The SportsNetwork, a privately held sports website located in Hatboro, PA, has been under attack from hackers for about 24 hours. Early Sunday the site was defaced with “Tibet was, is and will always be part of China” messages. Engineers returned the site to normal, but late Sunday evening the site was again hacked and taken offline. The message in the image second above is now all that can be viewed on the site.
The site itself is relatively small, attracting just 264,000 visitors in February 2008 (Comscore, worldwide). But it also powers parts of other large sports sites such as CNN/SI. The domain sports.si.cnn.com, for example, is also down.
I called the general phone number at the site at 3:20 am PST and someone answered right away, confirming the hack and the fact that a team of engineers is trying to get the site back online.
It’s likely that this kind of activity will increase as Chinese frustration over western Olympic protests continues. Some Chinese are simply adding a “Love China” icon to their chat messages. Others are taking much stronger measures, and speculation continues as to whether the Chinese governmet is sponsoring the attacks.
Lots of buzz on this on Twitter right now (where most news seems to be breaking these days). Thanks to Christine Lu for the tip. More here as well.
Update: It’s possible that the hackers actually thought they were taking down CNN’s sports site, based on early Twitter messages boasting about it.
Update2: Christine Lu was able to grab an image of the original hack (now top image above), which links back to hackcnn.com. It’s almost certain that they thought the site was CNN’s sports property.
Michael,
You can read stats from the future ( feb 2009 comscore?).
Let me know what’s the next big thing
yes well that would be nice wouldn’t it. typo fixed.
Dear Sports Network Management:
You guys are a bunch of “smart” folks, how the fxxk did you “find out” you are hacked by a “political entity”, your mean CCP or us?!
Dalai
Down Again?… damn
Fockin’ Chinese commies. Dubya should nuke ‘em.
China-US cyberwar?
False flag? If people know getting “defaced” will get their sites featured on websites like Techcrunch, I’m sure we’ll see a lot more of this “attacks”.
So, not only are Chinese hackers delusional they also can’t tell the difference between CNN Sports (why try and take down that?) and another sports website!
It IS a CNN Sport property, Mike:
http://sports.si.cnn.com/
…unfortunately, regardless of whether hacks like this are a reaction to Olympic protests or CNN Jack Cafferty’s recent remarks…it only serves to add to the downward spiral on both sides before the Olympics.
(
Great job!
i wonder, how guys like christine Lu can contact with Michael. I’m trying to contact him for half year and i got nothing. I really have some big news for you Michael please contact me <3
Chinese are not as weak as 30 years ago~~~believe me , China is becoming one of the strongest countries ever.
中国是伟大的国家,在很多的国际事物中中国都很积极,一些敌视中国的人从而污蔑中国并且有很多不了解真相的人也参与其中,
What a mature response. Rabid nationalists of any nation are idiots, and stupid stunts like this do nothing but make their immaturity obvious.
This is the CNN Sports website through Sports Illustrated, and it never went down so I’m not sure what the other subdomain in the article is:
http://sportsil...nn.com/?cnn=yes
Way to show just how much of a bunch of Fascists these Nationalist pricks really are — from their own actions.
A good lesson to those liar!!!
Hmm… I wonder if the US will pass a law similar to the anti-cyberterrorism law getting worked on in the EU. Then CNN could sue China for the identities of the hackers, and prosecute them — or perhaps sue China itself, and take restitution for any $ lost from Chinese assets held in the US. So much for Nationalist pride then. We’d start looking forward to Nationalist attacks as an additional revenue stream, courtesy of the Chinese people themselves! Hahaha Zap!
“It’s possible that the hackers actually thought they were taking down CNN’s sports site, based on early Twitter messages boasting about it”
LOL what a bunch of ‘tards.
Agreeing with the other posts — this does nothing for their cause.
Reading the responses, I really wonder if the chinese are the retardedly nationalistic ones.
They targeted that site because CNN in particular has become a focal point for running stories seen as anti-chinese. Part of the reason that there exists speculation these attacks are “state sponsored” is because the state-owned media in China is pointing to CNN as its whipping boy in particular (and cnn, in turn, is biting back). And yes, it’s not the main CNN site, they found an outlying, likely easy to hack property associated with the specific aspect of CNN they disliked (sports, i.e. their coverage of the olympics) – hardly “‘tards”
CNN is running bullshit, essentially propaganda pieces against the Chinese, it’s only fair to respond in kind.
What no one seems to get is that for the entire nation the Olympics were seen as China’s big coming out party, is it any surprise that they’re throwing a tantrum when someone spits on the cake?
“Reading the responses, I really wonder if the chinese are the retardedly nationalistic ones.”
Since it isn’t Chinese sites that are getting hacked, I think it’s pretty obvious which ones are the Terrorists.
china is a peace love county , all chinese people are kindly ,friendly ,warmhearted, to all foreign friends who will learn more about china by himself but not belive the lies just like cnn had say!
NO cnn ! the liar who want to uglify peace-loved china!
NO cnn !NO cnn !NO cnn !NO cnn !NO cnn !NO cnn !NO cnn !NO cnn !NO cnn !NO cnn !NO cnn !NO cnn !NO cnn !NO cnn !NO cnn !NO cnn !NO cnn !
all the chinese who love our county will sponsoring the attacks without the chinese government sponsor.
love my county ! great china!
Microsoft-IIS powa!
Please see China without prejudice!
say ,before you know the truth in China!
the government do the best to improve the live level of her people ！
the government do the best to help her people ！
the government do the best to love her people ！
I hope all western friends can “say ,before you know the truth in China!”
1.Another fake news? This time from CNN related website?
2.How do they know the hackers from China?
3.A special promote way?
4.Deceiving everyone by torturing CNN itself?
I’m not chinese and I don’t really condone the whole hacking thing, but you gotta admit the coverage has been very one sided. If the same shit was happening in U.S. Tibetians would be called terrorists.
But since Tibet is anti-our “enemy” we side with them side.
Kinda like the whole Israel-Palesetine thing, Israel does plenty of bad things but that never gets covered. Why? Once again because they are the enemy of our enemy.
But yeah this whole thing was stupid because its not like the media will change their ways, and it gives them more ammo to label chinese terrorists/criminals.
Agree with Andrew (29) all the way.
@ yahoomosh
Hacking sites isn’t the way to build goodwill and trust with Westerners (or anyone). Maybe it makes the Nationalists’ pride feel a bit better to hack a second-tier site, but it definitely doesn’t help their cause.
Cyber-terrorism is never a good idea if one is looking for a sympathy, like those who say “know the truth before you judge”. Every person tho tries to go to that site, and gets a propaganda message instead, will instantly make a very unfavorable judgement of the Chinese. VERY unfavorable.
Oh, the Chinese…everyone keeps telling me they are a proud set of people. I am sure they are, so why the heck can’t they overthrow the bunch of butchers who rule them to get their country back to civilization
@32 Once again your perception is basically based on the media. And hey different cultures have different standards, I don’t see you bitching about African countries or other asian countries..even though they have the same crap going on. Why? Because media is pretty much ignoring those…but since China is the flavor of the decade they focus on it.
As far as overthrowing, thats just retarded, lets forget for the moment that asian society is very authoritative, lets forget that its a different culture for whom that type of society acceptable…how exactly do you propose for a bunch of peasants with pitchforks to take on the army?
Face it the American revolution would have never happened today. Why? Because now you can only use guerilla warfare. Because the levels of weaponry is too different.
Back then it was musket against musket. Now you’d have a few rednecks with guns and a few bazookas against assault weapons, tanks, Humvees, choppers and hey if you do gain a base of operations and really build it up, you can always get nuked. You also no longer have secure communications, can be seen doing everything you do with satellite imagery, and you’d be hindered in your operations because you’d have to rely on oil, unless you wanted to walk
“Update: It’s possible that the hackers actually thought they were taking down CNN’s sports site, based on early Twitter messages boasting about it.”
You are honestly quoting the twitter account “zedongmao?” You think that the owner of that account was actually involved in the attacks? Besides the account name, have you read the other tweets?
” I must wake up @KimJongil’s dad, we have a lot issues to talk. Good son @KimJongil, where is your father.”
” @izlmichael You will be punished. How can you call your Chairman Mao the dead corpse even though I have been pickled for a long time.”
” @JackCafferty No, but I like the fist lady of France. My wife Jiang Qing likes LV, and she always buy a lot of things in Carrefour, beca”
Uhhhhhhh…What you posted is obviously just a joke in response to the news of the attack…
Wow, it is really easy to tell who wrote their post in Chinese and then used google translate to post it english. The lack of periods, the odd grammar which is machine generated engrish.
I wouldn’t be too upset, the Chinese government will crack down on these anti-west protesters just like every other group that marches down the street. In fact you can read the Economist about this very thing if you don’t believe me. The government there abhors any sort of social unrest and will certainly not tolerate any demonstrations against tourists who are visiting. Could you imagine how ugly Olympic coverage would get if they had to use tear gas to disperse anti-west protesters during the games. Yikes. So much for a coming-out onto the world stage.
@35 I don’t think you can count the whole grammar thing more. Thanks to Microsoft Word, chances are any person posting on Techcrunch who is younger than 25-28 has bad grammar.
Andrew, I was just about to post the same thing. As Americans, our grammar online is horrible. There is still a difference in automatically translated grammar, but with how poorly we write, it is often hard to tell a difference.
An Attack! Well my guess is the libs will want to arrange a meeting with the Chinese Hackers and discuss American surrender due to 3 server deaths.
@29 Ahh yes the moral equivalence.
Nuke all slant-eyed chinese mongrels.
CNN is a big liar anyway, i wish they disappear soon, i don’t watch it anyway.
I just worry about the hacker. If China police ask SportsNetwork the details of the hacking……anti CNN no problem, but hack CNN is Crime in China. This guy make get 6 to 18 month prison.
Hi, SportsNetwork, will you open the logs?
Fuck China. It’s people rape their land and each other.
The only thing China has successfully accomplished related to the Olympics is vandalizing a small sports website.
Good job, fellas. Now how about you take your nationalistic jingo pride and shove it up your filth-ridden asses. Oh wait…with all the smog in the air, and the pollution in the water, you may not be able to find your own asses.
THE TRUTH ABOUT MODERN CHINA: IT HAS FAILED AT EVERYTHING IT HAS EVER TRIED.
can’t we all just get along?
LOL @ 38
@33, your an idiot if you think they’re couldn’t be another revolution in China or anywhere. It all depends on the resolve of the opposing sides. If your like Tibetans, and resort to demonstrations and sporadic outbursts of violents it may take decades if ever to gain peace. (depends upon the resolve of the opposing force.) But say China’s government started getting sloppy, and corruption and public funds hoarding became more rampant. I’d bet in a second the Chinese would want a change, and individuals in the government would take advantage of that populism, and ride that wave to the top, and form a new government.
For all the idiots that are saying “nuke china”. just a friendly reminder… china has nukes.
thank you.
I think this just goes to show you how immature many younger generation chinese nationals are after a lifetime of propaganda and nationalistic bs. They can’t tolerate opposing viewpoints without acts of violence or retribution of some sort. Nothing new, they’ve done the same before. A while back they had the same sort of nationalistic nonsense going on against japan. Here’s a suggestion, take a look in your own backyard folks. It’s amazing what kind of stuff is going on today there, child kidnapping/labor/abandonment, political prisoners, death penalties for people with no resources to fight the state, organ harvesting, blah blah blah. And yes, I know no country is perfect – certainly not the US, but at least we can take the criticism like big boys. The chinese response always seems to be to silence any opposing viewpoint.
Grow up, children. You may not always like what other people say but you’ll just have to live with it. Besides, criticism doesn’t necessarily indicate a lack of respect or fondness for another country as a whole or it’s people, but the veil of nationalism clouds peoples’ interpretation.
@ZiZi — They’re probably 12 year old kids who don’t realize the consequences of any sort of nuclear use anyway. Chernobyl’s radiation fallout went all over the world 3 times before it dissipated in the atmosphere, and the counties nearest the meltdown are still suffering the effects (large cancer rates, etc.) of the radioactive rain.
Pay no attention to the idiots & children. They don’t know that any lagescale use of nukes by anyone (such as how close Pakistan and India got to it a few years ago) would mean the end of the world. Period. There would BE no “winner”. Whether the other country has nukes (which China does) or not…it’s still game-over for everyone.
@29
Yo, andrew, the coverage is one-sided, slanted towards China via their Ministry of Truth. How about we put some good old free and independent media in there to see what’s really happening. Otherwise speculation or propaganda ends up as the news. To those hackers, yeah, way to win people’s hearts and minds, you buffoons.
“Grow up, children. You may not always like what other people say but you’ll just have to live with it. Besides, criticism doesn’t necessarily indicate a lack of respect or fondness for another country as a whole or it’s people, but the veil of nationalism clouds peoples’ interpretation.”
Amen.
Part of becoming a world power, is coming to grips with the fact that the rest of the world will probably protest a lot of what you do. Just like the Western countries (EU, USA, Australia, etc. etc. etc.) have been seeing for the past couple of hundred years.
The rest of the world has learned how to deal with it like grown-ups — a hundred years ago. It’s time China’s Nationalists grow up too.