How Russia's new elite hit squad was compromised by Google Translate

https://theins.press/en/inv/290235

by dralley • 4 months ago

34 6 4 months ago

theins.press

JasonADrury2• 4 months ago

The investigative work here is great, the writing is absolutely terrible at times.

potbelly83• 4 months ago

agreed, imagine what a Michael Lewis type writer could make of this story

JasonADrury2• 4 months ago

It's certainly not the usual "investigative report" style I'd expect with Christo on the byline.

Perhaps it's an attempt at making the report less dry? I don't think it worked.

The unnecessary dramatization just feels a bit off:

in the deadpan vocabulary of Russian intelligence, “legally deported.”
But now the agents had failed to deliver, and one had been arrested. It was time for Alimov to take matters into his own hands.
he had chosen the date revered by Russian spies and soldiers — Defender of the Fatherland Day — for his maiden undercover trip abroad
the “main adversary,” as Russian intelligence jargon refers to the United States

type0• 4 months ago

Other investigations presented quite good in video form https://www.youtube.com/@thechristofiles/videos

p1anecrazy2• 4 months ago

So law enforcement was able to intercept/obtain logs of all the perpetrator’s Google Translate queries. How does that work? Assume he was not logged in. Did they just continuously obtain his IP when his device announced itself in a cell phone network and then monitored all the traffic and ordered Google to provide all the activity for that IP?

Edit: apparently his accomplice living in the U.S. was under FBI surveillance. “The use of Google Translate was not Durovic's only operational failure. He made two trips to Russia, in July and October 2024, attempting to disguise his destination by booking ostensible vacations to Turkey while continuing to Moscow on connecting flights under his real name. Each time he returned to the United States, he was questioned by FBI special agents who had access to his airline records. He flatly denied having visited Russia. The lies were transparent, and they compounded his legal exposure. The FBI, however, was content to wait — continuing to surveil him and read his virtual diary on Google Translate — before finally arresting him in March 2025.”

p1anecrazy2• 4 months ago

Several years ago German media ran a story where they were able to connect Google search queries to members of parliament by buying big data. Examples included someone looking for data on “dementia treatment” etc. But that wasn’t real-time, as I understand.

How Russia's new elite hit squad was compromised by Google Translate

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