At a cyber security convention in San Francisco put on by RSA, a network security firm, journalist Lee Fang was able to interview a top member of Ukraine’s intelligence agencies. The Ukrainian, Illia Vitiuk, is the head of the Department of Cyber Information Security in the Security Service of Ukraine.
Vitiuk claimed Ukraine has had a hand in “helping” the FBI censor social media accounts in the U.S. “Once we have a trace or evidence of disinformation campaigns via Facebook or other resources that are from the U.S., we pass this information to the FBI, along with writing directly to Facebook,” said Vitiuk. When we send them leads, “sometimes we get good results with that,” noted Vitiuk. “We say, ‘Okay, this was the person who was probably Russia’s influence.’”
Vitiuk apparently doesn’t give too much credence to the concept of free speech, and believes in a broad-brush approach when it comes to censorship: “When people ask me, ‘How do you differentiate whether it is fake or true?’ Indeed it is very difficult in such an informational flow,” said Vitiuk. “I say, ‘Everything that is against our country, consider it a fake, even if it’s not.’ Right now, for our victory, it is important to have that kind of understanding, not to be fooled.”
During Vitiuk’s speech at the convention, he thanked many different private American firms for their help during the war, and noted that the FBI has been his agency’s “top partner.” This was in reference to help in preventing Russian cyber attacks.
According to Alex Kobzanets, a San Francisco-based FBI agent who spoke on the panel with Vitiuk, the FBI coordinated support for Ukraine amongst the leading Silicon Valley companies. “I don’t know how many times we’ve called the CEOs here in San Francisco to drive to their office on a Sunday afternoon and really engage with our Ukrainian partners,” he said. (https://www.leefang.com/p/how-the-fbi-helps-ukrainian-intelligence )
