[liberationtech] Prague-based ROMEA website needs security assistance

[Radek Pilar]

Hello,
I feel I _have to_ reply to this mail, and I'm quite sad this is my
first post here, although I'm reading this list for a while.

ROMEA is a NGO that "aims to fight racism, promote observance of human
rights, aiding to develop democracy and tolerance in society". This NGO
runs a website romea.cz, that was reportedly attacked.

That site pretends to be independent, however it is not. Content of that
site is highly biased and tends to advocate wrongdoings of individuals,
if they are members of Romani community. How this affects mood in quite
divided society where many people think the Romani minority has too many
advantages is obvious. And I think it is more likely that someone fed up
with that approach is behind those attacks. There is really no need to
see racism everywhere.

I'm not saying you should or should not help them, but nothing is black
or white. By the way, since 2004, they've received more than 18M CZK
(~1M USD) from state budget and another 8M CZK (400k USD) from European
social fund. There are thousands of vulnerable websites and poorly
secured machines being run by organisations or people with smaller budget.

Sincerely
Radek "Mrkva" Pilar

>  Greetings,
> 
> The ROMEA website <http://www.romea.cz/english/> has been repeatedly hacked
> during the past week with DDoS attacks and with posts of fake articles and
> vandalism of existing articles. The website runs a news server, Romea.cz,
> that publishes original reporting in Czech and English about the Romani
> minority in the Czech Republic as well as news pertaining to issues of
> discrimination worldwide. The website has been instrumental in breaking
> several important stories regarding the ongoing violence perpetrated
> against members of the Romani minority by ultra-right extremists in the
> Czech Republic. It is suspected that such persons are behind the current
> hacking.
> 
> The managers of the website understand that it is vulnerable as currently
> designed. They are in urgent need of the assistance of web experts who
> could help them transfer the site into a safer system.
> 
> If you know of any reliable IT people who would be able to assist with this
> pro bono, please contact me. My understanding is that ROMEA currently does
> not have the resources to hire someone to do this work.
> 
> Thanks in advance for your assistance,
> 
> Gwendolyn Albert
> gwendolyn.albert at gmail.com
>