Hacktivist collective “Anonymous” has reportedly dealt a blow to Russia’s propaganda machine by hacking printers all across Russia and remotely printing uncensored coverage of Putin’s unprovoked invasion of Ukraine, the International Business Times reports.
Putin’s restriction on media coverage has kept most of Russia in the dark about the atrocities his army is committing in the neighboring country he attacked and instead has used state media to lie about the invasion.
However, according to IBT, Anonymous has created a workaround by hacking into unsecured printers and sending out statements with details of military losses and encouraging resistance to the invasion and Putin.
“The details of the latest attack against Russia were shared by Anonymous on the micro-blogging site Twitter,” IBT’s Nica Osorio reported.
“We have been printing anti-propaganda and tor installation instructions to printers all over #Russia for 2 hours, and printed 100,000+ copies so far. 15 people working on this op as we speak,” the hacktivist group tweeted.
In an interview with IBT, one member of the collective explained they are instructing Russians how to install an open-source software that allows unencumbered anonymous communication for future updates.
“We hacked printers all across Russia and printed this PDF explaining that Putin/Kremlin/Russian media is lying and then we instructed how to install tor and get around their censorship to access real media,” the Anonymous representative told International Business Times.
Check Anonymous’s tweet below:
We are #Anonymous
We’re currently launching a printer attack on 156 #Russian printers
Already over 40,000+ copies#OpUkraine #OpRussia pic.twitter.com/4wCbBHYg3l
— Anonymous 🍀 (@DepaixPorteur) March 20, 2022
Read the full report on International Business Times.