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Weeks before physical bombs started falling on Georgia, a security researcher in suburban Massachusetts was watching an attack against the country in cyberspace.
Jose Nazario of Arbor Networks in Lexington noticed a stream of data directed at Georgian government sites containing the message: win+love+in+Rusia.
Other Internet experts in the United States said the attacks against Georgia’s Internet infrastructure began as early as July 20, with coordinated barrages of millions of requests — known as distributed denial of service, or D.D.O.S., attacks — that overloaded certain Georgian servers.
The Georgian government blamed Russia for the attacks, but the Russian government said it was not involved.
Researchers at Shadowserver, a volunteer group that tracks malicious network activity, reported that the Web site of the Georgian president, Mikheil Saakashvili, had been rendered inoperable for 24 hours by multiple D.D.O.S. attacks. The researchers said the command and control server that directed the attack, which was based in the United States, had come online several weeks before it began the assault.
As it turns out, the July attack may have been a dress rehearsal for an all-out cyberwar once the shooting started between Georgia and Russia.
According to Internet technical experts, it was the first time a cyberattack had coincided with a shooting war. But it will likely not be the last, said Bill Woodcock, the research director of the Packet Clearing House, a nonprofit that tracks Internet traffic. He said cyberattacks are so inexpensive and easy to mount, with few fingerprints, that they will almost certainly remain a feature of modern warfare.
“It costs about 4 cents per machine,” Mr. Woodsock said. “You could fund an entire cyberwarfare campaign for the cost of replacing a tank tread, so you would be foolish not to.”
Shadowserver saw the attack against Georgia spread to computers throughout the government after Russian troops invaded the Georgian province of South Ossetia on Sunday.
Georgina media, communications and transportation companies were also targeted, according to security researchers.
“Could this somehow be indirect Russian action? Yes, but considering Russia is past playing nice and uses real bombs, they could have attacked more strategic targets or eliminated the infrastructure kinetically,” said Gadi Evron, an Israeli network security expert who assisted in pushing back a cyber attack on Estonia’s Internet infrastructure last May. “The nature of what’s going on isn’t clear.”
A Russian government spokesman said that the government was not involved, but that it was possible that individuals in Russia or elsewhere had taken it upon themselves to start the attacks.
“I cannot exclude this possibility,” Yevgeniy Khorishko, a spokesman for the Russian Embassy in Washington. “There are people who don’t agree with something and they try to express thesmelves. You have people like this in your country.”
Mr. Nazario said the attacks appeared to be politically motivated. They were continuing on Monday against Georgian news sites, according to Mr. Nazario. “I’m watching attacks against apsny.ge and news.ge right now,” he said.
The attacks were controlled from a server based at a telecommunications firm in Moscow, he said. In contrast, the attacks last month came from a control computer that was based in the United States. That system was later disabled.
Denial of service attacks, aimed at making a Web site unreachable, began in 2001 and have been refined in terms of power and sophistication since then. They are usually performed by hundreds or thousands of commandeered personal computers, making it difficult or impossible to determine who is behind a particular attack.
The Web site of the president of Georgia was moved to an Internet operation in the United States run by a Georgian native over the weekend. The company, Tulip Systems Inc., based in Atlanta, is run by Nino Doijashvili, who was in Georgia at the time of the attack. Two Web sites, president.gov.ge and rustavi2.com, the Web site of a prominent Georgian TV station, were moved to Atlanta. Computer security executives said the new sites had also come under attack.
On Monday, Renesys executives said that most Georgian networks were unaffected, although individual Web sites might be under attack. Networks appeared and disappeared as power was cut off and restored as a result of the war, they said
A company researcher noted that Georgia was dependent on both Russia and Turkey for connections to the Internet. As a result of the interference the Georgian government began posting news dispatches to a Google-run blogging Web site, georgiamfa.blogspot.com. Separately, there were reports that Estonia was sending technical assistance to the Georgian government.
There were indications that both sides in the conflict — or sympathizers — were engaged in attacks aimed at blocking access to Web sites. On Friday, the Russian language Web site Lenta.ru reported that there had been D.D.O.S. attacks targeted at the official Web site of the government of South Ossetia as well as attacks against the RIA Novosti, a Russian news agency.
Internet researchers at Sophos, a computer security firm based in Britain, said that the National Bank of Georgia’s Web site was defaced at one point. Images of 20th century dictators as well as an image of Georgia’s president Mr. Saakashvili, were placed on the site.
Internet technical experts said that the Georgian Internet presence was relatively small compared with other former Soviet states. The country has about a quarter the number of Internet addresses as Estonia or Latvia, according to Mr. Woodcock, the research director of the Packet Clearing House.
With support from the United States, Georgia is in the process of completing a 1, 400-kilometer fiber optic network link under the Black Sea connecting its port city of Poti to Varna, Bulgaria. That connection is scheduled for completion in September. The link will give the country added redundancy and make it less reliant on Russian companies for its data communication needs.
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Posted by Steve Benen, The Carpetbagger Report at 10:05 AM on August 12, 2008.
It is clear that Georgia expected much more support from the West.
Looking at the war between Russia and Georgia, which reportedly is still ongoing, from a purely political perspective, John McCain is clearly looking to use the conflict to his advantage. He's characterizing Obama's position as "appeasement," and using some strikingly caustic language towards Russia.
McCain is not, however, actually moving beyond bluster. The NYT noted this morning that McCain and Obama, verbal sparring notwithstanding, are largely "on the same page in dealing with the current crisis." The Times reported, "Both said Russia had escalated the dispute beyond its catalyst, the conflict over South Ossetia; both said the United Nations Security Council should call for an end to the violence; both called for putting Georgia on a path toward membership in NATO; and both spoke of deploying an international peacekeeping force in the disputed areas that set off the fighting."
With this in mind, there's probably less of a story here about this war and the next U.S. president, but more of a story about this war and the current U.S. president.
The NYT ran a separate report on Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili, who many Georgians apparently consider "headstrong and reckless, endangering the country's security by rashly ordering an attack on the Russian enclave of South Ossetia on the eve of the Olympic Games in Beijing, and badly underestimating Russia's determination to respond militarily."
And why would Saakashvili be "headstrong and reckless"? The WSJ noted this morning that President Bush "lionized Mr. Saakashvili as a model for democracy in the region to a point that the Georgian leader may have held unrealistic expectations about the amount of support he might receive from the U.S. and the West."
That is, in all likelihood, understating the case by quite a bit.
Slate's Fred Kaplan fleshed this point out very well.
Regardless of what happens next, it is worth asking what the Bush people were thinking when they egged on Mikheil Saakashvili, Georgia's young, Western-educated president, to apply for NATO membership, send 2,000 of his troops to Iraq as a full-fledged U.S. ally, and receive tactical training and weapons from our military. Did they really think Putin would sit by and see another border state (and former province of the Russian empire) slip away to the West? If they thought that Putin might not, what did they plan to do about it, and how firmly did they warn Saakashvili not to get too brash or provoke an outburst?
It's heartbreaking, but even more infuriating, to read so many Georgians quoted in the New York Times -- officials, soldiers, and citizens -- wondering when the United States is coming to their rescue. It's infuriating because it's clear that Bush did everything to encourage them to believe that he would. When Bush (properly) pushed for Kosovo's independence from Serbia, Putin warned that he would do the same for pro-Russian secessionists elsewhere, by which he could only have meant Georgia's separatist regions of Abkhazia and South Ossetia. Putin had taken drastic steps in earlier disputes over those regions -- for instance, embargoing all trade with Georgia -- with an implicit threat that he could inflict far greater punishment. Yet Bush continued to entice Saakashvili with weapons, training, and talk of entry into NATO. Of course the Georgians believed that if they got into a firefight with Russia, the Americans would bail them out.
Hilzoy's on the case as well.
Ask yourself this: would the Georgians not have given us any hint that they planned an assault on South Ossetia? I think that's really unlikely. In any case, if they didn't tip us off before getting into a shooting war with Russian troops (who were in South Ossetia as peacekeepers), that should, in my book, put paid to the idea of them as good potential allies.
If they did, what did we say in response? There are things we could have said that would have deterred any but the most completely suicidal Georgian leader. Saakashvili has been unbelievably reckless, but it would have been orders of magnitude more stupid to do what he did had we said, clearly and emphatically, not just that if he did this, he was on his own, but also that taking this step would seriously damage his relationship with us, and would put paid to his hopes of joining NATO in the foreseeable future.
Which is to say: we had a lot of leverage. It is hard to believe either that we didn't know this was going to happen, or that we used our leverage to prevent it. And that is inexcusable. Thousands of people are dead, the freedom of action of Russia's neighbors has been drastically reduced, and our own credibility, such as it was, has been badly damaged.
Again, just to preempt a predictable response: I am not saying it's all our fault. Russia and Georgia are independent actors, and their leaders are responsible for their decisions. But we are also responsible for ours, and if we knowingly encouraged, or even green-lighted, Saakashvili's actions, that is, to my mind, a piece of idiocy on a par with encouraging the Iraqi Shi'a to revolt after the Gulf War. We should not create expectations we are not prepared to meet.
Like Digby, I think all of this sounds at least a little reminiscent of the Shia uprising against Saddam after the first Gulf War.
Steve Benen is a freelance writer/researcher and creator of The Carpetbagger Report. In addition, he is the lead editor of Salon.com's Blog Report, and has been a contributor to Talking Points Memo, Washington Monthly, Crooks & Liars, The American Prospect, and the Guardian.
__________________
In politics, nothing happens by accident. If it happens, you can bet it was planned that way.
Franklin D. Roosevelt
"Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities." --Voltaire
Again, just to preempt a predictable response: I am not saying it's all our fault. Russia and Georgia are independent actors, and their leaders are responsible for their decisions. But we are also responsible for ours, and if we knowingly encouraged, or even green-lighted, Saakashvili's actions, that is, to my mind, a piece of idiocy on a par with encouraging the Iraqi Shi'a to revolt after the Gulf War. We should not create expectations we are not prepared to meet.
BTW, Schnaureman, McCains' foreign policy adivsor was paid handsomely by the Georgian Govt for lobbying. Schnaurman was also on the board of PNAC, hmmm....
...But the sound of sabers rattling is music to the ears of Randy Scheunemann, the McCain campaign's senior foreign policy and national security advisor. A long-term confidant of the candidate, Scheunemann also supports a very tough stance toward Russia. Unlike McCain, until very recently he was paid to support that stance. McCain, already under fire for the role of lobbyists in his campaign, is taking his foreign policy advice from someone who was a paid lobbyist for former Soviet Bloc countries that are wary of Russia, and seems to advocate those policies the countries and their former lobbyist want. Notably, McCain supports a quick expansion of NATO, and Scheunemann has already helped two former Soviet satellites gain admission to NATO and has worked on behalf of two others...
Quote:
...
Until early this year, Scheunemann was simultaneously working for the McCain campaign and as a lobbyist for a shifting menu of Eastern European and former Soviet Bloc countries with NATO aspirations. Some, including Georgia, have chilly relations with Russia. At various times from 2001 through early this year, Georgia, Latvia, Romania and Macedonia paid Scheunemann and his partner, Mike Mitchell, more than $2 million. Much of Scheunemann's work focused on paving the way into the NATO fold. Two of Scheunemann's clients, Latvia and Romania, were admitted to full NATO member status in 2004, after which they ceased paying him.
McCain, who has portrayed himself as a crusader against the corrupting influence of money in politics, has already been compelled to cut ties with lobbyists who have worked for his campaign. On March 12, a New York Times story noted that a co-chairman of McCain's campaign and other campaign advisors had lobbied for European Aeronautic Defense and Space Co., which beat Boeing for a contract worth $35 billion to build aerial tankers for the Air Force. The headline in the Times was "McCain Advisers Lobbied Europeans to Win Air Force Tanker Deal." ...
Quote:
...Scheunemann halted his lobbying activities on March 12, the day the Times story on the Air Force tankers appeared. Scheunemann's partner continues to lobby on behalf of Georgia and Macedonia. ...
Quote:
...Lobbying disclosure records for Scheunemann's two-person company, Orion Strategies, show dozens of phone calls and meetings with McCain and his staff between 2001 and 2008, as well as regular contributions to McCain's campaign and political action committee. In 2006 McCain cosponsored legislation that passed the Senate endorsing an expansion of NATO to include Georgia and Macedonia as well as Albania and Croatia. Late last year, while Scheunemann was still on Georgia's payroll, Georgia got a shout out, by name, from McCain in a national security treatise published in Foreign Affairs. McCain warned of Russian efforts to "bully democratic neighbors, such as Georgia, and attempts to manipulate European dependence on Russian oil and gas." He also hammered on the "diminishing political freedoms" in the former Soviet Union, and wrote that the country was "dominated by a clique of former intelligence officers."
Quote:
...Incidentally, China also took it on the chin in that Foreign Affairs article. At the time, Scheunemann was working for Taiwan, which has paid him and partner Mitchell a half-million dollars since early 2005. (Scheunemann ceased lobbying for Taiwan in March; Mitchell continues to work for the Taiwanese.) "When China threatens democratic Taiwan with a massive arsenal of missiles and warlike rhetoric, the United States must take note," McCain wrote. Lobbying records show that as late as June 2007, Scheunemann's partner was lobbying McCain staffers on "Chinese ballistic missiles pointed at Taiwan." ...
Man I hope you guys were just as upset after 9/11 when we were all "New Yorkers".
You see, it was a sarcastic mocking of those who tried to make hay about Obama in Berlin but the tone went over your head and you replied with something that doesn't make any sense considering the context of my post.
On top of that, Georgia the foreign country would be different than New York the American city to an American, would it not? I guess you're saying you're just as much a Georgian as you are an American? Should I interpret your post to mean that?
You see, it was a sarcastic mocking of those who tried to make hay about Obama in Berlin but the tone went over your head and you replied with something that doesn't make any sense considering the context of my post.
On top of that, Georgia the foreign country would be different than New York the American city to an American, would it not? I guess you're saying you're just as much a Georgian as you are an American? Should I interpret your post to mean that?
No, but you should really try and detect others sarcastically mocking your sarcastic mockings.
__________________ "I carry a gun because a cop is too heavy".
Standing behind a lectern in Michigan this week, with two trusted senators ready to do his bidding, John McCain seemed to forget for a moment that he was only running for president.
Asked about his tough rhetoric on the ongoing conflict in Georgia, McCain began: "If I may be so bold, there was another president . . ."
He caught himself and started again: "At one time, there was a president named Ronald Reagan who spoke very strongly about America's advocacy for democracy and freedom."
Quote:
The extent of McCain's involvement in the military conflict in Georgia appears remarkable among presidential candidates, who traditionally have kept some distance from unfolding crises out of deference to whoever is occupying the White House. The episode also follows months of sustained GOP criticism of Democratic Sen. Barack Obama, who was accused of acting too presidential for, among other things, briefly adopting a campaign seal and taking a trip abroad that included a huge rally in Berlin.
"We talk about how there's only one president at a time, so the idea that you would send your own emissaries and really interfere with the process is remarkable," said Lawrence Korb, a Reagan Defense Department official who now acts as an informal adviser to the Obama campaign. "It's very risky and can send mixed messages to foreign governments. . . . They accused Obama of being presumptuous, but he didn't do anything close to this."
So now the Washington Post must hate the New Yorkers who died in the towers as well, huh? Shame on them.
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