Television Review | Cyber ​​warriors fight for Ukraine from their home in Norway

The old one as the saying goes, in war and love, all means are allowed. In modern hybrid warfare, that applies more than ever. Such a war is being fought in Ukraine.

War no longer follows front lines or even national borders. Not all volunteer foreign fighters have gone to Ukraine. Some stay at home.

Tells about such soldiers Janne Seime Silerin directed by two-part Norwegian TV documentary Cyber ​​warriors (2023). It’s a bit fragmented, but the topic is also fragmented.

Russian after the attack began, the Minister of Digitalization of Ukraine Mykhailo Fedorov called the international IT army to “arms” with a tweet. In the documentary, four Norwegians have been found who grabbed computers and went to battle on the internet front.

They engage in online espionage and sabotage through hacking. Or at least they try. The documentary also admits that it is difficult to find out the effectiveness of the effort.

There has been a lot of talk about cyber warfare by states. We in Finland are concerned about the possibility that Russia could attack the electricity distribution network online.

The disruption of the US presidential election in 2016 was a form of cyberwarfare, even though there was no war.

Private the participation of voluntary citizens in warfare has been talked about much less than that of states. Cyber ​​warriors brings out a new and unknown side of warfare.

Such cyber warfare even blurs the boundaries between war and peace. Norway is not a party to the war in Ukraine, but some Norwegians participate in it from the chamber of their own country.

The IT army of Ukraine also emphasizes that it is not a state actor, although it cooperates with the people of the country’s government and army. The statement is interestingly related to the fact that the recruitment invitation was sent to the world by a minister.

Cyber ​​attacks is difficult to verify, but the document provides some examples. They mostly seem like short-term freezes, albeit attention-grabbing ones.

In one attack, the Moscow taxi center was hacked, and all taxis were directed to the center at the same time.

In the second, a Russian TV channel was hacked, which was set to play the Ukrainian national anthem and broadcast Ukrainian propaganda.

The project with the name tag seems a little more robust Robin has participated. It captures surveillance cameras in Russian-occupied areas of Ukraine. They aim to monitor and prevent war crimes.

Most online guerillas like to remain anonymous, but Fabian Falch was revealed when his project attracted international attention. He emerges as the most central cyber warrior in the documentary because he appears with his name and face.

Falch’s Mail2ru project is also interesting. He and his partners set up a website that allows people to send e-mails to ordinary Russians.

The messages try to offer Russians a way to real information, but the method is the same as in spam.

The scale was wild – especially at the beginning. In the first week, a hundred million emails went out as people from all over the world got excited.

But the enthusiasm quickly waned. The power of the messages doesn’t seem strange either. Falch estimates that one in a thousand bothered to answer and they sniffed too. However, it is impossible to know how many recipients may have switched propaganda channels to more reliable information.

The second protagonist of the documentary is a Finnish information security expert Mikko Hyppönen. He estimates that the world’s largest online war is currently taking place over Ukraine. Hyppönen thinks that the attacks of the Ukrainian IT army are significant.

Cyber ​​warriors, Yle Areena and Fem Monday at 18:55.