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

There were BGP anomalies during the Venezuela blackout

loworbitsecurity.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

251–260 of 476 posts

Re: There were BGP anomalies during the Venezuela blackout

#251

Post by monocasa »

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #240
monocasa wrote: post #223

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure, but that practically looks like Russia telling NATO what it's going to do, then most of NATO sitting at DEFCON 1 and being ready to respond the instant any Russian missiles look like they're not going towards Ukraine. NATO has no reason to inject themselves into a nuclear exchange more than diplomatically, and has the ability to respond well after they know where Russian missiles are going to land.

> that practically looks like Russia telling NATO what it's going to do Which is indistinguishable from a Russian first strike. Russia glassing Ukraine is about as rational as it launching a first strike. So serious people would have to weigh–based on incomplete information–whether Putin is still in charge and if tens of millions of lives might be saved if we neutralise their silos first. Outside nuclear holocaust, R…

> Which is indistinguishable from a Russian first strike.

It's really not. Once they've launched, it's pretty clear where they're going. All NATO needs is enough time to respond, and they absolutely have that.

> Outside nuclear holocaust, Russia, on launching a strategic nuclear strike on Ukraine, would have crossed a red line Beijing, New Delhi and Tehran each value. (The last because Russia's justification for glassing Ukraine is easily copy-pasted by Israel.)

If you look, their nuclear policy is to respond overwhelmingly to a nuclear strike. India for instance has officially said they "will not be the first to initiate a nuclear first strike, but will respond with punitive retaliation should deterrence fail". https://web.archive.org/web/20091205231912/http://www.indian... That's diplomatic speak for 'we reserve the right to glass you after any nuclear strikes in our territory'.

Re: There were BGP anomalies during the Venezuela blackout

#252

Post by marcosdumay »

agumonkey wrote: post #180
marcosdumay wrote: post #170

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think anybody cares any bit about Maduro.

understandably, it's more about the acceleration in aggressiveness from Trump clan and the precedent of crossing the usual international red lines

Almost every country made some repudiation note. But I don't think we'll see anybody doing any actual thing because of that.

Re: There were BGP anomalies during the Venezuela blackout

#253

Post by SanjayMehta »

The only anomaly was military. As far as I can tell, Venezuela's AD was shut down, or told to shut down.

Didn't the US use Chinooks? They're supposed to be loud. And AD didn't take even one out.

If Venezuela as corrupt as most socialist countries, I have no doubt that someone in his inner circle gave him up.

Back in the days of our version of socialism we had Indian politicians selling out for $100K, leave alone $50M.

Re: There were BGP anomalies during the Venezuela blackout

#254

Post by mr_toad »

esseph wrote: post #196
delichon wrote: post #28

I assume that nuclear capability would rule out a target from this kind of snatch operation, and that this event will add pressure to proliferate.

You still have to be willing to use the nukes. The threat has to be real or it doesn't work as a deterrent. I think this is a situation where even if Venezuela had nukes, this still would have happened.

The choice is basically:

a. Don’t use nukes, everyone moves one rung up the ladder. b. Use nukes. Ladder is destroyed, everyone dies horribly.

Using nukes only makes sense if everyone is going to die horribly anyway. It’s an empty threat otherwise.

Re: There were BGP anomalies during the Venezuela blackout

#255

Post by squidsoup »

themafia wrote: post #184
mandevil wrote: post #169

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The US built a lot of bunkers like this back in the 1950's. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mount_Weather_Emergency_Operat... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Raven_Rock_Mountain_Complex https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_Greek_Island https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cheyenne_Mountain_Complex With the rise of solid fuel ICBM and then MIRV leading to the truly massive number of warheads pointed at the US, the US switched t…

Watching a civilized nation drop a nuclear bomb on an enemy really got into peoples heads. What's worse is.. it worked.

You should read Blood Meridian.

Re: There were BGP anomalies during the Venezuela blackout

#256

Post by catigula »

TZubiri wrote: post #192
catigula wrote: post #11

Cyber-warfare capabilities on this level seem pretty horrific. What if you could simply turn off the power grid of Kyiv or Moscow in anticipation of a strike? That seems extremely disorientating. What if you could simply turn off the power grid indefinitely?

I don't think calling shutting down the internet horrific is appropriate at all in the context of bombings.

Ridiculous post. Power outages would kill a lot of people if sustained. A Carrington event would devastate modern society.

Re: There were BGP anomalies during the Venezuela blackout

#257

Post by trhway »

JohnBooty wrote: post #247
trhway wrote: post #197

Earlier quoted context omitted.

the popular conspiracy theory among Russian opposition is that Maduro exit was negotiated, so he will do small time at a Fed club and would preserve significant amount of his money (at least couple hundreds of millions), and after completing the time will end up with his money in Russia/Belarussia. We can see that nobody was going to resist the operation in Venezuela, so it doesn't really matter that Venezuela doesn'…

It strikes me as completely possible that the exit was negotiated. The fact that they knew his exact location and "luckily" nabbed him right before he went into some kind of panic room / bunker is certainly... something. But it seems equally likely to me that he was sold out by somebody in the VZ government/military. And that the paltry military resistance was because they saw direct confrontation with the US as suic…

I think it is kind of both - the exit was ultimately negotiated because most of the VZ government/military either sold him or at least abandoned him and showed no interest in any further support of him.

Re: There were BGP anomalies during the Venezuela blackout

#259

Post by tejtm »

fooker wrote: post #245
mandevil wrote: post #169

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The US built a lot of bunkers like this back in the 1950's. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mount_Weather_Emergency_Operat... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Raven_Rock_Mountain_Complex https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_Greek_Island https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cheyenne_Mountain_Complex With the rise of solid fuel ICBM and then MIRV leading to the truly massive number of warheads pointed at the US, the US switched t…

Where will the planes land?

Those interstate highways are starting to look pretty good as the fuel guage drops

Re: There were BGP anomalies during the Venezuela blackout

#260

Post by the_af »

delichon wrote: post #229
yakbarber wrote: post #198

Earlier quoted context omitted.

there's a fair argument to make that a nation that drops a nuclear bomb on a city isn't "civilized"

The high end of the range of death estimates by the two atomic bombs is around 246,000. The estimated range of US military deaths from an invasion of Japan (Operation Downfall) was 250,000 to 1,000,000, and another 5 to 10 million Japanese. Dropping nukes was both barbaric and the more civilized option. Oppenheimer et al. deserve their acclaim. Japan attacked the US first, and by Hiroshima the US had 110,000 dead in…

> The estimated range of US military deaths from an invasion of Japan (Operation Downfall) was 250,000 to 1,000,000, and another 5 to 10 million Japanese.

I've read convincing arguments (sorry, I cannot find them now) that this reasoning is mostly bogus.

One, the decision of dropping the bombs wasn't coordinated with planners of Operation Downfall, so casualties weren't a consideration. As such, it cannot be "civilized" (because the intent to be civilized just wasn't there).

Two, those casualty numbers rest on arbitrary assumptions about what the Japanese would or wouldn't do that don't hold up to real scrutiny, and ignore a host of options other than "full scale invasion" or "nuke".

Three, you cannot discount the flex towards the USSR, an argument many Japanese to this day maintain was a major reason. Which wasn't a civilized reason either.

Post reply on HN