The Dawn of the Cyber Martyr

Apparently, thousands of people, myself included, lost access to their favorite websites last August 6 because of one man.

Reports confirmed that popular online social network sites Facebook, Twitter and Livejournal, were simultaneously knocked down for a couple of hours by denial-of-service attacks last Thursday. As far as speculations go, this most recent botnet invasion is related to the Russia-Georgia conflict (Remember when Georgian websites were blocked in 2008?). This time is different. Instead of attempting to foil important Georgian military operations, this year’s hacker mission is simply to silence this popular Georgian blogger/ twitter-er.

Simultaneous hack efforts to make one person’s thoughts inaccessible? This guy must have had some really interesting things to say! Too bad I can’t access his current blog nor can I read those Russian characters on his Twitter site. News on the web is that this blogger has been transferring from one blogging platform to another to avoid the cyberattacks that have been following his accounts—thus, earning the title of the world’s first cyber refugee.

I’ve shared my thoughts on cyberactivism before and we are all aware of cyberwarfare and cybercrimes, but are we now about to recognize cyber heroes and martyrs? Since battles are now being fought and won through the internet, it is not surprising that damages are incurred and glory is earned virtually as well. And where there are terrorists and criminals, heroes, martyrs and victims are also likely to emerge.

Question is: which one are you going to be?