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Cyber Security: A pre-war reality check

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Re: Cyber Security: A pre-war reality check

#201

Post by sweetjuly »

pama wrote: post #193
sweetjuly wrote: post #147

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why don't we see these attacks though? I know they're worryingly practical and the West certainly has enough enemies (especially from extremist groups who don't have the same peace keeping concerns as a nation state), and yet we don't see groups just sabotaging critical infrastructure and businesses left and right. Is it really just difficulty/a lack of skill?

A reasonable guess is that some entities are storing / collecting attacks patiently waiting for one big event. Having smaller constant incidents only helps strengthen the opponent over time, thus making it harder to deploy a coordinated attack that can change history. The dutch narrative in the article is a good example of what happens whem nontechnical people make decisions over long periods of time without major in…

This makes sense for nation states playing war games but what about smaller actors? Terror groups seem content blowing up shopping malls and driving cars into parades (which are all things which I imagine are planned on a much shorter scale than your proposed "long game"). Why don't they go after infrastructure and businesses? Surely critical infrastructure is an interesting and attractive target for them?

Re: Cyber Security: A pre-war reality check

#202

Post by rixed »

I'd like to voice an opinion that i couldn't find already in the comments.

Security is a trade-off. At some point, security becomes so expensive and inconvenient that it's cheaper to address the root cause of insecurity than to pay for protection.

For instance, there is a point where avoiding generalized war or limiting climate change becomes cheaper than to protect against them.

A lot of people benefit from the war. To them, the costs of security is an externality.

I do not believe it was naive from public transport regulators, for instance, to design with the assumption that gps network would stay reliable, when the alternative is so much more expensive for all parties that it can only happen in such a state of general corruption (aka misaligned incentives) that is not worth designing for. If we are now in this prewar state, we are in much bigger troubles I'm afraid.

War is not a fatality, it's the result of some politics. Fixing political issues may be cheaper than making our highly technological society resilient.

Re: Cyber Security: A pre-war reality check

#203

Post by mardifoufs »

simion314 wrote: post #173
5e92cb50239222b wrote: post #149

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've never heard a single bad word about Romania or its people, and I definitely have a lot more ties to Russia than you do. No idea where you read shit like this, but you should probably avoid those places from now on to keep your sanity.

It is history, maybe read about USSR invasion of Czechoslovakia and Romania refusing to participate and condemning the fact that USSR is tring to force their will on other communist states. It was not enough that USSR forced communism in eastern Europe, they really wanted Moscow to control everything, no different communist approaches were allowed since Moscowites know better what other countries should do. So Romani…

The USSR invasion of Romania? That's insane revisionism. Who, exactly, started the invasion? Like you realize the Romanians were literally guarding the front of the Germans at Stalingrad? Maybe Romania should've have invaded the Soviet Union with Germany?

Re: Cyber Security: A pre-war reality check

#204

Post by adrianN »

crocal wrote: post #126
adrianN wrote: post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It has been a couple of years since I worked in the area, but back then that wasn’t the plan and would’ve been deemed impossible both for safety and for accuracy reasons. Do you maybe have a source?

Sure thing: http://clugproject.eu/en (Edit: they even have a 2.0, see my sibbling comment)

From https://clugproject.eu/en/presentation

> A failsafe on-board multi-sensors localisation unit consisting of a navigation core (IMU, tachometer, etc.) brought in reference using GNSS, track map and a minimal number of reference points

From https://www.clug2.eu/objectives/

> to complement the existing European Train Control System (ETCS) odometry system by using GNSS to enable absolute safe train positioning whilst also transforming today’s train localisation by demonstrating a GNSS based multi-sensor fusion architecture.

Okay, so as I expected they want to add GNSS as an additional sensor input. That is useful because without it train odometry is purely relative and the train doesn't know where it is until is reads the first balise. The plan doesn't seem to be to remove all other sensors. Denial of GNSS would then mean that start-of-mission is about as tedious as it is today and odometry accuracy might be reduced. Depending on the number of balises on the track that lowers the capacity of the track a little but is far from catastrophic.

Re: Cyber Security: A pre-war reality check

#205

Post by pyrale »

killjoywashere wrote: post #71
crocal wrote: post #9

I cannot agree more with the author’s point of view. As an illustration, many people want to use GPS for the safe positioning of trains in the European Train Control Systems. This makes the space sector happy because it justifies the expenditures incurred for putting things like Galileo in orbit. However, in a pre-war check exercise, one immediately come to the conclusion that all European trains would crawl to a sto…

Not sure I entirely agree? #1 > Or disable a hospital. The entire Ascension Healthcare system of hospitals (142 hospitals, 2600 total facilities) in on divert since 8 May because they had to switch back to paper records. Change Healthcare has lost $872M since it was attacked in February. Maybe it's more like the pandemic: seems like nothing, unless it affects you . https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ascension_(healthcare_…

> What if you live on the Gulf Coast, exposed to hurricanes? [...] Sure, but there are a lot of disasters where the cables are fine.

You have to understand that this article was written by an European technologist worrying about a war situation. Sure, you can make a counter-point, but your counter-example is very different in many aspects: nature of the threat, jurisdictions involved, orgs involved, etc.

Re: Cyber Security: A pre-war reality check

#206

Post by koonsolo »

cpursley wrote: post #159
koonsolo wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So what was first, Russia invading neighbors, or neighbors wanting to join NATO? I'll give you the answer: Chechnya. Thinking that Russia would never invade an independent Georgia or Ukraine is very naive, to say the least. If you want a "neutral" country, take a look at Belarus. A neutral country in Russia's eyes only has connections with Russia, not with the West. They make it very clear which countries they want "…

Ukraine will no longer be democratic come May 21st, unfortunately. https://www.economist.com/leaders/2024/05/16/volodymyr-zelen...

Then I have "good" news for you: Ukraine is at war and so doesn't have to, and isn't even allowed to hold elections. Neither did UK during WW2, so it's not that uncommon.

"Scholars have stated that the Ukrainian constitution does not allow to hold national elections while martial law is in effect."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Martial_law_in_Ukraine

Re: Cyber Security: A pre-war reality check

#207

Post by rank0 »

roenxi wrote: post #20

> I know it sounds devastating, but you have to get used to the fact that a new era has begun. The pre-war era. It is madness that we're in a position where this can be baldly stated by a PM and there has been no "huh?" moment when people stop and assess how badly the broader West's military, economic and diplomatic efforts have failed over the last 30 odd years. Possibly longer. I wasn't expecting to see land wars i…

> I wasn't expecting to see land wars in Europe even before the cold war ended.

You are the ultimate example of your own statements. Take another look at history and tell me again that war in Europe is a surprise.

Re: Cyber Security: A pre-war reality check

#208

Post by koonsolo »

Ray20 wrote: post #168
koonsolo wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So what was first, Russia invading neighbors, or neighbors wanting to join NATO? I'll give you the answer: Chechnya. Thinking that Russia would never invade an independent Georgia or Ukraine is very naive, to say the least. If you want a "neutral" country, take a look at Belarus. A neutral country in Russia's eyes only has connections with Russia, not with the West. They make it very clear which countries they want "…

>Ukrainians want a sovereign democratic country, and they are willing to pay a very high price for that. Doesn't seemed to be true, considering Ban for men's leaving country, forcefull conscription and cancelled elections

Any country at war does that. UK cancelled elections during WW2, look it up.

Re: Cyber Security: A pre-war reality check

#209

Post by roenxi »

denton-scratch wrote: post #138
roenxi wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, sure. But the US chooses who it integrates with militarily. An alternative approach would have been to say "hey, yeah we can see why you'd want to join - but this will foment tensions with Russia, so you can't". That is the kind of diplomacy would have prevented Russia from invading its neighbours. It would have been difficult to get worse outcomes with that approach than what the powers that be managed to get…

> That is the kind of diplomacy would have prevented Russia from invading its neighbours. Really? You believe the Russian claim that it attacks its neighbours because they're mumbling about NATO membership? Russia attacks its neighbours because it regrets its loss of a "zone of influence" at the end of the Cold War. Like all former imperial powers (I'm a Brit!), loss of empire is hard to swallow.

What do you think the distinction is between Russia losing it's zone of influence and countries joining up with NATO? I agree with you and believe the Russians simultaneously.

Russia is losing its zone of influence because it didn't hold on to it tightly and the US took it. Pretty much the same thing happened to the British, although they got beaten down by the Germans first so they weren't in a position to do much more than pretend to resist.

Although in this case the US is much closer to the British analogue. They've got financial problems, they've got industrial problems, they've got a lot of upcoming challengers and their diplomatic mis-management could easily lead to a massive blow up that unseats them.

Re: Cyber Security: A pre-war reality check

#210

Post by baxtr »

int_19h wrote: post #154
baxtr wrote: post #141

This is a pretty scary article. And yet I have to say it’s weird to say we are pre-war. Ukraine certainly isn’t. So shouldn’t any scenario outlined in that article happen there already? The mobile network there seems to be operational.

TFA: > Ukraine was already at war for two years and battle-hardened. So anything that was simple to break was already broken by the Russians. Then after two years, the Russians managed to break Kyivstar, one of the biggest telecommunications companies of Ukraine, This was a very destructive attack. But the Ukrainians (in and outside Kyivstar) are good enough that in two days they were back up and running, because the…

Thanks. I read TFA. That’s why I’m saying: the described doomsday scenarios don’t match with what we observe in reality.
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