Tag Archive for: evidence

Ukraine says it has evidence of 109,000 Russian war crimes

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As Ukraine struggles to make progress in its fight against Russia, Kyiv has been compiling evidence of war crimes since the full-scale invasion last year to present to the International Criminal Court in the Hague.

The vast majority of the charges being prosecuted were considered crimes against humanity, such as the mass executions of Ukrainians in Bucha in 2022.

Kostin’s figures also include 265 investigations into crimes against the environment, such as the Russian attack on the Ukrainian Nova Kakhovka Dam earlier this year that led to the evacuation of thousands of Ukrainians.

Four cases so far have also been opened into cyber war crime charges.

Kostin said the inclusion of cyber crimes and crimes against the environment for the ICC evidence is a new initiative by Ukraine during this war, stressing that “every crime has victims.”

He also acknowledged the challenge of convicting Russian citizens who may not be in Ukraine or have evaded capture, though he noted that some have been brought to trial.

“The bigger part is Russian war criminals who we charge and who we try in absentia. This is a quite longer process because it requires more procedural actions,” Kostin said. “While all of them receive defense, it’s our position to ensure a fair trial for everyone, including Russian war criminals.”

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Russian hackers seek war crimes evidence, Ukraine cyber chief says – World

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KYIV: Russian spies are using hackers to target computer systems at law enforcement agencies in Ukraine in a bid to identify and obtain evidence related to alleged Russian war crimes, Ukraine’s cyber defence chief told Reuters on Friday.

The hackers, working across Russia’s foreign, domestic and military intelligence agencies, have stepped up digital intrusion campaigns targeting the Ukrainian Prosecutor General’s office and departments documenting war crimes, said Yurii Shchyhol, head of the State Service of Special Communications and Information Protection of Ukraine (SSSCIP), which handles cyber defence in the embattled country.

“There’s been a change in direction, from a focus on energy facilities towards law enforcement institutions which had previously not been targeted that often,” Shchyhol said.

“This shift, towards the courts, prosecutors and law enforcement units, shows that hackers are gathering evidence about Russian war crimes in Ukraine” with a view to following Ukraine’s investigations, he added.

The espionage activity will be flagged in an upcoming SSSCIP report, due to be published on Monday.

Russian hackers targeted US nuclear scientists

The report, a copy of which was reviewed by Reuters, says hackers were also trying to gather intelligence on Russian nationals arrested in Ukraine, with a view to “help these individuals avoid prosecution and move them back to Russia”.

“The groups we’ve identified as being engaged in this activity are part of Russia’s GRU and FSB intelligence agencies,” Shchyhol said.

Russia’s Foreign Ministry and the Federal Security Service (FSB) did not immediately respond to written requests from Reuters for comment. Russia’s GRU military intelligence agency could not be reached for comment.

Shchyhol declined to identify exactly which units had been targeted by the hacking campaign, citing security concerns. The number of cybersecurity incidents documented by the SSSCIP grew by 123% in the first six months of this year compared with the second half of 2022, he added.

Russian hackers have prioritised targeting government bodies and trying to gain access to their e-mail servers, Shchyhol said, without elaborating. Reuters was unable…

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Public inquiry hears how Post Office security withheld evidence from people it suspected of theft

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The Post Office security department deliberately held back information on potential evidence that could support the cases of subpostmasters being investigated for alleged financial crimes, an official policy document has revealed during public inquiry.

During the latest hearing in the Post Office Horizon scandal public inquiry, it was revealed that reports sent to lawyers after initial investigations of subpostmasters suspected of theft and fraud included information about potential Post Office failures if relevant, but investigators were told to withhold this from the subpostmasters being investigated and potentially prosecuted.

Following the introduction of the Horizon computer system by the Post Office in 1999 to automate branch accounting, subpostmasters in large numbers began reporting unexplained accounting shortfalls. The Post Office blamed the subpostmasters and more than 700 were prosecuted, with many sent to prison. Thousands lost huge sums of money, with many going bankrupt.

Subpostmasters claimed the new computer system was causing the shortfalls, but the Post Office consistently denied this and suspected that subpostmasters did not have the computer expertise or resources to prove that errors existed. The Post Office used its power to prosecute privately and took advantage of the rule on the use of computer evidence that presumes that a computer system has operated correctly unless there is explicit evidence to the contrary. 

In 1999, this rule replaced section 69 of the 1984 Police and Criminal Evidence Act (PACE), which stated that computer-based evidence should be subject to proof that the computer system was operating properly. The Post Office was a supporter of this change and, as Computer weekly wrote in 2021, had replied to a Law Commission consultation on the proposed rule change claiming the existing rule was “somewhat onerous” when prosecuting people charged with crimes, such as the subpostmasters that run and own its branches.

A question of withheld evidence 

During the latest hearing, former Tony Marsh, head of security at Post Office until 2006 was asked about a Post Office policy used by teams investigating suspected theft or fraud by…

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No evidence of TikTok national security threat but reason for concern, experts say

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Social media app TikTok faces mounting bipartisan hostility in Washington D.C., where Biden administration officials and lawmakers are weighing a possible ban of the platform.

The app, which counts more than 150 million U.S. users each month but is owned by a China-based parent company, has faced growing scrutiny from government officials over fears that user data could fall into the possession of the Chinese government and the app could be weaponized by China to spread misinformation.

However, there is no evidence that TikTok has shared U.S. user data with the Chinese government or that the Chinese government has asked the app to do so, cybersecurity experts told ABC News.

Still, there’s reason to believe that the Chinese government could compel the company to share data on U.S. users or manipulate content on the app to forward a pro-China agenda, considering the nation’s authority over domestic companies and previous misleading statements made by TikTok on related issues, the experts added.

“We don’t have smoking-gun evidence,” Sarah Bauerle-Danzman, a professor who specializes in national security and business investment at Indiana University, told ABC News. “But we do know that if the [Chinese government] asks TikTok for any data, they would be compelled to provide it and we also probably wouldn’t know if they did.”

In a statement, TikTok cited Project Texas, an initiative that the company says keeps all U.S. user data on servers within the country.

“The whole point of Project Texas is to put TikTok U.S. user data and systems outside the reach or influence of any foreign government,” the company said in a statement to ABC News.

“Today, all new protected U.S. user data is stored exclusively in infrastructure in the United States, and today all access to that environment is managed exclusively by TikTok U.S. Data Security, a team led by Americans, in America,” the company added.

Here’s what we know and don’t know about the national security threat posed by TikTok.

No evidence that TikTok has shared US user data with the Chinese government

A key fear among lawmakers and other government officials is that TikTok could share sweeping data on U.S. users with the Chinese government or the…

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