A general comment on cyberwarfare. The Russian government/military is probably one of the most formidable cyberwarfare forces in the world (a quick googling lists US, UK, China, Russia, Israel as the top 5 cyberwarfare states, and I assume no non-state organization compares). One would expect them to have deployed their cyberwarfare "forces" against Ukraine. And yet the results were... pretty minimal? Internet traffic went down by ~30% in Kharkiv for a few hours. Have there been any other consequences? Yes it is possible that Ukrainian military communications were disrupted in a way that is not publicly visible. But none of the things people worried about like the electric grid, cell network, transportation, power plants seem to have been affected. So is cyberwarfare really just a minor concern if a country has basic defenses?
Ukraine calls on hacker underground to defend against Russia
291–300 of 636 posts
Re: Ukraine calls on hacker underground to defend against Russia
#292Earlier quoted context omitted.
Luckily this also favours the defending side somewhat I hope: From listening to people who grew up with the veterans here in Norway I've learned that: - Germans were told they came here to protect us against the British so they would - in the beginning of the war - shoot to suppress, not to kill. I guess Russian soldiers coming into Ukraine has been tricked to believe the "peace keeping" nonsense too and had a rude a…
>German soldiers would cryingly admit to POWs already at the start of the war that they were absolutely not voluntarily there, they'd just be shot if they refused No shit they weren't there voluntarily, no sane people want to go to their death, but those were the rules for mandatory conscription for them back then. Even today some European countries still have mandatory conscription, and while they won't shoot you fo…
Ironically given the comment you replied to, Norway is one of them. I had military police trying to reach me the last few weeks before I moved to the UK to try to hand deliver a conscription notice as a necessary step before charging me if I again failed to show up (I'd ignored several prior notices).
I didn't leave because of that, but I did delight I telling them I was beyond their reach. Finally picked up the phone the very day I left.
My dad and uncle both served 3-4 months in prison for refusing as a matter of principle, and my intent was to do so too until we decided to move our startup at the time to London.
Of course the main reason for that conscription was the Soviet Union/Russia. It's gotten very lenient since I left in 2000, as the size of the Norwegian military has been scaled back to the point they only need a small portion of potential recruits.
Re: Ukraine calls on hacker underground to defend against Russia
#293Earlier quoted context omitted.
You do know that Bulgaria, just like Romania, is crap at using EU development funds, right? Your country could look like Austria by now if you wouldn't be so corrupt. Look in the mirror first. How do you explain Slovenia or Estonia or Poland with your world outlook?
I agree. Bulgaria was on the right track until 2009. It's almost as if different countries face different realities. Corruption does not happen in a vacuum. Ultimately, the responsibility lies to those with power. What I am saying is geopolitics are not decided by the common person. You seem to disagree and that's fine
I think we're probably more aligned than you think :-)
I think society is a slow, lumbering beast that's hard to turn around, and very unpredictable.
I think that elites generally control things and the average person can't do much.
But if > elites control > things and only in > favor, then we can't explain how developed countries happened.
Long story short: the common person can't do much in general, but sometimes they can. Otherwise we can't explain stuff like Taiwan or South Korea or Estonia or Czechia or Slovenia or Ireland or whatever. So that means that the common person has a super low chance of changing anything, but that's their only hope. Giving up means that you have > chance, >. And that's how you end up with Ukraine pre-2008 or Moldova pre-2014.
Re: Ukraine calls on hacker underground to defend against Russia
#294I'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…
US folks: Call your congressional representatives and demand they back harsh sanctions against Russian oil/gas immediately. Perhaps even a full embargo until aggression is stopped. That is the _only_ leverage the US has against Russia, and as of yet the US has steadfastly refused to do anything that would interrupt the flow or price of oil to itself.
More importantly, Germans, Austrians, and Italians should call their representatives to support excluding Russia from SWIFT because these seem to have been the main governments who blocked the proposal.
Re: Ukraine calls on hacker underground to defend against Russia
#295Earlier quoted context omitted.
>German soldiers would cryingly admit to POWs already at the start of the war that they were absolutely not voluntarily there, they'd just be shot if they refused No shit they weren't there voluntarily, no sane people want to go to their death, but those were the rules for mandatory conscription for them back then. Even today some European countries still have mandatory conscription, and while they won't shoot you fo…
Ironically given the comment you replied to, Norway is one of them. I had military police trying to reach me the last few weeks before I moved to the UK to try to hand deliver a conscription notice as a necessary step before charging me if I again failed to show up (I'd ignored several prior notices). I didn't leave because of that, but I did delight I telling them I was beyond their reach. Finally picked up the phon…
In Austria and Switzerland military service is also compulsory, but not really because of defense (Austrian military is a joke if push came to shove), but because it's an vast source of free labor for the state.
Unless you decide to go full career in the military, once you're done with the month long boot camp, if there's no war, national crisis or natural disaster that will get the grunts mobilized, the rest of the 5 months of service, are spent by the recruits dicking around on the taxpayers' money, doing useless busywork around the garrison.
And there's almost no way to avoid it unless you suffer from a severe physical or mental illness making you unsuitable for service, as even after you get out of prison for refusal, you'll be drafted back in.
PS: funny that you moved from Norway to London as many Brits I've met look up to Norway as a role model, so I'm really interest in your story
Re: Ukraine calls on hacker underground to defend against Russia
#296If there was any justice in this world, hackers would compromise SWIFT and do what the EU is too cowardly to do.
Re: Ukraine calls on hacker underground to defend against Russia
#297Earlier quoted context omitted.
The phrase "the free world" rubs me the wrong way. I'm obviously against what Russia is doing, any sane man would be. But as a middle eastern, the US to us has been 10x worse than Russia: They killed a million Iraqis, they killed Syrian civilians by bombing hospitals and schools. They overthrew a functional government in Libya, and they supported Syrian/Iraqi separatists (Kurds). They forcefully tried to build a mili…
> They overthrew a functional government in Libya That's not really an argument in itself tho.
It is if you look at the state of Libya today. They overthrew Ghadafi for the sole reason of him being anti-Imperialist, killing and ruining the lives of millions in the process.
Re: Ukraine calls on hacker underground to defend against Russia
#298This thread is mostly full of jokes, and that's cool. But more seriously I'm exactly the kind of person I suppose this is meant to appeal to. I've spent the last 2-3 decades breaking into systems. Many of these systems comprise what the US calls "critical infrastructure". That's pipelines, power generation, transmission, distribution. Air traffic control systems. Government agencies. I'm based in the US. The problem…
If you don't want to engage on the offensive side, there is plenty of work on the defensive side of things. * Detect and notify the Ukrainian government about threats or upcoming attacks. * Identify coordinated manipulative behaviour on social media. * Last but not least contact Patreon's management to release the funds that have been donated to Ukrainian veterans ( https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30461038 ) Fee…
I wonder if Reuters is trying to create a cyber war much like the BBC has been blasted by some in the UK for sparking Xmas panic buying and the fuel crisis.
https://www.express.co.uk/showbiz/tv-radio/1506903/BBC-blast...
https://www.express.co.uk/showbiz/tv-radio/1497043/BBC-backl...
Re: Ukraine calls on hacker underground to defend against Russia
#299Earlier quoted context omitted.
US folks: Call your congressional representatives and demand they back harsh sanctions against Russian oil/gas immediately. Perhaps even a full embargo until aggression is stopped. That is the _only_ leverage the US has against Russia, and as of yet the US has steadfastly refused to do anything that would interrupt the flow or price of oil to itself.
The problem with that is that Europe needs Russian gas to flow, and Putin knows that.
Not really. Europe would experience a temporary shortage and soaring prices but that's it. The alternative is to let dictator Putin go unpunished, which means he will in the future likely attack another country. There is no doubt about it. Without a strong deterrent and corresponding internal opposition, dictator Putin would seize the first opportunity as long as (in his mind) he'd be reasonably certain that other European states wouldn't use nuclear weapons anyway. The older he gets, the more likely he is to make such errors of judgment. The new security imbalance due to an emboldened Russia would drastically increase the likelihood of a nuclear war in the future.
Avoiding WW3 should have higher priority than short-term gas imports.
Re: Ukraine calls on hacker underground to defend against Russia
#300Earlier quoted context omitted.
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 be…
> Without Ukraine's Crimean peninsula, Russia loses sea access to the Black Sea and thus the Mediterranean for their navy (and also for trade),
That's untrue. Sevastopol is the main port and naval base in the Black Sea, but Russia has plenty of others, and some are even undergoing expansion - Novorosiisk ( the backup one). Sevastopol is in Crimea, but was shared under an agreement between the Russian and Ukrainian navies. So in reality, Russia gained nothing there besides an extra front for their current invasion of Ukraine.