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Nuclear weapons agency breached amid massive cyber onslaught

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121–130 of 222 posts

Re: Nuclear weapons agency breached amid massive cyber onslaught

#121
post #7

Bit of a misleading title by Reuters. They accessed the business networks of the NNSA, the agency responsible for maintaining the nuclear stockpile, but did not access the networks managing the actual nuclear weapons, as the title half-implies. There was no threat of random nuclear weapon exploits, those networks have not been compromised as far as we know.

Yea, also, who would build a nuclear bomb that could be detonated via the internet? I would be outright shocked if there wasn’t a mechanical part of the process... eg, in the early days, they literally had the warhead and bomb parts physically separated

NAAS (Nukes as a Service) is probably part of the JEDI defense contract Azure signed with the government.

Re: Nuclear weapons agency breached amid massive cyber onslaught

#123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yea, also, who would build a nuclear bomb that could be detonated via the internet? I would be outright shocked if there wasn’t a mechanical part of the process... eg, in the early days, they literally had the warhead and bomb parts physically separated

"I would be outright shocked if there wasn’t a mechanical part of the process" More shocking things have happened, like the nuclear launch codes being "00000000" for 15 years: https://www.huffpost.com/entry/nuclear-missile-code-00000000...

"0000! That's the same combo I have on my luggage!" - Dark Helmet

Re: Nuclear weapons agency breached amid massive cyber onslaught

#124

Oops your launch codes have been encrypted! What Happened to My Nuclear Deterrent? Your abort codes are encrypted and your nuclear arsenal has been placed at DEFCON level 1. Many of your ICBMs, submarines, launch silos, bombers and other facilities are no longer accessible because their communication channels have been encrypted. Maybe you are busy looking for a way to cancel the launch, but do not waste your time. N…

For a second I thought this was channeling Clippy. I'll bet MS didn't see that one coming as a result of their being hacked.

Re: Nuclear weapons agency breached amid massive cyber onslaught

#126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's the beauty of it: many invocations of "dang" in HN will be done for both reasons. I don't know the origin of that username, but it's grown into it's role.

I think he even has a trigger on that which sometimes leads to funny situations.

dang has a trigger on the nuclear weapons suite? wow, I thought being an hn mod was powerful but I had no idea.

Re: Nuclear weapons agency breached amid massive cyber onslaught

#127
post #73
post #6

It feels like we're in the calm before the storm and nobody is watching the approaching squall. China growing in power and influence, flexing itself on the global stage. The US waning internationally, citizens divided and full of hate. We're factory-less, fab-less, and have fewer educated. Fewer consumers. Lots of debt. We have SpaceX, but China's pace of exploration and international cooperation is increasing faster…

I think China has been playing us for years, and doing so masterfully. There's no _good_ reason for the US, with our economy and standing, to be ripping itself apart from within -- but, indeed we are. Not only is China growing in power and influence, as you point out, it has been investing in American media and other industries. They're famous for playing their strategic game over a long span of time (the long game).…

Is it Hollywood, Silicon Valley, and the Left who are choosing to buy cheap Chinese goods?

Are they forcing Walmart and Amazon to carry those goods?

Are they responsible for the low wages Americans are making?

Did they move manufacturing overseas?

Otherwise a water tight theory ..

Re: Nuclear weapons agency breached amid massive cyber onslaught

#128
post #113

jeez this is terrifying. can someone just give me peace of mind that I'm not going to be nuked

This wasn't an effort to start a nuclear war, MAD is still a deterrent. This was a major espionage operation, which is bad, but it's not the start of nukes being dropped.

Re: Nuclear weapons agency breached amid massive cyber onslaught

#129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Reliable no, but difficult to access via a REST API yes

A Kubernetes cluster of nuclear weapons. Want mutually assured destruction? Simply deploy a helm chart!

Finally, Terraform and CloudFormation can truly live up to their names!

Re: Nuclear weapons agency breached amid massive cyber onslaught

#130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So that they can get software updates.

It's kind of a lovely paradox -- connect to get software updates, but if you didn't connect you wouldn't need updates.

Not all bugs relate to internet connectivity. If you had a non-networked computer, you might still want bug fixes.

For that matter, non-internet-connected computers can still be networked to each other using internet protocols, so they can still need bug fixes for internet stuff.

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