When Sensationalism Trumps Facts

duhBy now, everyone has heard about the malicious DNS hijacking of twitter.com by those clamining to represent the “Iranian Cyber Army”. Seeing this news spread, journalists have invented an enemy and laid blame based on…facts? No…wait…facts are defined as “Knowledge or information based on real occurrences”. Unfortunately folks, the only thing tying this back to “Iran” is the name of the gropu responsible for the redirect and the subsequent message announcing the “attack”.

This is sensationalism plain and simple. Here are some examples of the sensationalist headlines and some excerpts from the articles:

Iranian hacker attack: What will it cost Twitter?

Thursday night’s cyber attack against the Twitter microblogging service was no routine assualt to bring down a website. It was a sophisticated online blitz –perhaps part of an online Iranian cybercampaign – that could prove costly for social media networks.

A “blitz”…wow…sounds dangerous. “Part of an online Iranian cybercampaign” to what, prevent Americans from sending important updates like “LOLZ, dude failed hiz last exam big time.” thus, disrupting national security?

Twitter Hack: Part Of Broader Iranian Strategy

The attack last night on Twitter was clear retribution for the role that the service played during the [post-Iran election] demonstrations, and the role that it continues to play today. We have spoken to a number of sources overnight who have told us that the Iranian Cyber Army, unlike other groups with similar national monikers, is a group name that is to be taken literally ie. it is an Iranian government group. Little is known about how the group operates, but previous attempts to shut off Iranian citizens from Twitter and other web services demonstrate that Iran has the capability and will to use almost any means to control the flow of information on the web both within and outside of its own borders.

“Clear retribution” based on…..well, you remember the elections right and how it pissed off the Iranians….well they have computers…..and the attackers called themselves “Iranian” so…BOOM…there you go! We’ll put this one in the FACT column for sure.

I could have gone further with this post but the other articles I found were just too stupid note.

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