Silicon Valley Tech News Roundup – February 27th
Select Russian banks will not be able to use SWIFT – 2/26
Russia faces new measures that aim to block the country from the global financial system. United States, Canada, and European countries issued a joint letter on Friday. It announced new measures that would isolate the Russian central bank.
One of the new measures includes blocking select Russian banks from using SWIFT. As stipulated in the letter, it does not mean a total ban. The measure commits to “ensuring that selected Russian banks are removed from the SWIFT messaging system.”
SWIFT stands for The Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunication. It is a Belgium-based cooperative company whose owners are the most prominent European banks. The payment network authenticates payment instructions between banks and processes around 42 million exchanges in 200 countries daily.
Maria Shagina, the author of an article published by the Carnegie Moscow Center think tank in 2021, described the possibility of this measure as a “nuclear option.” Shagina explained the action would hit Russia hard because the country relies on energy exports in US dollars.
However, Russia started preparing for the eventuality in 2014 by setting up SPFS (System for Transfer of Financial Messages), a domestic alternative to SWIFT.
Another measure outlined in the letter includes creating a trans-Atlantic task force whose job is to freeze foreign assets of sanctioned individuals.
Russian government websites down following hacker attacks – 2/26
On Saturday, several Russian government websites experienced reports of denial of service attacks. The websites targeted include the official website for the office of Russian President Putin and the Ministry of Defense. As of Sunday morning, the Kremlin website is still unavailable.
Before the invasion, websites belonging to the Ukrainian government and financial institutions suffered cyber attacks. The United States said Russian military hackers were responsible for the attacks. In a report published by Reuters on Thursday, the Ukrainian government issued a call for help to hacker underground and asked for its support against the Russian invasion.
On Saturday, Mykhailo Fedorov, Vice Prime Minister of Ukraine, stated the country plans to establish an “IT army” to fight Russian digital attacks.
Meanwhile, the hacker collective Anonymous also pledged their support. Based on the reports, Anonymous managed to hack several state-owned TV channels in Russia. The hackers replaced their programming with videos playing Ukrainian music and showed the flag images.
$11 million in Bitcoin donated to Ukraine – 2/26
Based on the reports by the cryptocurrency experts at Elliptic, a blockchain analysis company, Ukraine received around $11 million in Bitcoin donations from anonymous donors.
On Saturday, the Ukrainian government posted on their official Twitter page: “Stand with the people of Ukraine. Now accepting cryptocurrency donations. Bitcoin, Ethereum, and USDT.” The government also posted addresses for two cryptocurrency wallets. In eight hours, donors deposited $5.4 million. Likewise, Ukrainian NGOs and volunteer groups published their calls for cryptocurrency donations. An anonymous user donated $3 million in Bitcoin to an NGO.
Tom Robinson, the founder of Elliptic, said: “Whereas some crowdfunding and payments companies have refused to allow donations to be made to groups supporting the Ukrainian military, cryptocurrencies have emerged as a powerful alternative.”
Meanwhile, “Come Back Alive”, a Ukrainian NGO fundraising money for Ukrainian forces since 2014, had their donation page suspended by Patreon for violating the company’s policies. The company explained their decision: “We don’t allow Patreon to be used for funding weapons or military activity.”
Russia partially blocks Facebook – 2/25
On Friday, Roskomnadzor, the Russian technology regulator, announced its plans to partially block Facebook and accused the company of “censoring” state media. The statement also says the Russian Foreign Ministry and Prosecutor General’s Office recognized Facebook as being “involved in the violation of fundamental human rights and freedoms.”
Russian regulator claims Facebook violated Russian laws by restricting accounts of four Russian media outlets. They also claim they demanded Facebook lifted and explained the restrictions but received no response.
Nick Clegg, Facebook President of Global Affairs, released a statement via Twitter. It states: “Yesterday, Russian authorities ordered us to stop the independent fact-checking and labeling of content on Facebook by four Russian state-owned media organizations. We refused. As a result, they have announced they will be restricting the use of our services.
Ordinary Russians are using our apps to express themselves and organize for action. We want them to continue to make their voices heard, share what’s happening, and organize through Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp, and Messenger.”
