Russia Sends Cybersecurity CEO to Jail for 14 Years:
The Russian government today handed down a treason conviction and 14-year prison sentence on Iyla Sachkov, the former founder and CEO of one of Russia's largest cybersecurity firms. Sachkov, 37, has been detained for nearly two years under charges that the Kremlin has kept classified and hidden from public view, and he joins a growing roster of former Russian cybercrime fighters who are now serving hard time for farcical treason convictions.
In 2003, Sachkov founded Group-IB, a cybersecurity and digital forensics company that quickly earned a reputation for exposing and disrupting large-scale cybercrime operations, including quite a few that were based in Russia and stealing from Russian companies and citizens.
In September 2021, the Kremlin issued treason charges against Sachkov, although it has refused to disclose any details about the allegations. Sachkov pleaded not guilty. After a three-week "trial" that was closed to the public, Sachkov was convicted of treason and sentenced to 14 years in prison. Prosecutors had asked for 18 years.
[...] In December 2021, Bloomberg reported that Sachkov was alleged to have given the United States information about the Russian "Fancy Bear" operation that sought to influence the 2016 U.S. election. Fancy Bear is one of several names (e.g., APT28) for an advanced Russian cyber espionage group that has been linked to the Russian military intelligence agency GRU.
(Score: 0, Offtopic) by Runaway1956 on Tuesday August 01 2023, @05:51PM (9 children)
Do they give time for good behaviour? Or, is good behaviour a bad thing in Russia? Maybe he can earn bad time, for bad conduct? Maybe I should re-read Tolkien for some hints.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Tork on Tuesday August 01 2023, @06:07PM (6 children)
🏳️🌈 Proud Ally 🏳️🌈
(Score: 2) by Freeman on Tuesday August 01 2023, @06:40PM (5 children)
+1 Troll
It would also be a good argument, except that it's not exactly true. They were taking pretty much anyone who accepted, and then just dumped them on the front lines.
Joshua 1:9 "Be strong and of a good courage; be not afraid, neither be thou dismayed: for the Lord thy God is with thee"
(Score: 2) by Tork on Tuesday August 01 2023, @06:44PM (4 children)
🏳️🌈 Proud Ally 🏳️🌈
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday August 01 2023, @06:54PM (1 child)
I think "Free"man was complimenting your approach
(Score: 2) by Tork on Tuesday August 01 2023, @06:56PM
🏳️🌈 Proud Ally 🏳️🌈
(Score: 2) by Freeman on Tuesday August 01 2023, @07:04PM (1 child)
+1 Sarcasm, would have worked too. There's a fine line between trolling and sarcasm. Just because something is a Troll doesn't mean it can't also be +1 in my opinion.
Joshua 1:9 "Be strong and of a good courage; be not afraid, neither be thou dismayed: for the Lord thy God is with thee"
(Score: 2) by Tork on Tuesday August 01 2023, @08:25PM
🏳️🌈 Proud Ally 🏳️🌈
(Score: 3, Insightful) by looorg on Tuesday August 01 2023, @06:58PM (1 child)
14 years for "treason" is probably the good/lenient sentence. After all other Russians in some kind of similar position of power tend to clumsily fall out of windows or off their balconies if they don't have some kind of allergic reaction to their Novichok.
Still a lot of happy little accidents can happen during 14 years in Siberia ...
(Score: 2) by Freeman on Tuesday August 01 2023, @07:06PM
I mean, 14 years in Siberia may just be the long version of the aforementioned alternatives. And/or they aren't worth/no reason for the short version.
Joshua 1:9 "Be strong and of a good courage; be not afraid, neither be thou dismayed: for the Lord thy God is with thee"
(Score: 3, Insightful) by bradley13 on Tuesday August 01 2023, @06:03PM (20 children)
Eventually someone is going to take him out. You can only jail so many critics, and only do many people can fall out of high windows. Eventually, one of the will be proactive, and Putin will have an "accident". Which is why he's so paranoid, of coyrse...
Everyone is somebody else's weirdo.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday August 01 2023, @06:39PM
He's also getting old. Born too early to reach anti-aging.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by pTamok on Tuesday August 01 2023, @07:23PM (4 children)
It's reasonably well known that Putin has several body-doubles that are used for public events. If you were to decide to inhume him, you'd need privileged information to know it was him and not a double.
It is entirely possible that any public appearance since the start of the 'special military operation' has been performed by a double. He might be many things, but he is not stupid, and he has both clever and cunning people to advise him, who have a great deal to lose if they, or he, fail.
I suspect that one factor holding back a coup by the military is the lack of anyone sensible to replace Putin. As the West has found out, overthrowing a bad regime does not guarantee any improvement: look at Haiti, Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, You need a plan for victory.
(Score: 1, Troll) by loonycyborg on Tuesday August 01 2023, @08:02PM
They weren't changing regimes in hope for an improvement. They just change regime in any country every decade or so if they can so those countries prove less of a competition in trade and also to slowly genocide people there. Yeltsin/Putin government was put there by the same western "overthrowers", only they failed to replace regime again later and instead got defeated by own strawman. Losers.
(Score: 5, Interesting) by Opportunist on Tuesday August 01 2023, @09:04PM
Why would the US want to take him out? Seriously, that guy is a gift. Not only has he ruined the Russian economy with this silly stunt in Ukraine, he turned the once-feared Russian army into a meme-factory and a laughing stock, he isolated Russia internationally, he pretty much ensured that their word is meaningless and contracts with them are considered worth less than the paper used to write them on. And as the cherry on top, he managed to drive Finland and Sweden, two countries that remained staunchly neutral for over 70 years, to run head over heels into joining NATO at any cost.
At this point I'm not so sure anymore that he ain't a Western mole, to be honest...
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Thexalon on Wednesday August 02 2023, @05:03PM
There's a reason for that: People who try to become pro-democracy opposition have a habit of winding up dead or in prison.
Though among the possible leaders I could imagine for a much better Russia would be Garry Kasparov, who after semi-retiring from chess has been regularly involved in anti-Putin stuff (including being in some street protests/scuffles) and is still not in prison and alive.
The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday August 03 2023, @03:24PM
What do you mean by found out? They've been doing it for longer than that. Their real goal is clearly not improvement in regimes. They're not trying to improve things in other countries.
At least one of the goals is more excuses to transfer tax payer money to the military industrial complex.
Maybe another goal in some cases was to remove people who try to undermine the petrodollar (Saddam, Gaddafi).
(Score: 3, Informative) by legont on Tuesday August 01 2023, @09:09PM (12 children)
That would be a sad day as most of his buddies want to nuke the West right away. The former president and liberal darling Medvedev writes about it pretty much every day and has 1,110,000 followers. https://web.telegram.org/a/#-1572748754 [telegram.org]
I guess sanctioning his children was not such a good idea after all.
"Wealth is the relentless enemy of understanding" - John Kenneth Galbraith.
(Score: 3, Funny) by Freeman on Tuesday August 01 2023, @10:01PM (9 children)
When Putin looks like the sane guy, you know things are not going well.
Joshua 1:9 "Be strong and of a good courage; be not afraid, neither be thou dismayed: for the Lord thy God is with thee"
(Score: 3, Informative) by Freeman on Tuesday August 01 2023, @10:04PM (8 children)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dmitry_Medvedev [wikipedia.org] (I mean, the dude is absolutely unhinged.)
Joshua 1:9 "Be strong and of a good courage; be not afraid, neither be thou dismayed: for the Lord thy God is with thee"
(Score: 2) by inertnet on Tuesday August 01 2023, @11:54PM (7 children)
That's pretty much exactly what Hitler said about Ukraine and Germany.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Opportunist on Wednesday August 02 2023, @08:21AM (6 children)
Why do you think the right is currently as much in love with Russia as the left was during the Soviet times?
(Score: 2) by inertnet on Wednesday August 02 2023, @09:17AM
Hard to tell. I think the COVID pandemic may be a factor, or rather the information war that raged as strong as the pandemic itself. Today people are divided in other ways apart from left or right and I'm convinced this is because (mis)information campaigns have gotten much stronger on all fronts.
Over the years I've learned a lot of things, but my most important conclusion is that you can make people believe anything. There's a religion that preaches that the highest achievable thing to do is to blow yourself up and to take as many innocent people as possible with you. Putin has lost all my credibility since he denies involvement in shooting down MH17 in 2014. Not only the fact that it happened, but not being man enough to admit involvement and doing everything to keep the truth from getting out. But Russia is not the only nation that has misinformation campaigns, all major powers have them. Nowadays I take every claim with a bucket of salt.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by khallow on Wednesday August 02 2023, @12:43PM (3 children)
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Opportunist on Wednesday August 02 2023, @04:08PM (2 children)
Putin is doing what the far right would love to see done. You know, the whole "fight teh ghayz!" shit.
The funny bit is that it's the same idiots that usually cry about "muh freedumbs" whenever someone dares to "censor" them. Wonder how they'd react if "censoring" doesn't mean "getting your Facebook account temp suspended for hate speech" but "vanishing in a gulag and somewhere in the next 5-10 years they'll tell you you'll be there for 15 years, that will shut you up for good".
(Score: 2, Touché) by khallow on Thursday August 03 2023, @02:51AM (1 child)
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Opportunist on Monday August 07 2023, @12:53PM
The fun bit is that they used to fund and buy the left, now they're doing the same with the right.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Thexalon on Wednesday August 02 2023, @05:13PM
The American left was in love with the Soviets in the early decades of the USSR, especially when they were on our side killing more Nazis than anyone else. They became disillusioned with them as they learned more about what the Soviet leaders were actually like once the threat of the destruction of their country to fascists went away. And it's worth adding that Franklin Roosevelt was always wary of Stalin's intentions, as was Harry Truman.
A good example of this was Black Panther leader Stokely Carmichael: He was interested enough in communism to tour Cuba, North Vietnam, China, and the USSR, and promptly returned and said "Communism is not an ideology suited for Black people, period. Socialism is not an ideology fitted for Black people, period, period." And he took a lot of black radicals with him.
The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Wednesday August 02 2023, @12:14AM
Only if most of Putin's buddies survive Putin's death. Publicly on record as wanting to start a nuclear war probably isn't conducive to one's survival in a post-Putin world.
Targeting those kids with retaliatory nukes might work better?
(Score: 3, Insightful) by number11 on Wednesday August 02 2023, @05:46AM
"Followers" in social media does not mean "people who approve". Some are bots, most just want to keep track of you. And I wouldn't call Putin a "liberal darling", unless you consider RFKJr a "liberal".
(Score: 1, Troll) by ShovelOperator1 on Wednesday August 02 2023, @08:47AM
What I can tell from living in Eastern Europe, but still in in the Union, EVERYONE is now pushing too hard.
Czech Republic: Reverse engineering hardware protection is a life-endangering crime!
Poland: Photography prohibition comes back, after being taken down when government found that everyone can have a camera in a wristwatch. List of places which should not be photographed? IT IS A SECRET.
Germany: Now telling people about a movie you saw in the cinema is a crime!
Just governments without people's countermeasures exploiting the crisis situation.
And when the money comes into play, the only countermeasures which governments will understand are "violent". I put "violent" in a quotation marks, because we have been manipulated into a new, corporate definition of "violence": Whatever endangers profits is a "violence" now.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday August 02 2023, @10:00AM (3 children)
If he was warned against doing so or already knew that he shouldn't have done what he did then perhaps it was treason... As for 14 years - well it's Russia, be glad you didn't get polonium tea. If you're in Russia you should already know you're like working for something like the Russian Mob - just with nukes and more tanks. Never offend your Mafia Bosses. FWIW Snowden is regarded as a traitor by the US Gov too and I doubt he wants to find out how bad his sentence is going to be...
That said are Trump supporters OK with the Russians allegedly helping Trump win?
Or they believe that negligible numbers were influenced by the Russians?
After all Clinton was doing a terrible job convincing the other side and fence sitters to vote for her. Calling voters "deplorables" is actually very unprofessional as a politician. Lying to voters and making promises you can't or even don't intend to keep is normal and near expected for politicians. Your job is to get elected.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Wednesday August 02 2023, @12:48PM (2 children)
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday August 02 2023, @06:09PM (1 child)
If you're gonna poke the bear, poke it with a very long stick from a different country. And don't drink the tea if its friends pay you a visit.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Thursday August 03 2023, @01:12AM
Or poke it hard enough to kill it, I suppose.
(Score: 2) by mcgrew on Wednesday August 02 2023, @01:17PM
Ever since Trump was elected President and lost his re-election, the Republicans seem to have become like Trump's buddy Putin. Witness Florida. I've probably voted for more Republicans than Democrats, but that party will have to regain its sanity before I even vote for a Republican dog catcher.
They're kind of like Sony, who were a good brand in the last century but are completely evil now.
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