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Al-Jazeera’s Web sites defaced

March 27 — Visitors to both the Arabic and English version of the Al-Jazeera Web site on Thursday were greeted with an American flag and a pro-U.S. message, the work of an apparent online vandal. The controversial Middle Eastern news service apparently had their domain hijacked. The actual defacement is served from a second server elsewhere on the Web.

TECHNICALLY KNOWN as a “redirect,” the hack causes Web browsers that attempt to go to www.aljazeera.net to be surreptitiously redirected to the content hosted on the second server. “Let Freedom Ring!” stated the defacement, which was signed by a vandal with the handle “Patriot” who claimed to be part of a group called the Freedom Cyber Force Militia. “GOD BLESS OUR TROOPS!!!”

VeriSign maintins the Internet registry for the .com, .net, .cc and .tv top-level domains and administers the an authoritative database for all domain names registered in those top-level domains. The domain hijacking may have corrupted Al-Jazeera’s record in the VeriSign’s database.

A representative of VeriSign couldn’t immediately answer questions regarding how the domain had been hijacked. A representative of the hosting service that had the actual content of the defacement also couldn’t be reached.

Al-Jazeera has had to contend with both technical problems and attacks this entire week. The Arab satellite TV network launched its English-language Web site on Monday, attracting significant media coverage. The site hosts the station’s controversial video coverage, which has included images of U.S. soldiers killed and taken prisoner.

Ah, hackers. The wonder of having no life...

Too bad they're taking on Al-Jazeera, which is one of the very few Middle Eastern channels that don't just send what the government tells them.

They are far from the only news channel to show those pictures - in fact, just about every news channel has done it, except, as far as I know, the American ones.

That's smart of the government of course. Enough pictures like that is one of the very few things that could make the U.S. lose this war.

I like stories like that...no one gets hurt, points are made and everyone seems to have a good laugh about it...

What point was made? They're talking about freedom, yet they're infringing on a very basic freedom that runs rampant throughout America(supposedly). The fact is that the hacker was a hypocritical moron that just wanted to "help the war effort" without actually doing anything beneficial.

Would you demand freedom of speech for Ezra Pound while he was broadcasting from Rome?

Sixgun, you just said a name that I can't even come close to knowing.

Ezra Pound was a very famous poet. A literary giant of the 20th century. He was also a traitor as he went over to Rome to make propaganda radio broadcasts for Mussollini during the war.

recently there are rumours amongst colleauges of mine who work for ITN (A news network) that think Al Jazeera has come under government control or if not government then religious extremist control. Afterall SHowing the bodies of those two dead british tank troops is a highly immoral action.

Neon

It's news....why wouldn't they show them? Helllooo?? The news shows tons of violent and gruesome things when I'm eating dinner, therefore it doesn't make much sense if other news companies follow that same evil path.

I suppose so, but how many actual Iraqi bodies have you seen?

Neon

I've stopped watching the news BECAUSE of the war coverage. And so I have seen none. Also, they normally don't show them in the States because "It's immoral", whereas outside of the States they show whatever the heck they want(nudity, corpses, prisoners of war, etc).

nudity is great... especially when it involves two, maybe three lovely ladies in a hot tub.

Al Jazeera is Pan-Arab nationalist and Islamist. They like to do closeups on dead and wounded Westerners for the viewing pleasures of their audience.

I would not be surprised if the initial investment capital used to get Al Jazeera started were to have come from Osama bin Ladin.

Bah, if they showed Iraqi casualties there would be no problem with it.

So this guy is saying we should support our troops even though they are being killed, doesn't that qualify as dangerous propaganda? More troops will die if people listen to him . . .

Al Jazeera is based out of Quatar, and is pretty much paid for by Quatar's Emir. It has a history of uncovering crimes of several governments in the area, as well as having female, non-veiled reproters. It is also pretty much totally modelled after CNN.

Now this sounds like Bin Laden's favorite guys, eh?

For the record, I've seen more pictures and movie reels of Iraqui prisoners and/or corpses than American or British... but I guess that's different...