PUSH NOTIFICATION, PUSH BACK: Since 2022, Ukrainians have relied on one app to tell them when to head for shelter. On Sunday night it told them the wrong things. Just before 11 p.m., Ukraine’s public air raid app began pushing false alerts, according to Reuters. One announced that Russia had launched an Oreshnik, the hypersonic missile that can carry a nuclear warhead, and declared a nuclear alert across the country. Ukraine’s air force noticed the alerts were written in Russian and drew the obvious conclusion. All-clear messages followed, and the app was briefly taken offline. A few hours later it was Moscow’s turn. Russia’s Emergency Situations Ministry said its own app had been hit by a “massive” cyberattack that spread false information. Atesh, a pro-Ukrainian hacking group, posted a screenshot of the fake alert on Telegram, per Al Arabiya. The ministry then played down the damage. It said the app wasn’t one of its main warning channels, just a supplementary source of information. The timing was hard to miss. The hacks came as a six-day local ceasefire said to have been brokered by First Lady Melania Trump expired in a small slice of southern Ukraine. Both governments say their apps are working again. In this war, even the warning systems need to come with a warning.
STICK FIGURES: Britain’s GCHQ, the signals intelligence agency that partners most closely with the NSA, collects the world’s secrets for a living. Keeping track of the little plastic things it stores them on has proved harder. According to Politico Europe, the Investigatory Powers Commissioner’s Office (IPCO), which oversees British spy agencies’ use of surveillance powers, says GCHQ cannot account for USB sticks, hard drives and memory cards numbering “in the thousands.” Some may contain data collected under the Investigatory Powers Act. That means intercepted emails, texts and phone calls. Commissioner Brian Leveson says GCHQ still can’t explain what happened to the devices, years after he first raised the issue. Last year’s report found GCHQ and MI5 had both misplaced considerable numbers of devices that might contain TOP SECRET material. Most were encrypted or PIN-locked, which counts as the good news. GCHQ admits its old tracking system wasn’t up to the job and says it has addressed every recommendation. The solution is a new tool to track removable media, due to enter service later this year. Unclear if that tool will be kept on a memory stick.
PICTURE IMPERFECT: The U.S. hosted G20 foreign ministers in Atlanta this week, but the traditional “family photo” didn’t make the cut. According to the Associated Press, Secretary of State Marco Rubio scrapped the group shot after European ministers refused to stand next to Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov. Germany’s Johann Wadephul said flatly there would be no photo of Europeans alongside Lavrov. Australia backed the cancellation. A U.S. official told Australia’s ABC News the photo was dropped to avoid it becoming a spectacle. It became the headline instead. The guest list had quirks of its own. South Africa, a founding member and the group’s only African country, wasn’t invited. Neither was Ukraine. Russia was. Lavrov then complained that Washington’s invitation to Poland “violates the principles of diplomacy.” Moscow lecturing Warsaw on diplomatic etiquette takes some chutzpah. The G20 leaders’ summit is in Miami next month. Photographers covering the event might want to pack a wide-angle lens.
THE SECRETARY-GENERAL CONFUSION: Earlier this week, the Dead Drop passed along the Wall Street Journal’s report that the Trump administration was considering Viktor Orbán, Hungary’s former prime minister, as the next UN secretary-general. The item originally appeared on the Journal’s editorial page, an unusual venue for a news scoop. A State Department official told the paper that the idea sounded crazy at first but that Russia and China were on board, with Orbán as a joint candidate of all three countries. The official even counted eight Security Council votes “comfortably” and 10 within reach. Now Puck’s Julia Ioffe reports that administration officials are blaming a State Department appointee eager to demonstrate his MAGA credentials, insisting the proposal was never “remotely true.” Ioffe identifies the official as Ronald Criscuolo, a deputy assistant secretary in the Bureau of International Organization Affairs. Perhaps, Criscuolo got Halloween and April Fool’s Day mixed up. But there’s a wrinkle: the Journal had also spoken to other State Department officials who confirmed that Orbán was being discussed. Puck now quotes administration sources calling the idea “a boneheaded thing to put out there.” Does the WSJ need better sources? Or does Foggy Bottom need officials more grounded in reality?
