Ukrainian Intelligence accuses Russia of using programs to automatically sign petitions on government's website
On Saturday, July 9, the Security Service of Ukraine (SSU) reported the discovery of a mechanism that signs petitions for the President of Ukraine. The SSU claims that Russian special services are behind these operations.
In particular, the Security Service employees’ suspicions were raised by a petition about the introduction of “a special developmental area” in the territory of the Kharkiv region, filed by one of the members of the former Communist Party of Ukraine. As of May 10, 2016, the petition has collected 45,000 signatures, about 20,000 of which were removed right away because they were made by bots. 70% of the remaining 25,000 signatures also raised suspicions on account of their authenticity.
According to the SSU's data, the signatures were made from IP addresses located, in particular, in Tiraspol, Moscow and Luhansk. During the investigation, evidence was also found that showed signatures were added by companies that sell them for 7–10 Ukrainian Hryvnia per signature ($.25– $.35).