War (and) information: Documents leaked by the Kremlin censorship

By Thomas Brewster

Emma Best, known as the head and co-founder of Distributed Denial of Secrets (DDoSecrets) – an organization dedicated to the free transmission of data in the public interest – has been getting little sleep lately. Cause: the violent waves of news about the war, the pandemic, global warming and – again – about the war. At the moment, however, her nervous system is crushed for another reason: Best is taking part in the “information war” waged by Russia and Ukraine over the Internet.

On Thursday, the body of Best – similar to Wikileaks – published a huge volume of files that it claims were stolen by a member of the hacker activist group Anonymous from Roskomnadzor – the Russian federal agency responsible for monitoring and censoring Media. This is a large number of e-mails and attachments. Last week, Forbes looked at how Roskomnadzor demanded that US companies – notably Google – censor content over the past decade: from Ukrainian video demonstrations on YouTube to material about Jehovah’s Witnesses to Russia. considers a terrorist organization. The leak of Roskomnadzor internal documents reveals how deeply the Kremlin’s censorship reaches the internet.

(Note: There are reports that Russia is censoring anything that refers to the war as a Russian invasion of Ukraine. Roskomnadzor has banned the use of Facebook by Russia after pointing to Russian articles as inaccurate. He also threatens to block Russian Wikipedia because it included an article on the Russian invasion.)

The Russian service did not respond to a request for comment at the time of writing.

The first “batch” of leaked Roskomnadzor data numbers 340,000 files and their volume exceeds 800 gigabytes. They do not cover Roskomnadzor’s activity at national level, but in the Russian Republic of Bashkortostan (Bashkortostan). It is the most populous federal subject in the country, which has no autonomy.

DDoSecrets is revealing the information now, as it fears that Russia will soon be cut off from the wider internet. In recent days, large internet backbone providers have been withdrawing from the country, threatening Russia’s ability to connect to servers abroad. “The source, a member of Anonymous, considered that the Russian people should have access to information about their government. In addition, he expressed his opposition to cutting off the Russian people from the independent media and the outside world,” she said. DDoSecrets announcement.

Asked if they were worried about entering this “information war” at such a critical time, and even publishing information from a Russian government agency, Best sent Forbes a GIF showing a cute monster-cartoon hitting a keyboard and a message from the organization’s Twitter profile that read: “Бáба-Ягá UwU,” or, in English, “Baba Yaga UwU”. Baba Yaga is an enigmatic character in Slavic folklore, often portrayed as a savage woman. UwU is the emoticon of the “cute emoticon”. The oxymoron of the image indicates the – sometimes – harsh nature of Best, combined with the awareness that the activity of her body is likely to infuriate authorities and authorities.

This is not the first time DDoSecrets has leaked data about Russia. In 2019, it brought to light a huge number of e-mails and archives that, according to the organization, came from Russian politicians, journalists, oligarchs, religious figures and nationalists / terrorists in Ukraine. Many of the documents focused on Russia’s operational activity in Ukraine after the annexation of Crimea in 2014, and some of them were allegedly intercepted after a cyber-attack on the Russian Interior Ministry.

However, Best does not make these leaks out of patriotic duty. In the past, he has been willing to reveal information about American entities, especially the police. “I do not want to have any nationality,” Best emphasizes. “I’m not happy about being identified as an American. I’m not happy at all.” “Why;” is the question. And the answer: “Imperialism, super-capitalism, neo-colonialism, military expansion, surveillance of everything, militarization of the police, the police system itself.”

Forbes has not been able to verify the latest leak, which comes after the release of e-mails and charts allegedly stolen by Belarusian arms maker Tetraedr a few days after the Russian invasion of Ukraine. (Tetraedr did not respond to a request for comment.) However, DDoSecrets has not been caught spreading false information to date. In the past it has brought light data on infringements of police authorities after demonstrations for the murder of George Floyd, as well as more controversial data, involving victims of Ransomware attacks, which were revealed since those involved refused to pay ransom to the perpetrators. Best points out that “from time to time I have received corrections to the descriptions of certain data, which have helped to clarify them. Some datasets contain false information, we point this out precautionarily”.

At a time when many erroneous theories are circulating about the legitimacy of cyber-attacks against Ukrainian and Russian entities, and fake news is being spread on both sides, the content of the latest leak was remarkable. Best reported that the data came from a hacker of Anonymous and no evidence has been found that the data is false.

“We were able to verify that the data came from the office indicated by the source,” he added. “We believe our source was honest and so far we have not found any inaccuracies in the data.”

Best is aware of the possibility that information contained in the latest leak may have been altered. “In such a large volume of files, it is always possible that there are alterations or data has been planted.”

There is also the possibility that the publication of the leak may just make more noise in the information cloud, although DDoSecrets has its supporters. David Betz, professor of Modern World War Theory at King’s College London, said he supported Wikileaks and, at first glance, the same was true of Best’s latest leak. “I think it’s a positive thing. The censors need to be exposed,” Betz said.

However, “anyone who dives into the data should be careful,” Best warned. The e-mail attachments contained in the files could be “infected” with malware. The DDoSecrets website has a number of connected tools that can protect users, although, like any technology, safe navigation is not guaranteed.

Approach the documents carefully, as you should with the fierce hostilities in the field of intelligence between Russia and Ukraine.

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Source: Capital

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