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This has been used countless times by OSINT investigators to out Russia's covert activities, such as Novichok poisonings of Navalny and Skripal, identifying mos
by kspacewalk2 3y ago
This has been used countless times by OSINT investigators to out Russia's covert activities, such as Novichok poisonings of Navalny and Skripal, identifying most operatives by cross-referencing e.g. flight record, passport, property and even taxi databases sold in Russia, sometimes overtly and sometimes covertly.
- jruohonen 3y agoBut note that 300M is far beyond the population of Russia.
- kspacewalk2 3y agoYeah, this guy's stash may or may not include any Russian data. What I'm saying is that it's a common problem in eastern Europe, in democratic countries and authoritarian hellholes alike. Just because the Russian state can arbitrarily imprison you forever without any valid reason does not make it capable enough as an organization to securely store even data that can be used to badly hurt its interests. The Ukrainian state has been "digitizing" by leaps and bounds even before the war, and now it's accelerated further. Everything's moving "to the cloud". They seem to be relatively competent these days, past lessons learned perhaps. But the breakneck pace of moving everything online (far outpacing most western European countries) will surely result in breaches, it's just common sense.
- jruohonen 3y agoYet some say Ukraine has been quite successful precisely because of their cloud strategy. Opinions vary, of course. The original announcement (via a DeepL translation) indicates that also data of EU citizens was involved, so maybe you are on the right track [1]. [1] https://cyberpolice.gov.ua/news/kiberpolicziya-vykryla-zlovmysnyka-u-zbuti-baz-iz-personalnymy-danymy-gromadyan-ukrayiny-ta-yes-6598/ https://cyberpolice.gov.ua/news/kiberpolicziya-vykryla-zlovm...
- Arrath 3y agoBill Browder's Red Notice[0] described using 'street sourced' data like this as their team dug into the illegal shenanigans being done against their company. [0]https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/22609522-red-notice https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/22609522-red-notice
- pphysch 3y agoCalling it "OSINT" is a stretch when it is state funding and collaboration that enables the firm you are referencing (according to Paul Mason).
- PicassoCTs 3y agoWasn't there a gay couple of assassins, touring Europs famous churches, poisoning people?