International edition of the Japanese echo-news journal with exclusive in-depth reports, and summaries of what the other Japanese medias are saying.
An anonymous discussion board 2channel ( http://www.2ch.net ), the biggest website in Japan, with 230 million page views a day ,has been the target of fierce cyberattack ( DDoS, DNS poisoning, and so on.) every single day since April 13 2014. The self acclaimed offender is, astonishingly, the founder and ex-manager of the website Hiroyuki Nishimura.
Nishimura had been an ICON in Japanese internet community. He had been recognized as a guardian of free speech, for under the harsh police and other authority pressures he seemed to have protected anonymity and privacy of users. But now, he is attacking the web community he once protected and actually some of his attacks succeeded to make the 2channel’s server down. It may sound quiet queer. What is happening behind this puzzling scene?
（ Hiroyuki Nishimura: a regular guest to privileged universities’ lecture. Photo from Wikipedia）
A very probable answer was suggested by a big data company Hottolink. In April 2, the CEO Mr. Uchiyama, announced that the 2channel ( http://www.2ch.net ) was occupied. It was the first time that the fact that Nishimura had a strong tie ship to big data business was widely known. It is now also made clear that since Feb 19, 2014, he and Hiroyuki had been negotiating with the ownership problem of the 2ch’s ownership with its server company president Mr.Jim Watkins.
As a result of failure to agreement on the ownership negotiation, Mr. Jim seized the administration right of 2ch claiming the ground that Nishimura’s default of financial obligation.
What made all the users of 2ch confused is, Nishimura’s statement on seizure. He showed his intention to sue the volunteers who cooperated or helped to maintain 2ch community if they keep on doing that. Actually, 2ch had been widely supported by the volunteers ( many of them kept their credit in anonymity ). In his stand point the right and true ownership of 2ch belongs to him, and Jim is illegally using the administration right of 2ch. Therefore anybody who helps illegal deeds is damaging Nishimura’s property and has to compensate for that. But this statement fired the 2ch community member’s anger.
And after that, Nishimura made a new 2channel ( http://www.2ch.sc ) based on Sakura Internet’s server in Tokyo, which is favored ISP by the Japanese government. This second 2ch is a mirror site copying almost all the post of http://www.2ch.net by violent running of spider program robot. This massive use of spider is actually gives the same effect to DDoS Attack recipient ( 2ch.net ) server and made it down many times.
This kind of fierce spidering exploitation’s effect is nothing different from cyber attack. Actually, the Japanese police authority has arrested the spider crawling user with much humble load factor.
Those activity by Nishimura made the 2ch users raise up furious questions. ‘’Why the users have to be hampered by the conflict of managers?’’ ‘’ DDoS like crawling is clearly a cyber crime and why he bluntly saying without being arrested?.’’ ‘’ How can one cyber attack the website he owned( or now owning )?’’
In response to that Nishimura said he is just backing up the data of channel which he owns the copy right.
Then, other questions occurred to millions of 2ch users; for what reason is Nishimura so obsessed about the ownership of 2ch? One of the most probable case is, he is selling the user’s information secretly. That kind of collection of personal data without consent is prohibited by the PRIVACY ACT. But credibility of this story line is strongly supported by the 2ch.net’s mass data leakage in 2013. At that time, 40000 person’s private data and comment logs spilled out with their private data; full name, address, phone number, e-mail address credit card number with security code.
It had contradicted Nishimura’s former position; only IP logs are the kept data by 2ch he managed to help the users anonymity and free speech, IP datas are solely used for necessary crime ( i.e. drag trafficking ) investigation, when required by the police. In this leakage scandal, he was blamed but paid no compensation, and still had been keeping the iconic status of the free speech provocateur. His saying that keeping the private data is some of the volunteer’s negligence on understanding the 2ch policy and the leakage was unfortunate accident was, in spite of its insufficient explanation, overlooked.
But now, with the connection to big data businessman Mr. Uchiyama, which is so keen that he joined the negotiation on the 2ch ownership of 2ch.net widely known, few can believe Nishimura. Also, the DNS POISONING and crack all the 2ch.net server data plot ( which failed consequently ) by someone is reported by Jim Watkins. 2ch.net users are now suspicious about that Nishimura was a hidden big data business man.
And, questioned about the DDoS and DNS poisoning, Nishimura does not deny the commitment. It further damaged his icon status and some started to report the Japanese police to cyber attack by Nishimura. In spite of that, Japan’s police authority has not moved yet.
This raised people’s mind a long prolonged mystery again; Nishimura’s immunity to the law enforcement authority. He has, in reality, offended the law countless, maybe thousands of times while managing 2channel. ( i.e. keeping the drag trafficking post even when asked to delete by the police; it consists an offense against BANNING OF DRAG ACT by helping the drag selling. )
Above those are basic lines of 2channel split incident. In author’s point of view, this has been long enough and complexed to put into one article. This cyber attack from Japan to the server in U.S. by Nishimura is goingt to be followed in some articles. Others shall be on the Mr. Nishimura’s tie ship to political world, another would be about the now tensioning Japan U.S. relationship.
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【Takanori Eto】
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