#5 - Ukraine conflict and hacktivism, Neil Young removes his music from Spotify, and Susy Thunder

Ukraine conflict and hacktivism

This month, dozens of Ukraine’s government systems were wiped with a tool they believed was part of a coordinated attack. The ransomware called WhisperGate overwrites the booting system of the machines with a ransom note demanding Bitcoin worth $10,000, though the message doesn’t immediately appear on devices. After a forced reboot, the user sees the message and believes they need to pay money to decrypt the system. But the computer is now unrecoverable.

WhisperGate is not a new kid in the block. It seems it shares large chunks of code with the old-well-known wiper WhiteBlackCrypt. WhiteBlackCrypt also masqueraded as ransomware but had a wiper component to erase systems. It targeted Russian victims two years ago. Ukraine’s government-speak person said that the actors behind WhisperGate may have used the WhiteBlackCrypt code in an attempt to point the finger at Ukraine falsely. A False Flag attack? Another coincidence is they share the same wallet in the now-bankrupt WEX exchange.

On Monday, the Belarusian Cyber Partisans announced that they had breached the computer systems of Belarusian Railways as part of a hacktivist effort. They’ve called for a commitment from the Belarusian national train system not to transport Russian troops for a potential invasion of Ukraine. According to WIRED, “while the hackers’ permanently deleted some backup systems, others were merely encrypted and could be decrypted if the hackers provided the keys.”

While some analysts think reversible encryption is a new form of hacktivism, others believe it can be a tactic to avoid irreversible damages over critical infrastructures when practicing False Flag actions. But how do we distinguish between real hacktivists and government agencies pretending to be partisans? Juan Andrés Guerrero-Saade gives some good advice and hints.

Neil Young removes his music from Spotify.

Neil Young posted a letter (now deleted) to his management team and record label demanding that they remove his music from Spotify. “I am doing this because Spotify is spreading fake information about vaccines – potentially causing death to those who believe the disinformation being spread by them […] I want you to let Spotify know immediately TODAY that I want all my music off their platform […] They can have Rogan or Young. Not both.”

Young is talking about the Joe Rogan Experience. Almost 300 doctors, physicians, and science educators signed an open letter asking Spotify to immediately establish a clear and public policy to moderate misinformation on its platform, pointing at Rogan’s Spotify-only and largest audience podcast in the world.

The answer from Spotify was -as expected- to remove Neil Young music from the platform. And I say “as expected” because of the economic incentives. Spotify is not financially dependent on Young’s streams or subscribers (the company loses money). But it makes money every time someone listens to Joe Rogan.

Spotify has also published a memo saying that it has reviewed multiple controversial Joe Rogan Experience episodes and determined they “didn’t meet the threshold for removal.”

Searching for Susy Thunder

Susy Thunder is another story of a woman in technology that never was acknowledged, while her partners in crime got all the fame and attention (and the jail in this case). If you love retro computing and “Halt and catch fire”-like stories, please sit and relax reading the story.

More stuff

About 1% of TLS certificates from ‘Let’s Encrypt’ were not valid and had to be reissued.

Dark Souls servers were taken down due to a severe vulnerability.

Supply chain issues in computer components force Meta to buy instead of building a supercomputer.

The music snippet

As expected, I prefer Neil Young to Joe Rogan.