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October 28, 2004
Bush Website Bars Overseas Visitors
Speaking of computers and Mr. Bush, the Bush/Cheney campaign has taken the unprecedented step of blocking access to their official campaign website by overseas visitors (registration required, get a login here). Visitors to www.georgewbush.com whose connections originate anywhere other than the U.S. and Canada are now greeted by a blank white page featuring the message: "Access denied: You don't have permission to access www.georgewbush.com on this server." Johannes Ullrich, Chief Technology Officer for SANS Internet Storm Center, is quoted as saying "I've never heard of a site wholesale blocking access from the rest of the world." Neither have we, Johannes.
Once again, the Bush/Cheney organization point out just how seriously out-of-touch they are. Not only do they fail to recognize that America's actions are interconnected with the rest of the world, they also fail to realize that the internet does not respect national boundaries. And apparently, they cannot even hire technical advisors that understand that fact.
Mikko Hypponen, director of antivirus research at Finland-based F-Secure Corp and one of the most well-respected computer security researchers in the world, questioned whether denying access from large parts of the world would really make any difference in the security of the site. "I don't see any other reason why they'd do this other than to try and avoid problems coming from people who probably don't really have any desire to see the site to begin with," he said.
Most security experts surmised that the move had something to do with what was an apparent distributed denial-of-service attack on the site this week. Most serious DDOS attacks are carried out by botnets, which are traded on the internet underground with relative impugnity. The location of the machines that make up the botnet has no relation to the location of the person or persons staging the attack, and could easily be located within the U.S. and Canada. Therefore, it seems incredibly naive to suppose that blocking access from outside North America would have much impact on deterring this type of attack.
Akamai Technologies, the company which has taken over the technical details of running the Bush/Cheney site, has denied comment on the situation.
Posted by bcoffee at October 28, 2004 07:59 PM
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