GreenNet

Last updated
GreenNet
Founded1985
Type Non-profit
ISP
PurposeA not-for-profit collective established 1985, providing internet services, web design and hosting to supporters of peace, the environment and human rights
Location
Website https://gn.apc.org

GreenNet is a not-for-profit Internet service provider based in London, England. It was established in 1985 "as an effective and cheap way for environmental activists to communicate". [1] In 1987 the Joseph Rowntree Charitable Trust gave GreenNet a grant to enable it to bring a large number of peace groups online, and "After a few years they became one of the first internet service providers in Britain". [2] GreenNet formed an international link with IGC and was a founder member of the Association for Progressive Communications, established in 1990. [3] The registered charity GreenNet Charitable Trust was established in 1994 and owns GreenNet. [1]

Contents

GnFido

GreenNet developed a Fido gateway, GnFido, which allowed access to basic internet facilities such as email using a store-and-forward system. [4] It provided the only available cheap and accessible internet access for thousands of individuals and organisations in Africa, South Asia and Eastern Europe. [5]

2013 DDoS Attack

On 1 August 2013, GreenNet and the Association for Progressive Communications (APC) suffered an extensive DDoS attack. The attack was later described as a "DNS reflection attack" also known as a spoofed attack [6] Several sources initially suspected the attack was linked to the Zimbabwean Elections, which had been held on the previous day. [7] [8] [9] GreenNet's services were not fully operational again until 10.30 BST on Thursday 7 August. [10] On 9 August there was a second attack, which, while affecting some systems, allowed GreenNet to discover the site which was being targeted. [11] In October 2013, the target was revealed to be the site of investigative reporter Andrew Jennings. [12]

In July 2014 Privacy International, GreenNet and five other Internet Service Providers took GCHQ, the UK security service, to the Investigatory Powers Tribunal, alleging breach of privacy and breaking into their networks. [13] The case ultimately failed, but GCHQ were forced to admit clandestine hacking activities. [14] GreenNet were shortlisted for ISPA's Internet Hero of the year 2015. [15]

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">GCHQ</span> British signals intelligence agency

Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ) is an intelligence and security organisation responsible for providing signals intelligence (SIGINT) and information assurance (IA) to the government and armed forces of the United Kingdom. Primarily based at "The Doughnut" in the suburbs of Cheltenham, GCHQ is the responsibility of the country's Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs, but it is not a part of the Foreign Office and its Director ranks as a Permanent Secretary.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Denial-of-service attack</span> Type of cyber-attack

In computing, a denial-of-service attack is a cyber-attack in which the perpetrator seeks to make a machine or network resource unavailable to its intended users by temporarily or indefinitely disrupting services of a host connected to a network. Denial of service is typically accomplished by flooding the targeted machine or resource with superfluous requests in an attempt to overload systems and prevent some or all legitimate requests from being fulfilled. The range of attacks varies widely, spanning from inundating a server with millions of requests to slow its performance, overwhelming a server with a substantial amount of invalid data, to submitting requests with an illegitimate IP address.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Mass surveillance</span> Intricate surveillance of an entire or a substantial fraction of a population

Mass surveillance is the intricate surveillance of an entire or a substantial fraction of a population in order to monitor that group of citizens. The surveillance is often carried out by local and federal governments or governmental organizations, but it may also be carried out by corporations. Depending on each nation's laws and judicial systems, the legality of and the permission required to engage in mass surveillance varies. It is the single most indicative distinguishing trait of totalitarian regimes. It is often distinguished from targeted surveillance.

The Association for Progressive Communications (APC) is an international network of organizations that was founded in 1990 to provide communication infrastructure, including Internet-based applications, to groups and individuals who work for peace, human rights, protection of the environment, and sustainability. Pioneering the use of ICTs for civil society, especially in developing countries, APC were often the first providers of Internet in their member countries.

The Internet Service Providers Association (ISPA) is a British body representing providers of Internet services.

Brian Krebs is an American journalist and investigative reporter. He is best known for his coverage of profit-seeking cybercriminals. Krebs is the author of a daily blog, KrebsOnSecurity.com, covering computer security and cybercrime. From 1995 to 2009, Krebs was a reporter for The Washington Post and covered tech policy, privacy and computer security as well as authoring the Security Fix blog.

The Internet in Zimbabwe has seen rapid expansion in recent years. The Internet country code top-level domain is .zw. In 2009, the Mugabe-Tsvangirai Government of National Unity established a Ministry of Information and Communications Technology to focus on ICT growth and development.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Anonymous (hacker group)</span> Decentralized hacktivist group

Anonymous is a decentralized international activist and hacktivist collective and movement primarily known for its various cyberattacks against several governments, government institutions and government agencies, corporations and the Church of Scientology.

The 2010 cyberattacks on Myanmar were distributed denial-of-service attacks (DDoS) that began on 25 October, occurring ahead of the 2010 Burmese general election, which is widely viewed as a sham election. This election was the first that Burma had had in 20 years. The attacks were significantly larger than attacks against Estonia and Georgia in 2007 and 2008 respectively. The attack followed a similar one on 1 February 2010, and also followed an incident of a total loss of connection to the internet the previous spring when a submarine communications cable was severed accidentally.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Cloudflare</span> American technology company

Cloudflare, Inc. is an American company that provides content delivery network services, cloud cybersecurity, DDoS mitigation, Domain Name Service, and ICANN-accredited domain registration services. Cloudflare's headquarters are in San Francisco, California. According to The Hill, Cloudflare is used by more than 20% of the Internet for its web security services, as of 2022.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Robert Hannigan</span> British cybersecurity specialist

Robert Peter Hannigan CMG is a cybersecurity specialist who has been Warden of Wadham College, Oxford, since 2021. He was a senior British civil servant who previously served as the director of the signals intelligence and cryptography agency the Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ) and established the UK's National Cyber Security Centre. His sudden resignation as director was announced on 23 January 2017, and he stepped down at the end of April 2017 to pursue a career in private sector cyber security, academia and as a security commentator. In 2021 he became Warden of Wadham College, Oxford.

The Draft Communications Data Bill was draft legislation proposed by then Home Secretary Theresa May in the United Kingdom which would require Internet service providers and mobile phone companies to maintain records of each user's internet browsing activity, email correspondence, voice calls, internet gaming, and mobile phone messaging services and store the records for 12 months. Retention of email and telephone contact data for this time is already required by the Data Retention Regulations 2014. The anticipated cost was £1.8 billion.

In 2013, there were two major sets of cyberattacks on South Korean targets attributed to elements within North Korea.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Tailored Access Operations</span> Unit of the U.S. National Security Agency

The Office of Tailored Access Operations (TAO), now Computer Network Operations, and structured as S32, is a cyber-warfare intelligence-gathering unit of the National Security Agency (NSA). It has been active since at least 1998, possibly 1997, but was not named or structured as TAO until "the last days of 2000," according to General Michael Hayden.

The dark web is the World Wide Web content that exists on darknets: overlay networks that use the Internet but require specific software, configurations, or authorization to access. Through the dark web, private computer networks can communicate and conduct business anonymously without divulging identifying information, such as a user's location. The dark web forms a small part of the deep web, the part of the web not indexed by web search engines, although sometimes the term deep web is mistakenly used to refer specifically to the dark web.

Lizard Squad Hacker group

Lizard Squad was a black hat hacking group, mainly known for their claims of distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attacks primarily to disrupt gaming-related services.

Karen Banks is a British computer networking pioneer who was inducted to the Internet Hall of Fame in 2013 as a "Global Connector".

<span class="mw-page-title-main">DDoS attacks on Dyn</span> 2016 cyberattack in Europe and North America

On October 21, 2016, three consecutive distributed denial-of-service attacks were launched against the Domain Name System (DNS) provider Dyn. The attack caused major Internet platforms and services to be unavailable to large swathes of users in Europe and North America. The groups Anonymous and New World Hackers claimed responsibility for the attack, but scant evidence was provided.

eQualitie is a Canadian digital security organisation focused on the development and distribution of free, open-source software, services and security training to civil society, NGO's, investigative journalists and independent media to protect and promote human rights and press freedom online. The group is based in Montreal, Canada.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Deflect.ca</span> DDoS mitigation and website security service

Deflect is a DDoS mitigation and website security service by eQualitie, a Canadian social enterprise developing open and reusable systems with a focus on privacy, resilience and self-determination, to protect and promote human rights and press freedom online.

References

  1. 1 2 "About GreenNet: What is GreenNet". GreenNet. 5 October 2012. Retrieved 20 June 2016.
  2. ↑ Willetts, Peter (2010). "NGOs, networking and the creation of the internet". Non-Governmental Organizations in World Politics: The Construction of Global Governance. Routledge. p. 96. ISBN   9781136848537.
  3. ↑ "An Obscure Peter Gabriel Benefit Concert Helped Bring the Internet to the World". Vice Magazine. 6 September 2016. Retrieved 20 June 2018.
  4. ↑ Allen, Chris (1997). "Introduction: Main communication networks in Africa 2.1 GreenNet". Africa Bibliography 1995. Edinburgh University Press. p. ix. ISBN   9780748608782.
  5. ↑ "Karen Banks: Internet Hall of Fame Global Connector". Inductees 2013. Internet Hall of Fame. Retrieved 20 June 2016.
  6. ↑ "Zimbabweans Hit By Cyber Attacks During Election - Slashdot". slashdot.org.
  7. ↑ "Zimbabwe election hit by hacking and DDoS attacks". theinquirer.net. Archived from the original on August 10, 2013.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: unfit URL (link)
  8. ↑ Eduard Kovacs (7 August 2013). "Zimbabwe's Presidential Election Accompanied by Cyberattacks". softpedia.
  9. ↑ "Cyber Attacks Strike Zimbabweans Around Controversial Election". TechWeekEurope UK.
  10. ↑ "[Greennet-l] GreenNet service update 7 August 2013". greennet.org.uk.
  11. ↑ "[Greennet-l] GreenNet service update 9 August 2013". greennet.org.uk.
  12. ↑ Dawson, Tim (October–November 2013). "Brand new gag: the hidden war on press freedom". The Journalist. London: National Union of Journalists: 14–16. Archived from the original on 30 March 2014. Retrieved 23 April 2014.
  13. ↑ "ISPs take GCHQ to court in UK over mass surveillance". Guardian. 2 July 2014.
  14. ↑ "Privacy International and Greennet & Others v The Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs and The Government Communications Headquarters ("GCHQ") [2016] UKIP Trib 14_85-CH". March 2016. Retrieved 25 May 2017.
  15. ↑ "ISPA Reveals UK Internet Hero and Villain Shortlist for 2015 Awards". 18 July 2015.
This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.