Андрей Солдатов: The Red Web: The Struggle Between Russia's Digital Dictators and the New Online Revolutionaries

Andrew E. Kramer, “Ukraine’s Opposition Says Government Stirs Violence,” New York Times , January 21, 2014, www.nytimes.com/2014/01/22/world/europe/ukraine-protests.html?_r=0, and Heather Murphy, “Ominous Text Message Sent to Protesters in Kiev Sends Chills Around the Internet,” New York Times , January 22, 2014, http://thelede.blogs.nytimes.com//2014/01/22/ominous-text-message-sent-to-protesters-in-kiev-sends-chills-around-the-internet.

Andrew E. Kramer, “Russia Defers Aid to Ukraine, and Unrest Persists,” New York Times , January 29, 2014, www.nytimes.com/2014/01/30/world/europe/ukraine-protests.html.

In April 2007 Estonia provoked the Kremlin with its decision to move a Soviet war memorial out of the center of the capital. After a massive nationalistic campaign against Estonia in the Russian press, a series of DDOS attacks was launched on the websites of the Estonian government, parliament, banks, ministries, newspapers, and broadcasters. In June 2008 Lithuania came into Russia’s crosshairs when lawmakers voted to ban the public display of Nazi German and Soviet symbols. Some three hundred websites, including those of public institutions such as the National Ethics Body and the Securities and Exchange Commission as well as a string of private companies, had found themselves under cyber siege. Their websites’ content was replaced with images of the red flag of the Soviet Union alongside anti-Lithuanian slogans. In August 2008 the military conflict with Georgia in South Ossetia also included cyber attacks against Georgia’s Internet infrastructure, compromising several Georgian government websites and prompting the government to begin hosting its sites in the United States. Georgia’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs, in order to disseminate real-time information, was forced to move to a BlogSpot account.

“Na UNIAN vedetsya mashtabnaya DDoS-ataka” [UNIAN Is Under Massive DDOS Attack], UNIAN, March 3, 2014, www.unian.net/politics/892159-na-unian-vedetsya-masshtabnaya-nepreryivnaya-ddos-ataka.html.

Pavel Sedakov and Dmitry Filonov, “Pervy Ukrainsky kiberfront: kto i zachem obiavil IT-mobilizatiu?” [The First Ukrainian Cyberfront: Who and Why Announced IT Mobilization?], Forbes Russia, March 4, 2014, www.forbes.ru/tekhnologii/internet-i-svyaz/251623-pervyi-ukrainskii-kiberfront-kto-i-zachem-obyavil-it-mobilizatsi.

The tactics were not completely abandoned, though, and in two weeks, on March 15, DDOS attacks disrupted access to some NATO sites. They focused on the main NATO public site, www.nato.int, knocking it offline for long periods, and a pro-Russian Ukrainian hacktivist group, Cyber Berkut (clearly echoing the name of the riot police Berkut), claimed responsibility for the attacks. But they were not very serious, and John Bumgarner, a spokesman for the US Cyber Consequences Unit, which assesses the impact of cyber attacks, compared it with “kicking sand into one’s face.” Naked Security, “DDoS Attack Takes Out NATO Websites, Ukraine Connection Claimed,” Sophos, March 17, 2014, https://nakedsecurity.sophos.com/2014/03/17/ddos-attack-takes-out-nato-websites-ukraine-connection-claimed. Also see Mark Piggot, “Ukraine Crisis: Pro-Russian Hackers Attack Nato Websites,” International Business Times , March 16, 2014, www.ibtimes.co.uk/ukraine-crisis-pro-russian-hackers-attack-nato-websites-1440497.

Chris Elliot, “The Readers’ Editor On… Pro-Russia Trolling Below the Line on Ukraine Stories,” Guardian , May 4, 2014, www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/may/04/pro-russia-trolls-ukraine-guardian-online.

Ilya Klishin, “Maksimalny retvit: Laiki na Zapad” [Maximus Retweet: Likes on the West], Vedomosti , May 21, 2014, www.vedomosti.ru/newspaper/articles/2014/05/21/lajki-na-zapad.

Konstantin Kostin’s interview to TV Dozhd, July 1, 2013, http://tvrain.ru/articles/eks_glava_upravlenija_vnutrennej_politiki_kremlja_konstantin_kostin_navalnomu_opasno_idti_na_vybory_karera_nemtsova_zakonchilas_na_vyborah_mera_sochi-346962/?video.

Ibid.

Anton Butsenko, “Trolli iz Olgino pereekhali v noviy chetyrekhatazhny office na Savushkina” [Trolls from Olgino Moved to a New Four-Story Office on Savushkina], DP.ru, October 28, 2014, www.dp.ru/a/2014/10/27/Borotsja_s_omerzeniem_mo.

Dmitry Volchek and Daisy Sindelar, “One Professional Russian Troll Tells All,” Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, March 27, 2015, www.rferl.org/content/how-to-guid-russian-trolling-trolls/26919999.html.

The other was of a conversation between Helga Schmidt, deputy secretary general for the External Action Service at the European Union, and Jan Tombinski, an EU representative in Ukraine.

The account is based on Christopher Miller, conversation with authors, March 2015.

Christopher J. Miller, “‘Fuck the EU,’ Frustrated Nuland Says to Pyatt, in Alleged Leaked Phone Call,” Kyiv Post , February 6, 2014, www.kyivpost.com/content/politics/fuck-the-eu-frustrated-nuland-says-to-pyatt-in-alleged-leaked-phone-call-336373.html.

“Ukraine Says Not Investigating Bugging of U.S. Diplomats Phone Talk,” Reuters, February 8, 2014, www.reuters.com/article/2014/02/08/us-ukraine-call-idUSBREA170G020140208.

For details, see Andrei Soldatov and Irina Borogan, “In Ex-Soviet States, Russian Spy Tech Still Watches You,” Wired.com, December 21, 2012, www.wired.com/2012/12/russias-hand.

“Turchinov pomenyal vse rukovodstvo SBU” [Turchinov Changed the Entire Leadership of the SBU], Vesti Reporter , March 7, 2014, http://vesti-ukr.com/strana/41511-turchinov-pomenjal-vse-rukovodstvo-sbu.

“Kadrovie peremeni: Poroshenko naznachil nachalnikom Departamenta operativno-technicheskikh meroptiyatiy SBU Frolova” [Personnel Changes: Poroshenko Appointed as Head of Operational and Technical Measures SBU Frolov], Ukranews, http://ukranews.com/news/129796.ru.

Over two years we ran a joint investigation along with our friends at Citizen Lab (Canada) and Privacy International (UK) called “Russia’s Surveillance State.” We found that many countries that won their independence in 1991 still live in the shadow of Soviet surveillance practices. In August 2012 the Kyrgyz’s State Committee of National Security put on its website the draft of a national regulation on SORM, which was almost identical to the Russian interception system. The Kyrgyz parliament’s Defense and Security Committee stated in an economic analysis of the proposed SORM legislation that the Russian-made connection device linking SORM equipment and the PU would be three times cheaper than that of the Israeli firm Verint. Moscow hardly missed these opportunities to extend its intelligence positions on the soil of the former Soviet Union, but that option was considered as a minor evil by these countries’ governments. In November 2012 the Radio Liberty’s Kyrgyz Service reported that Russian-made interception equipment could have been used to intercept phone conversations of Kyrgyz politicians leaked online two years ago. The Kyrgyz “telephone gate” scandal greatly embarrassed the provisional government, as it exposed how the positions and money were distributed. Making matters worse, the Russian producers’ tapping gear—Moscow’s Oniks-Line and Novosibirsk’s Sygnatek—were accused of retaining back doors in the equipment. “We shipped the interception equipment to Kyrgyzstan—it was an intergovernmental decision,” Sergei Pykhtunov, deputy director of the Sygnatek, admitted to us. But he said he was not aware of the scandal and dismissed the accusation. Sergei Bogotskoi, CEO of Oniks-Line, took the same line. The scandal did not cause the Kyrgyz government to change its approach to the national interception rules.