huridocs-tech Azeris, Armenians wage Internet war over Karabakh

Edited/Distributed by HURINet - The Human Rights Information Network
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## author     : olm@csun.edu
## date       : 14.02.00
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Azeris, Armenians wage Internet war over Karabakh.
By Selina Williams

Reuters English News Service
02/14/2000

BAKU, Feb 14 (Reuters) - Presumed Armenian computer hackers
broke into an Internet site in neighbouring Azerbaijan on
Monday in a cyberspace battle over the disputed territory of
Nagorno-Karabakh.

Editors at the Baku daily Zerkalo said the hackers had
introduced false information into the daily's site in
revenge for cross-border "attacks" by Azeri hackers last
month.

"The war between Armenia and Azerbaijan over Karabakh has
moved on to the Internet now that the front line is quiet,"
said Zerkalo's deputy editor Nair Aliyev. He said false
items had been inserted suggesting the presidents of Armenia
and Azerbaijan had agreed to a land swap to help settle the
dispute and that Turkey had opened its border with Armenia.
Both actions would irritate Azeri public opinion.

Last month Azeri hackers attacked two dozen Armenian
websites, including those of state television and the
Armenian Assembly of America, a lobbying group. The Azeri
hackers said they wanted to give an accurate picture of the
conflict.

Fighting broke out in Nagorno-Karabakh in 1988 after the
region's ethnic Armenian majority tried to break away from
Azerbaijan's rule, when both states were still Soviet
republics.

Some 35,000 people died in the war and Armenian-backed
separatists still occupy large chunks of Azerbaijan's
territory. Talks are proceeding and a shaky ceasefire
remains in effect.

Many believe Armenia's greater sophistication in Internet
technology will leave them the winners in the cyberspace
war.

"We need to focus on creating more sites of our own instead
of destroying Armenian sites," said Eldar Zeynalov, director
of Azerbaijan's Human Rights Centre.

Some of the world's most visited websites, including Yahoo!,
were last week subjected to attacks which disrupted their
service for several hours, although the hackers never gained
access to the sites' contents. U.S. President Bill Clinton
has called a summit on Internet security for next week.

Russian government Internet sites were hit last week by
hackers who inserted death threats against Acting President
Vladimir Putin.




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