Diaries of the Information War

By Vitalijs Rakstins

Do you know who are internet trolls and how they operate? Are you aware of the cyber risks faced every day? Do you know how to minimize your digital footprint and disappear from the web? 

Diaries of the Information War is a fictional novel which addresses these questions. It is an educational experiment to raise teenagers’ awareness of media literacy, data literacy and cyber-hygiene using so-called red teaming methods (a red team is a group that plays the role of an enemy).

This story is about a teenager, Dan, who, step by step, is drawn into an internet troll factory and, against his will, participates in the information war, which results in tragedy. Each chapter describes how the situation deteriorates, how daily life changes – partly because of Dan’s actions. This book is for teenagers to help them avoid the mistakes of the main characters. 

All characters and events in this book are entirely fictional. Still, similar events described in the book are ongoing nowadays on the streets of many cities.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Austin Macauley Publishers
• Release date: Nov 10, 2023
• ISBN: 9781035801596

Vitalijs Rakstins

Vitalijs Rakstins is a security expert with more than 16 years of experience working in the Latvian ministry of interior and ministry of defence. He is also a lecturer and advisor on national security, including information security and cyber defence. Vitalijs continues to educate and experiment with how to raise teenagers’ awareness about digital and informational security. This book is one of the efforts to attract young adults to change behaviour and become more resilient in the digital environment.

Book preview

About the Author

Vitalijs Rakstins is a security expert with more than 16 years of experience working in the Latvian ministry of interior and ministry of defence. He is also a lecturer and advisor on national security, including information security and cyber defence. Vitalijs continues to educate and experiment with how to raise teenagers’ awareness about digital and informational security. This book is one of the efforts to attract young adults to change behaviour and become more resilient in the digital environment.

Copyright Information ©

Vitalijs Rakstins 2023

The right of Vitalijs Rakstins to be identified as author of this work has been asserted by the author in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior permission of the publishers.

Any person who commits any unauthorised act in relation to this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events, locales, and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.

A CIP catalogue record for this title is available from the British Library.

ISBN 9781035801589 (Paperback)

ISBN 9781035801596 (ePub e-book)

www.austinmacauley.com

First Published 2023

Austin Macauley Publishers Ltd®

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Canary Wharf

London

E14 5AA

Chapter 1

Troll Factory

D – 30 (One Month Prior to D-Day)

Dan read the message.

He didn’t like it.

He had to post negative messages, dislikes, and nasty comment to several companies.

Dan took a deep breath and set to work.

Writing negative commentaries was easy. He just complained about services and products in most cases to downgrade their online ratings.

The service was awful.

The product was low quality.

Worst service has ever seen.

Staff extremely unfriendly. And so on.

***

Dan thought about it during the break, trying to remember how and when he got into this situation. It started a few weeks ago when he fell into heavy debt, like many of his classmates, trying to capitalise on the rising price of cryptocurrencies. The market unexpectedly fell, bringing down the cost of crypto money. For several days, he was puzzled over where to earn extra money to pay debts. He reviewed hundreds of ads on the internet until he came across offers in marketing and advertising. The employer did not put forward any special requirements, so Dan took a chance and turned to them. The employer responded quickly, offering the easy job of posting reviews about specific products and services. No crime, at least that’s how they explained it to him.

Dan never saw his employers, all correspondence between them was in the WhatsApp messenger.

How did a day on the troll farm look like?

Every day, Dan received a self-disappearing message describing the task. Employer coordinated his activities, instructed what to highlight, what to comment, whom to attack.

Dan created dozens of fake social media accounts for the illusion of multiple comments. The social media accounts were fakes i.e. profiles