Hezbollah’s “Tech Army” breaks the censorship

First of all, let me say that this is not a political opinion, but a relatively neutral source, Time magazine, provides this story in factual detail.

It’s about the way Hezbollah’s reportedly ‘hijacks’ website around the world to ‘promote its causes, recruit and fund-raise’.

The first question you may ask is why does Hezbollah need to do that?
Well, because the US Government classifies them as a terrorist group and therefore can penalize any web hosting company who grant server space and Internet services to a Hezbollah organizations, like Al Manar TV for example.

Time magazine describes a particular case in which Hezbollah hackers managed to link to the IP (Internet Protocol) address of a small cable operator in South Texas. Then, the hackers added an extension to the IP address, allowing their traffic to flow and went on to spread the word out through e-mail and blogs that it can be found at that IP address.

As long as the hijack was not detected, the IP address could be linked to a new domain name and that opens up the site to anyone who might search online for Al-Manar content. It succeeded for a while.

Once caught, the hackers move onto another vulnerable site and the chase continues everyday, like cat a mouse.

Apparently, an organization called the Society for Internet Research monitors these hijackings. It is an informal consortium of "freelance counter-terrorists."
As you would expect, it’s made up of pro-Israeli hacking experts.
Aaron Weisburd is one of the computer programmers who operates one of the Society's projects from his home office in southern Illinois.

His Web site's name is Internet Haganah— the name of an Israeli paramilitary group who were real terrorists during the establishment of the state of Israel, killing Palestinain villagers in documented incidents.

In any case, he claims to have ‘hijack logs’ that go back several years and boasts that ‘the Jihadis cannot hide’.

Well, it seems they can, and they’re beating Weisburd and co. Apparently, Hezbollah hackers have ‘acquired Internet resources’ in India, Indonesia, Brazil, Argentina, Paraguay and many other countries.

And it’s taking a long time to ‘shut these sites down’ or to remove the Hezbollah hacks.

The US Government believes it necessary to track down every such hacked site because “it limits their fundraising, recruiting and propaganda efforts.”
Well, in this one-sided court of public opinion, a lot will be said; but the fact remains that the Internet is being put to good use by Hezbollah and their ‘Tech Army’ are as skillful and knowledgable in their digital field as their offline counterparts are in South Lebanon.
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