Live broadcast from Ukraine to… Russia – scandal with video cameras

Independent investigators of the Ukrainian group “Schemes” published material that caused a huge resonance.

We are talking about street security cameras installed throughout Ukraine, which “leaked” data to the Russian Federation, tells BB.LV. Approximately 10,000 devices were associated with suspicious software.

As it turned out, despite the deep Russian-Ukrainian crisis caused by the Maidan, Crimea and the war in Donbass, before the outbreak of full-scale hostilities, thousands of CCTV cameras were installed and functioning in Ukraine, which run on Russian TRASSIR software from DSSL.

They began to appear in Ukraine at least since 2004, although at the moment accurate data can only be established starting from 2016. But even from this date, more than 10,000 cameras were brought to Ukraine. The last deliveries were recorded in February 2022.

These cameras and software were purchased after 2014 by both government services and large businesses, including Kernel, Interpipe, P&G, Big Pocket, Nova Poshta, TV channel 1+1, KAN Development, Ukrbud, Hello, Citrus, Eldorado, IMAX and many others. The cameras were also available in free retail trade and could be purchased and installed by private individuals.

Together with the IT companies “Digital Security Laboratory” and “Computer Forensics Laboratory” “Schemes” conducted an experiment. The camera with Russian TRASSIR software was connected to the Internet via a computer. As it turned out, the device first communicates with the servers and sends video there, and then the information gets to the user’s computer.

Using IP address de-anonymization services, journalists found out that the servers are located in the capital of Russia. They belong to the Digital Network companies, whose clients include the largest Russian search engine Yandex and the federal channel Zvezda, and VK – in particular, the owner of the Russian social network Odnoklassniki, banned in Ukraine, and the email service Mail.ru.

In accordance with Russian legislation, both companies that own the servers on which the video appeared as a result of the experiment are required to interact with the security forces – the FSB and the Ministry of Internal Affairs. After a full-scale invasion, on February 24, 2022, Ukraine blocked Russian IP addresses, including these companies, but the blocking is easy to bypass.

Ukraine is outraged. Moreover, not only the fact of the presence of Russian cameras throughout the country, through which gigantic volumes of intelligence information were sent to Moscow. But also because there are now several dozen people in Ukrainian prisons who, through negligence, posted videos of Russian missiles arriving online. What is the point of punishing them if objective control of the RF Armed Forces is obtained from several thousand cameras throughout Ukraine?

Source link