The Belleville Police Department is hot on the trail of an Internet hacker. The victim is the department and the hacker may be a world away.
Belleville police said they started receiving calls Tuesday night from Internet users trying to go the department’s Web site. The users were instead redirected to what is apparently a Turkish extremist site.
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The site showed pictures of ethnic killings around the world, including the murders of almost 2 million Armenians, who were killed by Ottoman Turks in 1915.
The site’s author posted the Turkish flag and boldly left his cyber calling card in French — ‘Le Hackeur.’
“It’s foreign in nature, it’s French-based, obviously. We’re assuming someone from overseas. A virus got in through our subscribers which gave this guy access to it,” said Belleville Police Capt. Donald Sax.
Sax said confidential department information was never compromised.
“Nothing from the police department was compromised at all (including) the police department files. Everything is computerized separately on servers in house,” said Sax.
But the painful images still hurt.
George Marifian, a second generation Armenian lost both his grandparents to the killings. He is not surprised new technology is the weapon of choice for propaganda.
“There are extremists throughout the world and with the advent of ease through the Internet, we’ll see more — not less — of these types of actions whether it is this political hate group or another form of political hate,” said Marifian.
In the Metro East, a small memorial stands in honor of the millions of Armenians who were killed more than 90 years ago.
Members of the Armenian community said there many be ea connection with the Web site and landmark date of April 24. It is on that day that Armenians around the world commemorate those who lost their lives in ethnic massacres.
Belleville police said the company that manages its servers is also trying to track down the hacker.
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