The UK is Practicing Cyberattacks That Could Black Out Moscow (qz.com) 153
British defense officials say they have practiced cyber war games that could shut off electricity in Russia's capital, the Sunday Times (paywall) reports. From a report: The measures are part of a wider range of strategies to hit back at an increasingly assertive Russia -- accused of interfering with US elections, cyberattacks on Western targets, and poisoning a former spy on UK soil -- without resorting to a full-blown nuclear attack. "If they sank our aircraft carrier with a nuclear-tipped torpedo, what is our response? There's nothing between sinking their submarine and dropping a nuclear weapon on northern Kamchatka," one senior source told the Sunday Times. "This is why cyber is so important; you can go on the offensive and turn off the lights in Moscow to tell them that they are not doing the right things." Military planners are looking for options if Russian president Vladimir Putin tests NATO's resolve by seizing small islands belonging to Estonia, taking control of Libya's oil reserves, or using "irregular forces" to attack troops, according to the report.
Re: Moscow is blacked? (Score:1)
Should we blame the government?
Or blame society?
Or should we blame the images on TV?
No, blame Russia! Blame Russia!
With all their beady little eyes
And flappin' heads so full of lies
Blame Russia! Blame Russia!
We need to form a full assault
It's Russia's fault!
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No. What good is a secret weapon if your enemy doesn't suspect you have it? I mean, come on. This is elementary.
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Of course, the whole point of a Doomsday Machine is lost, if you keep it a secret! Why didn't you tell the world, eh?
It was to be announced at the Party Congress on Monday. As you know, the Premier loves surprises.
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Oh yes. Chill Wills yelling, "Wahooooo....." on top of a nuke dropped from a radio-broken B-52. ... There's a hush, all over the world, tonight.....
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yelling, "Wahooooo....." on top of a nuke dropped from a radio-broken B-52
While Vera Lynn sings "We'll Meet Again."
Does anybody here remember Vera Lynn? Remember how she said that "we will meet again"?
Re:Missing the point... (Score:5, Insightful)
Maybe the laws of skulduggery have changed since I was a young whippersnapper, but isn't one of the most important aspects of a secret weapon for it to be secret?
UK doing what China and Russia have been doing: "bragging of a secret weapon". It's not secret once you tell everyone- and there is no strategic advantage in telling everyone... therefore... it's probably not real. Just like China's secret laser pistols and Russia's secret Nuclear weapons that can bypass western anti-missile technology.
If it were real, you don't tell people, because if you tell people they can work on solutions to stop it. If it is real- you keep it secret so you have a strategic advantage over the opposition.
Therefore- I call "FAKE" on this.
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Hell, maybe I just wanted you to spend time and resources trying to protect your house against destruction when what I'm really going to do is steal your car. You might be too preoccupied elsewhere to notice. Or maybe I'm not int
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If it were real, you don't tell people, because if you tell people they can work on solutions to stop it. If it is real- you keep it secret so you have a strategic advantage over the opposition.
Moscow isn't the real target . . . it's Brussels.
The Brexit negotiations have gotten tangled up in a snag, and the UK needs additional leverage.
Theresa May is looking a bit weak and vulnerable right now, so this will make her look stronger in the eyes of the UK people.
Putin is just laughing this off . . . if the UK turns off just one Lava Lamp in Moscow . . . the UK will be awash in Novichok and Polonium.
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Re: Missing the point... (Score:1)
If your secret weapon doesn't instantly obliterate your opponent on the whole, you're going to get smacked in the face a lot before he goes down. Then what has the secret gained you? An extra punch in the fight.
If it's a big enough advantage it's better he knows and either spends $ to match it, or capitulates influence to the advantage.
If it's enough to wipe them out from a position of secrecy, the question becones do it or not. Keeping it secret would be irrelevant, it would depend on the desired control i
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there is no strategic advantage in telling everyone... therefore... it's probably not real.
Bingo; in a fucking nutshell.
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Sometimes the point of a secret weapon is only to keep the exact workings secret. Having the capabilities known can be a valuable deterrent. If all your possible future adversaries know you have a 'nuke target country into faintly glowing dust' button, they are unlikely to openly attack you for fear of escalation. That is how the cold war played out: Both both major players and many of their allies nuclear-capable, open war was no longer an option, so they instead competed for power using campaigns of espio
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Counterpoint: "The whole point of the doomsday machine...is lost if you keep it a secret!" -- Dr. Strangelove.
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You should watch ' How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb'. There is an explanation of (among other things) why you should tell everybody that you own a doomsday machine.
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It's not secret once you tell everyone- and there is no strategic advantage in telling everyone... therefore... it's probably not real.
So, if I tell everyone that I have nukes, there's no longer a strategic advantage? Or, if I don't have a capability to shutdown the powergrid, but I tell them that I do, that's not a strategic advantage? Sorry, but deception is a large part of the game. Some of it's about "leaks" real or purposefully in order to get your opposition to waste time/effort/money. Part of what ended the Cold War was announcing a 600 ship navy that the Soviets couldn't afford to do much about.
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Regular nuclear weapons already bypass anti-missile technology, the technology isn't even able to hit things that broadcast their exact positioning. And nothing worse than x-band radar (very expensive) can tell the difference between chaff and warheads anyway.
Wrong. Our public anti missile technology is pretty damn effective. The simplest and most effective strategy against missile defense systems is to send a bunch of warheads and overwhelm the defenses. As long as some get through you succeed. You can either target multiple locations at once or litter a single target. You can do it from multiple locations around the globe or from just one with MIRV.
As for our non-public missile defense systems, lasers make even the fastest missile look slow. Once this be
Re:Missing the point... (Score:5, Insightful)
No, you definitely want the other guys to know you've got a superweapon, while at the same time maintaining under the pretext of secrecy the position that nobody should have such weapons.
Weapons are in general much better for having (or more to the point, being known to have) than for using.
Let me illustrate this with an example. Suppose you have a devastatingly powerful karate chop. If you walk into a bar where everyone knows this, you'll be treated with respect. If you walk into a bar where nobody knows this, you might actually have to use it, and then you'll find out whether it's better than what anyone else there happens to have, which you can't know for sure in advance.
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and is suddenly staring down the barrels of 15 guns. Oops.
More seriously, the biggest vulnerability of power stations to cyberattack comes from operational laziness on the part of the power utility. Not implementing IT patches and IT security best practices in general. Not updating power switching relays to have the latest more secured firmware and communication protocols, etc etc.
Being warned in advance that you have a serious th
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Being warned in advance that you have a serious threat from a well resourced nation-state actor allows you to tighten up cybersecurity and likely prevent such an attack. No, this kind of information leak, if true, reflects a new level of dumbassery.
That of course is dependent upon knowing where to put your resources to prepare. Tactics are always about finding your opponent's weak spot, but all too often people focus on strengthening things that are already strong enough.
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I wonder if perhaps the best possible defense against attacks on power infrastructure is to just turn it off for one day a month routinely. That way when the attack comes the people are already largely prepared - they know how to make dinner and keep warm without dangerous open fires in the kitchen, they've an awareness of exactly how long their phones last and a stock of powerbanks and bottled water, and the city has measures in place for traffic to move (if more slowly) without automatic signals. The inco
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Being prepared to do when things fail is an important part of any security regime. That's why they have those civil defense drills where they simulate a plane crash; that doesn't mean you give up on keeping planes from falling out of the sky.
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Maybe the laws of skulduggery have changed since I was a young whippersnapper, but isn't one of the most important aspects of a secret weapon for it to be secret?
Yes, which suggests a deliberate reason to release this info (which Russia probably knew already.)
It is a declaration to the people in Russia and the west, so the Russian leaders who are hacking the west, now have fearful citizens worried about an attack, more accurately a counter attack, in response to their Russian leaders' gameplaying.
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Great News (Score:1, Flamebait)
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Add in a polonium poisoning that left a trail of radioactive material all over London. Then there where the British citizen's killed in the downing of MH17. Plenty of grounds for a proportionate response of getting ride of the bastard before he authorizes any more actions which kill British citizens.
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The MH17 events are more disputable. There was no good reason for Russia to down it. Most likely it was a mistake caused by their need to maintain some level of deniability in the conflict.
There's no real dispute over the polonium poisoning, though. Russia may deny it, but the poison used was something so exotic and hard to manufacture that only a state actor with nuclear power or weapons capability could produce it. If they wanted real deniability, they could have just used a car 'accident.' Polonium was c
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I think you mean the Russian military. The Buk launcher came from the 53rd Anti-Aircraft Missile Brigade of the Russian Federation, had been transported from Russia on the day of the crash, fired from a field in a rebel-controlled area, and the launcher returned to Russia after it was used to shoot down MH17.
A video from the crash site, recorded by the rebels and obtained by News Corp Australia, shows the first rebel soldiers to arrive at the crash site. At first they assumed that the downed aircraft was a
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How the fuck would the UK be within its rights to assassinate a head of state?
That's a difficult question. Officially they don't. Countries don't have the rights to assassinate heads of rival states... ... but then, what if that country didn't want that leader and he was a tyrant... well... probably still don't have the right, but fewer people will raise an eyebrow if you do it. Putin seems to have support in Russia so you can't apply that.
Now, you could argue the Russian population are ill-informed because of propaganda and state run media that deliberately lies... Maybe just li
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lolz cyber response to nuclear tipped missile (Score:5, Insightful)
er no, using a nuke against a carrier is declaration of world war III and would be answered as such.
get a clue, fuckwit "senior source"
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A nuclear tipped anti-ship torpedo isn't a declaration of nuclear war.
But in any case, a cyber attack is very risky. Russia would likely retaliate, and most of these attacks are against civilians. People will die in hospitals, in accidents, for lack of heat.
So rather than being a tit-for-tat response against military targets, it's an escalation to attacking civilians. Possibly a war crime too, since there is a legal requirement to minimize civilian casualties.
Re:lolz cyber response to nuclear tipped missile (Score:4, Insightful)
What the fuck did I just read? Usage of tactical nukes on biggest and most important ship in the fleet of peer competitor isn't a declaration of war in a world of MAD?
Are you insane? Are you utterly stupid and ignorant? All of the above?
Heck, even all of the above isn't enough to make that statement. What in the actual fuck?
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What the fuck did I just read? Usage of tactical nukes on biggest and most important ship in the fleet of peer competitor isn't a declaration of war in a world of MAD?
A nuclear tipped anti-ship torpedo isn't a declaration of nuclear war.
I highlighted the part that I'm guessing is the important word that you missed. Firing torpedoes (of any variety) at a carrier would certainly be considered an act of war, but it wouldn't justify responding by turning the other country into a radioactive wasteland.
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Google "MAD" and be enlightened. It's literally there in the first paragraph.
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Possibly a war crime too, since there is a legal requirement to minimize civilian casualties.
There is no law in war. I know you peace time snowflakes like to think that there is, but the truth is the winners simply put on a show afterward.
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Concerns about war crimes are for those who are confident they can win while still playing by the rules. He who has the advantage can afford morality. He who is about to see his country invaded will feel rather less concern about enemy civilian deaths.
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You are wrong and delusional. Use of a nuclear weapon against a U.S. carrier absolutely would cause strategic nuclear response of the USA against the aggressor, that is U.S. doctrine. It would be start of nuclear war.
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and the UK has 200 strategic nukes plus the USA's arsenal to respond with. Russia will have a very very bad day.
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false, the variable yield 1 - 100kt warheads on the British trident missiles are UK made at the Atomic Weapons Establishment at Aldermaston, and assembled at Aldermaston and Burghfield
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Never underestimate the power of an insider with a USB stick.
translated from Russian ...after examining USB stick... "I have never seen such a device. There is no place to plug this in to our equipment, so I am no longer interested."
"What is this this USB stick of which you speak?"
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LOL, what to believe? (Score:1)
That "Russian hackers" allegedly can change election results with impunity from the US to Gibraltar, or that the alleged "victims" of such yuuge machinations can fight back?
The problem of the West is not "assertive Russia", the problem of the West is its weakening, sick democracy, which fell victim of its oligarchies and which is so impotent, that even with the technologies at its fingertips cannot solve elementary problems like decent education and healthcare for everyone.
All this talk of "external enemies
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That "Russian hackers" allegedly can change election results with impunity from the US to Gibraltar, or that the alleged "victims" of such yuuge machinations can fight back?
The problem of the West is not "assertive Russia", the problem of the West is its weakening, sick democracy, which fell victim of its oligarchies and which is so impotent, that even with the technologies at its fingertips cannot solve elementary problems like decent education and healthcare for everyone.
All this talk of "external enemies" is to cover up the failures at home.
Which, incidentally, is the same thing Putin's doing.
Healthcare for everyone was solved 50 years ago. Most Western countries enjoy a functioning health care that ensures wealth is not required to be properly looked after. The US is the only exception.
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You're right, the sorry state of the NHS is well documented. Yet life expectancy at birth is still higher in the UK. So is infant mortality. And maternal mortality, for that matter. And almost every other metric of public health, with the notable exception of cancer survival rates. Even the dismal, overwhelmed NHS is still beating the US.
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Better than what? US?
Compare it to people in US receiving medical care rather than entirety of population, so you can compare apples to apples - people receiving care to people receiving care. You'll find result flipped. US is one of the best places on the planet to get best care, if you can afford to pay for it. And most people in US can in fact afford to pay for it. They don't have to wait three years and six months for their next dental check like I do in finnish public sector.
This BS arguing based on we
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I've EXPERIENCED health care in multiple countries I have lived. People like to complain about the NHS, but it is far superior to the US system.
US: twice the cost. Lowest life expectancy in the developed world.
What happens in countries like the US is people skip routine exams or what they think is minor illnesses because it is so expensive. I pay over a thousand a month for insurance for my family- and still have to pay $300+ for a well visit if I want to get an annual physical.
Complain all you want abou
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I'm just going to quote myself replying to another poster, since it completely addressed your points as well. Hint: don't regurgitate activist points as your own. They've been long debunked. Formulate your own.
Original post follows:
Better than what? US?
Compare it to people in US receiving medical care rather than entirety of population, so you can compare apples to apples - people receiving care to people receiving care. You'll find result flipped. US is one of the best places on the planet to get best care
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I'm just going to quote myself replying to another poster, since it completely addressed your points as well. Hint: don't regurgitate activist points as your own. They've been long debunked. Formulate your own.
Original post follows:
Better than what? US?
Compare it to people in US receiving medical care rather than entirety of population, so you can compare apples to apples - people receiving care to people receiving care. You'll find result flipped. US is one of the best places on the planet to get best care, if you can afford to pay for it. And most people in US can in fact afford to pay for it. They don't have to wait three years and six months for their next dental check like I do in finnish public sector.
This BS arguing based on weird extreme ideologies omnipresent in US is really strange from European view. Of course everyone should be covered publicly. But to pretend that this is going to give median person better care is just utterly wrong. It's going to make median person's care worse, unless they opt for a private option anyway. What it will ensure is that outliers on the lower end of the distribution will be much better off, which lifts the average.
I live in the US and so I know what goes on in the US. I've lived in several European countries and so know what goes on in them. In the US you pay far more (double on average) and the nurses and doctors are all great and very personable, etc... but, the majority of people don't go to the doctor for things that one probably should go to the doctor for.
Case in point, I have pretty bad tendonitis at the moment. I could probably get something to help, or get it confirmed that it is not something more seriou
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In my country, you'd get the same message. Of course, that would be after you'd waste entire work day first sitting in queue for an hour in hallway full of sick people for nurse to ensure that you're not just there to waste doctor's time. Who will, after figuring out that you do actually need doctor's time, book you time after midday with doctor's.
Who will make the exact same commentary as US doctor would in this case. This will cost you around 40-50 EUR + wasted workday. Bonus points if you actually catch
Non-conventional warfare slippery slide (Score:2)
So great to use non-conventional weapons. You blockout Moscow to tell them they are not doing the right things, and they won't be able to respond in kind. Then they just spread the black plague all over London and there will be just enough plausible deniability that you can't respond either. Everyone wins!
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Ah yes, surely Trump must be willing to nuke his buddy and have his homeland turned to ashes because of some mistery outbreak of a disease in the UK (where he knows they hate him). Well, at least your remaining friends in the EU must be willing to defend you. Like errr...
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If the UK is attacked with any sophisticated weapon, there is only one suspect.
The UK.
Most Western nations are in a death spiral. No "bad guy" like Russia has any reason to attack them. It's better (and more fun) for those "bad guys" to sit back and watch the Eurozone collapse while poor Britons aren't even allowed to get off the ride.
If some attack occurs the most likely suspect will be the UK itself (or an ally nation running a false flag at the behest of the UK). War is a great distraction and a great way to seize (or re-seize) power while cracking down on those pesky citizens w
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That'll show 'em (Score:2)
If a 900 day siege that largely destroyed one of their largest cities and killed over a million people wasn't able to bring Russia to its knees, surely an electrical blackout in Moscow will!
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No one cares about a blackout too much... ... until their cellphone batteries die. If they can get power back on before the cellphone batteries die no one will mind.
This may not come off the way they want (Score:5, Interesting)
I am going to tell a joke, but I'll give a warning before telling it. So until the warning, what I say is serious. Moscow residents may not view lights-out as a foreign action. They are much, much more likely to see it as a domestic failure. And if the domestic government-owned news channels subsequently report it as such, 85% of the population will believe it. The remaining 15% never believe anything that the government says, so they won't be a political loss for the RF administration.
Here's the promised joke (because it's too close to the article itself). Question: how can you tell that the US government has fell behind the Russian government in its use of the Internet? Because, unlike the Moscow mayor's website, you can't find the scheduled water outages on the New York mayor's website. This is an actual meme that used to be popular in Russia just a few years ago. Well, it may still be popular, but I was told about it a few years ago.
Now given that Moscow has scheduled water outages, how difficult will it be to explain away electric outages which were not scheduled?
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First, claim you're going to cyberattack the grid (Score:1)
Or if you want to go all Dr. Evil high tech (Score:2)
use a drone-swarm to carry each cable and drop it across the 3 phases of the power transmission line.
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If I wanted to cause massive disruption to an electrical grid, I would use a combination of cyber and physical attacks. The key is in planning. I'd make sure I had a team who's job it was to constantly monitor the target - they would be probing for vulnerabilities, maintaining details of every utility employee from the chairman of the board to the meter readers for use in social engineering, watching satellite images for signs of cable laying. When it's time to launch the attack, I'd want my people to know
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Have you been in a coma since 1990? Russia has waged continuous warfare against everyone from Chechnya (3 going on 4 times), Transnistria, Georgia, Ukraine, Syria, and everybody who sneezed near their military "contractors" in Sudan and the Central African Republic.
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I've seen hell dear shill. It's what you call Chechen warriors practising their ancient craft. It was fucked up when they did it to Dagestani and Russians forcing Russian Federation to put them down. It was still fucked up when they were doing it to Russians and Ukrainians in Eastern Ukraine.
See, I have this thing you lack called "moral compass", that keeps pointing at "this action is wrong regardless of who is on which side". It allows me to navigate the realm of ethics based on actions, rather than just r
Too many out of control egos (Score:3)
seems to me to be the cause of many problems today. These are people who have got to the top in their country, they start by beating up political opponents, often ensure their position (head of state for a long time), then go into other countries and hurt people. I won't mention names, but there are plenty around.
Some things should not be on the internet (Score:1)
Critical infrastructure should not be accessible from the internet.
Yes, the previously mentioned trebuchet and drone attacks on 3-phase circuits still work but you need to be closer than a few hundred miles to pull this off without anyone noticing before it's too late.
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Now they really think they can scale that lights out method up for Russia.
The UK is Practicing Cyberattacks (Score:1)
BRB (Score:1)
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Yeah, that's the only thing they'll turn off with that. Sure. Besides, Moscow will probably be back on much faster than any western country. You know they're going to turn our electricity off when you try to turn off theirs, don't you?
I think there is a name for that condition called "MAD" or
Mutually assured darkness.
One side taking out the electricity to the other will meet a response meaning both sides are left fumbling around in the darkness after sun down.