NP but interesting

[Doug Millison]

From: "Michael Albert" <sysop at zmag.org>
Subject:  Update & Commentary from ZNet
Date: Sat, 28 Sep 2002 13:26:33 -0400


[...]

Report Two: Disinformation and Denial of Service Attacks

We and others are still under considerable sporadic internet attack. The
approach is: (a) The culprits send targeted individuals and
organizations huge numbers of emails, to try to clog their operations
and overtax their systems. For example, a few nights ago our servers
received about 35,000 illegitimate emails -- a few messages are sent to
us many many times each. (b) T culprits send out degrading or otherwise
misleading messages with false return addresses, trying to reduce the
credibility of the people falsely implicated in sending the offending
messages. Currently there are many graphics being sent around under
false pretenses, for example.

There have been some articles about what is going on -- and part of
their content has been accurate, though there have also been mistakes.
What we believe we know is that it is being done from inside Israel,
probably by four or five people, if not more, that those involved are
quite persistent even against significant disruption of their efforts,
and that the motive is clearly to discourage, interrupt, or discredit
people supporting Palestinian rights. There is no evidence that the
Israeli government is directly involved in the actual cyberattacks, nor
the U.S. -- but it is blatently obvious that neither the Israeli nor the
U.S. government is making any effort to curtail the illegalities.

For those not directly assaulted, the key things about this situation to
remember are first, to realize that there are very widespread
disinformation campaigns underway to discredit advocates of Palestinian
rights, and, to a lesser but still considerable extent, to also
discredit opponents of the war on terrorism and the proposed invasion of
Iraq. Please do not jump to conclusions when you receive offensive or
just plain odd email with content you simply would not have expected
from the named source. It is disinformation. And second, please realize
that the services of excellent outfits that utilize the internet may be
temporarily slowed or disrupted at any time. Please have patience and do
not make such violations more effective by becoming distraught with your
sources of valuable information.

[...]

 ZNet (http://www.zmag.org)