China Appears to Attack GitHub by Diverting Web Traffic

HONG KONG — The Chinese government has long used a sophisticated set of Internet filters known as the Great Firewall as a barrier to prevent its citizens from obtaining access to foreign websites with information it deems threatening.

But in a recent series of cyberattacks on websites that try to help Internet users in China circumvent this censorship, the Great Firewall appears to have been used instead as a weapon, diverting a portion of the torrents of Internet traffic that flow through it to overload targeted websites.

China Appears to Attack GitHub by Diverting Web Traffic

So China is apparently attacking a company based in San Francisco (GitHub) because it has two pages on its site that allow people in China to circumvent the "Great Firewall".

In effect, China is extorting compliance from GitHub by preventing legitimate transactions from working while they perform a DDOS (Distributed Denial of Service) attack on their website. As it says in the article:

“This is a message to the people who maintain GitHub: Either you kick out GreatFire and The New York Times, or we’ll keep this up,” said Mikko Hypponen, the chief research officer at the security firm F-Secure.

What kind of response can we expect?

originally posted by: BomSquad

HONG KONG — The Chinese government has long used a sophisticated set of Internet filters known as the Great Firewall as a barrier to prevent its citizens from obtaining access to foreign websites with information it deems threatening.

But in a recent series of cyberattacks on websites that try to help Internet users in China circumvent this censorship, the Great Firewall appears to have been used instead as a weapon, diverting a portion of the torrents of Internet traffic that flow through it to overload targeted websites.

China Appears to Attack GitHub by Diverting Web Traffic

So China is apparently attacking a company based in San Francisco (GitHub) because it has two pages on its site that allow people in China to circumvent the "Great Firewall".

In effect, China is extorting compliance from GitHub by preventing legitimate transactions from working while they perform a DDOS (Distributed Denial of Service) attack on their website. As it says in the article:

“This is a message to the people who maintain GitHub: Either you kick out GreatFire and The New York Times, or we’ll keep this up,” said Mikko Hypponen, the chief research officer at the security firm F-Secure.

What kind of response can we expect?

I say you just botnet the entire internet and ddos them for about a year solid.

Then respond with "you done now?".

a reply to: BomSquad

This attack on GitHub is potentially much more serious than people might realize.

For many tech startups and even large tech companies, GitHub serves as much more than code libraries; it's repositories are often used as a means to feed the code used by cloud-based hosting platforms such as Amazon Web Services and Google App Engine. If GitHub is down, and the cloud needs to access it for regular code updates (common), this could have a crippling effect on hundreds of companies, if not more.

a reply to: SkepticOverlord

Agreed, not only that, an attack by a foreign government on a private U.S. business seems oddly reminiscent of the "Interview" kerfluffle a few months ago when North Korea (likely using Chinese hardware, or simply contracted the Chinese to do it) hacked Sony because of "The Interview".

I think soon Cyberattacks will classified as an act of war if a foreign nation attacks another nations servers, be they public, private, or government.

originally posted by: SkepticOverlord
a reply to: BomSquad

This attack on GitHub is potentially much more serious than people might realize.

For many tech startups and even large tech companies, GitHub serves as much more than code libraries; it's repositories are often used as a means to feed the code used by cloud-based hosting platforms such as Amazon Web Services and Google App Engine. If GitHub is down, and the cloud needs to access it for regular code updates (common), this could have a crippling effect on hundreds of companies, if not more.

perhaps they should stick to their raison d'etre
and stay out of politics...

if you built a house with walls about i'm sure you and most people would not appreciate it if the neighbors set about trying to dig holes through it, or under it...

a reply to: AdamuBureido

I don't see how having information on how to bypass the "Great Firewall of China" is getting into politics, when hackers are presented with a hurdle, they are naturally tempted to overcome it. It rarely has to do with politics unless you're talking about "hacktivists". Additionally, GitHub is a site that allows user-generated content. In this sense, the company itself isn't really getting "political" if it simply allows some users to upload code that helps people bypass the firewall. In fact, REMOVING that code/instruction would bring about a whole MESS of bad press to GitHub.

originally posted by: ScientificRailgun
a reply to: AdamuBureido

I don't see how having information on how to bypass the "Great Firewall of China" is getting into politics, when hackers are presented with a hurdle, they are naturally tempted to overcome it. It rarely has to do with politics unless you're talking about "hacktivists". Additionally, GitHub is a site that allows user-generated content. In this sense, the company itself isn't really getting "political" if it simply allows some users to upload code that helps people bypass the firewall. In fact, REMOVING that code/instruction would bring about a whole MESS of bad press to GitHub.

i'm afraid it is politics: ex. everyone should be free to believe and practice their religion
as long as the practice does NOT affect others, once it affects others or you actively set out to convert or influence it is POLITICS, the art and science of managing human affairs.
china is opening up to non communist economics, but will do so at it's own leisure, following it's own timetable, not the timetable most conveniant to western hegemons wanting to loot the place like they did in russia, the chinese are not going to allow what happened in that case in their house.

if the shoe were on the other foot most making an issue about this would be up in arms; and yes, github allowing users to upload info and tools IS politics. china's actually being quite civilized here, america would have github shutdown in the worst way possible, whether through fabrication of crimes, assassination, or drone strike.

github set up a sign in front of their house saying "get your great firewall buster here!" and is now acting "shocked and indignant" as if it were an injured party, next USGOV [who may have had a hand in bringing this about] will be using this as an excuse for sanctions, etc.

this has been SOP for americans since the genocide of native america and is at the heart of its foreign policy, back then it was about dumping their chamber pots down river follow by thanksgiving celebrations of the extermination of the "heathen savages" living DOWNRIVER who attacked the righteous "unprovoked". rinse and repeat.

just like the charlie hebdo thing, it's about spitballing and other provocations with the goal of making the victim seem like the aggressor and then act like they're the heroes/good guys. the FBI does this all the time with "terrorists"

don't mistake the above as siding with the cannibals of the CCP, or being against any INDIVIDUAL having the knowledge/tools, but as someone who's been living in asia for some time, you should already know how to put yourself in someone else's shoes.

again if the roles were reversed with america doing this it would be a whole 'nother song they'd be singing;

a song redolent with the stench of self righteousness.

a reply to: AdamuBureido

I can't even put the shoe on the other foot, though. America was founded on freedom of speech, so no such firewall will ever exist, and if it does, the people will take it down with unrelenting force.

However, to put the THEORETICAL shoe on the other foot, would be to make China like the U.S., and the U.S. like China. If one were to do that, the only difference between the two nation at that point would be geography and ethnicity. It certainly does "prove" your point, but only to the extent that "If the U.S. was China and China was the U.S. it would be exactly the same thing!" You're right, but that doesn't make it any more or less wrong for China to be doing what it's doing.

I'm surprised this isn't getting more attention honestly, when "The Interview" scandal happened, it was everywhere on MSM. I guess the American public don't really care unless some B-List celebrity and a movie studio is involved.

This is another country trying to limit or disable the free speech of another country. It's really that simple. It's the same story of "The Interview" fiaso, under different circumstances.

originally posted by: SkepticOverlord
This attack on GitHub is potentially much more serious than people might realize.

For many tech startups and even large tech companies, GitHub serves as much more than code libraries; it's repositories are often used as a means to feed the code used by cloud-based hosting platforms such as Amazon Web Services and Google App Engine. If GitHub is down, and the cloud needs to access it for regular code updates (common), this could have a crippling effect on hundreds of companies, if not more.

Right on.

Ugh... I was trying to do some stuff there yesterday and was wondering why it was so unresponsive.

a reply to: ScientificRailgun

The reason it's not getting more attention is that most people aren't very technical. They don't know what a DDoS is or what it means for a foreign nation to attack a private company. With the Interview it was simple, everyone understands stealing IP. Code is a bit more technical than most people understand.

a reply to: ScientificRailgun

freedom of speech does not allow you to scream fire in a theater
or incite to riot, neh, oni-san?

americans only bring up free speech when they're not being allowed to incite, or are propagandizing and called out on it.

and many americans confuse license with freedom

a reply to: SkepticOverlord

Yes. Github is an extremely valuable resource and my goto for open source software.

a reply to: AdamuBureido

Onee-san*, though if you prefer, Senpai is fine. I'm not a sensei anymore, though. So don't use that.

Also, I don't think GitHub is "enciting" anything. It's a public website that allows user-generated content. Additionally, you're misplacing your perceived blame. If someone goes on Facebook and calls for riots and looting do people blame facebook?

China also has the option of simply adding Github to it's "blacklist" of sites, as it has done so many times before regarding ways to circumvent the firewall. (Which is already ridiculously easy, by the way) What they're doing is strategic, they're showing "Look what we can do." to the U.S. Government. It's a statement.

originally posted by: AdamuBureido
a reply to: ScientificRailgun

freedom of speech does not allow you to scream fire in a theater
or incite to riot, neh, oni-san?

americans only bring up free speech when they're not being allowed to incite, or are propagandizing and called out on it.

and many americans confuse license with freedom

There are many websites all around the world dedicated to anti American agendas. And the US is forced to suck it up, if you want an example of one just look at Wikileaks. Despite the US's protests there's not a damn thing we can do about it, nor should there be. If a private company outside of China wants to publish information that's not in the interests of the Chinese why should China be allowed to take them out? Especially when it adversely effects so many other people?

During the past two days, popular code hosting site GitHub has been under a DDoS attack, which has led to intermittent service interruptions. As blogger Anthr@X reports from traceroute lists, the attack originated from MITM-modified JavaScript files for the Chinese company Baidu's user tracking code, changing the unencrypted content as it passed through the great firewall of China to request the URLs github.com/greatfire/ and github.com/cn-nytimes/. The Chinese government's dislike of widespread VPN usage may have caused it to arrange the attack, where only people accessing Baidu's services from outside the firewall would contribute to the DDoS. This wouldn't have been the first time China arranged this kind of "protest."

(source)

The United States and other nations need to develop some form of official response to this type of attack, other than a knee-jerk Isolating of China's web traffic, as that is doing for the Chinese government exactly what they want, keeping their citizens in the dark.

This is a flagrant example of massive, state-sponsored censorship.

I just thought I would add this resource to the thread. It is the only live attack map that my PC will run without script errors. Source: map.ipviking.com...

a reply to: SkepticOverlord

I'm don't know enough about networks to comment on the attack, but I did wonder while reading if it was possible to retaliate somehow by opening China to the entire web for a day or two? Show the people what's going on?

originally posted by: EA006
a reply to: SkepticOverlord

I'm don't know enough about networks to comment on the attack, but I did wonder while reading if it was possible to retaliate somehow by opening China to the entire web for a day or two? Show the people what's going on?

Nothing is impossible, but what you are describing would be very difficult and expensive. It also wouldn't really be all that effective.

The best response honestly is something we've been needing in the US for a long time now and that's some sort of real network policy. We don't really have one and it creates all sorts of issues. In this case it likely means the US government needs to stand up and say we'll defend our corporations from overseas threats. If the people making this hypothetical law have any brains they'll put a stipulation in there saying these protections only apply to companies who bring jobs here rather than outsource them.

a reply to: Aazadan

Yeah I wasn't sure. Would it really be expensive? As I say I don't know a lot about networks

a reply to: ScientificRailgun
おねえさん if you're going to be a stickler
senpai i doubt very much, unless you're older than me (48)

ATS doesn't allow you to post petitions to sign, or any other type of political activism like inviting members to join a march

when members complain and claim free speech, the refuting argument is always: "It's their house, their rules."

why isn't china allowed the same courtesy?

it's not that america has anything worthwhile to offer

democracy? pffft

How Democracy Destroys Families
by Jeremy Locke
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The premise of democracy is simple. It states that people have claim over their neighbors. It says that you have the right to vote for ideas (called "laws") that can be forced upon those around you.

Take careful note that there is nothing of love, compassion or charity in democracy. Democracy is not about making sure that people are free. Democracy in no way keeps you safe from tyranny; it simply allows you to participate in the process.

When an entire culture is built up around this premise of "moral" force, the resulting changes to society are obvious and predictable. When people start believing that it is okay to destroy the free will of others to get things they want, they will do it more and more.

Many people want roads, schools, libraries, fire departments, and all sorts of "services." Many people want to control how others live; to control what foods and drugs they consume, how they engage in sexual activity, how they speak to one another, and how they build and decorate their homes.

The merits of any of these ideas are not at issue. Maybe an idea that most people want is a good idea, maybe it isn't. The question is: what good comes from adding violence to society in order to force other people to conform to your will?

When people believe that it is their moral prerogative to force others to obey them, they will become tyrants unto themselves.

When culture dictates that a woman can hurt her husband and place him in bondage to her through alimony laws, is it any wonder that divorce increase and marriages suffer? When culture dictates that a man can wield the violence of police against his neighbors in order to achieve obedience from them, is it any wonder that violence within families increases?

When culture dictates that it is okay to use violence against children unless they attend government schools, can anyone wonder when children become more violent? When culture dictates that it is okay to use violence to plunder the labor of others, instead of laboring to support your family because of your love. can you wonder at the results? When culture dictates that the state knows better what defines a healthy family than the family does, is there any mystery to families breaking apart?

Democracy is the teaching that coercive violence against your fellow man is acceptable and honorable. The trappings of this vicious teaching are irrelevant; voting booths and policemen with shiny badges are illusions. The fundamental result is to indoctrinate people such that they proactively seek gain at other people's expense. This is the meaning of democracy's culture. To think that you can plunder your neighbors but raise your family in safety and peace is to be both blind and a fool.

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This work is free to share, copy, distribute, modify, and display; please link back.

(NOTE TO MODS: the website I'm copying no longer exists, so I can only give credit to the author and link his free book
www.mensenrechten.org...

Majority rule
Democratic culture teaches the rule of law. It teaches that law
created by majority rule is morality. Any law, any demand, any
punishment is moral when implemented by the majority.
Perversions of democracy such as democratic republics and
super-majorities are no different. Any law able to be passed by
representative, majority, super-majority or any other group
becomes morality.
If you can convince 50% of a people to enslave themselves or
their neighbors, is it moral? If you can convince 66%, 75%, 99%
or everyone, is it morality? The affliction of law is a game to
evil. Evil seeks control over people in order to destroy their
worth. It does not care who enslaves whom, or why.
There is no morality in law. Democratic teaching says that as
soon as the legal voting block approves a law, it is right and
proper to inflict it upon a people. Why should the destruction of
your freedom be acceptable just because someone else says so?
Does evil become righteous when more people desire it? Would
evil be righteous if all people desire it? Tyranny by one king is
the same as tyranny by a hundred million kings. It is the nature
of compulsion in law that is evil; how the law is achieved is
meaningless.