Burma’s Junta Subverts the Internet

Posted on Nov 5, 2010

news.bbc.co.uk

A graph showing Internet traffic within Burma over the past several days.

As Burma approaches its first election in 20 years, a “distributed denial of service” attack has paralyzed Internet use within the country, knocking Burmese citizens from online communication in what analysts believe is an attempt by the ruling military dictatorship to restrict the flow of information.

The attack involves rigging things so that Internet targets are flooded with too much data to be handled, effectively shutting it down.

The last election in Burma was in 1990, when democracy activist Aung San Suu Kyi won a landslide victory ... which was then ignored by the junta. —JCL

The BBC:

An ongoing computer attack has knocked Burma off the internet, just days ahead of its first election in 20 years.

The attack started in late October but has grown in the last few days to overwhelm the nation’s link to the net, said security firm Arbor Networks.

Reports from Burma say the disruption is ongoing.

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