China Accused of 'Weaponizing' Global Internet Users to Launch DDoS Attack

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Activists battling internet censorship in China are reporting that they have proof of a massive online assault on their websites by the Chinese authorities. The attack, which began last Thursday, targeted two GitHub projects designed to combat censorship in China: GreatFire and CN-NYTimes, a Chinese language version of the New York Times.

Independent researchers, in response to GreatFire's call for help, have reported the following discoveries:

Millions of global internet users, visiting thousands of websites hosted inside and outside China, were randomly receiving malicious code which was used to launch cyberattacks against GreatFire.org's websites.

Baidu's Analytics code (h.js) was one of the files replaced by malicious code which triggered the attacks. Baidu Analytics, akin to Google Analytics, is used by thousands of websites. Any visitor to any website using Baidu Analytics or other Baidu resources would have been exposed to the malicious code..

That malicious code is sent to "any reader globally" without distinguishing that user's geographical location, meaning that the authorities did not just launch this attack using Chinese internet users they compromised internet users and websites everywhere in the world.

The tampering takes places someplace between when the traffic enters China and when it hits Baidu's servers. This is consistent with previous malicious actions and points to the Cyberspace Administration of China (CAC) being directly involved in these attacks.

Sample graph from the report generated from one of the log files based on the 18th of March 2015 attack.

GreatFire has released technical details of the attack in a report titled: "Using Baidu to steer millions of computers to launch denial of service attacks".

Related topics: Censorship, DDoS

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China Accused of 'Weaponizing' Global Internet Users to Launch DDoS Attack

Student Prevented from Distributing Flyers without Free Speech Badge – Video

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Student Prevented from Distributing Flyers without Free Speech Badge
In this February 4, 2015 video, California State Polytechnic University, Pomona student Nicolas Tomas is stopped by campus police from distributing animal rights flyers. Tomas was told that...

By: TheFIREorg

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Student Prevented from Distributing Flyers without Free Speech Badge - Video

Senior journalists the latest targets of Malaysia's crackdown on civil liberties

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Nurul Izzah, daughter of imprisoned Malaysian opposition leader Anwar Ibrahim, was released on bail on March 17. She has warned that Malaysia is sliding towards becoming a "police state". Photo: Reuters/Olivia Harris

Weeks after jailing opposition leader Anwar Ibrahim for five years, Malaysia's government has escalated a crackdown on civil liberties and freedom of speech.

Five senior journalists are the latest targets in a mounting tally of detentions under a draconian sedition law that Prime Minister Najib Razak promised to abolish in 2012, describing it as of a "bygone era."

Critics are comparing sweeping arrests to an infamous 1987 political crackdown by former prime minister Mahathir Mohamad that crushed his political opponents.

Senior opposition figure Lim Kit Siang estimates that more than 100 people have been detained over the past week. In February, authorities arrested the popular cartoonist Zunar.

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Mr Najib has been fending off criticism over his handling of state investment fund 1Malaysia Development Berhad that is billions of dollars in debt and faces challenges to his leadership within his ruling United Malays National Organisation (UMNO).

Dozens of opposition politicians, activists, students and lawyers have been arrested over the past year on sedition and other charges after the government that has ruled since 1956 lost the popular vote at elections in 2013, but remained in power because of a gerrymandered voting system.

Three leading opposition politicians were among those arrested last week in a bid to stop a protest march demanding the release of Mr Anwar, who was convicted on rarely-used sodomy charge that was widely seen as being politically motivated.

Mr Anwar's daughter Nurul Izzah, a member of parliament and one of those recently charged with sedition, has warned that Malaysia was sliding towards becoming a "police state".

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Senior journalists the latest targets of Malaysia's crackdown on civil liberties

Court ruling shows hazy high school freedom

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Almost half a century ago, in a case involving students who wore black armbands to protest the Vietnam War, the Supreme Court proclaimed that schoolchildren don't shed their constitutional rights to freedom of speech or expression at the schoolhouse gate. This week the court declined to hear a case from California that would have offered an opportunity to reaffirm that principle.

In 2010, some students at Live Oak High School near San Jose wore shirts with the American flag to school on Cinco de Mayo. An assistant principal was told by a student that there might be problems as a result. (A year earlier, Mexican American students had reacted with profanity and threats when some white students hung a makeshift American flag and chanted USA.)

At the direction of the principal, the students were told to either turn their shirts inside out or take them off. Two students who refused were told to go home.

To a Latino student particularly an immigrant an assertive display of the U.S. flag by a classmate on Cinco de Mayo might be offensive. But some students might also have been offended by the anti-war armbands. Both are forms of free speech.

The students who wore the flag shirts sued the Morgan Hill Unified School District, claiming their 1st and 14th Amendment rights had been violated. But the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals rejected their claim, holding that the possibility of an altercation justified the decision to order the students to remove or hide their shirts.

Many parents probably would endorse that better safe than sorry reasoning. But it's hard to square with the Supreme Court's stirring support for student speech in Tinker vs. Des Moines School District, the 1969 armband decision. As lawyers for the Live Oak students pointed out to the Supreme Court, the officials' actions were a response not to a clear threat of disruption but rather to unrealized and unarticulated student unrest. What's more, the officials gave a heckler's veto to students who might have been offended by the American flag shirts.

These are serious arguments. The court's refusal to consider them is another sign that it's ambivalent about the principle it enshrined in 1969 but has whittled away at in subsequent rulings. In a concurring opinion in one of those cases, Justice Clarence Thomas complained that we continue to distance ourselves from Tinker, but we neither overrule it nor offer an explanation of when it operates and when it does not. I am afraid that our jurisprudence now says that students have a right to speak in schools except when they don't.

Although we believe the court should have taken this case to reaffirm Tinker, we agree with Thomas that school administrators everywhere are entitled to clarity from the court about what the 1st Amendment requires inside the schoolhouse gate.

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Court ruling shows hazy high school freedom

Shout Out for Free Speech with SupportStore's new "Je Suis Charlie" Rubber Wristband

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Chicago, IL (PRWEB) March 31, 2015

Millions declared "Je Suis Charlie" (I am Charlie) in support of freedom of expression. One popular way to show what someone cares about is wearing a wristband that stands for the cause. SupportStore's new Freedom of Speech rubber wristband is available now, with same day shipping, for individuals or organizations that want to rally around free speech.

The tragic events that took place at the Charlie Hebdo headquarters on January 7, 2015 in Paris, France left millions worldwide standing in solidarity to protect freedom of speech, freedom of the press and freedom of expression. Many have posted "Je Suis Charlie" on social media to use their free speech to stand with the people of France. Although someone may not agree with what someone else says, they wish to defend their right to day it. Cartoonists around the world had to stop and consider if they were still free to fully express their points of view on topics of the day.

The SupportStore designed "Je Suis Charlie - Defend Free Speech" black 100% silicon rubber wristband is available now in a universal adult size. The band has a debossed message, filled with white and grey permanent color to highlight the message. Each wristband is individually packaged, $2.50 each, or as low as $.69 in quantity.

This wristband, and other items used to shout out about free speech are available on SupportStore's Freedom of Expression assortment page.

A percentage of each sale is made available to be donated to one of several charities.

About SupportStore.com

SupportStore is an online only retailer of items people and businesses use to shout out what they care about.

Customers choose from 500 in-stock items that ship same day, such as a Hope Courage Faith black silicon rubber wristband or a black enamel on metal lapel pin. Customers can also choose to create a custom designed magnets in quantities of 125 or more, many delivering within 10 days.

With a total inventory of over 500,000 items, SupportStore can supply both consumer needs and businesses with products for fundraising events, awareness programs or memorials.

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Shout Out for Free Speech with SupportStore's new "Je Suis Charlie" Rubber Wristband

Freedom From Speech: Why Censorship On Campus Must End

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As Theresa Mays controversial counter-terrorism and security bill fast-tracks its way through Parliament, it appears we can now draw a distinct line under the governments short-lived love affair with freedom of speech.

In the wake of the Charlie Hebdo massacre, David Cameron spoke passionately and at great length about the threat this attack posed to our freedom of expression and our way of life. And yet, in an ironic twist this bill contains (among many alarming and possibly illegal measures) an imposition on universities to ban extremist speakers on campus and root out would-be radicals through staff surveillance. This will only serve to further marginalize free debate in places where it is supposed to be sacrosanct.

The response from students and academics to this latest instalment in anti-extremism legislation makes clear that its injunctions are about as welcome on campus as an outbreak of smallpox or Nick Clegg. Student groups across the country have been submitting emergency motions to their unions recently, urging them to take a stand against the bill.

However, there exists a bitter irony in this sudden spirited and widespread campaign for the rights of students and academics to say the unsayable and think the unthinkable. Ultimately these words ring hollow. When universities take arms against the threat to free speech from without, this only obscures the defeat of free speech that has been perpetrated from within.

You see, this flurry in defence of free expression and thought for students has rather conveniently coincided with the publication of the first ever Free Speech University Rankings by the online magazine Spiked, a survey that found 80% of universities, as a result of their official policies and actions, had either restricted or actively censored free speech and expression on campus beyond the requirements of the law.

The scale of this problem is deceptively large, and it appears that we students are the ones leading the way. 37% of student unions still clutch to No Platform policies, which officially ban all far-right and extremist speakers from campus. But now, Safe Space polices are becoming an increasingly popular alternative in students union politics, with twenty-two unions having officially adopted them. They look harmless enough on paper; Bristols says we have the responsibility to create a safe, inclusive and welcoming environment. While they sound commendable, they are, in fact, far worse than the implications of No Platform policies: a blank cheque to ban anything students unions deem too offensive, or too hot to handle under the vague, inflammatory terms of unsafe or unwelcoming conditions.

Student unions, it would seem, are only too happy to arbitrate what ideas we can and cannot be exposed to, leading to a growing sense of crisis around debate in British universities. In recent months, Oxford University cancelled a debate on abortion because protesters objected to the fact it was being held between two men; UCL dissolved the Nietzsche Club after it put up posters saying equality is a false God; the University of Derby has officially banned UKIP from its campuses in the lead up to the General Election and Dundee expelled the Society for the Protection of Unborn Children from their freshers fair last year. The Sun is not sold on dozens of campuses because of Page 3, and Robin Thickes Blurred Lines has also been banned by many student unions.

Explicit restrictions on speech, including, but not limited to, bans on political affiliations, religious sentiments, specific ideologies, books, opinions, words or speakers on the grounds of their potential to offend are all deeply concerning to me, and I hope, you as well. We are rapidly descending into a generation that believes its self-esteem is more important than everyone elses liberty.

Freedom of speech is not an elastic term; it means tolerating speech you dont like. Instead of shying away from real world issues like sexism, racism and homophobia we should be confronting them and contesting ideas on campus. I am offended when it is assumed that students are too fragile to even take part in reasoned debate nowadays the true solution to bad speech is more speech, not regulated speech. How can we as young adults be expected to develop as truly autonomous beings if the paternalistic edifice championed by the NUS that we need protection from harm from ideas is something we are at ease with? Safety is now being equated with intellectual comfort, which is something no institute of learning should promote.

Real freedom of expression can hurt. Thats the price we pay, says professor Bill Durodi, an expert in the causes and perceptions of security risk, at the University of Bath. Is fostering empathy with other peoples feelings valuable? One hundred percent yes. Should it direct everything you do? No.

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Freedom From Speech: Why Censorship On Campus Must End

Getting to the issues at the heart of the debate in SW

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As someone who has taught literature in this state, tutored many, and has composed poetry, I thought it prudent to exercise some freedom of speech on the issues at the heart of the debate in South Windsor: the freedom of thought, the idea that human sexuality is a subject that exists outside the bounds of classroom discussion, and about the nature of obscenity.

First, the irony of this issue being sparked by the particular poem that was read in a classroom is not lost on me, as the poet who composed the work in question, Allen Ginsberg, was brought up on obscenity charges for his works during in his own lifetime.

Now today we would never think to drag someone before a court for the contents of a poem, as we recognize that art is protected speech. So, by todays standards, the likes of Lenny Bruce would be a welcomed headliner rather than a comedic deviant going bankrupt defending himself before judges for the contents of his act.

Were not talking poetry circles or nightclubs here, you say. This is a school.

So what is acceptable to teach at a school?

When debating this, consider how often any student comes across gruesome acts of carnage and brutality in their courses. Forgoing the violent actions detailed in our history texts or the modern events of the Islamic State discussed in a civics or current events curriculum one need not leave the world of literature for examples of permissible teachings that recall the most heinous acts a human being can commit, and which students discuss at length.

Selecting perhaps the most classic of all literary writers, well go to Shakespeares Macbeth, which recounts the rise of a would-be tyrant as he murders his way to power and glory, only to be stopped when the heroic forces decapitate the terrible protagonist to end his reign as ruler of Denmark.

Perhaps you say, Violence is a separate issue.

Fair enough. But there are works of classic British and American literature at the foundations of our curriculums in this state that contain sexual acts and overt innuendo.

Lets stay with the Bard and head over to Hamlet. Does anyone miss Hamlets meaning when he approaches lady Ophelia about Country matters? Or how about the rather sordid relationship implied between Hamlets family members?

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Getting to the issues at the heart of the debate in SW