Russia's FSB to WikiLeaks: We could destroy you

[little grey rabbit]

Preliminary analysis shows that there is no threat posed to Russia by Julian Assange's resource. You have to understand that if there is the desire and the right team, it's possible to shut it down forever," an expert from the FSB’s Center for Information Security was quoted by Life News as saying on Tuesday.

Links between hacker cells and the FSB made in the past lend credence to this thinly veiled secret services threat. In his recent book on Russia’s secret services, investigative journalist Andrei Soldatov details how the Russian FSB "maintain a sophisticated alliance with unofficial hackers, such as those who carry out cyber attacks on the Web sites of enemies of the state," drawing attention to hacker forums such as Informacia.ru.

http://blog.foreignpolicy.com/posts/2010/11/01/russias_fsb_to_wikileaks_we_could_destroy_you

Dunno what they mean by that. It would appear to be a suggestion of a threat beyond mere hacking - as any information can easily and quickly mirrored - and so there is the suggestion of a threat more aggressive.

Then again, making threats is very easy, carrying them out has implications. If you start targeting either servers or people you begin to create the impression of something out of control. And that is a bad look

Time magazine has an interesting article on this too
http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,2028283,00.html

Freezing media coverage is probably the best defense.

 

[theprestige]

Dunno what they mean by that.

Doesn't seem like a big mystery to me. What part of "... if there is the desire and the right team, it's possible to shut it down forever" do you not understand?

 

[little grey rabbit]

Doesn't seem like a big mystery to me. What part of "... if there is the desire and the right team, it's possible to shut it down forever" do you not understand?

The part I don't understand is what the right team is and what means the right team would do.

Given that mirroring data is pretty straight-forward. I just I didn't understand it, not that there isn't an explanation.

 

[Stylesjl]

It sounds like a bluff. Wikileaks is a highly distributed website, it would be very difficult to take everything out. A hacking would merely at best only deny service for a relatively short period of time

 

[KDLarsen]

It sounds like a bluff. Wikileaks is a highly distributed website, it would be very difficult to take everything out. A hacking would merely at best only deny service for a relatively short period of time

I don't think an attack would be an attempt to take it out, but if it happened and the FSB were to hint that they had obtained some useful information from it, I can easily see potential leakers have second thoughts.

I mean, who would like to see their drink spiked with a dose of polonium?

 

[WildCat]

It sounds like a bluff. Wikileaks is a highly distributed website, it would be very difficult to take everything out. A hacking would merely at best only deny service for a relatively short period of time

My impression was that they were not going to hack the site, but eliminate the people running it.

Assange knows this of course, you can be sure he'll stick to safe targets like the US because he's too afraid to go after a country that might actually do something about him.

There won't be any documents on the goings-on in Chechnya, for example. Or exposing the massive corruption in the Russian government. Just non-storys attempting to make the US look bad.

 

[Checkmite]

Assange knows this of course, you can be sure he'll stick to safe targets like the US because he's too afraid to go after a country that might actually do something about him.

There won't be any documents on the goings-on in Chechnya, for example. Or exposing the massive corruption in the Russian government. Just non-storys attempting to make the US look bad.

QFT

 

[Peephole]

"Safe targets like the US."

Lol. Because obviously the US doesn't capture or kill people without due process.

 

[Captain.Sassy]

http://en.rian.ru/russia/20101026/161087816.html

"Whistleblower website WikiLeaks, which has published hundreds of U.S. war logs, is preparing to release secret files from Russia and China, a Russian newspaper said on Tuesday.

"Russians are going to find out a lot of interesting facts about their country," WikiLeaks spokesman Kristinn Hrafnsson told Kommersant."

Wonder what this is all about?

 

[Earthborn]

Assange knows this of course, you can be sure he'll stick to safe targets like the US because he's too afraid to go after a country that might actually do something about him.

Perhaps. I can think of other reasons why the US is more often Wikileaks' "target".

1. Not all countries are as well connected to the internet as the USA, and not all of them have governments that manage to digitise as much information. Sneaking digital documents on a USB stick is easier than trying to scan a warehouse full of paper documents unseen.
2. Before Wikileaks makes anything public, it insists on a silly thing called "checking the accuracy of the information", and that requires help from experts and journalists. If in a country many of them are too afraid to help then the accuracy is difficult to check and the information might not become public.
3. Wikileaks also depends on the willingness to leak information, and in some countries the risk of being found out or the consequences for leaking may be too great for anyone with access to important information.

That of course means that Wikileaks can operate most effectively in countries that already have a fairly high level of effective and transparent governance. If you feel that Wikileaks is constantly picking on your country, you might also take it as a compliment.

 

[little grey rabbit]

In June, a Russian analog to WikiLeaks called Lubyanskaya Pravda published a series of documents it claimed to be top-secret FSB files detailing the agency's operations in the former Soviet Union and conflicts with other Russian security forces.

The site stayed online for less than three weeks — during which time no Russian newspapers published the files — and then put up a notice saying it was under construction. With the site down and the people who anonymously ran it unreachable, the leak was apparently stopped. "The FSB could have easily found the people behind it and convinced them that this was not a good idea," says Andrei Soldatov, an expert on Russian security services. "It is also possible for the FSB to take down a site like WikiLeaks. They have the capacity for all of this."

Does anyone know what this leak was about? It doesn't seem to have made any impact at all in the R.O.W, I can't even find a precis of its contents

 

[Beerina]

"Safe targets like the US."

Lol. Because obviously the US doesn't capture or kill people without due process.

Do you think the US would "disappear" him? How about Russia?

 

[little grey rabbit]

Do you think the US would "disappear" him? How about Russia?

What would be perfect would be for the US to leak some Russia stuff to wikileaks and then "disappear" him.

Knowing that everyone would blame Russia.

I always had a suspicion that the guy who was killed by plutonium poisoning might not have been killed by Russia

 

[Childlike Empress]

I always had a suspicion that the guy who was killed by plutonium poisoning might not have been killed by Russia

I'd appreciate leakage of some dirt on Berezovsky.

 

[little grey rabbit]

I'd appreciate leakage of some dirt on Berezovsky.

Was he the guy who produced the documentaries alleging FSB involvement in the Chechen bombings? I think the world is such a mess that its pointless to run down these bunnyholes.

http://www.spectator.co.uk/columnists/all/6142868/the-spy-game-catches-everyone-who-plays-it.thtml

ETA: Although I think it is true - and something of a repeating pattern - Shamil Basayev almost certainly got his start in Abkhazia running a militia for the Russian army

 

[Childlike Empress]

Yeah, that's him. He is also the guy who brought Putin to power through his vast media network and, after Putin "betrayed" him and his ilk and they fled to Londonistan, had Polonium all over his "private parts".

 

[Eddie Dane]

Oh, that guy who was supporting Russian opposition parties, writing nasty books about the FSB? That guy who had no serious enemies besides us? That guy who then got a couple of million dollars' worth of radio-active material mixed in his sushi by some Russians? Stuff that only we could get and afford? That guy the world could watch die in slow-motion on TV? That guy?

Never heard of him.

Thank you for calling.

/official Russian reaction to polonium murder plot.

 

[WildCat]

Perhaps. I can think of other reasons why the US is more often Wikileaks' "target".

1. Not all countries are as well connected to the internet as the USA, and not all of them have governments that manage to digitise as much information. Sneaking digital documents on a USB stick is easier than trying to scan a warehouse full of paper documents unseen.
2. Before Wikileaks makes anything public, it insists on a silly thing called "checking the accuracy of the information", and that requires help from experts and journalists. If in a country many of them are too afraid to help then the accuracy is difficult to check and the information might not become public.
3. Wikileaks also depends on the willingness to leak information, and in some countries the risk of being found out or the consequences for leaking may be too great for anyone with access to important information.

That of course means that Wikileaks can operate most effectively in countries that already have a fairly high level of effective and transparent governance. If you feel that Wikileaks is constantly picking on your country, you might also take it as a compliment.

Russia is quite proficient at this internet thing, there is certainly the infrastructure in place for leaks from Russia.

And we know that journalists who criticize the Russian government tend to die in tragic "accidents", a fact not lost on Assange. That's why he won't be releasing anything embarrassing to the Russians.

 

[WildCat]

"Safe targets like the US."

Lol. Because obviously the US doesn't capture or kill people without due process.

Oh please, do tell when the last time US journalists/bloggers were killed in tragic, mysterious circumstances after they criticized the US government.

 

[WildCat]

This speaks for itself: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_journalists_killed_in_Russia

Now, even after throwing out all the crossfire deaths in the Chechin wars it's quite an impressive list. One Assange surely knows about.