Hackers strike AICC website

Kapil Sibal made the exhortation first. on Friday, the information technology minister’s Congress is calling for regulation of online content. The trigger, though, is different: the profile of Sonia Gandhi was defaced on the Congress’ official website, coinciding with the 66th birthday of the president of the ruling party.

An embarrassed Congress immediately took off the hacked website, www.aicc.org.in. It was restored around 3 pm after a gap of five hours.

Significantly, Sibal’s recent call for regulation of online content on social networking sites like Google, Facebook and Twitter had raised a furore with the government facing flak from both political opponents and from the cyberworld.

Congress spokesperson Rashid Alvi, responding to the hacking of the AICC website, said one cannot insult personalities and play with the sentiments of people. “That is why Sibal has suggested that there should be some regulation of online material,” he told Business Standard.

In fact, some of the “objectionable content” that had riled the government were also caricatures on certain social networking sites — of prime minister Manmohan Singh, besides Gandhi.

AICC Computer Department chief Vishwajeet Prithvijeet Singh, explaining how the webpage was hacked, said the UPA chairperson’s profile had been replaced with a paragraph of objectionable material.

This was not the first time that the portal had been hijacked. “Only a few months ago, we noticed similar attempts, which had slowed down the site. At that time, the servers hosting the websites collapsed due to massive re-direction of internet traffic but they could not succeed in infiltrating the site,” he said.

On its part, the IT ministry sought to clarify that the government was not into “censorship”. All it insists is that these websites remove all objectionable content and develop a set of guidelines for screening such content, a senior official said.

Senior Congress leaders have said that anyone was free to criticise the Congress policies and issues. “But to be libelous on a personal front cannot be tolerated,” according to party general secretary Digvijay Singh. “Making false personal allegations will be dealt with sternly as per the law.”