic, and Nihad Borovina,
all with Sarajevo addresses. Dzaferovic is listed as being
affiliated with something called the "Department of Intelligent
Network." Mr. Dzaferovic shows up on the
list of attendees at RIPE's 29th meeting, held
in Amsterdam January 28-29 at the posh Park
Plaza hotel, listed as representing "Public Ent[erprise]
PTT Bosnia and Herzegovina" – Bosnia's state-controlled
monopoly telecommunications company. On the website of the
Bosnian Commission for Real Property Claims of Displaced Persons,
Dzaferovic is listed as an official of the Bosnian government,
the "Director,
PTT Federation Telecommunications." And on the official
website of the 1999 Sarajevo Summit "Stability Pact," our
friend Dzaferovic is thanked by the web team, and his association
with BiH.net,
which describes itself as "the first Bosnian internet service
provider," is noted. Here is a
photo of Samir Mekic: obviously a Bosnian geek with hacker
tendencies. "The Network is down" reads the slogan on his
tee-shirt: yes, Samir, but wasn't it you brought it
down? We know that Mekic, too, attended the 29th
meeting of RIPE, representing the same Bosnian government
agency as Dzaferovic – along with the third cyber-musketeer,
Nihad Borovina.
THE
BOSNIAZATION OF THE INTERNET
Gee,
what a surprise that officials and employees of a government
often criticized in these pages would be motivated to hack
into our sites – or, at least, front for those who did.
Of course, in Bosnia, where all
internet access is controlled by the Bosnian Muslim government
– and all dissident media, such as Serbian radio and
television stations, have been closed
down – it is understandable that the concept of free
speech may
not be fully appreciated. But that's in Bosnia –
this is the good old USA. Surely no Bosnian government official
would dare try to close down American sites – or would
he?
THE
US MILITARY CONNECTION
In
an email to me, Joe Vigorito of Eagle Net, our internet service
provider, wrote: "Not sure what's up at this .80 IP as the
DNS server for the IP address was coming out of a .mil address
on the day of the attack. It now shows a bih.net server which
is the largest ISP serving Bosnia and Herzegovina." In an
interview, Vigorito told me that he had never seen anything
like it: the registration had been changed literally overnight.
Government-sponsored cyber-terrorism? Looks like it, but the
real question is: which government? The Bosnian government
would almost certainly not do this on its own authority: the
risk of being tracked down is too great. But acting under
the protection (and direction) of the US and/or NATO, our
Bosnian cyberterrorists might be suitably emboldened.
YOU
PAID FOR IT
The
Sunday attack had us down for only a few hours, but we had
a lot of repairing to do and the sites were not fully restored
for several days. However the shock of the attack has yet
to wear off – along with disgust at the knowledge that
our tax dollars, and yours, no doubt funded this act of cyber-thuggery.
For the government of Bosnia-Herzegovina is largely funded
by the US, with George
Soros picking up most of the rest of the tab. We've given
more than $5 billion in direct aid to Bosnia since 1995, a
good portion of it stolen by government officials, and
would it really be all that surprising if some of it paid
for training hackers in the art of war? Surely this qualifies
as military aid. And so we come to the ultimate irony of life
in Imperial America. A government whose only legitimate function
is to protect us from foreign invasion is now subsidizing
aggression against its own citizens. The same government that
is spending billions in the fight against "cyberterrorism"
and issuing a stream of legislation and proclamations designed
to "protect" us from what is alarmingly described as "an electronic
Pearl Harbor," is, on the other hand, enabling (if not
directly overseeing) a sneak attack on antiwar websites.
BEYOND
THE SHADOW OF A DOUBT
While
all the facts have yet to be uncovered – such as whether
the Bosnians were acting alone, or if they had help from their
NATO overlords – our investigation has established beyond
the shadow of a doubt that Bosnian hackers, using Bosnian
government facilities, were responsible for the July 30 attack
on these websites. Bosnia has no laws against cyberterrorism,
and whatever legal recourse we have is limited. We do, however,
have political recourse – since Bosnia is for all intents
and purposes a US protectorate. What is needed is an investigation
of the shenanigans going on under the sponsorship of the Bosnian
government – and not only by American law enforcement
agencies, but also by the US Congress. Surely our lawmakers
would like to know how their "foreign aid" money is being
spent – especially if it is being used to stifle free
speech in America much like it is squelched in Bosnia. If
this had happened to the New York Times, or CNN, the
US government would be in a veritable lather, and the Three
Stooges of cyber-space would be in some very hot water. Remember
that hacker in the Philippines who
unleashed the "Love bug" virus? They not only tracked
him down quickly, but they surrounded his house, while hurriedly
searching the law books for some applicable statute: then
they tried to put him away for as
long as 20 years. After the last spate of hacker attacks
on large commercial sites, President Clinton
called a cyber-summit and Janet
Reno announced a crackdown on "cybercrime" – and
a whole new set of Draconian regulations that would effectively
deliver the Internet to the tender mercies of the federal
government. Well go ahead, Janet – sic 'em! We're waiting.
. . .
CALL
THE COPS
Actually, this is a job for our
old friends at ACERT – the newly-created US agency that
is supposed to be going after "cybercrime" but, as I
pointed out in a previous column, seems more interested
in surveiling us. Gee, maybe I should give them a call and
let them know that a "cybercrime" has been committed –
but, come to think of it, they probably already know all
about it.
CYBER-GATE
– A SCANDAL UNFOLDING
The
Watergate
break-in was a penny-ante burglary that did not immediately
show up on the national radar screen: but as the story began
to unfold, and connections were made, the implications of
what seemed like a relatively trivial event began to sink
in – with major
consequences for all involved. While hardly on the same
level, the consequences of the recent break-in at our sites
could be similarly unpleasant for these bungling Bosnian cyber-"plumbers"
– and those who stand behind them. This is not something
that the journalistic community can afford to ignore -- for
if these vandals are allowed to get away with their crimes,
even after being exposed, they will strike again, and with
impunity. Who's next on their list?
SPEAK
YOUR MIND
Now
that they have been so ignominiously busted, it will be extremely
interesting to see how these cretins react. And you
can get a reaction out of them – by emailing or phoning
and telling them directly just what you think of their unethical
and illegal methods of political struggle.
Nedim
Dzaferovic (phone) +387 71 264 080 (fax) +387 71 650 211 –
e-mail: nedim@bih.net.ba
Samir
Mekic (phone) + 387 71 230 287 (fax) + 387 71 656 280 – e-mail:
Mekic@BiH.net.BA (or you can try: mekic@bigfoot.com).
Nihad
Borovina (phone) + 387 71 230 285 (fax) + 387 71 656 280 –
e-mail: nihad@bih.net.ba
I'm
sure they'd love to hear from you. . . .
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