Remember last year when we were all reporting on how Conti had crippled Costa Rica with a ransomware attack and was suggesting the people overthrow the government to get one in place that would pay them?
What if that was actually what Conti was trying to test on behalf of Russia or other powers — whether they could overthrow a government by decimating it with a massive ransomware attack? And if they could cripple Costa Rica and leave it vulnerable, what about other Latin American countries?
What if claims of “We’re not political, this is all just business” are a lie and it’s not all just business?
Listen to the newest episode of Darknet Diaries with Jack Rhysider. There is so much many of us didn’t know at the time, and it’s absolutely terrifying.
And I think I owe my Brazilian friend an apology. She has been trying to tell me for a few years that what we hear in the U.S. about South America and Latin America is not the truth and at this rate, the communists will take over all of South America. After listening to the podcast, it strikes me that she may be right about communists trying to do exactly that. Given that I am generally not a conspiracy nut, I will simply reiterate: listen to the podcast and what happened in other countries as well as Costa Rica. Absolutely scary.
> She has been trying to tell me for a few years that what we hear in the U.S. about South America and Latin America is not the truth and at this rate, the communists will take over all of South America. After listening to the podcast, it strikes me that she may be right about communists trying to do exactly that.
Dude, South America is resisting far-right waves like Bolsonaro, Macri, Kast, Milei, and the likes. Lula is trying to do commercial accords with the whole world while having a government full of right-wing known faces; Boric is about to have the right writing the new constitution; Alberto Fernandez and Cristina Kirchner have put Sergio Massa as their successor, which is a know right-wing and pro-USA public figure. What are you talking about communism?
What you are saying is what I believed — well, other than the “Dude” bit. My friend seems to equate anyone towards the left (like Lula) with more extreme communists. Have you listened to the podcast yet? I’d be very interested to hear what you think of the possibility he raises.
Well, sorry about the “dude” bit, but my reaction was a big “WTF?!”, so a single “dude” seemed quite moderated to me. Didn’t meant to offend.
For some context, full disclosure: I’m a 41 years old argentinian programmer and sysadmin, with 20+ years of experience, a robotics degree, and working on a thesis for an epistemology doctorate, which involves philosophy of science and philosophy of technology. And since some years I’m working with 24/7 live streaming services, which involves dealing with security a lot. So I’m not into cybersecurity but I still know a thing or two about having to deal with that kind of issues, both from the attacker and the defender side. And I also studied social sciences, and I’m actively following local and world politics, where actually do my part: I’m a left-wing activist, working in FLOSS and IT history and stuff like that, mostly on the awareness side of issues and trying to make stuff work in a country where tech is very expensive. So, everything that comes next is told from that perspective.
Answering to your questions, I didn’t hear the podcast, but did a read to the transcript before my last comment, and did some quick search before this one: still don’t understand the reference to communism, at all. There isn’t even a mention for Cuba in the context of LATAM, or even China in the context of communism and the tech war with the USA: there’s no communism at all in the whole podcast. The podcast speaks of Russia behind some attacks on LATAM. Are you implying that Russia’s the relationship with “communism”?
The podcast seems too naive. Not about state-founded cyberattacks, but about their speculation of the rationale behind it. I mean, stuff like this: “imagine a phone call from Putin to the president of the Dominican Republic where Putin could say something like, listen, we want you to support our war with Ukraine, and if you don’t, we’ll turn your whole country off”. Please… just go and search stuff like “operation condor” or “lawfare in latin america” to understand why something like that Russia stuff is kinda laughable. This is LATAM: a state-ridden cyberattack is tuesday for us. Our countries started as colonies, and then grow up under the Monroe doctrine. When I was born my country was still under a military dictatorial regime sponsored by the USA that killed decens of thousands of people, and was coordinated in the whole region; right now is happening again, but instead of military coups we get corrupt courts working with media conglomerates. LATAM freed itself from Europe only to then live under the boot of the USA.
We don’t fear Russia, they’re not our enemy: we are neither Europe or the USA. And Russia could not care a bit about what we third worlders have to say about Ukraine: it’s us that need Russia (to get off the USA from our necks), and not the other way around. If you want to know what’s scary for us go check Laura Richarson merely weeks or months ago talking about LATAM natural resources as if they were the USA’s property. If Russia or China or Europe want us to tell pretty things about them, the only thing in the middle is the absolute influence the USA has over the whole region.
The podcast also says nothing about the strong relationship between Microsoft and IT vulnerabilities. It tells us how Microsoft is the worst actor in the chain of private providers when it comes to talk about cybersecurity, but it doesn’t say what’s Microsoft doing in state-ridden software or critical infrastructure in the first place. And if you go take a look at that, you find geopolitics again. Microsoft is not “just” a big enterprise with 8 layers of dumb bureaucracy: it’s also a monopolic behemoth saved by the Bush administration from the split in a very political and strategic case back in 2001, and then allowed to swallow all it could from the IT ecosystems all around the world. We are victims of Microsoft first, BEFORE whatever Putin is planning. And Microsoft is the USA.
I understand your friend calling Lula communist. That’s understandable. Lula’s the leader of the PT, the “workers party”, and was a VERY important figure in the decade from 2005 to 2015 where LATAM had all progressist goverments in strong opossition to the USA influence over the region. In that group of countries were leaders like Evo Morales or Hugo Chavez, which actually talk about communism or socialism. So, “workers party”, “socialism”, “communism”… I get it. But take a look at the last 10 years in Brazil: when Lula ended his mandate, there was a lawfare coup against his successor Dilma Rousseff, then the corrupt and neoliberal Temer took power, then Bolsonaro came, and then Lula barely won again, with big emphasis in “barely”. “Barely” means the 50% of the country voted extreme right, even when it’s government was so awful that even the right-wing stablishment switched to favor Lula. And that’s not all. Dilma was already implementing neoliberal politics (which didn’t saved her from their dirty opponents), and Lula is now elected with a neoliberal vice-president, all of that just as elloquent examples of how far “communism” is from there. Also, all of the LATAM countries were capitalist the whole time they opposed the USA influence, our workers hate the very idea of communism (they vote over and over and over again right-wing politics over promises of “more jobs” and “less poverty”), and everything Lula does is within the capitalist frame. Same thing happens here in Argentina, where we have peronism: a force called “communits” by the right-wingers, but also the same force created to resist communism in the first place (when it was a danger to capitalism, which is no longer the case), and actually hunted communists down during the 70s. The point being: there’s no communism issue in LATAM. “Communism” is a word right-wingers like to use lightly, but communists parties in LATAM don’t get even the 2% of the votes, and have no other power: no media, no armies, no nothing. What right-wingers like to call “communism” are just displays of basic human decency like giving people access to education, to health services, or even working rights. But those are all capitalist policies here.
So, my opinion is that state-ridden cyberattacks are credible, but also it’s nothing new at all, and the word “Russia” is used here as lightly as the word “communism”: two boogieman words for right-wingers, in a world where grown ups know it’s much more complicated than that. And make no mistake that, in case of a Putin scenario like the one speculated in the podcast, the USA will be a shinning freedom knight telling us and the world how to deal with cyberattacks the Microsoft way.
This is what I love about the internet. I get to read different perspectives. Thanks so much for taking the time to write out such a thoughtul comment. I need to read it all again tomorrow when I’ve had some sleep, but to address one of your points: Yes, to my generation — which is a generation older than yours — “communism” was equated with “Russia.” At least that was how it was generally translated here in the U.S. My friend is Brazilian but has lived in the U.K. for many years. Because we are so similar in many respects, perhaps I assumed she would be more of a liberal or a bit left of center. But what she would tell me about Bolsonaro and Lula was so different than what I read here in the press that I didn’t know if American press was biased or if my friend was an extreme right-winger, or both. I wound up thinking “both.” If you follow U.S. news, you will see the same thing — extreme right-wingers in the U.S. talk about the Democrats as “communists.” That’s because they know it will prejudice people by invoking images of Russia and reminders of what we went through in the 60’s to mid-80’s. Anyway, I will read more tomorrow, but it seems that if I understand you, I did not owe my friend any apology. 🙂
Well… er… about that last part… I don’t think friendship and geopolitics go hands with hands: it’s interesting to debate stuff, but when it touchs a nerve it gets unbearable very quickly. it’s a delicate matter. I believe you people experienced a big divide recently with Trump, so if I’m right about it you know what I mean. So let’s just try to love our friends the way they are while that’s sustainable, and then give time to issues to develop when relationship sustainability is gone, as we’re all just people and there’s only so much we can do and live with.
Thing is, that’s actually an important issue with all the polarization we’re living right now all around the world. Somebody needs to build bridges between people if we ever want to avoid civil war. And that’s easy to say.
That’s the stuff that give us nightmares here in LATAM, not Russia or communism. Actually, the strong anti-communism feeling in this region has its basis in the experience of revolutionary guerrillas (which basically means civil war), and not any fear of poverty or loss of democracy: we already live in poverty and weak democracies under capitalism and under the “protection” of the USA. Right-wingers will blame corruption and “idiot people” for that, and left-wingers like me will tell you the USA is actually to blame: but whatever the case, no matter the political spectrum you’re living on, in LATAM what keeps us living in fear is not communism but USA’s retaliations.
Try it. Ask your friend in Brazil about his/her fears. Will say “communism”, of course: but dig a little, and sooner than later you’ll find that passing the “democracy” and “poverty” and “corruption” arguments, there’s the real boogieman of how the USA is going to react if you deviate from their guidelines.
That said, considering the USA’s history, it’s totally understandable to link Russia with communism, even when that link in reality is gone since decades now. You people were main antagonists during the cold war, and the USA was the champion of capitalism. That leaves marks for sure. But I was just considering my point of view before and not yours, so I guess it was actually my mistake.
Cheers.