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Twitter collapse could be linked to history of Russia-Georgia conflict

As Facebook, Twitter and other popular Internet services investigated the cause of this week's massive computer attacks, attention turned to a blogger whose writings blasting Russian officials may have been the target...

...The blogger has been a prolific critic of Russian officials through accounts on Facebook, Twitter, LiveJournal and YouTube, Google Inc.'s video-sharing service. On Twitter -- where he calls himself George and describes his location as "Georgia, Tbilisi" -- he has written "Russia is aggressor." On YouTube, he has posted video clips of Russian politicians with mocking comments.

On Thursday, the writer updated his now-inaccessible LiveJournal blog with a message calling the computer attack "a special attack against me and Georgians," according to a translation. After responding to an initial email inquiry, he didn't answer further questions.

The attack coincides with the one-year anniversary of Russia's brief war with Georgia over the region South Ossetia. Since then, security experts say both sides have launched cyber attacks against each other, including denial-of-service attacks...
Read entire article at The Wall Street Journal