As soon as I noticed a book published with this savvy title this year, I knew I had to read it: Fancy Bear Goes Phishing: The Dark History of the Information Age, in five Extraordinary Hacks. In his youth, Scott J. Shapiro spent much time with computers, but later chose a career in philosophy and law. When writing about cyberwar, he returned to computers, re-learning programming and computer science. Attempting to answer the simple questions of why the Internet is insecure, how do hackers exploit insecurity and how they can be prevented, or at least decreased in numbers, Shapiro takes us on a journey with five stops, from the late 1980’s to the hacks of the Democratic National Committee and the Minecraft wars.
Tag: Russia
Democracies in time
Russian authorities are trying hard to foil Swedish plans to join NATO, and try to vie “experts” to argue for the sake of Russia. I still assert democracies should help Russia lose on the battlefield. No one should even consided abandoning Ukraine. You stand by your promise, by your friends.
Book review: The Russo-Ukrainian War
This is the second book of Serhii Ploky I review, a very contemporary, and initially, personal account of The Russo-Ukrainian War, beginning a few days prior to the full-scale invasion and war. The book provides historical insights, and retrospect accounts of Ukraine’s position in the Soviet Union, the aftermath of the Cold War and the beginning of the 2000’s, with the Orange Revolution, EuroMaidan and first invasion of 2014-2015 at its focus. All this, puts the war into a context and provides the reader with a coherent comprehension of what has happened prior to the war beginning last war and why Ukraine is attacked by Russia.
The emperor is all but draped in paper
When Prigozhin’s Wagner troops began their sprint towards Moscow on Friday/Saturday, they were 25.000, 5.000 of them being a vanguard. Vladimir Putin is said to have a security apparatus of hundreds of thousands of men. But yesterday, we witnessed boys with weapons and police officers in Moscow. Not security forces. Perhaps they were unseen. Perhaps they were not, because it’s a sham, a paper machier construction.
Sustainable war or Pandora’s Box in Russia?
Ukraine has proved to be a very tough opponent for Russia. The Ukrainians have been able to kill and injure hundreds of thousands of Russian soldiers. They’ve also proved to be adept at using the Russian propaganda toolkit against the Russians themselves. It might be that Vladimir Putin opened the Pandora’s Box with this war: a sustainable war he cannot end and cannot limit.
Book review: How to lose the information war
Nina Jankowicz’s second book is focused on Central and Eastern Europe and, as the title implies, information warfare, directed by Russia.
Ukraine: The Gates of Europe and Bloodlands
Despite my interest in history I’ve never read on the history of Ukraine. Through the years I’ve read some about the Czech Republic and the Soviet Union, but that’s basically all regarding what’s consideded Eastern Europe. Now I’ve read two books that cover Ukraine from different perspectives and times.
Dead soldiers in Clearview AI (Revised June 15th)
The war between Russia and Ukraine rages on. One method for the Ukrainian resistance to raise awareness of the number of dead Russian (and Ukrainian) soldiers is to use Clearview AI, the facial network services company, which can detect faces and connect them to, for instance, social media profiles.
Perspectives on the war in Ukraine
I have been listening intently to a number of podcasts because of the war in Ukraine. One that is not mainly on the daily “progress” of the war, but rather from a higher perspective is The Ezra Klein Show from New York Times.
Book review: Computational propaganda
Oxford Internet Institute is a go-to-zone whenever I need some knowledge about cyberspace, cybersecurity, Internet research or many other topics. It’s a fascinating interdisciplinary institute, blending what is called social data science, data science with social science. The book comprises case studies of digital disinformation efforts (a main focus is certain types of bots) in nine countries, ranging from Canada and Poland to Russia and, naturally, Ukraine.