The technological challenges of the modern information world could not be foreseen in the laws and customs of warfare, which were formed in the last century. On Wednesday, July 6, during the traditional OPORA.Live online broadcast, experts discussed technology and military operations and, most importantly, how it affects the lives and safety of ordinary people.
Yurii Lisovskyi, a representative of OPORA, believes that Ukraine is generally very good at using technology. Many interesting products work here, some of them have considerable security risks, but at the same time are very convenient, for example, "Diia".
"Immediately with the beginning of the invasion, the volunteers developed various applications and not only them but also various technological pieces for war, for victory. Some of them really save lives – for example, I can say this about the ‘Air Alarm’ app that people use. I know many people who hid in shelters, and the rockets did not hit them, luckily. Or let’s recall the various services that people also made for DdoS – in March, there were links to some sites, where you needed to click a button, and all russian state sites would crash. That's when we attacked all of them together, sent requests so that their servers were overloaded and could not work and provide various services. That is, this was also done by volunteers and Ukrainians," Yurii Lisovskyi said.
According to him, by the word “technology” we understand not only some software solutions, not only a website or an application, but also some devices, for example, our smartphones, which have many applications and functions.
He also emphasized that in the context of war, we often hear that certain actions fall under the protection of the Geneva Convention, or violate it. In 2019, russia withdrew its signature under the Geneva Convention.
As OPORA’s legal advisor Pavlo Romaniuk notes, since the Geneva Convention covers a large number of documents adopted at different times, russia cannot withdraw its signature from all of them.
"When we talk about the Geneva Convention, it is a series of conventions: the treatment of prisoners of war, the protection of the civilian population during war, and so on. That is, it is not one document. Therefore, of course, the russian federation cannot withdraw its signature under all the Conventions. But, of course, it makes some reservations. In 1949, four Geneva Conventions were actually adopted and, of course, after that there were numerous documents and additional protocols to them", Pavlo Romaniuk said.
As Yurii Lisovsky notes, we can recall the Appendix adopted in 1977. It says that civilians cannot be attacked, but civilians must not behave as combatants.
Lawyer Pavlo Romaniuk emphasizes that when we talk about the status of a person, the opposing party must somehow identify it. The russian federation has withdrawn its signature from the Geneva Convention on the Protection of the Civilian Population in Time of War. And that, of course, is bad. Thus, russia tries to avoid responsibility for violations of the rights of the civilian population during an international armed conflict. However, this does not exempt it from fulfilling the requirements of other conventions regarding the rights of prisoners of war, our combatants, soldiers of the opposing side, etc.
Yurii Lisovskyi also notes that the confrontation between Ukraine and russia on the Internet has been going on for a very long time. Since at least 2014, russia has been attacking Ukraine in cyberspace, carrying out various attacks on our computer networks, and critical infrastructure facilities, including power plants. Recently, in January 2022, more than 70 government websites were hacked. There was also a picture with four steps and it looked like a bad fake for Polish hackers. And at the same time, everyone was talking about the hacking of "Diia" and the leakage of user data. Last year, there were non-state attacks, for example, again attacks on the "Diia" application to raise loans on some people who had access to the application.
"At the very beginning of the invasion, various ways of reporting the movements of the enemy, that is, the russians, became very popular. When they entered the territory of Ukraine, many people remained behind the front line and they had communication, they had smartphones and could somehow report this to our authorities. And now this wave has died down a bit, but remember in March, we were told by everyone everywhere about what we should reported, and here is one way and the second way, the third, the fourth and all possible ways were sent to us then. Actually, at that time they asked to report especially about artillery installations, anti-aircraft defense installations, so that the ‘Bayraktars’ could destroy them and all that," Yurii Lisovskyi says.
For example, there is the Telegram bot "еВорош". It can be said it is official, that is, it was promoted by the Ministry of Digital Transformation, and you can log in to this Telegram bot through the "Diia" application. That is, you have to go through authorization inside it if you want to report something.
The second example. The Security Service of Ukraine made a service called "Bachu.info" . You reported information through a special application, which was created in such a way that information from the application was transmitted to a chatbot called "Stop Russian War". A little later, phone lines and email were added to the chatbot. Interestingly, in the description of the chatbot contains the following: "Please send your contact (to do this, click the button that appeared at the bottom of the chat) so that we can contact you in case of urgent need. Your data is not stored and will not be transferred to third parties."
Another example is the SSU and "Return Alive" foundation developed the resource "Find Occupant!" www.findokupant.com , which collected messages about the movement of the enemy through Viber, Telegram, and Google form.
According to the expert, not only these bodies used various services and platforms to collect information and fight against the russians. There were also similar services that helped to search for missing people. There were also services for reporting war crimes or violence, which were also done, for example, on the basis of Telegram.
"Why did we mention them? First of all, I would like to note that we are not condemning anyone here. That is, it was an urgent need to notify or promptly respond to the war. And I very clearly understand that, for example, Telegram bots are easy to create, accordingly, everyone used them, at least one or two times, if you have launched a bot, you can receive information. Therefore, in the case of an emergency, I perfectly understand that this was one of the solutions right here and now to the problem, to gather information about the movement of the enemy. But what is more important, we must be aware of how and what we use, what risks it carries, including for those people reporting this information. It is natural to want to protect one's country and family, but some uses of digital technology lead to the biggger problem of how to distinguish between civilians and combatants. And from a technical point of view, as soon as a user picks up a smartphone to help the army, he can theoretically be considered a combatant. And what a person does can be interpreted as intelligence and observation," Yurii Lisovskyi said.
However, according to Pavlo Romaniuk, it is impossible to identify such a user as a spy, because, unlike a spy, a spy wears military insignia, is a combatant, is an official target for the enemy army, and in case of capture is a prisoner of war.
"A spy wears a uniform and performs an appropriate combat mission. That is, he can be identified by chevrons, by his uniform, he usually carries a weapon and he is a combatant. That is, the opposing side can identify him as a combatant, he is a legitimate legal target for defeat by the opposing side, and in case of capture, he receives the status of a prisoner of war. With the civilian population, the situation is the opposite, and, in fact, this is a very difficult issue. After all, international humanitarian law, which arose at the end of the 19th century, developed throughout the 20th century with two world wars, it is, unfortunately, in today's information society quite so sad and archaic. And if we classically approach this understanding from the point of view of international humanitarian law, then the opposing side must identify the other side as a combatant by four key features, when we are talking specifically about the civilians of the unoccupied territory who decided to help the state fight against the occupying state. That is, it must be an organized group, this group must be clearly identified as combatants (i.e. they wear uniforms, chevrons) and carry weapons. This factor of armament is one of the signs of a combatant, which we do not have, for example, with a person who only has a smartphone in their hand. But there are other nuances," Pavlo Romaniuk said.
"These people are not intelligence officers, but they are engaged in intelligence. That is, they observe, provide the intelligence and send data. I think that every citizen should report this information if they feel safe," Yurii Lisovskyi said.
According to Pavlo Romaniuk, the fact that the person has this bot, for example, in his or her Telegram, automatically makes them a legal military target.
"Actually, no. After all, when we talk about the laws and customs of war, idespite the fact that the russian federation, conditionally speaking, withdrew its signature from the Geneva Convention on the Protection of the Civilian Population in Time of War. In this way, it tried to avoid possible justice in the order of the UN International Court of Justice. This does not exempt from the fact that the war crimes will be present in the case of the killing of the civilian population", Pavlo Romaniuk said.
In his opinion, when the russians check the civilian population, in particular mobile phones, this will not be a legal basis, but will be a reason for illegal detention. Therefore, there are two aspects here – a formal one, and there is an actual security one. The state, when developing bots, should take care that the information is transmitted in such a way that it disappears immediately from that bot, to ensure the safety of the informer. But the person reporting must also understand that saving photos and even being subscribed to certain channels creates risks of being interned.
"This is one of the key Constitutional values. A person, their life and health, is the highest social value. The state should first of all take care and think about all its citizens," Pavlo Romaniuk said.
If we are talking about citizens in the occupied territories, according to the lawyer, they, for example, notice the movement of russian equipment or shelling, that is, they see a crime. And in accordance with the current Ukrainian legislation, they legally report this crime to state authorities about the commission of a crime in one or another territory. That is, they act lawfully in relation to their state.
"But the opposing side, before making a decision to hit this target, may assess them as, for example, a spy. But they don't know about it for sure, only on the condition that they caught them during espionage. If they apprehended him, for example, during filtering measures, finding something on his phone, that is, they do not know whether he is part of the Armed Forces and is an obvious combatant or not, because he looks like a civilian. And in case of doubts whether it is a civilian or a combatant, the answer to this should be provided by the appropriate court in accordance with international humanitarian law," Pavlo Romaniuk said.
Yurii Lisovskyi offers some practical advice at the end of the discussion,
"Please be careful about what you store on phones and computers. If you don't know how to remove it all, and it can set you up, just do a factory reset. It's better than nothing. If you know how, then before doing the reset you can make a backup copy, encrypt it and send it somewhere in the cloud. Sensitive files, and this is very important, can be found in downloads or in some unexpected places. Therefore, do not think that you just cleaned the photos there and everything is ok. There can be some file in the downloads from three years ago that can be found, and you can have problems because of it, so be as careful as possible with your devices. Remember that bots are removed from Telegram, but, in fact the history remains and can be pulled back if you just go to it."
He also emphasizes that, according to OPORA 's social survey, Telegram is now one of the main sources of news, more popular than YouTube and Facebook. But at the same time, we do not know whether the russians have access to our correspondence there.
"Let's also pay special attention to chatbots for all occasions of life and even war. Let’s remember that your bot messages, your comments in channels and messages in groups can be easily read by the messenger itself. Well, special ‘comrade majors’ can sit in important chats or channels, who will keep all this information to themselves. The general rule with this is the following: do not write there what you are not ready to talk about with the whole world. Or take care of your safety before sending such information," Yurii Lisovskyi said.
He also notes that something similar was observed in Belarus in 2020, when the messenger was used to coordinate actions and protests and became extremely popular. However, its independence is in huge question, and its use for various important bots should be well thought out from the point of view that it will not do more harm than good. For example, there are several popular bots in Ukraine that collect information about your physical and mental health and give cool advice based on what you answer. However, how do you know that this information remains private and is no longer used by anyone? And if we move from a domestic example to a military conflict, it is obvious that the consequences can be much worse.
"Please forgive me for quoting the russians, but here's a good example from 2021. In the fall, there were elections for their ‘parliament’, and oppositionist Navalny promoted his ideas through Telegram . At the end of this so-called election, his team accused the messenger of censorship. I don't have accurate information about whether the messenger is really cooperating with the russian authorities, or whether they just don't need the extra stress. The very act of removing oppositional information, even for russia, is important here," Yurii Lisovskyi said.
At the end, the experts also called for thinking of yourself first and taking care of yourself first, and then reporting, coordinating and doing whatever you think is necessary, but bearing in mind that there are many risks involved in these technological things. After all, from healthy selfishness and the ability to love and protect oneself, in particular, love for one's Motherland is built.