- News>
- Internet & Social Media
Hackers cause headaches for new Al Jazeera Website
New York, Mar 26: Hacker attacks and technical glitches caused a string of headaches yesterday for a new English-language Website launched by Arab satellite TV network Al Jazeera.
New York, Mar 26: Hacker attacks and technical glitches caused a string of headaches yesterday for a new English-language Website launched by Arab satellite TV network Al Jazeera.
The Qatar-based network, already controversial in the West for airing messages from Osama Bin Laden, has faced a storm of criticism in the United States for broadcasting Iraqi footage of five US prisoners of war and at least eight corpses.
Its new site (http://english.aljazeera.net) went live on Monday, but was quickly hit by hacker attacks -- as was the Arabic-language site (www.aljazeera.net). Staff were unable to update the English site for about four hours on Tuesday, said its managing editor Joanne Tucker.
"We've had a lot of obstacles thrown in our way," Tucker said. "I thought the launch of this site would be quite smooth and wouldn't make too many waves, but the reaction has been amazing. It has been almost surreal."
Al Jazeera's information technology manager Salah Al Seddiqui said the company was also told by its Qatar-based vendor that US-based DataPipe could no longer host its site from the end of the month. Al Seddiqui said the company was moving its servers to Europe. Tucker said war sensitivities may have been behind the decision, but DataPipe said in a statement it was ending its relationship with a company that manages Al Jazeera's site on March 31. It said it had no direct ties with Al Jazeera.
The new English-language site has no multi-media capability but carried photos from the footage showing the US prisoners of war. The Arabic-language site had the video, prompting a flood of traffic on Sunday.
Lycos cited that video as the factor that made Al Jazeera the most searched term on search engine, generating three times as much search activity as anything else.
The surge traffic badly hit the site's performance. Product manager Roopak Patel of performance tracker Keynote Systems said the site's performance "went to hell" on March 23. Tucker said the new site, which for now is devoted exclusively to the war on Iraq, was a temporary operation pending a full launch tentatively set for mid-April.
"Every story on the site now has a byline. It should have been (that way) from the first day but it was just one of the glitches," she said.
Bureau Report
Its new site (http://english.aljazeera.net) went live on Monday, but was quickly hit by hacker attacks -- as was the Arabic-language site (www.aljazeera.net). Staff were unable to update the English site for about four hours on Tuesday, said its managing editor Joanne Tucker.
"We've had a lot of obstacles thrown in our way," Tucker said. "I thought the launch of this site would be quite smooth and wouldn't make too many waves, but the reaction has been amazing. It has been almost surreal."
Al Jazeera's information technology manager Salah Al Seddiqui said the company was also told by its Qatar-based vendor that US-based DataPipe could no longer host its site from the end of the month. Al Seddiqui said the company was moving its servers to Europe. Tucker said war sensitivities may have been behind the decision, but DataPipe said in a statement it was ending its relationship with a company that manages Al Jazeera's site on March 31. It said it had no direct ties with Al Jazeera.
The new English-language site has no multi-media capability but carried photos from the footage showing the US prisoners of war. The Arabic-language site had the video, prompting a flood of traffic on Sunday.
Lycos cited that video as the factor that made Al Jazeera the most searched term on search engine, generating three times as much search activity as anything else.
The surge traffic badly hit the site's performance. Product manager Roopak Patel of performance tracker Keynote Systems said the site's performance "went to hell" on March 23. Tucker said the new site, which for now is devoted exclusively to the war on Iraq, was a temporary operation pending a full launch tentatively set for mid-April.
"Every story on the site now has a byline. It should have been (that way) from the first day but it was just one of the glitches," she said.
Bureau Report