Hackers Release Data Trove From Belarus in Bid To Overthrow Lukashenko Regime (bloomberg.com) 56
Opponents of the Belarus government said they have pulled off an audacious hack that has compromised dozens of police and interior ministry databases as part of a broad effort to overthrow President Alexander Lukashenko's regime. From a report: The Belarusian Cyber Partisans, as the hackers call themselves, have in recent weeks released portions of a huge data trove they say includes some of the country's most secret police and government databases. The information contains lists of alleged police informants, personal information about top government officials and spies, video footage gathered from police drones and detention centers and secret recordings of phone calls from a government wiretapping system, according to interviews with the hackers and documents reviewed by Bloomberg News.
Among the pilfered documents are personal details about Lukashenko's inner circle and intelligence officers. In addition, there are mortality statistics indicating that thousands more people in Belarus died from Covid-19 than the government has publicly acknowledged, the documents suggest. In an interview and on social media, the hackers said they also sabotaged more than 240 surveillance cameras in Belarus and are preparing to shut down government computers with malicious software named X-App.
Among the pilfered documents are personal details about Lukashenko's inner circle and intelligence officers. In addition, there are mortality statistics indicating that thousands more people in Belarus died from Covid-19 than the government has publicly acknowledged, the documents suggest. In an interview and on social media, the hackers said they also sabotaged more than 240 surveillance cameras in Belarus and are preparing to shut down government computers with malicious software named X-App.
Imagine if that were done in the U.S. (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Imagine if that were done in the U.S. (Score:5, Insightful)
Came here to say that his supporters are likely to say the same thing. Taking down a regime with information only works in a reasonably healthy democracy.
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Unless of course you can find something that causes an international stink large enough.
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Generally yes, but this information includes the identities of informants for the state. While it's not a stake through Lukashenko's heart, it's going to be of some material advantage to the opposition to know who the snitches are.
Re:Imagine if that were done in the U.S. (Score:5, Insightful)
While it's not a stake through Lukashenko's heart,
What heart?
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It just might make some of his supporters fearful since their private details have been exposed.
I think at one time (when this protest started), people were attempting to ID the masked security people and there was some reduction of the voilence by some security officers due to the fear of being unmasked and targetted.
Now, even if they want to go overseas on holidays, they may not be allowed to enter by some foreign government, or they may get a taste of their own medicine by those self exiled people from B
Re: Imagine if that were done in the U.S. (Score:1)
Yes, exactly why Julian Assange and Edward Snowden were never prosecutedâ¦
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..and dragging out the process to be as punishing as possible.
Re:Imagine if that were done in the U.S. (Score:5, Insightful)
Overthrowing Lukashenko is only going to happen if the Kremlin lets it happen. I can imagine Putin tiring of Lukashenko, but if he's replaced, it's because his replacement passes muster with Russia. Russia is not going to allow a country literally on its doorstep be transformed into a liberal democracy. Russia feels enough of that happened while it was in social and political convulsions after the collapse of the Soviet Union, and it's not handing NATO any more prizes.
Elected? Well sort of (Score:5, Insightful)
Pointing to the Nazis in the anti-Russian coalition is always a good technique, but anyone with any knowledge of history knows that the Finland was forced to ally with the Nazis when Stalin invaded in the 1940s, after he'd swallowed the Baltic Republics. The only question is what the long term outcome is, and it's fairly clear that Ukraine is moving towards democracy, unlike Putin's Russia.
And how is the weather in St Petersburg these days? Do Putin's puppets pay you well?
Ah - the confusion caused by PPP (Score:2)
One of the better techniques for confusing the ignorant is to focus on the nominal value of Russia's GDP, when converted by the exchange rate, and then say: 'See, nothing much here is there'. This is a mistake because it fails to understand the concept of 'purchasing power parity' - the fact that in poorer economies a lot of things are far cheaper than in a rich country.
Here's the actual figures
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
here's a fuller explanation of PPP
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
and here - pro
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Fixed. In 2009 you had bankers and their apologists bloviating about how the subprime mortgage crisis was too complicated for lay people to understand, when it was a simple asset bubble inflated by fraud, fraud, and more fraud. Your PPP pedantry doesn't mean Russia is out there building aircraft carriers for a thousand rubles, a case of caviar and two liters of vodka.
So put up your receipts. Is Russia bombing
The test is democracy (Score:2)
Soviet and Russian occupied territories have never ended up as more democratic; free press, free elections. US occupied one have usually tended in that direction. Funny that.
Beyond that? Your disdain for facts that you find inconvenient is worthy of Trump.
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Believing as a grown-ass adult that babies come from storks is more reasonable and respectable than that childish nonsense. Go ahead and compare the total number of democracies overthrown by all communist countries, ever, compared the United States just since the year 2000. Going back to WWII, the US has overthrown dozens of democratica
Democracy democracy democracy (Score:2)
Obama and even Trump departed from office after their terms. Their people got a free choice as to who to replace them with. Putin has no intention of allowing his subjects anything similar. For that alone he is culpable.
So how much does the FSB pay? Or are you employed by a front organisation to allow plausible deniability. I must admit your English is good, so you could get yourself a decent job, not be a propaganda puppet. I wish you the best when the truth is revealed to you; a visit to Vilnius, or a rea
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It's not Putin who hates democracy. It's you.
Lads, lads, come now! It can be both!
In fact, it is both.
* Putin hates democracies that oppose dictatorships in other countries. Putin wants a world that's safer for dictators like himself.
* The US hates democracies that don't further their own political/social/economic agendas worldwide. The US wants cheap resources, labour, and global influence.
Don't pretend that Putin likes democracies, or that the US likes them for their own sake. Both stances are incorrect.
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Name one he's overthrown, or you're just another butthurt American Exceptionalist with delusions of being one imperial asshole out of many.
Derp derp derpity derp (Score:1)
Terms Putin keeps winning. For the same reason FDR won four terms in the 1930's: because Putin is popular with his people. Just because you wolf down fourth rate American propaganda doesn't mean Russians do the same.
Put up or STFU: how many democracies have been
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Putin is so popular that he has to lock up his opponent. Really confident that he would win a free election...
Sierra Leone, Iraq and Afghanistan had free and relatively fair elections. Syria has not.
Given your failure to deny it, I can only conclude that you are a Putin sock puppet. Perhaps you should reflect on the experience of the government employees in Afghanistan when the revolution came. Or perhaps you are hoping for the experience of the KGB pensioners in Lithuania whom the government has failed to
Comedian expelled (Score:2)
It appears that the leader has lost his sense of humour, and is now expelling comedians who upset him. Democracy is dependent on the freedom criticise the leadership without fear.
Vishnevsky X 3 (Score:2)
Really honest, free and fair, Russian elections
https://www.theguardian.com/wo... [theguardian.com]
I suggest a trip to Vilnius (Score:2)
The former KGB HQ there has been converted to a museum, and you get to see the cells where the Russians tortured prisoners - legal until the early 1960s - as well as the underground execution chamber. It's not so far from Leningrad oblast; on the way back a visit to the equivalents in Latvia and Estonia may help you understand why the choice between the Nazis and the Soviets was a pretty marginal one a lot of the time.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
Abu Garib. Gitmo. Bagram Prison. CIA blacksites (Score:1)
All going strong within the last decade, not 60 years ago. So have a nice, warm cup of STFU and take two pills of self-awareness in the morning.
Back from the Soviet era spa for your holidays? (Score:2)
You started by seeking to smear Ukrainians as Nazis etc. Now you've moved the goal posts. Funny that.
Russia is led by an imperialist warmonger who lies freely and who ignores inconvenient treaties. He suppresses the free press and locks up the most serious opposition leader. Let's hope you realise this truth before they come for you and introduce you the reality with a kicking by KGB jackboots (sorry, FSB).
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Back on your knees, bitch. Break's over.
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"Fixed to mislead", you mean.
I hope you appreciate that I took time to bring your comment a little closer to reality. I always like to help out where I can.
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You still waiting on Saddam's WMD's and 911 masterplan to show up any day now? By the way I have some oceanfront property in Kansas I'd like to sell you at a cut rate. The Nigerian Prince who owns it needs money to pay his ransom.
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As pointed out elsewhere, you've been exposed as a liar and a cheat. I tried to be nice about it, but clearly you're also a prick. Sorry your life went so wrong.
Now go suck off Putin again. It's all you're good for.
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In your imperialist political hack dreams. The simple indisputable fact is that post WWII, the US has taken over from Britain as the biggest asshole on the planet, without a single justifiable "intervention".
Your projection is noted. The only cocksuckers here are you bloodthirsty neocons deep throating Joe McCarthy's 60 year old rotting corpse.
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You shouldn't try to type while you're blowing your buddy Putin. He might get angry and slap you while you're trying to swallow.
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The only person with an obsession with Putin's cock is you, which you just can't stop talking about. You do know the worst homophobes are the self-hating kind, yes? No one thinks as much about dick as a man who wants it and hates himself for it.
Back to your imperialism, not only is the United States the biggest imperialist asshole on the planet, it's bigger than all the other assholes in the world combined.
Re: Imagine if that were done in the U.S. (Score:1)
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In this case, they're literally saying that it's a conspiracy to take down Lukashenko.
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It's worth learning to recognize that tactic. It's called "never play defence".
They can't argue against the facts, the hard evidence. So instead they try to move the argument on to something else that nobody can prove either way. Conspiracy theories and accusations of bias are popular because they are mostly subjective and easy to google links for. In your example "good at their job" draws the person who presenting the cold hard facts into a subjective debate about if they really are good at their job or no
Who's got the men with guns (Score:2)
will always matter more than who's got the nerds with apps.
History has yet to prove otherwise.
It can certainly go the other way, given how short the history of nerds with apps is, but Lukashenko came to power before apps and before fax machines came to that part of the world.
So...yeah.
Good luck but I'm not optimistic that revolutions can happen over zoom.
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sadly, both sides have guns. it's going to be a real mess and I don't have a crystal ball to tell you who is going to win.
Revealing informers will be 'interesting' (Score:2)
Whilst ensuring that all police officers and soldiers and their parents have to be housed in separate areas because the people know who they are will get messy fast.
Meanwhile zeroing the balances of all government departments, employees etc and ensuring the money departs out of the country will get painful fast. Sabotaging the electricity system will also get interesting quite rapidly.
But yeah - it's not going to be nice.
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You seem to think that "people" is an organised group of trained killers. In reality, the opposite is true. So when someone decides to larp as a revolutionary/killer next and goes for an informer, they'll get the same thing that previous larpers did even if they can't reach the larper him/herself.
KGB will show up at their relatives' and friends' doors. All of them. They'll question everyone to find out who it is that you care about the most. Those people will have stern talking to. The kind of talking that
It's all about mass mobilisation (Score:2)
Molotov cocktails through the windows of several thousand of such reprobates would be beyond the power of the KGB to investigate. Through the windows of one or two won't make a difference.
AFAIK there's never been a release of this sort of information before, so it's not clear what might happen.
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I find it hilarious that you are suggesting that mass mobilisation by civilian population and mass procurement and construction of weaponry is the solution to being watched, when in real world, that's how you get fucked. It's hard to stop a couple of molotov coctails being made and moved because that doesn't require much materiel, logistics or manpower and is therefore inherently covert. It's why Chinese don't let you fuel a canister at a gas station in many regions.
A thousand?
That's the kind of naive and s
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Is there a difference? ;)
They won't care (Score:2)
They'll have their exit plans - if they plan to exit at all - laid long since.
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Plans can change quickly.
Ask Nicolae Ceauescu.
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One should think so, but history isn't exactly confirming this.
Narcissist assholes think they're untouchable. Until they get touched in all those awkward places.
Belarus' talibans? (Score:1)
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Well, we literally created the Taliban ("ban" already is the plural. The singular is "a talib", which is actually their word for basically their version of a verger).
When the Russians invaded Afghanistan, and the Afghanis couldn't stop them, the US recruited Pakistani mercenaries to help out. Pakistan, because together with Saudi-Arabia they are the US allies in the region. They were of course financed, armed, and trained. Problem is: Pakistan and Saudi-Arabia are also the two most extremist religious count
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The current Taliban can count on a pretty broad support. Even the original Taliban were relatively organic.We just like to think that they are totally unauthentic . They came out of the refugee camps in about 94 . One does wonder whether anything would have come of them without financial support but it is too easy to just dismiss them. Even the eighties war started as a conflict between the feminist cityslickers(because communist) and the wildly different traditional countryfolk. After Russia came in and ki
You can say it was EU hackers. (Score:1)
Nobody's ashamed of it.
Yes, the EU has "state-sponsored hackers" too. And all the other Internet warfare and spying assholery we berate other regimes for.
And when, for a change, they attack an asshole, there's no reason to act like we're innocent choir boys and our shit don't stink.
There's no shame in exposing an asshole. But there's big shame in acting like we're not doing the same stuff that e.g. Putin [always pronounce it in French [wiktionary.org] ;] does.
China (Score:3)
Now if they tried that on China...