IWMP has noticed a significant amount of interest in the cyber attacks on Kyrgyzstan that we reported at the weekend. We thought it would be a good idea to put these attacks into a historical context, particularly by revisiting the attacks of 2005. IWMP works closely with the Open Net Initiative (ONI) and we link here to their Special Report: Election Monitoring in Kyrgyzstan published in February, 2005.
Censorship 2.0 Just in time blocking
Deibert & Rohozinski have referred to Computer Network Attack (CNA) as a means to silence opposition websites as Just in time blocking. (see Chapter 6 of ONI’s latest book, Good for Liberty, Bad for Security? Global CivilSociety and the Securitization of the Internet:
Just-in-time blocking differs from the first-generation national filtering practices of countries like China and Iran in severalsignificant ways. First, and most importantly, just-in-time blocking is temporally fixed. Unlike the evolving block lists used by national firewalls, just-in-time blocking occurs only at times when the information being sought has a specific value or importance. Usually, this will mean that blocking is imposed at times of political change, such as elections, or other potential social flashpoints (important anniversaries or times of social unrest). In the CIS, this kind of filtering was documented by the ONI during the March 2005 Kyrgyz parliamentary elections, the
March 2006 Belarus presidential elections, and the October 2006 Tajik presidential elections. It has also been alleged in other regions, including Bahrain, Uganda, and Yemen during the run-up to their 2006 presidential and parliamentary elections.
The ONI found that Kyrgyz Websites were subject to unexplained failure and hacking during the Parliamentary Elections of 2005. Network-based attacks on Kyrgz ISPs continued for some months after the elections. Information War intensified as unrest in Kyrgyzstan increased. No traditional content filtering was discovered, but very effective use of Computer Network Attack (CNA) and other cyberwar techniques forced ISPs to silence opposition media.
Kyrgyz Elections Monitor Interim Findings: