I think it’s a terribly significant question whether the Russian disinformation posters are agents of state security organs (SVU, GRU) or enthusiastic amateurs.

The old joke goes: “Soviet personal computers are the largest in the world!” Meaning that one of the contributing factors to their downfall was their dogmatic insistence on mainframes. As the pace of innovation in the west picked up with the growing flexibility of personal computing, the Soviets found themselves falling further and further behind.

Soviet authorities were so paranoid about uncontrolled dissemination of information that even copier machines were considered sensitive assets to be carefully guarded. When the KGB coup happened, the public response was doubly miraculous given the tight controls on information flows.

So, if these are *volunteers,* digital Cossacks, then something fundamental has changed in Russia. The bees may still be singing the song of the hive, but they are developing individual voices. In the long run, I think this bodes ill for Putin’s authoritarian vision.