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

What happened to " allegedly" in the headline?

[aod7br7932]

Btw a great explanation about "the bridge with erected blocks" in portuguese: https://noticias.uol.com.br/in...

Re:What happened to " allegedly" in the headline?

[itsownreward]

If, like me, you're a US person sitting in in the US making a comment on a US website over a civil matter... well, sue me. GLWT

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.

Re:Again and again..

[PolygamousRanchKid]

Yet we still hear calls for socialist ideas ringning loud and clear.

Well, The Economist thinks that this is yet another thing that we can blame on The Millennials:

Millennial Socialism: https://www.economist.com/lead...

Re:Again and again..

[Anonymous Coward]

Besides china, those countries are not socialist dipshit.

Re:Again and again..

[bobbied]

AND.. What kind of standard of living does the average person in China have? China has been forced into making capitalistic reforms to keep their economy alive.

Oh, and don't forget, the only people trying to get into China for a better standard of living are from North Korea...

Re:Again and again..

[penandpaper]

> standard of living for the average Chinese
> makes capitalistic reforms to keep economy alive.

So, If China didn't adopt those capitalistic reforms their economy wouldn't stay alive and the standard of living for the average Chinese would be lower... Got it. Thanks.

Capitalism has done more to help people out of poverty in the world than any other system of economics. It's not perfect but it is a lot better than centralizing command of the economy in hopes that those in control are not idiots and/or malevolent. More resources go to Bezos because he is successful in managing those resources.

Re:Again and again..

[Locke2005]

The Chinese PEOPLE are some of the most naturally capitalist people in the world. The government is a curious hybrid of a centrally managed economy with incentives for capitalism. So far, it seems to be working, despite some obvious problems.

Re:Again and again..

[bobbied]

How about you take your mindlessness and go learn some history.

Venezuela was a vibrant economic force in South America only 20 years ago. They where rich in natural resources and had great prospects for ever increasing standards of living, improving health care and freedom for it's citizens. Now it's a country wide slum, the likes of which you've likely never seen, much less experienced. They are awash in poverty, death, starvation and oppression.

What changed? I dare you to go investigate and figure it out for yourself.

My Venezuelan friends generally agree with me. The mistake was adopting a government which was based on socialism. They where giving the "poor" stuff and taking from the "rich" to pay for it. Now, nearly EVERYBODY is poor and starving. The government took everything and squandered it, spent more than it could tax and is now printing Bolivars as fast as it can in an attempt to pay it's bills. Inflation is at 4 digits and their creditors are getting stiffed. The house of cards is falling, death and bloody violence will be the inevitable result. But that's ALWAYS the result when socialism runs amuck like this.

Re:Again and again..

[bobbied]

Man, is this what they teach in schools these days.. Do try to think a bit past your nose and ask yourself a few "then what" questions.

Wealth is NOT a fixed sized pie. Wealth can be created and the pie gets bigger, or it can be consumed and the pie gets smaller. I dare you to think about that for awhile. More wealth means more to spread around and isn't that what we really need?

Capitalism is responsible for creating more wealth than ANY other economic model it makes the pie bigger. Socialism has exactly the OPPSIT effect, it consumes wealth and makes the pie smaller.

So... The goal is to increase the average size of individual slices of pie, specifically my slice. I say we do this by making a bigger pie. In the mean time, you are complaining because some have bigger slices than you.... You want to take from the big slices of pie, to supplement the smaller pieces, I want to grow the pie as big as possible and I'm not so concerned that Bill Gates has a huge slice, as long as my slice is growing.

Cyber civil war?

[IHTFISP]

This sounds to me like the Maduro administration/military has just declared cyber war on its own people.

Could this be the world's first cyber civil war? Or has Syria, Iran, Russia or China already pulled a similar stunt?

Re:Cyber civil war?

[dristoph]

Have you ever heard of the NSA

Re:Cyber civil war?

[AHuxley]

The GCHQ and UK mil has been tracking people globally for decades using the phone network...
Location, voice prints.
A lot of early digital phone networks allowed a lot of interesting people to be found. Along with anyone they stayed in contact with.

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

[Anonymous Coward]

The Red Cross basically denied supplying the US provided "aid". So did the Vatican.

So USAID to the rescue it goes. An US state organization with clear links to the CIA.

Re:Blocking Humanitarian Aid

[Espectr0]

venezuelan here. while conspiracy theories are great, the real reason Maduro doesn't want the aid it's because he would implicitly admit his government has failed and people are dying and fleeing the country. it's as easy as that.

his regime along with chavez has been in power for 20 years. and now they blame the US sanctions (that have been for less than 2 years) for all the troubles.

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.

Re: Blocking Humanitarian Aid

[Anonymous Coward]

If you actually live in Central or South America and your blood doesn't run cold when Elliot Abrams says he's going to bring democracy to your country, you're probably looking forward to bayonetting infants or raping nuns.

Re:Blocking Humanitarian Aid

[Anonymous Coward]

The sanctions have been in place since the 2015 Presidential declaration of National Emergency by President Obama. The pressure against the Venezuelan government has been in place and constant since Hugo Chavez was elected president in 1999. In addition, how can anyone ignore the 2002 failed coup attempt supported by the United States?
The Venezuelan government has rejected the politically-motivated offer of aid and they should. First of all, US NGOs form the tip of the spear in American foreign government interference and it is a US NGO designated to distribute aid. The offer of aid is a trojan horse designed to get more hostile resources, weapons no doubt, into the country. That is why international organizations have refused to participate, because of the fact the aid is tied to political pressure on the government.
The picture of the bridge between Columbia and Venezuela that the news media claim was blocked by the Venezuelan military is based on a lie. That bridge, a $40 million project completed in 2013, has never been opened to traffic. It was the site of Colombian military infiltration into Venezuela and was never opened due to security concerns. Of course, you go down the river about 10 kilometers and you find the Simon Bolivar bridge where 30,000 people a day cross. Why does the US government and the news media decide to use easily disproven lies to support their case.
What is happening in Venezuela is another state-sponsored terrorist attack, sponsored mostly by the US, in order to topple the legitimate government of Nicolas Maduro and install a US puppet, Juan Guaido, in his place. That is illegal internationally and satisfies the textbook definition of terrorism.

Elliot Abrams

[dristoph]

Elliot Abrams, the recently named special envoy to Venezuela, has a past of using "aid" shipments to smuggle weapons into countries south of the border, weapons later used to massacre countless civilians, and then lying about it in testimony. No government in its right mind would allow such a shipment. The Red Cross and UN have both decried this maneuver by the US as a political stunt. And Venezuela is in fact currently accepting aid, just not from countries which have a record of both using aid as a Trojan horse for contraband and invading countries after dubiously declaring their governments to be illegitimate.

But why should I expect any of this information to be in a Slashdot summary.

Re:Elliot Abrams

[JumbleGuy]

Thank you for this post. It's amazing how many people are being taken in by the propaganda being pushed by the Corporate Media/Military Industrial Complex/Democrat/Republican money machine. This is the same thing that happened with the Iraq war. It's about oil.

Re:Elliot Abrams

[dristoph]

And of course it got modded as a Troll. This site has gotten more and more reactionary over the last ~5 years.

Re: Elliot Abrams

[dristoph]

This can all be looked up readily if youâ(TM)re skeptical, itâ(TM)s not secret. Presumably you have internet access.

LOL

[Dunbal]

If Guaido is "recognized interim president of Venezuela" then surely he doesn't need any help getting stuff into the country he's interim president of... I mean, doesn't he have the power now that Trump and all the US vassals and sychophants have "recognized" him? Can't he just decree stuff - oh wait no, that's only how dictators do things... can't he just use his presidential power to make stuff happen?

Re:LOL

[Dunbal]

actual real democratic support

It's pretty clear what your definition of democracy is. The guy backed by a foreign power. Not the guy people voted for. OK. China, India and Russia should proclaim that in fact Nancy Pelosi is US president.

Propaganda

[Anonymous Coward]

The bridge thing is bunk. That bridge never opened because of a dispute with Columbia, and has been blocked by those containers for a while. The "intelligence sources" is CrowdStrike, the firm the DNC hired to keep the supposedly hacked mail server from the FBI.

How to roll back a color revolution

[AHuxley]

The part governments never understood was that the NSA, GCHQ, CIA and MI6 had the top mil/gov commanders communications networks.
Calls got made and the CIA made offers.
Freedom, no war crime investigation, cash to stand down.
Counter intelligence never seemed to get a recording, never stopped such calls.
The military and police command stood down. The color revolution using protesters could move on.

What the more skilled counter intelligence services have finally worked out after decades is just how active the CIA and NSA are on their now nations secure mil/gov networks.
The new way around such attempts is to flood networks with calls in accents offering inside information and a way out to mil/gov command level staff.
The staff then have to state an instant yes/no to a CIA offer. Freedom/cash or stay working for the gov?
The ability to turn an entire nations command staff has now gotten more difficult as counter intelligence is now making the same offers on the same secure and private networks.
Add to that social media push back countering think tank, NGO and professional protest movements.
Color revolutions only work if the police and mil stand down and for protesters to take over a gov during the US news cycle.
Every police and mil officer now has to wonder if they said Yes to standing down and who the call was really from.
Do a full Tiananmen square?
Go full East Germany and the Stasi after getting direct reassurance from another nation?
Counter intelligence is finally not waiting for NGO, think tanks to hand out the protest stickers, banners, to fund protesters. Not allowing global social media to arrange protest locations.
No on location TV to get the optics of a "large" protest and police commanders doing nothing.
The mil in the side streets will not react the same way East German troops did.
Communications is now a counter intelligence trap. Every phone call, every social media message to protest is a trap.
A very different approach from the 1980's Stasi long term undercover investigative approach that allowed large protests to build and take place.
For the import and spread of campaigning banners, stickers, slogans, the free use of social media to pre position protesters.

Re: You So Woke Bro!

[bobbied]

I hope you enjoy dying of a treatable cancer when your health insurance company cuts you off. Here in the socialist hellhole of Canada I'll just get treatment. Such hell compared to your freedumbs!

LOL.. You DO understand that there can be no limits to health insurance coverage now in the USA right? It's literally illegal to write such a policy now.