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takyon [soylentnews.org] writes:

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

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 [notepad-plus-plus.org]," in reference to the predominantly Muslim ethnic group in western China that faces ongoing human rights violations and persecution [amnesty.org] 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 [github.com] has been flooded [github.com] with angry [github.com] comments [github.com] 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 [notepad-plus-plus.org]. "The reaction of this time is more like 'Boycott Beijing 2008 OG [sourceforge.net]' on the Notepad++ website, while Notepad++ was on SourceForge," he said, noting that SourceForge forum was similarly flooded by Chinese spammers in 2008.

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

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