Millions of messages sent to Russians to inform them about Ukraine

Polish developers call themselves Squad303.

© Squad303

Text by: Dominique Desaunay Follow

3 mins

Polish IT developers, close to the Anonymous groups, have created an online service that allows Westerners to anonymously send text messages to Russians to raise awareness about the real situation of the war in Ukraine.

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The site is called

1920.in

and takes its name from a unit of Polish World War II pilots who had joined the British Royal Air Force to continue the fight against Hitler after the annexation of Poland.

The site was created by a team of Polish developers, calling themselves "the 303 Squad" who claim to have hacked more than 20 million mobile numbers of people and businesses domiciled in Russia, as well as 140 million email addresses belonging to to citizens in the country.

We are 7 days old!

🎂 You sent 7,000,000 (Yes! Seven million!) Text messages to randomly selected Russians via https://t.co/yI1zLytWYP!

Even in our dreams we didn't dream of such a result!

Thank you people of the free world!

We love you!♥️ #FightForUkraine ✌️🇺🇦 @YourAnonNews pic.twitter.com/xIosMhpstK

— squad303 (@squad3o3) March 11, 2022

Concretely, the Internet user accesses one of these numbers which will be displayed randomly on the site.

All he has to do is copy a pre-written text in Russian to send it from Whatsapp or from any SMS application from a computer, a mobile or by going directly through the site.

If since Monday morning Google has blocked the automatic translation of text into Russian to limit the Kremlin's online propaganda actions on its browser, you can always check the content of the message using various digital tools.

In particular, the new version of the DeepL online translator which is as easy to use as that of the American Web giant.

Here is the content of the message in French that the Squad303 propose to send to you:

Dear Russians, your media is censored.

The Kremlin is lying.

Find out the truth about Ukraine on the free internet and on the Telegram application.

It's time to overthrow dictator Putin!

»

Since the launch of the service, Squad303 claims more than 7 million SMS that have been sent through it and zero according to the Russian telecom supervisory authorities!

Obviously, the exact number of participants who launch these missives from all over the world and especially the number of people who have received this type of message is in any case unverifiable.

This is crazy.

The person questioned me being American so I had to prove it.

I've sent over 200 messages thanks to @squad3o3 to Russian cell phones.

This one got me, it roughly translates to “it's terrible in Russia” @xxNB65 @YourAnonNews @xenasolo @ZelenskyyUa got a new friend🙏 pic.twitter.com/UOunxs2aIJ

— Mr. T aka Masta Chef/CireX14 (@titancrawford1) March 6, 2022

Some cybersecurity experts, however, believe that sending these SMS would expose their recipients to repressive measures in their country under the new Russian law which punishes fifteen years in prison for any "false information" on the war in Ukraine.

In particular, during the untimely checks carried out by the Russian police forces on the mobiles of the citizens with the display of these text messages likely to send them directly to prison.

The Polish group Squad303 which claims to support the hacking operations of Anonymous is not at its first attempt, announcing this Saturday, the intrusion and theft of data on the computer servers of the Ministry of Economic Development of Russia.

Database of the Ministry of Economic Development of Russia



►https://t.co/Nr44jlwHSC



►https://t.co/uGBMecTn4T#Anonymous #OpRussia #StopWar🇺🇦 pic.twitter.com/1UrFjNN4uf

— Anonymous • News🌐 (@Anonymous_Link) March 1, 2022

An operation, it seems, successful, since the stolen information is now displayed and published online.

The reaction of Russian hackers was immediate.

NetBlocks, the global Internet and mobile network monitoring group, reported on Sunday that the operator Vinasterisk, which covers western Ukraine, experienced a massive outage.

The result of a large-scale cyberattack that also included elements of sabotage and data theft.

⚠️ Confirmed: Major internet disruption registered on the Vinasterisk network which serves #Vinnytsia Oblast, western #Ukraine;

the operator reports a massive cyberattack with elements of sabotage 📉



📰 Background: https://t.co/S0qJQ7CbNv pic.twitter.com/Zq9ZQdZZDn

— NetBlocks (@netblocks) March 13, 2022

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