From Russia with love..

[Admin]

The major takeaway that many people gleaned from a recent paper by Morten Bay, a research fellow at the USC Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism’s Center for the Digital Future, was that the seemingly massive backlash against The Last Jedi, the latest chapter in the Star Wars saga, was driven by Russian trolls and bots. Trolls and bots were, indeed, part of Bay’s research. But his study further concludes that much of the backlash was driven by political opportunism from the American alt-right, particularly members of that movement who were deeply involved in 2014’s anti-feminist and proto-alt-right Gamergate movement in the video game community.

Meanwhile, it found that while many believe the dominant response to The Last Jedi was overwhelmingly negative, the preponderance of bots and trolls on social media only made it seem that way. In reality, most viewers of the film seem to have liked it. (Vox’s sister site, Polygon, has more.) But what Bay’s study really got me thinking about was how strange it was that Russian agents would focus on Star Wars, of all things, in what seems to be a campaign to spread dissension throughout America, dating back to before the 2016 election. Whether or not a Star Wars movie is good or bad has little bearing on the overall twists and turns of global geopolitics, and yet here was evidence that somebody in Russia sure disagreed.

Maybe the Russian bots that Bay identified are all extra-governmental, built by trolls with spare time on their hands and a grudge against Lucasfilm. Or maybe Bay’s findings are yet another example of how thoroughly Russian intelligence has zeroed in on the idea that white nationalism is central to driving a wedge into American society. If the latter is true, then what’s most unnerving about Russia’s intelligence strategy and its connection to Star Wars isn’t what that strategy says about Russia, but what it says about us.

Star Wars, Russian trolls, and the rise of “fandamentalism” - Vox

[Admin]

• The US has indicted seven Russian military intelligence officers in connection with the hacking of data on 250 athletes and several anti-doping agencies in a series of global cyberattacks, the Justice Department announced on Thursday. [Al Jazeera]
  
• Officials said hackers conspired to steal data that exposes and delegitimizes these organizations because they had previously revealed Russia’s state-sponsored doping program that gifted the country’s athletes with dozens of Olympic medals. [USA Today / Bart Jansen]
  
• Other targets of the alleged conspiracy include an international chemical weapons watchdog based in the Netherlands and a Pennsylvania nuclear energy company. [Military Times / Gregory Katz and Raphael Satter]
  
• A joint statement between the leaders of the Netherlands and the UK said the cyberattack shows Russia’s “disregard for the global values and rules that keep us all safe.” [US News & World Report / Alexa Lardieri]
  
• What’s more, three of the Russian spies were also tied to the hacking of the Democratic National Committee that resulted in a 2016 US presidential election scandal. [CNN / Laura Jarrett and Caroline Kelly]
  
• US Defense Secretary James Mattis called for an immediate investigation into Moscow and its global hacking efforts, in remarks delivered after a NATO meeting in Brussels. [Independent / Mythili Sampathkumar]
  

Vox Sentences: Another Russian hack - Vox

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The UK in early September accused two Russian men, Alexander Petrov and Ruslan Boshirov, of attempting to assassinate ex-spy Sergei Skripal with a military-grade nerve agent in Salisbury, England in March 2018. UK Prime Minister Theresa May said the names were most likely aliases. Russian President Vladimir Putin, whose government has long denied having any knowledge of the attack, initially claimed that the two men's names "mean nothing to us," then said that they were civilians. 

Petrov and Boshirov even appeared on Russian TV to say they were visiting Salisbury as tourists. But investigative journalism site Bellingcat has dug into the backgrounds of "Petrov" and "Boshirov," and says it has identified both men's true identities and that they work for the GRU. On Monday, Bellingcat reported that the real name of "Petrov" is Dr. Alexander Yevgenyevich Mishkin, "a trained military doctor in the employ of the GRU."

In late September, Bellingcat reported that "Boshirov" is actually Col. Anatoliy Chepiga, a highly decorated officer with the GRU, Russia's intelligence service. Chepiga, 39, had been assigned the alter ego of Boshirov by 2010, Bellingcat said. This was the name used in his passport when he traveled to the UK earlier this year. Bellingcat's findings also cast doubt on Russia's claims that Boshirov and Petrov were civilians and that the government had no knowledge of the Skripal attack.

Second Sergei Skripal 'poisoner' identified as Russian military doctor - Business Insider

"Cast doubt??" The whole Kremlin story (or actually, multiple stories) was nonsense. For starters, these "tourists" were only a day in the UK and what would you view in a day? Salisbury cathedral? Haha. They never even made it to the cathedral, as it happens. They were intimidated by melting snow. Yea, like that's a first for Russians..

The Russians do anything to cast doubt on the painstakenly gathered evidence, they did exactly the same with:

• The Litvinenko assasination (with Polonium, which leaves traces). 
  
• Shooting down of the Malaysian airplane (full of Dutch holidaymakers).
  
• Murdering an x number of political opponents.
  
• Intervening in an x number of foreign elections.
  
• Intervening in East Ukraine.
  

Etc. etc.

[Admin]

Wherever there is something bad happening the odds are high that there are Russians behind it:

Consider what we learned from last month’s criminal charges filed by the Department of Justice against the “chief accountant” for Russia’s so-called troll factory, the online-information influence operations conducted by the Internet Research Agency in St. Petersburg. The indictment showed how Russia, rather than being chastened by Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s detailed February indictment laying out its criminal activities, continued to spread online propaganda about that very indictment, tweeting and posting about Mueller’s charges both positively and negatively—to spread and exacerbate America’s political discord. Defense Secretary James Mattis later told the Reagan National Defense Forum in Simi Valley, California, that Vladimir Putin “tried again to muck around in our elections this last month, and we are seeing a continued effort along those lines.”

In October, a 37-page criminal complaint filed against Elena Alekseevna Khusyaynova, who is alleged to have participated in “Project Lakhta,” a Russian-oligarch-funded effort to deploy online memes and postings to stoke political controversy, came along with a similar warning, from the director of national intelligence. Those charges came in the wake of coordinated charges filed this fall by U.K., Dutch, and U.S. officials against Russia and its intelligence officers for a criminal scheme to target anti-doping agencies, officials, and even clean athletes around the world in retaliation for Russia’s doping scandal and in an apparent effort to intimidate those charged with holding Russia to a level playing field. There’s also new evidence that Russia has been interfering in other foreign issues, such as a recent referendum in Macedonia aimed at easing that country’s acceptance into Europe..

How Trump Can Stand Up to Russian Cybercrime - The Atlantic

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A bombshell investigation published Friday by Italy’s L’Espresso magazine reveals a plot that might sound familiar. Deputy Prime Minister Matteo Salvini of the hard-right Lega Nord party, L’Espresso reports, last year sought a 3 million euro funding commitment from Kremlin-linked entities to finance his political campaign. The scheme, reportedly organized by a loyal aide and former spokesman to Salvini named Gianluca Savoini, enabled the money to flow to Lega Nord covertly, tucked behind an ordinary-seeming oil export deal between Italian and Russian companies. 

Italian Investigators Just Uncovered a Major Russian Election Meddling Plot – Mother Jones

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The Russians are hacking the global navigation satellite system (GNSS) on a mass scale in order to confuse thousands of ships and airplanes about where they are, according to a study by Centre for Advanced Defense (C4AD). Law enforcement, shipping, airlines, power stations, your phone, and anything else dependent on GPS time and location synchronization, are vulnerable to GNSS hacking. All of Britain's critical infrastructure is dependent on GNSS and GPS, according to a report commissioned by the UK Space Agency. Russian president Putin's summer dacha is protected by a GNSS spoofing array that helps create a no-fly zone over his vast Italian-style mansion. GNSS jamming equipment costs $300.

Russians hacking the GPS system to send ships bogus GNSS navigation data - Business Insider

[Admin]

Less than two weeks before pivotal elections for the European Parliament, a constellation of websites and social media accounts linked to Russia or far-right groups is spreading disinformation, encouraging discord and amplifying distrust in the centrist parties that have governed for decades. European Union investigators, academics and advocacy groups say the new disinformation efforts share many of the same digital fingerprints or tactics used in previous Russian attacks, including the Kremlin’s interference in the 2016 US presidential campaign.

Fringe political commentary sites in Italy, for instance, bear the same electronic signatures as pro-Kremlin websites, while a pair of German political groups share servers used by the Russian hackers who attacked the Democratic National Committee. The activity offers fresh evidence that despite indictments, expulsions and recriminations, Russia remains undeterred in its campaign to widen political divisions and weaken Western institutions... 

“The goal here is bigger than any one election,” said Daniel Jones, a former FBI analyst and Senate investigator whose nonprofit group, Advance Democracy, recently flagged a number of suspicious websites and social media accounts to law enforcement authorities. “It is to constantly divide, increase distrust and undermine our faith in institutions and democracy itself. They’re working to destroy everything that was built post-World War II.”

Russia and far right spreading disinformation ahead of EU elections, investigators say | The Independent

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Dozens of prominent doctors have called for urgent action to halt the bombing campaign by Syrian and Russian planes that has targeted more than 20 hospitals in Syria’s north-west, putting many out of action and leaving millions of people without proper healthcare. Coordinates for many of those hit had been shared with the regime and its Russian backers by the United Nations in an effort to protect civilians. The Syrian opposition were promised war planes would avoid identified sites on bombing raids; instead they have endured more than a month of fierce attacks.

Stop the carnage: doctors call for an end to Syria hospital airstrikes | World news | The Guardian

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A Russian investigative journalist, Ivan Golunov, has been arrested in the capital Moscow and charged with trying to illegally sell drugs. He was taken to hospital, police sources say, after saying he was ill while unofficial reports suggest he was injured while being detained. The reporter for Latvia-based news site Meduza was arrested on Thursday. His lawyer says drugs were planted on him, an accusation the Russian authorities deny. Meduza says Mr Golunov, 36, is being "being persecuted because of his journalistic activity".

Ivan Golunov: Russian anti-corruption journalist charged with drug dealing - BBC News

Isn't it curious that this stuff only happens to journalists that are critical of the regime?

[stpioc]

Pro-Kremlin social media accounts spread false claims that the EU has Nazi roots, the European commissioner for security has said in the first analysis of disinformation acts aimed at influencing last month’s EU elections. Malicious actors sought to promote extreme views and polarise local debates, said Julian King, the British commissioner in Brussels. Although there were no “spectaculars” such as the major email hacks that tarnished the 2016 US presidential election, social media accounts promoting a pro-Russian narrative were active in amplifying divisive content on the internet, King said.

Pro-Kremlin media 'spread false claims that EU has Nazi roots' | World news | The Guardian