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A new scope of censorship - a system is being introduced in Russia to control memes, cartoons and political videos. We tell you how, using the "Oculus" system, Roskomnadzor plans to find criticism about Putin even in pictures and videos. The system has already been put into operation at the beginning of 2023. We analyze in detail how it works now and what it can do. Since the war in Ukraine, Roskomnadzor has been rapidly expanding the degree of control in the Russian-language Internet and introducing new systems for strict censorship. For example, since 2023, the agency has launched "Oculus". With the help of this system, more than 200,000 images a day are automatically analysed and the so-called banned content will be found in them promptly. This includes propaganda of suicide, drugs, and tobacco products. However, the system is primarily designed for political purposes. The system intends to be used to identify calls for mass protest actions and insults to Vladimir Putin in images and videos in a short period of time. The General Radio Frequency Centre (GRFC) is responsible for the project. Employees of the centre found contractors to create “Oculus” and supervise its implementation, use and subsequent fine-tuning. Thanks to the hacking of the servers of the General Radio Frequency Centre, Cyberpartisan obtained the internal documents and source code of the system in the autumn of 2022. And today we'll tell you how “Oculus” works and what its implementation will mean for the Internet. "Oculus" — From Idea To Implementation Work on “Oculus” began on October 21, 2021, with a scientific study assigned to staff at the Moscow Institute of Physics and Technology. At a cost of 15 million Russian rubles, they were tasked with finding out in two months whether it was possible to use artificial intelligence to find certain content in images and videos. In addition, MIPT employees had to develop the concept of "Oculus". As a result of the conducted work, it has been confirmed that it is possible in principle to use artificial intelligence for such tasks. And in December 2021, the technical specifications were issued, according to which contractors searched for the development of the "Oculus" system. In August 2022, the task was contracted to Execution RDC for 58 million roubles. This company was established in 2014 by two first-time businessmen, Artem Ponomarev (on the left below) and Sergei Brailko (on the right below), with a share capital of just 10,000 rubles. And at the beginning of 2022, it had only 29 employees. They had not previously dealt with government contracts, but they undertook to develop “Oculus” from scratch by December 12, 2022, that is, in just four months. According to experts familiar with the technical specifications, the budget and time frame for the project are unrealistic and perplexing. However, in February 2023 Roskomnadzor announced the launch of the system. Now let's examine what a small company managed to accomplish in such a short period of time and with a modest budget. Let us tell you more about how “Oculus” works. Sources From the USA The system is based on Yolo 5, an open-source artificial intelligence architecture developed by Glenn Jocher, the founder of the American company Ultralitics. You can easily see how Yolo 5 works on the company's official website. All you must do is upload a photo to the website and, online, the artificial intelligence will identify all the main objects it depicts. In terms of neural networks, this project was ideally suited to the implementation of the “Oculus” prototype. Thus, the Russian company Excursion DC has in fact further developed a ready-made solution created in the USA for recognizing various objects in photos and videos. How Oculus Censorship Works “Oculus” can identify predefined images, such as logos, coats of arms, symbols, and faces of politicians. Below you can see examples of images where the system's artificial intelligence has been trained to identify negative information. All such images considered violations by Roskomnadzor's censors and should be blocked so that even on the Internet people cannot share their point of view and joke about sensitive political topics. The system itself does not search for infringing images and videos, nor does it have a user interface at all. “Oculus” is integrated into a single information analysis module used by Roskomnadzor censors. Through it, images and videos from sources that are already under Roskomnadzor's constant scrutiny are fed into the system. For example, from the pages of famous bloggers, politicians, media personalities and online publications. And “Oculus”, in turn, must analyse these materials and give the operator the result. Better In Words Than In Deeds The system checks exactly the images. That is, the “Oculus” splits all the uploaded videos into separate frames and searches each of them for prohibited content. And for the task at hand, the system works rather slowly. If we take the speed of 200,000 images per day announced by Roskomnadzor, it takes about 3 seconds to process one image. And even a relatively short video contains several thousand frames. So, the system is unlikely to be able to process more than a few hundred videos a day, while there are thousands of them on the Internet every day. In other words, “Oculus” will only help Roskomnadzor check a very small proportion of new videos from sources that are already under the censors' control. And now, the system only searches for specific images. If a video, for example, agitates to join the Right Sector, but does not have its logo or is drawn in a non-standard way, “Oculus” will not recognize banned content.😉 In this way, the system works faster than a human, but not more effectively. And despite loud statements about the launch of “Oculus” in February 2023, now Roskomnadzor has at its disposal, in our estimation, a prototype of the desired solution rather than a full-fledged product. To create a software package capable of finding banned content in more videos, according to various estimates from internal documents of the State Radio Broadcasting Centre, between 500 million and 1.5 billion roubles is needed. And at the moment it has not been implemented. Napoleonic Plans According to the internal documents, the plans for work on “Oculus” are scheduled to run until 2025: 2023 — the system is going to "learn" to process videos with broken frame sequences and pictures, as well as improve text recognition and expand the list of objects to search. 2024 — they will add analysis of emotions, the age of faces, and people's poses and actions. 2025 — “Oculus” will be able to distinguish fakes in images and identify people by their silhouettes. In a developed democracy, such neural network and artificial intelligence technologies would be used primarily for the public good. For example, to detect and block the propaganda of suicide, drugs, paedophilia. But in Russia at the moment, they are mainly used for total political control of the society. And in the future, unfortunately, similar technologies may be used in Belarus. Therefore, we ask to spread this video so that as many people as possible could learn about “Oculus” system and to publish internal documents on it which we obtained by hacking into the networks of the General Radio Frequency Centre. Subscribe and follow updates on CyberPartisan's Telegram channels.

Modern systems based on artificial intelligence, machine learning, and neural systems in the hands of cruel and unscrupulous people can be very dangerous. Especially when they work for a dictatorship. Today we will talk about one such systems, which is going to be fully used in Russia by 2024. The same will be true for Belarus in its further integration with its eastern neighbor. We will talk about the “Vepr” system. Its main task is to detect discontent in society at an early stage and predict how exactly it will spread. In other words, the “Vepr” system will search for the slightest critical comments and predict whether they will lead to protests in the city, county, or the whole country. If there is a high risk, information will be immediately sent to the law enforcement agencies to extinguish discontent in its initial stages. In other words, the work of this system resembles the plot of science fiction movies, in which punitive agencies, thanks to modern technology, find and punish so-called "criminals" before they even dare to commit a crime. Only the artificial intelligence of the “Vepr” system is going to be used mainly for political purposes. Against those who express dissatisfaction with the current situation in Russia. CyberPartisans obtained documents on the “Vepr” system while hacking into the network of the General Radio Frequency Centre (GRFC ), a subsidiary of Roskomnadzor. GRFC for short. It is this agency that has been tasked with implementing the project. The information we have received, and our expert knowledge fully allow us to assess the high danger of the “Vepr” system to society, should it be implemented in accordance with Roskomnadzor's plans. Therefore, we believe it is appropriate to tell you about the operation of this system in full detail and publish documents on it on our channels. We also ask that you share this video and spread the word about the “Vepr” system to anyone who might be affected by its operation.❗ "Vepr" — responsible persons Work on the "“Vepr”" system began when in 2021 the General Radio Frequency Centre, which was commissioned by Roskomnadzor to implement the project, signed a contract with the Moscow Institute of Physics and Technology for 10 million rubles. For this amount of money, scientists undertook to study whether it is realistic to create artificial intelligence, which is able not only to detect discontent with political figures, but also to develop scenarios for its dissemination. To predict exactly how criticism will grow on the global network and what consequences it will lead to. Konstantin Vyacheslavovich Vorontsov became the project manager on the MIPT side. At the end of 2021, he presented documentation for the development of “Vepr” and a set of techniques by which this system can work. Thus, the MIPT staff gave a positive answer - it is realistic to develop such artificial intelligence. But they did not undertake to develop the system themselves. To find developers, GRFC held a separate competition, in which only one company took part - Neobit LLC, which specializes in the development of systems in the field of information security. In 2007, it was founded by Dmitry Zegzhda together with his father. As the director of the St. Petersburg Institute of Cyber Security and Information Security, Zegzhda began recruiting employees for Neobit mainly from among students and professors at the institute. The main customers and partners were government agencies: the FSB, the Ministry of Defence, FSTEC, the Foreign Intelligence Service, and the Interior Ministry. In April 2021, the U.S. Treasury Department even put Neobit on the U.S. sanctions list for its involvement in FSB cyber operations. The company currently employs about 150 information security specialists. You can see a list of Neobit employees who participated in the development of ““Vepr”” below: The work on the system was conditionally divided into three stages. The first of them ended on January 31, 2023. According to the plan, 60 million rubles had been spent on the creation of the system by that time. The costs of the next stages of development and equipment were estimated at approximately 634 million rubles. If Neobit fails with the development,several other companies are being considered by GRFC to back it up. Among them is "Cribrum" JSC, however its specialists have estimated terms of "“Vepr”" development in 50-100 years and doubted, in general, whether such a system could be implemented according to the existing terms of reference. In addition, among such "back-up" organizations was RTI JSC, which is already developing a system similar to the "Vepr" for the Ministry of Defense of the Russian Federation. How does "Vepr" work? Now we will tell you in more detail how exactly the "“Vepr”" works. The data for analysis comes from another system called “Mir”. It has been in use since October 2022. The main task of the “Mir” is to collect information from the entire Russian-language Internet. Initially, it was set up to monitor open resources. But with the help of a farm of bots that look and communicate like people, Roskomnadzor intends to eventually penetrate closed communities as well. We have already written about this before. Now, the “Mir” system collects any textual information, but in the future, it also plans to monitor video and graphics. Then all materials will then be sent to the "“Vepr”" system for analysis. Its artificial intelligence finds texts with discontent, predicts how it is likely to escalate, and identifies the source - the first publication that started the threat. You can see a list of the technologies that were used to create the system below. Among the mass of material that enters the system, ““Vepr”” monitors the number of repeat publications, as well as other parameters of information distribution. If the increase in the number and rate of publications exceeds the threshold, ““Vepr”” identifies the situation as a probable threat and reports it to the Roskomnadzor analyst. The censorship officer, in turn, decides, for example, to block and delete content at the early stages of discussion, as well as to pass information on disgruntled commenters "to the authorized bodies". Danger Of the "Vepr" System The specialists who did the risk analysis obviously underestimated the capabilities of hacktivist groups such as CyberPartisans. But we, in turn, take the threat of implementing the "“Vepr”" system seriously. If it is activated as planned, it will lead to a strengthening of the dictatorship and total control of society with little chance of any protest in the country. ❗ That is why we will be sure to release important documents that are related to its operation. Stay tuned to CyberPartisan's Telegram channels for updates.

Roskomnadzor will launch bots that will penetrate the communities of Russians, Belarusians and Ukrainians in May 2023. With their help they are going to obtain information even from closed chats and create influence groups that will broadcast certain ideas and sentiments, including creating the effect of a majority satisfied with the Kremlin’s policies. This is how Roskomnadzor's censors help Putin retain power in the face of severe condemnation from the entire civilized world. This is especially important on the eve of the upcoming Russian presidential elections in 2024. The Bot Farm project is not in the public registers of Roskomnadzor. But thanks to the hacking network of his subordinate department — the “General Radio Frequency Centre” (GRFC) — the CyberPartisans obtained secret documents that relate to this system. In this article we reveal who is responsible for the creation of this Bot Farm and exactly how they plan to use it. When And Why Is a Bot Farm Launched? The staff of the GRFC began developing the Bot Farm in the summer of 2022. The work is scheduled to be completed in May 2023. One of the project documents states, that the Bot Farm is needed for the following purposes: Creation of personal accounts for personal use. Creation of influence groups. Who Creates Bots The project team consists mainly of analysts and developers. Its head is Vladislav Dmitrievich Kovalev — deputy head of the Internal Projects Department. LLC Neobit is also involved in the implementation. This company is engaged in the development of other automated systems for censorship. Its technical director, Dmitriy Moskvin, is a member of the Expert Council of the GRFC of Roskomnadzor for Artificial Intelligence and takes an active part in it. What Bots Can Do And What They Look Like As conceived by Roskomnadzor, the bot farm will allow: The creation of many accounts that look like the accounts of real people. They could use them to infiltrate open and closed Internet communities in order to find materials that would be dangerous from the point of view of censors. To disseminate certain publications, ideas and opinions. This automation will allow such fake accounts to be unique. They will able not to overlap with each other in photos, posts, and comments. As if they were all real users with their own histories, interests, and activities. When creating bots, the system operator assigns each of them a behaviour profile, age, place of residence, intensity of activity, interests, and history. On the screen you can see a sample interface of the Autobot system, which is presented in the internal documents of Roskomnadzor. Bots are programmed to perform all actions based on given psychological portraits. For example, to add users who studied at the same university to their friends, to subscribe to a community of interest, and so on. The operator sets up only the initial settings, and then the bots function autonomously on social networks and messengers. They can add and delete photos, audio recordings, write posts, change statuses, give likes, and even write personal messages to other users. At the same time, the operator can control their behavior at any time, changing settings and giving them certain tasks. All of this can be done with a single bot or a group of bots. What Social Networks And Messengers Will Bots is going to be launched? You can see that list of social networks and messengers below. They include VKontakte, Odnoklassniki, Live Journal, Youtube, TikTok, Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and Telegram. In other words, these are all platforms popular in Russia, Belarus, and Ukraine. There are plans to create from 20 to 100 bots for one purpose or another. However, the passport of the project states that the number of bots may not be limited and can be scaled up depending on the tasks. How Do They Plan To Implement Bots? So how will social media allow an army of Roskomnadzor bots through? Their experts, in turn, are constantly developing new algorithms to identify and block such accounts. Therefore, when registering a new account, we often have to leave a telephone number or e-mail or enter verification codes and captchas. Чтобы обойти эти приемы, в Роскомнадзоре собираются использовать систему, которая автоматически подбирает ботам разные айпи адреса, виртуальные номера телефонов, одноразовые электронные почты, уникальные отпечатки браузера и даже вводит коды подтверждения. To circumvent these tricks, Roskomnadzor is going to use a system which automatically picks up different IP addresses, virtual phone numbers, disposable emails, unique browser fingerprints and even enters confirmation codes. Interestingly, Roskomnadzor's circumvention documents bot recognition system, the possibility of shady purchase of SIM cards or ready-made accounts on the black market is openly considered. Cooperation with external providers is also mentioned as a solution to the registration problem. Roskomnadzor plans to take mobile phone numbers from five virtual number providers. For registration via e-mail, several one-time mail services are available, and automatic registration of accounts on mail sites has been implemented. In addition, there are several other services, which help to automatically pass the captcha and provide each bot with a personal IP address. Unfortunately, the names of these services are not mentioned in the documentation. At the same time, the farm should make it possible to use bots for other monitoring systems developed by Roskomnadzor, for example, to work in conjunction with the Vepr system. It is also set to launch in 2023. The Vepr system is designed to identify so-called tension points in society. In other words, online resources where any dissatisfaction with the current situation in Russia is expressed. The system is supposed to capture texts of criticism and predict the extent to which the negativity is spreading, so that the authorities can quell discontent in its initial stages. It can be assumed that the bot farm is needed to detect criticism even in closed communities and to create a satisfied majority effect. So that critics feel less supportive in their statements. In the future, we will go into more detail about how the Vepr system works, and how to distinguish a bot from a real person. Follow updates on CyberPartisan's channels on Telegram!

SecureTower from FalconGaze is a programme with the help of which the Roskomnadzor management monitors its employees like animals in a zoo. The system intercepts and records all actions on employees' computers down to the keystrokes. This is how Roskomnadzor even gets personal information about employees: 🔺 Correspondence in social networks, messengers. 🔺 Documents (even personal ones). 🔺 Passwords. 🔺 Credit card details, etc. FalconGaze's website says that their system "helps companies protect themselves from leaks", but in fact it was SecureTower that made CyberPartisans aware of all employee PC activity for many months. We hacked their product and gained access to all of the above information. 😎 ⚠️ By the way, FalconGaze shamelessly stole and renamed some code libraries, violating their licences. The details of this have already been submitted to the relevant European authorities. 🤝

On the anniversary of the tragedy in Minsk subway on April 11, 2011 we publish a historical document - the death sentence to D.G. Konovalov and V.Y. Kovalev. We also found that their dates of death recorded in the AIS Passport system diverged from those officially announced. D. G. Konovalov died on March 14, 2012, although it was still believed that the sentence against him was put into execution on March 16. The date of death of V. Y. Kovalev is recorded as May 15, 2012. Although his mother was notified of the putting of the sentence into execution on March 16. This most resonant case in the history of modern Belarus raises many questions, which have not been answered yet. We hope that after the restoration of the rule of law in the country, the investigation of this tragedy will be properly handled. No one will escape responsibility. 👊📛

Roskomnadzor uses the Brand Analytics system to automatically collect all Russian-language comments, posts and articles on the war in Ukraine. Today we will tell you what it is, who owns this IT product and how it is used. What is Brand Analytics Brand Analytics is a Russian system for monitoring and analysing the media field on the Internet. It is designed to analyse media, public channels and chat rooms, forums, social networks, blogging platforms, video hosting and other open sources that can be used to track people's reactions to certain events. Brand Analytics is developed by an organisation of the same name, which was founded in 2013 as part of the Ayteko group of companies. Ayteko - is a Russian IT integrator, operating on the market since 1997, one of the top 5 largest IT companies in the Russian Federation. 74% of shares are owned by billionaire Shamil Shakirov. 25% is owned by Alexey Remizov, a former lecturer at the USSR KGB Higher School (now the FSB Academy's IKSI), who in the 90s actually stood at the origins of the Russian IT market development. Since its foundation, Ayteko has been working closely with the American company Hewlett-Packard (HP) for 17 years. The Brand Analytics system was developed with its financial support in 2013-2014. The management of both IT giants planned to use this system in combination with the HP Explore software system. Brand Analytics was needed to monitor and collect information from social media, while HP Explore was needed to research, extract meaning and visualise the collected data. However, as of mid-2014, there are no more media reports about the collaboration between Ayteko and HP. Initially, it was stated that the project was focused on analysing marketing trends, monitoring the business reputation of brands, and tracking public opinion on business products. Therefore, it would be possible to respond to the opinions and requests of the audience in a timely manner. Prior to the publication of data from the servers of GRFC, such well-known companies as Decathlon, KFC, Sony, Bayer, Ahmad Tea, etc. could be seen among the major partners on the Brand Analytics website. Now most of the logos of foreign companies have been removed. However, in reality, the system is used not only for business development. Today, Brand Analytics has become part of the Kremlin's repressive apparatus and is used by Roskomnadzor to monitor media and users in the Russian-language segment of the Internet. How is Brand Analytics being used for surveillance in Runet? There are a lot of thematic videos about the functionality of Brand Analytics on the Internet. Therefore, we will only tell you about the part of the system's work that directly concerns tracking articles and comments on the war in Ukraine. Brand Analytics can be used to collect information from the following sources: Online media, press, TV, radio, news agency feeds. Websites of companies, government agencies. Social networks - Vkontakte, Facebook, Instagram, Odnoklassniki. Video services - TikTok, Youtube. Blogs, microblogs - LiveJournal, Twitter. Review sites, forums. Open channels and chats in Telegram. I. e. virtually from any open resources where automatic data monitoring is possible. The system allows you to collect: All messages with certain keywords for a specified date and in the region of interest (for example, "Ukraine", "Putin", "Bucha", "war"). All messages on the pages of certain authors, communities, media, etc. All comments and publications of certain persons (tracking of activists, opinion leaders). When searching for materials with certain keywords, Brand Analytics analyses the texts of articles, posts, comments, titles, headlines, video subtitles, checkins, pictures, stories, online maps. If there is a keyword of interest anywhere in them, it all goes into the report. Moreover, the system can collect not only the materials with certain words, but also the messages left by users, so that it is possible to assess the audience's reaction to a particular text. Tracking results Brand Analytics system provides all collected comments, posts and articles in the form of visual reports with graphs and flexible setting of output parameters. The report contains the following information: Publication date. Text of the post, article, comment. Link to the source. Full name, gender, age, region of residence, which are specified in the author's profile. Audience coverage. Number of repetitions of the text in other sources. Tone (no aggression, aggression, strong aggression). Since 2022, Roskomnadzor employees have been using Brand Analytics to search for texts about the killing of civilians in Ukraine, mobilisation, shelling of Ukrainian cities, calls for protests, Putin's health, nuclear war and other "topical" topics. The general summary includes all materials in Russian, which contain key words, even if they were written, for example, by Belarusians or Ukrainians, but not by Russians. For example, just for the period from 24 February to 3 March 2022, the Brand Analytics system automatically collected 195,176 comments on the shelling of Ukrainian cities. Then these comments are received for processing by the employees of the Department for the organisation of monitoring of mass communication media (DMMCM), which is operated by Roskomnadzor. If they find so-called "fakes" or calls for anti-war actions, the materials are sent to the Prosecutor General's Office of the Russian Federation, from where site owners and providers are sent demands to remove the content, and otherwise threatened with blocking. In addition, administrative and criminal proceedings are initiated against the most dangerous, from the regime's point of view, commentators. Is it possible to avoid surveillance with Brand Analytics? Since Brand Analytics automatically collects all comments, posts, videos and articles on certain topics, your statements may well end up in its reports. However, you can avoid being de-anonymised by following some simple guidelines. We will write about this topic in detail in a separate article. Thank you for your attention. Glory to Ukraine! Long live Belarus! ✌️

Now people's pictures of heroes who liberate Belarus decorate the main page of the "Pressball" source - pressball.by Thank you to everyone who participated in our contest. Your entries are in their proper place. 😎 "Pressball" was one of the best sports medias in Belarus until 2020, but then it was defeated by the Lukashists and lost almost all of its leading journalists. Since then, its website has been heavily censored. Cyberpartisans for an independent and free press. ✊ We express our support for all journalists who chose freedom of speech over the leash of the regime. P. S. Web archive for those who missed the fun https://archive.ph/arA1F

As part of Operation Heat in 2021, we hacked into and downloaded the USDBO database with archives of ALL criminal and administrative cases filed in the Republic of Belarus. Recently we found records about ourselves in it. 😎 So there you have it... The regime's propaganda either ignores our hacks or writes that it's all fake. And in the meantime criminal cases are being filed against us. 😆🤡 P. S. By the way, no suspects have been identified in any of these cases. 😎

CyberPartisans hacked into the Refugees database and obtained internal documents from the Citizenship and Migration Department of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of the Republic of Belarus during Operation Heat in 2021. We are attaching screen shots of the records of foreigners who were wanted for crimes in their home countries and who applied for refugee status in Belarus. Among the documents there are also fact sheets that were compiled at the request of a number of different structures of the Republic of Belarus. They contain data from open sources on a variety of issues, including: 🔺 The human rights situation in the Russian Federation, in the USA and in other countries. 🔺 The situation of the Russian language population in Ukraine. 🔺 Political persecution in Cuba, etc. By the way, up to and including the year 2021, this information is quite adequate (see the screenshots). For example, they write about human rights problems in the Russian Federation and the lack of oppression of Russian speakers in Ukraine. 🤓 The CyberCompote channel will publish the full version of the briefs. Subscribe and follow the updates!

We launch a cyber strike against a company that serves the Russian aggressor's railway logistics. 💥 Workstations are encrypted. 💥 The domain controller is in our hands. 💥 All document workflow, emails, data from servers (over 2 TB) have been extracted. 💥 Originals and backups encrypted/deleted. Hacking details CJSC Wagon-Service is a Russian company that specialises in the maintenance of railway trains and includes 101 enterprises across Russia. The company works closely with Russian Railways and has many letters of appreciation for servicing the Russian aggressor's railway logistics. CyberPartisans launched an attack on the servers of CJSC Wagon-Service on Friday 19 May 2023. They successfully penetrated the network, extracted data and started encrypting. On the night of Friday to Saturday, the company realised they had been hacked and tried to counteract us, but without success. Everything they rolled back, we finished overnight Sunday to Monday. In the end, on 22 May 2023, the attack was successful. 🔥 As one of our hacktivists who took part in the hack comments: Every screw in this Rashist regime must break, every cog must stop. Moscow occupiers, get the hell out of Belarus and Ukraine! If you help the RF war machine, you share responsibility for the crimes. P.S. JiveBelarus new password for all your accounts. 🔘🔴🔘