Bloggers, beware of hired hackers

Malaysiakini published my letter Bloggers, beware of hired hackers .

by Sagaladoola
Nov 6, 07 5:22pm

I wish to bring to the attention of all bloggers and concerned citizens Malaysiakini's report, Bersih website hacked ahead of Nov 10 rally.

The hacker posted a message saying that the Nov 10 gathering will be postponed. On the contrary, Bersih had later reiterated that the gathering would proceed as planned. A large number of organisations will be there and various political parties had confirmed their participation in this peaceful gathering.

A few days ago, a famous independent news portal, Malaysia Today, suffered a similar fate. Currently, Malaysia Today is back online. Elsewhere, I have read of another blog by a member of parliament (Ronnie Liu) having a few days worth of articles being removed the same way.

It is certainly ironic that as the days of the rally draws near, several websites are being attacked. Perhaps, there is some greater hidden powers at work - one that may not be comfortable with certain concerned citizens in the form of bloggers and writers expressing their opinions on the Internet. Otherwise, there could be certain parties who are not pleased with calls for electoral reforms for the better.

If the latter is the main reason for such unruly behaviour, the actions of the hacker(s) and the people who gave the orders are indeed strange. After all, if one is patriotic towards the nation, one should always support a move that supports true democracy through a necessary change in electoral processes. Naturally, upon careful thinking, it may not be hard for Malaysian bloggers and citizens to guess who the real perpetrators are.

Online bloggers should periodically back up their work in Word documents or Notepad files to ensure that their hard work are not permanently lost. Bloggers who do not use familiar blogging sites such as blogspot.com or wordpress.com but use their own purchased domains should exercise extra caution by incorporating better security. Personal, purchased domains are more vulnerable to attacks.

P.S. The Member of Parliament mentioned here is Ronnie Liu. His website http://colour-blind.org/ was hacked. Meanwhile, he will be reusing his older blog http://ronnieliutiankhiew.wordpress.com/ for any public updates.