can all make a difference. knowledge grows through sherry and download it now for free. people in trucks injured when trying to flee the city center. more and more refugees are being turned away. order. families play. the reason for the credit on that is with people seeing extreme dreams. ross getting 200 people from the jews around the world. more than 300000000 people are seeking refuge. yes. the why? because no one should have to flee. make up your own mind. d w made for mines. ah,

last night should have a good chance a computer in our computer is shut down the line and then a screen of death appeared on the staff computer. what's the difference in the flash, acceptable? there's the film cushioning you monkey with the at 1st we couldn't believe something was wrong with our software. you thought nation program them for look them me dark. the company software transmitted tax data to financial authorities long on the system. they chose software that almost every company in ukraine use go a little but it's a little kid with brilliant. so i knew though we reported it to the cyber police said this, but they didn't come, hadn't i? finally, i went there myself. law filed

a complaint and said you are required to respond, they get or what? but it was too late. from here, the attackers were able to spread their malware to millions of computers. the name of the virus, not petula. they were asking for money. what if you paid that money was going to go nowhere? they couldn't actually unlock your computer. oh, just a southern ukraine. here, the computers of the world's largest shipping company, maersk, we're head in june 2017. none of its 130 offices. could access their data and were forced to use in colon paper even so it became a super spreader in the non pet jab, demick, the estimated damages total $10000000000.00 is the most consequential cyber attack in history by pure cost and the scale with, i believe it is with waterloo and shortcut. yeah,

holly. if sir they came, did their duty and had us all wonderfully arrested vantage in the night they took out $150.00 servers. that was every thing the company had. one of the software had become a weapon. programmed by an invisible group of hackers called sandwich would look for so the whereabouts and were few people took notice that mostly people didn't not theater at the book. the not pitcher was a diversion tactic to cover up the power they had over europe and american hopefully, i mean they're basically pretending to be criminal ah, to kind of cover their tracks at people for years. how many people do you think are behind this? i'm blown away by the it's just a handful of people. ah. ah. mm.

yeah, more slowly and windows, i was sitting in front of the tv with my wife and son, almost like watching a movie about edward snowden. he, when suddenlink with him, the power went out to show us, yet he is the moon, the sourcing, and you're going have continued to shingle chaucer. it shall after an hour and a half of power outage. what the water would have frozen and blown the promising. so my disaster that would have taken about 6 months to repair to paul garner. he took them an hour, but technicians at state own power company who coronel, go, managed to flip the switch as mechanically just in time to prevent damage. the problem was no accident. it was the work of the send warm group when his line,

when you're ready, when we don't know these people from me, we don't know their names or who they worked for at the dealership, but they're not doing it for fun. poaching. they're being paid for in the pony to horrible to them. the live, it was a large group of people were involved, because they were very fast and very actively working of several systems. alexia since ski investigated the incident on behalf of the state power company back in 2015, he had noticed unusual server failures at a media company. when needed to hook them up, a jiggle is full. when we checked the log files of various computers, we realized how dangerous the situation was. nation will don't wanna get on. the hackers had been penetrating ukrainian networks for months. they scouted out both

companies and authorities planting their malware is covered in the infrastructure in the environment, which i don't know. it's some, some similar as if you tried to discover a house while being completely blind. so that tucker would need to go from one network to another. it's just like walking from one room to another, open in an opening, yet another door until you find that equipment or basically a room which you're looking for, which is hidden in behind. the located the skeeter control system from there, the facilities machinery could be accessed directly. oh, with virtual access to the control room, the attackers could flip the switches undetected. that's exactly what they planned to do. they placed their code like a time bomb set to the date, december 17th, 2016. the model. these weren't individual action for it was

a well funded, well run organization was the attack on the 300 kilovolt computer controlled substation was historic. if a computer virus directly attacks machines and systems, it's known as a cyber physical attack, carrying out such attacks is complex, expensive, and therefore rare. only about 10 such incidents are known to have taken place. the 1st occurred in 2009 when the u. s. in israel unleashed the stuck snake virus on iranian nuclear facilities. it destroyed 1000 centrifuges in the uranium enrichment facility, a virtual attack with physical consequences. and it opened pandora's box from then on many countries would equip themselves with cyber armies. since then, everybody has really pursued this, this disruptive, destructive capability. ah, robert lee served for

a long time in the u. s. air force. and briefly with the essay. after stocks night, he warned that the u. s. 2 was vulnerable to cyber attacks. as i kind of raised that point up in the government at the time just in the department offense in air force, a lot of people are like, what are, what are controls us? what do you mean? like i all the stuff that we use, like whenever we don't use the same stuff they'd use in iran. yeah. of course we do actually it's, it's ubiquitous. and, and you could tell there was this moment for a lot of them were, it was just crazy. i think about the blow back effect of creating a capability to do something that revealed vulnerabilities or issues and systems we depend on on daily basis. ukraine became a testing ground for cyber weaponry. for the cool thing,

only gone means training campbell, where special military units are trained at the mall which furnished. we believe that in 20152016 of the whole of ukraine was a training ground for cyber attacker center was this attack was not developed specifically for that for station with work and any other countries around the globe. the sandwich group had long had access to us networks as early as 2014 cyber expert john hall quist had warned that u. s. energy suppliers were being spied on there what a blog. and i said, look, i don't think they're in these companies to figure out what the price of gas is going to be right. they're there to prepare to destroy something. health squished dubbed the groups and worm. a reference to the classic science fiction series dune, sand worms live underground. when the surface, the consequences are devastating. in ukraine civilians for the targets of the

attacks. the whole point is to stay below a level war, right because nobody died. it was reversible, ranked, and, and named short term. you might make the argument that, that it was a design precisely not to be an act or to be an act that goes right up to the edge . cyber attack still take place in a gray area between war and peace, but that could change. it's an honor to be here. but i think it's more likely we're going to end up as it when we end up in war. i real shooty more. when the major power could be as a consequence of a cyber ridge of great consequence. the question is, how can you fight an opponent that attacks out of nowhere ever since the 2nd world war, the mighty united states has been suffering painful defeats. despite its superior weaponry. we have the best military in the world. they were the best troops,

the best training, the best technology, u. s. military has more money than the other top 10 biggest militaries in the world combined. wow. so what's the problem? above all conventional warfare is profitable for the arms industry. companies like lockheed martin and 1000000000 selling fighter planes like the f 35. it's a technical marvel that's invisible on radar and automatically scans the ground for targets. it's precise, lethal, fast and intelligent, but above all, it's expensive. the whole program costs us taxpayers and allies, $1.00 trillion dollars this weapon has no utility, it's already obsolete. it's not the turing, russia or china, it's not winning wars in iraq and afghanistan get,

we're buying more of these things. so the f 35 is like the maginot line in 939. it's and it's an obsolete weapon built to win the last war and not the future war. for almost 20 years behind the armed us forces and their allies have been fighting in afghanistan, but the best technology is useless without a clear strategy. o. u. s. troops have also been fighting in iraq for years. 3. 0. so they wanted to put on a big show of the american military driving tanks across the borders, going all the way to baghdad and taking saddam down, culminating with that totally p. r, fabricated saddam statue falling down and feared elsewhere. baghdad in april 2003.

so the conventional stuff at the beginning was all a very carefully meticulously organized shop. ah, the united states and our allies have prevailed when they discovered that it wouldn't be peace loving unicorns on the political leadership had 3 awful choices. they could either leave iraq and afghanistan and seed the field terrorists. mm hm. they could have a national draft like vietnam to rape the army, big enough that would be needed to occupy these places for years to come. the 3rd option was using private military contractors and contractors in general to fill the gaps that the u. s. military could not film and that became the new normal

u. s. troops supported by private contractors. by the end of 2020, a total of $4800.00 contractors would be working for the u. s. army and syria and iraq. and so by 2009, half of the american force in iraq was contracted. now of that, only about 15 percent were trigger polars. most of them were just making food and repairing vehicles. but the united states america had as a reliance strategically upon the private sector to sustain wars which is dangerous . ex navy seal, eric prince saw an opportunity with his company blackwater. he received contracts for personal security in iraq, but it didn't stop there. very quickly. prince, who was close to dick cheney comes up with this notion that they can create an off

the books ah, cia type squad that can do things that the united states needs done without it stamp on it without knowing that it was the united states of america. in the shadow of the media staged wars, the u. s. since special forces on secret missions, including hunting down terrorists, partly with the help of private mercenaries, the iraq war was really the moment when the most powerful nation in the world, the united states put its stamp of legitimacy and approval on the notion that the nation state no longer has the sovereign control of organized use of force that it is acceptable for even veterans of the united states military to sell their us taxpayer funded knowledge and experience to the highest bidder. at the time, military veteran sean mc fate was studying at harvard university. i was running across campus late for us like

a statistics and economics midterm study group. and i got a phone call and literally went like this. you don't know who we are, but we know who you are. we have a job in africa that we think you can help us with. would you consider dropping out of harvard? i to do it will pay a flight ticket down to texas. we're headquartered. we'll talk about it in the 19 ninety's mac fate was a paratrooper in the u. s. army. he then studied political science at the renowned university. and i was like now you know, mid term exam here, going to africa to some really strange up here. so i left harvard and i, and 3 years later i had spent, i was, i spent in africa basically building small armies for us interest for a private military company. that did work on that, the c,

i a and that the department defense didn't want to touch as part of its global war on terror. the u. s. entered into shifting alliances with other armed forces like here in burundi. shown rick. fate was among those who carried out secret missions with the help of the local military. he was tasked with preventing an assassination attempt being planned on bernice president according to ca, information it, but it didn't work. how i can't do it. he doesn't talk about his other missions. there are reasons for secrecy. when you a soldiers get killed, there does have to be reported. they have military funerals. there they, they come back in flag draped coffins when contractors die. nobody really cares for years. i used to track the number of contractor deaths and it was very, very difficult to, to do it. i mean, in some ways,

i also knew that was being used for plaza deniability because i was doing very risky operations that they went poorly. the u. s. could disavow me, they said they never would, but we all knew that's easy for them rather than rescue me. they're called kite operations where you can cut away the kite elana float away. this plausible deniability is a central motivation for these sorts of shadow military operations. it's especially helpful when something goes wrong, as it did in venezuela in may. 2020. well, opposite. today we're presenting the confession of the 2nd us special forces terrorist, idaho. we never heard of it. what's your name? my name is aaron seth berry. what was the goal of the mission to get madura his wife melanie very saw the video online. not a, it's something you can't imagine. that you're just shocked. even berry came to germany with the u. s. army. he fought in iraq and afghanistan as well as clathy,

joined the army right after high school. he always wanted to serve his country and to help other people that play in his him. in 2013, he retired and worked as a tradesman inch fine for germany. them as though filiano when you've been doing what he did for so many years, you miss it a little, including the camaraderie in late 2019. he signed up for a secret mission in columbia. ah, on the border with venezuela among drug traffickers, spies and corrupt officials, very trained with special forces colleagues and deserted venezuelan soldiers. ah, the goal was to overthrow the government in caracas and bring self proclaimed interim president. one guy jo, to power. he wasn't president can on he was a guy running around saying, hey, i was for, i'm really the president. so they have all these meetings. they have shadow diplomacy going on. and then you have figures who had been involved with the

intelligence apparatus in military apparatus in, in venezuela for years that are now part of the opposition who are sort of whispering and why dozier, all, you know, we can work with, with the mercenaries. we could arrest to maduro, but the venezuelan government already knew about state television even broadcast, the names of mercenaries, luc, aaron and jordan, already deleted. jordan keith drew was in the special forces with berry. he now sent his old comrade on a hopeless mission. yeah. but when i go to get the full of on may 3rd 2020, he announced via twitter. at 1700 hours, a daring amphibious raid was launched from the border of columbia deep into the heart of caracas. our men are continued to fight right now. but their attack was anticipated, even berry was arrested together with other mercenaries in the coastal village of

ju oh, here's the issue with a merchant, i whirled a lot of mercenaries, our former vats. right? they got our rack rack gas and they do multiple tours. there. they come home and they can adjust well civilian life they, they're warriors and they, they're looking for wars. and now that mercenaries are now back on the table, it gives them optionality to do so. the promise they don't know what they're getting into. go ahead. glaze with i just got information, nothing to do with our government, but i just got information on that. so um, well, we'll find out what you thought about it or whatever it is. we'll let you know. it was clear, the mercenaries were on their own. since the twenty's been sentenced to 20 years, is it going to be that long? i hope not. no, not all american mercenaries are deserted by their government. like aaron barry was

in 2007 blackwater boss eric prince, had to answer to congress after his mercenaries killed 17 iraqis in a shooting spree in bagdad. u. s. president donald trump later pardon the shooters . from the incident, after the scandal, the blackwater brand was tarnished. prince set up new companies under changing names. one of them is based in hong kong. he runs a company called frontier services group based out of hong kong, its own primarily by beijing. they do belt road initiative, stuff in africa to strengthen beijing's national interests. so you, you have ed prince. mr. captain america. i'm ultra patriotic going into business with powerful figures directly connected to the central committee of the chinese communist party. eric prince is working to become v global player in the world of

shadow. conflicts in the mercenary business is global. moscow to relies on highly trained military veterans, russia always as he was mercenaries, voice and particularly under vladimir putin potent comes out of the k g, b. the k g b was using unofficial assets left and right all over the world as the see i was, none of this is new. what is new, as the technology that used to be the spies would have to go and find these unsavory characters that could do the hit for you. now they have websites. for example, russia's wagner group founded in 2014, the mercenary company is active in many conflict regions, including syria, where russian and u. s. units sometimes come menacingly close in 2018 u. s. troops and kurdish allies. we're operating in the oil rich region,

east of the euphrates river, to the west was territory controlled by the assad regime supported by russia and iran, on the night of february, 7th, more than a 100 mercenaries, reportedly crossed the river and came under u. s. fire. there are multiple narratives of, of what happened in that particular battle. and the narrative that the united states wants to put forward and did put forward in the form the pentagon going on the record about this was that the elite commandos from the united states had to take defensive action to up preamp, the threat that was being caused by russian mercenaries who were embedding with syrian irregulars. and you have like a delta force marine scream. bray's i with her there. i there kurdish allies in a defensive position around a gas facility. and they call in b 50 twos as 15 strike eagles. a see 130 gun ships apache helicopters,

drones, you missiles, you name in the u. s. air force informed russia's military leaders about the impending air strikes. we were told, there were no russia that was right off the d. confliction line. they said not our people. some wagner mercenaries were said to have been flown out following the battle from my studying of how mercenaries work you very rarely see hoards of mercenaries in a conflict. a handful of them go, but really the people doing the fighting. are the local people or their mercenaries hired from another country just to be hired guns? some of these shadow fighters were taken to local hospitals the next day. how many and what nationality they were was something neither side had any interest in clearing up. the reason it didn't go to wold war 3 is because both moscow and

washington could disavow the entire thing. saying these varden group mercenaries are just mercenaries, a we don't care that much about mercenaries. so the world is turning as wars become more shadowy. they're trying to shuttle forces like mercenaries, to get the job done. an undeclared battle between east and west. waged by mercenaries. covert operations and cyber attackers. today we announced criminal charges against the conspiracy of russian military intelligence officers who stand accused of conducting the most disruptive and destructive series of computer attacks ever attributed to a single group. the u. s. justice department accused 6 members of a russian military intelligence agency unit of being behind the sand worm hacker

group from its headquarters, known as the aquarium operatives developed digital weapons for use in the gray area between war and peace. russia had become a shadow market for hackers, and potential mercenaries, rushes an amazing position, all the real good talent as there and all the talent has been committing crimes. so guess what? you have absolute authority over them because they can either do what you tell them or then go to jail and russian jails. not great. with the hackers had tested in ukraine. they laid a repeated in the us. russian cyber attackers infiltrated a software company in texas. solar winds is a friend that most people would think about it here. but it's actually just all over the world in terms of our firms mean tens of thousands of companies around the world use it. and the thing to think about is anybody they wanted access to,

they had access to the only limitation they had was in their intent a sign of how vulnerable the u. s. is critical. infrastructure is came in made 2021 pipeline operator colonial was attacked with russian ransomware, freezing the company gas stations ran out of fuel. the company paid $4400000.00 ransom to get their data back will be it was the hardest decision i made in my 39 years in the energy industry. but the united states isn't only a target, it has its own cyber army. the enter, say intelligence agency, trying to find exploit vulnerabilities in the software that can be used to penetrate foreign networks. one of those back doors was called eternal blue, designed to attack the world's most common operating system, microsoft windows. but the n a say lost control of its own cyber weapon.

unknown hackers copied eternal blue and distributed it on the internet. a short time later, it reappeared as part of not petula the devastating cyber attack and ukraine. so one of the things that made not patch em war effective was as you so the tunnel blue, which was a series of weaponized won't abilities. and at the, in a say, had actually developed eternal blue was a set of vulnerabilities that really shocked everybody at how effective they were. exploits can be used for any kind of attack espionage, blackmail or sabotage. ah, there's a growing market for that kind of malware. ah manuel, i took as a member of the chaos computer club in germany and a specialist in the protection of critical infrastructure.

it's a buffet, was unbeatable, for example, this is a traitor of different exploits. they buy a vulnerabilities and security holes or executable files, exploiting them on exploit. so the misuse of those moner abilities. laughlin off this traitor offers up to $2500000.00 for an android smartphone. exploit is this legal elbows. it's not really tulsa, it's legal, but of course it borders on what's ethical and moral. been the convent for example, if it became known that an export you sold lead to a dissident in some country being persecuted. so that would put you in a bad light. did one else let them flip the list? that was the case with mexican lawyer, carla, me, chair, solace. in 2015. when oh yeah. oh, come in on that. we were on our way to a meeting. i got a message from an a know number on on a case. it was very personal from the family. you some, it settles karla. my family is grieving. my father died on. i'm sending you the

address of the funeral as i clicked on the link, but nothing happened. he was implement and i'll pass another or so it seemed. but with that one click, pegasus software had infected. the cellphone province forfeited completely bugs the phone. come on, you can turn on the microphone, will take photos, access all the data quote from us. it's completely under the control of the attacker drivers. the software was developed by the israeli company. and so group founded by former intelligence agents, it exports, pegasus to countries, including mexico, hungary and saudi arabia ostensibly and the so group develops its products to fight terrorism. but who isn't, isn't a terrorist? is something determined by its customers. the most prominent case was that of journalist jama shoji, before he was murdered in istanbul, saudi consulate in 2018. his contacts phones were hacked with pegasus software,

with mexico is among the biggest customers in the spyware market, supposedly because the state aims to spy on drug cartels shootings, murders and disappearances are part of life here. and most of these crimes go unsolved when she was hacked, lawyer, carla mitchell. salus was working on a case of multiple murders. among the victims were photo journalists, rubin espinosa and human rights activist nadia viola, from the city of vera cruz senior latin is momento, gideon, selena willis told me that i couldn't. they had left there a cruise after a series of threats and intimidation them in those threats came directly from the state government. i ended up for that at the in 2018 state governor javier duarte was sentenced to 9 years in prison for collaborating with drug cartels

is glad. okay. lighting, going to resign is the vice even the alley stay organized. crime is within the institutions of state power and the state basically focuses on spying on and persecuting people. they don't like such as journalists or human rights activists. and when he comes to life, and i know that i just minus those, representing the victims, including silas became targets themselves in mexico and around the world. pegasus is used to spy on journalists, opposition, figures, and other politicians. these days installation no longer requires the clicking of a link. it's practically unnoticeable. a missed call is enough to infect a smartphone and even phones that are not hacked can be dangerous. modern military recognizance can easily find out where the owner of a cell phone is. thanks to drone warfare attacks can be carried out anywhere.

this is the village of hush, amir in hunter, a mood province in eastern yemen. on august 29th, 20123 hell fire missiles struck, joined 5 men. one of the 1st witnesses on the scene was holiday when ali java and on our slaughter jaw your were explosions like we'd never heard before. no, you saw dead bodies and blood everywhere with an earth that of a couldn't mikka lawyers for the victims. families trying to find out why the u. s . drone strike happened at that particular time and place. the assumption is that it was a so called signature strike triggered through metadata of phone calls and the gps positions of cell phones that been ali job or family suffered to deaths to this

day. they don't know why attorney jennifer gibson represents them. either strikes that are taken not based on someone's known identity or any known fact about some crime they might have committed. but rather based on a pattern of behavior, frequently with signature strikes, they don't know who they're hitting, who the enemy is, is determined by surveillance data. and there's plenty of that. it's evaluated by computers which look for suspicious patterns. the most important data source is cellphones and the sim cards inside them. so in many cases, they're giving designations to sim cards or other identifiers without knowing who the people are. but they're essentially engaged in a kind of creative, extra judicial, legal process that could end in the death penalty. the ha,

often innocent people are caught up in the fighting. one of them was he, mum, salim, been ali jabber who had preached at the local mosque that day. a few hours earlier, he and his son in law ahmed were sitting in front of the mosque, eyes on another glenora, the limbs opinion about medicaid was clear, was it oh, in this mosque, he criticized the murders committed by the group that the, the, living, the wound with on that day, 3 strangers were looking for the mom who had publicly denounced al qaeda a young policeman while he'd been alley java learned of this van de la hello sir la la willy. unwarranted, with the enthusiasm of a young policeman. while he'd said, i'll protect you, the divan laws of it though,

all would love to put it over. so they went down the street together. neither the mom nor the policeman suspected that the strangers were being targeted by us drones . they walked from the mosques to the place where the strangers were waiting for them. then the missiles hid how it could be that you're killing a hard core terrorist. that was going to commit harmony people. but i haven't seen many cases where they proven that that was the case. what we hear a lot of is 10 al qaeda killed, you know, a q a p members kill taliban kelvin. we don't often hear names. and so if you presume that it's one target one operation and they kill 10 people, you have to ask where those other 9 people since 2000 to more than 300 us drone strikes have been carried out in yemen. were than half of them under president trump. we

ah! in august 2021, a conventional war came abruptly to an end. when the u. s. military hastily withdrew from afghanistan. during the withdrawal a suicide bomber entered the crowds waiting at cobbles airport, and blew himself up. more than 80 people were killed, mostly afghans. ah, 13 u. s. marines were also among the dead. u. s. president joe biden immediately ordered a retaliatory strike. a drone fired on a target in the middle of kabul, reportedly an explosive vehicle of the islam state. later, the u. s. admitted its intelligence was bad. ah,

the attack killed 10 civilians, 7 of them, children, ah, everything is a video game now. and we have all the toys in the world, the do it be, you know, what? so does china? so does russia. so it is israel that this, this is the world we've created at least 18 countries currently use weaponized drones. they are controlled remotely without oversight from courts or declarations of war. and sometimes almost entirely without human decision making. autonomous drones search for targets automatically fire and forget drones from at least foreign nations circle over libya. for example, her fighting on the ground below our mercenaries and militia groups. many of them recruited and paid from abroad conventional warfare is increasingly

being replaced by shadow warfare. ah, nuclear power north korea, fonts, it's weapons, but secretly dictator kim jung own, also unleashes his own cyber armies on the west. iran and israel had been waging a shadow war for decades, involving raids, sabotaged missile attacks and assassinations with varying levels of deniability. meanwhile, private mercenary companies are profiting from the trend. mercenaries oath to work themselves out of a business. so because a profit motor, they either start wars or long gate wars for profit and conflict as the one

commodity that co creek demand for its supply. ah yes, the sure live devoted closet 20 or 30 years ago this cyber culture was a sort of punk culture, blah banquet coin, toss it just a day. it's fundamentally changed. pos, nittany these days. it's just a hard core business to business. sustainable. ha. ah, worse changed the weapons that matter most to day or weapons that give you plausible deniability and not ra firepower. these shadow wars are seemingly unstoppable. they're constantly expanding into new territory in both the physical and the virtual world.

with awe, with

who vacation and the shadow of the ukraine. warm blue steger travels to lithuania and asks himself, is it still safe to travel here in these times? what is it like in the country in close proximity to russia? let's find out if you with 30 minutes on d w. a. do you like it? how do you want it? i love it. okay. then buckle up, put the pedal to the metal and let's ride with

read 90 minutes on d, w. o. a sex phone operator with her master's thesis on potato marine to read a turn on. well, it gets more ridiculous from their literature list in german monk street. imagine how many portions of love us are now in the world right now. the climate change is very hot. story, this is my plan, the way from just one week. how much was going to really get we still have time to go. i'm going off

with his subscriber all morning. he was like a this is d w. news live from berlin 1st by thing continues for lisa chance. one of the last ukrainian strongholds in the east of the country, russian backed by to say they control the city. but ukraine remains defiant. also on the program, the taliban call on the world to recognize their rule in afghanistan. but they refuse.