Blogger target of attacks

		Massive distributed-denial-of-service (DDoS) attacks intended to silence a blogger known as 'Cyxymu' hammered Twitter, YouTube, Facebook, and LiveJournal. -- PHOTO: AP

SAN FRANCISCO - A PRO-GEORGIAN blogger was the target of cyber attacks that disrupted Twitter and hampered services at Facebook and LiveJournal, Internet security company F-Secure said on Friday.

Massive distributed-denial-of-service (DDoS) attacks intended to silence a blogger known as 'Cyxymu' hammered Twitter, YouTube, Facebook, and LiveJournal, F-Secure researcher Mikko Hyponnen said in a message at the firm's website.

'Launching DDoS attacks against services like Facebook is the equivalent of bombing a TV station because you don't like one of the newscasters,' Hyponnen wrote.

'The amount of collateral damage is huge. Millions of users of Twitter, LiveJournal, and Facebook have been experiencing problems because of this attack.' Effects of the attacks were still being felt Friday, with Facebook and LiveJournal not accepting connections to Cyxymu's online pages, according to Mr Hyponnen.

'Whoever is behind this attack, they had significant bandwidth available,' the Internet security specialist said.

'Our best guess is that these attacks were done by nationalistic Russian hackers who wanted to silence a visible online opponent.' In 'tweets' at popular micro-blogging service Twitter, Cyxymu blames Russian authorities out to stifle his online commentary.

The attacks may have had the opposite effect, with the number of people signed on to follow Cyxymu tweets nearly doubling to 642 in the wake of the cyber assaults.

Twitter was down for more than an hour early on Thursday and service at the eponymous California firm's website has continued to be sporadic.

'The ongoing, massively coordinated attacks on Twitter this week appear to have been geopolitical in motivation,' Twitter co-founder Biz Stone said on Friday in an email reply to an AFP inquiry.

'However, we don't feel it's appropriate to engage in speculative discussion about these motivations. The open exchange of information can have a positive impact globally and our job is to keep Twitter services running reliably to the best of our ability.

Twitter is working closely with other companies affected by the attacks, according to Mr Stone. -- AFP

Source