Cyber tensions rise ahead of Liberation Day

Online tensions are spiking between Korea and Japan ahead of the August 15 Liberation Day, a day commemorating Korea’s gaining freedom from the Japanese colonial occupation, the local JoongAng Ilbo newspaper said on Saturday.

If there is warfare between the two countries this time between their netizens, it would be the sequel to the one waged on March 1, the day marking the nation-wide resistance movement in Korea against Japanese occupiers.

Last March, the Korean netizens mounted an attack on Japan’s largest Internet site, 2ch(www.2ch.net). In return, Japanese Internet warriors assaulted the Web site of the South Korea’s Presidential Office.

As the sensitive day approaches, the Korean netizens are on a high alert as the Japanese netizens vowed revenge in the previous cyber warfare.

It all started at the Vancouver Winter Olympic Games. When South Korea’s Kim Yu-na grabbed the gold, outperforming her Japanese figure staking rival, Japanese netizens claimed that the judges were bribed by South Koreans, it said.

Things got worse when a South Korean student studying in Russia was attacked by a mob to death. The Japanese netizens said ‘the Russians did the right thing,’ the report said.

That greatly angered South Korean netizens, who overloaded the Web site, 2ch. As a result, 30 out of 33 pages of the Web site went paralyzed. The Japanese retaliated by mounting a cyber attack on the Cheong Wa Dae.

South Korean netizens, including at the www.dcinside.com, are ready to flex their muscles against their Japanese counterpart.

“The Liberation Day is approaching. It’s time to show how strong we are this time again,” a member of the Web site wrote, it said.

Cyber attacks include a massive distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attacks.

Japan’s colonial occupation of the Korean Peninsula ended on August 15 in 1945 when it surrendered unconditionally to the U.S. and its allies

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