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<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/05/04/uk-malaysia-election-online-idUKBRE94309G20130504">http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/05/04/uk-malaysia-election-online-idUKBRE94309G20130504</a><br>
<h1>In Malaysia, online election battles take a nasty turn</h1>
(Reuters) - Ahead of Malaysia's elections on Sunday, independent
online media say they are being targeted in Internet attacks which
filter content and throttle access to websites, threatening to
deprive voters of their main source of independent reporting.<span
id="articleText"><span class="focusParagraph">
</span><span id="midArticle_1"></span>
<p>Independent online news sites have emerged in recent years to
challenge the dominance of mostly government-linked traditional
media. The government denies any attempts to hobble access to
the Internet in the run-up to a close-fought election.</p>
<span id="midArticle_2"></span>
<p>"During the 2008 election we were wiped off the Internet," said
Premesh Chandran, CEO of independent online news provider
Malaysiakini.</p>
<span id="midArticle_3"></span>
<p>"Our concern is that we'll see a repeat of that on May 5. Can
we really live without independent media on election night,
given that both sides might not accept the result?"</p>
<span id="midArticle_4"></span>
<p>Malaysiakini was set up in the late 1990s to test the
government's push to lure technology companies to the country by
promising not to censor the Internet. Other news websites have
followed, including The Malaysian Insider, which set up shop
down the street from Malaysiakini in 2008.</p>
<span id="midArticle_5"></span>
<p>Such websites have emerged as an important source of news to
counter the traditional media, most of which are owned by
interests linked to the ruling Barisan Nasional or BN coalition.</p>
<span id="midArticle_6"></span>
<p>The BN's dominance of media is one of its crucial advantages as
it fends off an increasingly potent opposition that made
impressive election gains in 2008. Sunday's election is expected
to be the closest yet, though Malaysian Prime Minister Najib
Razak is favoured to win.</p>
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<p>Leading opposition politicians who attract big campaign crowds
in cities say they get a much cooler reception in rural areas,
where access to the Internet is rarer.</p>
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<p>Malaysia ranked 145th on a list of 179 countries in this year's
World Press Freedom report released by Reporters Without
Borders. It was Malaysia's lowest ever ranking.</p>
<span id="midArticle_9"></span>
<p>A survey released on Friday by the University of Nottingham's
Malaysia campus and Malaysia's Centre for Independent Journalism
found that online media gave almost equal coverage to the
opposition and government parties, while traditional media
focused on the ruling BN coalition and its parties "by a
significant margin".</p>
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<p>POLICE RAIDS TO ONLINE ATTACKS</p>
<span id="midArticle_11"></span>
<p>Malaysiakini, the most popular of such websites, has weathered
several storms, including police raids, denied access to press
conferences, accusations of being linked to foreign agents and
requests to take down content, Chandran said.</p>
<span id="midArticle_12"></span>
<p>But in recent years the tactics appear to have shifted towards
knocking the site offline, primarily through distributed denial
of service, or DDOS, attacks, where servers are deluged by
thousands of requests at the same time.</p>
<span id="midArticle_13"></span>
<p>Harlan Mandel, CEO of New York-based Media Development
Investment Fund, which has worked with Malaysiakini for more
than a decade and is a minority investor, said in an email
interview that Malaysiakini had become a focus for attack after
"establishing itself as the go-to site for reliable election
reporting for millions of Malaysians" in 2008.</p>
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<p>"Since then, it has come under repeated cyber attacks,
generally coinciding with sensitive political events like local
elections and political rallies, said Mandel.</p>
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<p>Malaysiakini is not alone. Last month a DDOS attack brought
down three related London-based radio web portals, according to
Clare Rewcastle Brown, their Malaysian-born founder.</p>
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<p>Jahabar Sadiq, CEO of Kuala Lumpur-based The Malaysian Insider,
said his news service had come under heavy DDOS attack shortly
after six of his staff were summoned to the regulator, the
Malaysian Communications and Multimedia Commission or MCMC, a
few weeks ago. They were asked, among other questions, for
technical details about their service provider.</p>
<span id="midArticle_1"></span>
<p>"It can't be a coincidence," he said in an interview. "They
were asking questions about our architecture which weren't
required."</p>
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<p>BACKUP U.S. SERVERS</p>
<span id="midArticle_3"></span>
<p>At least half a dozen news or political websites have now
shifted their servers to U.S.-based CloudFlare, which offers
protection against DDOS attacks for a fraction of the cost other
companies charge. CloudFlare said that attacks on such sites had
increased in the past week, mostly from Malaysia-based <span
class="mandelbrot_refrag"><a class="mandelbrot_refrag"
href="http://www.reuters.com/sectors/industries/overview?industryCode=104&lc=int_mb_1001">computers</a></span>
or IP addresses it had not previously seen involved in attacks.</p>
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<p>Now, Malaysiakini's Chandran and others say, their attackers
appear to have shifted gear again.</p>
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<p>The Malaysian Insider's mail service, which allows users to
email articles to others, was hacked two weeks ago, Sadiq said,
triggering it to queue tens of thousands of emails to send to
users within a couple of hours.</p>
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<p>Malaysiakini's Chandran says the most recent wave of
disruptions began late last month when users complained the site
could only be accessed intermittently. One minute users could
access the site, the next they couldn't.</p>
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<p>They figured out that only those using Internet service
providers who channel their traffic through state-controlled
Telekom Malaysia Berhad were affected, while those accessing
through smaller ISPs who use an international gateway were still
able to access the site.</p>
<span id="midArticle_8"></span>
<p>"It's a smarter way to do it," said Chandran. "It's a guerrilla
style in that it creeps up on you and it's harder to detect."</p>
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<p>Shortly after complaining informally to the MCMC, Chandran
said, the attack stopped.</p>
<span id="midArticle_10"></span>
<p>Since then, Malaysiakini discovered that some political
sensitive videos it had posted on YouTube could not be viewed if
accessed from some local ISPs and some <span
class="mandelbrot_refrag"><a class="mandelbrot_refrag"
href="http://www.reuters.com/subjects/facebook?lc=int_mb_1001">Facebook</a></span>
pages featuring election-related content were also affected.</p>
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<p>Such tactics appear to be using what is called deep packet
inspection, where Internet traffic is monitored and filtered via
specific keywords, links or digital signatures, which would
require access to the ISP.</p>
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<p>INVESTIGATION LAUNCHED</p>
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<p>The MCMC said on Thursday that it was investigating such
complaints but that "preliminary investigations indicate that
there were no such restrictions by ISPs as alleged by certain
quarters".</p>
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<p>Telekom Malaysia said in a written response to questions from
Reuters that it had set up a taskforce and network operating
centre to ensure that its network ran smoothly for its customers
during the election period.</p>
<span id="midArticle_15"></span>
<p>"Malaysia has a free, open and robust online media environment.
The government does not censor the internet and welcomes
constructive criticism as part of the democratic process," said
a government spokesman told Reuters.</p>
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<p>"We deny any involvement in cyber-attacks. The government does
not condone attacks against the media in any form."</p>
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<p>Indeed, Malaysiakini's Chandran and others are careful not to
accuse the government or Telekom Malaysia directly.</p>
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<p>"We are an Internet-based company, we don't want to pick a
fight with a telco, we need them," Chandran said. "Besides we
can't tell whether they're doing it on purpose."</p>
<span id="midArticle_3"></span>
<p>It's almost impossible to figure out who is behind the attacks
and not easy to distinguish between a deliberate assault and the
technical issues of handling large and fluctuating waves of
traffic. Independent security experts said the available
evidence appeared to confirm Malaysiakini's conclusions.</p>
<span id="midArticle_4"></span>
<p>Dhillon Andrew Kannabhiran, Malaysian founder and CEO of the
Hack In The Box conferences, said that "stuff is being filtered
or slowed down or otherwise being messed around with for sure"
on Telekom Malaysia's network, but he said that it could have
been done without the company's say-so or knowledge.</p>
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<p>In the meantime, websites are preparing for the worst by
mirroring content on other domain names and on <span
class="mandelbrot_refrag"><a class="mandelbrot_refrag"
href="http://www.reuters.com/subjects/facebook?lc=int_mb_1001">Facebook</a></span>.
The Malaysian Insider has also set up a mirror outside the
country at themalaysianoutsider.com.</p>
<span id="midArticle_6"></span>
<p>Whatever the outcome of Sunday's election, Malaysia's
increasingly sophisticated Internet battleground reflects the
future of struggles to control and influence of information.</p>
<span id="midArticle_7"></span>
<p>The election-related DDOS attacks in Malaysia "follows a trend
we've seen elsewhere where DDOS is becoming a part of many
elections", said Matthew Prince, co-founder CEO of CloudFlare.</p>
<span id="midArticle_8"></span>
<p>Malaysia illustrated how political parties and the
powers-that-be are starting to use the Internet, said Mikko
Hipponen, chief research officer of Helsinki-based internet
security company F-Secure which has large lab in Kuala Lumpur.</p>
<span id="midArticle_9"></span>
<p>"They are taking a much more active role and, in some parts of
the world, they are not afraid to use the more offensive
technologies to get what they want," said Hipponen.</p>
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<p>"I believe we'll be seeing much more of this."</p>
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