North Korea has lost internet, US responsible?

[Real_PhillBert]

SAN FRANCISCO — North Korea’s already tenuous links to the Internet went completely dark on Monday after days of instability, in what Internet monitors described as one of the worst North Korean network failures in years.

 

The loss of service came just days after President Obama pledged that the United States would launch a “proportional response” to the recent attacks on Sony Pictures, which government officials have linked to North Korea. While an attack on North Korea’s networks was suspected, there was no definitive evidence of it.

 

 

“Their networks are under duress,” Mr. Madory said. “This is consistent with a DDoS attack on their routers,” he said, referring to a distributed denial of service attack, in which attackers flood a network with traffic until it collapses under the load.

 

I'm not an expert, but can you DDos an entire country?

 

North Korea does very little commercial or government business over the Internet. The country officially has 1,024 Internet protocol addresses, though the actual number may be somewhat higher. By comparison, the United States has billions of addresses.

 

This made me laugh more than it should have.

 

The failure follows requests by the Obama administration to China seeking its help in blocking North Korea’s ability to wage cyberattacks, an early step toward the “proportional response” that Mr. Obama promised, as well as a broader warning to others who may try similar attacks on American targets in the future, senior administration officials have said.  

 

So the plot thickens...

 

Much more in the article. What you do you guys think? If this truly was the doing of the US, I am impressed as it does seem to be a very well done proportional response. Somehow I kinda doubt it was though.

 

Source: http://www.nytimes.com/2014/12/23/world/asia/attack-is-suspected-as-north-korean-internet-collapses.html?partner=rss&emc=rss&_r=1

[Firearm2112]

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[Flight1sim]

OHH SHET

What'ya gunna do now?

[flibberdipper]

Oh, yay. If the US did do this, then Obama can go shove a lava rock up his ass.

[FakezZ]

North Korea's infrastructure was still harder to hack than Sony's LOL...

[AlwaysFSX]

Well when the country has one router then it shouldn't be hard.

Trololololo.

[E-Ro]

I posted this in the other thread but it should be here too.

Aaaaand Murica strikes back! Fuck yeah!!!!

 

 

[Horrorfull]

Well when the country has one router then it shouldn't be hard.

Trololololo.

Best comment i've seen all day.

[mr moose]

If the country only has a few thousand IP's and some very tenuous connections to the rest of the world, how is it possible for them to carry out the attacks everyone says they did without it being blatantly obvious to everyone?

[Real_PhillBert]

If the country only has a few thousand IP's and some very tenuous connections to the rest of the world, how is it possible for them to carry out the attacks everyone says they did without it being blatantly obvious to everyone?

Hmm that is a very good question, and one I hadn't thought about before.

[E-Ro]

If the country only has a few thousand IP's and some very tenuous connections to the rest of the world, how is it possible for them to carry out the attacks everyone says they did without it being blatantly obvious to everyone?

North Korea invests heavily in cyber warfare to make up for their weakness in conventional arms. It is the most cost effective way for them to cause trouble abroad.

If anyone is interested, you can read this article, which includes a report done by the Pentagon on the DPRK's foreign policy aims and capabilities.

 

EDIT: Here direct from the article

 

The Pentagon claims that North Korea is building up expertise in “offensive cyber operations,” which the report describes as the most “cost-effective way to develop asymmetric, deniable military operations.” The report blames these hackers for denial-of-service attacks against South Korea from 2009 to 2011 and again in 2013.

[mr moose]

North Korea invests heavily in cyber warfare to make up for their weakness in conventional arms. It is the most cost effective way for them to cause trouble abroad.

yes, but how?   The US can use any number of ten or more connections to multiple countries where as North Korea can only go through China yes?

[Mojo-Jojo]

North Korea's infrastructure was still harder to hack than Sony's LOL...

With only 1024 addresses, mapping out their infrastructure becomes child's play.

edit: http://nknetobserver.github.io/

[E-Ro]

yes, but how?   The US can use any number of ten or more connections to multiple countries where as North Korea can only go through China yes?

I honestly have no idea how, as I am not educated or well read on how the technology actually works. All I can say for certain is that they put a good amount of money into cyber warfare, and they have carried out cyber attacks before.

[FakezZ]

With only 1024 addresses, mapping out their infrastructure becomes child's play.

edit: http://nknetobserver.github.io/

Man would it suck living there

[Real_PhillBert]

Man would it suck living there

For those that do, I don't think the Internet is their biggest concern. Food and electricity are two that immediately come to mind.

 

[Trik'Stari]

They even had internet to begin with?

[Real_PhillBert]

They even had internet to begin with?

Well... 1024 devices did lol

[MoonSpot]

Smack that internet ~_^

[Mooshi]

Oh no, all <10 N.Koreans lost their internet, now how will they be an effective paranoid dictatorship?

[lubblig]

I'm not an expert, but can you DDos an entire country?

 

Well Lizard Squad DDOS:ed one of Sweden's largest ISP's (or well, it was EA that they DDOS:ed but Telia was their ISP) not that long ago which made pretty much all of Telia's customers disconnected completely from the Internet, since broadband, IP-phone and IP-tv stopped working. Telia has millions of customers while NK seems to have about a thousand.

 

I don't think they have several ISP's in their country with that few amount of users. Just an assumption though. Therefore, if their one ISP is DDOS:ed, then it's not that unlikely that everything stops working.

[APrettyCoolWalrus]

Oh, yay. If the US did do this, then Obama can go shove a lava rock up his ass.

Please explain your negativity and vulgarity.

[Real_PhillBert]

Oh no, all <10 N.Koreans lost their internet, now how will they be an effective paranoid dictatorship?

This could be a preliminary step to cutting off out of state information sources prior to an attack on another country. The N. Korean government is not a wildly stable group and has made some pretty egregious threats.

[flibberdipper]

Please explain your negativity and vulgarity.

It's just stupid since if we did do this, then it's really fucking childish.