Washington firm plays unwitting host to Al-Jazeera hackers
By Seattle Times news services
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A Web hosting company in Vancouver, Wash., received some unexpected attention yesterday when it was pulled into a hacker attack on the Web site of Arab satellite television network Al-Jazeera.
Someone redirected traffic from Al-Jazeera's site to another Web page with an image of a stars-and-stripes logo and the phrase "Let Freedom Ring."
The stars-and-stripes Web site was one of many sites hosted for free by Dotster. The company noticed a large spike in traffic early yesterday morning, and first thought that Al-Jazeera had signed up for a free account, said vice president George DeCarlo.
Dotster disabled the page, and the French company hosting the Al-Jazeera Web site rerouted traffic to its original servers.
Hackers impersonating an Al-Jazeera employee tricked one of the Internet's most popular Web addressing companies, Network Solutions Inc., into making technical changes that effectively turned over temporary control of the network's Arabic and English Web sites.
The changes were to be fixed by last night. But it was expected to be at least 12 hours afterward before Al-Jazeera's sites would properly be available worldwide, said Brian O'Shaughnessy, a spokesman for Network Solutions.
The hacker was able to gain control of the domain name by asking domain seller Network Solutions Inc. for the account password on official Al-Jazeera stationery, said an industry source speaking on condition of anonymity.
Hackers calling themselves the "Freedom Cyber Force Militia" initially redirected Internet traffic destined for Al-Jazeera's Web site in English to a different Web page on computers operated by Networld Connections Inc., an Internet provider in Salt Lake City. That site was shut down hours later.
But the domain name was hijacked shortly after and pointed to the free hosting service run by Dotster.
The FBI was investigating, spokesman Paul Bresson said.
The page included the message, "God bless our troops," signed by a self-described "Patriot."
Jihad Ali Ballout, a spokesman for Al-Jazeera, described the attack as "a frontal, vicious attack on freedom of the press" and urged anyone with information to contact authorities.
The Arab network's Web sites have been suffering disruptions for days, ever since showing pictures of dead and captive U.S. soldiers in Iraq.
The New York Stock Exchange on Tuesday banned Al-Jazeera's reporters from its trading floor, a move seen as retaliation for the channel's war coverage.
Al-Jazeera, based in Qatar, is an unusually independent voice in the Arab world. On Wednesday, the broadcaster received an award from the British-based Index on Censorship for resisting censorship. The Index cited the network's "apparent independence in a region where much of the media is state-run."
"That same quality has enraged Arab governments and the United States," the Index, a group of leading media figures, writers and people concerned with freedom of speech, said in a statement.
Al-Jazeera went on air in 1996 with a $137 million budget from Qatar's Emir Sheikh Hamad bin Khalifa al-Thani and has since captivated Arab viewers with talk shows on subjects considered taboo by other mostly state-run stations.
The station's popularity soared during the first weeks of the U.S.-led war on Afghanistan as it was the only network that the Taliban, which then controlled the country, allowed to operate.
Britain's top Gulf commander stepped up a war of words with Al-Jazeera yesterday, saying the Arabic-language satellite news channel risked becoming a tool for Iraqi propaganda.
Air Marshal Brian Burridge opened a media briefing with a fierce denunciation of Al-Jazeera for showing "shocking, close-up" pictures of two British soldiers apparently killed in action earlier this week in Iraq.
"I appreciate that all media outlets have a strong desire for exclusive pictures and we have no desire to limit journalist freedom in any way," Burridge said.
"However, all media outlets must be aware of the limits of taste and decency and be wary that they do not unwittingly become tools for Iraqi propaganda," he added.
Al-Jazeera correspondent Jawad Omari fired back, telling Burridge his network was an independent news-gathering organization committed, he said, to showing the human cost of the U.S.-led war.
Times staff writer Kim Peterson contributed to this report.
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