Twitter shot down in information wars

THE BLACKOUT of Twitter yesterday was apparently the result a web attack 'aimed at one blogger' and came about as a "massively coordinated" attack on websites which also included Google and Facebook.

Facebook has reported that the strike was aimed at a pro-Georgian blogger known as Cyxymu. Whilst Twitter was down for around two hours, Facebook said its service had been "degraded". The attack comes at a time of tension between Georgia and Russia that continue after last year’s conflict.

The pro-Georgian blogger appears to have a presence on a number of sites and a botnet was directed to request his pages at such a rate that it impacted service for other users. The outcome was a denial-of-service (DOS) attack which left servers being flooded with data in an effort to disable them.

The blogger has previously criticised Russia over its conduct in the war over the disputed South Ossetia region, which began one year ago.

Both Twitter and Facebook have recently provided an information battleground in the aftermath of the disputed Iranian election. Many opposition supporters saw Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s victory as the result of electoral fraud and believe that opposition leader Mir Hossein Mousavi should have won.

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