Profile of Russian hacker group “Humpty Dumpty”. It starts out looking like an idealistic hacktivist network, the “Anonymous International”.
Shaltai’s stated mission is “to change the world for the better, helping to bring greater freedom and social awareness.”
One of the group’s members even quoted the 2009 film Watchmen, saying, “We don’t do this thing because it’s permitted. We do it because we have to. We do it because we’re compelled. Once a man has seen society’s black underbelly, he can never turn his back on it.”
But in the end, hacktivism turns out to be a publicity-grabbing loss-leader to drum up paid hacking work:
Shaltai Boltai, if Lewis is to be believed, is only a “side project.” The group’s main work is getting hired to dig up information about private and public individuals. The whole company consists of a dozen people.
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We’re hired by private individuals and groups within the state, and we never work with anyone tied to the drug trade. But we maintain that we’re an independent team. It’s just that it’s often impossible to tell who our clients are. Sometimes we hand over information to intermediaries, without ever knowing the client.