Putin’s DDoS attack against democracy

It is now very clear that the Russian election was rigged. The evidence is incontrovertible. The question is whether enough people living inside Russia will get to see it.

Putin has for many years maintained an alliance with the major cyber-criminals operating inside Russia. The criminals are allowed to operate openly in return for performing political favors. One of these groups, the Russian Business Network, operated out of the regular office block in St. Petersburg shown below for many years and was only forced to move offices and change their name after the Economist published an article that finally embarrassed the authorities enough to make them move and change their name.


Since the weekend, a large portion of the two largest criminal botnets have been re-targeted to perform DDoS attacks on opposition Web sites.  (Background on what a DDoS attack is.)

This operation went into overdrive after the election as video evidence of ballot stuffing started to appear on YouTube.

What is inexplicable about these attacks is that Putin was the overwhelming favorite to win the Presidential election in March fair and square. His main rival is the leader of the discredited Communist party who citizens blame for the economic catastrophe that fell in the wake of the breakup of the Soviet Union.

Putin is still the candidate most likely to win the election, but Russian politics have suddenly changed and it is now possible to imagine Putin might not win on the first round.