*37C3 Anspannungsmusik*
*Applaus*
Boris: All right so everybody can hear me
very well my name is Boris I'm part of the
ABC black cross Belarus and I will be
talking about tractors Rockets and the
internet and I have very short time so you
will see very few things of those one
thing we are in the sal g because I didn't
want to be in the sal z. z as it's kind of
like ideologically doesn't pass for people
in the Eastern Europe
*lachen, applaus*
yeah and yeah we will have like a short
question answer section in the end what
the [ __ ] is ABC-Belarus? Many of you
don't know we are like an activist
Anarchist Collective that supports for the
last 15 years people who ended up in
prison fighting dictatorship in the
country since our existence beginning of
our existence we never had any people or
we never had a situation where we never
had people in the prison so people are
constantly in prison in Belarus in the
last 15 years fighting the dictatorship we
do solidarity work also with those who are
around the people who are in prisons so
their families and so on we also promote
we we promoting we don't have so much time
left anymore but before building up a
security culture so for the activists to
know how to go around the new mechanisms
of a dictatorship to suppress the
population we do collect a little bit of
data from like the courts so we see what
the government is using for example to
crack the laptops we see all this [ __ ]
coming up in in the documents from time to
time and this is not a talk about our
group so you can check out our website and
see what is it about so tractors here they
are they don't always look like that
sometimes they look like that tractors
are one of the important parts of like for
you to imagine how Belarusian industry
looks like so after collapse of the Soviet
Union Belarusia Bellarus was and remained
like a zone of heavy and Light Industry
production of tractors but also we had
industry that was connected with war or
militarism of the Soviet Union right? So
there are factories that are producing
small chips for the rockets and [ __ ]
like that and this continues so partly
Russian war industry on Belarus in
production of the Rockets the situation
where you know Russian Rockets hit wrong
Target in Ukraine also connected with the
fact that Belarusian workers are stealing
precious metals from the factories. So
like those produced chips are working like
[ __ ] and we do have it but it's not like
Taiwan or something like that it's more
like imagine Soviet Union post Soviet
Union country that people are doing like
some outdated Technologies. Yeah. So those
are like the topic about the Rockets.
Belarus is participating in the war
efforts of Russia right now and it was
participating for very long in buildup to
the war so helping producing enough
rockets and enough of the you know like
flying [ __ ] that goes to Ukraine right
now. However after collapse of the Soviet
Union Belarus became also very dependent
and it was dependent and became dependent
on Russian resources so oil gas and all
this [ __ ] comes mostly from Russia
economically dependent on Russia and
that's politically dependent as well.
Talking about Lukashenka so belus is a
dictatorship that ruled by this guy, next
year is 30 years anniversary. Lukashenka
and Technologies he's a very special
character you can do like lectures in
universities about his personality I will
do a couple of quotes about how he
perceives Technologies and how he sees
himself in the technological World. For
example "we do not need an imported system
for falsifying elections we will create
our own one run by the State" so he's
very close to the nature he thinks also
shows his like attitude to Technologies
and the last part is "I even don't have a
mobile phone I'm looking at other
presidents and see how they're preoccupied
with their iPhones I'm not doing that I
know what security is" and even more "I
have enough people who can do that for me"
and that's an important factor Lukashenka
knows how to drive a tractor, he doesn't
know how to operate iPhone most probably.
But he's he has this mentality that
understands okay I need enough smart
people around me who will help me to go
through the modern world and that's what
he's doing a lot so he has quite a huge
let's say cabinet of people who are
helping him out to figure out the modern
world in a different directions
politically technologically wise
economically. Although Belarus is a
dictatorship it is a country that was for
many years a partner of the European Union
it changed recently before 2020 protest
before the uprising of 2020 European Union
was cooperating with Belarus on the border
security what they're doing also in turkey
and many other authoritarian regimes so
for European politicians to protect the
borders build up a fences it's fine to
have like a bloody dictator that is ready
to kill people. So that's what European
Union was doing and that involved also
transaction of Technologies so for example
you go to the Belarusian border and you
get in controlled and you have this huge
x-ray machine that is going to x-ray your
car or whatever [ __ ] you have and it's
written like there's a plate that says
like this machine is financed by the
European Union and you think like wow
thank you European Union you're like
really helping democracy in Belarus. So
European Union was also investing a lot in
the infrastructure projects inside of the
country roads and [ __ ] like that this
was connected also because belus is
Transit country so you need a lot of
Transit between Russia and Europe not
anymore but before it was the case right
everybody wanted to trade with Russia a
lot still do. Also some countries inside
of the European Union were supporting
police efforts in Belarus, there was a
huge scandal in Germany that German cops
were bringing Belarusian Riot cops to
evictions of or like protection of
Gorleben transport like the nuclear waste
transport back in the days so they
wouldn't have like Belarusian cops hitting
you you know but they would have them like
just sitting next to you and and watching
how the German cops are working and that's
where for example Belarusian cops learned
to film everything at the demonstrations
or at some events so they're also running
with these cameras and filming and then
post factum might apply repressions to the
people who were participating in the
protests and some of the cameras were
donated generously by the German state to
the Belarusian cops. And there are many
more other money flows like ecological
technological also private public
everything goes in Belarus dictatorship
yes but I mean money you know that cross
the border easily. Very simple
Technologies to fight the population,
water cannons were brought from Canada so
we had this fancy water Canadian water
cannons I will show you how belarussian
people hacked those during the protests
very easy. Camera usage for documentation
as I was mentioning cops running around
with cameras all the time this is they
what they learned from the German cops
there were like a new technologies that
were like mobile car Shields so they bring
it up to block the whole street. Russians
have like bigger machines belarusians have
smaller machines but in general the idea
is that you you have this kind of like a a
truck that brings a huge shield and you
block the whole street so protesters
cannot go through it. And crowd control
equipment from other countries like we had
tear gas from Czech and stun grenades from
Czech and Israelis and so on so like
everybody were delivering and providing
weapons to Belarus as if it's like sure
you know we know that you doing some [ __
] there but have it for you. But there are
some other funny you know like hacking
from Belarusian state so for example here
like during the protest people were
putting Flags like white red white flags
which were the protest Flags [ __ ] I have
to put the sound in one second but it's
not really important what people was
laughing about him *some laughs* So yeah
this is one of the hack that this is I
think somebody connected with the ban
State who was trying to remove the flag
then we have like this systems of
notification in the city that were used to
play like a patriotic music during the
protests which Belarusian state was doing
trying to like you know demoralize the
protest testers looks [ __ ] bizarre and
crazy and that was the hacking part of the
Canadian water cannon Belarusian people
are very creative you can see you love
hacking we all love hacking that's how you
hack the the water.
*Applause*
cannon. Later on they stopped using them
because this what happened to them when
you hack them
*Music*
yeah but they were they were very open for
hacking like nothing is closed you can
just open and take it away. Internet in
Belarus right so this is a separate topic,
we we are the country of the post Soviet
so we didn't have internet for very long I
think like the general consumers market
for the internet opened like beginning of
2000s maybe middle of 2000s I got my
internet connection first 2004 - 2005 so
internet is a is a is kind of like a thing
that was developing very slowly but then
it exploded. One of the things was for
example internet like U online
infrastructure was used for the protests
in 2005 2005 wrong date of the elections
so we had like a protest camp on the
streets and people set up an indymedia
media information point which was
broadcasting updates online life you know.
And this was one of the first situations
in Belarus where the website started
getting blocked. So Belarus in IND media
was the first attemp of Belarusian state
to fight certain content on the internet
there was like mirrors there was a lot of
solidarity also from outside. So this
worked pretty well for the protesters
didn't work so well for the government the
protest was smashed, but for a lot of
people the opportunity of organizing
through the internet became very obvious
and people started using it in mass later
on Belarusian State started blocking from
2016 tour network with different success
of course like you can't block it with
tractors putting it on the road so you
need more sufficient you know like or
complicated systems and of course you
can't get them easily in Belarus from the
factories that are producing Rockets. You
can't hit the tour network with the rocket
so like they started searching for those
and you can see that like three years
Belarusian cops were going to security
congresses where like this private
companies was selling [ __ ] to anybody
pretty much and they were searching for
Solutions there were like for 2014 I think
there was a hacking team Italian hacking
team leak where we figure out that
Belarusian state was trying to buy
something from Italians and stuff like
that, right? So at the end of the day they
got some stuff in 2016 and slowly started
applying more and more censorship in on
the internet, Anarchist websites
oppositional websites starting getting
blocked in 2020 this system like exploded
in Mass so we have like hundreds and
hundreds of the websites some of them like
you know islamist [ __ ] and and stuff
like that but some of them are legit
oppositional anarchists and stuff like
that that are blocked and you can't access
them through like a normal Network. Yeah
and right now because Belarusian state was
under attack for quite often from certain
groups, a lot of websites governmental
websites kind of created a white listing
just for belarian IPs so you can't go to
the belarusian state websites from outside
so a lot of people paradoxically left the
country live in Exile but use Belarusian
VPN to know if they're included in
extremist the terrorist lists. Yeah so one
more thing about Belarusian internet and
Belarusian like communication
infrastructure is sorm, some of you have
heard about it this is like a saying that
was developed for many years and there are
different versions of it and it's pretty
much backdoor like legal back door to put
into the networks of the communication
providers before it was just a smart
smartphone a cell network now it's also
internet Network and so on internet
providers you just put a black box and the
cops somewhere on the other side of the of
the country can have access to your
network directly and they can see all the
what is happening on the network and they
you know like clone easily IDs and so on
and so forth so they are like owning
pretty much the net the private networks
of the private providers also what is not
mentioned on the slides Belarusian
internet is in one way or another is
governmental so you have like one exit for
the internet to the outside world and this
is controlled by the state and all the
private companies that are working with
the internet are actually like renting
internet from the state and then reselling
it to the private biders. Internet
censorship so I was telling you that they
were going and buying [ __ ] on the market
one of the things that kind of blew out
and we figure out in 2020 was this company
sandvine you might have heard about it
they were selling pretty much the the gear
the hardware for for censoring traffic in
the first days after elections but the
network was set up already for longer so
it was not like s Vine is rushing into
Minsk and on the day of Elections but
rather this was sold for some years before
and the Belarus and state was successfully
using it and on the day of Elections like
we lost internet connection for most of
the country. There was also coming a lot
of assistance days following that from
Russian and Chinese government who would
try to you know nav help to navigate
Belarusian government through the fact
that they basically shut down not only
like a protest infrastructure but their
own infrastructure because a lot of their
own [ __ ] was dependent on the internet
and that was one of the reasons why
internet was returned to Belarus three
days later as a lot of repressive
infrastructure was not working for the
state. Yeah so those were very supportive
of Belarusian regime and they're still
doing that but there were some also
private companies that were helping
Belarus to deal with the protests
Microsoft I mean there is a lot of pirated
Microsoft installs but Skype server
infrastructure was used for prosecuting
protesters this was very handy so you
would have a court, where there will be
like just a computer standard, like it's
not really technological country so much
right? So in the court there will be a
laptop and there would be like a guy in
the Mask who would be a witness in the
case of the of the protesters and it takes
around like 2 minutes to prosecute the
person for them to get like 15 25 days in
prison. The person leaves and then there
is a new case and quite often there were
like the same cops basically testifying
for the people on many on multiple
occasions and this provided a lot of
anonymity from one side for the
infrastructure of repressions because the
cops didn't ha:ve to be at the place and
they couldn't be identified but on the
other side it provided allso this kind of
like a mobility of repressions. You don't
need to bring another cop who would stand
there and he doesn't know what to read and
to say and so on and so forth. So this was
there and this was like Skype was not in
any way you know and Microsoft was not in
any way reacting how the Belarusian state
is using their services in the country at
that .Then we had cinezis, cinezis is like
a Belarusian company that was developing a
face recognition system and this smart
City [ __ ] and all the crap you can find
on the pages of the internet days. So one
of the products they had was keypod and
this was basically like a life face
recognition system that they installed in
Minsk. And this keypod was used for
identifying also protesters during the
protests and also identifying High Target
like high political Targets in the city at
some point. So for example one of the
congress warrs an anarchist was arrested
through like a common operation of keypod.
That was telling the police that he's
there so they would follow him to the
place where he was living underground and
so on and so forth. So, face recognition
system worked pretty well in certain
situations right? They were also using
like their own face recognition system for
postprocess so they get images of high
resolution from Big crowds like 100,000
people and from there they would pick up
some faces of the protesters and this
would be like ending up in the court cases
of the people. So you would have like a
print out from keod system that was saying
okay we identify this person like this and
that. The CEO of the company is like a son
of the KGB agent so they had like a lot of
connections with the state and what else
is here? Like the company itself was
trying to present itself, we are like an
IT company that is doing just a you know
like a nice thing for everybody and make
people happy in Belarus. But reality was
different and we figured that also po
factum I think a month later there was a
bigger article published on what they're
doing and how they are basically like
helping out the Belarusian state to
suppress the uprising. And here we also
have a great Corporation Called Intel that
doesn't you know for whom money also
doesn't smell it's it's very funny because
intel was very proud of cooperating with
cinezis till 2022 even though cinezis was
on sanction under sanctions in the
European Union by that time but US was not
sanctioning. So when the fullscale war in
Ukraine broke broke out cinezis ended up
on us sanction list so intel was like okay
we we this is not good imagery for us, so
they deleted the keypod page from their
website, where they were very proud of it
but if you search keypod Intel it's you
still find a Chinese page like a page in
Chinese on the Intel website that still
does like all this [ __ ] advertisement we
are helping human rights and developing
Technologies and progress and blah blah
blah. So Intel is still partly proud of
cooperating with the repressive
organization in belarus but only for the
Chinese market most probably. Social
networks, so there is like a certain you
know a hype around that telegram was used
a lot to coordinate protest and so on and
so forth but reality I mean and it was
but reality the other side of the coin was
that we ended up in quite a [ __ ] storm
because people could be identified through
the telegram or the way telegram is built
through ID IDs like the unique IDs that
are doesn't matter if you change the phone
number and so on and so forth. So a lot of
people ended up being prosecuted because
they did some [ __ ] on telegram and in
like the further we went after repressions
of the uprising the more ridiculous those
could be, like even putting you know a [
__ ] Emoji under information that a KGB
agent was shot during a raid would be
enough to start criminal prosecution
against you. So those things became very
problematic and at the end of the day
we've seen that Belarusian in state is
observing not only telegram but also other
social networks. Telegram at that point
was not really Cooperative with
belarussian State and they were still
selling like Durov was still selling this
you know image of we are like for the
human rights and for people and all this [
__ ] but by the time like a year later
we ended up with a situation when the
protest like died out that Durov started
blocking like telegram started blocking
certain website certain [ __ ] not
websites certain channels in telegram
that were for example dedoxing police or
documenting police violence and and court
cases and so on and so forth. So those
channels are for example like U there is a
channel that is called Belarusian
punishers that has a list of police
officers who were responsible for the
violence and this is blocked on Telegram
and you can't find it. Official point of
like telegram this is not us saying, they
said okay Apple actually forced us to do
that but reality is that it goes both
ways. You know like you have to cooperate
with each other for this to to happen and
this was happening on one side on the
other side telegram was blocking also
channels of the same kind of groups in
Russia that were also dedoxing cops who
were using violence and who were
participating in repressions even after
the fullscale invasion. So we see a lot of
censorship and a lot of cooperation
happening after like the protest, so
during the the active phase like they
would be like yeah we standing with you
and you're almost one so we would like to
be with you but when you know they see
that the status quo is maintained they
start cooperating they start like
following the laws of the country even if
those laws are oppressive or doesn't make
any [ __ ] sense and so on and so forth.
Yeah and vkontakte, I think you know this
is like a social network in Russia, they
are like completely working with FSB and
and [ __ ] and Belarusian State also has
pretty much direct access on what you're
doing there. So there there were some
people organizing but for even like normal
people it became clear that like don't use
Russian social networks, this is like a
bad idea and then apparently you shouldn't
use Chinese social networks and maybe
don't use social networks in general
because a lot of them have like a
potential of repressions of not on the
individuals but the social movements and
and [ __ ] like that. Mobile phones and
data collection. So what did we figure out
during the protests and and the last years
celebrate of course they are [ __ ] happy
to to sell themselves to any repressive
regime so Belarus is not an exception and
they they're they they were used they're
still used so belarusan state is still
buying celebrite licenses through some
third party companies and I mean sanctions
is is a [ __ ] joke in general. And even
the companies who are saying we are not
doing that in most cases they are doing
that but through the third party. Data
dumps so through cellebride but through
other certain other companies you just get
like a set of phones right and I don't
know there would be like 500 people
detained there would be all the phones
confiscated and the cops would be dumping
all the data from those phones and then
you know like they wouldn't have a time to
go through this data at the point but then
you might be prosecuted in half a year
later for what they found from those
phones. And also you know like there is a
lot discussions you're the Congress as
well and in general in the security
Community the strong passwords you know
encryption is very important but we
figured out that you know encryption works
very bad if they're torturing you. And
that was the Belarusian like way to break
encryption, they didn't try to you know
make a technological way into this, but
rather they [ __ ] you up to the point
where you decide okay I rather die or I
give them the password and quite often it
worked pretty well and it worked also in
the way like not retrospectively but in a
in a threaten way so you know, okay some
people were tortured to get access to the
encrypted drives and other people would be
like okay I give you the password without
torture. So encryption doesn't work
against torture in Belarusian State and in
many other cases and this is yeah it
doesn't matter how perfect your security
system built technologically wise quite
often the human factor is still the the
the weakest link in the whole situation.
Then we had situations where the cops were
impersonating activists. Up to the point
where they were registering like for
example on the dating apps and putting
like naked pictures that they would get
from the data damps and so on and then
people would be calling those activists
hooking up with them and so on and so
forth. Sim cloning that's a huge thing
that I think people should [ __ ] like get
engraved in their like brain that's that
your phone and the SIM cards that you get
do not belong to you you are like
borrowing them from the companies and
quite often if the companies have or the
state has access to the companies then the
state owns those and that means the state
owns your [ __ ] phone number and that
means phone number is not unique
identification. So we had a lot of
situations where telegram accounts were
hijacked by the state just by you know
like cloning the SIM card and getting all
the access and normal person wouldn't put
a password on your account. Yeah so be
aware of that and please like stop using
that for your you know technological
things you're doing or software that you
are developing this is not a secure way in
any way. This also goes to Signal people.
Traffic analysis yes as I was mentioning
like the [ __ ] storm is there so they're
trying to identify what people are doing
and this might be also a reason for a
house rate or something like that if your
traffic looks suspicious. Resistance so
resistance unfortunately is very low
technologically speaking so there's not so
much of like you know laser rifles and [
__ ] like that. But rather and and and
that's like unfortunately the story of
resistance against authoritarian regimes,
that normally even when the state has like
very sophisticated heat guns and [ __ ]
like that people end up on the streets
with the stones and sticks and that was
the case also in Belarus. However people
started learning Technologies very fast so
there were a lot of people who learned how
to use toxy tor VPN, you see how the whole
usage of those Services spiked during the
protest and this is not like you know your
20 30 year old friends but rather like
older people 50 60 who were forced into
doing that, because they are interested in
joining the protest. So to be part of the
protest you actually have to learn how to
do those. We also figured out that mesh
networks although it's such a great idea
and maybe one day on the other planet it
will work out but for your average
protester and average participant in in
like an anti-authoritarian uprising this
is not the case you can't [ __ ] get them
working and people are not really capable
of of using them. Destruction of
surveillance property so there were people
who would just go around and smash the [
__ ] cameras that was the way to resist
the facial recognition system. Hacking of
infrastructure so there were a lot of
different attempts and the biggest one I
think was hacking into the ID database
where which brought like a lot of other
stuff so there databases of all this
Belarusian citizens their criminal records
and and [ __ ] like that available to
certain groups right now and this gives
also opportunity to look into police
activity and what the cops are doing what
they own where they work and so on and so
Forth. The doxxing of the police officers
and regime functions like the judges and
other bureaucrats basically as I was
mentioning like on telegram you have this
whole list like thousands and tens of
thousands of people there is also a map so
you can have a look if you're living next
to a [ __ ] in your house who is like a
colonel of repression operatus or
something like that so this is also
helping a lot but it also build up a lot
of pressure on the police because police
apparently think if you know if you know
the address of the police officer most
probably you will go and smash his [ __ ]
house and kill everybody and so on which
didn't didn't happen but it did provide a
certain pressure on the repression
apparatus. We also ended up with the
solution for like what do you do when the
cops torture you for your password for
encrypted hard drive you break your hard
drive and sometimes maybe you wouldn't be
able to break your hard drive so you do
like this thing that they do in the movies
you know in US you break the screen. *some
laughs* Really bizarre right but it works
the the point here and I'm not talking
about the laptop the point here is you
have a smartphone and there you have
something going on so if you smash it the
average Riot cob guy doesn't know what
what to do with it, so he can't torture
you to open it right it doesn't work. And
that was like a solution for a lot of
activist so basically if you are in the
danger of being arrested you just break
the phone and you have this buffer time
when the cops arrest you put you in jail
and blah blah blah and this expert comes
who knows how to you know open the phone
that has a broken screen. And that's kind
of like a place where most of the torture
happens so you're capable of avoiding and
the cops also figured out that pretty fast
so they started trying to get you arrested
before you break that and I have a story
like of a friend who you know like who was
laying on the ground and he was putting
his hand in the pocket and like smashing
the screen and he did it and the cops were
like how did you do that we were formed
sitting on you you couldn't [ __ ] move so
these kind of things and these kind of
things I think saved at least a health of
certain people and also there was a lot of
online education where there were like
workshops for the people how to figure out
out their smartphone security their
telegram security and [ __ ] like that.
This is one of the examples of online
education that is not connected with the
security of the smartphones it is more
about production of new technologies
right? In Belarus not connected the
tractors and those are like just to
immobilize the police Vans Yeah so this
this was a lot of this kind of online
education as well the interesting fact
again that a lot of people were afraid to
put to do that online education because
eventually on many social networks you can
get banned for that like if you put you
know how do you say a video how to make
molotov cocktail this is considered
illegal activity and you know your account
can be banned and [ __ ] like that and I
think people in not in the first World War
figure that out a lot. Like people who are
in in Palestine and in many other places
figure that you know the repressions are
working from the private companies against
them when they're fighting against the
regimes. Conclusions so this is a small
sticker that says if you can't break the
dictatorship you can still burn it down.
*laughter*
Conclusions are very short there they can
there is a lot to talk about. Capitalism
is [ __ ] evil I mean hundreds of years of
this [ __ ] up story you I hope all of you
figured this out this is not really a [ __
] mystery you know you don't have to come
from USSR indoctrinated by Marxism
leninism to know that capitalism is evil
and capitalism
*Many Applaus*
and capitalism destroys lives not only
here you know like in in Germany in US or
whatever and your political life but it
destroys lives everywhere in Belarus,
Myanmar, Hong Kong, Syria like the [ __ ]
corporations and the [ __ ] private
business is ready to sell anything even
their [ __ ] mothers and brothers and
sisters to the dictators just to make
money. Your phone number is not a good ID
it's a bad ID don't [ __ ] use it ever
because it can be easily identified in
Germany as well in many other countries it
is like it it's a [ __ ] like if giving a
passport. Just when you are registering
with your phone number just imagine that
you're giving a passport to some company
right?
Someone from the audience: taking
pictures.
Boris: Yeah password is a good thing,
still, many years after you can also
forget it. You get a concussion you forget
it, you get tortured you forget it,
password is good right? Surveillance is
good for the state bad for society so all
those corporations that are selling right
now also in Western world the business of
surveillance they are destroying the
social glue of the society and this is
like a different topic but but in general
like surveillance is destructive for us as
a humankind. Western private companies are
crucial for the dictatorship, we are not
living in the world where you know like
the dictators have horses and they are
riding them into the crowd and like w
hooray but rather a lot of technologies
that are used by the state by the
Belarusian state but also by Syrian state,
by Russian state are not the technologies
that were developed within the small
states by the local companies but rather a
lot of technologies that were brought in
and developed in this countries where we
are sitting you know? And they were
developed under certain freedom but at the
same time they are now used to engrave the
dictatorship and those dictatorships are
spreading like Russia wants to [ __ ]
conquer half of the Europe so you have to
be aware of that and you have to like WE
have to fight that back. This is not you
know whether it is should be done or not
it is more like how much energy and how [
__ ] your ass should be on on fire to
fight those. Smart also doesn't mean smart
and by that I mean that a lot of Engineers
believe that they they you know they can
open a [ __ ] Wikipedia page, so they know
everything about the world. But it is not
the case a lot of Engineers fail miserably
in understanding how the world is working
how the society is working so if we
develop technological solutions to certain
problems we do have to work with
sociologists Political scientists with
activists to understand how those
technologies will influence the world you
know:
*very many ovations*
The time is [ __ ] running out and I'm not
talking about all only about ecological
catastrophe but also technologically
speaking. We are in the race with you know
the dictators and authoritarian regimes
who want to enforce and make their regime
stronger through Technologies, face
recognition systems and all this [ __ ]
that is making the state way stronger
against the society so yeah get your [ __
] done and get your [ __ ] like going
already now today, you know. And digital
resistance is part of a broader Uprising
so do not see yourself you know as a
hackers community that exist in isolated
world and you're in a bubble and [ __ ]
like that but rather if we want to stop
like technological dictatorships or
whatever [ __ ] you can imagine we
actually have to work together,
technological activists, Street activists,
Community organizers all of those get
together and fight against the
dictatorships fight against the
authoritarian attacks on us, on our
society, on our families, on our friends
and only then we can win thank you!
*Applause*
*Music*
Angel: I have one more thing ...
Boris: And don't forget to donate to our
group we are not like getting money for
ourselves we're collecting money for the
political prisoners so don't forget to do
that this is an important part of just
supporting the struggle.
Angel: Yeah *Applaus* so we have a couple
minutes for questions but if you have to
leave, leave super quietly and also a
question is a short sentence with a
question mark behind it not a long essay.
I have chat GPT for that and we have a
question from the the signal Angel by the
way the microphones are up front here here
1 2 3 4 that's where you have to stand in
order to do a question signal Angel go
ahead.
Signal Angel: Yes the internet wants to
know what you expect Microsoft or Skype to
do for example blocking Belarus as a whole
or wouldn't that also negatively impact
the activist? What's your opinion on that?
Boris: I mean I don't think that blocking
Skype like or Skype stopping providing
services in bellus would negatively affect
activist scene, nobody in activist scene
was using Skype right? On the other side
like you do have mechanisms of black
listing cord IPS at least you know like
this is Belarusian state is not you know
super sophisticated going to connect to
the [ __ ] bpn and [ __ ] like that, but
rather you block those and the court is
already not doing that. The thing with the
Microsoft and Skype is that it's story of
the past because right now they switched
to Viber so like this is this is gone,
like they did their part and nobody will
most probably remember that and I mean
honestly [ __ ] Microsoft.
*few ovations*
Angel: We're running out of time question
for Num 3.
-Okay I have a question how much would a
better and more secure VPN technology and
better anonymizing systems help in these
kinds of situations and what what has the
Bella russian State done against using VPS
into foreign countries?
B: I mean in the first days of the
protests in the first days of the uprising
the whole internet infrastructure was
gone. Like there were certain ways to go
around the blocking that were connected
with telegram proxies, I have no [ __ ]
clue how they managed to do it
successfully but they did and in general
like the internet was just not working. So
it doesn't matter if you have VPN and a
Tor, the internet doesn't work and later
on when they unlocked the internet they
were very slow in reacting to the fast
protest community so in those cases VPNs
very important somehow but for us at that
point the the local organizing and
providing infrastructure for the local
organizers was way more important. So also
like building decentralized networks
inside of the country sometimes is way
more crucial to the protests than getting
out to the services that are outside of
the country and that's what was happening
as well. But in general like it's still an
important part of fighting back like
having a reliable VPN or any other
anonymizing and like censorship circumsing
Technologies. How to develop those more
successfully? I have no [ __ ] clue
honestly. Because those like the fight
against those are going on very fast and I
like I can't answer this, I'm very sorry.
Herald: So we might be able to squeeze in
another two questions very briefly. on
number one.
-How bad is the suppression of the APC
Belarus activists and can you safely
reside inside Belarus without getting
arrested immediately or do you have to
flee into Exile?
B: Like in general not talking only about
us but the bigger political spectrum of
all the groups that are providing
solidarity work all of them are gone like
from Belarus. So all of the activists from
Liberal also human right defending groups
and so on had to leave and if you would be
identified as a member of such a group
inside of the country this would be enough
to prosecute you and to put I mean any
case they want on you. This is not a you
know like a legal state but rather they
prosecute you and that's it. And with the
case of activist Anarchist activists in
general there are laws that would allow
them to make a group extremist
organization that doesn't need a core
decision and through that you can get like
five six seven years in prison easily
without any other actions you know. And
this is happening to certain solidarity
groups already yeah. So we also have in
tomorrow in like a self-organized sessions
a bigger presentation another collegue
will be doing that about repressions in
Belarus about the political situation less
like focused on Technologies more focused
on social political situation so if you
want to know a little bit more about that
you can come there and ask your questions
and and [ __ ] like that.
Herald: I would suggest that for anybody
in the room but we will take one last
question very briefly from the signal
Angel and then we'll have to call it quits
unfortunately.
Signal Engel: Yes another question
regarding the use of encryption. It is if
theography is used with to encryption or
instead of encryption in Belarus by
activists.
B: I mean we do not have so many people
who were like technologically savvy and
were participating in the protests that's
why nobody was hiding messages like that
but we did have like a collective for
example that developed a telegram app
that would have like a double I don't know
how it's in English like a double
something double like basically you have
two accounts in the telegram and one of
those accounts like is is is a very nice
fluffy you don't do anything and that's
where what the cops see and then you need
to put a password to get another one so we
got like this kind of hiding your activity
on the internet but this was I think like
the biggest people can imagine using on
their smartphones. In general like we have
to understand that technological savy is
dropping right people when people are
using smartphones they know less about
Technologies than they did like 10 years
ago so people are capable of doing less
and less and less yeah.
Herald: So that's all the questions we can
take please help me thank him for this
wonderful talk something we never and...
B: Thanks for doing it!
*a lot of ovations*