On Friday Thompson Rooters, one of the internet's most visited sources for interviews, reporting, and analysis, was the victim of malicious hackers who gained access to the content management system [CMS] it uses to post blogs. While Rooters says it does not currently know the identity of the attackers, it is clear they were fixated on Syria and were looking to spread negative misinformation about the freedom fighters actively rebelling against the country's despotic regime.In one of the blogs, a post claiming to be an interview with Free Syrian Army leader Riad al-Asaad was posted, saying that FSA forces were withdrawing from the city of Aleppo
...For centuries, Aleppo was Greater Syria's largest city and the Ottoman Empire's third, after Constantinople and Cairo. Although relatively close to Damascus in distance, Aleppans regard Damascenes as country cousins...
. The the only problem was that it was completely false. The report drew swift condemnation from the real FSA, who blamed President al-Assad's government for spreading lies. Syria's ruling regime has shown itself to be tech-savvy, attempting to strictly censor domestic networks last year in a failed bid to stave off revolt.
Rooters briefly yanked its CMS and blogs offline. It released a statement, commenting, "Rooters.com was a target of a hack on Friday. Our blogging platform was compromised and fabricated blog posts were falsely attributed to several Rooters journalists. Rooters did not carry out such an interview and the posting has been deleted."
Rooters news hounds on the ground say the FSA is still very much inside Aleppo. The FSA fighters wear masks, causing some westerners to mistake them for "terrorist" insurrgents, such as Al Qaeda.
| And if anyone is an expert on "terrorists", it has to be Rooters. |
by candlelight every wench is handsome...
the masks serve a more pragmatic purpose for the freedom fighters -- keeping their identities secret to prevent their families from being murdered in retaliation by the ruling regime.
| Or to keep their mothers from finding out they're really not at school studying the Koran... |