

Anonymous hijacks Syria's government pages - jimmyjim
http://mod.gov.sy/

======
lotharbot
The text loads slowly. It actually freezes if you're in another tab, which IMO
is a poor implementation decision; it means you actually have to sit and watch
it come on the screen word by word.

For those who either don't want to wait for it to load, or didn't get to it
before it got taken down, here's what it says:

\--------------------------

To the Syrian people: The world stands with you against the brutal regime of
Bashar Al-Assad. Know that time and history are on your side - tyrants use
violence because they have nothing else, and the more violent they are, the
more fragile they become. We salute your determination to be non-violent in
the face of the regime's brutality, and admire your willingness to pursue
justice, not mere revenge. All tyrants will fall, and thanks to your bravery
Bashar Al-Assad is next.

To the Syrian military: You are responsible for protecting the Syrian people,
and anyone who orders you to kill women, children, and the elderly deserves to
be tried for treason. No outside enemy could do as much damage to Syria as
Bashar Al-Assad has done. Defend your country - rise up against the regime! -
Anonymous

\-------------------------

Once the text has loaded, it links to several revolutionary sites, and also
scrolls images across the top that apparently link to youtube videos.

~~~
kaichanvong
Kids these days huh! Never knowing when and when not to use javascript and how
to implement things in the most accessible manner.

Wonder how well it worked on IE6 and how many Syrian people run that browser
or the latest ones...

Anyone have any stats?

~~~
muxxa
IE6 8.53%

[http://gs.statcounter.com/#browser_version-SY-
monthly-201007...](http://gs.statcounter.com/#browser_version-SY-
monthly-201007-201107)

------
adammichaelc
In case you don't want to wait for the page to load, here's what you'll see:

<http://postimage.org/image/75ivivdw/>

The actual text:

To the Syrian people: The world stands with you against the brutal regime of
Bashar Al-Assad. Know that time and history are on your side - tyrants use
violence because they have nothing else, and the more violent they are, the
more fragile they become. We salute your determination to be non-violent in
the face of the regime's brutality, and admire your willingness to pursue
justice, not mere revenge. All tyrants will fall, and thanks to your bravery
Bashar Al-Assad is next.

To the Syrian military: You are responsible for protecting the Syrian people,
and anyone who orders you to kill women, children, and the elderly deserves to
be tried for treason. No outside enemy could do as much damage to Syria as
Bashar Al-Assad has done. Defend your country - rise up against the regime! -
Anonymous

------
8ig8
<!-- mod.gov.sy was seized for the people by Poppy :) Support the fight vs
oppressive regimes in #operationfreedom @ irc.anonops.li Props to the hundreds
of Syrians that had mailed this server with messages of protest over the past
year. You're admirably, recklessly brave! -->

------
yaix
This is a very good hack and also a reminder for Western countries and
political actors that these kind of break-ins are not necessarily criminals
acts but may be political demonstrations. If a break-in is non-destructive and
has as motivation a political demonstration, in a democracy it should be
treated as such and not be brushed aside as "criminal".

~~~
yid
A break-in, by definition, is criminal regardless of the motivation. This
would be like breaking into city hall to stage a protest -- the protest part
is democratic, the break-in part is criminal.

~~~
danenania
How about when the folks making the laws are criminals?

Perhaps we should be more concerned with right and wrong than following the
rules.

~~~
khafra
When the folks making the laws are criminals, breaking the law is still
criminal. By definition.

Whether it's right or wrong is a different and more nuanced question; but it's
not the question addressed by the parent. I sympathise with your perspective,
but I dislike "debate drift."

~~~
danenania
In that case, using the word 'criminal' as if it's at all relevant to the
situation is 'debate drift'. It's a loaded word and its use as a label carries
well known connotations. I'm not disputing the tautological definition, I'm
disputing the implicatons of invoking it.

Put another way, you don't often hear Gandhi or Martin Luther King referred to
as 'criminals', even if by definition it's the truth. There's a reason for
that, and there's a reason why I'd tend to be pretty skeptical of someone who
chose such a label for those men in conversation, technically factual though
it may be.

~~~
khafra
That's not the way I read the original use of "criminal," but that's a
legitimate argument to make. The thing to do would have been to say something
like "I agree with you denotatively, but disagree with your connotations," and
explain why. Not to fight debate drift with more debate drift.

------
sage_joch
The page is nearly unresponsive. If the idea is for the Syrian people to see
it, this is an unfortunate side effect of being on the top of Reddit/HN.

~~~
redthrowaway
Mirror's here: <http://zone-h.org/mirror/id/14599065>

~~~
moe
Better link (without the frameset):
<http://zonehmirrors.net/defaced/2011/08/08/mod.gov.sy/>

------
agilo
Fyi, mod = ministry of defense

------
lightyrs
Great production values.

------
XLcommerce
How are people in Syria accessing the net? If it's mostly mobile and/or ie6
then I hope this was tested on those platforms.

~~~
burgerbrain
Well it works great on android at least.

------
redthrowaway
The traffic seems to have killed the site. Here's a mirror showing what it
looked like when it was still responsive:

<http://zone-h.org/mirror/id/14599065>

------
adrianwaj
Kudos. I am hoping Anon do more than just deface for moral support, but
actually ruin and undermine as much of their systems as possible.

------
JDulin
Well done Anonymous. Although it may seem like an empty gesture based on what
the U.S. government has (or hasn't) done.

~~~
BasDirks
Anon is not buddies with the US gov. Anon does what it can do.

------
Ideka
And now it seems Syrian "hackers" defaced Anon+. <http://anonplus.com/>

------
dkersten
I can't load the page so don't know if the text was in English only or also in
Arabic. I was in Syria in October 2009 on business and.. about 80% (or perhaps
even higher) of the population did _not_ speak _any_ English, so this text
isn't going to help much.

EDIT: Ok, I see from the mirror that it is in both English and Arabic.

~~~
ordinary
There are 3 links to mirrors or images in this thread. It would have been
trivial to find out that the text was both in English and Arabic.

------
yarian
Make sure you wget :)

~~~
yannis
good idea!

------
niels_olson
dear anonymous, thanks. Please do libya also. And if you could access their
fire control systems, I have friends who could make use of that access.

~~~
randomanonymous
Agent Provocateur....

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shpoonj
Bravo.

I don't think there's anything more to say.

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jessica_moyer
Exciting!

