Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

US Military's cyber command unit grapples with cluster of deaths by suicide

bloomberg.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

301–310 of 363 posts

Re: US Military's cyber command unit grapples with cluster of deaths by suicide

#301

Post by cookiengineer »

golem14 wrote: post #159
cookiengineer wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Do you have any references about it? Before someone from the US claims some leftist bullshit about this (as this is what Russian bots typically do), here's a mix of newspapers including more right/conservative ones: - https://www.blick.ch/schweiz/polizei-warnt-eltern-teenies-we... - https://www.mdr.de/ratgeber/finanzen/telegram-gruppe-jobange... - https://www.sicher-im-netz.de/europol-warnt-kriminelle-rekru... - ht…

This is essentially one article about criminals recruiting young people. Is Russia FSB (or even Russia)even mentioned? I also believe the premise is true (why would it not, it's the logical thing for every nation state to do), but your research could be a bit deeper.

> This is essentially one article about criminals recruiting young people. Is Russia FSB (or even Russia) even mentioned?

Generally if an article is about FSB, it implies Russia. Otherwise, you would have to admit that Russia is a failed state if the FSB acts without Putin's knowledge or control.

For example, google the luckystrike account with underscores ("l_u_c_k_y_s_t_r_i_k_e").

Example results:

- https://news.sky.com/story/british-citizens-are-volunteering...

- https://unn.ua/en/news/czech-police-detained-a-teenager-for-...

- https://www.theguardian.com/news/2025/feb/28/russia-linked-t...

^ News outlets confirmed by MI5 statements about the luckystrike account, its FSB ties, its activities, and recruitement of teenagers for terrorism.

The luckystrike account literally owns Telegram channels like "Anti-NATO/Anti-USA/Anti-Nazi" and others:

- https[:]//tgstat[.]com/channel/@anti_nato_anti_usa/stat

- Description of this channel is "This channel was created to fight with USA and NATO on the territory of Ukraine and Europe. We call on all residents of Europe to fight by any means."

- https[:]//en[.]tgramsearch[.]com/join/4307894160

- Description of this Guerilla themed channel is "Central Guerilla Movement organise fight against Nazi, NATO and USA. We call on all residents of Ukraine and Europe to fight against USA and NATO by any means. Send us your photo, video of your actions or get a guerrilla task: @L_u_c_k_y_S_t_r_i_k_e"

... and there's a bunch of other channels in those results, with a similar theme, and similar promises.

Re: US Military's cyber command unit grapples with cluster of deaths by suicide

#302

Post by analognoise »

SubiculumCode wrote: post #112
analognoise wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I like how the “Chinese propaganda” against datacenters was found to be mostly a collection of facts. While Russian propaganda is more clumsy and emotional, we’ve produced such an unequal society with such low regular education and outright corruption that people fall for it. That says something negative about US, not them. If we admit our system cant even survive an open internet, it should be dismantled or reformed…

Education would blunt, but not eliminate the threat of nation-state funded micro targeted influence campaigns. Moreover, it would take years, and we have the problem now. In terms of data center propaganda and fact. Both are true. China is funding anti data center sentiment for geopolitical power, while at the same time, there are legitimate reasons for people to not like/ or fear AI. The problem is we (the U.S.) hav…

I’m not buying the “AI security threat”, and I don’t really care if the best models are open source - and Chinese. If everyone can buy enough hardware to run the best models, what’s the threat? The same tired arguments as banning books on encryption or chemistry?

I see the crazed AI investment as worthless financial gambling, a house of cards that will eventually crumble, and the argument that “we need to fund AI” really is “your tax dollars should bail out our financial mistake, because security”.

It’s nonsense all the way down. Covid showed we didn’t even manufacture basic drugs in the country anymore, and were openly threatening our biggest/best/longest allies (Canada, Mexico, NATO). AI is so far down the security list as to make it noise, compared to our recent missteps.

Re: US Military's cyber command unit grapples with cluster of deaths by suicide

#303

Post by AlexCoventry »

YesThatTom2 wrote: post #11

I suspect the Cold War of cyber warfare that is happening is orders of magnitude bigger than the public knows. Imagine knowing this and not being able to get emotional support from your friends and family.

I suspect Hegseth's atavistic attempt to turn the US military back toward a culture of machismo is resulting in misery for anyone who doesn't fit the part, whether they're skilled at their duties or not.

Re: US Military's cyber command unit grapples with cluster of deaths by suicide

#304

Post by Teever »

jckahn wrote: post #143
alexashka wrote: post #137

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

Is the implication here that we should take the moral high ground and let our adversaries murder us first?

Is Canada an adversary of America? Or Greenland?

What position should Canadians or the people of Greenland take with regards to the people in the US military who are currently working to annex and invade their countries?

What position should the US military take with regards to the people in those countries who are currently working to resist those efforts to annex and invade their countries their homelands?

Do you consider Canadian and Icelandic civilians your adversary? If so, how did that come to be?

Re: US Military's cyber command unit grapples with cluster of deaths by suicide

#305

Post by ciupicri »

blackqueeriroh wrote: post #286
constantius wrote: post #206

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A lot of people on HN have either served in the US mil or are sympathetic, and have successfully solved their cognitive dissonance about killing 10k people for 1 soldier. But you're right, whoever they killed was most often either a civilian, someone defending their country, or someone forced to defend their country from an invader. While the US soldiers kill either because they believe in the crazy narratives pushed…

Were all US soldiers in the Revolutionary War war criminals? What about the North in the Civil War? Or WWI/WWII? Nearly every soldier in any war will have directly or indirectly killed an innocent civilian. Which ones are war crimes and which aren’t? How do you decide and who gives you the authority to do so?

What does indirectly killed mean?

Re: US Military's cyber command unit grapples with cluster of deaths by suicide

#306

Post by impossiblefork »

cco wrote: post #201
YesThatTom2 wrote: post #11

I suspect the Cold War of cyber warfare that is happening is orders of magnitude bigger than the public knows. Imagine knowing this and not being able to get emotional support from your friends and family.

Counterpoint, industry cyber security is so generally weak, if there were actually a secret "huge cold cyber war" on-going, we'd see real world impact. Since we don't, it probably isn't happening.

I like the argument and it seems valid, but I have heard the opposite from people working in commercial cybersecurity.

Re: US Military's cyber command unit grapples with cluster of deaths by suicide

#307

Post by constantius »

senderista wrote: post #272
constantius wrote: post #206

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A lot of people on HN have either served in the US mil or are sympathetic, and have successfully solved their cognitive dissonance about killing 10k people for 1 soldier. But you're right, whoever they killed was most often either a civilian, someone defending their country, or someone forced to defend their country from an invader. While the US soldiers kill either because they believe in the crazy narratives pushed…

I admire Aaron Bushnell, but that page unironically uses phrases like "Satanic Talmudic supremacy"

Thanks, updated link below: seems to have been changed since last time I saw it back when it all happened, sorry!

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

Re: US Military's cyber command unit grapples with cluster of deaths by suicide

#308

Post by davesque »

paulmist wrote: post #10
someothherguyy wrote: post #2

"Between early June and early July, as many as five individuals who worked in or closely with US Cyber Command died by suicide, based on internal communications, public records and sources. The deaths have raised concern among lawmakers and military leaders within the highly secretive command, which is responsible for defending US networks and conducting offensive cyber operations." According to https://www.gao.gov/a…

Assuming a predominantly male population, the suicide rate should be around 20 per 100000 per year. 5 people in a month gives 18x higher rate. Too short period to draw any statistical conclusions but it’s a large blip.

That's not saying much. The real distribution is probably heavily skewed by risk factors such as poverty, age, drug abuse, etc.

Re: US Military's cyber command unit grapples with cluster of deaths by suicide

#309

Post by ciupicri »

jonnybgood wrote: post #261
Loquebantur wrote: post #245

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You supplant your lack of knowledge in statistics with unfounded assumptions and overt bias. The relevant metric here is number of deaths per size of the specified group and per time . You compare to completely different numbers and confabulate entirely unconnected "explanations". These deaths are most likely due to "housecleaning", as I said.

> These deaths are most likely due to "housecleaning", as I said. No, it’s not. It’s very obvious you have no idea of how US military personnel work and live, and the stresses that can be imposed on a person by the function of being in a military. Among those functions such as deployments which can come as a surprise and up root anything you having going on in your life. Or, having to live for several years in highly…

> Cannon AFB in the middle of no where

From what I see there are only 10 kilometers to a town which has a zoo, mall, church etc. It's not a walk in the park, but with given the zoning laws and car-centric culture of the US, it's not very much.

Re: US Military's cyber command unit grapples with cluster of deaths by suicide

#310

Post by kstrauser »

greedo wrote: post #298
kstrauser wrote: post #294

Earlier quoted context omitted.

D'oh! Yes, Offut, of course. My Google-fu is failing me right now, but when we lived in Nebraska, there was a long article in the Omaha World-Herald (I'm fairly sure) talking about the mental health problems of the local drone pilots. This would've been at least 15 years ago or so, and things have very likely moved around since then.

It was definitely Creech. I remember the spate of articles discussing how the officers (the USAF requires drones to be piloted by officers) were both struggling with the close up nature of drone strikes combined with fewer or even non-existent flight hours affecting promotions.

Huh. My memory's slightly different on that, but I can't find the source to cite so I'm can't argue it.
Post reply on HN