Secure messaging service Telegram faced a powerful distributed denial of service(DDoS) attack that appeared to have come from China. Pavel Durov, Telegram CEO shared that the ‘state-actor sized’ attack was traced to China as IP addresses show.
A DDoS is a “Distributed Denial of Service attack”: your servers get GADZILLIONS of garbage requests which stop them from processing legitimate requests. Imagine that an army of lemmings just jumped the queue at McDonald’s in front of you – and each is ordering a whopper. (1/2)
— Telegram Messenger (@telegram) June 12, 2019
Hong Kong which has special administrative powers separate from mainland China and thus Hong Kong residents are not under China’s Great Firewall which greatly restricts internet access but many fear that the island is being exerted influence from Beijing.
IP addresses coming mostly from China. Historically, all state actor-sized DDoS (200-400 Gb/s of junk) we experienced coincided in time with protests in Hong Kong (coordinated on @telegram). This case was not an exception.
— Pavel Durov (@durov) June 12, 2019
The residents are protesting a new law that will put them under China’s authoritarian government.
Opposition lawmaker Claudia Mo says Hong Kong leader Carrie Lam is carrying out the wishes of Beijing.
"Carrie Lam has proved just a little puppet of her Beijing boss, and she would just do anything the Beijing boss tells her to do."https://t.co/GXb7GC5T7r pic.twitter.com/CkrcSxHieI
— Bloomberg TV (@BloombergTV) June 13, 2019
Many fear that the proposed a law that would allow extradition to China and thus the island’s residents would be exposed to the mainland’s flawed justice system.
Debate of the #extraditionbill was postponed as #HongKong descended into chaos. Police fired tear gas and rubber bullets at protesters, many of whom were prepared with umbrellas, goggles and masks. https://t.co/qlB7j975ki pic.twitter.com/CqpdLdBlFe
— SCMP News (@SCMPNews) June 13, 2019
Close to over 1 million people out of the 7 million Hong Kong residents thronged the streets in protests descending into violence yesterday as law enforcement used rubber bullets and tear gas to disperse the crowds who had tried to get to to the city’s parliament. Hong Kong has never experienced political demonstrations this big since they git handed over from Britain in 1997.
Protesters clash with police in Hong Kong#tictocnews’ @JosieWonghk breaks it down for us pic.twitter.com/Nv7OukC4ko
— TicToc by Bloomberg (@tictoc) June 12, 2019
The protesters used encrypted messaging services like Telegram which is blocked in mainland China to organize the riots by sharing tactics and delivery of resources such as cling film, masks, headgear, and water as they avoid surveillance by the government.
“We’re all using these apps to keep in touch with each other and try to figure out what’s going on.”
~ Lokman Tsui, Chinese University of Hong Kong
China has been attacking Telegram and tried to take it down a couple of years ago when the country went after human right lawyers who used the app.
Users reported difficulty using the messaging service for a couple of hours during the demonstrations on Wednesday.
Telegram service has now returned to normal.
For the moment, things seem to have stabilized.
— Telegram Messenger (@telegram) June 12, 2019
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