North Korea's Internet connection goes cold just days after President Obama promised a response

[Shawn Knight]

Update: After nearly 10 hours of downtime, North Korea's limited access to the Internet has been reestablished.

Just days after the United States pointed the finger at North Korea for the Sony Pictures hack, the country’s connection to the Internet has gone cold.

Doug Madory, director of Internet analysis at Dyn Research, points out that North Korea has four official networks that connect the country to the Internet. All of them, which are routed through China, began experiencing issues over the weekend and are totally offline today.

Madory added that he didn’t know if someone is launching a cyber attack against the country but it isn’t normal for them to be down like this. It’s unlike anything he’s seen before, he added, and is consistent with a distributed denial of service attack.

While there’s no concrete evident of an attack at this hour, the shutdown comes just days after President Obama vowed to launch a “proportional response” to the attack on Sony Pictures. Obama reached out to China and asked for their help in limiting North Korea’s ability to launch cyber attacks.

Late last week, Sony elected to pull the controversial movie at the center of the Sony attack because several major theaters said they wouldn’t play the film. Scuttlebutt suggests Sony might release the movie on another platform – possibly via BitTorrent – although nothing has been confirmed as of yet.

All things considered, an Internet outage in North Korea isn’t a serious detriment considering the majority of the country’s citizens already live without access.

Permalink to story.

https://www.techspot.com/news/59223-north-korea-internet-connection-goes-cold-days-after.html

 

[cliffordcooley]

All brought to you by a group of irresponsible people. DDoS does nothing to strengthen the credibility of anyone's cause, not as an attack or as retaliation. It only proves we like playing games with each other. And the games will continue under these non-preventative measures.

 

[davislane1]

All brought to you by a group of irresponsible people. DDoS does nothing to strengthen the credibility of anyone's cause, not as an attack or as retaliation. It only proves we like playing games with each other. And the games will continue under these non-preventative measures.

When a punk kid walks up to you and socks you in the jaw, you look him back in the eye and proceed to knock him the **** out. If you respond by kindly asking the punk what his problem is, attempt to reason with the bastard or threaten to call his mommy, you, in that very instant, become his *****.

When leading world powers are seen by punk nations as weak/unwilling to retaliate, the consequences are generally far worse than the fallout consequent of asserting one's own dominance.

 

[Guest]

So we already do have the kill switch.

Wonder how fast this can escalate into a nuclear war...over a movie.

 

[Jamesbrah]

All brought to you by a group of irresponsible people. DDoS does nothing to strengthen the credibility of anyone's cause, not as an attack or as retaliation. It only proves we like playing games with each other. And the games will continue under these non-preventative measures.

When a punk kid walks up to you and socks you in the jaw, you look him back in the eye and proceed to knock him the **** out. If you respond by kindly asking the punk what his problem is, attempt to reason with the bastard or threaten to call his mommy, you, in that very instant, become his *****.

When leading world powers are seen by punk nations as weak/unwilling to retaliate, the consequences are generally far worse than the fallout consequent of asserting one's own dominance.

Just the type of meathead 'murica' response I expected. As usual, violence is the key..

 

[davislane1]

Just the type of meathead 'murica' response I expected. As usual, violence is the key..

An alleged network attack is violence? For an enlightened thinker, you sure seem to have difficulty grasping the finer points of metaphor.

 

[yRaz]

All brought to you by a group of irresponsible people. DDoS does nothing to strengthen the credibility of anyone's cause, not as an attack or as retaliation. It only proves we like playing games with each other. And the games will continue under these non-preventative measures.

When a punk kid walks up to you and socks you in the jaw, you look him back in the eye and proceed to knock him the **** out. If you respond by kindly asking the punk what his problem is, attempt to reason with the bastard or threaten to call his mommy, you, in that very instant, become his *****.

When leading world powers are seen by punk nations as weak/unwilling to retaliate, the consequences are generally far worse than the fallout consequent of asserting one's own dominance.

Just the type of meathead 'murica' response I expected. As usual, violence is the key..

We cannot let our country be run by foreign dictators. I rarely believe the "we need to defend our freedoms" propaganda, but this is one valid case. Movie theaters are afraid to show it, streaming sites are afraid to host it and many people's identity are at risk because of these leaks. It may be a timid response, but it's really the only thing we can do aside from invading them.

Our way of life is at risk because some punk kid wants to play dictator. I'm all for his elimination. Hell, he wants to see the US dead, I say we kill him.

 

[mattfrompa]

All brought to you by a group of irresponsible people. DDoS does nothing to strengthen the credibility of anyone's cause, not as an attack or as retaliation. It only proves we like playing games with each other. And the games will continue under these non-preventative measures.

Without rejecting your assertion(I'm not), why exactly is this playing a game? Assuming this was done by the US, could this be the beginning of a proportional response? And if not is there something in particular you were hoping for?

 

[davislane1]

We cannot let our country be run by foreign dictators. I rarely believe the "we need to defend our freedoms" propaganda, but this is one valid case. Movie theaters are afraid to show it, streaming sites are afraid to host it and many people's identity are at risk because of these leaks. It may be a timid response, but it's really the only thing we can do aside from invading them.

Our way of life is at risk because some punk kid wants to play dictator. I'm all for his elimination. Hell, he wants to see the US dead, I say we kill him.

This is North Korea we're talking about. The only way of life they would be threatening by legitimately threatening the American system is their own. Unless China honestly has their back on an offensive campaign of some sort (cyber or otherwise), Kim Jong-Un is about as high a priority as the leader of the local Hell's Angels club.

They hacked a corporation and, evidently, received a disproportionate cyber response. This squares the equation.

 

[drjekelmrhyde]

But I was expecting us to spend a trillion dollars fighting these guys.

 

[davislane1]

But I was expecting us to spend a trillion dollars fighting these guys.

You seem to be under the mistaken impression that North Korea possesses something of commercial value.

 

[cliffordcooley]

If you respond by kindly asking the punk what his problem is, attempt to reason with the bastard or threaten to call his mommy, you, in that very instant, become his *****.

Thank you because that is exactly how I see this topic. Until the threats become a reality, that is all this is "you're my *****" game.

Firstly I see the threats on our theaters as empty threats. Secondly threats is what makes this all so childish. Thirdly if the threats do become a reality, I'd wipe North Korea off the map. I get so tired of all these political games year after year.

 

[Littleczr]

I think the U.S can even do far worse. They have already shown that they can gain access to micro controllers.

 

[treetops]

VGA, what a nob

 

[FocusOnWildlife]

I think you are all over thinking this. Using Occom's razor I'd deduce one of the following causes for the outage:

1) North Korea is past due on it's internet bill so the ISP has suspended their privileges.
2) North Korea's ISP is Time Warner Cable.

 

[davislane1]

I think you are all over thinking this. Using Occom's razor I'd deduce one of the following causes for the outage:

1) North Korea is past due on it's internet bill so the ISP has suspended their privileges.
2) North Korea's ISP is Time Warner Cable.

I present to you possibility 3: South Korea turned off guest access to the one WiFi router operating near the DMZ.

 

[Guest]

No internet, no internet tax.

 

[dividebyzero]

VGA, what a nob

VGA : State of the art in the DPRK

The bigger issue might be Kim allowing productivity to fall at the expense of showing his expertise in navigating the Brazzer's website.

 

[Bubbajim]

All brought to you by a group of irresponsible people. DDoS does nothing to strengthen the credibility of anyone's cause, not as an attack or as retaliation. It only proves we like playing games with each other. And the games will continue under these non-preventative measures.

When a punk kid walks up to you and socks you in the jaw, you look him back in the eye and proceed to knock him the **** out. If you respond by kindly asking the punk what his problem is, attempt to reason with the bastard or threaten to call his mommy, you, in that very instant, become his *****.

When leading world powers are seen by punk nations as weak/unwilling to retaliate, the consequences are generally far worse than the fallout consequent of asserting one's own dominance.

Erm, life on this planet still exists, post- Cold War. I think your statement is just a tad flawed and outdated!

 

[Kibaruk]

Erm, life on this planet still exists, post- Cold War. I think your statement is just a tad flawed and outdated!

Erm, take a look and read the news, this is how it's being currently played EVERYWHERE, russia, ukraine, israel, iran, etc etc etc. I think your statement is just a tad flawed and outplayed!

Also, to all speculations, there is no proof USG did anything, that could've been a hackers attack against opression and for freedom of speech, there are huge activists out there.

 

[VitalyT]

Violence is a beautiful thing

Also, I think if it were G.W. Bush on the picture, the monitor would have been turned back forward.

 

[tipstir]

Sleeper country, only stands out when there is something about them! SONY vs North Korea! So this is in the news!

 

[Ranger1st]

Who ever the douche canoes are that are hacking are playing both ends of the field and all these mental giants are falling for it..

 

[Guest]

This picture is fake, the great leader has binoculars in his hands.

 

[cliffordcooley]

This picture is fake, the great leader has binoculars in his hands.

The picture may not have anything to do with the article topic anyway. Besides what difference does it make, and how would you know which is genuine?