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

The White House, Office of the Press Secretary, “FACT SHEET: U.S.-Russia Cooperation on Information and Communications Technology Security,” June 17, 2013, https://obamawhitehouse.archives.gov/the-press-office/2013/06/17/fact-sheet-us-russian-cooperation-information-and-communications-technol.

Michael Daniel, interview with authors, March 2017.

“Interview to Bloomberg,” President of Russia, September 5, 2016, http://en.kremlin.ru/events/president/news/52830.

Alex Johnson, “Wikileaks’ Julian Assange: ‘No Proof’ Hacked DNC Emails Came from Russia,” NBC, July 25, 2016, www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/wikileaks-julian-assange-no-proof-hacked-dnc-emails-came-russia-n616541.

Russell Berman, “Obama: I Told Putin to ‘Cut It Out,’” Atlantic , December 16, 2016, www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2016/12/obama-russia-hack/510974.

Evan Osnos, David Remnick, and Joshua Jaffa, “Trump, Putin and the New Cold War,” March 6, 2017, www.newyorker.com/magazine/2017/03/06/trump-putin-and-the-new-cold-war.

Eugene Gerden, “$500 Million for New Russian Cyber Army,” SC Magazine , November 6, 2014, www.scmagazineuk.com/500-million-for-new-russian-cyber-army/article/541257. See also Aleksander Stepanov, “Minoboroni obyavlayet nabor v nauchnuyu rotu, gde gotovyatsa spetsialisti radioelectronnoy borbi” [Defense Ministry Announces Recruitment for Science Troops: Students Will Be Put to Cyber Arms], Moskovsky Komsomolets Online, April 6, 2015, www.mk.ru/politics/2015/04/05/studentov-postavyat-pod-kiberruzhe.html.

Ken Bensinger, Mark Schoofs, and Miriam Elder, “These Reports Allege Trump Has Deep Ties to Russia,” Buzzfeed , January 10, 2017, www.buzzfeed.com/kenbensinger/these-reports-allege-trump-has-deep-ties-to-russia?utm_term=.mnwx71QK0#.oqNmP5w7Y.

Homeland Security, “Joint Statement from the Department Of Homeland Security and Office of the Director of National Intelligence on Election Security,” October 7, 2016, www.dhs.gov/news/2016/10/07/joint-statement-department-homeland-security-and-office-director-national.

Lindsey Ellefson, “Roger Stone Tweets Mysteriously About Wikileaks Doing Something to Hillary Clinton Wednesday,” Mediaite, October 2, 2017, www.mediaite.com/online/roger-stone-tweets-mysteriously-about-wikileaks-doing-something-to-hillary-clinton-wednesday.

Edward Moyer, “WikiLeaks Posts ‘Podesta Emails’ Clinton Wall Street Speeches,” CNET, October 8, 2016, www.cnet.com/uk/news/hillary-clinton-goldman-sachs-speeches-leaked-paid-wikileaks-john-podesta-julian-assange.

Mark Hensch, “Trump: I Love WikiLeaks,” Hill , October 10, 2017, http://thehill.com/blogs/ballot-box/presidential-races/300327-trump-i-love-wikileaks.

Kurt Eichenwald, “Dear Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin, I Am Not Sidney Blumenthal,” Newsweek , October 10, 2017, www.newsweek.com/vladimir-putin-sidney-blumenthal-hillary-clinton-donald-trump-benghazi-sputnik-508635.

Grant Stern, “BREAKING: WikiLeaks Switched to Russian Web Hosting During Election,” OccupyDemocrats, March 14, 2017, http://occupydemocrats.com/2017/03/14/breaking-wikileaks-switched-russian-web-hosting-election. Researchers of CitizenLab independently checked the information. According to their information, WikiLeaks used two IP addresses hosted in Russia, one from 2011 and the second one starting in August 2016.

“Meeting of the Security Council,” President of Russia, November 8, 2016, http://kremlin.ru/events/president/news/53217.

The account below is based on the authors’ conversations with sources in the Russian secret services and Russian private cybersecurity companies.

See Chapter 7, for details.

Kevin Townsend, “50 Hackers Using Lurk Banking Trojan Arrested in Russia,” SecurityWeek , June 2, 2016. See also “Legitimate Remote Access Software Used to Propagate Lurk Gang Trojan,” Kaspersky, July 22, 2016, http://newsroom.kaspersky.eu/en/texts/detail/article/legitimate-remote-access-software-used-to-propagate-lurk-gang-trojan/?no_cache=1&cHash=d808f9064aef2d900856a29ef49c734d.

Four people were arrested on December 4, 2016: Ruslan Stoyanov, Sergei Mikhailov, his subordinate Dmitry Dokuchaev, and Georgy Fomchenkov, who was reportedly involved in some controversial business activities online. In March 2017 the US Justice Department alleged that Dokuchaev had conspired with, among others, known and unknown FSB officers to protect, direct, facilitate, and pay criminal hackers to gain unauthorized access to the computer networks and user accounts hosted at major companies providing worldwide webmail and Internet-related services (i.e., Yahoo) from at least January 2014. Dokuchaev is wanted by the FBI. See for details, see Jack Stubbs and Svetlana Reiter, “Treason Charges Against Russian Cyber Experts Linked to Seven-Year-Accusations,” Reuters , February 26, 2017, http://uk.reuters.com/article/uk-russia-cyber-insight-idUKKBN1650M8; and Ellen Nakashima, “Justice Department Charging Russian Spies and Criminal Hackers in Yahoo Intrusion,” Washington Post , March 15, 2017, www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/justice-department-charging-russian-spies-and-criminal-hackers-for-yahoo-intrusion/2017/03/15/64b98e32–0911–11e7–93dc-00f9bdd74ed1_story.html.

“Lifenews Publishes New Secret Phone Conversations of Nemtsov,” Lifenews.ru, December 20, 2011, www.lifenews.ru/news/77529.

Christopher Hill, The World Turned Upside Down (London: Penguin Books, 1991), 17.