Meet the Ethical Hackers At War With Putin

We’ve got a special presentation on the show for you today, an interview with Yuliana Shemetovets, the spokesperson for a group of ethical hackers going to war with Belarusian dictator Alexander Lukashenko. They’re called the Cyber Partisans and they’re responsible for hacks against the Lukashenko regime.

Lukashenko is a die-hard Putin ally who has been in charge of Belarus since 1994. In that time, the country has become more unstable. Protestors have disappeared from the streets and Belarus has allowed Russian troops to move through the country to strike at Ukraine.

The Cyber Partisans have worked behind the scenes to disrupt Lukashenko’s regime. They’ve hacked the Belarusian railway system, which still runs on Windows XP, and obtained phone calls between government officials.

You’ll hear a little untranslated Belarussian in this episode. I only want to highlight one bit that I think is important. When Shemetovets is talking about acquiring phone calls, we’ll play the raw audio of Belarussian government officials talking. What you’re hearing is someone bragging about beating up a protestor.

“I open the…car door, and pull this [woman] by her hair. I kicked her, and told the riot police to..and that bitch started screaming.”

The translated audio has quite a few more explivites in it.

This is an on-camera interview that first aired on VICE News as an episode of SuperUsers. It was produced by Louise McLoughlin and Cal Bateman.

We’re recording CYBER live on Twitch. Watch live on Wednesdays at 4pm EST. Follow us there to get alerts when we go live. We take questions from the audience and yours might just end up on the show.

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