LiveJournal lock-out sparks political row
Tom Washington | Moscow News - themoscownews.com | April 5, 2011 | JRL 2011-60-9 | Home
The on-going hack attack against LiveJournal is making waves at presidential level.
And while the Communists are calling for Dmitry Medvedev to help get the blogging site back to normal, Kremlin staff have reassured anxious cyber-politicians that Medvedev's own Twitter and blog pages are safe from attack.
Renewed cyber warfare on Monday put LiveJournal out of action and that has alarmed opposition groups.
Invaluable network
"Recent events do not just worry users of the site but also create political tensions in the information arena," announced Ivan Melnikov, first deputy chairman of the Communist Party told gzt.ru. "In recent years communication resources have become a major outlet for many, who want to have their say in the printed word or artistic genre."
And he hinted at dark political motives, "When the TV became nothing more than propaganda [the internet] became an extremely important conduit for different views and genuine feelings. And so we see these attacks are trying to change that and upset the balance."
He promised to address Medvedev on this issue and strengthen the communists' internet security.
Hacker strike
Livejournal, the largest blogging service on the runet suffered a major failure for the second week running as it became clear that hackers had struck.
The site was paralysed for over eight hours, a week after it went down for over seven hours in what was called the biggest attack it had so far known.
About 70 per cent of users couldn't get into their accounts.
Hack the president!
While the site's management struggled to repair the damage, there were calls for enterprising online users to wrest controls of the president's popular blogs.
Last month an anarchic call to arms suggested hijacking Medvedev's Twitter account and posting "Vladimir, tomorrow you can pick up your resignation papers" and "I have signed an order to make D. Bilan an Artist of the Russian Federation", Lifenews reported.
But spokeswoman Natalya Timakova told the web portal there was nothing to fear, and only the president himself had his finger on the Twitter button.
"The president's blog is adequately defended," Natlaya Timakova, Medvedev's spokeswoman, told Lifenews. "We always pay attention to relevant statements. Security on the president's page will be bolstered," she said.
Kremlin critics targeted
Last week speculation was rife that self-proclaimed anti-corruption crusader and perpetual thorn in the authorities' side Alexei Navalny and his web audience was the direct target of the attack.
The Communists are the largest opposition party in the state Duma, but so far there have been no suggestions that they were the target of a government sting.
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