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Russian Invasion of Ukraine Is ‘Almost Certain,' Cyber Expert Says

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Re: Russian Invasion of Ukraine Is ‘Almost Certain,' Cyber Expert Says

#31
post #11
post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Crowdstrike is one the best and most expensive EDR systems on the market. I doubt he'd put their name in jeopardy with misinformation. Personally as a European I wouldn't mind if Eastern Ukraine (Donbas in particular) rejoins Russia. The people in the region sure want it, and that's what freedom is about, making your own choices. If they don't it'll be an unstable area of insurgency for decades anyway. It's been a wa…

While I agree with most of your comment, one sentence triggered me. > I doubt he'd put their name in jeopardy with misinformation. His company's top officers lied to the public during the campaign in 2016 (and ever since) that the DNC servers was hacked by the Russian Government [1], but then, when asked about it in a court of law in 2017, retractied themselves that any data trace even existed [2]. However the testim…

None of your sources support the claims you made regarding Crowdstrike.

Re: Russian Invasion of Ukraine Is ‘Almost Certain,' Cyber Expert Says

#32
The person is said to be an "expert is cyber security", however, his arguments go way beyond his area of expertise. In fact they barely touch cyber security at all. He might end up being right of course (like anyone else). But at the moment his reasoning is a mere speculation of a person, who is maybe marginally better informed than an average commentator on the matter.

Re: Russian Invasion of Ukraine Is ‘Almost Certain,' Cyber Expert Says

#33

The biggest thing that puzzles me about this (and about many recent geopolitical events) is the elephant in the room. Nobody mentions it: The United Nations Why isn't this issue being discussed there, prominently? If it's not possible to even discuss the behavior of the 5 permanent Security Council members (5 of the most powerful countries in the world), then screw it! Let's just get rid of the UN entirely.

Because that's not what UN is. UN is not a world government.

UN for all it's glory, is just a permanent place for countries to to talk to each other.

Think of it as an expo/trade conference for governments that is always running.

The issue here is that Russia doesn't seem to want to talk to anyone (except their demand for 1on1 with USA), and can veto anything on the security council, so UN has little role to play.

> If it's not possible to even discuss the behavior of the 5 permanent Security Council members (5 of the most powerful countries in the world)

Sure you can discuss it, but to what gain ? Just to further piss some of them off ?

> then screw it! Let's just get rid of the UN entirely.

UN is a tool, but unlike a hammer can't always be used. That doesn't mean its useless.

> 5 of the most powerful countries in the world

This is a fantasy people live in that world is a fair place. It's not and it has never been. In private life we have come far, and you could say that at least in most developed countries rule of law works to a degree (it's not perfect, but its better than at any point in the past.)

But on the international stage it's still pretty much that countries with the biggest sticks get their way. Most of the big countries regularly bully smaller ones, and there is little small countries can do, except to maybe appeal to big countries population in hopes they will restrain their own government.

Unless we get some kind of global government that has it's own teeth (army/police) this wont change.

But UN is still useful.

Re: Russian Invasion of Ukraine Is ‘Almost Certain,' Cyber Expert Says

#34

The person is said to be an "expert is cyber security", however, his arguments go way beyond his area of expertise. In fact they barely touch cyber security at all. He might end up being right of course (like anyone else). But at the moment his reasoning is a mere speculation of a person, who is maybe marginally better informed than an average commentator on the matter.

Doesn't matter if he's right, we just need to run the headlines and continue overfunding the military!

Re: Russian Invasion of Ukraine Is ‘Almost Certain,' Cyber Expert Says

#35

The biggest thing that puzzles me about this (and about many recent geopolitical events) is the elephant in the room. Nobody mentions it: The United Nations Why isn't this issue being discussed there, prominently? If it's not possible to even discuss the behavior of the 5 permanent Security Council members (5 of the most powerful countries in the world), then screw it! Let's just get rid of the UN entirely.

Because that's not what UN is. UN is not a world government. UN for all it's glory, is just a permanent place for countries to to talk to each other. Think of it as an expo/trade conference for governments that is always running. The issue here is that Russia doesn't seem to want to talk to anyone (except their demand for 1on1 with USA), and can veto anything on the security council, so UN has little role to play. >…

I always find it odd to hear comments to the tune of "Well, if it doesn't bring about world peace, why bother?" As if organizations like UNESCO, UNHCR, WHO, etc didn't exist. The UN makes the world a better place, even if it doesn't make it a perfect place.

Its inability to prevent saber-rattling by the permanent Security Council members is unfortunate. But they haven't had direct wars since the UN was founded, and the UN is partly the reason. It's in the votes; it's in the behind-the-scenes talks that keep small crises from turning into world crises.

It's never going to be a world government that can be the sole legitimate user of force. That was never its goal, even if it were feasible (which it isn't). But it's just ignorant to say that it doesn't have more plausible goals at which it has some success.

Re: Russian Invasion of Ukraine Is ‘Almost Certain,' Cyber Expert Says

#36
post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I understand. I had no idea how heavily this was politicized. For us the DNC thing was just in the news when it happened and quickly overwhelmed by other news in that period. Thanks for the links, I don't have time now but I'll read them in the days to come. I want to know more about this case. Especially because we use the product at work.

>Thanks for the links Aaron Mate is a heavily pro-Kremlin voice, so it's not like those were very good sources, just an opinion of a quite biased journalist.

That is not opinion :

- I linked the New York articles interviewing Crowdstrike :

"The D.N.C. immediately hired CrowdStrike, [...] It made its first appearance in 2014, said Dmitri Alperovitch, CrowdStrike’s co-founder and chief technology officer.[...] Whenever someone clicked on a phishing message, the Russians would enter the network, “exfiltrate” documents of interest and stockpile them for intelligence purposes. Once they got into the D.N.C., they found the data valuable and decided to continue the operation,” said Mr. Alperovitch, [...]"

There are similar claims elsewhere. You can also find their management in TV interviews or being in TV expert panels.

- The Mate link is only interesting here because of the handy scans of the House Comitee minutes where they answered a direct question by "We did not have concrete evidence that data was exfiltrated from the DNC". You can also go to the original source, if you want.

There are several scanned pages inlined in the middle of that article.

Re: Russian Invasion of Ukraine Is ‘Almost Certain,' Cyber Expert Says

#37
post #31
post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

While I agree with most of your comment, one sentence triggered me. > I doubt he'd put their name in jeopardy with misinformation. His company's top officers lied to the public during the campaign in 2016 (and ever since) that the DNC servers was hacked by the Russian Government [1], but then, when asked about it in a court of law in 2017, retractied themselves that any data trace even existed [2]. However the testim…

None of your sources support the claims you made regarding Crowdstrike.

I gave the specifics in another answer at https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29671485 .

Re: Russian Invasion of Ukraine Is ‘Almost Certain,' Cyber Expert Says

#38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's about nordstream 2. The US doesn't want it to be finished and I am quite sure it will end up as part of new sanctions against Russia after a small incident on the border. I agree with you, having the US in play and the US president negotiating is out of place. Imagine the US was building up troops at the Mexican border and Russia was objecting saying the US will invade Tijuana. They have done it before with New…

They have done it before with New Mexico. Talk about grasping at straws. The Mexican-American War ended in 1848, and the USA bought the rest of New Mexico in 1854. Maybe we should discuss instead when Joe Stalin starved millions of Ukrainians to death in the Holodomor[1]. Or maybe that was just an "internal matter"? Or perhaps just Western propaganda? There is quite the history of wrongdoing by all countries since 18…

Of course, you know Stalin was Georgian, right?

You know also that Russia is not the USSR, right?

Re: Russian Invasion of Ukraine Is ‘Almost Certain,' Cyber Expert Says

#39
post #37
post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

None of your sources support the claims you made regarding Crowdstrike.

I gave the specifics in another answer at https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29671485 .

Yeah a variety of clowns keep posting this same conspiracy theory over and over, but the fact is that the House testimony does not in any way support your claim

> His company's top officers lied to the public during the campaign in 2016 (and ever since) that the DNC servers was hacked by the Russian Government

The only real takeaway from your links is that crowdstrike does not have pcaps showing data exfiltration.

Re: Russian Invasion of Ukraine Is ‘Almost Certain,' Cyber Expert Says

#40
post #36
post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Thanks for the links Aaron Mate is a heavily pro-Kremlin voice, so it's not like those were very good sources, just an opinion of a quite biased journalist.

That is not opinion : - I linked the New York articles interviewing Crowdstrike : "The D.N.C. immediately hired CrowdStrike, [...] It made its first appearance in 2014, said Dmitri Alperovitch, CrowdStrike’s co-founder and chief technology officer.[...] Whenever someone clicked on a phishing message, the Russians would enter the network, “exfiltrate” documents of interest and stockpile them for intelligence purposes.…

But you’re just playing games with meanings of words.

> "We did not have concrete evidence that data was exfiltrated from the DNC"

They did not have pcaps of exfil traffic but did recover the compressed files that had been prepared for exfiltration. Without pcaps there can be no “concrete evidence” that those files were exfiltrated, but we do know that the intruders did prepare data for exfiltration and had nothing stopping them from doing so.

This is basically as good as it ever gets. How about you name examples of some better investigations?

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