The attack, believed to have originated from two locations in Iran, took place around midnight yesterday, and the website was restored within an hour, Al Khaleej consultant Dr Khalid Abdullah told Gulf News.

"I believe they targeted Al Khaleej because of some of the positions the paper has taken, and because of its prominence in the region," he said. Al Khaleej is one of the UAE's oldest and highest circulated newspapers.

"As far as I know, this is the first time a prominent Gulf site has been attacked by Iranian nationalists," he added.

Trademark
The main page of the newspaper's website was replaced with a replacement page carrying a political message and picture. The text on the site read: 'The correct name is Persian Gulf, which always has been, and will always remain, Persian.'

Below it was an image that seemed like the hacker's trademark, carrying his name before a map of Iran, with the Arabian Gulf labelled as "Persian".

Most Arabs refer to the body of water between the Arabian Peninsula and Iran as the Arabian Gulf.

Iran disputes this, saying that it has been historically known as the Persian Gulf. Most news organisations based in the Arab world also refer to the Gulf as Arabian, while Hezbollah's Al Manar satellite channel refers to it as 'the Gulf'.

The issue is often taken up by the Iranian government. It banned the sale of a National Geographic atlas for referring to the Gulf as 'Arabian' until it was changed.

Various Western media continue to refer to it as the 'Persian Gulf' while some simply call it 'the Gulf'.

Dr Abdullah said the web coordinator at Al Khaleej noticed the infiltration as he was posting the latest news. "We started working on it immediately and the website was functional within an hour," he said.

Not the first
Al Khaleej is not the first UAE newspaper to face 'hacktivism' as Gulf News' own website was hacked by an Israeli group in June 2001.

An investigation by Gulf News' IT experts traced the hackers through US sites to computers linked to Israel's internet service provider Netvision. It was part of a larger 'cyber war' between pro-Israeli and pro-Palestinian hacker gangs.

The hackers left the message "You have been hacked...Long live Israel...You were owned by Senodyne." An Israeli flag was also placed on the website.

Hacktivism on the rise
Internet users in the Middle East are being urged to take precautions against a disturbing new trend of cybercrime hacktivism which, according to recent findings, is on the rise.

Best explained as a combination of 'hacking' and 'activism', hacktivism is the act of hacking into a URL or IT system in order to communicate a politically or socially motivated message.

Trend Micro's own research shows that global, political and social events, such as the Beijing Olympics, are leading to an increasing volume of hacktivism attacks originating within the region, as well as penetrating local networks from external sources.

Unlike the traditional hacker, whose motives are usually financial or anarchistic in nature, the hacktivist performs the same kinds of disruptive actions in order to draw attention to a political or social cause. Hacktivism is the latest form of civil disobedience and protest.

The most notable incident of hacktivism occurred in Estonia in 2007 where Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) attacks against government and corporate websites created a worldwide realisation of the very real threat of 'cyber' attacks and the potentially devastating impact they could have on state infrastructure.

TrendLabs, Trend Micro's Threat Research Division, documented occurrences of hacktivism during the recent social and political unrest in China where hackitivists unsuccessfully launched a DDoS attack on CNN as a protest against coverage deemed as 'pro-Tibet'.

Though no proof was established regarding the connection between the anti-CNN movement and the supposed hacking incident, investigators believed that the online attacks supposedly go hand in hand with street protests, creating a synchronised protest in the real and digital worlds.

"Hacktivism could bring about large economic losses as well as potentially severe damage to the national infrastructure," said Ian Cochrane, Marketing Manager, Trend Micro Middle East and Africa.

By Abbas Al Lawati

© Gulf News 2008

 

Community Comments (11) - Comment on this article

The opinions of the authors expressed herein do not necessarily state or reflect Zawya. Read our Comment Policy.

 

Re: History of Persian Gulf (with the link) by Baggins B - 02-Jun-08
Sir,

My statement about the assumption being based on hypothesis rather than fact, was pertaining to the logic argument presented regarding the consequences of distorting truth. I said that since Iran also partakes in distortions of various kinds, then one would be equally justified in "hacktivism" of Iranian newspapers, rather than a non factual claim to the history of the Persian Gulf (with which I am in agreement with you 100%)

Does distortion of the truth extend to shutting down newspapers as and when the government pleases, even if the newspapers are reporting actual facts? See latest story regarding Iranian press http://www.zawya.com/Story.cfm/sidANA164154102938

Why are Iranian people and the rest of the world not entitled to the truth or other non governmental opinions? Why does the government have to manipulate and distort everything in this way? How can we push for greater transparency? [Report Abuse | Email to a Friend | Reply to this Comment]

 

 

History of Persian Gulf (with the link) by Son of IRAN Persian Gulf Forever - 01-Jun-08
Baggins:

Your statement:

"Please note that this assumption is purely based on your hypothesis rather than it being a fact."

My claim that the name Persian Gulf is a well documented historical fact, and it has been Persian Gulf for thousands of years, is not is not a personal belief or hypothesis. You can make sure of that by looking through the historical maps on the following website and see it for yourself. Btw, an encyclopedia of Persian Gulf in 8 volumes compiled soon and by reading that you can make sure that the true name for that body of water is Persian Gulf. Let alone the ancient achaemenian era tablet recetly found in Khark island also confirms the true identity of that body of water as Persian Gulf.

Links:
http://thepersiangulf-oldmaps.blogspot.com/
http://www.persiangulfonline.org/maps.htm

Persian Gulf 4Ever.

God Bless I R A N.
God Bless Humanity. [Report Abuse | Email to a Friend | Reply to this Comment]

 

 

Re. Persian Gulf - Part 2/2 by Son of IRAN Persepolis - 31-May-08
Your statement:

"However, it appears that you are clearly supporting activities (cyber attacks, hacktivism or otherwise) which
harm or threaten other people merely because they happen to apply a name to something which you don’t
agree with."

Ok, your speaking of this whole thing like it is just based on my personal belief and desire that the Persian Gulf
must be called Persian Gulf. Well let me give you an example maybe that would help you to understand what
we (Iranians) mean. Imagine the same people who are trying to distort the name of Persian Gulf today, attempt
to do the same with the Indian ocean. That just because arabian sea shares the waters as the Indian
ocean, lets call the Indian ocean, the Arabian ocean from now on. Or the other way around, Indians try to
change the name of Arabian sea to Indian sea, or even omitting it and make it part of the Indian ocean simply
becouse there's no reason of having two different appellation for the same waters!

Well I see what you're thinking now, YES IT IS RIDICULOUS! It is just as absurd as it is for the case of the name of
Persian Gulf! There have been thousands of contracts that have been written referring to that body of water
Persian Gulf through the history. All through history all the historians referred to that body of water Persian
Gulf. Even in the arab states it used to be called Persian Gulf before the term "arabian gulf" was coined by head of the pan
arabist movement, Gamal Abdel Nasser's Arab Republic of Egypt in 1960's (which I still don't know why he did it
knowing that Egyptians are not ethnically arab and they don't have shores around the Persian Gulf).

Your statement:

"And my question is, if you are a person willing to devote time, energy and resources fighting for something,
shouldn’t it be for something more important and that will benefit many more people? Thousands of people
recently died in an earthquake in China and many more people are suffering in Myanmar. Does it really affect
your life that much if someone chooses to call the Persian Gulf the Arab Gulf?"

First of all, I don't understand the reason of your efforts to somehow connect the issue of Persian Gulf to
something totally irrelevant. What does the distortion of the name Persian Gulf has anything to do with
holocaust, tragic events of China and Myanmar?

Having said that, in response to your question, yes those events hurt me when I first was informed about them.
A good friend of mine lost 3 of his family members in China's earthquake. FYI, I have also donated for the aids
for the suffering people of Myanmar. As a human being I have done my part in contributing to the aids for
victims of the mentioned areas. I feel sorry for them. At the same time, I am not a cosmopolitan, I love my
country, therefore in all cases of concern my country come first for me. And now that a group of people seem to enjoy playing
with the history of my country, I'll anything in my power to fight it! This doesn't mean that I don't care about the
victims of China, Myanmar, 9/11, Palestine, etc. In fact I do care aboyt them as a human being and extend my
sympathy to them as much as I can. Buy as I said before this has nothing to do with the distortion of the history
of my country by changing the name of Persian Gulf, and that for me comes first.

Persian Gulf 4Ever.

God Bless I R A N.
God Bless Humanity. [Report Abuse | Email to a Friend | Reply to this Comment]

 

 

Re. Persian Gulf - Part 1/2 by Son of IRAN Persepolis - 31-May-08
Baggins:

Your statement:

"In the interests of keeping this "intellectual" debate to a certain standard and not letting it degenerate into
name calling, I will forgo pointing out your incapability or refusal to properly read my previous comment which
never mentioned anything to do with justification of calling the Persian Gulf arabian."

Just in case that you might have forgotten your previous post, following is your statement, which is clearly an
implicit support of the whole agenda of a certain group of people who are seeking to distort the history by
changing the name of the Persian Gulf to something else:

"My personal belief, and I may be wrong, is that misnaming a body of water should elicit much less of an
aggressive response than flatly denying that the murder of millions of people took place."

Your statement:

"I am extremely interested in Iran's continued (at least 63 years since the end of WW2) inquistiveness as you
call it, into trying to get to the bottom of the facts surrounding the Holocaust. I would also like to see some
documented evidence that Iran has been applying it's historical analytical capability during all this time"

I am sure that there are certainly some analytical researches forgone by Iranians during this time, but again, first,
what is the relevance of this subject with what you have brought up, and if there is any, I don't see anything
wrong if Iranians even have started this research process lately.

Your statement:

"For example, there are quotes dating from 1980 when Iran was calling Israel a “tumour” that needs to be
removed from the Middle East."

Well, indeed Iranians blame zionists for the whole destruction and corruption that they've brought to the world
or at least to the middle east. Occupying a land which does not belong to them, and killing the people who used
to live there, killing people from Lebanon and other nations, directly or indirectly, just in virtue of expanding
their geopolitical territorial boundaries. Knowing the nature of tumours, I believe using the metaphor of the
tumours for the zionist regime makes a lot of sense, doesn't it?

Your statement:

"And finally, Ahmadinejad’s speech at Columbia University in the USA on 24 Sept 2007, a transcript of which can
be found here here http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-
dyn/content/article/2007/09/24/AR2007092401042.html . He quite clearly says this, “the Holocaust, if it did
actually happen…...”. This may or may not be a denial, it is of course open to debate on both sides,"

I understand why he has used the phrase "if it did actually happen", and I think the reason simply is, when they
put individuals in prison for expressing their viewpoints, and won't allow the investigation and research to be
done on the subject of holocaust, it would be fair to have a slight bit of scepticism, and use the phrase "if it did
actually happen", because certainly you cannot 'make sure' whether something happened in the past without
having done enough researches which in the case of holocaust you'll be imprisoned for doing so. By the way if
you're thinking of posting a comment mentioning that huge propaganda that Ahmadinejad is seeking the
destruction of any states, i suggest you and anybody else who is reading this debate to see these videos:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4mScWWtRfGQ
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZsyXGplC9NI
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nd5uq1AGxPs

[Continues on 2nd part] [Report Abuse | Email to a Friend | Reply to this Comment]

 

 

Re: Re: Persian Gulf by Bilbo Baggins - 31-May-08
Sir,

In the interests of keeping this "intellectual" debate to a certain standard and not letting it degenerate into name calling, I will forgo pointing out your incapability or refusal to properly read my previous comment which never mentioned anything to do with justification of calling the Persian Gulf arabian.

Nevertheless, you are quite right when you state that due to propaganda and institutional distortion of the truth and facts, there are massive untruths which are commonly held as facts.

I am extremely interested in Iran's continued (at least 63 years since the end of WW2) inquistiveness as you call it, into trying to get to the bottom of the facts surrounding the Holocaust. I would also like to see some documented evidence that Iran has been applying it's historical analytical capability during all this time in the interests of accuracy rather than merely bringing it up as a means of distorting the truth to suit its own needs when it wants. Why has it taken so long i ask myself?!

For example, there are quotes dating from 1980 when Iran was calling Israel a “tumour” that needs to be removed from the Middle East. On December 14 2005, Ahmadinejad suggested that the holocaust was a myth. December 11 / 12 2006, the Iranian Foreign Ministry for Political and International Studies convened a conference promoting Holocaust denial, a conference to which many countries attended.

And finally, Ahmadinejad’s speech at Columbia University in the USA on 24 Sept 2007, a transcript of which can be found here here http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/09/24/AR2007092401042.html . He quite clearly says this, “the Holocaust, if it did actually happen…...”. This may or may not be a denial, it is of course open to debate on both sides, and perhaps something has been lost or changed in translation. If something has been distorted in translation are we then justified in threatening the Washington Post with a cyber attack for example?!

On the other hand, Trita Parsi’s book, The Treacherous Alliance, demonstrates a complete reversal of commonly held assumptions over the last 30 years. Iran’s prime minister asks Israel to assassinate Khomeini, Israel reaches out to Saddam Hussein after the Gulf War, the United States foils Iran’s plan to withdraw support from Hamas and Hezbollah, and more. It appears that the greatest deception played on the whole world has been as a result of all 3 conniving to distort the truth!

I support Iran’s right to nuclear technology. I think it is especially pertinent given the amount of nuclear deals that are currently being signed all over the GCC. I support Iran’s opinion whatever it may be on events during the second world war. Everyone is entitled to their opinion. Opinions are not the same as actions.

However, it appears that you are clearly supporting activities (cyber attacks, hacktivism or otherwise) which harm or threaten other people merely because they happen to apply a name to something which you don’t agree with. And my question is, if you are a person willing to devote time, energy and resources fighting for something, shouldn’t it be for something more important and that will benefit many more people? Thousands of people recently died in an earthquake in China and many more people are suffering in Myanmar.
Does it really affect your life that much if someone chooses to call the Persian Gulf the Arab Gulf? [Report Abuse | Email to a Friend | Reply to this Comment]

 

 

Re: Persian Gulf by Son of IRAN Persepolis - 30-May-08
Baggins:

Firstly, I'm afraid I don't see any connections between a 60 years old historical EVENT being Holocaust, with the historical APPELLATION of a particular

geographical location being Persian Gulf, although I must admit that you have done a good job in connecting a common Mainstream media propaganda (Iran's

holocaust denial which is not true) to the topic of Persian Gulf which is pretty well documented in all the major history books, ancient manuscripts and maps

and the United Nations documents (for the sources refer to my previous post). The way I see it, what you have done is a pure ignoratio elenchi!

Your statement:

"My personal belief, and I may be wrong, is that misnaming a body of water should elicit much less of an aggressive response than flatly denying that the

murder of millions of people took place."

I don't think that it is quiet an intellectual way to make arguments based on assumptions and beliefs. Having said that, your personal belief is unfortunately

based on a wrong presumption, simply because Iran has never denied the holocaust. Nevertheless, by saying so, you are acknowledging the fact that you are

well aware of distortion of the true historical appelation of the Persian Gulf, and trying to justify it based on a false mainstream media propaganda game on

Iran! Iran has never denied the holocaust. There is a great difference between denial and inquisitiveness. Iran is seeking the answer to many ambiguities of

holocaust. For instance the number of victims of Auschwitz concentration camp; according to Henri Michel the number is 9,000,000. Yet according to Fritiof

Mever the number of the victims is 510,000. Iran has never denied the holocaust but sought to clear the ambiguities for that matter. Holocaust denial by Iran

is a big lie just like the Iraq's WMDs which are still to be found!

Your statement:

"Furthermore, you have referred to God, in the last two sentences of your comment, presumably on the basis that God created the earth. In which case, it is

irrelevant what names human beings give to parts of the world, is it not.......?!"

I suppose it would suffice to say that even God can't change the history including the history of the Persian Gulf.

Persian Gulf 4 Ever

God Bless I R A N.
God Bless Humanity. [Report Abuse | Email to a Friend | Reply to this Comment]

 

 

Re: Persian Gulf forever by Bilbo Baggins - 30-May-08
Sir,

You state that , "Cyber attacks were the first step, who knows what's gonna be next if u don't stop your outrageous distortion of the history".

Following this logic alone, it is fair to assume then, that since Iran has a reputation for distorting history, as far as events during the second world war and denying the holocaust, that there is justification for similar activities to be levelled against Iran.

Please note that this assumption is purely based on your hypothesis rather than it being a fact.

My personal belief, and I may be wrong, is that misnaming a body of water should elicit much less of an aggressive response than flatly denying that the murder of millions of people took place.

Furthermore, you have referred to God, in the last two sentences of your comment, presumably on the basis that God created the earth. In which case, it is irrelevant what names human beings give to parts of the world, is it not.......?! [Report Abuse | Email to a Friend | Reply to this Comment]

 

 

Re: Comment by Ali Shorafa - 30-May-08
Thanks alot Mohammad Jan [Report Abuse | Email to a Friend | Reply to this Comment]

 

 

So that's how you notice. by Son of IRAN Cyrus the Great - 29-May-08
Well Mr. Abbas Al Lawati,

First of, a historical/geographical fact is not something to be altered based on desires of a

group of people. Persian Gulf, has been called Persian Gulf since forever. There is over

3000 years of recorded history referring to that body of water as the Persian Gulf. From

Herodotus to Will Durant, and all the great historians and thinkers have referred to that

gulf as the Persian Gulf. It's a historical fact, whether arabs like it or not. If you're looking

for more recent evidence, simply go to United Nations, and look for documents on that

gulf, and you will see there is not even one single document referring to that gulf as

arabian gulf. Furthermore, UN has even published dozens of official letters urging the

necessity of using the correct name of Persian Gulf and preclude any other name except

for the term "Gulf" as an alternative in the case of repetitions for that body of water (refer

to United Nations documents: ST/CS/SER.A/29/Rev.1 & ST/CS/SER.A/29/Add.1 &

ST/CS/SER.A/29/Add.2 & ST/CS/SER.A/Corr.1 & many other sources that you can simply

access to on the UN website)

I wouldn't apologize for the recent hacking attacks. In fact I think that it is the arab

community that owes Iranians due to their outrageous act of historical fact distortion of

Persian Gulf to something else. Why? well, we did try to stop you from distorting the

historical fact of Persian Gulf's identity, but unfortunately it didn't seem work and you

faced with the consequences. The next step was to take actions, which you've experienced

in the form of cyber attack.

So I suggest you to stop this silly childish game of distorting the true name of Persian Gulf

for whatever imprudent reason (bribing Louvre meusum to replace the name of Persian

Gulf with the fake name arabian gulf in the meusum guide books at UAE branch of louvre

meusum, bribing National Geographic channel to do the same thing with the roadcasting
programs, etc.) . Otherwise, if you're going to keep playing this game, we (Iranians) are

110% in the game till the end of it. By the way, this whole thing has nothing to do with

politics and the government of Iran. In this particular case you're playing with a nation's

history, identity and heritage, thus accordingly you're dealing with 70 million people of

Iran. It's up to you if you want to keep playing this ridiculous game. Cyber attacks were the

first step, who knows what's gonna be next if u don't stop your outrageous distortion of

the history.

Persian Gulf For Ever.

God Bless I R A N.
God Bless Humanity. [Report Abuse | Email to a Friend | Reply to this Comment]

 

 

Comment by Mohammad M, Professor - 28-May-08
I do apologise you because of this behavior form a iranina hacker as an Iranian.But, if you are honest with yourself and with history.You must use Persian Gulf instead of Arab Gulf.There is no problem between Arabs and Iranians and they are quite close to eachother.But if you like to name your country United Persian Emirates instead of UAE then I accept the name Arab Gulf.Fair enough?? [Report Abuse | Email to a Friend | Reply to this Comment]

 

 

Hush Money... by A T - 23-May-08
This story highlights several issues:-
1. That media is the foremost tool to achieve political ends and to manipulate popular thinking,
2. People are being trained to accept opinions and not facts, as the truth
And finally, a misunderstanding of the varying nomenclature between various parts of the world. Someone who is called John in england might be referred to as Juan in Spain and Jean in France. Which would not be wrong, It is just a local adaptation of a name.

It is questionable whether one has a "right" to hear objective reporting of news and events in this part of the world, and certainly there seems to be no organised body or consumer rights group which can fight for this cause with support from governmental legislation.

One need only look at the various arrests of individuals posting blogs, or talking openly about democratic voting. One could also cite the various instances where books and other articles have been heavily censored or banned. The constant stick waving has led to a form of corporate paranoia.

Recenly I asked a leading publicly listed Gulf Real Estate and Investment company to confirm simple quantitative facts about their operations both locally and abroad, as there were discrepancies between what was reported on their website, 3rd party sources and what had been told to me in person by a member of their staff. After a week of delay i received a communication asking me to repeat the request on an official company letter and stating why I needed these facts, when I had already made it quite clear.

This is not an isolated case, and given that this was a publicy listed company, there is little hope to extract the correct information from private companies in the region. This example shows that there is a trend here to avoid accurate and timely reporting of information that would not only help customers to be satisfied with the product, but would also increase sales for the company concerned and inspire confidence in he business community as a whole. [Report Abuse | Email to a Friend | Reply to this Comment]

 

 

 

 

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