Pro-Palestinian hackers on Monday successfully hijacked the Google Palestine domain (google.ps), redirecting Web users to a hacked version of the page that called for removing Israel from Google Maps and renaming it Palestine.

Google officials said their servers were not hacked. Instead it appears the hackers managed to break into the domain name registry for Palestine – a database in which domains (web addresses such as google.ps) are converted to the unique IP addresses where the domain is located. The hackers changed the IP address to which google.ps directs users, sending users to a different website showing what appeared to be a hacked version of Google’s homepage. That site featured the hackers’ apparent protest against the use of the word “Israel” on Google Maps.

At the top of the defaced site the words “Google Owned” were written, underneath which the hackers’ message appeared: “uncle google we say hi from palestine to remember you that the country in google map not called israel. its called Palestine .. # Question: what would happens if we changed the country title of Isreal [sic] to Palestine in google maps !!! it would be revolution So listen to rihanna and be cool :P”

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