The websites of Mizzima News, an independent Burmese multi-media group based in New Delhi, were suspended by its hosting server on the evening of October 9 because the site had attracted several hacking attempts. They became fully operational only on October 14.
Mizzima's Canada-based hosting company, Hostpapa.ca, said it suspended the sites – http://mizzima.com , http://mizimaburmese.com , http://mizzima.tv , and http://mizzimaphoto.com – because the said attacks might also harm other sites on the server. According to Mizzima's technical staff, the hacking attempts were sophisticated, well-timed and organized. The hacking file used has more than 4,000 lines of code and was adapted from a popular PHP Shell script, the technical staff added.
"Unfortunately, to protect the servers and the other customers on your server, we had to suspend your account," said Hostpapa's technical support staff in its notice to Mizzima. While it is still difficult to trace who is behind the hacking operations, Mizzima's technical staff said they found the main attempt to have originated from Russia, with cooperation from other hackers in Germany, France and India.
"This kind of well-organized attacking can't be done by individuals but is instead the disguised actions of an institution, most probably in this case the military regime," said Sein Win, Mizzima's managing editor.
Burma's military junta, which has sent several IT specialists for further training in Russia and other parts of the world, has imposed a ban on Mizzima's websites inside the country.
Though web users could still access the Mizzima sites by bypassing the government's Internet filtering systems through the help of proxy servers, the junta made it an offense to surf the site and users who are caught doing so are made to pay a heavy penalty.
The junta always blamed exiled media groups as well as foreign broadcasting radio stations for disseminating information on human rights violations inside Burma as well as the continued mismanagement of the country.
In its campaign against foreign broadcasting stations after the September 2007 protests, the junta, through its mouthpiece, New Light of Myanmar, carried slogans that stated: "Skyful of liars attempting to destroy nation, BBC lying, VOA deceiving, RFA setting up hostilities. Beware don't be bought by those ill-wishers," referring to the services of the British Broadcasting Corporation, the Voice of America and Radio Free Asia.
This is the second instance that Mizzima's sites have been the target of hackers. In July, Mizzima websites were crippled due to a Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) attack.
In the same month, the website of the Oslo-based Democratic Voice of Burma (DVB) sustained a similar DDoS attack. In September, DVB, along with two other websites of exiled Burmese media groups—the Chiang Mai-based "Irrawaddy" and Bangkok-based "New Era Journal"—also came under DDoS attack, rendering their sites inaccessible on September 24, two days before the Saffron Revolution's first anniversary.
Mizzima News Agency, run by Burmese journalists, is an independent Burmese multi-media group focusing on Burma and Burma-related news and issues, and maintains four different websites.
Besides offering updated daily news both in English and Burmese, Mizzima also podcasts video stories on its http://mizzima.tv site, stories which are frequently picked up by other news organizations.
Mizzima, as a member of the international media watchdog International Freedom of Expression eXchange (IFEX), and as a partner of the regional media watchdog Southeast Asian Press Alliance (SEAPA), has been producing media alerts on the violations of freedom of expression in Burma for over a decade.
