I think one of the more interesting tidbits of the investigation is how they managed to find the agents that were following him using black-market mobile phone records from corrupt policemen. These were only available due to a law allowing police to have access to private data, and apparently pretty commonly used by jealous spouses to spy on their SO.
A glimpse of the future for those supporting these kinds of laws because they have nothing to hide.
EDIT: After watching / reading the article and also the comments about parallel construction, there is indeed an inordinate amount of information being just there for the taking.
The BBC did a documentary on this intelligence black market some time ago[0], which shows the magnitude of it. I can't really imagine how it's like living over there, think 4-chan-on-steroids levels of doxxing that can be unleashed by anyone with some petty cash.
The people who promote anti-privacy will be stuck there I think. You know, until something awful happens to them. I think this has turned into a cultural issue unfortunately, and once it's culture all reason, sensibility, and middleground is lost.
> A glimpse of the future for those supporting these kinds of laws because they have nothing to hide.
This has been the reality in China for a while now and the result has been... largely fine. eg: This Reuter's piece from 2018 where you could get a picture of anyone's face for $1USD and a copy of their phone records for 50c: https://www.reuters.com/article/us-china-dataprivacy/data-du...
Like, if you ask a representative sample of people living in China what they feel the top 10 pros and cons of living in China were, that all of their personal information is for sale for a few bucks would not make it onto many people's lists on either side, it doesn't really affect your day to day life.
There are a lot of theoretical privacy attacks that sound scarily creepy but privacy advocates tend to play up the hypothetical and not look at how empirically impactful such things end up being.
> I think one of the more interesting tidbits of the investigation is how they managed to find the agents that were following him using black-market mobile phone records from corrupt policemen. These were only available due to a law allowing police to have access to private data, and apparently pretty commonly used by jealous spouses to spy on their SO.
> A glimpse of the future for those supporting these kinds of laws because they have nothing to hide.
I don't think that's necessarily true, because pervasive and tolerated corruption is required to get an end state like that. If a country has "[those] kinds of laws," but unlawful access is investigated and prosecuted, then the data will remain (more or less) restricted to police and government investigators.
So, even though you still have to worry about the police and government abusing the data, as well as certain powerful or connected people, you won't have to worry so much about stuff like your SO buying your phone records for $10.
The solution would then be to make all phone records public to avoid the black market issue, and I know that my parents wouldn't find anything wrong with that.
If you haven't seen the full investigation released last week I'd strongly recommend you check it out, top notch investigative journalism. The video has English subtitles: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=smhi6jts97I
It always amazes that some people have the balls to live like this and stand for something, whereas many of us here lead comparatively chickenshit lives centered around MRR, pageviews or "lessons learned" posts for some superfluous software service.
Navalny isn't alone in this; I get the same reaction when I hear about teenagers lying about their age to go to war, or activists spending decades in prison and continuing to fight as soon as they leave, or even Hannibal crossing the Alps. Independently of whether the overarching cause is rational or beneficial or not, these acts of living are almost completely alien to the sensibilities of a modern day worker in an industrialized attention economy.
BTW I also strongly recommend to check the investigation since it's amazing example of how state surveillance and weak privacy can end up playing against the state.
We all live in the world where telecoms spy on everyone's location and where travel information is accessible to unlimited number of people (it's super easy to get air travel info in western countries too). It's just funny how adding a bit of corruption can completely compromise state's own spy agency.
This guy is a complete badass. They've tried to kill him multiple times and then he turns around and bamboozles them into giving up all the details? Brilliant.
Confused about “Hi it’s CNN here, would you like to tell us about the attempted murder you were part of?” Then only realizing for the last contact that that approach may not work.
As I understand it that apartment visit happened after the call in question. This call happened last week before the release of the first investigation and they sat on it for a week before releasing
I said it multiple times how ridiculous I find that so many people readily buy into these stories. But... I don't know now, this was pretty convincing, to be honest. Not really a "proof" of anything, of course — this guy could be anyone, and of course it is really weird how he didn't recognize Navalny's voice and talked about all this stuff over the insecure line... But I can believe that. I mean, if it was fake, it was some really impressive fake, with much better script and acting than anything I can now remember. My biggest issue was believing that people doing important stuff in FSS can really be useless idiots, and this was such a convincing portrayal of such an idiot that I'm starting to accept it.
Anyway, I'm looking forward to hear more of that story.
The belligncat guy just did an interview and mentioned that some of the other guys immediately recognized Navalny's voice and hung up: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eCGHepzBzUc
The one they got to talk was in the cleanup crew, so probably not as familiar with him.
There's a reason authoritarian regimes mostly represent failed states, with maybe a few exceptions. If your regime has a negative effect on education, healthcare, administrative roles, why would the security services remain cold-blooded professionals? There's negative selection at every part of this system.
If Joe Biden called you up now and demanded to know about some work you did 3 years ago, yet claimed to be someone high up your chain of command and gave a fake name, would you fall for it?
I don't think you would... The voice alone would give it away. There's no way the leader of the opposition isn't famous enough to be recognisable on the phone...
Highly unlikely honestly. Right now the general infantilism in Russia make investigations and headlines quite meaningless (not _meaningless_ but they really don't do much in short term).
Youtube video will get huge amount of likes and views. But that's it.
Not sure about that. A Russian guy who poisoned Litvinenko with radioactive polonium in London was then promoted to a member of state parliament: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andrey_Lugovoy
May develop a bad case of defenestration. Kinda stunning how bad that guy's opsec was, but on the other hand Putin wants people to know he was behind the assassination, otherwise he wouldn't have used Novichok. So maybe those involved don't feel the need to be super cagey about it.
Any silovik worth his salt would refuse to discuss such a hot topic over an open line. Also, some people noticed their talk is not even close to how two professionals both working in the kontora would speak. And how come 'the spy' didn't recognize his target's voice and manner of speaking? How come he didn't cross check 'the assistant' with his boss?
Not to mention that Navalny having such information about FSB agents means he's got some suspicious connections. Wouldn't he go to jail for this when he's back to Russia?
I guess you haven't seen the full investigation released last week. I'd strongly recommend you check it out, it shows how much investigation they did before Navalny took action.
How did this toxins guy keep getting ahold of Navalny's underpants?
First he had to have access to them to put poison. Then he later got access to them again to scrub them clean of the poison. I guess Navalny has no security whatsoever where he stays?
1) A trained FSB operative completely fell for a convincing enough social engineer, armed with nothing but caller-id spoofing software. Even though he was extremely apprehensive in the beginning of the call, he was slowly "eased into" talking top-secret stuff on the non-secure phoneline. This was so incredible that his last words on the call were "I was shocked by your questions. Was this OK that we talked about this on a non-secure line?". That's crazy. What chance do normal people have against such a good social engineer?
2) The amount of pro-Putin commenters in this thread (mind that some of these comments are dead), claiming that this is a CIA false flag or some such.
As for the first one, I think the reason was that Navalny called him after the investigation and clearly showed at the beginning of the conversation that he knew a lot of secret things, including the surnames of the other agents, facts on when and where they were, etc. Probably, the FSB guy just couldn't believe that there was a chance that a person who doesn't work for the government could be so aware of the details of the operation.
One thing I know from conversations with people working in FSB, is that working in a field is considered to be a low, starting position. Also many people start to work there only after some rudimentary training. Yeah, seemed weird to me too. Also this guy was only from a cleanup crew, whose job was only to transfer contaminated clothes to chemical institute. Seems plausible to me that he fell for some social engineering
Do you think geniuses work for those services? They are perma drunk simpletons that are no good for anything higher than beating up a person. Add the fear they harbor from their psycho superiors and if you push them right, they will fall that easy.
Exercising my self judgement doesn't make me pro Putin, nor does it make me a conspiracy theorist when I wonder why the flu killed more people in France in one month (jan 2017) than COVID in 10 months.
I have a brain, I use it. Maybe sometimes I come to the wrong conclusion but at least I don't just regurgitate what the media feeds me.
So in this case I find strange that the super Russian spies never manage to kill anyone even when they use military grade chemical agents that are supposed to kill full cities (remember the Skripal case, this one was fishy as hell too).
I can't tell if the investigative journalism is that amazing, or if the FSB tradecraft is so embarrassingly bad.
If another world power was investigated over a potential assassination and had such lax control over civilian personal data, would it be as easy to derive the chain of command and movements of their agents?
Would the cover identities be so shoddily arranged as to use the surnames of their spouses to make them easier to remember?
Or is this unique to Russia and this particular organization of the FSB.
Similarly, regarding the ongoing Solarwind attack, what is the tradecraft of the folks involved in that mission. Not only their opsec but in their own personal coms? Will we see an independent investigation that reveals the calls and networks of the hackers?
I'm constantly impressed and amazed at how brave that man is, and the other people in Russia who are opposing what seems to have become a totalitarian thug state.
Fortunately it's still not a totalitarian state. It's just an authoritarian kleptocracy where due to rampaging corruption everyone can buy spy agency staff phone billing and banking data for few hundred dollars.
Org charts with names and faces should accompany a far wider range of malfeasance. I get this is a nice, cute, morally unambiguous story against a state enemy so CNN can do this, but there are many environmental disasters and domestic political decisions that can be traced up and down the chain.
It would be great for things like DDT, the petroleum industry denying their own global warming studies, tobacco denying their own cancer studies.
My understanding is that Russian secret services don't even try to hide it, it's probably something they are proud of and to be exposed to the nation to show the great power of zar Putin.
[+] [-] ulnarkressty|5 years ago|reply
A glimpse of the future for those supporting these kinds of laws because they have nothing to hide.
EDIT: After watching / reading the article and also the comments about parallel construction, there is indeed an inordinate amount of information being just there for the taking.
The BBC did a documentary on this intelligence black market some time ago[0], which shows the magnitude of it. I can't really imagine how it's like living over there, think 4-chan-on-steroids levels of doxxing that can be unleashed by anyone with some petty cash.
[0] https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-48348307
[+] [-] kodah|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] shalmanese|5 years ago|reply
This has been the reality in China for a while now and the result has been... largely fine. eg: This Reuter's piece from 2018 where you could get a picture of anyone's face for $1USD and a copy of their phone records for 50c: https://www.reuters.com/article/us-china-dataprivacy/data-du...
Like, if you ask a representative sample of people living in China what they feel the top 10 pros and cons of living in China were, that all of their personal information is for sale for a few bucks would not make it onto many people's lists on either side, it doesn't really affect your day to day life.
There are a lot of theoretical privacy attacks that sound scarily creepy but privacy advocates tend to play up the hypothetical and not look at how empirically impactful such things end up being.
[+] [-] jonny_eh|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] ardy42|5 years ago|reply
> A glimpse of the future for those supporting these kinds of laws because they have nothing to hide.
I don't think that's necessarily true, because pervasive and tolerated corruption is required to get an end state like that. If a country has "[those] kinds of laws," but unlawful access is investigated and prosecuted, then the data will remain (more or less) restricted to police and government investigators.
So, even though you still have to worry about the police and government abusing the data, as well as certain powerful or connected people, you won't have to worry so much about stuff like your SO buying your phone records for $10.
[+] [-] hengheng|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] yters|5 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] igravious|5 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] asats|5 years ago|reply
Also here's the full phone call with the FSB agent, with english transcript: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gwvA49ZXnf8
[+] [-] gk1|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] blueblisters|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] breck|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Bakary|5 years ago|reply
Navalny isn't alone in this; I get the same reaction when I hear about teenagers lying about their age to go to war, or activists spending decades in prison and continuing to fight as soon as they leave, or even Hannibal crossing the Alps. Independently of whether the overarching cause is rational or beneficial or not, these acts of living are almost completely alien to the sensibilities of a modern day worker in an industrialized attention economy.
[+] [-] ClumsyPilot|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] SXX|5 years ago|reply
We all live in the world where telecoms spy on everyone's location and where travel information is accessible to unlimited number of people (it's super easy to get air travel info in western countries too). It's just funny how adding a bit of corruption can completely compromise state's own spy agency.
[+] [-] Abimelex|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] PutinItOutThere|5 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] whalesalad|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] ksm1717|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] asats|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] krick|5 years ago|reply
I said it multiple times how ridiculous I find that so many people readily buy into these stories. But... I don't know now, this was pretty convincing, to be honest. Not really a "proof" of anything, of course — this guy could be anyone, and of course it is really weird how he didn't recognize Navalny's voice and talked about all this stuff over the insecure line... But I can believe that. I mean, if it was fake, it was some really impressive fake, with much better script and acting than anything I can now remember. My biggest issue was believing that people doing important stuff in FSS can really be useless idiots, and this was such a convincing portrayal of such an idiot that I'm starting to accept it.
Anyway, I'm looking forward to hear more of that story.
[+] [-] asats|5 years ago|reply
The one they got to talk was in the cleanup crew, so probably not as familiar with him.
[+] [-] ymolodtsov|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] londons_explore|5 years ago|reply
I don't think you would... The voice alone would give it away. There's no way the leader of the opposition isn't famous enough to be recognisable on the phone...
[+] [-] ChrisMarshallNY|5 years ago|reply
That spy is likely to experience "health problems," sooner or later...
[+] [-] konart|5 years ago|reply
Youtube video will get huge amount of likes and views. But that's it.
[+] [-] Const-me|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] GVIrish|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] viggity|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] lvs|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] timka|5 years ago|reply
Any silovik worth his salt would refuse to discuss such a hot topic over an open line. Also, some people noticed their talk is not even close to how two professionals both working in the kontora would speak. And how come 'the spy' didn't recognize his target's voice and manner of speaking? How come he didn't cross check 'the assistant' with his boss?
Not to mention that Navalny having such information about FSB agents means he's got some suspicious connections. Wouldn't he go to jail for this when he's back to Russia?
[+] [-] hongsy|5 years ago|reply
https://youtu.be/smhi6jts97I
[+] [-] Abimelex|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] legohead|5 years ago|reply
First he had to have access to them to put poison. Then he later got access to them again to scrub them clean of the poison. I guess Navalny has no security whatsoever where he stays?
[+] [-] keyme|5 years ago|reply
1) A trained FSB operative completely fell for a convincing enough social engineer, armed with nothing but caller-id spoofing software. Even though he was extremely apprehensive in the beginning of the call, he was slowly "eased into" talking top-secret stuff on the non-secure phoneline. This was so incredible that his last words on the call were "I was shocked by your questions. Was this OK that we talked about this on a non-secure line?". That's crazy. What chance do normal people have against such a good social engineer?
2) The amount of pro-Putin commenters in this thread (mind that some of these comments are dead), claiming that this is a CIA false flag or some such.
[+] [-] Nemerie|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] lisnake|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] sto_hristo|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] jmnicolas|5 years ago|reply
Exercising my self judgement doesn't make me pro Putin, nor does it make me a conspiracy theorist when I wonder why the flu killed more people in France in one month (jan 2017) than COVID in 10 months.
I have a brain, I use it. Maybe sometimes I come to the wrong conclusion but at least I don't just regurgitate what the media feeds me.
So in this case I find strange that the super Russian spies never manage to kill anyone even when they use military grade chemical agents that are supposed to kill full cities (remember the Skripal case, this one was fishy as hell too).
[+] [-] bredren|5 years ago|reply
If another world power was investigated over a potential assassination and had such lax control over civilian personal data, would it be as easy to derive the chain of command and movements of their agents?
Would the cover identities be so shoddily arranged as to use the surnames of their spouses to make them easier to remember?
Or is this unique to Russia and this particular organization of the FSB.
Similarly, regarding the ongoing Solarwind attack, what is the tradecraft of the folks involved in that mission. Not only their opsec but in their own personal coms? Will we see an independent investigation that reveals the calls and networks of the hackers?
[+] [-] bigbizisverywyz|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] SXX|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] runawaybottle|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] unknown|5 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] antfarm|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] eshack94|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] AtlasBarfed|5 years ago|reply
Org charts with names and faces should accompany a far wider range of malfeasance. I get this is a nice, cute, morally unambiguous story against a state enemy so CNN can do this, but there are many environmental disasters and domestic political decisions that can be traced up and down the chain.
It would be great for things like DDT, the petroleum industry denying their own global warming studies, tobacco denying their own cancer studies.
[+] [-] LockAndLol|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] dariosalvi78|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] unknown|5 years ago|reply
[deleted]