Interesting People mailing list archives

Replies to is Iraq's Internet still functioning?


From: Dave Farber <dave () farber net>
Date: Thu, 20 Mar 2003 16:17:32 -0500


------ Forwarded Message
From: Declan McCullagh <declan () well com>
Reply-To: declan () well com
Date: Thu, 20 Mar 2003 12:54:14 -0500
To: politech () politechbot com
Subject: FC: Replies to is Iraq's Internet still functioning?

Previous Politech message:
http://www.politechbot.com/p-04570.html

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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

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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


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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...

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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

---




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