Ukraine Official Urges 'IT Army' of World's Digital Talent To Attack Russian Energy and Financial Firms (venturebeat.com) 149
VentureBeat reports:
In Ukraine today, Mykhailo Fedorov, the country's vice prime minister, announced on Twitter, "We are creating an IT army."
"We need digital talents," wrote Fedorov, who also holds the title of minister of digital transformation — sharing a link to a Telegram channel where he said operational tasks will be distributed. "We continue to fight on the cyber front." On the Telegram channel, the IT army reportedly posted its list of Russian targets — which were also translated into English "for all IT specialists from other countries...."
On Friday, Christian Sorensen, a former U.S. Cyber Command official, told VentureBeat that "hacktivists around the world [will be] working against Russia, because they are the aggressor.... I think things will ramp up against western targets, but Russia and Belarus will be targeted by these groups even more" said Sorensen, formerly the operational planning team lead for the U.S. Cyber Command....
[O]n Friday, a Bloomberg report said that a hacker group that was now forming to bring counterattacks against Russia had amassed 500 members. And today, we have the announcement of Ukraine's IT army — potentially including assistance from hackers around the globe. "Whether sanctioned or not, official or not, if people have or can get the right information, know-how, and desire — they can make an impact," Sorensen said on Friday, prior to the announcement of Ukraine's IT army. "We'll have to wait and see what they are able to do."
The next day Reuters reported that the official website of the Kremlin, "the office of Russian President Vladimir Putin....was down on Saturday, following reports of denial of service (DDoS) attacks on various other Russian government and state media websites.
"The outages came as Ukraine's vice prime minister said it had launched an 'IT army' to combat Russia in cyberspace."
But the Independent reports that the cyberattacks may have been even more extensive: Ukraine's state telecommunications agency announced on Saturday that six Russian government websites, including the Kremlin's, were down, according to The Kyiv Independent.
The agency also stated that the Russian media regulator's website had gone down, and that hackers had got Russian TV channels to play the Ukrainian music.
Note from Slashdot: the blue/purple bar means the story was posted automatically from the firehose without a Slashdot editor selecting it. This happens when a story gets a huge amount of upvotes in the firehose.
"We need digital talents," wrote Fedorov, who also holds the title of minister of digital transformation — sharing a link to a Telegram channel where he said operational tasks will be distributed. "We continue to fight on the cyber front." On the Telegram channel, the IT army reportedly posted its list of Russian targets — which were also translated into English "for all IT specialists from other countries...."
On Friday, Christian Sorensen, a former U.S. Cyber Command official, told VentureBeat that "hacktivists around the world [will be] working against Russia, because they are the aggressor.... I think things will ramp up against western targets, but Russia and Belarus will be targeted by these groups even more" said Sorensen, formerly the operational planning team lead for the U.S. Cyber Command....
[O]n Friday, a Bloomberg report said that a hacker group that was now forming to bring counterattacks against Russia had amassed 500 members. And today, we have the announcement of Ukraine's IT army — potentially including assistance from hackers around the globe. "Whether sanctioned or not, official or not, if people have or can get the right information, know-how, and desire — they can make an impact," Sorensen said on Friday, prior to the announcement of Ukraine's IT army. "We'll have to wait and see what they are able to do."
The next day Reuters reported that the official website of the Kremlin, "the office of Russian President Vladimir Putin....was down on Saturday, following reports of denial of service (DDoS) attacks on various other Russian government and state media websites.
"The outages came as Ukraine's vice prime minister said it had launched an 'IT army' to combat Russia in cyberspace."
But the Independent reports that the cyberattacks may have been even more extensive: Ukraine's state telecommunications agency announced on Saturday that six Russian government websites, including the Kremlin's, were down, according to The Kyiv Independent.
The agency also stated that the Russian media regulator's website had gone down, and that hackers had got Russian TV channels to play the Ukrainian music.
Note from Slashdot: the blue/purple bar means the story was posted automatically from the firehose without a Slashdot editor selecting it. This happens when a story gets a huge amount of upvotes in the firehose.
a good way to get murdered (Score:2)
Amateurs should sit this one out on the sidelines.
Unless you have a big stock of polonium-resistance pills.
Re:a good way to get murdered (Score:5, Interesting)
And possibly a lawyer. What concerns me is people thinking that just because the cause is righteous , the law will be on side. I'm not convinced it would be, and worse, could even fall foul of foreign combattant type laws that where designed to stop idiots running off and joining ISIS or Al Quaida (which also snared people going off to join the Kurds and fight AGAINST ISIS. Although I do suspect a judge would be reluctant to throw the book at them on that charge, they well may still be on the hook for lesser generic "hacking" charges that can still carry a nasty sting in the tail if convicted.
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What does law of war say? Don't go fighting, it doesn't?
Re: a good way to get murdered (Score:2)
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What concerns me is people thinking that just because the cause is righteous , the law will be on side.
It worked for others
I'll just mention this story which stuck in my mind, where a TikTok activist proudly deployed and publicized a DOS attack against Kellog's job website. I saw him being lauded as a hero, don't think he was charged with anything. INAL, so maybe this case is somehow different.
https://www.thedailybeast.com/... [thedailybeast.com]
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And the thing is those are good laws for good reason.
While its not likely it is not impossible to imagine some do-gooder taking out some Russian infrastructure. Maybe they even doing meaning to cause a nuisance messing with some front office stuff, but they knock offer something like DNS or a certificate authority server accidentally or purposefully and next we find out the controls network isn't as segmented or has a dependancy nobody was aware of and soon half of Moscow has no water..
Next there is a Russi
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Amateurs should sit this one out on the sidelines.
Unless you have a big stock of polonium-resistance pills.
But don't forget that the cure for everything, be it polonium or 50-cal rounds, is ivermectin.
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Amateurs should sit this one out on the sidelines.
Unless you have a big stock of polonium-resistance pills.
But don't forget that the cure for everything, be it polonium or 50-cal rounds, is ivermectin.
... but only in combination with Zinc and a shot-glass of bleach.
I'm not at war with Russia (Score:2)
Ending trade with Russia is one thing. Attacking Russia is quite something else. Please don't turn this into WW3.
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Unfortunately economic embargoes can turn into wars as well. The US shutting down exports of oil to Japan are what precipitated Pearl Harbor
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But economic embargoes aren't war. I draw the line at attacking without being attacked. That's what Russia did.
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If you throw a fist at me because I won't buy your wares, then I can defend myself and will still have done nothing wrong, but you end up with a broken nose and in jail. If Putin initiates war against my country or another NATO country, he'll get what's justified. But I urge everyone who hasn't been attacked to not attack Russia. This war will cost Russia everything. I don't want it to cost us everything too.
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The world order has been attacked. Agreements sent to the trash bin. Blatant aggression want to impose an order.
Bet, your country and institutions have been attacked in the digital space not once by the gangsters from Russia.
It is time to fight back, and enter new era, where novichok or killers on the promenades of Moskva-river are not norms to pursue.
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"The world order" wouldn't even bleed if it existed. Shut your warmongering mouth.
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It is you lacking competence against my mouth. World has ideas about acceptable order, therefore Russia, and possibly Belarus,
already go into very serious isolation, as a remedy to significant deviation. You are wrong in your assumptions.
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I'd say, you just committed a crime. Your behavior is not sustainable, may I, at least, warn you.
Re:I'm not at war with Russia (Score:4, Interesting)
in a sick and twisted kind of way, this could be a good thing, long term, for the world.
ie, weaking and draining russia's power, bit by bit, over the years. yes, its gonna take years. get ready for another iraq, guys. yes, decades. but think of the benefits (so to speak) of this. we get to isolate russia from the whole fucking world! let that sink in. all except china and maybe india (wtf is up with india staying on the sidelines? seriously - wtf!)
russia alreay was not doing well, economically. they will get worse and worse as their pariah status increases over time.
cutting off swift was a biggie. that will cripple their people. their people will suffer and their businesses will be left behind while the world moves on.
that's good stuff right there! yes, morbidly, but it has a good long-term effect of bombing them into the stone age, but not with bombs - but with isolation and boycotts. given enough time, they'll slowly starve (of the tech items, which is KEY, today).
now, the bad part - russia wont take this lightly and so, well, its probably time to change passwords, add more firewalls and companies to start hardening their security FOR REAL, this time. like, for real real. (sigh, it wont happen, why even dream about ....)
so yeah, there will be lots of bad shit on the net and lots of hacking from russia to - everyone else that's not on their side. be prepared for that. its gonna get bad, I suspect (just a wag).
but again, they are going to suffer way more than the west is. as time goes on, their people will feel this more than the rest of the world will.
just give this time.
and once it finally ends, you have the benefit that pushed russia backwards during the isolation and that will have a lasting effect that they may NEVER overcome. not ever. if we keep it up and dont give up on OUR side too early, yes, we can make them suffer and they'll regret this over the years.
its long overdue. I am not sad about russia getting their lessons taught to them. sad that their people have to pay the price, but its always that way, isn't it?
let the economic ruin and isolation of russia begin!
"first round of drinks are on me, boys. who has the vodak, here?"
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Many of their folks did support Putin. Some are ashamed of this whole "operation", as they could have been about Crimea and fiddling with Eastern Ukraine.
Yet majority was too ignorant of what tyranny is guiding them for tens of years. Therefore isolation is due and overall healthy for every party.
As to increase of hacking - they were not modest in digital space, so possible surprises up their sleeve, but not pattern of major increase. Hopefully.
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ie, weaking and draining russia's power, bit by bit, over the years. yes, its gonna take years. get ready for another iraq, guys. yes, decades. but think of the benefits (so to speak) of this. we get to isolate russia from the whole fucking world! let that sink in.
No, Russia's power is not being weakened bit by bit. Actually over the last 20 years, Putin has been slowly building up diplomatic leverage. In fact, had he done this 5 years later, after Europe got all settled in and being highly dependent upon Russia's energy resources, things could very well be a lot different, as he could have used that as leverage to prevent Europe from doing anything at all. But over the last four days, Russia has lost pretty much all of its diplomatic leverage. So basically, the last
Re: I'm not at war with Russia (Score:2)
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is it attacking, once the bully threw the FIRST punch?
really? a bully punches a small guy and you think that coming to defend the small guy is 'attacking' a bully?
please explain.
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That's the logic that starts world wars. As I wrote before, this war will cost Russia everything. That's gotta be enough, unless you want it to cost the rest of the world everything too.
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Indeed it is the logic that perpetuates world wars, but the alternative you propose would have been to let the Reich roll across Europe and perpetuate its genocide competitor unchecked. Was the second World war a price worth paying to stop that? I claim it was.
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The world is not at the end of its means. Actually isolating Russia, not the pin-prick-like sanctions of the past, will have dire consequences for Russia. Also, NATO is increasing its immediate defensive abilities. We're not standing by while Russia takes Europe, but defense is not offense. Remember how the Soviet Union collapsed? We didn't attack it then, and we don't need to attack Russia now. There are forces that want other countries to join a war with Russia, because right now the situation is annoying
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this made me think what would be my line.
thinking about it, my line that I would not want to cross is religious nutbags. ie, the whole middle east (and then some). those primates, you cannot even bargain with, the whole notion of good-faith is non-existent when sky daddies are involved.
but putin is not about religion, its just political power. (heh, 'just'). but think about it, there are levels of sanity in the spectrum; and someone who thinks they'll go on to 42 virginians (not sure why james madison a
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Bullshit. Japan had been taking over the East Pacific years before they attacked Pearl Harbor and control of much of SE Asia and its resources including oil by Jan. of 1941. The Pearl Harbor attack was not until 7 Dec. 1941. They just didn't want the U.S. and Britain in the way of further expansion since they were the only countries that could oppose them.
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>Bullshit ...
I agree. It's never one or the other. Chicken or egg.
It's not about attributing blame. Everyone is in it together, it's the only lasting way out of conflict.
Re:I'm not at war with Russia (Score:5, Insightful)
Russia is the one deciding if there is a WW3 unless you think the world should just capitulate to Russia just because they issue such a threat. The world needs to stand up and say war has just got to stop.
Re: I'm not at war with Russia (Score:5, Insightful)
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His tweets [twitter.com] point out that the Russian military is vastly superior,
It's not clear that's true. On paper they have the hardware to be superior, but discipline and operations from the Russian military has been poor. They've split their troops, they've had supply problems, they've had logistical problems. They've had difficulty crossing bridges. The advantage Russia has is a superior airforce, but it hasn't coordinated well with troops, and it has come under fire from the still existing anti-air defense in Ukraine. Last night the Russian army was actually pushed farther away
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Any operation with tens of thousands of troops is bound to run into a myriad of problems. The question is not whether it happens, but how often. And perhaps more importantly, who is affected more. We hear a lot of social media reports form Ukraine, but very little from the Russian side. Maybe the Ukrainians are having just as many issues, but they aren't being reported.
As for the Ukrainian army becoming stronger, the mayor of Kiev says they're surrounded. What good will foreign weapons will do if they can't
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Any operation with tens of thousands of troops is bound to run into a myriad of problems. The question is not whether it happens, but how often.
You'd at least hope your troops know why they are there [thehill.com].
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Source: Ukrainian government
The people who needs to do everything to keep morale up? The same people that said they suffered 0 casualties the first day? Retracting an earlier statement saying they suffered 300 casualties? The ones retweeting the "Ghost of Kiev" story that's literally a hoax invented by 4chan?
I mean, it really doesn't matter if you want to believe them, but don't be surprised after a series of glorious Ukrainian victories in battle, Russia suddenly wins the war.
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You seem to have a strong, uninformed opinion on Ukraine. Are you ok with that?
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It's not going good for Russia [youtube.com].
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It would really help if you could think a little before you trust a source, and maybe diversify a little.
This is a retired US general, being interviewed by US news media, both of which are heavily biased against Russia. He should not have access to current information on the ground from the US military, and even if he did, he would not at liberty to disclose that. His statement that the entirety of Ukraine is against Russia is simply false. A sizable minority wants closer ties to Russia and an even larger f
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It would really help if you could think a little before you trust a source, and maybe diversify a little.
Find your own source. At this point it's well verified that Russia is having trouble.
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you are not YET at war with russia.
like ... you think YOU have a choice in this?
this is a world war in the making, like it or not. due simply to the player that's involved.
sigh. there goes the next 20 years. dammitsomuch.
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I may not have a choice about a war coming, but I can damn well choose not to initiate it from my side. Don't ask me to attack another country.
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Ending trade with Russia is one thing. Attacking Russia is quite something else. Please don't turn this into WW3.
If he succeeds with Ukraine you really think he's stopping there?
Putin won't stop until he's been forced to. The only question is how to do that without him pulling out the nukes. It means the west can't intervene directly, and there might even be a limit to the lethal hardware we send Ukraine, but for everything else Putin is bluffing.
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Ukraine has been fighting back hard [twitter.com]. They are getting smashed [twitter.com].
Russia needs a change of strategy if they want to beat Ukraine.
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I really worry how this could escalate. Taking down websites of state media agencies makes a statement and doesn't hurt innocent people. But how long before some righteous hackers decide to try sabotaging an electric grid? Then you suddenly have a lot of innocent people suffering. And Russia would probably respond by doing the same thing to other countries. It could get really bad really fast.
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Taking down websites of state media agencies makes a statement and doesn't hurt innocent people. But how long before some righteous hackers decide to try sabotaging an electric grid? Then you suddenly have a lot of innocent people suffering.
You know what? I'll grant that there are plenty of innocent people in Russia, but it's rather absurd to suggest "think of the innocents" when those innocents live within the borders of the nation that started this war. What about the "lot of innocent people suffering" in Ukraine?
I'm no fan of making war on civilians, but ultimately "shooting back" is not an immoral act.
this could actually be a bad precedent.. (Score:2)
if Russia and Ukraine do finally reconcile peacefully.. that might not be enough to stop any 3rd party hacker collectives from continuing their digital war..
Armies have orders.. Anonymous is not your personal army.. they do not get told when to start and certainly do not get told when to stop..
Re:this could actually be a bad precedent.. (Score:4, Insightful)
Ukraine will never forgive Russia or Russians for this. First it was the Tsar, they had a brief flowering of freedom before the Bolshevik Red Army stamped on it. Then came Stalin. They finally had some freedom after the Soviet Union broke apart and only recently were able to free themselves of the Russian bootlickers running the country. They were building a new nice little country with a bright future. Now they have squat. There will be no forgiveness.
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I agree with most, except this part:
They were building a new nice little country with a bright future.
Don't see that. Ukraine is one of the most corrupt countries on planet Earth, topping many African or 3rd world countries. Its economy was already shitty before this war, and while there was a glimmer of hope for the future, I wouldn't agree that it was so bright. It is/was a very troubled country.
uh, no, not an army (Score:3, Insightful)
"The outages came as Ukraine's vice prime minister said it had launched an 'IT army' to combat Russia in cyberspace."
But that is NOT what he is doing.
An army is organized, has a chain of command, acts under the authority and flag of its country and takes responsibility for its actions.
What he's launching is an unorganized mess of guerilla fighters with little to no coordination or communication. When they're on the side we don't like we call them terrorist cells.
It's some dangerous and desperate shit. He has no way to control this, no way to prevent attacks on civilian targets - or even targets that aren't even Russian or are Russian but against the war.
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no way to prevent attacks on civilian targets
Like the missile that hit the residential building? I haven't seen a war that doesn't hit civilian targets. Pretending that war is between military forces is just naive. Just look at the refineries that are burning I'm pretty sure they were not just military.
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>Like the missile that hit the residential building?
Thank God it seems like it's only happened once so far.
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Like the missile that hit the residential building?
At the risk of sounding heartless: Collateral damage happens in every war. I wasn't referring to that, but to intentional (misguided, misinformed, but intentional) attacks on civilian targets.
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Because murder is legally defined as
the killing of a human being by a sane person, with intent, malice aforethought (prior intention to kill the particular victim or anyone who gets in the way) and with no legal excuse or authority.
(https://dictionary.law.com/default.aspx?selected=1303)
the important part there is that murder requires intent.
While I do agree that "collateral damage" is a terrible term, unless a soldier intentionally shoots at a civilian target, it's not murder, either.
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It's some dangerous and desperate shit.
I will not disagree with you, but if there is anyone who has a legitimate claim to being desperate -- that's Ukraine right now.
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When you're the 800-pound gorilla, that doesn't mean 'faces consequences'.
As sg_oneill (159032) notes, it's similar to joining ISIS and probably illegal. Ukraine is demanding protection through tyranny of the majority, since its allies don't want a 'hot' war. But one day, that majority will decide the USA or UK deserve punishment for their misdeeds and cyber-attack them. The freedom-fighters will then be labelled terrorists.
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Calling for attacks on energy firms is very dangerous. How many Russian hospitals have decent backup generators that are properly maintained and fuelled? How long can they operate for?
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An army is organized, has a chain of command, acts under the authority and flag of its country and takes responsibility for its actions.
Except when Russian troops took Crimea and claimed it was local freedom fighters. WHich responsibility did Russia take for that act of agression?
These are the websites that they wish to hinder (Score:5, Informative)
https://www.gazprom.ru/ [gazprom.ru]
https://lukoil.ru/ [lukoil.ru]
https://magnit.ru/ [magnit.ru]
https://www.nornickel.com/ [nornickel.com]
https://www.tatneft.run/ [tatneft.run]
https://www.evraz.com/ru [evraz.com]
https://nmlk.com/ [nmlk.com]
https://www.sibur.ru/ [sibur.ru]
https://www.severstal.com/ [severstal.com]
https://www.metalloinvest.com/ [metalloinvest.com]
https://nangs.com/ [nangs.com]
https://rmk-group.ru/ru/ [rmk-group.ru]
https://www.tmk-group.ru/ [tmk-group.ru]
https://ya.ru/ [ya.ru]
https://www.polymetalinternati... [polymetalinternation.com]
https://www.uralkali.com/ru/ [uralkali.com]
https://www.eurosib.ru/ [eurosib.ru]
https://omk.ru/ [omk.ru] https://www.sberbank.ru/ [sberbank.ru]
https://www.vtb.ru/ [www.vtb.ru] https://www.gazprombank.ru/ [gazprombank.ru]
https://www.gosuslug.ru/ [gosuslug.ru]
https://www.mos.ru/uslugi/ [www.mos.ru]
http://kremlin.ru/ [kremlin.ru]
http://government.ru/ [government.ru]
https://mil.ru/ [mil.ru]
https://www.surgutneftegas.ru/ [surgutneftegas.ru]
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So inciting cyber war against an occupying force i (Score:2)
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time to netblock all of russia's IP space (Score:2)
there was a time when, at my home static ip line, I had all kinds of sweeping netblocks in place. all of china, all of .ru and so on.
maybe its time to put some of those back in place again.
I'd like to see more than SWIFT punishment (heh). I'd like to see them removed from the ip network backbones.
fuck it.
just do it.
What does a Blue title mean? (Score:2)
"when a story gets a huge amount of upvotes" (Score:2)
NYPA (Score:2)
Not your Personal Army
Re:Hope It Doesn't Backfire (Score:5, Insightful)
O well, whatever happens, it is definitely popcorn time.
These are people fighting for their lives against an invading army and begging for any sort of help they can get. If you think that is "popcorn time" then you are a sick sick person.
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Rare that I wish I had up pointing mod points for an AC.
Perspective and history matter a lot (Score:2)
Besides this, there are also reports of the Ukrainian military attempting to illegally conscript non-ci
Just in case folks are skeptical (Score:2)
Ukraine can do one until they stop holding other countries citizens hostage.
Re:George Soros sent you (Score:4, Insightful)
In America have a well known saying: Give me liberty, or give me death. I know, you Russians find that unconscionable. Yours would be more like: All I need in life is bread, vodka, and Putin. But don't worry, by the time this war is over, that's exactly what you'll have. This little stunt your dear leader pulled has not only thrown away the future of your whole country, but set it back at least 5 decades if not more. You have a long, long, long period of misery ahead of you, and it's of your own making.
Once Ukraine is done tossing you out, the west will pitch in and help rebuild them quickly, and ask next to nothing in return. You've seen us do this many times throughout history. Ukraine WILL come out on top. But guess who you have to help you through the economic mess you're now in? China. Look how much help China has provided to its allies...Oh wait, that's right, they only exploit them. Putin will be groveling to Xi Jinping from now on.
You could overthrow Putin and put an end to that, of course, but Russians don't really do that. Once they get a really bad leader, they tend to stick with them until they die of natural causes.
Would Putin's trolls waste time with Slashdot? (Score:2)
But there is no "You" in "AC". Waste of time to feed it or to propagate it's Subject. Please don't waste everyone's time.
(And I really doubt it was an actual Russian troll. If anyone was paying for that bit of tripe... I'm sure that Putin's cyber-goons are quite busy just now and Slashdot is NOT high on their target list.)
Re: Would Putin's trolls waste time with Slashdot? (Score:2)
Actually over time I've seen a decent number of Russians posting to slashdot. Do they work for Putin's government? Probably not, but at the same time I'm sure some of them have drank the Kool-aid. It's entirely possible that the AC is one of those. Have a look at the Russian subreddit. Those are mostly everyday Russians just being Russians, and they say basically the same crap AC is saying, mostly towards the goal of comforting one another rather than trolling.
So yeah, it is worth it. Part of waging warfare
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(1) Your time is valuable, even if you don't care about wasting the time of people who ignore AC but see you.
(2) I'm convinced that the vacuous Subjects are at least some of the time deliberately intended to disrupt rational discussions.
(3) You aren't going to persuade a troll or the troll's sock puppet of anything.
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Theres nothing a hacker could do to Ukraine than a tank firing thermobaric missiles couldnt do worse. Well short of melting down old nuclear reactors, but shit, the russians appear to be in control of that too.
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The melted ones. Vlad saw reactors and thought: All your reactors are belong to us.
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Re: Hope It Doesn't Backfire (Score:2)
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As FPs go, it's pretty poor, though it touches on the point that's worrying me. In conclusion, not worth the requote, though I'd still like to know the motivations of the moderators. Just honest appraisers of a low-value comment or motivated by censorship? But the Subject seems to be on target.
Obviously Russia can cite this news as justification for ramping up their own cyberwar offensives--and that could even affect me, though hopefully not directly. I like to believe that I'm sufficiently security-conscio
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What a bunch of navel gazing assholery while Ukraine burns
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Yeah, I saw a video clip on Twitter of Ukrainians mass-producing Molotov cocktails, assembly line stuff. Do you think they can throw them far enough to land in Russia? If not what are they going to ultimately burn down?
War is a game of boys with war toys where the bully with the most weapons, propaganda inclusive, can do all the nasties they want.
So which little boys have the most weapons and profits from warmongering?
Re:I was resistenct to Putin's action and was avoi (Score:5, Insightful)
Obviously the western nations led by the US but Putin literally gave them a gift wrapped present to justify all that military spending. Germany today is talking about finally upping their defense spending to over 2% of GDP. Sweden and FInland are likely considering joining NATO when this is over. Every ex-soviet bloc nation is 100% justified in their desire to join the alliance, and to be clear no matter what the narrative says, those countries wanted to be part of NATO.
As am American I can on one hand hold my own nation accountable for its misdeeds in foreign affairs but that certainly does not excuse whats happening now. A big difference maker is I can have a (limited to be sure) choice in how my country governs. For anyone who says it doesn't matter look at the number of drone strikes since Biden took office, they have gone down like 90% worldwide. It doesnt make up for the carnage we wrought in the previous decade but the US made a choice for the better.
The Russian populace do not have that, they're been stuck with this feckless pseudo-tough guy for 20 years and now he's flailing. No amount of US misdeeds can whataboutism that away.
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Obviously the western nations led by the US but Putin literally gave them a gift wrapped present to justify all that military spending. Germany today is talking about finally upping their defense spending to over 2% of GDP. Sweden and FInland are likely considering joining NATO when this is over. Every ex-soviet bloc nation is 100% justified in their desire to join the alliance, and to be clear no matter what the narrative says, those countries wanted to be part of NATO.
This.
I'm almost certain that several think tanks are all out of champagne by now.
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Definition of literally
1: in a literal sense or manner: such as
a: in a way that uses the ordinary or primary meaning of a term or expression
He took the remark literally.
a word that can be used both literally and figuratively
b—used to emphasize the truth and accuracy of a statement or description
The party was attended by literally hundreds of people.
c: with exact equivalence : with the meaning of each individual word given exactly
The term "Mardi Gras" literally means "Fat Tuesday" in French.
d: in a com
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This guy is too stupid to actually make his point clear. For someone so concerned about words they're not really using them lol
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Look up the definition of "literally," mouth-breather.
Literally no one no one uses the word "literally" that way.
Re:I was resistenct to Putin's action and was avoi (Score:5, Informative)
Yeah, I saw a video clip on Twitter of Ukrainians mass-producing Molotov cocktails, assembly line stuff. Do you think they can throw them far enough to land in Russia? If not what are they going to ultimately burn down?
War is a game of boys with war toys where the bully with the most weapons, propaganda inclusive, can do all the nasties they want.
So which little boys have the most weapons and profits from warmongering?
All they have to do is throw them off a rooftop onto the engine cooling grills of Russian AFVs. Ask any Russian veteran of the Chechen wars how much fun it is when the engine in your tank burns out and you sit there in a steel pillbox and wonder if that sound you are hearing is a Ukrainian placing a satchel full of industrial explosives under your feet in order to blow you up. Urban warfare is a very bloody and rather low tech affair. Try to remember how much trouble rag tag Iraqi guerrillas were able to create for the US with scavenged artillery shells turned into IEDs with a soldering iron and a cheap Chinese mobile phone. All the high tech smart weapons and stealth fighters in the US inventory were useless in dealing with that threat.
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Yeah, I saw a video clip on Twitter of Ukrainians mass-producing Molotov cocktails, assembly line stuff. Do you think they can throw them far enough to land in Russia? If not what are they going to ultimately burn down?
They aren't just making them. They are using them [youtube.com].
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Russians who've invaded their country and are killing them.
Ask the Palestinians how this shit works for them.
Throwing improvised stuff at a professional army is a good way to get yourself killed, while doing minimal damage to the enemy. It's almost as if the Ukraine government WANTS the death toll among civilians to raise.
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The Ukrainian military is much stronger than the Palestinian army, and the Russian army is much more antiquated and poorly disciplined than the Israeli army. The comparison isn't apt.
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It's not a comparison of armies. And the Palestinian army isn't throwing Molotov cocktails. It's Palestinian teenagers and young men, and they regularily get shot for it without inflicting any damage worth mentioning. THAT is the point.
Seriously. Asking the population to throw Molotov cocktails. The Nazi "Volkssturm" near the end of WW2 was better equipped and organized than that!
Re:it's working (Score:2)
The Ukrainians are throwing molotov cocktails [youtube.com]. And it's been effective [youtube.com]. The Russian military coordination has been so poor that they've left straggler units around waiting to get attacked.
But of course, Ukraine also has Javelin missiles and Stinger missiles, which strengthens guerilla tactics. Ukrainian drone strikes have had some effect [twitter.com].
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Interesting. Apparently the Russians have orders to not shoot at civilians, even if attacked. Otherwise that would've been a bloodbath there (no protection worth mentioning).
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Maybe. Stopping long enough to engage would have been a problem, too, as the flames got higher and higher.
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Maybe. In the end, it's all speculation. Hard to know what's real, what's propaganda, what is cut to fit some narrative and heck, we even see a lot of videos and photos being posted online that aren't even from Ukraine or not from this year.
It still strikes me as odd that the president calls for civilians to fight on the first day of the war. I've never seen anything like that in any other conflict. Usually that's a last-ditch desperate measure when the regular army is as good as defeated.
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Throwing improvised stuff at a professional army is a good way to get yourself killed, while doing minimal damage to the enemy.
Nonsense. It has worked extremely well on MANY occasions in the past century. Go read up on any of a number of conflicts, such as Vietnam. Or for a more modern example, read Black Hawk Down - and see just what happened to an elite group of US special forces soldiers when they had to fight their way out of a city full of armed and hostile militia.
Further, I suspect most Ukranian males have basic military training, so they really aren't just 'unprofessional armed citizens' in the sense you are thinking. M
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You have a point there. Yes, if the war moves into urban warfare, things could get ugly. For both sides.
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Channeling the Ghost of Chamberlain I see. You make a good little Quisling.