We are developing the social individualist meta-context for the future. From the very serious to the extremely frivolous... lets see what is on the mind of the Samizdata people.
Samizdata, derived from Samizdat /n. - a system of clandestine publication of banned literature in the USSR [Russ.,= self-publishing house]
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It takes a special kind of idiot Okay, be honest now… this time last week, how many of you had heard of Georgian blogger Cyxymu? Hello? Anyone? No, I suspected as much. Me neither.
So… imagine you are some Russian nationalist jackanapes hoping to silence a critic of Russian foreign policy and you get a bright idea:
“Hey Boris! Lets unleash the bots of war and do a massive world wide takedown of Twitter, facebook and Livejournal so that no one will read those nasty things mean old Cyxymu is saying about Mother Russia!”
Pure genius. Now, does anyone who reads the tech press (or indeed the mainstream media) not now know who Cyxymu is?
Although Russia abounds with fascistic nationalists who could have done this off their own initiative, in truth an epic fail of this magnitude anywhere in the world generally implies government involvement.
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People who like to censor stuff have always run the risk of their efforts blowing up in their faces as they draw attention to the very thing that they are attempting to silence. They also seem to be amazingly slow to catch on no matter how many times their efforts result in precisely the opposite effect to the one that they had in mind. The internet magnifies this phenomenon almost to infinity and again those who would censor things appear to be very dim when it comes to knowing how the internet works. Blogs for instance have stuff piled on top of the old stuff on a regular basis, sometimes when I have newly discovered a particularly interesting blog I have trawled through quite a bit of the archive but as a general rule I, and I would guess most other people don’t. As a consequence, complaining about something brings an old article that scarcely anyone is looking at back to the top of the pile to be read by all the regulars again. This happened quite recently when the Guinness world records website sent a threatening e-mail to the Fail Blog.
Or…
Cyxymu hired out a bunch of Russian botnets (which are cheap as chips these days, it seems) and have them attack, so that everyone hears who he is.
Just sayin’…
Russia Reminds me of Germany after World War I. Defeated and learnt nothing from it.
Those that don’t learn from History are condemned to repeat it.
And all the apologists for Putin come out of the woodwork, both here and at the Guardian link you posted.
As an aside, the first time I saw Alfred Hitchcock’s Saboteur, I couldn’t help but think there was a striking resemblance between the bad guy (played by Norman Lloyd) and Putin. Not that Hitchcock had this in mind, of course….
Yeah, so cheap that must be why Livejournal and Twitter are getting taken down by huge bot-attacks on an almost weekly basis and therefore its is hardly even news any more. Oh, hang on…
Think before just sayin’
A foreign government targets significant US economic and communications infrastructure with intent to cause massive disruption?
Act of war anyone?
President Barack Obama is yet to appoint his “Cyber Czar” (promised before the election).
I think these non Senate confirmed high officers of the Executive are unconstitutional – but it is odd that Obama should appoint between 30 or 40 of them (more than any other President) and yet not appoint the one supposedly in charge of defence against internet attack.
On second thoughts perhaps it is good that Obama had not appointed the person yet.
As the Director of Cyber Security would be more likely to help in an effort to censor/close down the internet, than fight such an effort.
Oddly enough I doubt that Putin is a Marxist – many high ranking KGB people were not (they just paid lip service to Marxism), he is a pragmatic (if bloodsoaked) dictator.
The real ideological collectivist is not Putin – it is Obama.
And yet some people stilll do not understand that he is the American Chavez – they think (absurdly) in terms of Barack Obama being a “moderate” being led astray by the wicked Nancy Pelosi and co.
I should feel pity for people stupid enough to believe that – however, I just feel like throwing them in a pond.
Perhaps they are aiming to overflow the integer of failure wrapping right the way around into a win?
Do those words actually mean anything?
No, but the picture made me laugh.
OK, I’ll buy that.
It’s not clear here now what, if any, particular posting or prospective posting drew the attack, although the Russia-attacks-in-response-to-future-provocation stuff seems to fit the bill. The Sukhumi blog seems to have earned far more respect from Russia than has the feckless Obama administration.
Is there any significance to the name Sukhumi apart from its being the blogger’s home? It’s pretty far north; is it in Russian-occupied-and-ethnically-cleansed Georgia, or outside it?