<nettime> Azeris, Armenians wage Internet war over Karabakh

["nettime's_roving_reporter" <nettime@bbs.thing.net>]

[: hacktivism :]

Presumed Armenian computer hackers broke into an Internet site in
neighbouring Azerbaijan on Monday in a cyberspace battle over the disputed
territory of Nagorno-Karabakh. 

Editors at the Baku daily Zerkalo said the hackers had introduced false
information into the daily's site in revenge for cross-border "attacks" by
Azeri hackers last month. 

"The war between Armenia and Azerbaijan over Karabakh has moved on to the
Internet now that the front line is quiet," said Zerkalo's deputy editor
Nair Aliyev. He said false items had been inserted suggesting the
presidents of Armenia and Azerbaijan had agreed to a land swap to help
settle the dispute and that Turkey had opened its border with Armenia. 
Both actions would irritate Azeri public opinion. 

Last month Azeri hackers attacked two dozen Armenian websites, including
those of state television and the Armenian Assembly of America, a lobbying
group. The Azeri hackers said they wanted to give an accurate picture of
the conflict. 

Fighting broke out in Nagorno-Karabakh in 1988 after the region's ethnic
Armenian majority tried to break away from Azerbaijan's rule, when both
states were still Soviet republics. 

Some 35,000 people died in the war and Armenian-backed separatists still
occupy large chunks of Azerbaijan's territory. Talks are proceeding and a
shaky ceasefire remains in effect. 

Many believe Armenia's greater sophistication in Internet technology will
leave them the winners in the cyberspace war. 

"We need to focus on creating more sites of our own instead of destroying
Armenian sites," said Eldar Zeynalov, director of Azerbaijan's Human
Rights Centre. 

Some of the world's most visited websites, including Yahoo!, were last
week subjected to attacks which disrupted their service for several hours,
although the hackers never gained access to the sites' contents. U.S. 
President Bill Clinton has called a summit on Internet security today. 

Russian government Internet sites were hit last week by hackers who
inserted death threats against Acting President Vladimir Putin. 
 


#  distributed via <nettime>: no commercial use without permission
#  <nettime> is a moderated mailing list for net criticism,
#  collaborative text filtering and cultural politics of the nets
#  more info: majordomo@bbs.thing.net and "info nettime-l" in the msg body
#  archive: http://www.nettime.org contact: nettime@bbs.thing.net


[: hacktivism :]
[: for unsubscribe instructions or list info consult the list FAQ :]
[: http://hacktivism.tao.ca/ :]