Konstantin Goloskov says additional Nashi youth involved in Estonia cyber attacks

Last Updated on Wednesday, 11 March 2009 12:39 Written by admin Wednesday, 11 March 2009 11:54

Konstantin Goloskov acknowledged his role in the Estonia cyber attacks of 2007 early on, however now that State Duma Deputy Sergei Markov has revealed that his assistant launched the attack, Goloskov apparently feels OK about revealing that more of his Nashi colleagues were involved.

The Pro-Kremlin Nashi youth movement have direct ties with key Kremlin advisors and the endorsement of President Medyedev and Prime Minister Putin. It is also financed by the Kremlin who, ironically, has cut their budget for FY 2009. The Nashi won’t be going away anytime soon however:

According to sources within President Vladimir Putin’s administration, “the movement is not to be disbanded in full because the powers-that-be know better than that.” The group will also retain some financial backing. However, authorities aren’t planning on using Nashi for political purposes or mass-demonstrations any longer, and the movement will instead focus on more specific social projects.

The Nashi summer camp Innovation Forum was held on the same weekend as the first cyber attack was launched against Georgian President Saakashvili’s Web site. Sergei Markov attended.

Connect the dots.

UPDATE: As much as I’d like to confirm that the “administration” who cut Nashi’s funding is the Kremlin, a more careful read of the source materials cannot confirm that. It remains likely, but not confirmed, pending more research.

Sergei Markov says he knows who started the Estonia cyber war

Last Updated on Friday, 6 March 2009 02:46 Written by admin Friday, 6 March 2009 02:46

… it was his assistant!

A new blog post for Ekho Moskvy makes a startling revelation about the 2007 attacks. The post, by journalist Nargiz Asadova — a columnist for RIA Novosti based in Washington, and an Ekho Moskvy host — describes a March 3 panel discussion between Russian and American experts on information warfare in the 21st century.

Asadova, who was moderating the discussion, asked why Russia is routinely blamed for the cyberattacks in Estonia and Georgia, where government sites were seriously disrupted during the August war.

She might not have been expecting the answer she got from Sergei Markov, a State Duma Deputy from the pro-Kremlin Unified Russia party: “About the cyberattack on Estonia… don’t worry, that attack was carried out by my assistant. I won’t tell you his name, because then he might not be able to get visas.”

Markov, a political analyst who has long been one of Vladimir Putin’s glibbest defenders, went on to explain that this assistant happened to be in “one of the unrecognized republics” during the dispute with Estonia and had decided on his own that “something bad had to be done to these fascists.” So he went ahead and launched a cyberwar.

“Turns out it was purely a reaction from civil society,” Markov reportedly said, adding ominously, “and, incidentally, such things will happen more and more.”

Markov and the Nashi Youth Movement

Apart from Markov’s assistant, the only other person who has confessed his involvement in the Estonia attack was a Commissar of the Nashi, Konstantin Goloskokov.

On July 21, 2008, Sergei Markov attended Nashi’s 2008 ‘Innovation Forum‘, which suffered from a 50% drop in attendance from the year before. Markov commented:

“The first idea was to block a possible Orange Revolution, that’s why last year was so important. Now, they don’t know what to do.”

Perhaps the other cause for Nashi’s doldrums was that in 2007 they were coming off the high of the Estonian cyberwar. Coincidently on July 20, 2008, the day before this Nashi event, anonymous Russian hackers launched a DDOS attack that took the President of Georgia’s website offline.

19 days later, the Nashi doldrums must have vanished when a Russian sea, air, and land assault was launched against Georgia while nationalistic Russian hackers engaged their Georgian counterparts in cyber warfare.

I wonder how many Nashi participated?

Nashi Youth Leader Reveals Existence of Kremlin-financed Spy Program

Last Updated on Tuesday, 10 February 2009 09:20 Written by admin Tuesday, 10 February 2009 08:36

From the Moscow Times:

Anna Bukovskaya, a St. Petersburg activist with the pro-Kremlin Nashi youth group, said she coordinated a group of 30 young people who infiltrated branches of the banned National Bolshevik Party, Youth Yabloko and United Civil Front in Moscow, St. Petersburg, Voronezh and six other cities.

The agents informed Bukovskaya, who passed the information to senior Nashi official Dmitry Golubyatnikov, who in turn contacted “Surkov’s people” in the Kremlin, Bukovskaya told The Moscow Times. Vladislav Surkov is President Dmitry Medvedev’s first deputy chief of staff.

The agents provided information on planned and past events together with pictures and personal information on activists and leaders, including their contact numbers, Bukovskaya said by telephone from St. Petersburg. 

They were paid 20,000 rubles ($550) per month, while she received 40,000 rubles per month, she said.

She said Nashi, which is believed to have been created by Surkov, had nothing to do with the project and speculated that Kremlin officials might be behind it.

From Russian Ren TV (Source: transcript of Russian TV broadcast on Feb 4, 2009)

[Bukovskaya] The project was to become more aggressive, i.e. videos and photos to compromise the opposition, data from their computers; and, as a separate track, the dispatch of provocateurs.

If only the interviewer asked Bukovskaya to clarify “how” data from computers was obtained. Is it too far a leap to say “hacking”? Remember that the sole Russian hacker who confessed to launching DDoS attacks against Estonia, Konstantin Goloskokov, was a Commissar in Nashi. 

Bukovskaya’s revelation colors Goloskokov’s admission in a whole new way. We now have evidence that the Kremlin is enlisting and financing espionage by its youth up to and including the “cyber” domain.

How many nationalistic hackers were members of Bukovskaya’s crew, I wonder?

UPDATE: Just found this article from March 14, 2008 wherein Nashi hackers are accused of launching DDoS attacks against the Kommersant newspaper Web site.