Leftist Internet Under Attack

[Dreadnaht1]

Here's the article from the editor of a few recent sites that were sabotaged by "hackers."

"Marxist.com under attack
Website sabotaged by hackers

DEFEND MARXIST.COM!
DEFEND THE FREEDOM OF EXPRESSION!

AN APPEAL TO OUR FRIENDS AND READERS

Marxist.com has been the victim of a deliberate act of politically-motivated
aggression. On Thursday, January 3, our web server was hacked into by
unidentified individuals, with the clear intention of destroying our site.

The attackers aimed to silence us by stopping the server from working. As a
result of this sabotage a number of websites were deleted, including:

In Defence of Marxism (www.marxist.com)
Youth For International Socialism (www.newyouth.com)
Socialist Appeal (www.socialist.net)
Socialist Labor (www.socialistlabor.com)
Trotsky year 2001 (www.trotsky.net)
El Militante, Spanish Marxist site (www.elmilitante.org)
Fundacion Federico Engels, Spanish Marxist site (www.engels.org)
Militante, Mexican Marxist paper (www.militante.org)
La Riposte, French Marxist site (www.lariposte.com)
Der Funke, Austrian Marxist site (www.derfunke.at)
Wellred On-line bookshop (www.marxist.com/wellred)
Socialistiki Ekfrasi, Greek Marxist site (www.marxismos.com)

There is absolutely no doubt that the attack was politically-motivated and
directed specifically against In Defence of Marxism (www.marxist.com) and
allied sites. Only our sites were targeted. Other, non-political sites
hosted by the same server, were not touched. This was therefore not a random
act of vandalism, but one that deliberately targeted our site and other
Marxist sites.

Since we had quite tight security, it is clear that this was a very
professional operation, and that the perpetrators took a lot of time and
trouble to carry out their sabotage.

The consequences of this attack have been quite serious. They succeed not
only in deleting a number of websites, but also in deleting a number of
files which effectively stopped the server as a whole from working. They
clearly knew what they were doing, and what they wanted, which was to shut
us up.

THEY WILL NOT SUCCEED!

For the last five years, Marxist.com has consistently defended the cause of
the working class on a world scale. We have consistently opposed the
aggressions of imperialism in Iraq, the Balkans and, most recently, in
Afghanistan.

We have also worked hard to explain and develop the theoretical positions of
Marxism and show their relevance to the contemporary world.

The success and wide appeal of our website can be seen by the following
statistics: 5,000 page requests every day, and a total of over one million
successful page requests in 2001 alone.

Our work has obtained the widest recognition, even from people who would not
consider themselves Marxists. This is shown by the huge and increasing
number of visits to our site, and the voluminous correspondence we receive
from all over the world every day.

The very day we were hit by the saboteurs, we received an outstanding letter
from New York, praising our coverage of the September 11 events, which we
were unable to publish then but which we publish today. The letter says:

"I loved your article about the terrorist attack on the WTC. My husband
worked in one of the adjacent buildings that were damaged (3 World Financial
Center), and I can't even describe what it was like not to be able to reach
him for the first seven hours after the attack. Yours was the most sincere,
level headed, and intelligent analysis of the attacks that I've read. It
neither took the righteous moral high road, nor the blame the victim,
¡¥Americans deserve it because the almighty dollar is evil¡¦, venom-filled
rhetoric that so many unsympathetic Europeans like to torment us with."

However, not everyone is pleased by the fact that Marxist ideas are getting
such wide circulation and finding an echo in the world. What happened on
January 3 is recognition of the fact that the enemies of Marxism cannot
tolerate a situation where people can read the truth.

The enemies of Marxism, lacking the ability, intelligence or courage to meet
us in the open and answer our arguments in free debate, are obliged to act
in the shadows and utilise sabotage, hooliganism and other dirty methods in
an attempt to defeat free speech.

For a day or so, our website has been silenced by the actions of criminals.
Our temporary, enforced silence will be greeted with satisfaction by
reactionaries, and by indignation by workers, socialists and progressive
people everywhere.

This comes at a bad time for us, because we were in the process of giving
coverage to the magnificent revolutionary events in Argentina.

But such methods can never succeed. A few dedicated collaborators have been
working literally day and night to get the website up and running again. We
have recovered practically all the lost material, which we protected with
back-ups. We will soon be running a normal service again.

We are taking the necessary steps to detect the assailants and take action
against them. We have further improved our security to minimise the danger
of other attacks.

But all this requires your help. As we explained in our December appeal, we
have never charged a penny for our services to the world working class
cause, and we have no wealthy backers. We depend exclusively on the support
of our readers and friends to be able to continue work which we consider to
be indispensable.

The best answer to the enemies of Marxism is not just to renew the
publication of Marxist.com, but to improve the website and extend its scope.
As an immediate task we need to adopt certain measures which will make us
virtually immune against any future attacks. BUT WE NEED YOUR ASSISTENCE. It
is to this that we now address an URGENT APPEAL.

We address ourselves in the first place to our readers and subscribers.
Please send us messages of solidarity to [email protected] and cash
donations to http://www.marxist.com/wellred/donations.asp

We also ask you to pass this appeal on to your friends, to members of the
labour movement, shop stewards, trade unions, student and youth
organisations, left wing newspapers and websites and ask them to do
likewise.

Our message to your organisation is very simple: WHAT HAS HAPPENED TO US
TODAY CAN HAPPEN TO YOU TOMORROW.

If the perpetrators are allowed to succeed, it will establish a most
dangerous principle: that any group on the Left that wants to express its
opinions on the Internet can be silenced by sabotage.

The attack on Marxist.com is not just an attack against us: IT IS AN ATTACK
AGAINST THE PRINCIPLE OF FREE SPEECH AND DEMOCRACY.

We ask you to respond urgently, to rally round in defence of the most
elementary principles upon which the labour movement was built.

The message of Marxism is all-powerful, because it tells the truth. We do
not fear any attacks, because we rely on the support of the international
labour movement. By united action, we can overcome all obstacles! Please act
NOW.

Fraternally,

Alan Woods

(General editor, Marxist.com)"


Che-Lives.com--Let's hope it's not being targeted.

[Edelweiss]

There were no successfull hack attempts on che-lives.com so far and I hope this will not change.
In case of censorship or a successfull hack che-lives will be mirrored at CHE-LIVES.NET.

[DaNatural]

i find these attacks on left wing sites appaling, but not surprising. A few months ago, november to be exact, ottawa canada had a wto meeting. Of course there were protests and demonstrations. Vandalism also followed these marches. McDonalds windows were smashed, papers overturned etc. What has recently come to light, thanks to the Marxist Leninist Party of Canada, is that the individuals who commited acts of vandalism were actually government agents. Purposely sent out to cause further damage to the image of the left. Im not sure if these reports have been published yet, but I'm sure once everything is organized we will see this case in the media. Peace

[Dreadnaht1]

To me these "hackers" seemed too efficient and knew exactly what they were doing. This leads me to believe that this might have been done by government officials as well. The same thing happened to Rage Against the Machine's message board. The hosters of message board were threatened by the FBI and they had it shut down. But since these sites were all on one single private server the FBI couldn't call in threats to provider since there was none. So they had to do it a little differently and they did, if that is the case.

-Dread