It’s not uncommon for hackers to respond to political events by defacing websites or staging Denial-of-Service attacks on a site as form of political protest. The current wave of violence in the Middle East has given rise to a new form of political involvement: harnessing the combined computing power of like minded people via botnets.
A botnet is a networked group of computers under the control of a botherder. Usually people’s computers become infected without their knowledge and the botherder can abuse the victim’s computer’s bandwidth to send spam emails, to steal private information and similar cybercriminal purposes. Typically the purpose is to achieve financial gain for the botherder, and not political in nature.
It’s being reported that a group of pro-Israeli computer programmers have written a piece of code that enables those who install it to share their computer’s bandwidth in a joint effort to disrupt or take offline pro-Palestinian websites. I’m not interested in engaging in a political discussion in this blog, that’s not my purpose here. However, I must point out that purposely downloading a botnet and allowing an unknown group of people to hold permanent control of your computer is a foolish thing to do. Therefore, I suggest if someone encourages you to join a political effort of this nature you politely decline and find another way to express your opinion. Attend a rally, donate some money, or call your Congressman might be more appropriate.