China #39;s #39;Great Cannon #39; DDoS tool enforces Internet censorship
China #39;s #39;Great Cannon #39; DDoS tool enforces Internet censorship.
By: Harleen Muna
Excerpt from:
China's 'Great Cannon' DDoS tool enforces Internet censorship - Video
WASHINGTON China has expanded its Internet censorship efforts beyond its borders with a new strategy that attacks websites across the globe, researchers said Friday.
The new strategy, dubbed Great Cannon, seeks to shut down websites and services aimed at helping the Chinese circumvent the Great Firewall, according to a report by the Citizen Lab at the University of Toronto.
While the attack infrastructure is co-located with the Great Firewall, the attack was carried out by a separate offensive system, with different capabilities and design, that we term the Great Cannon, the report said.
The Great Cannon is not simply an extension of the Great Firewall, but a distinct attack tool that hijacks traffic to (or presumably from) individual IP addresses.
The report supports claims by the activist organization GreatFire, which last month claimed China was seeking to shut down its websites that offer mirrored content from blocked websites like those of the New York Times and others.
The technique involves hijacking Internet traffic to the big Chinese search engine Baidu and using that in denial of service attacks, which flood a website in an effort to knock it offline.
The report authors said the new tool represents a significant escalation in state-level information control by using an attack tool to enforce censorship by weaponizing users.
The Great Cannon manipulates the traffic of bystander systems including any foreign computer that communicates with any China-based website not fully utilizing (encryption).
The Citizen Lab researchers said they found compelling evidence that the Chinese government operates the GC (Great Cannon), despite Beijings denials of involvement in cyberattacks.
Because the Great Cannon shares code and infrastructure with the Great Firewall, this strongly suggests a governmental actor, said the report, which included collaboration from researchers at the University of California and Princeton University.
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Great Cannon Internet traffic diverter widens Chinese censorship powers: researchers
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China has acquired a powerful new weapon in itsefforts to strictly controlinternet access and content.
Thats according to anew report released Apr. 10 by Citizen Lab, a research group at the University of Torontos Munk School of Global Affairs. It sheds more light on the recent distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attacksagainst popular programming siteGitHub, and the nonprofit site GreatFire.org, which replicates websites already blocked by Chinese censors.
Citizen Lab says it had identified the new weaponwhich it has named Chinas Great Cannonresponsible for both attacks.
Located within Chinas massive Great Firewall censorship apparatus, the Great Cannon appears to operate asa separate tool thathijacks traffic to (or presumably from) individual IP addresses, and canarbitrarily replace unencrypted content as a man-in-the-middle,according to Citizen Lab.
In the case of online code repositoryGitHub, the Great Cannon was able to alter script distributed by Chinese search engine Baidu, redirecting massive amounts of bad trafficback towardsGitHubs servers in late March, reports the Verge. The attack, which lasted several days, was the largest the companyhad ever experienced.
While the Great Cannons ability to target and potentially take down websites is worrying enough, its also possible that the technologycould be tweaked in order to plant malware in millions of computers communicating with vulnerable Chinese servers, according to TechCrunch.
Those familiar with Edward Snowdens revelations may remember that the US already has this capability through the formerly top-secret NSA program QUANTUM.Unlike the US government, which attempted to keep the existence of QUANTUM a secret, China doesnot seem particularlyconcerned with hidingthis newest addition to it censorship arsenal. This brazenness both confuses and concerns the researchers at CitizenLab.
We remain puzzled as to why the GCs operator chose to first employ its capabilities in such a publicly visible fashion. Conducting such a widespread attack clearly demonstrates the weaponization of the Chinese Internet to co-opt arbitrary computers across the web and outside of China to achieve Chinas policy ends. The repurposing of the devices of unwitting users in foreign jurisdictions for covert attacks in the interests of one countrys national priorities is a dangerous precedentcontrary to international norms and in violation of widespread domestic laws prohibiting the unauthorized use of computing and networked systems.
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Chinas aggressive new censorship weapon can cripple your website
Among captains of industry, entertainment executives continue to reap some of the biggest rewards when it comes to compensation.
The biggest pay day so far went to Discovery Communications Chief Executive David Zaslav, who received a $156.1-million compensation package in 2014 even though he manages one of the smaller media companies. That's a stratospheric level even by Wall Street standards. Consider that JPMorgan Chase & Co., the nation's largest bank, reported in January that CEO Jamie Dimon raked in a pay package of $20 million.
The lucrative compensation packages come at an increasingly troubled time in the media industry. Media companies are struggling to adapt to changes brought on by digital competitors such as Netflix, which is attracting consumers who once spent the bulk of their free time watching traditional TV channels.
Zaslav is not the only media executive with handsome rewards. CBS Corp. Chief Executive Leslie Moonves last year received a pay package valued at $57 million, according to a CBS proxy filed with the Securities & Exchange Commission late Friday.
Moonves' compensation, which included a $25-million bonus, represented a nearly 15% decline from 2013. Moonves' pay package had been shooting up along with the value of CBS stock but the company's shares lost ground last year as Wall Street fretted about the industry trends of audience fragmentation and the proliferation of online streaming services.
CBS shares closed up 40 cents Friday at $61.60. The stock has declined 8% during the last year. Discovery's stock is down much more: 23% during the last 12 months. Discovery shares closed down 17 cents at $33.04 on Friday.
Charles Elson, director of the John L. Weinberg Center for Corporate Governance at the University of Delaware, said that sky-high executive compensation packages for media executives is just a symptom of a larger problem. Many of the companies have two classes of stock voting and nonvoting shares which reduces ordinary shareholders to bystanders with no influence.
"Investors in media companies really don't have a voice like they do in other companies," Elson said Friday. "That's why you see all of these high salaries in media. The whole thing is a toxic cocktail for investors."
CBS, Comcast Corp., Viacom Inc., Discovery Communications and Rupert Murdoch's 21st Century Fox all have dual classes of stock. Key figures in those companies control the voting shares, which gives them a disproportionate influence in their company's affairs. For example, Murdoch controls 39% of the voting shares at Fox and his second company, News Corp., and less than 15% of the economic interest.
Murdoch's fiscal 2014 compensation was $29.2 million.
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Media executives' pay packages are still in stratosphere
When:
April 2, 2015 @ 2:00 pm 3:00 pm
2015-04-02T14:00:00-04:00
2015-04-02T15:00:00-04:00
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Knight TV Studio 555 Pennsylvania Avenue Northwest Washington, DC 20001 USA
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Anti-American sentiment and a nationalist fervor in Russia are rated higher today than at Cold War peaks and at the heart of those twin developments is a master of propaganda, media control and mass audience appeal: Russian president Vladimir Putin. This year is the 30th anniversary of the launch of perestroika and glasnost under Mikhail Gorbachev and the 15th anniversary of Putin becoming president.
Join a panel of experts for a provocative program examining how this high-profile, yet enigmatic leader has shaped his own public image, taken control of the Russian news media and marshaled public support to put Russia on a collision course with the West. How do and can Europe and the United States counter the production and promotion of a hybrid truth in Russia and news produced in formats that mimic Western news media, but in reality generated by state entities with no political oversight or control?
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Journalism/Works: Putin: Power, Persuasion and Propaganda