Burma hit by massive net attack ahead of election

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. The attack, which is believed to have started on 25 October, comes ahead of closely-watched national elections on 7 November. International observers and foreign journalists are not being allowed into the country to cover the polls - which many Western leaders have said will not be free or fair.

It will raise suspicions that Burma's military authorities could be trying to restrict the flow of information over the election period. Dr Craig Labovitz from Arbor Networks said that he did not know the motivation for the attack but said that analysis of similar events in the past had found motives that ran the gamut "from politically motivated DDoS, government censorship, extortion and stock manipulation." He also noted that the current wave of traffic was "significantly larger" than high profile attacks against Georgia and Estonia in 2007.

Read more...

U.S. Unsure Who's Behind Iraq Attacks

U.S. commanders say they are unsure about who is responsible for the persistent violence in Iraq, underscoring the challenge they face trying to keep a lid on it amid parliamentary elections this weekend. While security has improved significantly across Iraq in recent years, in the weeks leading up to the March 7 vote, U.S. commanders have reported an increase in low-level violence: kidnappings, assassinations, and mortar attacks against Baghdad's heavily fortified Green Zone, the seat of government power.

And since August, a series of large-scale bombings aimed at government buildings have ripped through Baghdad, killing several hundred people and shaking confidence in Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki's security services, following the withdrawal of most U.S. combat forces from major Iraqi cities last summer. Commanders worry the violence could spike further after the election if parties feel there was fraud or if negotiations to form a government after the vote break down. U.S. and Iraqi successes cracking down on organized insurgent groups have caused the groups to splinter into an ill-defined web of smaller, often independent, groups with widely divergent motives, ranging from the ideological to the purely material, according to American military officials.

Read more...