Belarusian web site accuses authorities of inspiring hackers` attacks :: Charter'97 :: News

Text of report by Belarusian human rights group Charter-97 web site on 11 February A massive distributed denial-of-service attack, which the www.charter97.org web site [run by the Charter-97 human rights group] experienced recently, has resumed again. Yesterday morning at about 0700 Minsk time [0500 gmt], the host company providing services to the Charter-97 web site released a notification saying that 980,000 requests addressed to the web site from various IP addresses across the world were registered. The company had to stop provision of services to the web site. Users could not access the web site for two days. The first wave of the attack began on 20 January after the web site had published a report about Belarusian child porn traders.

Attempts to paralyse the web site work with the use of the known technology of distributed attacks were continuing for two weeks. With the beginning of the new wave of attacks, we can say that the goal of unknown hackers is not just to limit the dissemination of information about the dirty business dealers. Evidently, somebody wants "deal with" the most frequently visited Internet news resource in Belarus.

We have no direct evidence, but there are all grounds to assume that the attack was sanctioned and supported by the Belarusian authorities. A week ago, human rights activist Natallya Kalyada was convicted [fined] by a Minsk court for cooperation with the Charter-97 web site [for details, see a report by Belarusian human rights group Charter-97 web site, in Russian, 0911 gmt 05 Feb 04], and the beginning of the second wave of the attack coincided with the summing up of the results of an international forum held in Riga, in which the Belarusian opposition actively participated.
The pressure aimed at paralysing the work of the www.charter97.org web site - the most frequently visited web news resource in Belarus - is a sign of the beginning of a large-scale campaign aimed at information "cleansing" of the Belnet [Belarusian part of the Internet] virtual space.

Source: Charter-97 web site, Minsk, in Russian 11 Feb 04