Noyan Tapan News Agency, Armenia
Oct 13 2006

AZERBAOIJAN WAGES ACTIVE INTERNET WAR AGAINST ARMENIA AND NAGORNO
KARABAKH, ROSBALT REPRESENTATIVE SAYS

YEREVAN, OCTOBER 13, NOYAN TAPAN. "Since the start of the Karabakh
conflict, Azerbaijan has conducted an Internet propaganda at the
state level against Armenia and Nagorno Karabakh." Samvel
Martirosian, Armenian representative of the Rosbalt news agency,
stated this at the October 13 seminar "Information War in the
Internet and Armenia" held at "Noravank" scientific and education
foundation. According to him, Azerbaijan is quite efficient in its
war against Armenia in terms of information websites and resources,
often resorting to misinformation.

Thus, according to S. Martirosian, DAY.az site spreading
misinformation is currently considered to be the main and most
frequently visited Internet site in the South Caucasus. It provides
information about the region, and even the Armenian mass media uses
information available at this site. "It is noteworthy that after
registering key words related to Armenia and Nagorno Karabakh in the
Internet, Azerbaijani information resources become availabale first
of all," S. Martirosian noted.

According to him, Azerbaijan also uses hacker methods in its
information war against Armenia in order to damage Armenia’s Internet
resources temporarily or permanently, with the Armenian side trying
to counteract.

In his opinion, taking all this into consideration, it is important
for Armenia to ensure information security in this field. S.
Martirosian said that shortcomings of Internet propaganda are in
certain cases related to insufficient development of the Internet and
especially Internet resources, to that fact that Armenian mass media
are not fully informed, etc. The successful work of Armenian Internet
resources in some cases is due, in his words, to efforts of
enthusiasts.