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Censorship The Internet Cellphones Social Networks

'The Kremlin is Lying', Warn Text Messages Sent to Millions of Russian Cellphone Numbers (dailydot.com) 210

Posted by EditorDavid from the dear-Russians dept.
"People around the world are using a new website to circumvent the Kremlin's propaganda machine by sending individual messages about the war in Ukraine to random people in Russia," reports the Wall Street Journal.

"The website was developed by a group of Polish programmers who obtained some 20 million cellphone numbers and close to 140 million email addresses owned by Russian individuals and companies."

A Tuesday report from the Daily Dot: Created by the hacking group known as Squad303, the tool, hosted at the domain 1920.in, loads a pre-written statement into a user's native SMS app that attempts to inform Russians about the ongoing conflict.

"Dear Russians, your media is being censored. The Kremlin is lying," the statement reads. "Find out the truth about Ukraine on the free internet and in the Telegram app. Time to overthrow dictator Putin!"

In a statement to the Daily Dot, a member of Squad303 described the effort as a "non-violent communication project" aimed at bypassing Russia's crackdown on independent news sources.

The domain name for the tool refers to Poland's surprise victory against Russian forces in 1920.

"We know that people wanted to get engaged to help Ukrainians. We wanted to deliver them a tool to start a dialog with Russians," the group said.... Squad303 claims that its tool has already been used to send out more than 6.3 million text messages, although the Daily Dot was unable to confirm the number.
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'The Kremlin is Lying', Warn Text Messages Sent to Millions of Russian Cellphone Numbers More

'The Kremlin is Lying', Warn Text Messages Sent to Millions of Russian Cellphone Numbers

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  • So did Colin Powell to justify the US's illegal war on Iraq...

    • It's worse than that... (Score:4, Informative)

      by StevenMaurer ( 115071 ) on Sunday March 13, 2022 @02:17AM (#62352955) Homepage

      Colin Powell actually believed the information he was given. He was set up with lies by Cheney's little group of propagandists. That's one of the big reasons he resigned later.

      However, as much as I was against the Iraq War from the start, literally nobody imagined that Saddam Hussein was a good guy or not murdering tens of thousands of people in his own country every year.

      I think that there was nobody more eloquent about that than then-State-Senator Barack Obama: [npr.org]

      Now let me be clear — I suffer no illusions about Saddam Hussein. He is a brutal man. A ruthless man. A man who butchers his own people to secure his own power. He has repeatedly defied UN resolutions, thwarted UN inspection teams, developed chemical and biological weapons, and coveted nuclear capacity. He's a bad guy. The world, and the Iraqi people, would be better off without him.

      But I also know that Saddam poses no imminent and direct threat to the United States or to his neighbors, that the Iraqi economy is in shambles, that the Iraqi military a fraction of its former strength, and that in concert with the international community he can be contained until, in the way of all petty dictators, he falls away into the dustbin of history.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by sxpert ( 139117 )

        you forget one thing.
        Saddam did jail all those ISIL islamists, making sure they wouldn't create their Califate.
        the US liberated them. good job !

        • And where's this Caliphate you speak of? I looked all over my 2022 Rand McNally World Map and I'm unable to find exactly where this is?

          Do you care to share?

          • Re: (Score:2)

            by edis ( 266347 )

            Like it didn't at all happen, throats were not cut, terror wasn't there, didn't have to be fought to cleanup.
            You are talking nonsense.

            Yes, war on Saddam was stretched, being set on misinformation and "willingness".

          • It tried to come out thats were isis came from.

            It nearly took hold too. But isis was driven back. Not even all iraqis wanted that mess

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by gmack ( 197796 )

          Not correct. He attacked the Kurds more than anyone else. Kurds as a group rarely joined ISIL.

        • Re: (Score:3)

          by gtall ( 79522 )

          No. He only jailed a few with the idea he could cow the rest. But his government had already been infiltrated by what later became known as Daesh (al-Qaeda) in Iraq. If he'd had been left there, they would have gotten control of a functioning state. And it wouldn't have been hard for Daesh either, the Iraqi military was hollow and only served up what Saddam wanted to hear.

      • Saddam was by no means a good guy but he kept the region stable. Less people would be dead had we left him alone.

        • Less people would be dead had we left him alone.

          Well, different people would be dead, at least...

          One thing that's sort of mildly eerie - while Saddam was still (seemingly) securely in power, there was a story arc in La Femme Nikita (the original TV series) where the two sides of this debate were argued out. It appears Operations argument was the right one, after all...

        • Fewer.

        • he kept the region stable.

          Not really. It stayed stable in that he was prevented from conquering all the other countries he attempted.

        • Saddam was by no means a good guy but he kept the region stable. Less people would be dead had we left him alone.

          Worth reading the Chilcot Inquiry. It wasn't just the fact of invading, it was also that they didn't clean up afterwards. See my other comment.

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by gtall ( 79522 )

          I guess causing over a million dead with his Iran war doesn't count. Or his invasion of Kuwait. Although if it had been me, I wouldn't have turned Kuwait back over to the fat boys in the robes. I'd have given it to the Palestinians: here's yer own state complete with oil reserves. . .have fun or we'll be back.

      • Colin Powell actually believed the information he was given.

        35 years earlier, Colin Powell was a young major in Vietnam given the task of whitewashing the My Lai Massacre.

        He has a long history of lying and then blaming others for misleading him.

        If he couldn't confirm the information from a reliable source (i.e., not Cheney), he shouldn't have repeated it.

      • It's never been clear that Colin Powell believed everything he reported to the US public. He was very faithful to the chain of command, though aware of the limits of satellite photography from his military experience, and familiar with people sculpting reports to achieve political goals from his time as a general and his office as Secretary of State. He may have been willing to cooperate with the orders of his immediate superior, the President of the US, to quote questionable intelligence.

        It served the poli

      • He chose to "believe" something a significant part of USUK allies knew was bullshit, it's not like that was a state secret in Western democracies.
        At the place he was he definitely knew better.

    • Many people also forget (or for youth, never knew) the war in Iraq had many parts.

      One part was with the invasion of Kuwait. Repelling the invasion, getting the destruction and burning of oil fields back under control, that was one.

      Another part was the sanctions and international inspection teams. Instead of access, they were blocked, redirected, locked out of resources, and many times were the subject of international threats. In more than one situation they were locked down, making international faxes on

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by quenda ( 644621 )

        Many people also forget (or for youth, never knew) the war in Iraq had many parts.

        "*The* war"?? How young are you? There was more than one war. The first, under Bush the First, was justified, and carried to a sensible goal.
        The second, under Bush the Second, was not. And this gave great inspiration to Putin, who thought he could have done a better job. (It could hardly be worse.)
        But he failed to notice that Bush II only got away with it because everyone hated Saddam, not just Iran but also his Arab neighbours.

      • Then after that, helping rebuild both a functional transitional government and enough stability to prevent a regional collapse.

        Are you living in a different timeline?

        The only plans for rebuilding I remember were companies lobbying for contracts before the infrastructure they wanted to rebuild was even bombed. There was no comprehensive plan for rebuilding in 2003 and I haven't seen one later either. Bush declared "mission accomplished" while leaving a lot of dangling threads.

        The later rise of IS qualifies as at least a partial regional collapse and was a direct consequence of the power vacuum created by removing Saddam. The new Ira

        • The later rise of IS qualifies as at least a partial regional collapse and was a direct consequence of the power vacuum created by removing Saddam. The new Iraqi state was not able to fill the gaps — in other words, it wasn't rebuilt well enough.

          Beyond the fact that they failed to rebuild right, there was also the decision to completely disband and stop paying the existing Iraqi army. That's completely contrary to what has been done in almost every other occupation and lead to having thousands of unemployed people with military training who later formed the backbone of fighting.

          This wasn't accidental; this was a deliberate Libertarian policy designed to put lots of people into a difficult economic situation in the belief that they would be forced t

    • Technically it was legal, in that the UN (including Russia and China) voted to approve it. Dumb idea and a bunch of lies anyway.

      • The legal basis is rather shaky, to say the least. The UN approved "serious consequences" for Iraq not complying with nuclear inspections, but didn't explicitly approve an invasion and regime change as a method for doing that. A later resolution that unambiguously would have made the invasion legal was withdrawn when it seemed like it wouldn't pass.

      • Technically it was legal, in that the UN (including Russia and China) voted to approve it.

        Russia, China, France, and Germany all voted against the war. [wikipedia.org]

    • But Colin Powel did not try make money on it. At least straight away without leaving the desk in the UN.

      This is the actual difference - most schemes like this also make money on it. I had something similar to this SMS hit one of the Telegram channels which I am subscribed to. After an initial "propaganda header" about the war clearly drafted by the 72nd Ukrainian CIPSO unit (or whatever is left of it), it tried to ask for name, family name, date of birth and bank details.

      I guess some things never change.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by sxpert ( 139117 )

        was colin powell, or any of the politicians / fake intelligence peddling people invested in US weapons manufacturers ?

    • Oh so that makes it ok that Putin is actively demolishing hospitals with artillery rounds and rockets.

      Fuck off with your whataboutism. At least when the US lied and invaded a country without cause, they used precision guided weaponry to by-and-large not hit civilian targets, or level entire cities. There were mistakes, sure; but nothing like we've seen in the last two weeks.

      Any kind of dubious justification for this means you're an apologist shithead. Can't we all just accept that war is bad and should b

  • https://www.twilio.com/sms/pri... [twilio.com]

    I'm not gonna go with the Russian Federation pricing, as that's from US to Russia at a cost of 0.075 per sms. Same continent though it's 0.0075 At that cost it's $150k US to send 20,000,000 SMS messages out. Email spam is free.

    I guess it's not hard to imagine some Ukrainian Oligarchs tossing $150k towards this effort. Hell, get 20 of them together and that's probably what they spend on hookers and blackjack in a night.

  • They got nothing on the extended warranty guys.

    • After a number of years, and SHAKEN and STIR, why do I still get these calls? Enforcement is non-existent.

  • Stop The Steal (Score:5, Insightful)

    by fleabay ( 876971 ) on Sunday March 13, 2022 @01:56AM (#62352943)
    I just got a text message from a group called Stop The Steal. I had no idea that Trump was the legitimate president. Here is the text message I received...

    "Dear Americans, your media is being censored. The White House is lying," the statement reads. "Find out the truth about the real president on the free internet and in the Telegram app. Time to overthrow dictator Biden!"

    ***So yeah, that's what it will look like to the average Ruskie.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Alsn ( 911813 )
      While true, would you not think twice about that message if before you get that, all conservative media had been banned like the free media in Russia has?
      • Not only that, but Russians are being randomly stopped to have their phones checked for "unacceptable" propaganda, and citizens are being arrested for protesting with blank signs. Add in that the Russian ruble value dropping like a rock. If I was aware of all that, and then received a message like above, I might be more inclined to give it credence.

  • ... it's spam text messages.

  • Isn't this exact thing considered cyber-warfare and hence agression worthy of retaliation when done to a NATO country?

    Is the facade is coming of slowly, as public sentiment aganist russia is boiled slowly.

    So people really are rooting for nuclear war in the hopes that Putin will be deposed when he takes the call?

    • No one is worried about Russia retaliating against NATO.

      The only thing to worry about with Russia militarily is their nukes. And half of those don't work.

    • Isn't this exact thing considered cyber-warfare

      Sending textmessages is cyber-warfare? What next, posting shit on an internet forum is cyber-warfare? Having a thought that someone somewhere doesn't like you is cyber-warfare?

      Am I cyber-warfare?

      I mean you've diluted the term so much that I'm not even sure anymore.

    • > Isn't this exact thing considered cyber-warfare and hence agression worthy of retaliation when done to a NATO country?

      Sending an SMS is cyber-warefare?
      I clicked through the link:

      , . . Telegram. !

      In Russia - SMS owns you!

    • Honest question: which former soviet bloc country are you in?

    • But yeah, Pooty Poot would consider it aggression. That's really about him, though.

      Spam against censorship. I have got such mixed feelings about this. But screw Putin.

    • Isn't this exact thing considered cyber-warfare and hence agression worthy of retaliation when done to a NATO country?

      No, it's not. There's a huge difference between killing someone and sending them spam. I don't know why you can't see the difference.

    • Right. And Russian propagandists and useful idiots posting to Slashdot and Reddit the same lies over and over again is "cyber warfare" too, right?

      If you find SMS spam to be "cyber warfare" your mind is going to be blown when you see what real cyber warfare can do.

  • 'The Kremlin is Lying', Warn Text Messages ...

    Anyone remember to text Tucker Carlson, 'cause he needs to hear about this! :-)

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by gtall ( 79522 )

      Tucker's response: I want to know how the White House can send me personalized text messages. I'm just asking stupid questions.

    • But if they do, they'll need to phrase it as a stupid nonsense rhetorical question and then answer it themselves and act shocked at the answer. I mean, that's how Tucker does it.

  • The first casualty in war, is the truth. The TV footage just now shows snow and cold weather. If the Russians can now move off roads, where mud and slosh blunted their options before, things will be different. While it is politically incorrect to say you should surrender, both sides have had ample time to make rational ,sensible and timely decisions. One thinks most Russians believe Putin never changes his mind, and a text message will not amount to much. Not in the news is betting agencies are taking bets
    • Not just that. A text message telling people to dig into the "truth" leads people to finding that the coup in 2014 was orchestrated by the US and that the US has actually been funding and arming fascists. Putin may be lying, but the west is lying more and it's obvious with a modicum of effort to scratch the surface. So this act is fairly self defeating unless the west can just rewrite the entire Internet.

      • Well, yes. An admonition to search for the "truth", especially with a Russian language search will likely lead to Kremlin-generated lies just like the ones you've repeated in your post.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by dasunt ( 249686 )

        Not just that. A text message telling people to dig into the "truth" leads people to finding that the coup in 2014 was orchestrated by the US and that the US has actually been funding and arming fascists. Putin may be lying, but the west is lying more and it's obvious with a modicum of effort to scratch the surface. So this act is fairly self defeating unless the west can just rewrite the entire Internet.

        Without googling, I suspect you couldn't tell me the history of the fascist movement or even the main p

    • While it is politically incorrect to say you should surrender, both sides have had ample time to make rational ,sensible and timely decisions.

      You mean like Russia not invading Ukraine because Putin thinks the USSR should be resurrected? For those who think there is any "rational" decision making, here is what Russia expects Ukraine to do [9cache.com].

      No one would ever agree to any of those terms so to call them "rational" would be about as far from the truth as possible. What Russia wants is for Ukraine to be a vass

      • People should read history books. Factually those with the strongest supply lines tend to win. Terrain is important, where there is high ground. Nobody likes occupiers. Hungary and Poland really annoyed the soviets, and eventually were cast off for poisoning the brand, and smuggling talents.

    • If the Russians can now move off roads, where mud and slosh blunted their options before, things will be different.

      Yes, they will be stuck in the mud far from a road instead of near it.

      The Russians are getting stuck in the places you're supposed to drive. What makes you think they'll do better in places you aren't? That's like saying "surely my plane will do better underwater"

  • ... attempts to inform Russians ...

    Last election cycle, I got similar messages about the 'scamdemic' and worthless vaccinations. When anonymous nut-jobs have posted disinformation, its trustworthiness is zero.

  • Quote: "They were too late! Too late was worst than never!"

  • Use telegram? What kind of stupid advice is that? Telegram is the least secure of all the messaging apps. It doesn't even enable end-to-end encryption. Plus, it is Russians. The Russians are for sure recording everything that happens there, maybe even when you think your phone is off.

    • What do you suggest we use to communicate with Russians? Apps Russians don't use? The point here isn't security.

      Read the fucking room mate. Not everything is about encryption.

  • "All governments lie." - I.F. Stone

    Let's not forget that in times of war.

  • You can tell that a westerner created this campaign. Russians would just laugh and say the equivalent of "Duh, we've always known!"

    In different cultures, the very nature of people's psychology and nature can be radically different, with many morals and values we take for granted are turned upside down and their opposites are considered normal elsewhere. Also why Russian soldiers crying on TV deserve zero sympathy. They might not know the fine details of what was going on at any moment but they KNEW. Any

  • It's just a wild guess, but I suspect 99.997% of Russians receiving those text messages roll their eyes & get pissed about being spammed by a message they either already agree with, or are now even LESS likely to believe because it's such blatant ham-handed propaganda. How many Americans actually believed Tokyo Rose during WWII? Yep, same thing.

    Here's a better idea: collect photos of Ukranians evacuating or sitting in bomb shelters with their CATS. Average Russians might be semi-ambivalent about bombing

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