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It has been claimed that Internet operations by Russian secret police services include a variety of "active measures" to influence the world events, including denial of service attacks, hacker attacks, dissemination of disinformation over the internet, participation of state-sponsored teams in political blogs, internet surveillance using SORM technology, and persecution of cyber-dissidents. According to investigative journalist Andrei Soldatov , some of these activities are coordinated by the Russian signals intelligence, which is currently a part of the FSB but has been formerly a part of 16th KGB department, but others are directed by the Russian Ministry of Internal Affairs. This point is, however, disputable (see below).

Propaganda and disinformation

According to former senior Russian intelligence officer Sergei Tretyakov, who defected in the United States in 2000, he often sent his servicemen to branches of New York Public Library where they got access to the Internet without anyone knowing their identity. They placed propaganda and disinformation to various web sites and sent it in e-mails to US broadcasters . The articles or messages were not written by the intelligence officers, by prepared in advance by Russian experts, often with references to bogus sources. The texts were mostly accurate but always contained a "kernel of disinformation". The purpose of these active measures was to support Russian foreign policy, to create good image of Russia, to promote ant-American feelings and "to cause dissension and unrest inside the US". Tretyakov did not specified the targeted web sites, but made clear they selected the sites which are most convenient for distributing the specific disinformation. During his work in New York in the end of 1990s, one of the most frequent disinformation subjects was War in Chechnya.

According to Soldatov, one of the Russian teams, who called themselves GRU officers, was actively involved in a disinformation campaign prior to US invasion of Iraq.

Cyberattacks

Some believe that Russian secret police services organized a number of denial of service attacks as a part of their Cyber-warfare against other countries, most notably 2007 cyberattacks on Estonia and 2008 cyberattacks on Georgia and Azerbaijan. One of young Russian hackers said that he was paid by the Russian state security services to lead the hacker attacks on NATO computers. He was majoring computer sciences at the Department of the Defense of Information. His tuition was paid by the FSB According to Soldatov, a hacker attack on his web site Agentura was apparently directed by the secret services in the middle of Moscow theater hostage crisis.

Persecution of cyber-dissidents by the FSB

When Russian president Vladimir Putin called on his nation's women to have more children, journalist Vladimir Rakhmankov published a satiric article on the Internet calling Putin "the nation's phallic symbol". Rakhmankov was found guilty and fined by the court. Journalist Boris Stomakhin and director of Russian-Chechen Friendship Society Stanislav Dmitrievsky were convicted in 2006 for publishing articles on the internet.

Disruption of political blogs

The appearance of Russian state security teams in RuNet was described in 2003 by journalist Anna Polyanskaya (a former assistant to assassinated Russian politician Galina Starovoitova), historian Andrey Krivov and political activist Ivan Lomako. They claimed the appearance of organized and fairly professional "brigades", composed of ideologically and methodologically identical personalities, who were working in practically every popular liberal and pro-democracy Internet forums and Internet newspapers of RuNet..

Russian agents in Polish web sites

According to claims of unnamed "Polish experts on Russian affairs", reported by the Polish newspaper Tygodnik Powszechny in 2005, at least a dozen active Russian agents work in Poland, also investigating the Polish Internet. The source also claims that the agents scrutinize Polish websites (like those supporting Belarusian opposition), and also perform such actions, as—for instance—contributing to Internet forums on large portals (like Gazeta.pl, Onet.pl, WP.pl). Labeled as Polish Internet users, they incite anti-Semitic or anti-Ukrainian discussions or disavow articles published on the web, according to the source.

"LiveJournal fighters"

A member of National Bolshevik Party Roman Sadykhov claimed that he secretly infiltrated pro-Kremlin organizations of "LiveJournal fighters", allegedly directed and paid from the Kremlin and instructions given to them by Vladislav Surkov, a close aide of Vladimir Putin Surkov allegedly called Livejournal "a very important sector of work" and said that people's brains must be "nationalized".

Criticism

Alexander Yusupovskiy, head of the analytical department of the Federation Council of Russia (Russian Parliament) published in 2003 an article "Conspiracy theory" in Russian Journal with criticism of theory of web brigades.

His points included:

• Authors exclude from their interpretation of events all other hypotheses, such as internet activity of a group of some "skinheads", nazbols or simply unliberal students; or hackers able to get IP addresses of their opponents.
• According to Yusupovskiy, authors treat "independence of public opinion" in spirit of irreconcilable antagonism with "positive image of Russia".
• Although Yusupovskiy himself has a list of claims against Russian security services and their presense in virtual world (as "according to statements of media every security service is busy in the Internet tracking terrorism, extremism, narcotic traffic, human trafficking and child pornography"), his claims are of different nature than those of Polyanskaya.
• Yusupovskiy himself didn't take Web brigades theory seriously, "naively" considering that officeers of GRU or FSB have more topical problems than "comparing virtual penises" with liberals and emigrants. His own experience at forums also did not give him a reason proving the theory.

Russian state security teams

Russian intelligence expert Andrei Soldatov made the following points when asked by Yevgenia Albats about "internet brigades":

• Russian state security teams actively disrupt work of certain political blogs;
• One of the teams, who called themselves GRU officers, was actively involved in a disinformation campaign prior to US invasion of Iraq;
• The teams are also involved in hacker attacks, and they have probably attacked his own web site during the Moscow theater hostage crisis;
• Some of the "internet brigades" are coordinated by the Russian signals intelligence, which is currently a part of the FSB and has been formerly a part of 16th KGB department;
• There are also such teams from the Russian Ministry of Internal Affairs.

In popular culture

The alleged FSB activities on the Internet have been described in the short story "Anastasya" by Russian writer Grigory Svirsky, who was interested in the moral aspects of their work. He wrote: "It seems that offending, betraying, or even "murdering" people in the virtual space is easy. This is like killing an enemy in a video game: one does not see a disfigured body or the eyes of the person who is dying right in front of you. However, the human soul lives by its own basic laws that force it to pay the price for the virtual crime in his real life".

See also

• Internet police
• Web brigades

References

1. ^ State control over the internet, a talk show by Yevgenia Albats at the Echo of Moscow, January 22, 2006; interview with Andrei Soldatov and others
2. ^ Pete Earley, "Comrade J: The Untold Secrets of Russia's Master Spy in America After the End of the Cold War", Penguin Books, 2007, ISBN 978-0-399-15439-3, pages 194-195
3. Cyberspace and the changing nature of warfare. Strategists must be aware that part of every political and military conflict will take place on the internet, says Kenneth Geers.
4. Andrew Meier, Black Earth. W.W. Norton & Company, 2003, ISBN 0-393-05178-1, pages 15-16.
5. "GLASNOST DEFENSE FOUNDATION'S DIGEST No. 298". 2006-09-26. Retrieved 2007-05-11. {{cite web}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)
6. Russia: 'Phallic' Case Threatens Internet Freedom
7. U.S. Media Watchdog Criticizes Russia
8. Media freedom watchdog condemns conviction of journalist in Russia
9. Russia: Activist’s Conviction Hurts Freedom of Expression statement by Human Rights Watch
10. KAVKAZ-CENTER WRITER APPEALS JAIL SENTENCE - by Jamestown Foundation
11. Articles by Anna Polyanskaya, MAOF publishing group
12. Template:Ru icon "They are killing Galina Starovoitova for the second time", by Anna Polyanskaya
13. Commissars of the Internet. The FSB at the Computer by Anna Polyanskaya, Andrei Krivov, and Ivan Lomko, Vestnik online, April 30, 2003 (English translation)
14. Operation "Disinformation" - The Russian Foreign Office vs "Tygodnik Powszechny", Tygodnik Powszechny, 13/2005
15. Template:Ru icon Interview with Roman Sadykhov, grani.ru, 3 April, 2007
16. Military wing of Kremlin (Russian), The New Times, 19 March, 2007
17. ^ Conspiracy theory, by Alexander Yusupovskiy, Russian Journal, 25 April, 2003
18. State control over the internet, a talk show by Yevgenia Albats at the Echo of Moscow, January 22, 2006; interview with Andrei Soldatov and others
19. " Grigory Svirsky Anastasya. A story on-line (Full text in Russian)
20. Template:Ru icon Eye for an eye

• Orphaned articles from February 2009
• Cyberspace
• Public relations techniques
• Psychological warfare techniques
• Internet in Russia
• Conspiracy theories