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U.S. Escalates Online Attacks on Russia’s Power Grid

nytimes.com

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Re: U.S. Escalates Online Attacks on Russia’s Power Grid

#81

Post by tech_tuna »

kyrieeschaton wrote: post #46
mirimir wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I recall reading, some years ago, that the US reserves the right to respond to cyberattacks with nuclear weapons. I wonder if Russia also does. Playing games with power grids etc is arguably much higher stakes than fighters messing with each other, or even with passenger planes. Or navy ships passing too closely. Edit: I guess that it was more like a heads up for adversaries. As in "don't think that we won't". Just i…

Every state "reserves the right" to do whatever they want, including things they have previously claimed they will not do. That is literally the definition of sovereignty.

I reserve the right to argue with people I don't know, on the internet.

Re: U.S. Escalates Online Attacks on Russia’s Power Grid

#82

Post by PixyMisa »

true_tuna wrote: post #6

Holy crap. This is huge news. Isn’t a cyber attack on critical infrastructure kind of an act of war? I’m not sure how wise this course of action is.

If so, then Russia, China, Iran, and North Korea have been at war with the US for years.

Re: U.S. Escalates Online Attacks on Russia’s Power Grid

#83

Post by PixyMisa »

Redoubts wrote: post #67

""" Two administration officials said they believed Mr. Trump had not been briefed in any detail about the steps to place “implants” — software code that can be used for surveillance or attack — inside the Russian grid. Pentagon and intelligence officials described broad hesitation to go into detail with Mr. Trump about operations against Russia for concern over his reaction — and the possibility that he might counte…

"We hid this from the president because we were afraid he might issue a perfectly legal and constitutional order to stop doing it."

Yes, way to bury the lede.

Re: U.S. Escalates Online Attacks on Russia’s Power Grid

#84

Post by equalunique »

imchillyb wrote: post #74
tehjoker wrote: post #18

The USG is insane. The evidence of Russian interference in our elections is not that impressive and it probably didn't have much impact (compared with Clinton sending American advisors and billions to Yeltsin in the 90s). Instead, to paper over the decrepit nature of the American political system, they are attacking civilian infrastructure in a nuclear armed nation. Insanity.

> ... to paper over the decrepit nature of the American political system, they are attacking civilian infrastructure in a nuclear armed nation. @tehjoker Uh, I think what you /really/ mean is: In retaliation to numerous US Network Infrastructure incursions -from the same entity- the US has attempted their own software implantation within the attacker's networks. Fixed that for ya! ;) _____ Also, from the article itse…

When Trump's base says that "the deep state" is trying to start a war between the US and Russia, it's quotes like these that will be used to bolster their claims.

Re: U.S. Escalates Online Attacks on Russia’s Power Grid

#85

Post by freehunter »

alexandercrohde wrote: post #70
_iyig wrote: post #23

“So far, there is no evidence that the United States has actually turned off the power in any of the efforts to establish what American officials call a “persistent presence” inside Russian networks, just as the Russians have not turned off power in the United States.” The NYT decision to frame these efforts as “attacks” rather than “infiltration” is certainly an interesting one. In essence, the U.S. has built a (dig…

Uhh, I think "attack" is the only term. If you installed such software in US power plants it would almost certainly be described as "hacking," "a [cyber] attack", and likely if multiple targets "terrorism." Regardless of your opinion US/Russia, we should all hold that words need objective meanings that can't be "bent" for convenience.

Yeah this is pretty basic information security terminology. An "attack" is any attempted intrusion, successful or not, damaging or not. If the threat actor managed to breach your defenses and gain unauthorized access, that's called an attack.

For some definitions:

https://www.beyondtrust.com/blog/entry/difference-between-a-...

Re: U.S. Escalates Online Attacks on Russia’s Power Grid

#88

Post by PhasmaFelis »

_iyig wrote: post #23

“So far, there is no evidence that the United States has actually turned off the power in any of the efforts to establish what American officials call a “persistent presence” inside Russian networks, just as the Russians have not turned off power in the United States.” The NYT decision to frame these efforts as “attacks” rather than “infiltration” is certainly an interesting one. In essence, the U.S. has built a (dig…

If someone breaks into my house and plants a bomb under my bed, I'm comfortable calling that an "attack" even if they haven't set it off yet.

Re: U.S. Escalates Online Attacks on Russia’s Power Grid

#89

Post by PhasmaFelis »

majos wrote: post #56
holoduke wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's part of a larger game these nations are playing. There will not be a war between Russia and the US. Not with China who is ultimately the enemy of both Russia and the US. These incidents are meant to keep each other awake.

What do you mean by "these incidents are meant to keep each other awake"? Why would you want to keep a competitor awake?

Keep them wary, so they don't get overconfident and try something that both sides will wind up regretting.

Re: U.S. Escalates Online Attacks on Russia’s Power Grid

#90

Post by PhasmaFelis »

kindof-bullshit wrote: post #27
dang wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It got a software penalty, probably correctly, because this topic is unfortunately more likely to lead nationalistic flamewar than thoughtful discussion. But let's try taking the penalty off and seeing. By the way, you can't derive story rank from points and submission time—HN's system is more complex than that. That's all that "WTF" means here.

A "software" penalty. Okay, Dan. Why don't you just come out and say someone modded it, rather than hide behind the veil of some dubious natural language processing or ratio analysis. That's like blaming the dog for a fart. The truth is that everyone operating HN would rather keep users in the dark about how and why stories land where they do. The idea being that if we could predict what the software might do, we'd t…

> The truth is that everyone operating HN would rather keep users in the dark about how and why stories land where they do

Well, yeah. Did you think that was a secret?

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