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takyon writes:

Just take a look at the carnage on Notepad++'s GitHub: 'Free Uyghur' release sparks spam tsunami by pro-Chinese

On Tuesday, Don HO, the developer of Notepad++, a free GPL source code editor and notepad application for Microsoft Windows, released version 7.8.1, prompting a social media firestorm and a distributed denial of service attack. Notepad++ v7.8.1 was designated "the Free Uyghur edition," in reference to the predominantly Muslim ethnic group in western China that faces ongoing human rights violations and persecution at the hands of Beijing.

"The site notepad-plus-plus.org has suffered DDoS attack from 1230 to 1330 Paris time," HO said in an email to The Register. "I saw the [reduced] amount of visitors via Google analytics then the support of my host confirmed the attack. The DDoS attack has been stopped by an anti-DDoS service provided by our host [Cloudflare]."

[...] For expressing that sentiment, the project's website was DDoSed and its GitHub code repository has been flooded with angry comments in the Issues section – intended for people to report bugs or offer suggestions.

HO said Notepad++'s Tiananmen Square release didn't really attract much attention. The Charlie Hebdo release, however, got his site hacked. "The reaction of this time is more like 'Boycott Beijing 2008 OG' on the Notepad++ website, while Notepad++ was on SourceForge," he said, noting that SourceForge forum was similarly flooded by Chinese spammers in 2008.

Also at The Verge.

Related: China Forces its Muslim Minority to Install Spyware on Their Phones
Massive DNA Collection Campaign Continues in Xinjiang, China
China Installs Surveillance App on Smartphones of Visitors to Xinjiang Region
Apple Lashes Out After Google Reveals iPhone/iOS Vulnerabilities

Original Submission #1  Original Submission #2 

1. "takyon" - https://soylentnews.org/~takyon/
2. "Just take a look at the carnage on Notepad++'s GitHub: 'Free Uyghur' release sparks spam tsunami by pro-Chinese" - https://www.theregister.co.uk/2019/10/31/notepad_china_spam/
3. "the Free Uyghur edition" - https://notepad-plus-plus.org/news/v781-free-uyghur-edition/
4. "ongoing human rights violations and persecution" - https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2018/09/china-up-to-one-million-detained/
5. "GitHub code repository" - https://github.com/notepad-plus-plus/notepad-plus-plus/issues
6. "flooded" - https://github.com/notepad-plus-plus/notepad-plus-plus/issues?q=is:issue+is:closed
7. "angry" - https://github.com/notepad-plus-plus/notepad-plus-plus/issues/7476
8. "comments" - https://github.com/notepad-plus-plus/notepad-plus-plus/issues/7459
9. "got his site hacked" - https://notepad-plus-plus.org/news/npp-site-hacked-cos-je-suis-charlie-edition/
10. "Boycott Beijing 2008 OG" - https://sourceforge.net/p/notepad-plus/discussion/813349/thread/69f89bc0/
11. "The Verge" - https://www.theverge.com/2019/10/30/20940651/text-editor-notepad-free-uyghur-edition-china-spam
12. "China Forces its Muslim Minority to Install Spyware on Their Phones" - https://soylentnews.org/article.pl?sid=17/08/05/1232225
13. "Massive DNA Collection Campaign Continues in Xinjiang, China" - https://soylentnews.org/article.pl?sid=17/12/13/2353228
14. "China Installs Surveillance App on Smartphones of Visitors to Xinjiang Region" - https://soylentnews.org/article.pl?sid=19/07/02/2156242
15. "Apple Lashes Out After Google Reveals iPhone/iOS Vulnerabilities" - https://soylentnews.org/article.pl?sid=19/09/08/231234
16. "Original Submission #1" - https://soylentnews.org/submit.pl?op=viewsub&subid=37195
17. "Original Submission #2" - https://soylentnews.org/submit.pl?op=viewsub&subid=37192

printed from SoylentNews, Notepad++ Inundated by Chinese Comments and Hit by DDoS Attack After "Free Uyghur Edition" on 2025-04-27 23:26:00