Hackers Crash Twitter
THE TELEGRAPH: Twitter has gone down after the microblogging website became the victim of what the company believes was a co-ordinated attack.

The site crashed at around 2pm UK time, and remained offline for several hours. Twitter users around the world were unable to use the service, and could not send or receive messages, known a tweets.

Twitter confirmed that the outage had been caused by malicious attempts to overload its servers. This technique, known as a distributed denial of service attack, is widely used by hackers, cybercriminals and spammers to flood a website's servers with access requests, leaving ordinary traffic unable to connect to the server, and causing the system to overload and crash.

Hackers use a network of compromised computers, called a "botnet", to launch these attacks. Computer users are often unaware that their machine has been infected with a virus, worm or malicious software that allows hackers to gain remote access to their PC.

Twitter said that although the microblogging service was up and running again, it was still defending against the attack, and was attempting to recover and provide a normal service. >>> Claudine Beaumont, Technology Editor | Thursday, August 06, 2009

'Bomb Explodes' As Thousands Protest In Iran
SKY NEWS: A bomb has exploded in Tehran near the shrine of Iran's revolutionary founder as thousands of people protest at the result of the country's election, reports say.

At least one person was killed and two others injured close to the shrine of Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, said the Fars news agency.

Reports said it was a suicide bombing and the attacker died.

Elsewhere in the Iranian capital, police are using tear gas and water cannon on protesters, according to witnesses.

Reports said many people have defied Government warnings that any protests would be suppressed.

Eyewitnesses say some 3,000 protesters chanted "Death to the dictator!" and "Death to dictatorship!" near Revolution Square in the city centre.

Riot police were sent out on to the streets following a demand by Iran's supreme leader for the demonstrations to end. >>> | Saturday, June 20, 2009

ASSOCIATED PRESS: Web Support Pours Out for Iran Protesters

NEW YORK — Google and Facebook have rushed out services in Farsi. Twitter users have changed their home cities to Tehran to provide cover for Internet users there. Others have configured their computers to serve as relay points to bypass Iranian censorship.

In the aftermath of the disputed Iranian election, Internet companies and individuals around the world have stepped in to help Iranians communicate and organize.

Twitter delayed a scheduled maintenance shutdown so that people could continue to access the microblogging site while scores of Americans set up remote proxy servers so Iranians could access blocked Web sites from inside their country.

All week, Internet users in the U.S. and around the world fixed their eyes on the events unfolding in Iran, the way viewers might have been glued to their television sets 30 years ago. But unlike 30, or even five years ago, this time they could participate. >>> Associated Press | Saturday, June 20, 2009