WEBVTT 00:00:00.840 --> 00:00:02.159 JACK: Want to hear something crazy? 00:00:02.159 --> 00:00:05.040 For a while, this show, Darknet Diaries, was banned in India. 00:00:05.040 --> 00:00:07.580 Yeah, I was really mad when it happened. 00:00:07.580 --> 00:00:12.280 A viewer in India opened Apple Podcasts and tried to find my show; it just didn’t exist. 00:00:12.280 --> 00:00:15.290 [MUSIC] This is annoying because I have a lot of listeners in India. 00:00:15.290 --> 00:00:18.490 It’s like, one of the top twenty countries that listen. 00:00:18.490 --> 00:00:20.700 My Indian listeners often chat with me on Instagram. 00:00:20.700 --> 00:00:24.810 It’s kinda weird how they use that app more than any other social app I’m on but okay, 00:00:24.810 --> 00:00:25.810 whatever. 00:00:25.810 --> 00:00:29.720 That’s why I hang out on different spots; to soak up the culture of the internet. 00:00:29.720 --> 00:00:32.239 Anyway, why was my show banned in India? 00:00:32.239 --> 00:00:33.380 Actually, it’s quite simple. 00:00:33.380 --> 00:00:38.050 In fact, it’s not just mine; hundreds of thousands of podcasts are banned in India. 00:00:38.050 --> 00:00:42.700 It comes down to this one simple thing; if any of my episodes were marked as explicit, 00:00:42.700 --> 00:00:46.690 it was not listed in Apple Podcasts in India. 00:00:46.690 --> 00:00:51.980 They have a very strict rule that does not allow explicit material to come into the country. 00:00:51.980 --> 00:00:55.880 But recently, Apple Podcasts changed that so now when you search for my show, you get 00:00:55.880 --> 00:01:01.470 this warning box and it says This Show Contains Explicit Content Which is Restricted on This 00:01:01.470 --> 00:01:02.470 Computer. 00:01:02.470 --> 00:01:05.460 It says you have to go into your settings and allow explicit content in order to play 00:01:05.460 --> 00:01:11.880 this show which is not much of a barrier at all anymore, which is good because this episode 00:01:11.880 --> 00:01:14.880 is all about India. 00:01:14.880 --> 00:01:24.280 JACK (INTRO): [INTRO MUSIC] These are true stories from the dark side of the internet. 00:01:24.280 --> 00:01:28.890 I’m Jack Rhysider. 00:01:28.890 --> 00:01:32.680 This is Darknet Diaries. 00:01:32.680 --> 00:01:40.640 [INTRO MUSIC ENDS] 00:01:40.640 --> 00:01:47.990 JACK: Actually, the heart of this story isn’t about India. 00:01:47.990 --> 00:01:51.009 Let’s get technical here; this is a story about Kashmir. 00:01:51.009 --> 00:01:56.590 Now, Kashmir is a region of land that exists between China and Pakistan and India. 00:01:56.590 --> 00:01:57.590 It’s very mountainous. 00:01:57.590 --> 00:02:01.100 In fact, the Himalayas run right through Kashmir. 00:02:01.100 --> 00:02:05.170 I want to tell you this story about Kashmir that I watched unfold live, right in front 00:02:05.170 --> 00:02:06.170 of me. 00:02:06.170 --> 00:02:09.720 It was wild and crazy but went mostly unnoticed. 00:02:09.720 --> 00:02:14.700 Now, Kashmir is a complicated topic. 00:02:14.700 --> 00:02:19.040 Just to give you an example; if you look at Google Maps and try to see where Kashmir is, 00:02:19.040 --> 00:02:21.959 there aren’t any solid lines that define its border. 00:02:21.959 --> 00:02:26.480 [MUSIC] It’s tucked in between the countries of India, China, and Pakistan. 00:02:26.480 --> 00:02:29.920 Where all these countries come together is Kashmir. 00:02:29.920 --> 00:02:35.720 Millions of people live in Kashmir but it’s not a clearly defined country with clearly 00:02:35.720 --> 00:02:41.470 defined rulers or clearly defined borders, or a clearly defined government. 00:02:41.470 --> 00:02:46.620 Being in-between all these countries means you get influences from all of them, too. 00:02:46.620 --> 00:02:51.140 There’s Hinduism that’s coming from India, and Islam is coming from Pakistan, and Buddhism 00:02:51.140 --> 00:02:52.750 is coming from China. 00:02:52.750 --> 00:02:57.569 This makes Kashmir a big mixture of culture and people. 00:02:57.569 --> 00:03:02.099 Some people call this region paradise because of the novel Lost Horizon which talked about 00:03:02.099 --> 00:03:05.670 a fictional village called Shangri-La up in the Himalayan mountains. 00:03:05.670 --> 00:03:10.330 It was an isolated village from the world in such a way that it made it untarnished 00:03:10.330 --> 00:03:11.730 and perfect. 00:03:11.730 --> 00:03:16.700 There is no such place but people liked this idea, so some call Kashmir paradise. 00:03:16.700 --> 00:03:19.060 This region of the world is an ancient place. 00:03:19.060 --> 00:03:22.980 Its history goes back for thousands of years and during those thousands of years, a lot 00:03:22.980 --> 00:03:23.980 has changed. 00:03:23.980 --> 00:03:29.069 In the 1300s, it was ran by Muslims, then it was taken over by the Mughal Empire, transforming 00:03:29.069 --> 00:03:31.010 it to a Hindu/Muslim culture. 00:03:31.010 --> 00:03:34.580 Then, the Afghan Empire took it over, converting it back to Muslim. 00:03:34.580 --> 00:03:39.620 Then in the 1800s, there was the Anglo-Sikh war in the territory and after that, Kashmir 00:03:39.620 --> 00:03:43.349 wound up in the hands of the British East India Company. 00:03:43.349 --> 00:03:48.099 This actually put parts of Pakistan, India, and Kashmir under British rule. 00:03:48.099 --> 00:03:51.480 All was calm and quiet until 1947. 00:03:51.480 --> 00:03:57.060 [DRUMS] In 1947, something big happened. 00:03:57.060 --> 00:04:01.760 The British East India Company dissolved and new nations were established. 00:04:01.760 --> 00:04:06.450 This was the year that both India and Pakistan gained independence, pretty much forming two 00:04:06.450 --> 00:04:07.450 new nations. 00:04:07.450 --> 00:04:12.730 But the area of Kashmir, it wasn’t clear which country that should fall under [00:05:00] 00:04:12.730 --> 00:04:16.970 so it just resumed as princely states which basically means it was locally governed, not 00:04:16.970 --> 00:04:21.630 falling under either India or Pakistan but with the option that any of the princely states 00:04:21.630 --> 00:04:25.760 of Kashmir could join India or Pakistan at any time. 00:04:25.760 --> 00:04:31.380 Now, what happened next started a feud that continues to this day. 00:04:31.380 --> 00:04:36.750 Marauders, rebels from the Muslim side of Kashmir, came into the Hindu side and started 00:04:36.750 --> 00:04:37.750 pillaging. 00:04:37.750 --> 00:04:40.889 They ransacked towns and killed people. 00:04:40.889 --> 00:04:45.310 The Indian army flew in to establish troops to defend the town, since Kashmir did not 00:04:45.310 --> 00:04:48.030 have a strong enough army to defend itself. 00:04:48.030 --> 00:04:51.130 The battles were bloody and long and drawn-out. 00:04:51.130 --> 00:04:55.229 The Indian soldiers would beat back the raiders but they would just regroup and come back 00:04:55.229 --> 00:04:58.160 with more force, pushing the line forward. 00:04:58.160 --> 00:05:01.889 Then more Indian troops would be flown in and this would push back the raiders once 00:05:01.889 --> 00:05:02.889 again. 00:05:02.889 --> 00:05:09.650 Now, at this point, Kashmir called for peace and Pakistan agreed but the battle waged on. 00:05:09.650 --> 00:05:14.880 See, the rebels weren’t from the Pakistani military; they were from the Muslim side of 00:05:14.880 --> 00:05:16.470 Kashmir. 00:05:16.470 --> 00:05:19.720 It was technically out of Pakistan’s control. 00:05:19.720 --> 00:05:23.819 They were denying involvement with this but the battles continued. 00:05:23.819 --> 00:05:27.860 Raiders would attack the Indian armies, pushing them back, and then India would regroup and 00:05:27.860 --> 00:05:29.210 push back the other way. 00:05:29.210 --> 00:05:33.110 Towns were overtaken by marauders, set fire and looted. 00:05:33.110 --> 00:05:36.980 The Indian army would come liberate the town and gain control of it. 00:05:36.980 --> 00:05:39.350 This waged on all through the winter. 00:05:39.350 --> 00:05:44.199 Now, winter in the Himalayas is not a friendly place, yet many of these battles took place 00:05:44.199 --> 00:05:46.840 in the mountains, in the snow. 00:05:46.840 --> 00:05:51.199 Many troops would have to cross the mountains to get the high ground on the enemy, hiking 00:05:51.199 --> 00:05:54.030 up over the snowy peaks with all their gear. 00:05:54.030 --> 00:05:55.280 It was brutal. 00:05:55.280 --> 00:05:59.949 This war went on for two years and I’m sure at some point Pakistan had to have joined 00:05:59.949 --> 00:06:04.150 the fight because they were seeing that this was an opportunity for them to take part of 00:06:04.150 --> 00:06:05.980 Kashmir for good. 00:06:05.980 --> 00:06:11.500 They did occupy parts of Kashmir during this but eventually, after two years, the dust 00:06:11.500 --> 00:06:14.660 settled and an official ceasefire was called. 00:06:14.660 --> 00:06:15.660 Who won? 00:06:15.660 --> 00:06:22.389 I don’t know but I do see a body count; 1,100 Indian and Kashmir soldiers dead and 00:06:22.389 --> 00:06:24.590 6,000 Muslims dead. 00:06:24.590 --> 00:06:29.450 It appears that India had secured the southern territories but Pakistan still had control 00:06:29.450 --> 00:06:31.560 over some of the western areas. 00:06:31.560 --> 00:06:34.700 That’s how it was gonna stay. 00:06:34.700 --> 00:06:41.000 Things sort of became relatively quiet and calm until 1965. 00:06:41.000 --> 00:06:48.840 [MUSIC] In 1965, Pakistan used its army to infiltrate Kashmir but India quickly mobilized 00:06:48.840 --> 00:06:52.349 and fought back, ultimately pushing Pakistan back out. 00:06:52.349 --> 00:06:56.710 This battle lasted only seventeen days but thousands of soldiers died. 00:06:56.710 --> 00:07:05.310 A ceasefire was agreed on and all was calm and quiet again until 1999. 00:07:05.310 --> 00:07:09.131 In 1998, Pakistan detonated the bomb. 00:07:09.131 --> 00:07:13.190 They became the ninth country in the world to acquire nuclear weapons and they tested 00:07:13.190 --> 00:07:16.120 it by blowing it up underground, under a mountain. 00:07:16.120 --> 00:07:20.590 There’s a video of this where a whole mountain is sort of shaking its dust off like a dirty 00:07:20.590 --> 00:07:21.610 dog. 00:07:21.610 --> 00:07:27.810 With this newly-acquired super power, Pakistan decided to take Kashmir by force. 00:07:27.810 --> 00:07:32.390 But that same year, India also established nuclear weapons too, so this wasn’t going 00:07:32.390 --> 00:07:36.290 to be easy and may end up getting really ugly. 00:07:36.290 --> 00:07:39.220 The Pakistani army invaded Kashmir. 00:07:39.220 --> 00:07:44.350 The Indian army fought back and this looked really bad for Pakistan; they seemingly were 00:07:44.350 --> 00:07:48.729 the aggressor here and they just didn’t seem to be coordinated so they were pushed 00:07:48.729 --> 00:07:51.099 back and a ceasefire was agreed on. 00:07:51.099 --> 00:07:55.509 Hundreds of soldiers on both sides died during this battle. 00:07:55.509 --> 00:08:01.450 After that, things were not quiet or calm ever again. 00:08:01.450 --> 00:08:07.050 [MUSIC] As you can see, tensions between these four entities just keeps heating up. 00:08:07.050 --> 00:08:10.849 It’s not a battle between just India and Pakistan; there are many people who live in 00:08:10.849 --> 00:08:15.889 Kashmir; millions of people, and they also want their own independence, and China doesn’t 00:08:15.889 --> 00:08:18.379 want to lose its grip on the region, either. 00:08:18.379 --> 00:08:23.789 For the last thirty years, this has been the most militarized area in the world. 00:08:23.789 --> 00:08:27.009 India has just been sending troops there en masse. 00:08:27.009 --> 00:08:34.980 Some say there are well over 600,000 Indian troops in Kashmir. 600,000 and India will 00:08:34.980 --> 00:08:39.760 say that they’re just protecting Kashmir from terrorists and militant Muslims. 00:08:39.760 --> 00:08:45.070 But the UN has investigated some of this and found the Indian military has not been so 00:08:45.070 --> 00:08:46.710 good themselves. 00:08:46.710 --> 00:08:51.310 They have repeatedly infiltrated into the Muslim side of Kashmir and killed or kidnapped 00:08:51.310 --> 00:08:52.310 people. 00:08:52.310 --> 00:08:56.230 Often, these are militant groups but innocent civilians will get caught up in the gunfights 00:08:56.230 --> 00:08:58.450 or get mistargeted. 00:08:58.450 --> 00:09:03.200 Like I was saying earlier, there’s no clear border of Kashmir; instead, they have something 00:09:03.200 --> 00:09:04.830 called a Line of Control. 00:09:04.830 --> 00:09:10.010 On one side it’s controlled by Pakistan and on the other side it’s controlled by 00:09:10.010 --> 00:09:11.010 India. 00:09:11.010 --> 00:09:15.329 This Line of Control is fortified by [00:10:00] a wall or a fence with highly-armed military 00:09:15.329 --> 00:09:17.300 guards defending the borders. 00:09:17.300 --> 00:09:21.690 On a weekly basis, you can see people throwing rocks at each other or demanding freedom from 00:09:21.690 --> 00:09:24.460 the other side to just leave. 00:09:24.460 --> 00:09:26.700 This can often heat up and become ugly. 00:09:26.700 --> 00:09:32.660 It’s not uncommon to see someone open fire on the rival military or throw bombs over 00:09:32.660 --> 00:09:33.930 the fence. 00:09:33.930 --> 00:09:37.029 This is just the current state of living in Kashmir now. 00:09:37.029 --> 00:09:39.769 It’s brutal, raw, and horrible. 00:09:39.769 --> 00:09:41.250 There’s no peace there. 00:09:41.250 --> 00:09:45.140 There hasn’t been for the last forty years and if you add up all the people that have 00:09:45.140 --> 00:09:49.210 been killed or went missing in that time, the numbers are staggering. 00:09:49.210 --> 00:09:54.680 Upwards of 70,000 people have gone missing in the last thirty years just from military 00:09:54.680 --> 00:09:55.890 conflicts. 00:09:55.890 --> 00:10:01.120 Sometimes mass graves are found where over 1,000 bodies have been buried. 00:10:01.120 --> 00:10:06.190 [MUSIC] If you can imagine this history going on for the last few decades, it brings us 00:10:06.190 --> 00:10:08.040 to now, 2019. 00:10:08.040 --> 00:10:12.260 Kashmir still hasn’t completely moved to either Pakistan or India rule. 00:10:12.260 --> 00:10:16.959 About half of Kashmir is under India law and a third is under Pakistani law and the rest 00:10:16.959 --> 00:10:20.620 is still locally governed which makes it a very complicated region. 00:10:20.620 --> 00:10:24.279 It’s a contested territory, a PVP zone. 00:10:24.279 --> 00:10:28.450 This is a region where there are ever-present military soldiers standing ready in case the 00:10:28.450 --> 00:10:30.190 enemy comes in. 00:10:30.190 --> 00:10:37.250 In 2019, on February 14th, a convoy of Indian soldiers were traveling in a van going through 00:10:37.250 --> 00:10:43.390 Pulwama, one of the Indian-controlled cities in Kashmir, when terror struck. 00:10:43.390 --> 00:10:52.139 REPORTER: [EXPLOSION] Forty soldiers have been killed after a suicide car bomber rammed 00:10:52.139 --> 00:10:57.420 a bus carrying Indian paramilitary forces in India-controlled Kashmir. 00:10:57.420 --> 00:11:02.080 The explosion occurred as the convoy reached the outskirts of the disputed region’s main 00:11:02.080 --> 00:11:03.740 city of Srinagar. 00:11:03.740 --> 00:11:07.470 At least five other vehicles were also damaged. 00:11:07.470 --> 00:11:13.260 Local newspapers reported that militant group Jaish-e-Mohammed has claimed responsibility 00:11:13.260 --> 00:11:16.480 for the attack. 00:11:16.480 --> 00:11:17.480 JACK: Hm, very interesting. 00:11:17.480 --> 00:11:20.450 The group claiming responsibility was Jaish-e-Mohammed. 00:11:20.450 --> 00:11:25.690 This is a Jihadist terrorist group active in the area of Kashmir but is aligned with 00:11:25.690 --> 00:11:26.690 Pakistan. 00:11:26.690 --> 00:11:31.580 In fact, their mission is to separate Kashmir from India and move it under Pakistani rule. 00:11:31.580 --> 00:11:37.639 It was this group that packed an SUV full of explosives and rammed it into the side 00:11:37.639 --> 00:11:44.230 of a van full of Indian troops, killing about forty troops as well as the suicide bomber 00:11:44.230 --> 00:11:46.529 who was driving the SUV. 00:11:46.529 --> 00:11:51.560 Immediately, India’s response was to urge Pakistan to condemn this group and to arrest 00:11:51.560 --> 00:11:55.720 them and to stop them but Pakistan seemingly was quiet. 00:11:55.720 --> 00:12:03.170 They didn’t seem to do anything about this attack which angered the people of India. 00:12:03.170 --> 00:12:07.279 To help tell the rest of the story, I brought in two people from India. 00:12:07.279 --> 00:12:08.279 SPEAKER1: Hello. 00:12:08.279 --> 00:12:11.240 What do you want to know about? 00:12:11.240 --> 00:12:17.100 JACK: They both asked that I not use their real name here because, well, privacy reasons. 00:12:17.100 --> 00:12:22.959 But because they were both living in India at the time and watching the news, this really 00:12:22.959 --> 00:12:23.959 bothered them. 00:12:23.959 --> 00:12:33.200 SPEAKER1: It was like a feeling of unity between – among us, among the nation this time. 00:12:33.200 --> 00:12:45.130 It got very outrageous and we always feel like whenever we are attacked, we always have 00:12:45.130 --> 00:12:46.130 the same feeling. 00:12:46.130 --> 00:12:48.350 But this time, it was like, it is enough. 00:12:48.350 --> 00:12:49.980 We can’t tolerate this. 00:12:49.980 --> 00:12:52.320 SPEAKER2: Then we get angry. 00:12:52.320 --> 00:12:55.579 After that, what happened is we get a little bit angry. 00:12:55.579 --> 00:12:57.680 SPEAKER1: Not for the first time. 00:12:57.680 --> 00:13:05.779 For the last ten to fifteen years of my life, I’ve been – attack on this, attack there, 00:13:05.779 --> 00:13:12.390 bomb blast in this hotel, like Taj hotel in Mumbai, and in markets. 00:13:12.390 --> 00:13:17.680 Soldiers are killed in their camps while they’re sleeping. 00:13:17.680 --> 00:13:27.160 This is bad but when Pakistan is doing these things again and again, then we have to do 00:13:27.160 --> 00:13:28.160 something. 00:13:28.160 --> 00:13:29.160 We have to take some steps. 00:13:29.160 --> 00:13:33.970 We can’t be like, okay, we can tolerate this. 00:13:33.970 --> 00:13:36.510 That is not the case. 00:13:36.510 --> 00:13:40.490 JACK: These guys tell me pretty much everyone in India was outraged over this attack. 00:13:40.490 --> 00:13:45.150 If you think about who is in India, you start to think who might be in position to actually 00:13:45.150 --> 00:13:53.361 do something about it; a new group of people who were not around in 1947 or 1965, or maybe 00:13:53.361 --> 00:13:54.949 not even in 1999. 00:13:54.949 --> 00:14:00.570 The modern era has a new domain of warfare and if you think about it, there are a ton 00:14:00.570 --> 00:14:08.250 of really smart IT people in India; coders, engineers, and yes, hackers. 00:14:08.250 --> 00:14:14.339 [MUSIC] The Indian hacker community was also [00:15:00] very upset with this. 00:14:14.339 --> 00:14:18.519 They were in the perfect position to do something about it. 00:14:18.519 --> 00:14:24.130 SPEAKER1: Indian hacker community – they took some action. 00:14:24.130 --> 00:14:28.769 They started attacking Pakistani government websites. 00:14:28.769 --> 00:14:32.250 SPEAKER2: What happened was there was a guy, okay. 00:14:32.250 --> 00:14:33.250 He started… 00:14:33.250 --> 00:14:37.180 JACK: He tells me that the first thing he saw was that one hacker from India hacked 00:14:37.180 --> 00:14:41.920 into a Pakistani government website, used SQL injection to get in, took all the stuff 00:14:41.920 --> 00:14:45.440 from the database, and then publically dumped it for everyone to see. 00:14:45.440 --> 00:14:51.450 Now again, even though it was a terrorist group who attacked the Indian troops in Kashmir, 00:14:51.450 --> 00:14:56.170 there was widespread belief that this terrorist group was under protection from being assisted 00:14:56.170 --> 00:14:57.850 by the Pakistani government. 00:14:57.850 --> 00:15:02.930 At no point did the Pakistani government condemn these attacks or try to help arrest those 00:15:02.930 --> 00:15:03.930 involved. 00:15:03.930 --> 00:15:08.480 For the Indian hackers to attack the government of Pakistan, it made sense at the time. 00:15:08.480 --> 00:15:16.509 SPEAKER1: They want to take revenge and send viruses to Pakistan that we are not going 00:15:16.509 --> 00:15:17.949 to tolerate this again. 00:15:17.949 --> 00:15:26.089 It was more like a message to them rather than hurting the people. 00:15:26.089 --> 00:15:33.269 It is not against people; it is all against the government and their arm in terrorism. 00:15:33.269 --> 00:15:37.980 JACK: Within twenty-four hours of the terrorist bombing, the hackers started ramping up their 00:15:37.980 --> 00:15:40.860 attacks on Pakistan’s websites. 00:15:40.860 --> 00:15:48.700 SPEAKER2: [MUSIC] After that, what happened – we came together, we talked about like, 00:15:48.700 --> 00:15:49.700 this is happening. 00:15:49.700 --> 00:15:54.149 We just spoke a little bit on Instagram and everybody’s starting doing his own thing. 00:15:54.149 --> 00:15:58.410 JACK: They rallied together in chat rooms and online to find targets and work together 00:15:58.410 --> 00:15:59.510 to take them down. 00:15:59.510 --> 00:16:04.970 They would look for any websites that ended in .gov.pk which is the top-level domain for 00:16:04.970 --> 00:16:06.600 Pakistani government websites. 00:16:06.600 --> 00:16:15.529 SPEAKER1: Like [unknown].gov.pk was down and the foreign ministry websites were down. 00:16:15.529 --> 00:16:21.350 They were DDossed and some of them were defaced. 00:16:21.350 --> 00:16:25.829 JACK: A deface is sort of similar to writing graffiti on a building; you pretty much write 00:16:25.829 --> 00:16:29.570 whatever message you want on their website that you’re attacking, letting them know 00:16:29.570 --> 00:16:32.199 that you were there and this is your message. 00:16:32.199 --> 00:16:36.440 The messages they were writing were something like this website has been hacked by Indian 00:16:36.440 --> 00:16:40.699 hackers or we will never forget about this terrorist attack. 00:16:40.699 --> 00:16:42.920 It wasn’t just one hacker involved. 00:16:42.920 --> 00:16:46.949 Many websites were starting to get hit and each one would say it was hacked by a different 00:16:46.949 --> 00:16:48.060 Indian hacker group. 00:16:48.060 --> 00:16:50.589 SPEAKER2: We’d change the pictures of the website. 00:16:50.589 --> 00:16:55.870 JACK: Now, it was around this time I logged into Instagram just to see what people are 00:16:55.870 --> 00:17:00.000 doing there, what foods they’re eating, what vacations they’re going on, this kind 00:17:00.000 --> 00:17:02.180 of stuff. You know what? 00:17:02.180 --> 00:17:05.250 I have a lot of followers on Instagram from India. 00:17:05.250 --> 00:17:08.429 I was getting a ton of private messages. 00:17:08.429 --> 00:17:12.799 I was getting messages from so many hackers saying things like Jack, look what’s going 00:17:12.799 --> 00:17:14.799 on. Here, look at this. 00:17:14.799 --> 00:17:15.799 Look, look at this. 00:17:15.799 --> 00:17:18.650 They were sending me link after link of posts and stories. 00:17:18.650 --> 00:17:20.010 It was incredible. 00:17:20.010 --> 00:17:25.319 I was seeing databases being dumped, websites defaced, websites down, usernames and passwords 00:17:25.319 --> 00:17:26.319 posted. 00:17:26.319 --> 00:17:29.799 There were so many posts, I could barely keep up and jot everything down. 00:17:29.799 --> 00:17:35.150 I was watching over a dozen Instagram accounts actively hacking into Pakistani websites and 00:17:35.150 --> 00:17:38.360 then posting about what they’ve done. 00:17:38.360 --> 00:17:43.360 On top of that, I was seeing evidence of many more hackers also involved. 00:17:43.360 --> 00:17:45.610 It was crazy and intense. 00:17:45.610 --> 00:17:54.010 A full cyber-conflict had erupted right before my eyes. 00:17:54.010 --> 00:17:56.800 What was going through your mind when you were seeing all these hacks going on? 00:17:56.800 --> 00:18:02.500 SPEAKER1: The feeling was like, that – I have the power to make a statement against 00:18:02.500 --> 00:18:09.429 terrorism when all other people are like, we want to do something. 00:18:09.429 --> 00:18:19.990 We were actually doing something as a cyber-security person for our country and for the martyrs 00:18:19.990 --> 00:18:22.300 that died for the country. 00:18:22.300 --> 00:18:26.750 JACK: While I was watching this unfold, I barely understood what was happening because 00:18:26.750 --> 00:18:30.770 I didn’t know the history of what these attacks were or who the players are. 00:18:30.770 --> 00:18:35.450 I didn’t even know what country the .gov.pk websites were affiliated to yet. 00:18:35.450 --> 00:18:37.440 But it was fascinating to watch. 00:18:37.440 --> 00:18:41.320 Soon, I found the chat room of one of the hacking groups and joined it, and sat and 00:18:41.320 --> 00:18:47.150 watched silently but it was quiet, like, too quiet. 00:18:47.150 --> 00:18:52.360 I started getting into their Discord channel to watch what they were doing but it really 00:18:52.360 --> 00:18:54.660 seemed quiet in there. 00:18:54.660 --> 00:18:56.500 Is this a illegal hacking group? 00:18:56.500 --> 00:18:57.500 Or what are these people? 00:18:57.500 --> 00:19:05.669 SPEAKER1: No, no, these are like normal people, cyber-security people. 00:19:05.669 --> 00:19:12.430 Most of them might not be believing in illegal things and doing illegal stuff [00:20:00] 00:19:12.430 --> 00:19:15.640 the nand malicious stuff or to harm anybody. 00:19:15.640 --> 00:19:24.160 But this thing was so frustrating that for the normal people, that they can’t do anything 00:19:24.160 --> 00:19:27.600 because attacks were happening again and again. 00:19:27.600 --> 00:19:35.720 Previous government did not take any strict action against terrorism so it was the frustration 00:19:35.720 --> 00:19:43.990 in people who came out in the form of hacking, of cyber-security people. 00:19:43.990 --> 00:19:50.130 I would say that they are not like any malicious person or illegal hackers. 00:19:50.130 --> 00:19:52.490 Maybe one or two but most of them are like people. 00:19:52.490 --> 00:19:54.260 JACK: That’s really fascinating. 00:19:54.260 --> 00:19:55.710 I didn’t understand that. 00:19:55.710 --> 00:20:04.760 SPEAKER1: Yeah, because on my account there were many children and normal people who – coming 00:20:04.760 --> 00:20:07.430 to me and saying that how can I help? 00:20:07.430 --> 00:20:09.390 Anything I can do for you? 00:20:09.390 --> 00:20:13.020 Because you are doing a great job and I don’t know how to hack. 00:20:13.020 --> 00:20:18.650 Please teach me hacking so I can contribute to this cause. 00:20:18.650 --> 00:20:25.450 It was patriotic and very energetic at the same time. 00:20:25.450 --> 00:20:35.270 Yeah, they were all normal people that just wanted to make a statement and fight against 00:20:35.270 --> 00:20:38.940 terrorism and the government who is supporting it. 00:20:38.940 --> 00:20:43.419 JACK: Now, I promised my guests I wouldn’t reveal their names or say who they are but 00:20:43.419 --> 00:20:47.800 you can probably guess at this point that they had front-row seats to all this or involved 00:20:47.800 --> 00:20:51.000 somehow themselves because I don’t like bringing experts on. 00:20:51.000 --> 00:20:54.530 I want to hear firsthand experiences, what went down. 00:20:54.530 --> 00:20:58.440 In making this episode, I did reach out to about a dozen of these hackers that I saw 00:20:58.440 --> 00:21:02.350 hacking but they were all too worried and didn’t want to come on the show. 00:21:02.350 --> 00:21:06.809 They didn’t want to admit to doing anything and they didn’t want to come forward even 00:21:06.809 --> 00:21:11.500 though I watched them hacking and posting things right there on Instagram but I did 00:21:11.500 --> 00:21:15.610 have conversations with many of them to learn as much as I can about this story and what 00:21:15.610 --> 00:21:16.710 was going on, and why. 00:21:16.710 --> 00:21:22.169 SPEAKER1: I think the whole Indian hacker community came together and took this action. 00:21:22.169 --> 00:21:26.710 JACK: One particular thing completely threw me by surprise and still today, I don’t 00:21:26.710 --> 00:21:27.890 understand how they did this. 00:21:27.890 --> 00:21:30.020 Actually, I want you to try this, too. 00:21:30.020 --> 00:21:35.170 If you can, if you’re able, take a moment right now and do a Google Image search for 00:21:35.170 --> 00:21:36.170 something. 00:21:36.170 --> 00:21:42.059 [MUSIC] It has to be Images, okay, so search Google Images for best toilet paper in the 00:21:42.059 --> 00:21:43.059 world. 00:21:43.059 --> 00:21:44.110 Go ahead, I’ll wait a moment. 00:21:44.110 --> 00:21:49.380 What do you see when you search Google Images for best toilet paper in the world? 00:21:49.380 --> 00:21:59.850 SPEAKER2: If you Google that, you will get Pakistan’s, I think, flag and prime minister 00:21:59.850 --> 00:22:01.530 or president, I think. 00:22:01.530 --> 00:22:08.789 His name on the toilet paper, his picture on the toilet paper, a Pakistani flag. 00:22:08.789 --> 00:22:12.140 JACK: Yeah, that’s right. 00:22:12.140 --> 00:22:16.850 Somehow the hackers rigged the Google algorithm so that if you search Google Images for best 00:22:16.850 --> 00:22:20.580 toilet paper, it shows a picture of Pakistan’s flag. 00:22:20.580 --> 00:22:24.870 Yes, you can still see that today right now if you look. 00:22:24.870 --> 00:22:27.100 Someone please explain to me how they did this. 00:22:27.100 --> 00:22:33.309 SPEAKER2: The Pakistani reporters was saying that we switched Imran Khan’s picture. 00:22:33.309 --> 00:22:39.020 Exactly, I don’t know exactly the prime minister of Pakistan but they changed his 00:22:39.020 --> 00:22:43.429 picture to toilet paper, or something, toilet seat, or something like that. 00:22:43.429 --> 00:22:47.500 I didn’t do it; I don’t know, some other guy. 00:22:47.500 --> 00:22:53.960 But they did it and that thing was on the news, flashing and everything. 00:22:53.960 --> 00:22:58.800 JACK: Jeez, and whether these hacks were effective or not, it all fueled the frenzy of what was 00:22:58.800 --> 00:23:00.230 going on. 00:23:00.230 --> 00:23:04.909 Even these tiny slaps in the face that might not have done any damage at all, were all 00:23:04.909 --> 00:23:06.909 wins for the hackers. 00:23:06.909 --> 00:23:10.290 Wherever you looked, the hackers were winning really well. 00:23:10.290 --> 00:23:16.130 The IT and hacker community of India was completely owning so many Pakistani websites. 00:23:16.130 --> 00:23:17.940 It was a massacre. 00:23:17.940 --> 00:23:21.920 These hacks continued all night long. 00:23:21.920 --> 00:23:27.840 Stay with us to find out what happens next because what happens after this takes everyone 00:23:27.840 --> 00:23:30.190 by surprise. 00:23:30.190 --> 00:23:36.050 [00:25:00] The next day, I logged into Instagram and still, there was hacking going on like 00:23:36.050 --> 00:23:37.050 crazy. 00:23:37.050 --> 00:23:41.870 I was seeing more usernames and passwords posted to websites that you could just see, 00:23:41.870 --> 00:23:43.590 use, and log in with. 00:23:43.590 --> 00:23:49.450 SPEAKER2: User ID and password of few places, few places and few domains. 00:23:49.450 --> 00:23:59.990 The Pakistani Navy and Pakistani army, and databases, a few databases, and so many things. 00:23:59.990 --> 00:24:04.720 JACK: Now news articles and stories were coming out about these cyber-attacks on Pakistan. 00:24:04.720 --> 00:24:05.720 [FOREIGN LANGUAGE] 00:24:05.720 --> 00:24:18.970 SPEAKER1: Yeah, it felt very powerful, that we had power in our hands. 00:24:18.970 --> 00:24:21.700 Normal people can do anything if they want. 00:24:21.700 --> 00:24:27.770 We wanted to send a message directly to the Pakistani government and we did. 00:24:27.770 --> 00:24:33.289 We appeared on their news channels, the top news channels that the websites were hacked 00:24:33.289 --> 00:24:41.679 by Indian hackers and our messages and our warnings were published on the newspaper and 00:24:41.679 --> 00:24:43.700 the news channels. 00:24:43.700 --> 00:24:50.399 It was clearly a win for us if we are able to do that, being a normal person. 00:24:50.399 --> 00:24:54.850 JACK: These cyber-attacks continued to rain down on Pakistan’s websites. 00:24:54.850 --> 00:24:58.669 Day after day, it was growing more wild, with more fervor. 00:24:58.669 --> 00:25:02.860 While a lot of people in India were cheering on these hackers to do something to retaliate, 00:25:02.860 --> 00:25:08.870 there were also a lot of people in India condemning these hackers, saying things like it’s embarrassing 00:25:08.870 --> 00:25:13.980 to the country that hackers are defacing Pakistani websites and to let the government sort it 00:25:13.980 --> 00:25:14.980 out properly. 00:25:14.980 --> 00:25:19.660 But the cyber-attacks were growing and starting to get more serious. 00:25:19.660 --> 00:25:24.750 SPEAKER2: There was a few more people who have experience in SCADA. 00:25:24.750 --> 00:25:25.750 JACK: Whoa, SCADA? 00:25:25.750 --> 00:25:28.300 This is getting pretty serious now. 00:25:28.300 --> 00:25:30.990 SCADA systems are industrial control systems. 00:25:30.990 --> 00:25:35.500 These are the types of computers that run power plants, factories, or water treatment 00:25:35.500 --> 00:25:37.020 facilities, or dams. 00:25:37.020 --> 00:25:44.020 If hackers could get into Pakistan’s SCADA systems, this could be a really big deal. 00:25:44.020 --> 00:25:49.750 SPEAKER2: We are trying to access a few machineries. 00:25:49.750 --> 00:25:59.870 We are trying to access a few different companies, heavy machineries, if they are open, if any 00:25:59.870 --> 00:26:04.820 of the end points is open to the internet, we are trying to hit it and trying to get 00:26:04.820 --> 00:26:05.820 access to it. 00:26:05.820 --> 00:26:10.790 JACK: But before they were able to get into any of the SCADA systems, about a week after 00:26:10.790 --> 00:26:17.169 the suicide bombing, all the hacking came to a sudden halt. 00:26:17.169 --> 00:26:21.690 [JET FLYING] 00:26:21.690 --> 00:26:30.299 REPORTER2: It’s to India now; that country says it has destroyed a militant camp inside 00:26:30.299 --> 00:26:34.750 Pakistan in an overnight airstrike across the ceasefire border known as the Line of 00:26:34.750 --> 00:26:36.240 Control. 00:26:36.240 --> 00:26:39.650 Indian media is reporting some two hundred casualties in the raid on the alleged camp 00:26:39.650 --> 00:26:41.470 in Balakot. 00:26:41.470 --> 00:26:46.799 Pakistan acknowledged that Indian military aircraft had violated its airspace but denied 00:26:46.799 --> 00:26:48.289 the reports of casualties. 00:26:48.289 --> 00:26:53.480 JACK: The Indian military flew jets into Pakistan and bombed the militant camp thought to be 00:26:53.480 --> 00:26:55.840 where the terrorists were training. 00:26:55.840 --> 00:27:00.399 This attack was significant enough to make all the hackers stop. 00:27:00.399 --> 00:27:04.460 Everyone kind of felt like the combination of the cyber-attacks and missile strikes were 00:27:04.460 --> 00:27:07.950 enough to let Pakistan know how angry they were with this. 00:27:07.950 --> 00:27:09.550 That’s when the hacking ended. 00:27:09.550 --> 00:27:11.070 SPEAKER2: My dad is from Indian military. 00:27:11.070 --> 00:27:13.400 He works for Indian military. 00:27:13.400 --> 00:27:15.659 He’s in the Air Force. 00:27:15.659 --> 00:27:18.399 Exactly, he was in the Air Force; he’s retired now. 00:27:18.399 --> 00:27:20.679 That’s why I’m very much connected to this thing. 00:27:20.679 --> 00:27:25.760 I was very much connected to this incident because in some way it’s bad. 00:27:25.760 --> 00:27:32.029 JACK: Did you show your dad that some of this hacking was going on after the attack, and 00:27:32.029 --> 00:27:33.029 what did he think? 00:27:33.029 --> 00:27:36.419 SPEAKER2: My dad didn’t know what I do. 00:27:36.419 --> 00:27:40.200 JACK: Well, you could show him that here, look at some of these other guys that are 00:27:40.200 --> 00:27:42.409 doing this to the Pakistani websites. 00:27:42.409 --> 00:27:48.450 SPEAKER2: Yeah, but my dad don’t even know what I do so I am not going to tell him what 00:27:48.450 --> 00:27:49.450 I do. 00:27:49.450 --> 00:27:51.020 They know that I work in computers. 00:27:51.020 --> 00:27:55.690 I’m a computer software designer, software engineer, that’s it. 00:27:55.690 --> 00:28:01.700 They don’t even know much about my work so I’m not going to tell them that. 00:28:01.700 --> 00:28:03.500 JACK: That’s your little secret, then. 00:28:03.500 --> 00:28:07.720 SPEAKER2: Yeah, that’s between me and my – yeah, that’s my little secret. 00:28:07.720 --> 00:28:14.340 JACK: Here’s where the story totally unravels in my head [00:30:00] and I’m not even sure 00:28:14.340 --> 00:28:16.950 which thread to pull on anymore. 00:28:16.950 --> 00:28:24.490 [FOREIGN LANGUAGE] Imran Khan, the Prime Minister of Pakistan, came out and said quote, “Pakistan 00:28:24.490 --> 00:28:26.130 is moving towards stability. 00:28:26.130 --> 00:28:28.190 Why would we do something like this? 00:28:28.190 --> 00:28:32.600 If you have any actionable intelligence that a Pakistani was involved in these terrorist 00:28:32.600 --> 00:28:33.600 attacks, give it to us. 00:28:33.600 --> 00:28:37.980 I guarantee you we will take action; not because we’re under pressure but because the terrorists 00:28:37.980 --> 00:28:40.620 are acting as enemies of Pakistan.” 00:28:40.620 --> 00:28:41.620 End quote. 00:28:41.620 --> 00:28:45.340 India decided to fly two more fighter jets over the Line of Control. 00:28:45.340 --> 00:28:50.559 I don’t know what their mission was but Pakistan was able to shoot down both planes 00:28:50.559 --> 00:28:52.419 and even captured one of the pilots. 00:28:52.419 --> 00:28:56.320 When the Pakistani army captured the pilot, they interviewed him. 00:28:56.320 --> 00:28:57.830 Here’s what the pilot said. 00:28:57.830 --> 00:29:01.080 PILOT: The officers of the Pakistani army have looked after me very well. 00:29:01.080 --> 00:29:07.769 They are thorough gentlemen, starting from the captain who rescued me from the mob and 00:29:07.769 --> 00:29:08.769 from the soldiers. 00:29:08.769 --> 00:29:10.780 Thereafter, the officers in the unit which I was taken to. 00:29:10.780 --> 00:29:19.580 This is what I would expect my army to behave as and I am very impressed by the Pakistani 00:29:19.580 --> 00:29:20.580 army. 00:29:20.580 --> 00:29:26.200 JACK: Now granted, this pilot gave this interview while he was captured so who knows if he said 00:29:26.200 --> 00:29:28.010 this under duress. 00:29:28.010 --> 00:29:34.799 He was held for two days and then given back to India safely because of quote, “a gesture 00:29:34.799 --> 00:29:36.070 of peace.” 00:29:36.070 --> 00:29:40.460 Now honestly, if we step back for a second and listen to all this, we’re only hearing 00:29:40.460 --> 00:29:46.020 the story from India’s side and a little bit of the story from Pakistan’s side. 00:29:46.020 --> 00:29:52.880 Even though this is a story about Kashmir, I feel like I’m ignoring Kashmir entirely. 00:29:52.880 --> 00:29:55.070 I decided to call someone up who lives there. 00:29:55.070 --> 00:29:56.070 AON: Hello? 00:29:56.070 --> 00:29:57.570 JACK: Hey, how’s it going? 00:29:57.570 --> 00:29:59.350 AON: It’s okay, it’s good. 00:29:59.350 --> 00:30:00.419 How are you? 00:30:00.419 --> 00:30:01.610 JACK: This is Aon. 00:30:01.610 --> 00:30:04.419 AON: My name is Aon. 00:30:04.419 --> 00:30:07.929 JACK: He knows a ton about Kashmir and Pakistan. 00:30:07.929 --> 00:30:08.990 AON: Because I live here. 00:30:08.990 --> 00:30:11.880 My home is like, six, seven hundred meters from the border. 00:30:11.880 --> 00:30:14.830 JACK: What border are you talking about? 00:30:14.830 --> 00:30:19.030 Are you talking about the Line of Control or are you talking about…? 00:30:19.030 --> 00:30:20.030 AON: Yeah, the Line of Control. 00:30:20.030 --> 00:30:23.080 I am in Kashmir so it’s Line of Control. 00:30:23.080 --> 00:30:26.929 JACK: As I was saying earlier, some parts of Kashmir are controlled by Pakistan and 00:30:26.929 --> 00:30:28.920 some parts are controlled by India. 00:30:28.920 --> 00:30:33.700 Aon lives on the Pakistan-controlled side of Kashmir, just a few hundred meters away 00:30:33.700 --> 00:30:36.140 from the Indian-controlled side. 00:30:36.140 --> 00:30:39.789 He says being so close to the border means there’s always violence looming. 00:30:39.789 --> 00:30:50.159 AON: A few days ago, India fired some long-range guns and there were six funerals from one 00:30:50.159 --> 00:30:51.669 home in a day. 00:30:51.669 --> 00:31:00.980 Stuff like that is hard to process but then, it’s part of the daily routine; every few 00:31:00.980 --> 00:31:09.059 months this happens and now, after Modi has been the Prime Minister, this has increased 00:31:09.059 --> 00:31:10.059 a lot. 00:31:10.059 --> 00:31:13.809 JACK: Are you allowed to just walk across the Line of Control whenever you want? 00:31:13.809 --> 00:31:16.510 AON: No. 00:31:16.510 --> 00:31:23.160 The area between both forces, it’s like a no-man’s land. 00:31:23.160 --> 00:31:29.680 If you’re crossing the border, either side is going to shoot you. 00:31:29.680 --> 00:31:33.470 JACK: This gives you a better idea of what’s going on in that area. 00:31:33.470 --> 00:31:37.690 Aon here pays a lot of attention to the politics that goes on. 00:31:37.690 --> 00:31:47.139 AON: The part which the Indian guys [inaudible] missed that the guy who blew up, how was he 00:31:47.139 --> 00:31:48.139 rationalized? 00:31:48.139 --> 00:31:52.019 JACK: [MUSIC] Oh yeah, back to this terrorist attack that killed forty Indian soldiers in 00:31:52.019 --> 00:31:57.580 Kashmir; after all this settled down, some investigations took place to see what happened. 00:31:57.580 --> 00:32:00.820 They found out more about this terrorist who did this attack. 00:32:00.820 --> 00:32:03.070 AON: His name was Adil Ahmad Dar. 00:32:03.070 --> 00:32:07.649 He was from Lethipora in Kashmir, the Indian side of Kashmir. 00:32:07.649 --> 00:32:10.990 JACK: Oh, he’s from the Indian-controlled side of Kashmir? 00:32:10.990 --> 00:32:11.990 Okay. 00:32:11.990 --> 00:32:17.429 Now, I’m reading an article in the online newspaper India Today and in this article, 00:32:17.429 --> 00:32:19.820 they interviewed the guy’s dad. 00:32:19.820 --> 00:32:24.910 His dad said when his son was seventeen, he was going to school one day and some Indian 00:32:24.910 --> 00:32:29.789 soldiers stopped him and harassed him, claiming his kid was throwing rocks. 00:32:29.789 --> 00:32:36.010 His dad says the Indian troops beat him up that day and hurt him, and told him not to 00:32:36.010 --> 00:32:37.010 throw rocks. 00:32:37.010 --> 00:32:43.769 This, I guess, planted a seed in this seventeen-year old and he grew tired of Indian troops in 00:32:43.769 --> 00:32:46.919 his town mistreating the people of Kashmir. 00:32:46.919 --> 00:32:52.909 For the next three years, he grew more and more hateful of those Indian troops. 00:32:52.909 --> 00:32:57.670 AON: After that, he wanted to join the militant so he joined a militant group. 00:32:57.670 --> 00:33:03.460 He went to the Pakistani side of Kashmir and he got trained there by the militant group. 00:33:03.460 --> 00:33:09.130 He came back and then he blew up the van. 00:33:09.130 --> 00:33:17.940 That’s a point where everyone [00:35:00] chooses to see it differently; like, if someone 00:33:17.940 --> 00:33:23.820 from Kashmir chose to see it, he would say that he was fighting in this oppression. 00:33:23.820 --> 00:33:30.880 If someone from Pakistan’s side chose to see it, they might see it like okay, we got 00:33:30.880 --> 00:33:35.840 something out of it, we killed a few soldiers. 00:33:35.840 --> 00:33:40.380 Differently, when the Indians would see it, they would see it like okay, this was a terrorist 00:33:40.380 --> 00:33:41.500 who killed our troops. 00:33:41.500 --> 00:33:48.370 But the point is these were the troops who beat him up and harassed him while he was 00:33:48.370 --> 00:33:49.370 coming back from school. 00:33:49.370 --> 00:33:52.770 He was a kid; he was seventeen-years old, seventeen or twenty. 00:33:52.770 --> 00:33:55.450 He was twenty years old when he blew up. 00:33:55.450 --> 00:33:59.440 JACK: See what I mean by how complicated of a situation this is? 00:33:59.440 --> 00:34:04.750 There’s so many nuances and so much violence that happens on a daily basis there that there’s 00:34:04.750 --> 00:34:12.379 no way to know who or what or why some violence happens and if it’s justified or not. 00:34:12.379 --> 00:34:18.609 There’s so many strong and heated opinions from nationalists and separatists and multiple 00:34:18.609 --> 00:34:22.369 factions and countries; it’s a mess. 00:34:22.369 --> 00:34:26.990 But despite this information, there are still people from India who strongly believe that 00:34:26.990 --> 00:34:30.320 Pakistan is fighting a proxy war. 00:34:30.320 --> 00:34:35.629 This is where the Pakistani government might be giving weapons or intelligence to the militant 00:34:35.629 --> 00:34:39.770 groups such as Jaish-e-Mohammed to fight the Indian army. 00:34:39.770 --> 00:34:43.839 This is so the Pakistani government can deny that they’re fighting in the region at all 00:34:43.839 --> 00:34:47.839 to avoid scrutiny from the UN or India or the world. 00:34:47.839 --> 00:34:50.860 Yeah, I don’t know; this might be happening. 00:34:50.860 --> 00:34:51.860 You know what? 00:34:51.860 --> 00:34:53.419 It probably is happening. 00:34:53.419 --> 00:34:58.200 Pakistan is probably funding these militant groups secretly somehow but at the same time, 00:34:58.200 --> 00:35:01.970 there might be other groups involved like the UAE or Saudi Arabia. 00:35:01.970 --> 00:35:06.010 They might be giving weapons to these militant groups, too. 00:35:06.010 --> 00:35:09.540 That just complicates things even more which I don’t even want to get into that because 00:35:09.540 --> 00:35:13.300 I feel like we’re getting away from the point of the story here which is hacking. 00:35:13.300 --> 00:35:19.349 AON: This is not a new thing; like, hacking government websites or anything like that 00:35:19.349 --> 00:35:20.760 is not a new thing. 00:35:20.760 --> 00:35:25.309 It goes back to 2007 to 2013. 00:35:25.309 --> 00:35:28.280 This was happening on a daily basis. 00:35:28.280 --> 00:35:34.200 Every day you wake up, if you’re in an IRC chat room of either side of the hackers, they 00:35:34.200 --> 00:35:38.680 are like okay, this guy hacked our side; we’re going to hack their side. 00:35:38.680 --> 00:35:39.680 This and this and this. 00:35:39.680 --> 00:35:41.359 This was a regular thing. 00:35:41.359 --> 00:35:45.200 Let me give you an example. 00:35:45.200 --> 00:35:49.960 JACK: Aon begins to send me links to many websites; the New York Times, the Free Press 00:35:49.960 --> 00:35:52.800 Journal, CNBC, and The Guardian. 00:35:52.800 --> 00:35:54.319 The articles are very fascinating. 00:35:54.319 --> 00:36:00.560 Tit for tat hacking has absolutely been going back and forth between Pakistan and India 00:36:00.560 --> 00:36:02.220 for a decade now. 00:36:02.220 --> 00:36:08.510 Here’s just some examples; when the Mumbai terrorist attack happened in 2008, Indian 00:36:08.510 --> 00:36:12.790 hackers DDossed and defaced some of Pakistani government websites. 00:36:12.790 --> 00:36:18.140 In retaliation, a hacker group calling themselves The Pakistan Cyber-Army defaced the website 00:36:18.140 --> 00:36:22.510 of the Indian Oil and Natural Gas Company shortly after. 00:36:22.510 --> 00:36:27.360 Years later, Indian hacktivists hit a Pakistani airport with ransomware and they did this 00:36:27.360 --> 00:36:32.020 on Pakistan’s Independence Day which was also the anniversary of the Mumbai terrorist 00:36:32.020 --> 00:36:33.020 attack. 00:36:33.020 --> 00:36:36.990 Some security research firms have observed that some more serious hacks have originated 00:36:36.990 --> 00:36:40.480 from India and targeted companies in Pakistan. 00:36:40.480 --> 00:36:44.839 This included some sophisticated phishing attempts and malware being sent. 00:36:44.839 --> 00:36:49.310 It’s unknown but this could have been the work of the Indian military but there’s 00:36:49.310 --> 00:36:51.720 just no solid evidence of that. 00:36:51.720 --> 00:36:56.040 Then around the same time, there’s been a series of hacks against Indian embassies. 00:36:56.040 --> 00:37:00.040 These are e-mail phishing attempts with nasty malware attached and the malware calls back 00:37:00.040 --> 00:37:03.310 to IP addresses located in Pakistan. 00:37:03.310 --> 00:37:07.609 These attacks are also more sophisticated than what a typical hacker might try which 00:37:07.609 --> 00:37:11.560 makes some people think this might be the work of the Pakistani army. 00:37:11.560 --> 00:37:14.989 However, there’s no proof of that, either. 00:37:14.989 --> 00:37:20.460 A few years back, a hacker group calling themselves the Pakistan Cyber-Army hacked into the CBI 00:37:20.460 --> 00:37:22.550 which is India’s FBI. 00:37:22.550 --> 00:37:24.170 This made a lot of news. 00:37:24.170 --> 00:37:29.329 In 2015, some Pakistani hackers got control of the website nic.in. 00:37:29.329 --> 00:37:35.980 Now, this is a big deal because this website controls the entire domain registry for all 00:37:35.980 --> 00:37:39.119 websites ending in .in which is India. 00:37:39.119 --> 00:37:41.910 AON: These are the guys who manage the .in domain. 00:37:41.910 --> 00:37:43.369 JACK: They were hacked by… 00:37:43.369 --> 00:37:45.140 AON: Pakistani hackers. 00:37:45.140 --> 00:37:50.450 JACK: If you control this website, you could theoretically have control over every website 00:37:50.450 --> 00:37:53.170 that ends in .in. 00:37:53.170 --> 00:37:59.470 This article I’m reading says because of this hack into nic.in, over 30,000 websites 00:37:59.470 --> 00:38:00.859 were hacked in 2014. 00:38:00.859 --> 00:38:08.339 AON: From a cyber perspective, this is not an – I won’t say it’s a new thing. 00:38:08.339 --> 00:38:16.230 Two days ago, there was a guy who hacked BJP. [00:40:00] Did you hear about that? 00:38:16.230 --> 00:38:19.760 JACK: Yeah, actually I saw Elliot Alderson tweeting about this first. 00:38:19.760 --> 00:38:23.850 Some hackers defaced India’s legislative assembly website. 00:38:23.850 --> 00:38:26.470 AON: India’s official parties’ website and it was hacked. 00:38:26.470 --> 00:38:28.030 JACK: Who hacked this one? 00:38:28.030 --> 00:38:32.030 AON: There’s a guy named Romad Bilard[sp?]. 00:38:32.030 --> 00:38:34.780 He hacked this site. 00:38:34.780 --> 00:38:35.780 JACK: Where’s he from? 00:38:35.780 --> 00:38:36.780 AON: He’s from Pakistan. 00:38:36.780 --> 00:38:38.980 Like I said, this is not a new thing. 00:38:38.980 --> 00:38:42.490 This keeps happening every few weeks. 00:38:42.490 --> 00:38:47.250 JACK: Holy cow; this is nuts. 00:38:47.250 --> 00:38:52.430 Yes, of course, when tensions are high in the real world and people are throwing rocks 00:38:52.430 --> 00:38:58.790 or shooting guns at each other, you can absolutely expect a cyber-conflict to also be waging 00:38:58.790 --> 00:38:59.880 online, too. 00:38:59.880 --> 00:39:06.819 Now that I look at it, yeah, it’s happening in a big way. 00:39:06.819 --> 00:39:14.940 [MUSIC] There’s a law in India called Article 370 which gives Kashmir a sort of independence, 00:39:14.940 --> 00:39:17.710 allowing Kashmir to choose who should govern it. 00:39:17.710 --> 00:39:22.640 Well, that law got revoked in August which means India has taken official control of 00:39:22.640 --> 00:39:23.640 Kashmir. 00:39:23.640 --> 00:39:27.940 It’s no longer an option by the local government; it’s now part of India. 00:39:27.940 --> 00:39:32.040 Well as you can imagine, this was met with a lot of protesting. 00:39:32.040 --> 00:39:37.230 First, let me play a clip for you from within the Indian parliament when this was initially 00:39:37.230 --> 00:39:38.230 announced. 00:39:38.230 --> 00:39:41.440 I can’t understand what they’re saying, but I want you to listen to the way this was 00:39:41.440 --> 00:39:44.880 received within Indian parliament. 00:39:44.880 --> 00:40:03.560 [FOREIGN SPEAKING, BANGING, SHOUTING] I don’t know about you but whenever I watch some other 00:40:03.560 --> 00:40:08.750 country’s parliament conduct their meetings, it always looks so weird. 00:40:08.750 --> 00:40:13.131 This one really does look weird to me; half the room is clapping but they don’t clap 00:40:13.131 --> 00:40:14.131 with two hands. 00:40:14.131 --> 00:40:16.570 They clap by banging the desk with one hand. 00:40:16.570 --> 00:40:20.800 The other half of the room is shouting, yelling, standing up, and screaming. 00:40:20.800 --> 00:40:23.400 It’s madness and you can’t understand anyone. 00:40:23.400 --> 00:40:26.310 This went on for a solid forty minutes. 00:40:26.310 --> 00:40:30.020 COURT: Something historical has happened. 00:40:30.020 --> 00:40:41.040 It’s not an ordinary day today, functioning of the party so far. 00:40:41.040 --> 00:40:42.040 [SHOUTING] 00:40:42.040 --> 00:40:46.690 JACK: Soon after Article 370 was revoked, protests erupted. 00:40:46.690 --> 00:40:52.540 First, large crowds of people living in Kashmir took to the streets to protest, saying they 00:40:52.540 --> 00:40:57.589 want Kashmir to be free and independent. 00:40:57.589 --> 00:41:09.280 [CROWD SHOUTING, CHANTING] The protests in Kashmir heated up a lot. 00:41:09.280 --> 00:41:11.750 It was getting crazy and out of control. 00:41:11.750 --> 00:41:18.470 It became so bad that India initiated a curfew on the Indian-controlled part of Kashmir because 00:41:18.470 --> 00:41:23.430 there are over 600,000 Indian troops in Kashmir which is enough to put ten troops on every 00:41:23.430 --> 00:41:30.150 corner to enforce a curfew, making sure everyone stays off the streets and does not go outside. 00:41:30.150 --> 00:41:34.980 The point was to keep the protestors and the violence down but this just was met with more 00:41:34.980 --> 00:41:40.339 anger and people still protested and went outside and threw rocks at the Indian army. 00:41:40.339 --> 00:41:45.060 The Indian government ended up taking all mobile and internet connections down for the 00:41:45.060 --> 00:41:48.470 entire Indian-controlled portion of Kashmir. 00:41:48.470 --> 00:41:54.020 India had to send an additional 100,000 troops into the area to help keep the peace. 00:41:54.020 --> 00:41:57.319 I guess that’s one way to do it. 00:41:57.319 --> 00:42:04.480 The curfew and the internet and mobile outages stayed on for a week and then two weeks, and 00:42:04.480 --> 00:42:08.400 then three weeks, then four weeks. 00:42:08.400 --> 00:42:12.280 Now, there are millions of people who were subject to this curfew. 00:42:12.280 --> 00:42:18.060 Like, eight million people live in this area so you can imagine this was met with protests 00:42:18.060 --> 00:42:20.020 on a daily basis. 00:42:20.020 --> 00:42:25.050 Rocks were thrown at the Indian army who would then retaliate with pellet guns or tear gas 00:42:25.050 --> 00:42:28.890 or other weapons and telling them to go back inside. 00:42:28.890 --> 00:42:33.650 Sometimes the protests would get really crazy and this would result in people dying. 00:42:33.650 --> 00:42:37.670 Not to mention people were dying from lack of medicine and food, too. 00:42:37.670 --> 00:42:44.150 The curfew remained on for over a month and then two months. 00:42:44.150 --> 00:42:49.120 At this point, Imran Khan, the Prime Minister of Pakistan, went to the UN to talk about 00:42:49.120 --> 00:42:50.120 this curfew. 00:42:50.120 --> 00:42:51.120 Here’s what he said. 00:42:51.120 --> 00:42:57.240 IMRAN: What sort of a mindset would lay siege to eight million people with 900,000 troops? 00:42:57.240 --> 00:43:03.230 Women, children, sick people locked in as animals. 00:43:03.230 --> 00:43:06.200 What is going to happen when the curfew is lifted? 00:43:06.200 --> 00:43:08.010 It will be a bloodbath. 00:43:08.010 --> 00:43:09.270 The people will come out. 00:43:09.270 --> 00:43:11.290 There are 900,000 troops there. 00:43:11.290 --> 00:43:17.010 These 900,000 troops, what are they going to [00:45:00] do when they come out? 00:43:17.010 --> 00:43:24.730 There’ll be a bloodbath and we will fight. 00:43:24.730 --> 00:43:32.119 When a nuclear-armed country fights to the end, it will have consequences far beyond 00:43:32.119 --> 00:43:34.100 the borders. 00:43:34.100 --> 00:43:39.310 It will have consequences for the world which is why, I repeat, I am here, because I am 00:43:39.310 --> 00:43:40.310 warning you. 00:43:40.310 --> 00:43:41.310 It’s not a threat. 00:43:41.310 --> 00:43:44.730 It’s a fair worry that where are we headed? 00:43:44.730 --> 00:43:51.660 I’ve come here to tell the UN you’ve got to – this is a test for the United Nations. 00:43:51.660 --> 00:43:55.390 You are the one who guaranteed the people of Kashmir the right of self-determination. 00:43:55.390 --> 00:43:57.250 This is the time to take action. 00:43:57.250 --> 00:44:05.510 The number one action must be that India must lift this inhuman curfew which has lasted 00:44:05.510 --> 00:44:06.750 for fifty-five days. 00:44:06.750 --> 00:44:13.480 JACK: After three months of a curfew, India has started to lift just a little bit of the 00:44:13.480 --> 00:44:17.880 curfew now, allowing people to go outside for a little bit every day. 00:44:17.880 --> 00:44:25.540 Shops are now open for a few hours a day but schools remain empty; it’s not fully lifted. 00:44:25.540 --> 00:44:28.810 Even now, today, it’s still very restricted. 00:44:28.810 --> 00:44:34.730 Mobile calling is restored but the Indian government has still banned SMS text messages 00:44:34.730 --> 00:44:39.089 and internet is still down, too. 00:44:39.089 --> 00:44:43.290 Even though I had someone who lives in Kashmir talk about life there, I still feel like this 00:44:43.290 --> 00:44:46.319 episode barely hears the voices of people from Kashmir. 00:44:46.319 --> 00:44:50.770 They’ve been fought over by two nuclear-armed countries for a long time. 00:44:50.770 --> 00:44:53.819 During that time, they haven’t been treated well by either. 00:44:53.819 --> 00:44:59.720 It’s like the old saying when two elephants fight, the thing that suffers the most is 00:44:59.720 --> 00:45:00.720 the grass. 00:45:00.720 --> 00:45:04.140 They deserve peace and freedom, not the constant sound of gunfire over their heads. 00:45:04.140 --> 00:45:08.650 Here they are, under a curfew set on them by the Indian government. 00:45:08.650 --> 00:45:13.240 Taking away internet from the people is not a good way to treat your own people. 00:45:13.240 --> 00:45:19.610 Yeah, this region of the world – I don’t know, it’s a flash point. 00:45:19.610 --> 00:45:23.530 Tensions have been high here for the last ninety days for sure but it’s been high 00:45:23.530 --> 00:45:27.849 for this whole year and even before that, the tensions have been high for the last thirty 00:45:27.849 --> 00:45:28.849 years. 00:45:28.849 --> 00:45:32.839 Before that, it just keeps going and going for thousands of years. 00:45:32.839 --> 00:45:37.130 When tensions are this high, hackers will take action into their own hands and do what 00:45:37.130 --> 00:45:41.340 they know how to do; use a computer to get into things that they aren’t supposed to 00:45:41.340 --> 00:45:44.530 get into and cause damage and destruction. 00:45:44.530 --> 00:45:48.920 This is a way to protest and it shows how angry you are. 00:45:48.920 --> 00:45:51.309 Now, I’m tuned into this. 00:45:51.309 --> 00:45:57.940 I’ll be watching to see what unfolds between Pakistan, India, and Kashmir. 00:45:57.940 --> 00:46:08.140 JACK (OUTRO): [OUTRO MUSIC] A big thank you to our two guests for being brave enough to 00:46:08.140 --> 00:46:10.310 come on the show and tell their story. 00:46:10.310 --> 00:46:14.559 The world is changing; you have the power to change it so do the right thing. 00:46:14.559 --> 00:46:18.010 This show is made by me, your friendly IRC op, Jack Rhysider. 00:46:18.010 --> 00:46:22.310 Sound design this episode was by Andrew Meriwether and editing help from Damienne. 00:46:22.310 --> 00:46:27.800 Our theme music is by Breakmaster Cylinder who wants me to tell you it’s a car part. 00:46:27.800 --> 00:46:32.339 Even though my apps suddenly close and I start hearing strange clicking noises on my phone 00:46:32.339 --> 00:46:48.970 every time I say it, this is Darknet Diaries.