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Anti-government hackers have
been fighting back against online censorship in the online battle taking place
in Sudan
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At
the beginning of this month, Freedom House released its annual Freedom
on the Net publication with a heavy Sudan chapter authored by Girifna, a pro-democracy Sudanese group. The
chapter stated that Sudan's internet is "Not Free" based on arrests
and harassments of citizen journalists as well as restrictive laws that
threaten journalists and activists who write freely on the internet.
Facebook:
the main target
The
cyber-harassment started a few months ago for Shreef Diaa, a student activist
with a strong online presence, when he could not sign on to his Facebook
account.
"I
thought it was a network problem, but then my friends were confused to why I
have the picture of the president as my profile picture," said Diaa adding
that he then realised that his account had been hacked.
Diaa's
account was then used to write degrading posts about different political
figures and harass his female friends with obscene private messages.
"Luckily
a friend of mine was able to regain access of my account and help me increase
its security," said Diaa.
For
a journalist or a cyber- activist to change their email or Facebook account in
Sudan is considered normal. Many share messages through their accounts stating
that they have been subjected to failed or successful hacking attempts.
On
October 21, a Sudanese journalist working for the UAE-based Al-Arabiya channel,
Khalid Ewais, reported on his Facebook account that it had been subjected to a
"failed hacking attempt.” In June 2013, Khalid Ahmed, a journalist with
the daily Al-Sudani
newspaper reported that his email was hacked and an article was published under
his name which brought him serious charges by the armed forces.
The
cyber jihad: one jihad, many techniques
Somia
Hundosa, a Sudanese journalist based in Egypt, has become an expert on the
different hacking methods used by the alleged Cyber-Jihad unit, part of the
National Intelligence and Security Service (NISS), after falling victim to
several hacking and cyber-harassment attempts.
"Hacking
for me has happened through my email, they hacked my email when they found it
in articles I published online," said Hundosa adding that if you are a
female, your account is used to send pornographic material to force you into
silence.
In
2011, as Sudan's protest movement began using the internet to share information
and plan protests and silent sit-ins, Alan Boswell of Mcclatchy reported that:
"Pro-government agents infiltrated anti-government sites, spreading
disinformation and looking to triangulate the identities of the chief
organisers. They'd barrage Facebook pages with pornography, then report the
pages to Facebook for violating the rules."
The
pro-government agents have become even more persistent, dubbed as the
cyber-jihadists, they have been trained in India and Malaysia, as Girifna
reported in the Freedom on the net report.
Hundosa
found herself locked out of her account before and even received a threat from
the Facebook administration.
"I
found myself temporarily banned from Facebook before because I was reported, in
2011, after posting pictures of the war in Southern Kordofan, Facebook told me
that I posted inappropriate content," said Hendousa adding that she had to
remove the pictures so her page wasn’t closed down.
Hundosa
was arrested last November for five days and was interrogated by a security
agent she claims is responsible for the "blogs and cyber security"
unit.
"In
2010, I was told by a security agent that my Facebook page was reported because
I had a picture without a scarf and if I don't stop posting such pictures, they
will make me bald," said Hundosa whose hair was shaved during detention in
November 2012.
The
website of Girifna, the publisher of the report, was recently subjected to an
unsuccessful hacking attempt.
"The
hacking attempt on the website was an "injection" attack. It's a way
a tricking regular forms into acting as portals into the site's database,"
said Girifna in an email.
Girifna's
media team explained that the hacking attempts on the social media platforms
are usually "phishing".
"This
targeted phishing tricks the user into giving up their password by going to a
fake website," said Girifna whose Facebook group which preceded its
current page was hacked in 2011. The group has tried to regain the page, but to
no avail.
A
26-year-old who spoke to Doha Centre for Media Freedom anonymously confirmed
the presence of the cyber-jihadists who are sometimes called the
"electronic resistance unit" among other names.
"They
are usually stationed at universities and create accounts usually with a girl's
name and picture and discredit information on pages or to add activists to gain
access to their pages," said the anonymous source, who has worked as part
of this unit.
The
new Facebook pages created normally don't have a lot of friends or information,
but sometimes, the pages have the names and profile pictures of someone in your
circle.
"You
find that a new account under your friend's name wants to add you and it has
their profile picture and information, you accept their friendship request,
only to find that it is a fake account," said Hundosa.
Declaring
an Online War
In
June 2012, as Sudan was witnessing a wave of anti-government protests, the
Internet Hacking Activist group hacked a number of government websites which Girifna wrote aims
"to fight back the Sudanese electronic jihad unit which aims at hacking
Sudanese Activists’ emails, Facebook, Twitter accounts and the major opposition
websites."
The
government blocked online newspapers and forums that it saw as anti-government,
mainly Al-Rakoba, Sudanese-Online and Hurriyat.
Similarly,
during another wave of protests in September/early October 2013, an anonymous
group which tweeted under the name of AnonSudan on Twitter, said that it hacked
several government websites.
"main
Gov Site http://sudan.gov.sd
DOWN is as we promised, more than 6 hours now," tweeted AnonSudan, (which
could potentially be the unofficial Sudan chapter of Anonymous) on September
26. The same day, the websites of the states of Khartoum, River Nile state,
North Kordofan, Red Sea, North Darfur and Sennar were hacked.
Moreover,
ministerial websites were hacked such as the Ministry of Education as well as
the Presidency's website and the website of the traffic police.
AnonSudan
tweeted proudly that it took down 149 websites affiliated with the government
of Sudan.
It
remains unclear how much it cost to bring back the websites and secure them
from further hacking attempts, but it is clear that there is an online war and
both sides are arming themselves with further training and skills to incur more
financial and social cost to each other.
Maybe
journalists such as Somia Hundosa or Amel Habbani will not have not change
their email addresses after they are hacked, with the new digital
infrastructure that groups like AnonSudan promise to give.
"If
the media did not pay attention to #Sudan Revolts, we will raise the bar,"
tweeted AnonSudan during the protest movement last September.
Source:
DCMF
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