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Cyberattacks on news websites and apparent government hacking into journalists' email accounts have raised new questions about the integrity of media reforms in Burma. The New York Times reported on Sunday that several journalists who regularly cover Burma-related news recently received warning messages from Google that their email accounts may have been hacked by "state-sponsored attackers."
Burma-based Associated Press reporter Aye Aye Win and
Thailand-based Swedish reporter Bertil Lintner both recently received the
Google warnings, according to The New
York Times report. Irrawaddy reporter Saw Yan Naing and Weekly Eleven News Journal Executive Editor
Nay Htun Naing told CPJ that they, too, had recently been warned by Google that
their accounts may have been compromised.
All of the journalists have reported on the armed conflict
between ethnic guerillas and government forces in the country's northern Kachin
state, despite official attempts to bar reporting from the area. Weekly Eleven was the first local
publication to report in late December that government forces had used air
power against rebel positions--news that sparked international condemnation of
the conflict's escalation.
While President Thein Sein's quasi-civilian administration
has loosened restrictions on the press--for example, ending pre-publication
censorship of newspapers and magazines last year--many local journalists and
editors remain skeptical about his government's commitment to press and
Internet freedoms.
The Electronic Act, a law used to prosecute and jail
journalists under the previous military junta, is still on the books and allows
for seven- to 15-year prison terms for receiving or sending information over
the Internet deemed a threat to state security, community peace and tranquility,
or national solidarity.
The Google
warning said that "we believe that state-sponsored attackers may be
attempting to compromise your account or computer" and "It's likely that you
received emails containing malicious attachments, links to malicious software
downloads, or links to fake websites that are designed to steal your passwords
or other personal information."
The warnings follow cyberattacks against independent local
media. Weekly Eleven's website was
hacked and temporarily disabled on January 15 and 16, according to a February 5
memorandum of complaint, addressed to the National Press Council and copied to
Thein Sein, calling for an independent investigation into the attacks. The
letter, written by Weekly Eleven Chief
Editor Wai Phyo and reviewed by CPJ, said the hackers identified themselves as
"Red Army Team."
The Voice, another
local news publication, reported that anonymous hackers referring to themselves
as "MMFC" and "Anonymous Myanmar" infiltrated and posted unsanctioned
information to their Facebook page on February 4, according to the same
memorandum.
Exile-run media groups like Irrawaddy and Democratic Voice of Burma have been hit in the past
with anonymous distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attacks that disabled their
websites at crucial news junctures, such as during the 2007 government
crackdown on Buddhist monk-led street protests. Government officials have
consistently denied responsibility for those attacks.
This time, however, there are significant leads that a truly
independent probe should actively pursue. In his complaint letter, Wai Phyo
noted that the military-aligned Myanmar
Express in reports on its website rightly predicted the cyberattacks
against Weekly Eleven and had
previously published the same information that was posted by hackers to The Voice's Facebook page.
"It is strongly suspected that the people representing Myanmar Express website seem to be some
army officers with a hardline attitude and outlook who are collaborating with
some department that is displeased with ongoing democratization," Wai Phyo
wrote.
Burma's Ministry of Defense has chafed at critical
reporting, saying in a rare public statement on January 29 that international
organizations, embassies, and media were "fabricating news" about the
Kachin conflict. If peeved army officials are indeed responsible for the recent
cyberattacks, Thein Sein can make good on his reform vows by punishing them
under the law while allowing the media to report freely on the conflict without
fear of reprisal on the ground or in cyberspace.
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The title of this article says it all. As censorship wanes cyberattacks rise. Add the rise of social media and unprecedented access to western ideology and we see an increase in cyber attacks from countries like Russia, China, North Korea, Venezuela, Columbia and the like. What we are seeing is not only government sponsored cyber attacks and meaningless spamming of the internet but also governments not enforcing any kinds of laws against illegal spamming or cyber attacks from organized mob related endeavors.
The reason is simple.
The more malicious cyberattacks and meaningless spam that comes from those countries the more western hosting companies that serve the businesses selling goods, services, and ideas will block access to the subnets from those countries. Unfortunately every time a firewall is updated to protect from attack or spam from these countries it helps the governments who want to stifle free international trade, and free-speech.