Recag/C4_39 · Datasets at Hugging Face

text stringlengths 10 37.6k
But there is no justification for Saakashvili to order the attack on South Ossetia as it was bound to lead to civilian deaths.
From what I've read he's just as bad as Putin.
This situation is analogous to Kosovo, where separatists there provoked action from Milosevic and Serbia. He was called a war criminal, but Saakashvili is seen as the victim in the West.
The media coverage has been biased on both sides. I expect this from the mainstream Russian media - but not from Western media. The only information I can rely on is independent Russian news sites.
There was a lack of historical context in much of the Western media and the overwhelming sense that Russia was to blame.
The reaction from the international community merely plays into Putin's hand. He wants Russia to be feared and respected. Condemnation from the West results in ordinary Russians rallying behind the government.
When the fighting began I was in Spain and the reports I saw did not explain the situation fairly.
For some years in Russia we have been watching how Georgia was buying armaments and sending more soldiers to the border with South Ossetia.
And when Russia responded to protect people in South Ossetia, the US government paints the picture of Russia as a huge, bad, anti-democratic state that only wants to suppress its neighbours.
But we don't want to suppress our neighbours. The Russian people don't have anything against the Georgians. Can't Russia protect its people? I am Russian and I want my country to protect me if necessary.
I don't care if Georgia joins Nato, the only thing that is important for me is not to see all these people suffering. I want peace.
Russia simply couldn't have stayed out of this conflict.
The Ossetians did not carry out any action that could have justified the Georgian assault and civilian death.
For such a long time Ossetians and Georgians lived side-by-side and never felt hatred against each other.
My grandmother is a Georgian and she has many Ossetian friends in Tskhinvali. From the very beginning of this disastrous campaign she was trying to contact them in floods of tears.
She would never believe that Georgians would attack Ossetians without any serious motive or provocation.
The intentional reaction has been unfairly anti-Russian. But maybe this is to be expected, since Georgia is an ally of the West.
Most Russians support the government and the Ossetians. But Russia has lost the international media war.
The coverage I saw in Western media was biased, with reports emphasising Russia's aggressive stance without underlining that Georgia began the war. There was little coverage of the suffering people in Tskhinvali.
But again this is to be expected. For years commentators in the West have speculated about Moscow's lust for power and its wish to expand its territory, painting the relationship between Russia and America in Cold War cliches.
I was a pro-Western guy but now I have seen the real face of Western countries toward Russia - double-standards and hypocrisy.
Western countries always said they wanted to see a strong Russia - but really they want to see us weak. As Russia recovered from the chaos of the '90s, Nato expanded up to the edge of our borders.
America can do anything it wants - bomb Serbia, bomb Iraq. But when Russia acts to defend the people of South Ossetia it is in the wrong. Russia is always seen as the guilty one, the aggressive one.
I have watched Western coverage of the war and there seemed to be no reflection of the Russian viewpoint.
In short, we lost the information war. Maybe we should try and learn something from President [Mikhail] Saakashvili.
I blame the pro-Washington leadership in Georgia. The Russia and Georgian people have more than a century of friendship.
I have friends in Georgia and I hear internal tension is growing there and the opposition will move against the government in the near future.
I expect to see the West continue to act against Russia in the future. But I think we have become stronger after this episode. We are united behind the government.
Workers have begun to dismantle the statue of a Greek goddess from Bangladesh's Supreme Court complex, after an outcry from Islamists.
The sculpture of Themis - the goddess of justice - wearing a sari was less than six months old, but Islamist groups demanded its removal by Friday.
They claimed it hurt the religious sentiments of Muslims and it prompted mass protests in the capital, Dhaka.
PM Sheikh Hasina agreed to its removal, but secular groups opposed it.
Workers came with equipment and a crane at midnight to uproot the controversial statue, the BBC's Bangla service reported.
The statue is being removed to maintain peace, said its creator Mrinal Haque.
Analysts say this is a sign of the rising tension between Islamic conservatism and liberal values in Bangladesh.
Protesters have long asserted that the figure, which held the familiar sword and scales of justice in her hands, amounted to idolatry.
In February, conservative Islamist group Hefazat-e-Islam led protests and threatened to spread the demonstrations across the country if the statue was not removed.
Many of those protesting will have been followers of Hefazat-e-Islam, but observers have also pointed to increasing conservatism among the general public.
The tension between such forces and secular voices has been one of the defining themes in Bangladesh over the last few years.
A reasonably priced wine bar will be opening inside of smoke.oil.salt next week, offering bites under $10 and wine for $5 and $6 a glass.
POCO Wine Bar opens August 1 in the east side of smoke.oil.salt. They'll be operational Sundays through Thursdays from 5:30 p.m. to 11 p.m. Those who wish to order from the smoke.oil.salt menu will be able to do so in the west dining room, or outside of POCO's hours.
Eats include short rib crostini, ceviche, house-brined chicken wings, grilled stuffed squid, skewers, a cheese plate, flatbreads and more. You will be able to score a glass of sangria for $4, white for $5, red for $6 or sparking cava for $7. The red and white offerings will change weekly and will come from the restaurant's larger wine list.
There will also be a monthly wine social. Each event will be hosted by a different wine person—be it a sommelier or a winemaker—starting with the first on August 11. That event includes a 6-course Portuguese meals with 7 paired wine for $59/person plus tax and tip.
Considering that a lot of the trendy places near Fairfax can be pricy, it's cool to see a new, affordable happy hour or date night option.
POCO Wine Bar is located inside smoke.oil.salt at 7276 Melrose Ave. in Los Angeles, 323-930-7900.
Love Island’s Marcel Somerville has put his relationship with Gabby Allen at risk by kissing another girl for a challenge, and fans of the reality programme are not amused.
The latest episode of the ITV2 dating show saw former Blazin’ Squad member Somerville kiss new girl Shannen McGrath as part of a task, while his girlfriend Allen was in the other villa.
Fans were already left shocked earlier this week when 11 new singletons were introduced to the show in a massive shake-up, in which the existing male contestants were moved to a new abode with the five new girls, while the six new boys moved in with the previous female islanders.
Somerville has become a fan favourite with his helpful advice to his roommates, calm manner and budding romance with Allen.
And, while sincere about his feelings for Allen – whom he asked to be his girlfriend just days ago – he became swept up in a challenge, which saw one of the males have to kiss one of the female islanders to win against the other house.
Speaking after the task, Somerville – who was surprised at his own gusto at kissing McGrath – said he “took one for the team” to win the chance to have a party.
He then had to kiss McGrath again for another task, which stated that the eldest male and female had to lock lips.
In the other house, a concerned Allen was told by her housemates that her boyfriend would not have kissed another girl.
Viewers took to Twitter during the broadcast to air their disappointment over his hasty actions, considered by many to be cheating.
“Why would marcel cheat on gabby for the sake of winning a game for a party??? Lost all respect for him now #LoveIsland,” one fumed.
Many took it to heart, with one writing they felt “hurt” by his actions, and another saying they felt “personally and emotionally” disappointed by Somerville.
However, plenty of others backed Somerville and declared that he had not cheated on Allen because it was all part of a game.
“The whole show is a game, I’m not sure kissing as part of another game is cheating. I still think Marcel is a good man. #LoveIsland,” one reasoned.
The broadcast also saw fan-favourite Camilla Thurlow grow closer to new addition Craig Lawson, and Montana Brown and newcomer Alex v lock lips several times.
:: Love Island continues on Sunday at 9pm on ITV2.
The Philadelphia Flyers announced today that they have signed 6-0, 195-lb defenseman Michael Del Zotto to a multi-year contract extension, according to general manager Ron Hextall.
Del Zotto, 25 (6/24/1990), enters his second season with the Flyers after signing a one-year contract with the club on Aug. 5, 2014. He recorded 32 points (10g-22a) to go along with 34 penalty minutes in 64 games last season with the Flyers. His 10 goals led all Flyers defensemen and 32 points ranked second on the club's defense.
His 32 points were also the most since the 2011-12 season with the NY Rangers. He also established new career-highs in game-winning-goals (4) and shots on net (119) this past season.
A native of Stouffville, Ontario, Del Zotto has recorded 37 goals and 121 assists for 158 points in 381 regular season games over parts of six seasons with the Rangers (2009-14) and Nashville Predators (2014), and 12 points (3g-9a) in 32 games in the Stanley Cup Playoffs, all with the Rangers.
Del Zotto was originally selected in the First Round (20th overall) of the 2008 NHL Entry Draft by the New York Rangers.
Good morning. For those who stayed up all night, and for those who are just rising and wondering what on earth is going on – here’s what the night has brought us.
The polls were wrong. The suggestion, right up to the wire on polling day, that the Tories and Labour were neck and neck has not been borne out.
It is clear that the Conservatives will be the largest party by some margin. They might even sneak a small majority.
Labour has been ripped apart in Scotland, where it has had just one seat returned: Edinburgh South. It has failed to see the breakthrough it needed in England and is predicted to emerge from the counting with 232 seats, well down on predictions.
The Liberal Democrats have been obliterated nationwide. Though Nick Clegg retained his seat in Sheffield Hallam, and the Scottish secretary, Alistair Carmichael, held on, all the other Lib Dem cabinet ministers – Danny Alexander, Vince Cable and Ed Davey – lost their seats. So did ministers Jo Swinson, David Laws and Lynne Featherstone.
The SNP has stormed across Scotland, scooping up all seven seats in Glasgow and toppling Labour big beasts Jim Murphy and Douglas Alexander. Exit polls predicted it could take 58 out of Scotland’s 59 seats. Alex Salmond will be heading back to Westminster after winning in Gordon.
Ukip has had a quiet night, scoring a number of second-place finishes but so far securing just one MP, Douglas Carswell, who returns in Clacton.
George Galloway, for Respect, has lost his seat in Bradford West to Labour’s Naz Shah.
Boris Johnson is on his way back to the Commons, having won in Uxbridge and South Ruislip.
Here are the revised BBC/Sky/ITV exit poll projections at 6am on Friday:.
Whether David Cameron will have enough seats to form a majority without needing to rely on the Lib Dems – who, with a potentially new leader, might in any case not want to rush back into Tory arms – or the DUP.
Whether Nick Clegg and Ed Miliband will resign.
Whether Nigel Farage will win in South Thanet, where the result has not yet been declared.
Whether Caroline Lucas will retain a seat for the Greens in Brighton Pavilion.
If Ed Balls has retained his seat in Morley and Outwood, amid rumours he has lost.
Stay with the live blog throughout Friday, where we will bring you all the latest as results continue to pile in.
Some 500 years BC (544–496 BC), the Chinese general, military strategist and philosopher, Sun Tzu wrote that ‘speed is the essence of warfare’. These words are as true in today’s age of cyberattacks, in which Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) attacks are rising in size, frequency and complexity, as they were in ancient China.
This is according to Arbor Network’s territory manager for Sub-Saharan Africa, Bryan Hamman, who says, “Data from Arbor Networks’ Active Threat Level Analysis System (ATLAS) shows that a DDoS attack occurs somewhere in the world every six seconds. We can learn from Sun Tzu’s teachings in today’s cyberwarfare world.
Hamman says an analysis of recent trends has shown that many DDoS attacks are increasing in complexity, but at the same time they are over very quickly, lasting for less than 30 minutes. He continues, “The modern-day DDoS attack – as illustrated by the Mirai Botnet – is a multi-vector threat which employs three different types of attacks, namely: volumetric attacks, which employ speeds of up to 800 Gbps and saturate links; TCP state exhaustion attacks, which attack load balancers, firewalls and IPSs; and application layer attacks, which are low and slow stealth attacks that crash application servers.
He points out that to defend against such a multi-layered DDoS attack and minimise an organisation’s downtime, a hybrid or multi-layered approach is required. It is critical, he stresses, for this solution to have an intelligent form of communication to integrate the in-cloud and on-premise layers (Arbor’s Cloud Signaling capability), backed by continuous up-to-date global threat intelligence.
Hamman gives the following example of intelligent automation using a hybrid DDos defence deployment, which combines an on-premise protection with cloud-based mitigation.
The on-premise inspection data management system (IDMS) is customised using specific applications running in a specific datacentre. These local, customised policies are continuously sent to a cloud-based DDoS protection service.
When an attack occurs that is larger than the capacity of the on-premise protection, a digital signal is then sent to the cloud-based DDoS protection. Thereafter, attack traffic is automatically re-routed to a cloud-based scrubbing centre, where previously-sent customised protection policies are automatically applied to the attack traffic. The intelligent automation consists of pre-matching customised protection policies to specific applications running in the data-centre, and thus having a faster response from the cloud DDoS protection service when an attack occurs that is larger than the on-premise protection can handle.
Hamman concludes, “It’s by no means a stretch of the imagination to equate modern DDoS attacks – and how to fight back – with the tactics employed during war. To give just a couple of examples, Iran was blamed for a hack of the British Parliament in 2017, which briefly took systems offline, while in November last year, the head of Britain’s National Cyber Security Centre, Ciaran Martin, warned that Russia had targeted British energy, telecoms and media sectors.
There are many security experts who believe that Russia in particular has integrated cybersecurity into a wider range of activities, which are often termed ‘hybrid warfare’ and which is part of a wider trend to use information as a weapon.
Sun Tzu is widely credited as the author of ‘The Art of War’, an influential work of military strategy that has affected both Western and Eastern philosophy, and which continues to influence aspects of modern life even today, for example in business and sports teachings as well as actual military operations.
Published: Feb. 4, 2019 at 03:53 p.m.
Updated: Feb. 4, 2019 at 04:21 p.m.
The Connor Barwin era in East Rutherford lasted just six months.
Barwin was released by the New York Giants on Monday after one season with the team.
The 32-year-old linebacker started three of 15 games played for Big Blue in 2018. Barwin saw over 30 snaps a game in New York's first five tests, but barely saw the field during the season's final three-quarters.
Barwin finished with just one sack and a career-low 12 total tackles.
Barwin signed a two-year deal with the Giants in the offseason and will count just $365K against the cap in 2019.
It is in this context — by comparison — that all others pale. From solid veterans like Tony Romo and Philip Rivers to young guys like Ryan Tannehill in Miami, all stand in the shadow of Mount Rushmore.
▪ MVP — Aaron Rodgers, Packers QB. With 32 TDs, three picks and a 118.6 rating, it isn’t close.

But there is no justification for Saakashvili to order the attack on South Ossetia as it was bound to lead to civilian deaths.

From what I've read he's just as bad as Putin.

This situation is analogous to Kosovo, where separatists there provoked action from Milosevic and Serbia. He was called a war criminal, but Saakashvili is seen as the victim in the West.

The media coverage has been biased on both sides. I expect this from the mainstream Russian media - but not from Western media. The only information I can rely on is independent Russian news sites.

There was a lack of historical context in much of the Western media and the overwhelming sense that Russia was to blame.

The reaction from the international community merely plays into Putin's hand. He wants Russia to be feared and respected. Condemnation from the West results in ordinary Russians rallying behind the government.

When the fighting began I was in Spain and the reports I saw did not explain the situation fairly.

For some years in Russia we have been watching how Georgia was buying armaments and sending more soldiers to the border with South Ossetia.

And when Russia responded to protect people in South Ossetia, the US government paints the picture of Russia as a huge, bad, anti-democratic state that only wants to suppress its neighbours.

But we don't want to suppress our neighbours. The Russian people don't have anything against the Georgians. Can't Russia protect its people? I am Russian and I want my country to protect me if necessary.

I don't care if Georgia joins Nato, the only thing that is important for me is not to see all these people suffering. I want peace.

Russia simply couldn't have stayed out of this conflict.

The Ossetians did not carry out any action that could have justified the Georgian assault and civilian death.

For such a long time Ossetians and Georgians lived side-by-side and never felt hatred against each other.

My grandmother is a Georgian and she has many Ossetian friends in Tskhinvali. From the very beginning of this disastrous campaign she was trying to contact them in floods of tears.

She would never believe that Georgians would attack Ossetians without any serious motive or provocation.

The intentional reaction has been unfairly anti-Russian. But maybe this is to be expected, since Georgia is an ally of the West.

Most Russians support the government and the Ossetians. But Russia has lost the international media war.

The coverage I saw in Western media was biased, with reports emphasising Russia's aggressive stance without underlining that Georgia began the war. There was little coverage of the suffering people in Tskhinvali.

But again this is to be expected. For years commentators in the West have speculated about Moscow's lust for power and its wish to expand its territory, painting the relationship between Russia and America in Cold War cliches.

I was a pro-Western guy but now I have seen the real face of Western countries toward Russia - double-standards and hypocrisy.

Western countries always said they wanted to see a strong Russia - but really they want to see us weak. As Russia recovered from the chaos of the '90s, Nato expanded up to the edge of our borders.

America can do anything it wants - bomb Serbia, bomb Iraq. But when Russia acts to defend the people of South Ossetia it is in the wrong. Russia is always seen as the guilty one, the aggressive one.

I have watched Western coverage of the war and there seemed to be no reflection of the Russian viewpoint.

In short, we lost the information war. Maybe we should try and learn something from President [Mikhail] Saakashvili.

I blame the pro-Washington leadership in Georgia. The Russia and Georgian people have more than a century of friendship.

I have friends in Georgia and I hear internal tension is growing there and the opposition will move against the government in the near future.

I expect to see the West continue to act against Russia in the future. But I think we have become stronger after this episode. We are united behind the government.

Workers have begun to dismantle the statue of a Greek goddess from Bangladesh's Supreme Court complex, after an outcry from Islamists.

The sculpture of Themis - the goddess of justice - wearing a sari was less than six months old, but Islamist groups demanded its removal by Friday.

They claimed it hurt the religious sentiments of Muslims and it prompted mass protests in the capital, Dhaka.

PM Sheikh Hasina agreed to its removal, but secular groups opposed it.

Workers came with equipment and a crane at midnight to uproot the controversial statue, the BBC's Bangla service reported.

The statue is being removed to maintain peace, said its creator Mrinal Haque.

Analysts say this is a sign of the rising tension between Islamic conservatism and liberal values in Bangladesh.

Protesters have long asserted that the figure, which held the familiar sword and scales of justice in her hands, amounted to idolatry.

In February, conservative Islamist group Hefazat-e-Islam led protests and threatened to spread the demonstrations across the country if the statue was not removed.

Many of those protesting will have been followers of Hefazat-e-Islam, but observers have also pointed to increasing conservatism among the general public.

The tension between such forces and secular voices has been one of the defining themes in Bangladesh over the last few years.

A reasonably priced wine bar will be opening inside of smoke.oil.salt next week, offering bites under $10 and wine for $5 and $6 a glass.

POCO Wine Bar opens August 1 in the east side of smoke.oil.salt. They'll be operational Sundays through Thursdays from 5:30 p.m. to 11 p.m. Those who wish to order from the smoke.oil.salt menu will be able to do so in the west dining room, or outside of POCO's hours.

Eats include short rib crostini, ceviche, house-brined chicken wings, grilled stuffed squid, skewers, a cheese plate, flatbreads and more. You will be able to score a glass of sangria for $4, white for $5, red for $6 or sparking cava for $7. The red and white offerings will change weekly and will come from the restaurant's larger wine list.

There will also be a monthly wine social. Each event will be hosted by a different wine person—be it a sommelier or a winemaker—starting with the first on August 11. That event includes a 6-course Portuguese meals with 7 paired wine for $59/person plus tax and tip.

Considering that a lot of the trendy places near Fairfax can be pricy, it's cool to see a new, affordable happy hour or date night option.

POCO Wine Bar is located inside smoke.oil.salt at 7276 Melrose Ave. in Los Angeles, 323-930-7900.

Love Island’s Marcel Somerville has put his relationship with Gabby Allen at risk by kissing another girl for a challenge, and fans of the reality programme are not amused.

The latest episode of the ITV2 dating show saw former Blazin’ Squad member Somerville kiss new girl Shannen McGrath as part of a task, while his girlfriend Allen was in the other villa.

Fans were already left shocked earlier this week when 11 new singletons were introduced to the show in a massive shake-up, in which the existing male contestants were moved to a new abode with the five new girls, while the six new boys moved in with the previous female islanders.

Somerville has become a fan favourite with his helpful advice to his roommates, calm manner and budding romance with Allen.

And, while sincere about his feelings for Allen – whom he asked to be his girlfriend just days ago – he became swept up in a challenge, which saw one of the males have to kiss one of the female islanders to win against the other house.

Speaking after the task, Somerville – who was surprised at his own gusto at kissing McGrath – said he “took one for the team” to win the chance to have a party.

He then had to kiss McGrath again for another task, which stated that the eldest male and female had to lock lips.

In the other house, a concerned Allen was told by her housemates that her boyfriend would not have kissed another girl.

Viewers took to Twitter during the broadcast to air their disappointment over his hasty actions, considered by many to be cheating.

“Why would marcel cheat on gabby for the sake of winning a game for a party??? Lost all respect for him now #LoveIsland,” one fumed.

Many took it to heart, with one writing they felt “hurt” by his actions, and another saying they felt “personally and emotionally” disappointed by Somerville.

However, plenty of others backed Somerville and declared that he had not cheated on Allen because it was all part of a game.

“The whole show is a game, I’m not sure kissing as part of another game is cheating. I still think Marcel is a good man. #LoveIsland,” one reasoned.

The broadcast also saw fan-favourite Camilla Thurlow grow closer to new addition Craig Lawson, and Montana Brown and newcomer Alex v lock lips several times.

:: Love Island continues on Sunday at 9pm on ITV2.

The Philadelphia Flyers announced today that they have signed 6-0, 195-lb defenseman Michael Del Zotto to a multi-year contract extension, according to general manager Ron Hextall.

Del Zotto, 25 (6/24/1990), enters his second season with the Flyers after signing a one-year contract with the club on Aug. 5, 2014. He recorded 32 points (10g-22a) to go along with 34 penalty minutes in 64 games last season with the Flyers. His 10 goals led all Flyers defensemen and 32 points ranked second on the club's defense.

His 32 points were also the most since the 2011-12 season with the NY Rangers. He also established new career-highs in game-winning-goals (4) and shots on net (119) this past season.

A native of Stouffville, Ontario, Del Zotto has recorded 37 goals and 121 assists for 158 points in 381 regular season games over parts of six seasons with the Rangers (2009-14) and Nashville Predators (2014), and 12 points (3g-9a) in 32 games in the Stanley Cup Playoffs, all with the Rangers.

Del Zotto was originally selected in the First Round (20th overall) of the 2008 NHL Entry Draft by the New York Rangers.

Good morning. For those who stayed up all night, and for those who are just rising and wondering what on earth is going on – here’s what the night has brought us.

The polls were wrong. The suggestion, right up to the wire on polling day, that the Tories and Labour were neck and neck has not been borne out.

It is clear that the Conservatives will be the largest party by some margin. They might even sneak a small majority.

Labour has been ripped apart in Scotland, where it has had just one seat returned: Edinburgh South. It has failed to see the breakthrough it needed in England and is predicted to emerge from the counting with 232 seats, well down on predictions.

The Liberal Democrats have been obliterated nationwide. Though Nick Clegg retained his seat in Sheffield Hallam, and the Scottish secretary, Alistair Carmichael, held on, all the other Lib Dem cabinet ministers – Danny Alexander, Vince Cable and Ed Davey – lost their seats. So did ministers Jo Swinson, David Laws and Lynne Featherstone.

The SNP has stormed across Scotland, scooping up all seven seats in Glasgow and toppling Labour big beasts Jim Murphy and Douglas Alexander. Exit polls predicted it could take 58 out of Scotland’s 59 seats. Alex Salmond will be heading back to Westminster after winning in Gordon.

Ukip has had a quiet night, scoring a number of second-place finishes but so far securing just one MP, Douglas Carswell, who returns in Clacton.

George Galloway, for Respect, has lost his seat in Bradford West to Labour’s Naz Shah.

Boris Johnson is on his way back to the Commons, having won in Uxbridge and South Ruislip.

Here are the revised BBC/Sky/ITV exit poll projections at 6am on Friday:.

Whether David Cameron will have enough seats to form a majority without needing to rely on the Lib Dems – who, with a potentially new leader, might in any case not want to rush back into Tory arms – or the DUP.

Whether Nick Clegg and Ed Miliband will resign.

Whether Nigel Farage will win in South Thanet, where the result has not yet been declared.

Whether Caroline Lucas will retain a seat for the Greens in Brighton Pavilion.

If Ed Balls has retained his seat in Morley and Outwood, amid rumours he has lost.

Stay with the live blog throughout Friday, where we will bring you all the latest as results continue to pile in.

Some 500 years BC (544–496 BC), the Chinese general, military strategist and philosopher, Sun Tzu wrote that ‘speed is the essence of warfare’. These words are as true in today’s age of cyberattacks, in which Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) attacks are rising in size, frequency and complexity, as they were in ancient China.

This is according to Arbor Network’s territory manager for Sub-Saharan Africa, Bryan Hamman, who says, “Data from Arbor Networks’ Active Threat Level Analysis System (ATLAS) shows that a DDoS attack occurs somewhere in the world every six seconds. We can learn from Sun Tzu’s teachings in today’s cyberwarfare world.

Hamman says an analysis of recent trends has shown that many DDoS attacks are increasing in complexity, but at the same time they are over very quickly, lasting for less than 30 minutes. He continues, “The modern-day DDoS attack – as illustrated by the Mirai Botnet – is a multi-vector threat which employs three different types of attacks, namely: volumetric attacks, which employ speeds of up to 800 Gbps and saturate links; TCP state exhaustion attacks, which attack load balancers, firewalls and IPSs; and application layer attacks, which are low and slow stealth attacks that crash application servers.

He points out that to defend against such a multi-layered DDoS attack and minimise an organisation’s downtime, a hybrid or multi-layered approach is required. It is critical, he stresses, for this solution to have an intelligent form of communication to integrate the in-cloud and on-premise layers (Arbor’s Cloud Signaling capability), backed by continuous up-to-date global threat intelligence.

Hamman gives the following example of intelligent automation using a hybrid DDos defence deployment, which combines an on-premise protection with cloud-based mitigation.

The on-premise inspection data management system (IDMS) is customised using specific applications running in a specific datacentre. These local, customised policies are continuously sent to a cloud-based DDoS protection service.

When an attack occurs that is larger than the capacity of the on-premise protection, a digital signal is then sent to the cloud-based DDoS protection. Thereafter, attack traffic is automatically re-routed to a cloud-based scrubbing centre, where previously-sent customised protection policies are automatically applied to the attack traffic. The intelligent automation consists of pre-matching customised protection policies to specific applications running in the data-centre, and thus having a faster response from the cloud DDoS protection service when an attack occurs that is larger than the on-premise protection can handle.

Hamman concludes, “It’s by no means a stretch of the imagination to equate modern DDoS attacks – and how to fight back – with the tactics employed during war. To give just a couple of examples, Iran was blamed for a hack of the British Parliament in 2017, which briefly took systems offline, while in November last year, the head of Britain’s National Cyber Security Centre, Ciaran Martin, warned that Russia had targeted British energy, telecoms and media sectors.

There are many security experts who believe that Russia in particular has integrated cybersecurity into a wider range of activities, which are often termed ‘hybrid warfare’ and which is part of a wider trend to use information as a weapon.

Sun Tzu is widely credited as the author of ‘The Art of War’, an influential work of military strategy that has affected both Western and Eastern philosophy, and which continues to influence aspects of modern life even today, for example in business and sports teachings as well as actual military operations.

Published: Feb. 4, 2019 at 03:53 p.m.

Updated: Feb. 4, 2019 at 04:21 p.m.

The Connor Barwin era in East Rutherford lasted just six months.

Barwin was released by the New York Giants on Monday after one season with the team.

The 32-year-old linebacker started three of 15 games played for Big Blue in 2018. Barwin saw over 30 snaps a game in New York's first five tests, but barely saw the field during the season's final three-quarters.

Barwin finished with just one sack and a career-low 12 total tackles.

Barwin signed a two-year deal with the Giants in the offseason and will count just $365K against the cap in 2019.

It is in this context — by comparison — that all others pale. From solid veterans like Tony Romo and Philip Rivers to young guys like Ryan Tannehill in Miami, all stand in the shadow of Mount Rushmore.

▪ MVP — Aaron Rodgers, Packers QB. With 32 TDs, three picks and a 118.6 rating, it isn’t close.