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- [00:03]
Dena Temple Raston
From Recorded Future News and prx, this is Click Here.
- [00:19]
Narrator / Host (likely Dena Temple Raston)
It was Moscow in May. The lilacs were blooming, cafes spilled out onto the sidewalks, and spring was in the air. But if you listened closely, there was another sound. The grind of tank treads on pavement, boots pounding as soldiers goose stepped across Red Square. And the blare of military music echoing off the cobblestones. It's all part of the annual Moscow parade marking victory over Nazi Germany. But this year, as the cheers swelled, another sound faded away. Phones stopped connecting. Rideshare apps froze. Maps refused to load. All because the mobile Internet in Moscow just vanished. This wasn't a glitch. It was a plan.
- [01:08]
Katerina Stepanenko
When the Kremlin was Preparing for the May 9th Victory Day Parade, that was when mass outages of Internet really became widespread.
- [01:18]
Narrator / Host (likely Dena Temple Raston)
This is Katerina Stepinenko, a Russian analyst at the Institute for the Study of War.
- [01:24]
Katerina Stepanenko
And the Kremlin line was, we're doing this to protect you, because Ukrainians are going to use this as an opportunity to strike major Russian cities.
- [01:34]
Narrator / Host (likely Dena Temple Raston)
Of course, Internet outages happen everywhere. Construction crews cut lines, storms knock out towers. It's usually mundane, forgettable even. But Katerina says this was different.
- [01:46]
Katerina Stepanenko
I instinctually already had a feeling that the Kremlin is trying to accomplish something.
- [01:53]
Narrator / Host (likely Dena Temple Raston)
Something Putin has been working toward for decades. Fixing what he considers to be one of his biggest mistakes. I'm Dena Temple Raston, and this is Click Here, a podcast about all things cyber and intelligence. We tell true stories about the people making and breaking our digital world. And today, Putin's other war, the one he's been quietly waging for years. Because for all the control he exerts over Russia, his grip on the Russian Internet has always been surprisingly weak. Somehow it grew up to be independent and unruly, almost like a digital Wild West. And for an Authoritarian in the 21st century, that's dangerous. But the war in Ukraine has given him the perfect cover to change that. And what Putin is building now could be a blueprint for strongmen everywhere.
- [02:49]
Katerina Stepanenko
The Kremlin is re establishing the curtain, the Iron Curtain.
- [02:54]
Narrator / Host (likely Dena Temple Raston)
Only this time, it's not concrete and barbed wire. It's code. Stay with us.
- [03:05]
Recorded Future News Announcer
If you're looking for a daily guide to cybersecurity news and policy, sign up for the Cyber Daily from Recorded Future News. It serves up the day's most interesting and important cyber stories from our sister publication, the Record, and then aggregates all of the big cyber stories you might have missed from news outlets around the world. Just go to TheRecord Media and click on Cyber Daily to get all you need to know about the world of cybersecurity right in your inbox.
- [03:35]
Narrator / Host (likely Dena Temple Raston)
From recorded future news, this is Click here. At that parade in May, seated beside Putin was his guest of honor, Chinese President Xi Jinping. Two world leaders, two autocrats, but two men with very different digital worlds. In China, the Communist Party recognized the Internet's power early, and they took control from the ground up. The Chinese government built, runs and owns all of the infrastructure. People call it the Great Firewall. And if you're online in China, every site you visit, every app you open, every email you write runs through government checkpoints. In China's WeChat, it isn't just a messaging app. It's the bloodstream of daily life. You pay your bills on it. You hail a cab, you book a doctor's appointment, you chat with your mom. It's banking, shopping, social life all in one place. And every corner of it is carefully monitored. But in Russia, very different. Katerina Stepanenko.
- [04:43]
Katerina Stepanenko
Again, they're not like China in that way, because the Chinese had imposed strict firewalls and strict regulations earlier on in Internet's time.
- [04:54]
Narrator / Host (likely Dena Temple Raston)
When he took office more than 20 years ago, Putin was focused more on old school technology.
- [05:00]
Katerina Stepanenko
One of the first things that the Kremlin done when Putin came to power was take control over all of the federal TV channels. But the Kremlin did not control the Internet. The Internet was kind of a wild west in Russia.
- [05:20]
Narrator / Host (likely Dena Temple Raston)
For years, Russians freely wandered the Internet. They scrolled YouTube, TikTok, Facebook, they debated politics openly, they read Western news. Surfing the Web in Moscow could feel surprisingly like surfing the Web in Missoula. Putin assumed controlling TV was enough.
- [05:37]
Katerina Stepanenko
I think the main reason is because Putin likely assessed that his control over federal TV channels, online media, various newspaper outlets was sufficient to control the Russian society. And for a long period of time, it actually seemed like that.
- [05:59]
Narrator / Host (likely Dena Temple Raston)
Until the war in Ukraine. That's when the Internet stopped being background music and started becoming a genuine threat. And two men in particular showed Putin how dangerously it could be wielded. First, Yevgeny Prigozhin, the mercenary leader of the Wagner group, once Putin's ally until he discovered the power of telegram. Putin thought controlling television would be enough.
- [06:25]
Dena Temple Raston
That if he owned the airwaves, then.
- [06:27]
Narrator / Host (likely Dena Temple Raston)
He owned the story. But the war slipped its leash. It moved online into feeds, the encrypted chats, the hashtags. Prigozhin started posting battlefield rants and raw, unfiltered videos from the front lines. Well, Putin's anchors Droned on in prime time. Suddenly, the Russian president was trying to fight a 21st century information war with the equivalent of a musket. And then in June 2023, Prigozhin turned that digital following against Moscow itself.
- [07:05]
Katerina Stepanenko
He had led his mutiny and used the Internet to rile up, you know, Wagner forces as well as Russian servicemen to go against the Russian Ministry of Defense.
- [07:18]
Narrator / Host (likely Dena Temple Raston)
A mercenary army rallying in real time, marching toward the capital.
- [07:23]
Katerina Stepanenko
The news still breaking overnight after that military mutiny by Russia's Wagner group mercenaries. Those forces were, for the first time.
- [07:31]
Narrator / Host (likely Dena Temple Raston)
In decades, Putin's grip on power looked shaky, undone by one man's mastery of the very networks the Kremlin never managed to tame. Two months later, a plane carrying Prigozhin fell from the sky. Russian officials called it an accident, but almost no one believed that caught on camera the final seconds of a private jet on board, reportedly the head of.
- [07:57]
Interviewee (Wagner Group reference)
The Wagner mercenary group.
- [07:59]
Narrator / Host (likely Dena Temple Raston)
Then there was Alexei Navalny.
- [08:04]
Dena Temple Raston
The closest.
- [08:05]
Narrator / Host (likely Dena Temple Raston)
Thing Russia had to a real opposition leader. He was barred from national television and Putin wouldn't even say his name. Like a calculated silence meant to diminish him. So Navalny built his movement somewhere Putin couldn't control. Online, he posted slick investigations exposing Kremlin corruption. He livestreamed rallies. He used his followers to flood the streets. And for a while, it actually worked. Millions subscribed to his YouTube channel. Thousands risked arrest to join protests. And Vladimir Putin faced a real political threat. Until the poison, the prison and finally the silence. Navalny died in a Russian prison last year.
- [08:51]
Dena Temple Raston
His death sent shockwaves through Russia and.
- [08:54]
Narrator / Host (likely Dena Temple Raston)
The online communities that had carried his voice. Prigozhin and Navalny, different men, different movements, but both exposed the same truth, that Russia's Internet was too open, too unruly, too dangerous for Putin to ignore.
- [09:15]
Katerina Stepanenko
In 2022, the Kremlin, when it first decided to invade Ukraine, to launch the full scale invasion of Ukraine, it actually didn't secure the information space sufficiently enough to sustain a protracted war. There was a lot of criticism that was emerging on Russian telegram channels on various different platforms, and it actually.
- [09:39]
Narrator / Host (likely Dena Temple Raston)
So Putin made the Internet his new battlefield.
- [09:42]
Katerina Stepanenko
So what the Kremlin has been doing since at least mid of 2023 is trying to alleviate all of the areas in which similar criticism can emerge.
- [09:53]
Narrator / Host (likely Dena Temple Raston)
But here's the problem. It was a battlefield Putin had allowed to grow wild for more than two decades. And clawing it back wouldn't be easy. That's next. Stay with us.
- [10:14]
Recorded Future Advertisement Voice
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- [11:14]
Narrator / Host (likely Dena Temple Raston)
Soon after the invasion of Ukraine, the Kremlin realized to keep the war going, it had to seal off the cracks where opposition could grow.
- [11:22]
Katerina Stepanenko
The Kremlin is realizing that in order for it to sustain itself, grow its military, and actually pursue its imperialist objectives, it actually needs to restrict all ways in which civil society can emerge.
- [11:36]
Narrator / Host (likely Dena Temple Raston)
Still, you couldn't just pull the plug. Russians had grown used to their digital freedoms. Take them away too suddenly and you risk not just panic, but rebellion.
- [11:45]
Katerina Stepanenko
Putin could have, of course, just immediately shut down Internet. But he needed to play a card in which he wouldn't raise panic in his society.
- [11:55]
Narrator / Host (likely Dena Temple Raston)
And then he found it. Not in propaganda, not in censorship, but in something more menacing. Drones.
- [12:03]
Recorded Future News Announcer
Tonight, President Zelensky said his forces used 117 drones in strikes on Russian air bases. From deep.
- [12:10]
Narrator / Host (likely Dena Temple Raston)
Governments often reach for national security to justify curbing freedoms. Even the United States did it after 911 with the patriot Act. President Trump is doing that now with his deportation regime. Putin claimed drones relied on mobile networks. So to protect Russia, he said those networks sometimes had to go dark. The truth is, many drones don't need mobile signals at all. The threat, Katerina says, was never really about drones. It was about teaching the Russians that the state giveth and the state can take it away. Since May, mobile Internet service in Russia has gone dark more than 2,000 times. And these aren't just momentary inconveniences. When the signal drops, people can't make online payments or withdraw cash for certain ATMs or even pull up a map. The digital rights group Access now says.
- [13:06]
Dena Temple Raston
They'Ve heard anecdotally about people taking a.
- [13:08]
Narrator / Host (likely Dena Temple Raston)
Bus to the nearest town just to find an ATM that worked just to buy groceries.
- [13:15]
Russian Blogger / Sarkis Darbinian
Due to the outages, I cannot transmit data or stay connected to the Internet, which I need for work.
- [13:21]
Narrator / Host (likely Dena Temple Raston)
This is a Russian blogger named Daniil. We had his responses translated and then recorded into English.
- [13:27]
Russian Blogger / Sarkis Darbinian
Taxis are more expensive than usual because drivers have to stand by WI fi to accept orders. Mobile Banking doesn't work. Without the Internet, how long will it last? What will happen next?
- [13:40]
Narrator / Host (likely Dena Temple Raston)
But the outages, they're just the opening salvo. Putin is taking a page from China's great Firewall. Across Russia, the government has been quietly swiping out the pipes of the Internet, installing its own routers. They pitch them as more stable, a fix for all those pesky blackouts. But that stability comes at a price. Once you're on those routers, you're on the Kremlin's network. They can see what you see and to decide what you don't. And that's only the beginning. Soon, the Kremlin will roll out its own messaging app, Max, a kind of Russian WeChat. But it's not just an app for chatting. It's a digital ecosystem and another way to keep the Russian Internet. Russian Macs will come pre installed on every new phone. And behind the scenes, Moscow is training its own proprietary AI, one that, as Katarina puts it, doesn't answer questions as much as recite ideology. Meanwhile, the list of things Russians can't access keeps growing. A senior Russian official has floated the idea of blocking Google Meet, calling Western apps a national security threat. And just weeks ago, lawmakers passed a bill making it a crime to even search for information they deem extremist.
- [14:56]
Katerina Stepanenko
So it's kind of creating a boogeyman out of the Internet.
- [15:01]
Narrator / Host (likely Dena Temple Raston)
Some Russians have found themselves in the crosshairs of these new restrictions.
- [15:06]
Russian Blogger / Sarkis Darbinian
Well, these are mostly people that have anti war position or protests that posted something online. And yeah, now you understand that you can get up to 15 years for the words online.
- [15:21]
Narrator / Host (likely Dena Temple Raston)
This is Sarkis Darbinian. He's a cybersecurity lawyer, and he's been representing people caught in the new crosshairs. His organization, Ross Kamsva Boda, has been pushing back on these new laws like the one banning ads for VPNs. Tens of millions of Russians use VPNs, and it's likely more will want to as the new bans go into place.
- [15:43]
Russian Blogger / Sarkis Darbinian
There is a very high demand for VPNs among Russian Internet users because, you know, Russians really are not like Chinese people. And for many, many years, for the decades they were living with all these services, they were living with Instagram, YouTub, WhatsApp. And of course, they do not want to leave these services that they consider to be very convenient.
- [16:13]
Narrator / Host (likely Dena Temple Raston)
Once tolerated by the Kremlin, his group is now branded a foreign agent. So Sarkis lives in Portugal now, in exile, and from there, he and his colleagues are smuggling Digital lifelines back into Russia. Their own VPNs, mirrors and workarounds, the kinds of tools ordinary Russians increasingly need just to stay connected.
- [16:36]
Russian Blogger / Sarkis Darbinian
We use different mirrors and magic links. We still use Google Domain because it's not being blocked yet, where we have our site vpn. And now we have the duplicates of our applications in the market with other names that cannot be so easily detected by the sensor.
- [17:02]
Narrator / Host (likely Dena Temple Raston)
But Sarkis knows it's an uphill battle, though it's a battle Putin has to fight very carefully. He's limiting Internet freedom without inciting rebellion from his people who've grown accustomed to a free Internet. Has it worked? We asked Daniel, a blogger you heard earlier, what he was seeing on the ground. And he says people in his region are largely split. Half the people he knows are angry. The other half accepts the government's narrative. We also spoke with a man named Denise, who works in IT and lives east of Moscow. At first, he says the outages rattled him.
- [17:44]
Interviewee (Wagner Group reference)
When we started experiencing issues like occasional Internet shutdowns and the blocking of certain apps, it definitely had an impact. At first, my first reaction was, wait, what? What do we do now? But over time we found some workarounds.
- [18:01]
Narrator / Host (likely Dena Temple Raston)
Now he knows which cafes have reliable WI fi when he needs to order a taxi. And he says he half believes the government's explanation for taking mobile Internet down.
- [18:14]
Interviewee (Wagner Group reference)
These outages must have something to do with security. I guess it has to do with jamming systems, apparatuses that are put in place to just prevent drones from flying around and blowing something up. I guess it's something like that.
- [18:31]
Narrator / Host (likely Dena Temple Raston)
But not everyone buys it. Ours is a college student in the same region along the Volga River. We asked him about Russia's new Internet controlled messaging app, Max.
- [18:42]
Dena Temple Raston
The new Max app.
- [18:43]
Narrator / Host (likely Dena Temple Raston)
I think that's ridiculous, actually. Ridiculous isn't even the right word. It's completely pointless and stupid.
- [18:52]
Dena Temple Raston
Nobody needs it.
- [18:53]
Narrator / Host (likely Dena Temple Raston)
It's actually a copy of Telegram, which is already a perfect messenger, just with some extra features no one asked for or wants. It's easy to hear that kind of frustration as defiance, but Katerina says it's something else. The quiet acceptance that in Russia, the government is winning this fight.
- [19:12]
Katerina Stepanenko
So when we first saw that the Kremlin was successful at the doing and limiting mobile Internet in so many different cities and there was no significant backlash, my first thought was, wow, the Kremlin was actually successful at this. Russian people are actually going to collaborate and accept some of the policy changes that might be harmful to them and their freedoms.
- [19:37]
Narrator / Host (likely Dena Temple Raston)
For her, the story isn't about a clunky new app. It's about what it signals. A country closing in on itself.
- [19:44]
Katerina Stepanenko
The Russians are re establishing a police state, a Soviet style curtain, iron Iron Curtain style police state that is inherently anti west, inherently anti us, anti NATO, that is imperialist to its core and is going to be a lot more closed off than what it was. The Russians are trying to find all of the different holes, you know, in their information space and really centralized control.
- [20:17]
Narrator / Host (likely Dena Temple Raston)
So a new Cold war, essentially.
- [20:20]
Katerina Stepanenko
I mean, it could be more than just cold war, given Russian ambitions in the Baltics.
- [20:28]
Narrator / Host (likely Dena Temple Raston)
And she warned this isn't just about Putin. It goes far beyond that.
- [20:33]
Katerina Stepanenko
I don't know to what extent we are realizing that the implications of this is not just under Putin regime. It's also establishing grounds for Putin's successors to come into a more centralized society and continuing this, this imperialist objective.
- [20:58]
Narrator / Host (likely Dena Temple Raston)
A new Iron Curtain. Not a crest you Europe this time, but across the web. But more than an iron Curtain, it's also a blueprint, a path for aspiring autocrats to follow, a method to slowly limit Internet freedom without stoking citizen's ire until that Iron Curtain extends far beyond Russia. Because in a world where autocracy is on the rise, if freedom is contagious, then limiting it is too. And what Putin is building in Moscow is unlikely to stay in Moscow. This is. Click here.
- [21:46]
Recorded Future News Announcer
If you're looking for a daily guide to cybersecurity news and policy, sign up for the Cyber Daily from Recorded Future News. It serves up today's most interesting and important cyber stories from our sister publication the Record, and then aggregates all of the big cyber stories you might have missed from news outlets around the world. Just go to the Record Media and click on Cyber Daily to get all you need to know about the world of cybersecurity right in your inbox.
- [22:15]
Dena Temple Raston
Here are some of the top cyber and intelligence stories from the past week. It's Tuesday, September 2nd. Salt typhoon is back. And this time, the head of the FBI cyber division, Brett Leatherman, is calling for global cooperation.
- [22:33]
Sean Powers
Beijing's indiscriminate targeting of private communications demands our stronger collaboration.
- [22:41]
Dena Temple Raston
Last year, Salt Typhoon rather infamously infiltrated nine US Telecom companies, tracking who was calling whom and even identifying suspected spies. Now investigators say the group has expanded its reach, hitting some 200American organizations and 80 countries around the globe. The hackers are reportedly burrowing into company routers, pulling out sensitive network traffic and in some cases, lying in wait. Leatherman says they could strike again really soon.
- [23:16]
Narrator / Host (likely Dena Temple Raston)
You may be one of more than.
- [23:18]
Katerina Stepanenko
3,300 million Americans with a new worry, a very real threat of identity theft.
- [23:24]
Dena Temple Raston
A whistleblower is warning that the Social Security Administration, an agency that holds some of our most sensitive information, has been playing fast and loose with data security. Full names, addresses, birth dates, Social Security numbers. A whistleblower says Doge, the so called Department of Government Efficiency, copied it all and then uploaded it into a private cloud server, bypassing basic security protocols and creating what he called enormous vulnerabilities with catastrophic potential. There's no evidence that the data has been breached yet, but millions of Americans could now be one attack from having their identities or even their benefits stolen ransomware gangs have found a new target, the cloud. Microsoft says a hacker group known as Storm 0501 recently infiltrated a large company, not only stealing sensitive data, but trying to delete backups all from the cloud. And in a twist, they used Microsoft Teams to deliver their ransom note.
- [24:31]
Katerina Stepanenko
Washington and Tokyo remain united in their.
- [24:34]
Narrator / Host (likely Dena Temple Raston)
Joint efforts to counter the activists activities of North Korea's IT workers.
- [24:40]
Dena Temple Raston
The U.S. japan and South Korea have pledged to crack down on North Korea's shadow network of IT workers. These operatives hide behind fake identities using AI tools to secure remote jobs, often in blockchain or other tech sectors. They funnel their earnings back to Pyongyang and in some cases help stage cyber attacks and steal sensitive data. Just this month, the US sanctioned three North Korean officials tied to the scheme. And an Arizona woman was sentenced to eight years in prison for helping North Koreans pose as US based tech workers. And finally, the popular image hosting platform Imgur is in full on revolt.
- [25:25]
Russian Blogger / Sarkis Darbinian
Imgur was purchased by a company called Media Lab AI they buy digital brands, they buy sites like Imgur, they fire everyone and then replace them with AI.
- [25:35]
Dena Temple Raston
Since its 2021 acquisition, users say the platform has deteriorated. Uploads, fail notifications, glitch and AI moderation has led to some overzealous bans.
- [25:46]
Russian Blogger / Sarkis Darbinian
A lot of LGBT content was just getting banned as being sexually explicit.
- [25:50]
Dena Temple Raston
Now protests are flooding the homepage.
- [25:53]
Russian Blogger / Sarkis Darbinian
The Imager right now is in full on rebellion.
- [25:57]
Dena Temple Raston
For now, the site that built its reputation on memes and in jokes is turning those same tools on its new owners in what feels less like a protest and more like a digital mutiny.
- [26:21]
Sean Powers
Today's episode was written and produced by Dina Temple Rastin, Megan Dietrich, Zach Hirsch, Erica Gaeda and me, Sean Powers. I was the lead producer. The episode was edited by Karen Duffin, Fact Checked by Darren Ankrum and contains original music by Ben Levingston with some other music from Blue Dot Sessions. Our staff writer is Lucas Riley, and our illustrator is Megan Gough. Jesse Niswonger and Jay Cook are our sound designers and engineers. Click Here is a production of Recorded Future News and prx. Tune in on Friday for Mic Drop, which features our favorite interview of the week. We'll see you then.
- [27:19]
Recorded Future News Announcer
If you're looking for a daily guide to cybersecurity news and policy, sign up for the Cyber Daily from Recorded Future News. It serves up today's most interesting and important cyber stories from our sister publication the Record, and then aggregates all of the big cyber stories you might have missed from news outlets around the world. Just go to the Record Media and click on Cyber Daily to get all you need to know about the world of cybersecurity right in your inbox.