If CNN DID get knocked off the web then it would INCREASE the total percentage of news.

CNN is to news what your average mobile phone company is to customer care.

In my experience all servers are being probed all the time from everywhere. So the idea that a group would organize a *start* time for a hack is laughable. If there's no holes then there's no way into the server, so a hack could last forever, if you put off starting it for a day, then it would be forever and a day before CNN was 'hacked'.

Likewise the element of surprise angle, with servers being attacked continuously, a 'surprise' would be if they stopped being attacked!

ElReg perhaps could look in their SSH and FTP log files and publish a list of all the attempts to hack it. Just to illustrate what actually happens to servers on the net.

Who could tell, and would it change anyones day I doubt it they may DOS them at will for all I care. OTOH what are they trying to accomplish with this silly crap it certainly doesn't make me change my mind about how they treat Tibetans.

What on earth are you talking about. The article is about a DDOS attack. That nearly always has a start time. The distributed clients stream the data continuously to the site from that point until either they are turned off again or the site can identify each of the clients and block them.

Why would ELReg want to publish SSH and FTP log files, no normal person would be interested, it could compromise their security and it wouldn't show anything.

No wonder you posted as AC.

I'm guessing these guys don't really understand what this human rights thing is all about, do they? Surely they'll only get worse press internationally because of it?

Also, I love how the Chinese Communist Party can block information over the Internet at will, but when it comes to viruses and attacks, the great firewall of China is curiously permissive...

Work with Asian allies (ASEAN?), Japan, South Korea, blackhole Internet traffic to the US and other countries coming from China. Hell surround them and block them off from the world even better. If it weren't for the rest of the world buying their $hit (and I mean that!), China would be NOTHING (and that includes MANY MANY CNN viewers!). I think it really shows China's TRUE character as a country when they think they have the right to conduct themselves like this. How is this any different than terrorism conducted by Muslim radicals against anyone who disagrees with or opposes them? And I am probably the billionth person to say this, but WHY oh WHY do major industrial nations around the world continue to reward China with massive amounts of trade...the US gives them MFN trade status...we allow them to host the Olympics after the horror they pulled in Tibet (now and back in the 50's) and Tiannamen Square years ago...and then they threaten to attack Internet sites outside their borders? I could go on. Here's a newsflash...we are EMPOWERING China to be a terror and a bully especially in Asia by flooding China with money! We will only have ourselves to blame for what happens next, when China decides it is no longer content within its own borders, when the urge to invade Taiwan can no longer be resisted, and when the urge to smash anyone who opposes them becomes too great. China would have you believe that they are benevolent and that other countries (countries from the West in general) are the problem, but China is really just a wolf in sheep's clothing.

Your refering to brute force attacks. Your right in that any ftp server and or ssh server using default ports and open to anyone will suffer from brute force attacks (people / apps trying to guess the root password etc...).

*Some* older versions of sshd and inferior ftp servers may fall over in the attempt to brute force them.

No Paris here - because i'm not keen on really stale, tired and unfunny jokes.

Switch to luby on lails...aiui Chinese hackers can spend hours searching for the software not realising the faux pas they make.

Take a look at your great country (yes - I'm making an assumption, but probably a pretty accurate one given your immoderate rant), what makes you think the China is the only country unilaterally doing what the hell they like? Why oh why does anybody trade with the US, given the lopsided nature of their "free trade" deals etc. etc.

"We will only have ourselves to blame for what happens next, when the US decides it is no longer content within its own borders, when the urge to invade Iran can no longer be resisted, and when the urge to smash anyone who opposes them becomes too great. The US would have you believe that they are benevolent and that other countries (countries from the levant in general) are the problem, but USA is really just a wolf in sheep's clothing."

amazing what a couple of wholly appropriate substitutions do to your "argument", no?

US bad - no argument.

China VERY bad - ask any Tibetan or any native of East Turkestan.

Perhaps you could ask each of China's neighbours - they seem to be in dispute with all of them.

China's version of history makes as much sense as creationism - it's amazing that the natives believe such rubbish.

China has invaded India (1962), Tibet (1949), Vietnam (1979), East Turkestan (1949), and then of course there's Korea.

Also let not forget China's persecution of Falun Gong.

Can I have a two carrier bags icon please?

Nice!

My, my !! And there I was thinking the George (Dubya) Bush was dead set against cloning !! How the American population must have grown !!

If I've told you once, I've told you a million times; stop exaggerating !!

w00, I'm impressed at your gook/geek gag.

> Oh Ishkandar, how your double exclamation marks with preceding space hurt my eyes.

Thank you. I was afraid I was the only one.

:-)

Welcome to capitalism. Pecunia non olet.

"China bad - no argument.

US VERY bad - ask any Iraqi or any native of Afghanistan.

Perhaps you could ask each of US's neighbours - they seem to be in dispute with all of them.

US's version of history makes as much sense as creationism - it's amazing that the natives believe such rubbish.

US has invaded Cuba (1961), Laos (1971), Vietnam (1962), Somalia (1992), and then of course there's Korea, Haiti, Panama, Granada, Cambodia, Dominican Republic, Iraq, Afghanistan...

Also let not forget US's persecution of, well, everyone including their own public.

Can I have a two carrier bags icon please?"

I find it hard to defend China. I find it difficult to take any US opinion seriously when everything they preach is, almost without exception, hypocritical.

"Work with Asian allies (ASEAN?), Japan, South Korea, blackhole Internet traffic to the US and other countries coming from China. Hell surround them and block them off from the world even better."

There's always some sort of idiot who rants on about stuff they know nothing about. The internet is a series of interconnected networks and computers, even if you block them off they can still get access to the outside world through proxy, be it through Russia, Iran or some other country who won't go along with your stupid idea (by the way, there is a lot of these countries which don't see eye to eye to the west's naivity). So in theory, you'll have to block them off too.

RE: "Oh Ishkandar, how your double exclamation marks with preceding space hurt my eyes."

You've had since Friday to recover from the Reg birthday party...

The US imprison a higher percentage of their population than China (than every other country on the planet in fact) !! The US start illegal or unjustified wars in way more places than China !! Iraq, Somalia, Panama, Vietnam, (and I'm just sticking with the one's they've lost) !! Bombing of Sudan and Libya !! I could keep listing them !! Suspension of all rights in a hell hole prison camp on an annexed section of another country (Guantanamo Bay) !!

Don't think that China is the only one with civil rights issues !! It isn't that long ago that the US actively discriminated against the black population !! And don't try and be athiest in the US, you'll get discriminated against for that !!

Double exclamations marks included for Sarah's personal pleasure !!

"Perhaps you could ask each of China's neighbours - they seem to be in dispute with all of them."

Perhaps you're talking from your rear-end? China has no significant disputes with any of its neighbours.

"China has invaded India (1962), Tibet (1949), Vietnam (1979), East Turkestan (1949), and then of course there's Korea."

Tibet and Xinjiang are both within China's internationally recognised borders. It's funny how China "invaded" India when China had spent years building a road in the disputed area and the first that the Indians knew of it was when they saw the newly built road marked on Chinese published maps.

I'm surprised you have the audacity to mention Korea. The US invaded Korea, China repeatedly warned the US not to cross the 38th parallel, the US with their customary arrogance dismissed those warnings and the rest is history. If you feel there's no justification for China's intervention in the Korean War then try justifying the so called Monroe Doctrine.

I've always wanted to be rich !!

I am amazed at how many of you can seriously spout cr*p about how the US is just as bad as China. It shows a lack of intellectual honesty when you draw surface parallels without bothering to dig for underlying differences. Here are just a few examples:

"The US imprisions a higher % of people than anywhere else in the world" - How is the % relevant? Are you saying that the US unjustly imprisons? If that is the case then dicuss how the US is unjust to arrest drug offenders (which form a huge portion of the prison population) while China is justified in arresting human rights activists. Please also discuss US prisoner rights vs. those in China? After doing those two things do you still come to the same conclusion that the US and China are equivalent?

"The US starts illegal or unjustified wars in more places than China" - For this surface argument let's look at why the US has engaged in wars and how it conducts them compared to China. I will discuss the following ones which were brought up:

Iraq - removal of a dictator, attempt to create democracy in order to change fundamental nature of middle east by giving people freedom in the hope that they would therefore prosper and turn away from Islamic fundamentalism. Oil was not the driving factor but I don't have time to argue this specific point.

Somalia - Human rights driven, desire to stop genocidal killings

Panama - Removal of Noriega who was supporting drug trafficing to the US (though I question how we were involved in helping his career...)

Vietnam - attempt to repel communist invasion of the South. You can go either way here. If you like communist dictatorships then you would say US was evil here.

Let's now look at China

I don't have an exhaustive list of where China has fought in the recent past but I believe it includes Tibet, India, Vietnam, and Korea. I also believe that in 3 of 4 cases it was China attempting to grab land to make it part of China. In the case of Korea it was to help one of the most oppressive regimes on the planet in North Korea invade it's democratic neighbor.

Though I haven't studied this is great detail I feel safe in saying that China has not launched wars for humanitarian reasons but rather as land and power grabs. Where China marches in China stays. Contrast this with the US which does not keep the land it has invaded and instead tries (perhaps not successfully) to allow the people to replace deposed dictators with leaders of their own choosing.

Anyway that is just a few examples of how people need to dig a little deeper before they draw innaccurate parallels between the US and China. I am not trying to claim that the US is spotless, as I mentioned I question our tendency to prop up tin can dictators when they serve our schemes against communism for example. However, I don't believe that a country must be perfect in order to be considered morally superior to another country.

Now let the hate mail fly !!!!!!!!!

First of all it is USA not US

you are the United States of Amerika not THE United States. And I really wished they could change the name in USNAWCAM United States of North America Without Canada and Mexico.

Maybe it is you who has to do some more reading, research, digging. I am truly amazed that you can still believe that the war in Iraq is for humanitarian reasons. If you really want to change a country you have to give them the opportunity to change from withing. Forced changes from outside do not work as history has already proven. Try to think about Japan and the USA interventions there if you need a good example.

Well at least you've added another similarity with the USA and China; I didn't realise that the USA had citizens who blinkeredly followed the party line, ignoring facts and making skeptics and objectionists out to be the enemy.

Your statements really are so misinformed. I can do no better than to suggest you read some independent books on the subjects you seem to proclaim you know so much about - maybe start with Deliver us from Evil by William Shawcross. I then suggest you visit some of the countries themselves - try Vietnam. It might open your eyes a little.

"Why would ELReg want to publish SSH and FTP log files, no normal person would be interested, it could compromise their security and it wouldn't show anything."

Not it wouldn't compromise security and it would show normal people that machines are CONSTANTLY BEING ATTACKED on the web, its NORMAL AND DEFENDED. You publish the random attacks on your website's ftp and ssh ports and it shows the world the reality of the web. Constant attacks all the time from hacked machines everywhere.

It makes it clear as day to everyone what is clear as day to us server admins. When your servers are *not* under attack that is an *unusual* day.

kind of misses the point. as everyone else did as well...

What gives these chinese hackers the right to launch DDOS attacks against CNN for critisising their government is their sense of patriotism.

it's the same right that enables all US citizens to say that their way of life is better and should be imposed on everone else in the world.

it's no about who is worse as both are pretty shoddy but in different ways.

I do whois lookups on probes I see in FW logs and block the AS if it's Asia or S.Ameria. I don't want mail from them and they don't need to connect to my server.

This dude has a point. Although my opinions of the wars the US has launched is slightly more sceptic, I find it equally hard to put the US and China on the same level. At least in the US you have freedom of expression and religion. You can choose to disagree with the policies of the government. In China, you can't even express those opinions. We're not debating the morality of governments; almost every government in the world has it's own nationalistic agenda. But the oppression and control of the population is the problem. You should be able to complain if you're unhappy about your situation. You should be able to decide for yourself whether you want to join the army and go to war, or go down in the streets and protest. That is what China is lacking and that is why you can consider the US and other nations as democratically superior (and mind you i am not talking about morality or culture)...

I'm not sure I'd place the US and China together either, although the interesting thing is that it would seem that while China has its issues with human rights they are slowly getting better, whereas the USA is definitely slowly getting worse. Anyone want to wager when they will flip around? ;)

"I didn't realise that the USA had citizens who blinkeredly followed the party line, ignoring facts and making skeptics and objectionists out to be the enemy.

Your statements really are so misinformed. I can do no better than to suggest you read some independent books on the subjects you seem to proclaim you know so much about - maybe start with Deliver us from Evil by William Shawcross"

I found it interesting that you suggested the former commenter, another AC, read an independent book citing his ignorance of facts. Clearly a non-independent history book would be a better suggestion? So I thought to myself, "I wonder who William Shawcross is?" Lo and behold a writer for several left-leaning periodicals.

I think that in contrast to the other AC's overall point you are actually the one who brought a party line and ignoring facts to the discussion.

But this is often the tact of wiley conversationalists: To take a point, in the formers case, that comparing the US to China along political and judicial lines is poor logic, and to cause that discussion to suddenly turn to political parties and whether or not history itself truly happened as one or another professes.

Is there a competition here, to determine who is the "evilest"? As an external, self proclaimed judge, I call draw. Sure, there might be a tad more liberties for US citizens (though this is slightly disappearing), but China is clearly less intrusive in the outside world (there might be a discussion about Tibet, but no discussion is possible regarding Afganistan or, even worst Iraq, not to mention clueless interventions in Balkanic countries or the never-ending support to Israeli extremists). Any American citizen willing to put the Rights of Man in the balance should find a way to end the Guantanamo (and co) abomination.

Draw "game" untill then.

As for the IT angle, the 'ternet is an awfull place to be, thanks to various botnets relying on the vulnerabilities in an "USA-based" OS, so according to your "logic" we could claim that the USA have been recklessely trying to disrupt the entire interweb for the past 10 years at least. I can hear you cry foul, as some hackers are not USA-based, but hey, who made piles of monies from the lousy OS in the first place, who considered that security was not important? If you choose to send your customers hit the road with a "I'm rich, rob me" sign in their back, who's to blame if they get robbed?

No easy answer. Draw it is.