Russia learns from the Iranian experience.
It would appear that Russia watched recent events in Iran closely and learned a valuable lesson. Twitter, the popular social networking site, has been offline for several days now bracketing the first anniversary of 080808, the Russian invasion and take over of former colony, Georgia.
Obviously, Russia noticed how Twitter was used in Iran to allow massive protests to form as well as draw international media attention to a cause, even make that cause appear to be other than it actually was (in the case of Iran.) Georgia’s well known blogger, “Cyxymu,” who named himself after a Georgian town, appears to be the sole target of a DDOS attack that has taken Twitter offline as well as Facebook, LiveJournal and Google’s Blogger, although only Twitter was actually taken down by the attack.
Freedom of speech in the Internet age like freedom of speech in every age is fragile and the means to express opposition to authority will always be attacked by tyrants. This is no exception. Russia is perhaps the most equipped and fastest to use cyber attacks to destroy means of organizing or forming opposition to the policies of Putin et al. However it is interesting that enough resources where directed at Twitter specifically to take it offline. It cannot be a coincidence that Twitter played such a large part in the unrest in Iran.
James Cohen for IFPS
Comments
Trackbacks