Arabs facing online war

Arab websites have been fighting a war of their own against hackers.

In addition to the widely publicized hacking on Al Jazeera's website, www.aljazeera.net , which temporality saw the U.S flag adorn its homepage, several other Arab sites have seen an increase in both user "friendly" traffic and cyber thugs since the war broke out in Iraq.

www.Islamonline.net a website that claims to be more balanced and less militant than other Islamic sites, said that at least 250 attempts are made each day to attack the website. This isn’t the first time they’ve seen this kind of activity increase.

The same thing happened immediately following the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks on the United States.

Hacking temporarily forced www.Arabia.com offline the third day after the war started.

Because the governments in the Arab world control the majority of its media, the web is an excellent place for other expression of ideas. However, only an estimated 1.7% of Arabs actually have internet access, according to a recent study by the Madar Research Group of the United Arab Emirates.

Experts assert that that this should not be blown out of proportion because hundreds of websites, both Arab and non-Arab, are hacked into each day and the motive is seldom political.

Published on Australian News.Net 18th April 2003
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