Sunday, March 06, 2022
WHOA! JUST LIKE THAT: Snapchat turns off public ‘heatmap’ for Ukraine | The Verge
Snapchat turns off public ‘heatmap’ for Ukraine
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Other companies have cut off sources of info on the public’s movements
"Snap has announced that it’s temporarily turning off Snapchat’s “heatmap” feature for Ukraine, making it so the app no longer shows how many snaps are being taken in particular locations. The company says that the move is “a safety precaution” and that there will still be a curated public feed of snaps submitted by Ukrainians.
Normally, the Snap Map displays a color code to show how many people are posting public images in an area. In practice, that means you can get a good idea of where Snapchat users are concentrated. While this publicly available data isn’t usually meaningful (it’s not a surprise that more people are posting from downtown Seattle than the nearby national forest), in a wartime scenario where Russia may want to track evacuations or citizen movements, it’s probably for the best that the feature is turned off.
Other companies have taken similar actions to make Ukrainians’ movements harder to track — Google turned off live traffic information in Ukraine, as did Apple. Snap has also taken a few additional actions following the Russian invasion of Ukraine. According to a news post from the company, it’s stopped showing ads in Russia, Belarus, and Ukraine, and won’t sell ad spots to Russian entities."
In This Stream
Russia invades Ukraine: the latest news on connectivity, cryptocurrency, and more
STARING DOWN A TV STAR: After Reagan and Trump We're Getting Punked All Over Again by Zelenskyy
Opinion | How Zelenskyy’s Acting Career Showed Hints of His Powerful Underdog Leadership
Magazine
Where did the Ukrainian leader learn to rally the public and captivate a western audience?
TV, of course.
By Joanna Weiss is a POLITICO Magazine contributing editor and the editor of Experience magazine, published by Northeastern University.
The first time Volodymyr Zelenskyy appeared on television as the president of Ukraine, he was running around his parents’ apartment in his undershirt, fighting with his niece for bathroom time. It was the pilot episode of “Servant of the People,” a sitcom that premiered in 2015, about a common man who became an unlikely president. Zelenskyy’s character, a divorced high school history teacher named Vasily Goloborodko, stumbled into office after making a long, profane rant against corrupt elections, which one of his students secretly filmed and posted on YouTube. When it went viral, students crowdfunded his fee to qualify for the upcoming election. He wound up winning more than 60 percent of the vote — to the shock of the nation’s shadowy ruling oligarchs, its political apparatus and, most of all, the candidate himself.
By the time Zelenskyy actually ran for president of Ukraine four years later, he had become a national celebrity, with a show that both mocked and paralleled Ukraine’s longstanding battles with corruption. . .And his talent for public expression is not just a ticket to name recognition at election time; it’s also a potent governing tool. That should be no surprise to anyone who remembers Ronald Reagan. Trump used the skills he’d built as a tabloid centerpiece-turned-TV-star to hone his still-rock-solid base. . .
As he navigates this unfamiliar world, Zelenskyy’s onscreen persona is closer to Jon Stewart’s than Will Ferrell’s; a bemused observer, rather than the butt of the joke. The camera often finds him in reaction shots, . .
[. ] In a 2017 interview with the website Cinema Escapist — back when he was only a make-believe politician — Zelenskyy said life in Ukraine had bred a particular brand of comedy, heavy on wordplay and satire that reflected current events and helped the public grapple with challenging news.
. . .Academics have pointed to the iPhone selfie videos he posted on social media — standing in front of buildings in Kyiv, stating his determination with a sly smile — as key early tools that steeled resolve among his own people and shamed European leaders into offering support. He has embraced more formal-looking communication, too: In a video posted to Facebook on Wednesday, he rallied Ukrainians in plain-spoken language and a practiced cadence, calling attention to “six days of war like 30 years” and promising that “the time will come when we will be able to sleep.” It all comes with a conviction that has turned Ukraine into one of the most compelling underdogs in recent history. No matter what happens on the ground in Kyiv in the coming days, the world’s moral compass has been set. . ."
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Volodymyr Zelensky Is Not a Meme
The Ukrainian president's actions in the face of the Russian invasion turned him into a hero online. But the Marvelization of political figures is dangerous.
Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky’s family photo keeps appearing in my social media feeds. Perhaps you’ve seen it, too. The picture shows the politician alongside his wife and daughter, holding his son in his lap. Father and son grin, wearing superhero facepaint. It is a happy moment. This photo is captioned with a snippet of Zelensky’s inauguration speech from 2019: “I do not want my picture in your offices. The president is not an icon, an idol or a portrait. Hang your kids' photos instead, and look at them each time you are making a decision.”
As Ukraine continues to fight against Russia’s invasion, its 44-year-old president has transformed into a beloved wartime leader. As such, this isn’t the only Zelensky imagery going viral right now. There’s also a front-facing video he made with his cabinet members as they hunkered down in Kyiv, as well as photos of him dressed for combat. His quip turning down an evacuation offer from the United States (“I need ammunition, not a ride”) is already emblazoned on shirts, mugs, and flags for purchase on Etsy. Admirers are photoshopping his head onto Captain America, professing to have raging crushes on him, and creating “fan cam” video collages as digital tributes. Zelensky is the number-one target of the country with the most nukes in the world, and he’s not backing down—if there was ever a time to idolize a political figure, it might be this moment.
But politicians aren’t meant to be idolized, even in their finest hours. That was, in fact, the point excerpted from Zelensky’s speech. And there is a difference between admiring a leader’s actions and adulating them like a K-pop star. Believing that the Russian invasion of Ukraine is an atrocity and that Zelensky is behaving courageously does not mean that it’s wise to apply the googly-eyed logic of fandom to his actions. In fact, it’s distinctly unwise. Treating Zelensky like a superhero—call it Marvelization—recasts a geopolitical conflict in which real people are really dying into entertainment, into content. As Russia bombed Kyiv, the New York Post published an article about who might play Zelensky in the inevitable film adaptation of the conflict. (The consensus? Avengers actor Jeremy Renner.)
Who does this help, exactly? . . He doesn’t have magical powers. Thrusting an actual person into the role of Cinematic Savior is wildly unfair.
READ more >> https://www.wired.com/story/ukraine-volodymyr-zelensky-meme/
MASSIVE HYBRID CYBER ATTACKS ON RUSSIAN INFORMATION SOURCES: American FBI and CIA Among Attackers
Intro: The list of domains points to European Union and US organizations, including the sites of the FBI and CIA (although one can spoof the referrer header info).
Russia shares list of 17,000 IPs allegedly DDoSing Russian orgs
"The Russian government shared a list of 17,576 IP addresses allegedly used to launch distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attacks targeting Russian organizations and their networks.
The list was shared by the National Coordination Center for Computer Incidents (NKTsKI), an organization created by Russia's Federal Security Service (FSB), together with guidance to defend against the attacks and a second list containing attackers' referrer domain information.
"The National Coordinating Center for Computer Incidents (NCCC) in the context of massive computer attacks on Russian information resources recommends taking measures to counter threats to information security," the Russian government agency said in a notice.
While the list of IPs does not provide info on the attackers' identity, the list of domains points to European Union and US organizations, including the sites of the FBI and CIA (although one can spoof the referrer header info).
Another domain points to a Google Docs document containing instructions on how to use the open-source Low Orbit Ion Cannon (LOIC) DDoS attack tool on Windows, macOS, iOS, and Android devices to target Russian resources in a joint DDOS attack.
From BleepingComputer's review of NKTsKI's IP address list, many of the IPs correspond to residential Internet users who may face legal charges if their government decides not to turn a blind eye to their cyber activities.
DDoS defense recommendations shared by the NKTsKI include:
- Using DDoS protection services
- Restricting network traffic based on the shared referrer info
- Disabling plugins and web statistics scripts
- Using Russian DNS servers
Ukraine's IT Army and its Russian targets
While the Russian govt agency didn't provide evidence to support its claims, the warning aligns with Ukraine's Vice Prime Minister Mykhailo Fedorov announcing the creation of an "IT army" to support the country's "fight on the cyber front."
The IT Army was created after the Ukrainian Defense Ministry started recruiting Ukraine's underground hacker community to help with cyberattacks against Russia.
Since it was assembled, IT Army members have coordinated their efforts using a Telegram channel where they also have access to a list of Russian targets.
The list includes over 30 targets, such as Russian government agencies, IP addresses, storage devices, and mail servers, as well as state-owned banks, large corporations supporting Russian critical infrastructure, and high-profile Russian tech giants like the Yandex Russian search engine and email portal.
The creation of the Ukrainian IT Army was prompted by what the Ukrainian Security Service (SSU) called a "massive wave of hybrid warfare."
This tide of attacks includes DDoS attacks against Ukrainian government agencies and state-owned banks, destructive malware attacks [1, 2], and phishing campaigns targeting the Ukrainian military.
You may be very tempted to join Ukraine's IT Army after watching the Russian army invade Ukraine and get involved in cyberattacks against Russian orgs.
However, it's crucial to understand that you may make things worse and to remember the legal ramifications since denial of service attacks, breaching networks, and defacing websites is illegal in most countries, regardless of your target of choice."
Three Time All-American WNBA National/Olympic Gold Medal Winner and Phoenix Mercury Star Detained in Russia on Drug Charges
Key Background
Griner, 31, is a seven-time WNBA All-Star and has won two Olympic gold medals. Like a number of WNBA players, Griner plays in Russia in the winter off-season to supplement her income. She has played for Russia’s Yekaterinburg UMMC since 2015. The WNBA told the Times that all of its players have left Russia and Ukraine, except Griner.
March 5, 2022 11:59 AM EST
State Department Urges U.S. Citizens To Leave Russia ‘Immediately’ As American Basketball Player Detained
The State Department warned U.S. citizens in Russia to depart immediately Saturday – ramping up the level of alarm from a February 27 advisory in which it told Americans to “consider” leaving immediately – and continued to direct Americans not to travel to the country in the wake of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
The State Department warned that Russian security officials could harass U.S. citizens while the U.S. Embassy has “limited ability to assist” Americans, and the sharply diminished number of flights into and out of the country.
A WNBA player was detained at Russia’s Sheremetyevo airport, near Moscow, after officials found vape cartridges containing hashish oil in her luggage, the New York Times and USA Today reported on Saturday, citing the Russian Federal Customs Service. Russian news agency Tass identified the player as Phoenix Mercury center Brittney Griner, citing an anonymous law enforcement source.
The Times reports Griner could face up to 10 years in prison, and the WNBA said in a statement to USA Today her “her swift and safe return” is the organization’s main priority. Read more about her detainment here.
— Anna Kaplan
Further Reading
Russia Says It Has American Basketball Player in Custody (New York Times)
WNBA star Brittney Griner detained in Russia on drug charges (USA Today)
Saturday, March 05, 2022
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Flash News: Ukraine Intercepts Russian Kh-59 Cruise Missile Using US VAMPIRE Air Defense System Mounted on Boat. Ukrainian forces have made ...
