The NYT reports the Russians were responsible for the DDOS:

http://tinyurl.com/mkfnfe

Shah mat on your original story. So how are you going to change it now? Israelis that used Russian computers as zombies? ;-)

IMHO, this is time for a retraction...

The first rule of journalism is: always check your sources. The source in this case is a supposed stock-trending site that seems to be more of an Iran-obsessed blog than anything else.

Go back a page or two of articles on that site, and there's little else there at or around the election time other than pro-Iran pieces. This is not what you might describe as a reliable source.

Was it racist to suggest that a small number of people who happened to be Israeli, tried to game Twitter? Not if there was a genuine, well-founded belief that that was the case, and no more than if they'd been, say, Americans.

Was it racist to suggest that the recent Twitter outage was caused by Iranians? No; same caveats.

Maybe the site's owners _are_ racist. Who knows? But the site's article itself wasn't (as such), and the Inq's cover piece wasn't either. I wouldn't put much money on either being correct, though.

There is, in some circles, a knee-jerk tendency to cry "RACISM!" when it's not appropriate. I'm not singling out any single race or nation here: it happens all over. It doesn't help the general cause of trying to treat _all_ races as equal - in fact it impedes it.

What we had here was just weak journalism, based on unsound and apparently biased sources.

Inq, you can do better. Or you can gain momentum downhill. You choose.

Does anyone seriously believe for one second that Iran *isnt* carrying out cyber-terrorism, including DoS attacks?

The UN sanctions against third-world s**tholes are not foolproof, but they *are* effective enough to cause real economic hardship. Enough, at least, that the only way Axis powers like Iran and North Korea can earn vital foreign currency is by criminal means.

Ever wonder why all the botnets are run from places like that? There is a reason, you know.

Its also laughable how the defenderz of the Religion of Peace all try to play the race card against Israel.

For shame.

Andrew - where are you going with your Israeli innnuendo? Iranian elections / revolt happened in mid-June. Last time I checked the calendar, I noticed we are in August. How exactly is one event related to another? Twitter did not crash during the Iranian revolt following their elections - despite the "massive" number of Twitter messages (as the source you linked to claims - BTW, since when is a post to a stock tracking chart the ultimate authority on the subject? Have you conducted analysis to validate the poster's claims? - I happen to have quite a few Iranian friends who told me there were a lot of people in Iran Twittering during that time, so I do not necessarily buy into the claim that Israelis were trying "destabilize" Iran via Twitter - that sounds like a bunch of rubbish).

Sorry, but IMHO your last paragraph is an example of poor journalism practices and as such, I would expect a retraction...

Overeacting as usual

I always wondered how on earth the INQ managed to stay afloat after getting rid of its only talented writers (like Sylvie etc) and now I have my answer in this barely disguised anti Israeli tirade

Me thinks the INQ is now running on rich Arab oil money to be writing garage like this to appeal to their new investors

and the protests were all inspired by the israelis.. yeh right

http://news.cnet.com/8301-27080_3-10305200-245.html

And I doubt the writer would have been allowed to get away with blaming Muslims, or other nationalities willy nilly... At least he said Israel and not "the Zionist entity"
I complained to the editors. Lets see if it will help.

Is that the level the INQ has dropped to now? You can no longer write tech news properly, so you make racist attacks and accusations instead? What an absolute disgrace. You should be fired Andrew.

Can't access M$ $upport to for atleast the past 30 mins..... hmmm

haha fail maybe anontalk finally found a cesspool of newfags worthy of dossing

"But sources have suggested looking to Iran and the fact that many of the thousands of tweets publicising the recent 'revolution' in Iran could be traced back to a just a few new subscribers in Israel. "

A very interesting statement, if true. Are you saying that the Iranians are annoyed at Twitter for being a Zionist mouth piece? Or are you saying it was an attack by Iranians becuase Twitter was publishing comments from liberal muslims from Israel?

"TWITTER TWATTED"

you've missed a sitter there.

Maybe the Twits will now get a life?

www.istwitterdown.com