Thai ICT website under attack from netizens

[webfact]

ICT website under attack from netizens



BANGKOK: -- The website of the Ministry of Information and Communication Technology was down Wednesday night hours before the planned 10 pm attack of the website by netizens to protest against the government’s planned launch of the single gateway to control access to all websites.

A message was found posted on the website, www.mict.go.th which reads “404 Page Not Found. Sorry. The page you want to see was erased”.

But ICT deputy permanent secretary Somsak Khaosuwan denied that the website was out of order. He admitted that access to the site was slow because there were many users trying to access the page.

He questioned the motive of the netizens who plotted and joined the attack claiming that the ICT has not enforced the single gateway.

“Why can’t we talk to find a way out? It is better than persuading people to cause damage to the state,” said Mr Somsak.

The Thai Netizen Network and netizens opposed to the single gateway plan have urged netizens to simultaneously access to the ICT’s website at 10 pm by means of “DdoS” and press the F5 key on the keyboard for refresh.

Source: http://englishnews.thaipbs.or.th/ict-website-under-attack-from-netizens


-- Thai PBS 2015-10-01

[stoneyboy]

How unfortunate this should occur.

[Seastallion]

" Somsak Khaosuwan denied that the website was out of order. He admitted that access to the site was slow because there were many users trying to access the page."

He plainly doesn't know what a denial of service attack is.

[jaywalker]

" Somsak Khaosuwan denied that the website was out of order. He admitted that access to the site was slow because there were many users trying to access the page."

He plainly doesn't know what a denial of service attack is.

Is that like when all the kids in class get together to plan to sneeze at the same time to disrupt things?

[NongKhaiKid]

An attack on a govt website albeit denied naturally, so will it provoke an angry reaction from on high ?

[canuckamuck]

A giant begins to stir.

[chainarong]

The department of information , don't know about you but that has sinister over- tones, any country who has one of these departments which is not transparent, only wants the population to hear one version and true to form, we got it.

[MaxLee]

ICT website under attack from netizens

A message was found posted on the website, www.mict.go.th which reads 404 Page Not Found. Sorry. The page you want to see was erased.

But ICT deputy permanent secretary Somsak Khaosuwan denied that the website was out of order. He admitted that access to the site was slow because there were many users trying to access the page.

He questioned the motive of the netizens who plotted and joined the attack claiming that the ICT has not enforced the single gateway.

..........

Why cant we talk to find a way out? It is better than persuading people to cause damage to the state, said Mr Somsak.

Source: http://englishnews.thaipbs.or.th/ict-website-under-attack-from-netizens

-- Thai PBS 2015-10-01

What's there to talk about, Mr. ICT minister, that hack speaks more than millions of words, what the majority of netizen kids are thinking nationwide

[Seastallion]

An attack on a govt website albeit denied naturally, so will it provoke an angry reaction from on high ?

In a few days, the denial will be reversed and used as a reason for more control.

I'll bet a bottle of Hong Thong that the attack will be admitted, and cited as an example of a breach of the country's security, and thus more virtual policing needs to be in place.

Any takers?

[OccamsRazor]

"and press the F5 key on the keyboard for refresh."

Apparently the netizens are not that clued in. Some browsers have an auto refresh feature that can be set to do that every n seconds.

[webfact]

ICT solves 'DDoS' attack by using US proxy
Asina Pornwasin
The Nation

BANGKOK: -- A source in IT industry unveiled that after the ICT Ministry's website faced DDoS attack by angry Internet useres, the ministry has found a way to handle overwhelming traffic.

The source said it was founded that the domain name system (DNS) of ICT Ministry's website was changed to point to CloudFlare, US company that provides a content delivery network and distributed domain name server services, at IP 104.20.29.248.

DNS pointed at CloudFlare in order to filter traffics before send the traffics back to the MICT's website.

"This is called reverse proxy technique," said the source.

With this technique, it can help reduce numbers of [fake] traffic to the website. Fake traffic means the frequent requests from the same IP address in a shot period of time.

CloudFlare acts as a reverse proxy for [its customer] site that is able to filter and analyze traffic coming to [its customer] site. In addition to analyzing and filtering of traffic, CloudFlare also offers optional security features that can help mitigate attacks and content theft.

As a result, at around 1:28 am on October 1, some people can access MICT website, but some cannot.

Source: http://www.nationmultimedia.com/breakingnews/ICT-solves-DDoS-attack-by-using-US-proxy-30269942.html


-- The Nation 2015-10-01

[silent]

" Somsak Khaosuwan denied that the website was out of order. He admitted that access to the site was slow because there were many users trying to access the page."

He plainly doesn't know what a denial of service attack is.

Is that like when all the kids in class get together to plan to sneeze at the same time to disrupt things?

More like a class action crap at the same time to clog up the gateway.

[Loptr]

“Why can’t we talk to find a way out? It is better than persuading people to cause damage to the state,” said Mr Somsak.

When was there any "talk" on this topic before the government unilaterally announced that it was tightening censorship on Thais? As the saying goes, control the message and you control the masses...

[NongKhaiKid]

An attack on a govt website albeit denied naturally, so will it provoke an angry reaction from on high ?

In a few days, the denial will be reversed and used as a reason for more control.

I'll bet a bottle of Hong Thong that the attack will be admitted, and cited as an example of a breach of the country's security, and thus more virtual policing needs to be in place.

Any takers?

That's a very good point. The initial knee jerk reaction is to deny then upon reflection ' this can be turned to our advantage ' so the spin about national security is employed to explain what ' regretfully ' HAS TO BE done.

[aripengu]

[slipperylobster]

One gateway.....one reply.

[AlQaholic]

Maybe if they had more than one gateway it wouldn't be so easy to hack

[NeverSure]

"and press the F5 key on the keyboard for refresh."

Apparently the netizens are not that clued in. Some browsers have an auto refresh feature that can be set to do that every n seconds.

Actually you'd want to press CTRL + F5. That forces a "hard refresh" meaning there is no look to the cache for things like images and it downloads everything fresh. This puts the most load on the server.

Cheers.

[zaphod reborn]

Why can’t we talk to find a way out?

When you attempt to quickly convert to a single national internet gateway without any public discussion, and rather than have your website hacked, you ask your opponents "why don't we talk?", seems disingenuous, to say the least.

[Srikcir]

The government should use this standard response:

"This denial of service is not an act of terrorism. It is personal revenge for the crackdown on (fill in topic) ."

Suggested topics: UII, human trafficking, casinos, muslims, Uighurs, teenage pregnancies, foreigners, Thais with bad hearts.....

[SiSePuede419]

" Somsak Khaosuwan denied that the website was out of order. He admitted that access to the site was slow because there were many users trying to access the page."

He plainly doesn't know what a denial of service attack is.

A DOS attack is external.

The article says the website was internally modified to read:

404 Page Not Found. Sorry. The page you want to see was erased.

That's a script kiddie kind of thing. Maybe some Digital Nomads were staying at the Oriental and got bored, 555...

[maidee]

hahaha ... US PROXY

just what most of us do when we see that dredded green screen from the coup makers

[SiSePuede419]

One gateway.....one reply.

ISWYDT

[klauskunkel]

“Why can’t we talk to find a way out? It is better than persuading people to cause damage to the state,” said Mr Somsak.

...singing "Kumbaya"...

[kiwikeith]

How unfortunate this should occur.

I would say definately not an act of terror, however a single gateway possibly could be.

[webfact]

ICT, CAT Telecom websites collapse after Thai Internet users joining force in DDoS attack



BANGKOK: -- The websites of the Ministry of Information and Communication Technology and the CAT Telecom collapsed for several hours after Internet users joined forces to manually attack the two government websites to show their strong opposition to the government's single gateway initiative.

ICT website was down first since 7 pm last night before the scheduled 10 pm “war of freedom” campaign when Thai Internet users began what was known as the DDoS (denial of service) attack against the ICT website (www.mict.go.th).

“Internal Server Error” or “This webpage is not available” would come out when browsed the ICT website since 7 pm last night.

The website was down hours before the scheduled attack at 10 pm to retaliate the government’s plan to launch a single gateway to control access to all websites in an attempt to monitor the flow of information from abroad.

The campaign urged Internet users to go to the address and refresh the page continuously by pressing F5 on the keyboard ceaselessly, according to The Nation.

As of 11 pm, the ICT website was still inaccessible.

Access to other government website was also very slow, such aswww.thaigov.go.th and www.center.isocthai.go.th.

Meanwhile CAT Telecom website also became the second target after ICT with Thai Internet users launching DDoS (denial of service) attack against after the first attack was a success.

Earlier at 8.30 pm last night a message was spread on the social network thanking the Internet users for the manual attack on the ICT website which it said was a success.

It then called on the Thai netizens to storm CAT Telecom website as the second target at 9 pm.

CAT website was then down an hour after with blank page and an error message instead.

The message also targeted Government House official website, and ISOC website as the next targets saying the government could not even protect itself from attack, so how could it protect the people.

Meanwhile The Nation quoted government spokesman Maj Gen Sansern Kaewkamnerd as saying last night that the collapse of ICT website was possibly caused by those who wanted to express their opposition against the single gateway initiative idea.

“I have no information about that but I guess that the problem could happen when many people entered the site simultaneously. It’s like a symbol [of protest],” The Nation quoted the spokesman as saying.

He insisted the single gateway initiative was just in a study process and not implement yet.

Source: http://englishnews.thaipbs.or.th/ict-cat-telecom-websites-collapse-after-thai-internet-users-joining-force-in-ddos-attack

-- Thai PBS 2015-10-01

[arfurcrown]

Play with fire and your fingers get burnt.

[Assurancetourix]

An attack on a govt website albeit denied naturally, so will it provoke an angry reaction from on high ?

I think so;

impossible this morning to connect to Gmail, Thaivisa and many other sites like U-Tube ;

but u know how I am here ;

[dageurreotype]

An attack on a govt website albeit denied naturally, so will it provoke an angry reaction from on high ?

I think so;

impossible this morning to connect to Gmail, Thaivisa and many other sites like U-Tube ;

but u know how I am here ;

I've been able to access all the sites you mention, however I usually don't fire up before 9 am. I also strongly believe a little inconvenience on our part is a small price to pay for the Thai subjects citizens to show their displeasure at having their country/freedoms hijacked by a bunch of guys with no other legitimacy than that they have big guns.

[Shaunduhpostman]

It all suggests that the govt. are up against the whole country and the whole world with their internet battle which itself is predicated on a lack of understanding of the internet, how it works and its importance to the whole country.