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As war raged in Ukraine last year, Russia’s best digital spies turned to new tools to fight an enemy on another front: those who oppose war within its borders. To aid in the domestic crackdown, Russian authorities have amassed an arsenal of technologies to track citizens’ online lives. After it invaded Ukraine, its demand for more surveillance tools grew. That helped fuel a cottage industry of technology contractors, who have built products that have become a powerful — and innovative — means of digital surveillance.
The technologies have given the police and Russia’s Federal Security Service, or FSB, access to a range of hacking capabilities focused on everyday use of phones and websites. The tools offer ways to track certain types of activity on encrypted apps, monitor phone locations, identify anonymous social media users, and break into people’s accounts, according to documents from Russian monitoring service providers obtained by The New York Times.
President Vladimir Putin is leaning more on technology to wield political power as Russia faces military setbacks in Ukraine, prompting economic sanctions and leadership challenges after the Wagner uprising. In doing so, Russia—which once lagged behind authoritarian regimes like China and Iran in using modern technology to exert control—is quickly catching up. The effort has fueled the coffers of a galaxy of relatively unknown Russian tech companies. Many are owned by the Citadel Group, a company once controlled by Alisher Usmanov, who has been the target of EU sanctions as one of Putin’s “favorite oligarchs”. Some companies are trying to expand abroad, which increases the risk that the technologies will not survive in Russia.
According to the documents, easy-to-use software that plugs directly into the communications infrastructure now provides a Swiss army knife for spying potential. One of the programs described in the material can identify when people are making voice calls or sending files on encrypted chat applications such as cableAnd Signal and WhatsApp. The software can’t intercept specific messages, but it can determine if someone is using multiple phones, and map their relationship network by tracing contacts with others and triangulating which phones were present on a given day. Another product can collect passwords entered on unencrypted websites. People familiar with the process said that a digital exchange between a suspicious person and another person could lead to an investigation or even an arrest.
The technologies have given the police and Russia’s Federal Security Service, or FSB, access to a range of hacking capabilities focused on everyday use of phones and websites. The tools offer ways to track certain types of activity on encrypted apps, monitor phone locations, identify anonymous social media users, and break into people’s accounts, according to documents from Russian monitoring service providers obtained by The New York Times.
President Vladimir Putin is leaning more on technology to wield political power as Russia faces military setbacks in Ukraine, prompting economic sanctions and leadership challenges after the Wagner uprising. In doing so, Russia—which once lagged behind authoritarian regimes like China and Iran in using modern technology to exert control—is quickly catching up. The effort has fueled the coffers of a galaxy of relatively unknown Russian tech companies. Many are owned by the Citadel Group, a company once controlled by Alisher Usmanov, who has been the target of EU sanctions as one of Putin’s “favorite oligarchs”. Some companies are trying to expand abroad, which increases the risk that the technologies will not survive in Russia.
According to the documents, easy-to-use software that plugs directly into the communications infrastructure now provides a Swiss army knife for spying potential. One of the programs described in the material can identify when people are making voice calls or sending files on encrypted chat applications such as cableAnd Signal and WhatsApp. The software can’t intercept specific messages, but it can determine if someone is using multiple phones, and map their relationship network by tracing contacts with others and triangulating which phones were present on a given day. Another product can collect passwords entered on unencrypted websites. People familiar with the process said that a digital exchange between a suspicious person and another person could lead to an investigation or even an arrest.
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