A Bulgarian group of dozens of cyberactivists at first clubbed together to battle Russian disinformation, but they have since found other foes — like animal abusers.
They call themselves the BG Elves, which both refers to the kind-hearted characters of Scandinavian mythology and hints at a rivalry with the Internet’s malicious trolls.
The collective of about 70 anonymous cybersecurity experts have made a name for themselves by creating problems for their adversaries.
Photo: AFP
One of their latest efforts was helping an animal rights non-governmental organization (NGO) uncover evidence that led to the March arrest of a woman and a man accused of selling videos online of hundreds of animals being tortured to death.
“Our work was crucial, because for the first time a crime was solved in Bulgaria based on OSINT data, proving that our efforts can produce concrete results,” said software developer Petko Petkov, the Elves’ only public face.
OSINT refers to open-source intelligence, which is information gathered with digital investigation techniques such as reverse image search and geolocation.
Last summer, the NGO alerted the cybersleuths to videos posted on Telegram of a masked woman torturing animals.
The Elves tracked her down within hours.
Using OSINT, they were also able to trace the locations where the videos of cats, rabbits and guinea pigs being tortured on camera were filmed by her accomplice. The videos sparked widespread protests in Bulgaria and prompted the government to propose emergency legislation.
Set up in 2023 in response to pro-Kremlin disinformation flooding Bulgaria, the group first zeroed in on the key players involved in the campaigns.
“There were about 10 of us in a chat group, we refined the concept, then put out a call for volunteers,” Petkov told AFP about the group’s founding.
They have grown significantly since and include experts in cybersecurity, social engineering and databases.
“We are not hackers, we are researchers,” said Petkov, 37, who moved from central Bulgaria to Kyiv shortly after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in 2022.
Dedicated to activism, the Elves try to fight the deluge of disinformation by disseminating “counterpropaganda that makes people think,” he said.
“We noticed that a [disinformation] narrative ... takes some time to reach people. Our idea was to flood the space with humor and irony before the propaganda takes hold,” Petkov said.
Recently, they launched a viral meme campaign targeting the main false claims about Bulgaria’s accession to the eurozone, distributing the content through profiles embedded within major disinformation networks.
In March, BG Elves supported a Romanian journalist in an investigation that exposed a Russia-linked disinformation and propaganda network funded through online advertising.
In the wake of the recent arrests, Bulgaria proposed a bill in parliament, which allows for higher prison terms of up to 10 years for torturing animals. Nearly 300 people have been convicted of such offenses in the past five years, but few end up in prison.
Petya Altimirska, president of the animal welfare association CAAI, who had reached out to the Elves for help in the abuse case, has since received numerous reports of “even more serious” cases, adding that the cybersleuths are already “on it”.
While the group was praised for exposing the animal abuse, it has also faced criticism and numerous threats for its provocative approach and alleged political bias.
The team behind the long-awaited Vera Rubin Observatory in Chile yesterday published their first images, revealing breathtaking views of star-forming regions as well as distant galaxies. More than two decades in the making, the giant US-funded telescope sits perched at the summit of Cerro Pachon in central Chile, where dark skies and dry air provide ideal conditions for observing the cosmos. One of the debut images is a composite of 678 exposures taken over just seven hours, capturing the Trifid Nebula and the Lagoon Nebula — both several thousand light-years from Earth — glowing in vivid pinks against orange-red backdrops. The new image
Canada and the EU on Monday signed a defense and security pact as the transatlantic partners seek to better confront Russia, with worries over Washington’s reliability under US President Donald Trump. The deal was announced after a summit in Brussels between Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney and European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen and European Council President Antonio Costa. “While NATO remains the cornerstone of our collective defense, this partnership will allow us to strengthen our preparedness ... to invest more and to invest smarter,” Costa told a news conference. “It opens new opportunities for companies on both sides of the
ESPIONAGE: The British government’s decision on the proposed embassy hinges on the security of underground data cables, a former diplomat has said A US intervention over China’s proposed new embassy in London has thrown a potential resolution “up in the air,” campaigners have said, amid concerns over the site’s proximity to a sensitive hub of critical communication cables. The furor over a new “super-embassy” on the edge of London’s financial district was reignited last week when the White House said it was “deeply concerned” over potential Chinese access to “the sensitive communications of one of our closest allies.” The Dutch parliament has also raised concerns about Beijing’s ideal location of Royal Mint Court, on the edge of the City of London, which has so
OVERHAUL: The move would likely mark the end to Voice of America, which was founded in 1942 to counter Nazi propaganda and operated in nearly 50 languages The parent agency of Voice of America (VOA) on Friday said it had issued termination notices to more than 639 more staff, completing an 85 percent decrease in personnel since March and effectively spelling the end of a broadcasting network founded to counter Nazi propaganda. US Agency for Global Media (USAGM) senior advisor Kari Lake said the staff reduction meant 1,400 positions had been eliminated as part of US President Donald Trump’s agenda to cut staffing at the agency to a statutory minimum. “Reduction in Force Termination Notices were sent to 639 employees at USAGM and Voice of America, part of a