Notes

Tech Tent: Minecraft and A Botnet Battle

Tech Tent: Minecraft and a botnet battle Rory Cellan-Jones Technology reporter @BBCRoryCJon Twitter



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My podcast's most talked-about story this week is Cyberwarfare, which is raging below the surface of a game that has an primary audience of children.



We also look at Europe's battle against fake news, and learn the story of how South Korean electronics giant Samsung has been affected by a government corruption scandal.



Minecraft and a botnet fight



The Mirai botnet took over thousands of connected devices to launch massive denial of service (DDoS), attacks against major websites last year. This caused panic about the security of the Internet of Things.



Brian Krebs, a security researcher was among the victims. He has published an extensive investigation into the history of Mirai as well as the people who made it. This is an extraordinary piece of investigative journalism, and took him several months to complete.
https://minecraftservers.website/


The most fascinating aspect of his story is that it was a fight over the game of education that is so popular Minecraft that resulted in the hugely disruptive DDoS attacks.



It turns out that these attacks are used against very lucrative Minecraft servers as well as the companies that provide them with security protection. Robert Coelho, whose ProxyPipe helps clients to deal with DDoS attacks was among the victims.



He stated, "We can't have servers down more than 10 seconds at once." If that happens, the players will move elsewhere, while servers will search for other security companies.



"There's many bad actors in Minecraft," Coelho explains, "because a lot of servers are operated by underage users and there's a lot of money involved, so attacks are frequent."



One of the things that is striking about Brian Krebs' article is the young age of many of the participants in these online fights.



Teenagers appear to have carried out some of the most destructive and damaging attacks the world has seen. They may think this is an innocent game but with the FBI investigating the matter, they could discover grave consequences.



Europe bites back at fake news



We have previously reported on fake information on social media in relation to the US election. However now, with France and Germany casting their ballots this year the issue has been moved up the European agenda.



This week, Facebook unveiled plans to help battle fake stories in Germany. Articles that are flagged by readers as dubious will be looked at by a small independent investigative journalism and fact-checking group called Correctiv.



"We see that populists all over Germany are making use of fake news to alter the mood of the population," David Schraven from Correctiv tells me. He admits that his organisation faces a huge task but he believes it is essential to the functioning of democracy: "It's very important to make a sound decision during an election, to be aware the most accurate information about the truth in society."



The vice president of the European Commission, Andrus Ansip, who is in charge of the Digital Single Market, admits there's a problem. But he says it's the responsibility of to social media platforms, not governments, to address it. He also said that fake news is not good but the Ministry of Truth is worse. This was his remark to Joe Miller at the World Economic Forum in Davos.



He believes that when people don't trust the information they receive from platforms such as Facebook or Twitter, they will move elsewhere. The issue will become self-correcting. This could be a positive perspective of the importance social media users put on accurate news.



Samsung's troubles



The mobile phone giant Samsung has had a turbulent time in the past few months. When some of its Galaxy Note 7 phones caught fire, it had to take out the phone. (We'll learn more about this Monday when it releases the results of its investigation into this issue.



It is currently involved in the corruption scandal that involved South Korean President Park Geun Hye.



Five Samsung executives, including the boss JY Lee has been questioned over allegations of bribes being paid to gain support for the merger.



Despite these challenges the company appears to be thriving - with the Korean public not particularly upset about its conduct. Our man in Seoul, Steve Evans, is on the show to discuss how important Samsung is to the economy of South Korea. The company's revenue makes up 17 percent of South Korea's GDP. Samsung is a major industrial conglomerate that produces mobile phones and is involved in everything from funerals to hospitals. Koreans are actually interacting with Samsung from the beginning to the grave.


Homepage: https://minecraftservers.website/