Venezuela's Government Appears To be Trying To Hack Activists With Phishing Pages (vice.com)

Hackers allegedly working for the embattled Venezuelan government tried to trick activists into giving away their passwords to popular services such as Gmail, Facebook, Twitter, and others, according to security researchers. From a report: Last week, the Venezuelan opposition leader Juan Guaido called for citizens to volunteer with the goal of helping international humanitarian organizations deliver aid into the country. President Nicolas Maduro is refusing to accept aid and has erected blocks across a border bridge with Colombia with the military's help. The volunteer efforts were organized around the website voluntariosxvenezuela.com. A week later, on February 11 someone registered an almost identical domain, voluntariosvenezuela[.]com. And on Wednesday, users in Venezuela who were trying to visit the original and official VoluntariosxVenezuela website were redirected to the newer one, according to security firm Kaspersky Lab, as well as Venezuelan users on Twitter.

Comments

Again and again..

[bobbied]

The Socialist Utopia in Venezuela crumbles.... Socialism has never worked. Yet we still hear calls for socialist ideas ringning loud and clear.

Those who know history are bound to watch in alarm while those who don't know history insist on repeating it over their objections.

Blocking Humanitarian Aid

[Anonymous Coward]

Whenever I see articles talking about countries sending other countries "humanitarian aid," I think back to the articles regarding Russia sending "humanitarian aid" as a cover for Russia sending weapons and munitions into Crimea and the Ukraine. Back then, it was all too easy for the media to claim that the humanitarian aid shipments were munitions for the front line fighters, with maybe a little food and medicines placed on top for border inspectors to see and approve of.

"President Nicolas Maduro is refusing to accept aid" makes it sound like Maduro is a horrible man, blocking humanitarian aid from reaching the poor people inside his starving country. If "aid" is actually guns and ammo for Juan Guaido trying to stage a war to take over the country, then it makes a lot more sense why Maduro wouldn't want those shipments getting in.

Re:Blocking Humanitarian Aid

[bobbied]

No, this is food and medicine, nothing more..

Maduro would be forced to admit that his (and his predecessor's) policies of socialistic reforms have failed and the country is now solely dependent on handouts for survival. That the people are starving and in nearly open revolt because the system is broken.

This is a HUGE difference from the Venezuela of only two decades ago. The government has since taken over most private companies, soaked up their resources paying for social programs and ran everything into the condition we see today. This is how such ideas always have ended. Maduro cannot admit to his failure or the whole political gig is up for him and given the conditions he'd be lucky to make it out of the country alive to live in exile.