By

Shawn Helton

21st Century Wire

Yesterday, a wave of distributed denial of service (DDoS) attacks hit some of the top online companies websites including Amazon, Netflix, Twitter and Reddit. One cannot rule out the very real possibility that this a staged-managed event, especially when you consider The New York Times was listed among those affected. If recent US media and political themes are anything to go by, you can expect a cascading chorus of blame directed at Russia.

In this age of America’s new and improved trial by media format, you can expect a litany of unfounded accusations, along with the usual anti-Russia hyperbole and waving fingers at Washington’s new go-to scapegoat – Russian president Vladimir Putin.

The likelihood of Russia or any other country being involved in this heavily coordinated DDoS incident falls flat, when you consider that the US media has been floating the ‘blame Russia’ meme for months now, and even more conveniently during this 2016 US presidential election cycle, led by Vice President Joe Biden, and of course, the Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton, all blaming the Kremlin for both the DNC Leaks and the Wikileaks email dump.

Indeed, as you look back at NY Times articles since the summer, the stage was being set to implant the idea of an alleged Russian cyber war being waged at the US, principally charging that they would ‘meddle’ with the US presidential elections in 2016 by aiding Donald Trump. Here’s the NY Times building the case for Washington, seemingly without the burden of proof:

“An unusual question is capturing the attention of cyberspecialists, Russia experts and Democratic Party leaders in Philadelphia: Is Vladimir V. Putin trying to meddle in the American presidential election?

Until Friday, that charge, with its eerie suggestion of a Kremlin conspiracy to aid Donald J. Trump, has been only whispered.”

In August, the western media’s claims against Russia hit overdrive, when the “New York Times’s Moscow bureau was the target of an attempted cyberattack this month. But so far, there is no evidence that the hackers, believed to be Russian, were successful.”

Flash forward to September here and here, as well as early October in the lead up to President Obama’s decree, the Clinton friendly outlet the NY Times had all but solidified the Russian cyber/hack claims – once again, without any definitive proof.

If Russia is going to be the scapegoat for this recent DDoS attack, then consider the following…



‘HACK ATTACK?’ – Who was behind the Black Friday internet outage in America? (Photo illustration 21WIRE’s Shawn Helton)

Immediately when the cyber attack story broke, the establishment quickly wheeled out their ‘experts’, as CNN’s chief gatekeeper Wolf Blitzer cued-up scripted questions to Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) advocate, Congresswoman Marsha Blackburn (R, TN), Vice Chair of the Energy and Commerce Committee. Not only is Blackburn is a staunch supporter of more draconian copyright laws (she once claimed that ‘Fair Use’ was the same as theft), she is also a fellow traveller on Washington’s Anti-Russia bandwagon.

In true propagandist fashion, Blitzer wasted no time asking her, “Do you think this be the work of a foreign government?” Blackburn immediately blamed the hack on the fact that the SOPA bill didn’t pass, claiming that SOPA “would have blocked some of the bad actors…,” and went on to blame “cyber bots” (activists) for defeating the bill. From the obvious way that Washington oracle CNN had this story already cued up, it strongly indicates that the Washington was stage-managing this latest ‘cyber crisis.’



WAITING IN THE WINGS: Tennessee’ Republican Congressman Marsha Blackburn.

As scapegoats go, blaming Russia is the gift that keeps on giving (and way past this Christmas). Last week, President Obama threw Hillary Clinton a campaign assist by formally accusing Russia of interfering with US elections process through Wikileaks. Suddenly, Washington had declared a Cyber War against Russia. The NY Times wrote:

“Since the Obama administration formally accused Russia about a week ago of trying to interfere in the election, there has been intense speculation about whether President Obama has ordered the National Security Agency to conduct a retaliatory cyberstrike.

Despite all the White House and corporate media hype, no evidence at all has been presented by Washington that proves the Kremlin are hacking and “interfering with the US election process.”

Vice President Joe Biden, also spoke on matters of security and sent a telegraphed “message to Putin” through NBC’s Meet the Press, just one day after Obama’s own ‘Russian’ declaration. Based on these latest developments, it’s easy to see how this could have been an effort prime another back story to blame Russia for these DDoS attacks.

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The real question surrounding this apparent DDoS attack, should be directed at America’s National Security Agency (NSA) and its bevy of contractors, many of whom are tasked with global and (illegal) domestic surveillance, through passive data collection and clandestine processing of communications. Surely they would know where this attack was originated (including in-house).

Could this latest incident possibly be to further create a ‘climate of fear’ during this, the most contentious presidential election in 40 years?

Could this also be a government-coordinated cyber drill?

Was this a government orchestrated false flag hack?

It’s no secret that the US government would like to pass a newer more potent version of 2011-2012’s Stop Online Piracy Act otherwise known as SOPA. In fact, NextGov, reported the following in 2014:

“Nearly three years after a massive online protest derailed the Stop Online Piracy Act, many lawmakers are still nervous about even uttering the name “SOPA” in public.

The bill, which once had broad bipartisan support and was a top priority for the entertainment industry, has become a dirty word. The backlash was a traumatic lesson for members of Congress about the danger of siding against tech companies and Internet activists, who warned the bill could break the Internet.

Now, for the first time since SOPA crashed and burned in early 2012, the House Judiciary Committee is preparing to work on a major update of copyright law. As lawmakers cautiously return to the issue of copyright protection, the SOPA protest looms large in their minds.”

Tech outlet Wired described the incident in the following manner. It’s crucial to note that the internet performance management company Dyn was front and center – weighing in on the situation prior to any US intelligence agency making an official statement. Dyn states:

“This morning’s attack started around 7 am ET and was aimed at Dyn, an Internet infrastructure company headquartered in New Hampshire. That first bout was resolved after about two hours; a second attack began just before noon.

Dyn reported a third wave of attacks a little after 4 pm ET. In all cases, traffic to Dyn’s Internet directory servers throughout the US—primarily on the East Coast but later on the opposite end of the country as well—was stopped by a flood of malicious requests from tens of millions of IP addresses disrupting the system.

Late in the day, Dyn described the events as a “very sophisticated and complex attack.” Still ongoing, the situation is a definite reminder of the fragility of the web, and the power of the forces that aim to disrupt it.”

Regardless of who was actually behind the widespread internet attack, judging by the rhetoric and the mainstream media talking points – this has to be about the government wanting to usher in new ‘ISP governance’ (making ISP’s bent to government wishes to ‘kick out the bad actors’ off their networks) and rights-violating security protocols. Is it also possible that social media giant Twitter and mega-consumer brands like Amazon have been used as willing guinea pigs, just like Yahoo was recently when their mailable CEO Marissa Mayer handed over the backdoor keys to Yahoo customer email account to the NSA and FBI. Are the US government determined to gain complete access and have total control over the internet? The idea isn’t that far-fetched… After Yahoo recently admitted to creating a virtual backdoor for US intelligence agencies to spy on everyday citizen’s email accounts, the government exposed its own Orwellian ambitions: “Yahoo last year secretly built a custom software program to search all of its customers’ incoming emails for specific information provided by US intelligence officials, according to people familiar with the matter. The company complied with a classified US government directive, scanning hundreds of millions of Yahoo Mail accounts at the behest of the National Security Agency or FBI, two former employees and a third person apprised of the events said.” This is a very important issue moving forward, as a dip in consumer confidence could be a crushing blow to any company’s overall brand after complying with new ‘1984’ security measures – all at the behest of the FBI, NSA, CIA and their trusted partners. Back in March, individual privacy versus global security was at the heart of the case between Apple and the FBI. Here’s a telling passage from that report as it relates to this most recent internet attack: “…The ongoing encryption saga between Apple and the FBI, we stated that there are no guarantees in the security world, especially if a digital master-key were to be created, as this would potentially make it easier for invaders (either the government, or various hackers) mining for data moving forward into the future. In a recent Guardian article, some of those involved in the technology and security sector offered their thoughts regarding the government’s continued encroachment on individual privacy: “Dan Kaminsky, the security expert who made his name with the discovery that one of the most basic parts of the internet, the domain name system, was vulnerable to fraud – disagrees: “Feds want final authority on engineering decisions, and their interests don’t even align with fighting the vast bulk of real-world crime.” Kaminsky further explained why Apple’s security measures already help law enforcement, “If my iPhone is stolen, my emails stay unread, my photos stay unviewed, and I don’t need to notify anyone that the secrets they entrusted me with are going to show up on the internet tomorrow.” Continuing, The Guardian interviewed former FBI agent Michael German, currently at judicial think-tank the Brennan Center. The following is a portion of that interview: “After 9/11, you had this concept of total information awareness. The intelligence community was very enamoured of the idea that all information was available. Much like the NSA, they wanted to see it all, collect it all, and analyse it all.” Additionally, there are many who believe weaker encryption may pose an even bigger security risk globally. In many ways, it appears as though federal agencies are seemingly searching for the right crisis to push public opinion in favor of the state when it comes to security. This is at the core of the perpetual privacy and security battle post 9/11…” How could it be that such propaganda could happen in America? Well, it’s worth another look at a Senate hearing discussing the CIA’s tremendous influence on the United States media under the moniker Operation Mockingbird… .

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