Highlights
– Chinese nationalists express anger of bias “Western media” coverage
– Protesters plan street and cyber protests
– CNN.com victim of small-scale attacks
– Chinese hacking community capable of more disruptions
On April 9, 2008, CNN commentator Jack Cafferty fanned the flames of Chinese nationalism by labeling the Chinese as a “bunch of goons and thugs.” Cafferty’s comments come on the heels of China’s government’s outcries over an alleged Western media bias in its coverage of the recent protests in Tibet (Previous Report).
While CNN apologized for Cafferty’s comments, the Chinese government rebuffed the initial apology. Chinese Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Jiang Yu stated, “their statement not only did not make a sincere apology, but also too aim at the Chinese government, attempting to sow discord in the relationship between the Chinese people and the Chinese government.”
It appears that Chinese nationalists have used these official statements as license to stage both street and cyber protests of the Western media. For example, a call to stage street protests throughout Europe on April 19, 2008 was issued on one pro-China website specifically established to protest Western media coverage of Tibet.
China’s “Revenge of the Flame”
Further, a number of Chinese hacker groups also planned a Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) attack against CNN’s website, www.cnn.com. A previously unknown hacker group known as “Revenge of the Flame” appeared to take the lead in the attack planning. Instructions found online on April 18, 2008 indicated the attack was scheduled to begin on April 19, 2008 at 8:00 EDT and was scheduled to last more than three hours (source).
Despite these documented plans, the purported leaders of the “Revenge of the Flame” group publicly canceled the attack just prior to its planned execution. While commending the Chinese hacking community’s “strong sense of nationalistic responsibility” the leaders of “Revenge of the Flam” announced, “Our original plan for 19 April has been canceled because too many people are aware of it and the situation is chaotic.” Instead the leaders stated they would take the attack planning underground (source).
Finally on April 20, 2008, the leaders of the “Revenge of the Flame” announced that they were formally disbanding the group. A message posted on their website stated, “The Revenge of the Flame has already halted all DDOS attacks, we do not advocate the attack, we advocate diligent study of technology. From this point on, any attack whatsoever, has nothing to do with Revenge of the Flame (source).”
Attacks on CNN
Despite the claims of disbandment and halted attacks, CNN reported its website, CNN.com, was victim of a series of small DDoS attacks (source). Further, Arbor Networks, a software security firm, asserted CNN was attacked a total of 36 times between April 17 and April 18, 2008. These attacks lasted an average of five minutes and 30 seconds and resulted in minimal disruption to CNN’s website (source). According to a CNN spokesman, “CNN took preventative measures to filter traffic in response to attempts to disrupt our Web site. A small percentage of CNN.com users in Asia are impacted.”
It has also been reported that Chinese hackers were able to successfully deface a CNN/Sports Illustrated affiliated website hosted at www.sportsnetwork.com (source). As of Monday April 21, 2008, a message posted on the site read, “The Sports Network website and other major news sites have been hacked by a political entity from China, and as a result are temporarily unavailable. We apologize for any inconvenience and hope to be back up and running as soon as possible.”
Controlling Discontent
While these planned attacks resulted in minimal disruptions, it is important to note that had they proceeded as planned with maximum participation from the Chinese hacker community, it is possible that CNN.com would have been significantly impacted. As the 2007 cyber attacks in Estonia demonstrated, large scale and concerted DDoS attacks can cause serious disruptions and inflict serious economic harm.
Further, it should be noted that these planned large-scale attacks were called off as the Chinese government was publicly stating that its citizens should not organize protests against the “Western media.” China’s state run media praised the Chinese “patriotic zeal” but urged citizens to contain their actions. Editorials and other official statements such as these appear to be designed to restrain the Chinese hacking community from going overboard and causing the government embarrassment.
Despite the success of its efforts in this case, it should not be assumed that the Chinese government through its control of the “Great Firewall of China” would always be able to keep the Chinese hacking community in check. The Chinese government has previously allowed its hacker community to flex its muscles and voice its discontent. For example, in 2005 during the controversy over Japanese textbooks watered down coverage of Japanese World War II war crimes, the Chinese government allowed its hacking community to voice its discontent via a series of attacks against Japanese websites. Although the Chinese government was able to moderate the damage caused by the Chinese hacking community in this instance, it should not be assumed that in future instances that the Chinese government will be able to moderate the actions of its hacking community.
