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Ukraine calls on hacker underground to defend against Russia

reuters.com

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Re: Ukraine calls on hacker underground to defend against Russia

#71

Post by whatshisface »

wolverine876 wrote: post #69
simne wrote: post #25

I'm Ukrainian activist for 10+ years, have been on Maidan, etc, know many other activists. Unfortunately, we have not seen understanding with any government. Looks like, all people who got to government or state organizations, work on classical totalitarian scheme - "for friends all the best, for all others - severity of the law". Mean, system is so much disbalanced, that any government got totalitarian power and doe…

> support Ukrainian army as private persons, without government/state. How do you hope to defeat Russia without coordinating with the lawful and most powerful institutions in the country? Note also that probably all foreign government assistance, especially the motherlodes of assistance from NATO states, including cyber, will be going through the Ukranian government. > You could just donate, or you could create some…

>All your points seem to reduce support for and divert it from the Ukranian government and their military. Isn't that absurdly dangerous in this moment?

Almost none of the people on HN have anything to contribute to the Ukranian military. At the same time, all of the things related to actually living as a person in any country, at war or peace time, revolve around jobs, the economy and technology, things people on HN have a lot to do with.

Re: Ukraine calls on hacker underground to defend against Russia

#72

Post by GavinMcG »

beebmam wrote: post #70
simne wrote: post #25

I'm Ukrainian activist for 10+ years, have been on Maidan, etc, know many other activists. Unfortunately, we have not seen understanding with any government. Looks like, all people who got to government or state organizations, work on classical totalitarian scheme - "for friends all the best, for all others - severity of the law". Mean, system is so much disbalanced, that any government got totalitarian power and doe…

This reminds me of a great quote: "There must be in-groups whom the law protects but does not bind, alongside out-groups whom the law binds but does not protect"[1] 1. https://www.bradford-delong.com/2018/12/frank-wilhoit-the-tr...

"Great" as in "insightful" as a definition of conservatism, rather than as an endorsement of the philosophy (one hopes).

Re: Ukraine calls on hacker underground to defend against Russia

#73

Post by pueblito »

TameAntelope wrote: post #37

Am I the only one who thinks this is well intentioned but kind of silly? I don’t know a lot about this space, but I don’t know especially how many skills translate from offense to defense. Is this basically just a call for folks to turn in their 0days and access or something? Seems wt least marginally more useful than trying to train up a bunch of script kiddies to fight GRU…

I think this is just to provide cover for US offensive cyber operations

Re: Ukraine calls on hacker underground to defend against Russia

#74

Post by rainonmoon »

freedomben wrote: post #49
TameAntelope wrote: post #37

Am I the only one who thinks this is well intentioned but kind of silly? I don’t know a lot about this space, but I don’t know especially how many skills translate from offense to defense. Is this basically just a call for folks to turn in their 0days and access or something? Seems wt least marginally more useful than trying to train up a bunch of script kiddies to fight GRU…

They're not requesting script kiddies, and they're not asking for a bunch of vigilantes. They want applications: > "Ukrainian cybercommunity! It's time to get involved in the cyber defense of our country," the post read, asking hackers and cybersecurity experts to submit an application via Google docs, listing their specialties, such as malware development, and professional references. You'd be amazed at how well off…

Also if you're a diligent red teamer, you're investigating the impact of your attacks to understand the noise you're generating. That's fundamental to evasion and persistence. Easy to deploy the same knowledge in a defensive context.

Re: Ukraine calls on hacker underground to defend against Russia

#75

Post by dschulz »

Probably I'm just naive but I really don't understand this cyber warfare theater. Why aren't all internet operators in the free world just blackholing all russian ASNs (complete with the other allied bullies) from the internet routing tables? Wouldn't this be enough to avert all the nasty attacks on critical infrastructure?

Re: Ukraine calls on hacker underground to defend against Russia

#77

Post by rvz »

lalaland1125 wrote: post #56
rvz wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

RT.com is still up and running. A DDoS attack is hardly a ‘complex’ attack against Russia and is easily mitigated against these days vs a malware wiper already spreading all over Ukraine. A DDoS is not even remotely considered a ‘hack’. Anonymous is not exactly sophisticated like the ‘Equation Group’ and these sort of DDoS + shodan.io lookups are what script-kiddie jokers do. They have nothing to fight with compared…

rt.com seems down from my perspective DDoSes are simple tools, but they can be extremely effective at stopping Russian propaganda mills.

I just typed it in on many web browsers, tor, VPNs etc and it turns out that RT.com is still up.

So it’s mission failed successfully?

Re: Ukraine calls on hacker underground to defend against Russia

#78

Post by lucb1e »

dschulz wrote: post #75

Probably I'm just naive but I really don't understand this cyber warfare theater. Why aren't all internet operators in the free world just blackholing all russian ASNs (complete with the other allied bullies) from the internet routing tables? Wouldn't this be enough to avert all the nasty attacks on critical infrastructure?

You'd have to cut literally every cable and satellite connection and radio transmission in and out of the country. With something as geographically distributed as Russia, that sounds very hard to convince every country to convince every operator to... and even then, there's some wireless options.

Re: Ukraine calls on hacker underground to defend against Russia

#79

Post by Aeolun »

pueblito wrote: post #73
TameAntelope wrote: post #37

Am I the only one who thinks this is well intentioned but kind of silly? I don’t know a lot about this space, but I don’t know especially how many skills translate from offense to defense. Is this basically just a call for folks to turn in their 0days and access or something? Seems wt least marginally more useful than trying to train up a bunch of script kiddies to fight GRU…

I think this is just to provide cover for US offensive cyber operations

If you have the gov on your side they can become honorary ukrainian citizens overnight.

Re: Ukraine calls on hacker underground to defend against Russia

#80

Post by wolverine876 »

weisk wrote: post #68
simne wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thank You for answer. What I see now, kremlin for sure have not prepared for long term war campaign, they just have not built hospitals for wounded (thanks to western sat photos, provided by official sources), and this is extremely important, because in real war, 80% wounded die within 24h if have not received medical care in nearest 1-2 hours. And if will be resistance, attacking forces will have very large number o…

You seem like a knowledgeable person. What does Ukraine really have, that Putin so desperately wants? And best of luck to you, dear friends.

I'm not the person you asked, but the very well-known understanding, going back probably to Napoleon or earlier (among foreign policy experts), is that Ukraine has geopolitics. Geography is far more important to national power than non-experts realize.

Without Ukraine's Crimean peninsula, Russia loses sea access to the Black Sea and thus the Mediterranean for their navy (and also for trade), which historically has been a primary determinant of Russian military influence in Europe. Otherwise, they only have northern ports which are frozen and easily choked off (and ports way over on the Pacific - imagine having to sail your navy around Eurasia in order to attack or defend).

More importantly, Ukraine's geography is easy to move large forces across, in that respect a major battlefield (with due respect to Ukrainians). Napoleon and the Nazis both crossed through that region on their way to Russia, and when Russia attacks West, they go through Ukraine. Russian wants to control it and to prevent others from controlling it.

By controlling Ukraine, Russia can put more pressure on, have more influence over, Ukraine's neighbors, including Poland, and further cut off Latvia, Lithuania, and Estonia from their NATO allies.

Finally, Putin wants glory - don't underestimate the personal characteristics, such as ego, of unaccountable dictators - and to recreate the Soviet empire and the illusion of power. An independent, democratic Ukraine both undermines that appearance (and perception is everything for dictators) and embarasses Putin's claim to power as an authoritarian dictator.

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