Al-Jazeera suffers DoS attack

By Ian Fried and Patrick Gray, CNET News, 27 March, 2003 15:09

NEWS

The Web sites of Al-Jazeera have been taken offline, in what has been confirmed by the Qatar-based media organisation as a distributed denial of service (DDoS) attack against the company's Domain Name Servers (DNS). The agency, which operates an Arab-language site and launched an English-language Web site on Monday, provides a starkly different view on the war with Iraq than that offered by many Western media outlets. According to a report on ABC Online, the English site was hit almost immediately by what they have termed "hacker attacks" and technical glitches. The report quoted Al-Jazeera managing editor Joanne Tucker as saying "we've had a lot of obstacles thrown in our way." "I thought the launch of this site would be quite smooth and wouldn't make too many waves but the reaction has been amazing - it has been almost surreal." Today, the Aljazeera.net domain points to different DNS servers that are owned by US-based mydomain.com. However, ZDNet UK's sister site ZDNet Australia has found no 'zone file' in their servers that contains IP information for Al-Jazeera. This may mean that the organisation has simply 'parked' the domain name there until they decide on a course of action, rather than mydomain.com refusing to host the company's domain. Providers will often refuse service to companies that are targeted by DDoS attacks because of the adverse affect on other customers. Mydomain.com was unavailable for comment at the time of writing. Meanwhile, the companies that previously hosted Al-Jazeera's DNS's refused to comment on the attack. One of the companies, US-based NavLink, even declined to comment on why their own Web site was offline yesterday. Datapipe, who previously hosted Al-Jazeera's secondary name server, refused to comment on the phone, insisting that all enquiries be directed to the legal department of the company. But the company has stayed silent. Al-Jazeera's IT manager, Salah AlSeddiqi, has stated publicly that he believes the attack is being carried out by an organisation with "know-how and money." But others are pointing the finger at denial of service 'bot' networks set up by malicious hackers. Johannes Ullrich, chief technical officer of the SANS Institute's Internet Storm Centre, an Internet health monitoring organisation, says that it's most likely the case. "That's the typical thing that I would suspect. The Al-Jazeera people seem to think it's something more sinister but with IRC bots you can easily get that much bandwidth together," he said. Ullrich says that denial of service machines set up on cable user networks could pump out 300Mbps of traffic, the figure claimed by Al-Jazeera. "A thousand bots would do that... it's not unusual to see 10,000 bots in these networks," he said. The Al-Jazeera.net site, which is devoted to news on the conflict in Iraq, joins a chorus of voices emanating from the war zone, including individual blogs as well as the many TV broadcasts, radio reports, newspaper dispatches and other media reports. US military leaders have criticised Iraq for showing videotapes of US prisoners and some have extended that criticism to Al-Jazeera. "Needless to say, television networks that carry such pictures are, I would say, doing something that's unfortunate," defence secretary Donald Rumsfeld said on Monday in an interview on CNN's Late Edition. A Pentagon spokesman declined to comment on the site. Although some are likely to value a contrasting voice, the site is sure to be controversial, with features including "Coalition of the willing has become a joke" and "Has Israeli lobby influenced this war?" Among its dispatches on Monday was what it described as an eyewitness account of the assault on Baghdad. "Baghdad witnessed intense bombardment" begins the unbylined report, attributed simply to Al-Jazeera. "Glass panes on windows and doors of the Al-Jazeera Satellite TV office were shattered as shock waves ripped through the city. We still can smell gunpowder and smoke here." The report goes on to give details on an attack on the Al Salam palace, which Al-Jazeera said is used for hosting heads of state. "We visited this palace along with the Iraqi Minister of Information and saw the damage," the report said. "It was completely empty and devoid of the alleged weapons of mass destruction." The site also features a section devoted to 'global reaction', which focuses entirely on opposition to the war, including various protests as well as anti-war sentiments expressed during Sunday's Academy Awards.

For everything Internet-related, from the latest legal and policy-related news, to domain name updates, see ZDNet UK's Internet News Section. Let the editors know what you think in the Mailroom.

Post your comment

In order to post a comment you need to be registered and logged in.

You can also log in with Facebook. Log in or create your ZDNet UK account below

By signing up for this service, you indicate that you agree to our Terms and Conditions and have read and understood our Privacy Policy. Questions about membership? Find the answers in the Community FAQ

ZDNet UK Live

Make that 13 people now - I got refused today at Manchester airport. I thought I was up to date on this legislation - I knew of the EU ruling from...

2 hours ago by bootlegger on UK airport body scans will not be opt out

Don't forget to check out apps like GoodReader or SlideShark either, they're indispensible for people on the go in presentation situations. Best...

4 hours ago by tinycg on Four top iPad apps for people on the move

Well it seems there is something a number of us agree on. Why is the Ubuntu Unity launcher so ugly? I thought perhaps it was something to do with...

9 hours ago by TerryRK on A tale of two distros: Ubuntu and Linux Mint

Duplicate comments are not made intentionally. Its very good to know that now you are keeping check on this problem because sometimes a commenter...

18 hours ago by Freebies202 on Microsoft fixes blog comments, speeds up blogs with open source

"the very significant number of users" and "many (most) of us" - you have no evidence for these statements. It is a fact that most users are saying...

1 day ago by kevinmchapman on A tale of two distros: Ubuntu and Linux Mint

Another grammar faux pas is the improper use of "you". When sitting down down in a restaurant, for example, I get cringe when the waitress...

1 day ago by Marg Menzies Harrison via Facebook on 10 flagrant grammar mistakes that make you look stupid

And NOW, folks, for Canonical's next trick... Kubuntu is late. Here's a pencil. Draw your own conclusions. cf.:...

1 day ago by zdnetukuser on Linux Minterface

@kevinmchapman. The discussion here reflects the very significant number of users who really do like the traditional menu system and who wish to...

1 day ago by Moley on A tale of two distros: Ubuntu and Linux Mint

Er, no... It is an efficient means of finding the application/file/setting you need in one place. The icons are a simply a fallback for when you...

1 day ago by kevinmchapman on A tale of two distros: Ubuntu and Linux Mint

Isn't the provision of a text based search an admission by the developers that the mass of icons approach does not work? I don't need to use a...

1 day ago by TerryRK on A tale of two distros: Ubuntu and Linux Mint

"Unity and GNOME 3 both abandon the old text-based cascading menus in favour of a graphical icon-driven system." Point truly missed. Both use a...

1 day ago by kevinmchapman on A tale of two distros: Ubuntu and Linux Mint

whs001 - Thank you, I'm glad you liked the article. I absolutely agree with you on your first point. I should perhaps have made it clearer that...

1 day ago by TerryRK on A tale of two distros: Ubuntu and Linux Mint

If we allow corporate interest to dictate the way our government circumvents due process against foreign entities then we should accept the same...

1 day ago by Dennis Nilsson via Facebook on ACTA stumbles in Germany

I totally dislike pirating of works, I fear that artists will be deterred from creating works if they think that they are going to get ripped off....

2 days ago by GHar123 on ACTA stumbles in Germany

How dare film makers, artists or anybody that invests in creativity stop us pirating their works for free. I want to be able to walk into my local...

2 days ago by JCB33 on ACTA stumbles in Germany

@GrueMaster. I prefer horses for courses rather than one size fits all. I, and I suspect most other computer users, do not really wish to have...

2 days ago by Moley on A tale of two distros: Ubuntu and Linux Mint

The product that scares me every time I have to use it is the Office 2007 version of Excel. The first bug that I found was applying the median...

2 days ago by greycynic on Ten flawed products that derail productivity

Nice review and very informative. One thing I'd like to add (in reply to whs001's 1st question), the main reason to have the same interface from...

2 days ago by GrueMaster on A tale of two distros: Ubuntu and Linux Mint

I'be been using Mint 12 since the RC came out, and I am far more happy with the Cinnamon, the Mate, and, yes (with extensions), theGnome 3...

2 days ago by Frederick Wrigley via Facebook on A tale of two distros: Ubuntu and Linux Mint

Excellent article. One small correction, though--although a fresh installation of Linux Mint 12 will, indeed, provide the user with a version of...

2 days ago by bdantas on A tale of two distros: Ubuntu and Linux Mint

Featured white papers

Latest jobs

Al-Jazeera suffers DoS attack

Daily Newsletters

Topics

Related stories

Arab news site suffers outages

Al Jazeera launches Iraq site in English

Camera phones get the chop in Saudi Arabia

Heart of England NHS begins massive digitisation plan

Hard-drive woes hit PC shipments in fourth quarter

Post your comment

ZDNet UK Live

Latest in IT Strategy

Heart of England NHS begins massive digitisation plan

Hard-drive woes hit PC shipments in fourth quarter

Featured white papers

Latest jobs

PHP Web Developer - html, css, javascript

Java Developer, Online Gaming, London

Quant Dev, Hedge Fund, FX, Excel VBA

Inside ZDNet UK

A tale of two distros: Ubuntu and Linux Mint

2012 Predictions: VCE FastPath, VI SAN Probe & Hadoop

BlackBerry Bold 9790

Make faster, smarter decisions using BI

Ten factors that make Ubuntu 11.10 a hit

Toshiba Portégé Z830-10P Review

BT's archive: Pictures from the vault

News & Analysis

Reviews

Blogs

Resources

About Us

Member Services

Special Features

Advertising Features

ZDNet UK / News and Analysis / Business of IT / IT Strategy

Al-Jazeera suffers DoS attack

Daily Newsletters

Topics

Related stories

Post your comment

Get ZDNet UK's daily newsletter

Enter your email address to sign up

ZDNet UK Live

Latest in IT Strategy

Featured white papers

Latest jobs

Inside ZDNet UK

Resources

About Us

Member Services

Special Features

Advertising Features