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Politech is the oldest Internet resource devoted to politics and technology. Launched in 1994 by Declan McCullagh, the mailing list has chronicled the growing intersection of culture, technology, politics, and law. Since 2000, so has the Politech web site.
Previous Politech message: http://www.politechbot.com/p-04570.html --- Date: Thu, 20 Mar 2003 12:47:48 -0500 To: declan@well.com From: Brian McWilliams <brian@pc-radio.com> Subject: Re: FC: Is Iraq's Internet still functioning? Declan, Despite the ease with which the USA could unplug Iraq from the Net ( see http://www.salon.com/tech/feature/2003/03/06/iraq_geeks/ ), the country's Internet services appear to functioning as of this moment. Web surfers have encountered intermittent problems reaching Uruklink.net, the Iraq government's main website, after the US launched its initial attack Wednesday night. But those access difficulties were apparently due to a surge of Internet visitors rather than to damage from the bombing. In fact, traffic to Uruklink.net is hitting record levels, according to counters at the site. The homepage of Uruklink.net had over 10,000 visits yesterday, and is on pace to hit 14,000 today. That would represent the busiest day at the site since the counter was installed in December. The previous traffic record occurred on Feb. 9, when the site's address was published in the Drudge Report. Iraq's traffic spike is not unique. News sites and portals around the world are reportedly seeing heavy traffic, as users hit the Internet in search of the latest war news. Iraq's two main e-mail servers, mail.uruklink.net and mail.warkaa.net, were still responding to pings today. The website of Iraqi's satellite TV service (reachable at http://62.145.94.28 since it lost its domain iraqtv.ws), as well as BabilOnline.net, a major newspaper, were also reachable. While Iraq's sites are available from outside the country, it's not immediately clear whether Iraqis are able to access the Internet since the initial attacks. The log files for Uruklink.net appear devoid of the usual numerous hits from users of Satellite Media Services and Atlanta International Teleport, the two satellite companies that supply Iraq with Internet service. It's possible that Iraq's government has imposed some sort of block on Internet use, such as closing its public Internet centers. Or perhaps Iraqis have more important things on their minds. Brian --- Date: Thu, 20 Mar 2003 10:48:59 -0700 From: "Patrick J. Kobly" <pkobly@hatari.dhs.org> To: Declan McCullagh <declan@well.com> Subject: Re: FC: Is Iraq's Internet still functioning? The extent of the cyberwar appears to be knocking state radio and tv off the air, and replacing it with *cough* American millitary broadcasts *cough* There have been a few reports that this has been successful... Interesting article, though perhaps a bit out of date... http://mosaic.unomaha.edu/GDI1998/7DIRAQ.PDF The nameservers for .iq appear to be located in Richardson (last named hop in a traceroute from me to them is a Sprint circuit in Dallas). whois -h whois.iana.org iq reports: IANA Whois Service Domain: iq ID: iq Registrant: Name: Organization: Alani Corp. c/o InfoCom Address1: 630 International Parkway Address2: Address3: City: Richardson State/Province: Texas Country: United States Postal Code: 75081 Phone: Fax: Email: Registration Date: 01-January-1985 Last Updated Date: 01-January-1985 Administrative Contact: Name: Saud Alani Organization: Alani Corporation c/o InfoCom Address1: 630 International Parkway Address2: Address3: City: Richardson State/Province: Texas Country: United States Postal Code: 75081 Phone: +964 1 556 4753 Fax: +1 972 644 8609 Email: alani@mynet.net Registration Date: 01-January-1985 Last Updated Date: 13-October-2002 Technical Contact: Name: Bayan Elashi Organization: InfoCom Corporation Address1: 630 International Parkway Address2: Suit 100 Address3: City: Richardson State/Province: Texas Country: United States Postal Code: 75081 Phone: +1 972 644 5363 Fax: +1 972 644 8609 Email: bayan@infocomusa.com Registration Date: 01-January-1985 Last Updated Date: 01-January-1985 Nameserver Information: Nameserver: ns1.mynet.net. IP Address: 63.175.195.20 Nameserver: ns2.mynet.net. IP Address: 208.21.175.13 Registration Date: 09-May-1997 Last Updated Date: 13-October-2002 --- Date: Thu, 20 Mar 2003 09:43:24 -0800 (PST) From: Joseph Lorenzo Hall <jhall@astron.Berkeley.EDU> X-X-Sender: jhall@irk To: Declan McCullagh <declan@well.com> Subject: Re: FC: Is Iraq's Internet still functioning? > I was curious to see the effectiveness of the Pentagon's purported > cyberwar initiative against Iraq. I would assume it has already > started. I checked Google and Lycos for domains ending in .iq, but > wasn't able to locate a single site with that country code. I > wondered if your readers might know of a site actually hosted in > Iraq. Perhaps I haven't been able to find one since I'm searching on > English rather than Arabic terms. If there are no Web sites hosted, > perhaps there is a server somewhere we can ping. Official Iraqi News: http://www.uruklink.net/iraqnews/eindex.htm I couldn't connect or ping: PING uruk.uruklink.net (62.145.94.237): 56 data bytes --- uruk.uruklink.net ping statistics --- 10 packets transmitted, 0 packets received, 100% packet loss Joe ------------------------------------------------------------------ Joseph Lorenzo Hall jhall@astro.berkeley.edu Graduate Student astron.berkeley.edu/~jhall Astronomy Department 601 Campbell Hall voice: (510) 643-8592 University of California at Berkeley fax : (510) 642-3411 Berkeley, CA 94720-3411 face : 753B Campbell --- From: "Rick Stratton" <rick@1871media.com> To: <declan@well.com> Subject: RE: Is Iraq's Internet still functioning? Date: Thu, 20 Mar 2003 12:42:04 -0500 Message-ID: <000901c2ef08$05677bc0$0200a8c0@LITTLERICK> Unfortunately, the Iraq sites are still functioning... http://www.uruklink.net/iraqnews/eindex.htm Google isn't updated that quickly. Actually, if the sites were indeed down, then you could find page on Google but they would not go anywhere. Rick Stratton 1871 Media --- Date: Thu, 20 Mar 2003 17:40:59 +0000 To: declan@well.com From: Bernie Goldbach <topgold@well.com> Subject: weblog from iraq Hi Declan, You might want to tell your readers that one of the apparently authentic examples of Internet-aided information during the Iraq War is at http://dear_raed.blogspot.com and that it appears to be coming from Baghdad. Some bloggers in Radio Userland are vouching for its authenticity and a few of their comments are summarised at www.scripting.com for further review. regards Bernard Goldbach The Irish Examiner www.topgold.com/blog/ --- Date: Thu, 20 Mar 2003 11:30:01 -0600 (CST) From: [deleted] To: Declan McCullagh <declan@well.com> Hello, Thanks for Politech! At the risk of pointing you to a site that "everyone" already knows about, I would direct your attention to http://dear_raed.blogspot.com. This is a blog which is apparently done by a Iraqi in Baghdad, salampax@nme.com. The commentary is excellent, and he has posted as recently as 4:28 PM Baghdad time (8:28 AM Eastern). I, for one, hope that neither he nor his Internet connection gets destroyed. If you repost this, please don't use my name or email address. Thanks! -- Date: Thu, 20 Mar 2003 18:18:49 +0100 (CET) From: Thomas Shaddack <shaddack@ns.arachne.cz> To: "David A." <daltenho@indiana.edu>, Declan McCullagh <declan@well.com> Subject: Re: FC: Is Iraq's Internet still functioning? I'd suggest a standard approach for discovering corporate machines. Locate the IP range assigned for Iraq. Use nmap for scanning the entire range. Could help... --- X-Sender: aa7592@mail.guardiasociados.com X-Mailer: QUALCOMM Windows Eudora Version 5.2.0.9 Date: Thu, 20 Mar 2003 18:28:19 +0100 To: declan@well.com From: Jose M Guardia <joseg@guardiasociados.com> There's the Iraq News Agency (http://www.uruklink.net/iraqnews/eindex.htm) which is official, or at least very close to it. Domain doesn't end in .iq, though. And it works so far, but extremely slowly. Don't know any other, I'm afraid Jose M Guardia --- ------------------------------------------------------------------------- POLITECH -- Declan McCullagh's politics and technology mailing list You may redistribute this message freely if you include this notice. To subscribe to Politech: http://www.politechbot.com/info/subscribe.html This message is archived at http://www.politechbot.com/ Like Politech? 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