'Hundreds of computers' in Ukraine hit with wiper malware as conflict continues Hundreds of computers in Ukraine have been infected with data-wiping Windows malware, say researchers at ESET. In a series of tweets on Wednesday, the infosec biz said it picked up its first sample of the software nasty at about 1500 UTC, and believes the code has been in the works for the past two months. "ESET telemetry …
I think the next editions of this 30+ year old disgrace should be titled appropriately:
- Capitulation
- Weakest Link
- All Ur Base
...
20 years ago, Mission Critical often meant little more than " not windows ". Now, windows has infested not just critical infrastructure, but has ridden the wave of ubiquitous computer application in the social sphere.
This social sphere is now part of the warfare target, a modern twist on the "Berlin Betty" approach to demoralization.
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Putin doesn’t give a flying feck what people think he’s made his decision. He isn’t going to back down now as that would be seen as a sign of weakness. As I said on another story this isn’t something we should just stand on the sidelines and condemn. Actions speak louder than words (we’re not hearing from Boris until 5 or 6pm) and the West needs to get on with things.
We should have been saying (with apologies to Sir Michael Caine)
“You'll be making a grave error if you invade Ukraine. There are quite a few wealthy Russian in Britain, and they'll be made to suffer. Everything owned by an Oligarch every Apartment, Mansion, Business, Superyacht, Private Jet, Football Club, Bank Account, Trust, west or south of Russia will be seized.”
We should now be doing just that.
It appears that “Special Military Action” is the new name for another senseless war.
Well, he doesn't want to upset his party's donors...
I don’t know whether to laugh or just become more depressed with that comment. Someone just messaged me to say their grandfather who is nearly 90 is watching this unfold on tv. He described it as being the same as when he was a lad only now it’s Russia invading and being watched live.
"... now it’s Russia invading ..."
For Finland, Poland, Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia this is worryingly reminiscent of Stalin's occupations and invasions. Hoping Ukraine can emulate the Finns, and inflict enough losses on Putin's forces that he has to call the invasion off. Sadly, I think the rest of the world will do too little - just as they did with Finland in 1939/40 - and the Ukrainians will be overwhelmed thanks to Russian air supremacy.
Various people who grew up being taught how propaganda campaigns were used in 1930s Europe were VERY upset by slogans on big red busses in 2016
The UK is slipping down a well trodden path. Bad days are coming and this time Moseley's blackshirts are sitting in the corridors at Downing Street
> Not sure why the 2 downvotes
Because the comment makes no sense. If you *must* compare the current situation to the past then 1968 Czechoslovakia is a closer analogy than 1930s anything. But, as always, nothing is ever quite the same and trying to match current actors to historic ones is, quite simply, a mistake.
Everything owned by an Oligarch
Setting aside the fact that most of these properties were already -- on paper at least -- owned by shell companies through a convoluted network of onshore and offshore shell companies, Boris publicly signalled two days ago that it was time for the oligarchs to add an extra layer of complexity to their holdings and to recruit more lawyers ready to gum up the works and ward off any attempt at seizure.
Assuming there are few or no nuclear conflicts in the next few months, I think it's safe to say that the Tory hierarchy will be auctioning off many more offers to play tennis with oligarch's wives this summer. Expect the bidding to be heated.
That’s easy you just seize those assets that you know about, and freeze those that you suspect are owned. Use data from the Panama papers etc. to assist with this. Then if the actual owners of the shell companies want to come forward they can unfreeze their assets. We have a pretty good idea who owns which superyacht for example despite hidden behind shell companies and trusts in the Caribbean. I’m sure the loss of a few $500m yachts would sharpen some peoples minds. A lot of the places that these people use to hide their money and ownership of stuff are British Overseas Territories. There’s bound to be something that they want which we can offer in return for breaking the secrecy walls.
Then if the actual owners of the shell companies want to come forward they can unfreeze their assets.
You've missed the entire point of the shell companies. The lawyers are hired by the shell companies and paid by them, not by the oligarch. Shell companies hide true ownership. The oligarch never has to poke his head above the parapet.
"recruit more lawyers ready to gum up the works and ward off any attempt at seizure"
There are two ways of freezing/seizing their assets - one is to prove it's theirs and then seize it, the other is to freeze it and then make the lawyers prove it isn't within X time period
Either way will hurt them economically
> There are two ways of freezing/seizing their assets - one is to prove it's theirs and then seize it, the other is to freeze it and then make the lawyers prove it isn't within X time period
But freeze what though? If Tax Haven A has a company called "Correct Horse Battery Staple Holdings Ltd" registered, which owns a building in London, how do you know it's a dodgy Russian rather than a legitimate Saudi or home grown dodgy geezer that is the beneficial owner?
You have a trawl of the databases that have made their way into the public domain. Panama Papers is a good example of this. If it’s owned by a shell company and there isn’t an obvious owner (or it’s ‘owned’ by someone who is clearly doesn’t) you seize it and they have to prove ownership to get it back.
Putin doesn’t give a flying feck what people think he’s made his decision. He isn’t going to back down now as that would be seen as a sign of weakness. As I said on another story this isn’t something we should just stand on the sidelines and condemn.
We can do nothing and we will do nothing. It's the Cold War all over again: the prospect of Mutually Assured Destruction means that (a) we and they can't fight each other and therefore (b) we and they can otherwise do anything we and they want. Invade Afghanistan, invade Afghanistan, kill Muslims in Chechnya, kill Muslims in Iraq, impose non-democratic governments in Poland and Bulgaria, install undemocratic governments in Iran and Chile, and so on.
So stand on the sidelines and condemn it is. Maybe mildly inconvenience a few Tory party funders as well.
Silly Putinbot with silly propaganda. Obviously Russia is not a superpower, there is no MAD on the table anymore, and NATO could wipe out the Russian military in days if it wanted.
The depressing thing here is that NATO's leaders won't take a stand.
Silly Putinbot with silly propaganda. Obviously Russia is not a superpower, there is no MAD on the table anymore
Putinbot? That said, Russia is estimated to have around 6.400 nuclear warheads, more than half the world's total. Sure, NATO could do nasty things to Russia's military, but not before Russia's military arranged for most of NATO to become glowing glass. MAD is still very much in play.
And no, Russia isn't a superpower. But it's a non-superpower with a lot of bombs and a fascist dictator in charge.
Russia is not thought to have many working warheads left; if there are any at all, it's a handful. More to the point, they have no delivery system that can reach past Warsaw, and even that's only if they launch from Belarus and get lucky.
"Sure, NATO could do nasty things to Russia's military, but not before Russia's military arranged for most of NATO to become glowing glass"
You're going off message in the first part, but the last part is pure Kremlin propaganda. The simple reality is that Russia has less military power than at the end of the Cold War in Cold War era terms, and no modern military equipment whatsoever. NATO will achieve absolute air superiority in a matter of hours, and that's game over: any Russian deployments after that will be bombed out of existence as soon as they move.
Russia is not thought to have many working warheads left; if there are any at all, it's a handful. More to the point, they have no delivery system that can reach past Warsaw, and even that's only if they launch from Belarus and get lucky.
[Citation needed]
And let the US State department know, because they think Russia has 1458 nuclear warheads deployed on 527 ICBMs. The "I" there, by the way, stands for "Intercontinental", which is pretty much the opposite of "No further than Warsaw"
https://www.state.gov/new-start-treaty-aggregate-numbers-of-strategic-offensive-arms/
That document says what Russia claims to have, and it suits the US to accept the claim in that context.
If you think a Cold War ICBM and MIRVs has any chance of getting to target against modern missile defences, you haven't actually looked at the developments. Really, there is zero chance of even a single warhead making it to target by that route.
There is some chance of a tactical warhead making it as far as Warsaw, if launched from the Belarussian border, but that's assuming saturation with short range missiles and getting lucky. Anything that has a flight time of more than a few hundred seconds simply has no survivability.
Believe me, Russia could easily hit London with an ICBM. This would literally make England uninhabitable! And depending on the wind, possibly Scotland, Ireland, or parts of western Europe!
Death by radioactive fallout is not pleasant.
If you seriously think they cannot hit any city on the planet you are a fool. We are talking about the country that has been running the space program for multiple nations since the US ended the shuttle program. It is only recently that US/Europe private business had been able to take over some of that.
Missile defense works fine against rockets fired from Gaza into Israel but ICBMs with multiple re-entry vehicles are not going to be stopped by any missile defense system any country currently has.
"No, it's to ask for citations for the null hypothesis and/or blindingly obvious, while making huge claims that actually require evidence and providing none."
Huge claims like Russia having very few working nukes?
Are/were you a supporter of Brexit, perchance?
Are you willing to take that risk? I am not.
The bomb dropped on Hiroshima was 15 Kilotons, A thermonuclear bomb detonated in the 1950's was 10,000 kilotons. There are more powerful bombs today!
Even a limited exchange of these weapons, at that yield would kill billions of people from the initial detonations and the subsequent radiation. It would alter the climate of the planet to the point of invoking a new radioactive ICE AGE! (but hey, we won't have to worry about global warming!) It may not end all human life on this planet but it would change life for all the survivors into a dystopian existence like nothing you can imagine.
Oppenheimer, the "father of the atomic bomb" said it correctly! "Now I am become Death, the destroyer of worlds."
You children (and I mean any of you born after the 1970's) have no idea what these weapons can do!
What kept the peace for 70 years was that neither the US nor the Soviets were suicidal! Currently I cannot say that about either Putin or Biden!
We have 2 senile and mentally deficient old men running countries with vast nuclear arsenals! It is high time the sane men of the world do something about this. Hopefully, some brave sane men in Russia will do something.
More to the point, they have no delivery system that can reach past Warsaw, and even that's only if they launch from Belarus and get lucky.
Given that they still put people on the ISS, and deliver them home again, I'd be very surprised if they don't retain the capability to downgrade/overload some orbital rockets to deliver some other packages anywhere on the planet. Not efficient but entirely capable. That was the entire point of the space-race, remember?
A (getting people back safely) is much harder than B (one way delivery of warhead to 1km above target).
B is has undesirable, radioactive consequences for grandma / grandkids.
Let's all prove we can do A.
The problem is I don't think Putin cares about grandma / grandkids any more
You're forgetting the bit where there are missile defence systems. Sure, Russia can launch stuff. It won't get through. They were losing the race by the end of the Cold War, and have built _nothing_ in that line since, while the West has kept upgrading the defences.
A Cold War ICBM won't get through. Every one of the MIRVs will be destroyed. Zero chance of a single one even getting lucky and getting through to target.
Oh, lets see what the Wiki of a Thousand Lies says about that, shall we?
Other elements yet to be integrated into National Missile Defense (NMD) may include anti-ballistic missiles, or sea-based, space-based, laser, and high-altitude missile systems. The NMD program is limited in scope and designed to counter a relatively small ICBM attack from a less sophisticated adversary. Unlike the earlier Strategic Defense Initiative program, it is not designed to be a robust shield against a large attack from a technically sophisticated adversary
But overall it may be better to decide whether to run with "Russia has no nukes" or "Russia has no way of delivering nukes" or "Russia has ICBMs but they are old and totes won't work" or "Sure, Russia can fire nukes at the US but Star Wars worked like a dream and nothing will get though".
"As of early 2022, we estimate that Russia has a stockpile of approximately 4,477 nuclear warheads assigned for use by long-range strategic launchers and shorter-range tactical nuclear forces, which is a slight decrease from last year. Of the stockpiled warheads, approximately 1,588 strategic warheads are deployed: about 812 on land-based ballistic missiles, about 576 on submarine-launched ballistic missiles, and possibly 200 at heavy bomber bases. Approximately another 977 strategic warheads are in storage, along with about 1,912 nonstrategic warheads. In addition to the military stockpile for operational forces, a large number—approximately 1,500—of retired but still largely intact warheads await dismantlement, for a total inventory of approximately 5,977 warheads.1 (See Table 1)"
https://thebulletin.org/premium/2022-02/nuclear-notebook-how-many-nuclear-weapons-does-russia-have-in-2022/
> NATO will achieve absolute air superiority in a matter of hours
Air superiority won't remove the troops from the ground: that needs NATO troops. And that means an American army. And that will take 2 months to get into position to launch a counter attack.
Rather than put NATO troops into Ukraine, a better option would be to invade Russia from Latvia. A second front would force Russia to withdraw its troops, or do the MAD thing.
Perhaps, perhaps not - refer to the Budapest Memorandum
30 years ago, Ukraine handed over all its former soviet nuclear weapons for destruction/dismantling, with assurances of security from both NATO and Russia
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_weapons_and_Ukraine
"Ukraine held about one third of the Soviet nuclear arsenal, the third largest in the world at the time, as well as significant means of its design and production"
Russia has systemically breached every part of the memorandum. This is the last domino to fall. If it is ignored then all neighbours of nuclear states will feel compelled to arm themselves to protect against invasion
The four stage plan https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nSXIetP5iak
Afghanistan wasn't a success for us either
Yes that was my point, the last thing Vlad needs is another Afghanistan. An ongoing conflict with a country full of insurgents cannot be appealing to him. He is probably banking on a quick win and if it isn’t that easy, then what?
"Consider that their foreign policy since 1300 has been essentially 1000 miles of buffer to the west."
There, fixed that for you.
The reason is Genghis Khan's horde and the way they rushed in unopposed over the steppes, taking over the Rus (viking) princedoms in the 1250s in a matter of weeks
We've already heard from Boris, and it's still lunchtime.
Seizing the property of private individuals, many of whom don't even live in Russia any more, based on the actions of a Government they may not have voted for and/or which may have threatened their lives, would be illegal, immoral and downright stupid.
Let's not do that.
I take it you don’t follow what happens in Russia if as an Oligarch you don’t support, hide the stolen funds of Putin. Mikhail Khodorkovsky?Those Oligarchs are the ones who might be able to make him change his mind. Them or body bags coming back from the war.
So what’s your solution to a European sovereign nation being invaded by Russia? Roll over and play dead? I’d like to hear what you suggest.
"We are not the world's policemen."
But we should be. It's morally wrong to stand by while Putin destroys things and kills people, when we could so easily stop him. The world would be a much better place with a democratic, liberal, wealthy Russia instead of a totalitarian warmongering kleptocracy.
Care to name a single country where an externally imposed democracy has worked? How's Iraq looking these days? Or Afghanistan? Yes, it would be lovely if Russia was all warm and cuddly, but it ain't, and Mr Putin enjoys very strong popular support.
On a related issue, how hard would it be to cut Russia off from the internet? Or if someone (China?) continued to give them access, how hard would it be to drop all packets to and from Russia?
You won't hear my suggestions on here, because this is a tech site and not a military strategy one.
So let’s hear a technological one then.
Extra-judicial confiscation of assets is exactly what Putin would do. Forgive me for holding my own political leaders to a higher standard.
Who said anything about extra judicial? We’d get judicial approval obviously, maybe pass a law or two.
Seizing the property of private individuals, many of whom don't even live in Russia any more, based on the actions of a Government they may not have voted for and/or which may have threatened their lives, would be illegal, immoral and downright stupid.
Let's not do that.
Okay then we’ll just ban them from Eurovision and take away the Sochi Grand Prix. That’ll teach Mr Putin not to try and annex a neighbouring country killing innocent citizens in the process.
"Putin doesn’t give a flying feck what people think"
He really does care what people think, he has an inferiority complex that drives him to do this stupid shit.
He doesn't even allow women to wear heels around him as it just makes it obvious how short he is.
Please let us know, how to completely disable updates in Win10 or 11 without disconnecting entirely from the internet?
I think Windows users are basically forced to have them on at all times. Although I think it's possible to suspend them for a while. But I'm not sure if that applies to updates that describe themselves as "critical"
We should definitely stop using Steam for a while, too.
Any developer (especially a russian one) could be 'persuaded' to issue a dodgy update..
On the other hand, how many FOSS developers are there in Russia? It only takes one to slip something through.
I have no clue how likely that scenario is, but surely don't discount it out of hand. Running Linux, FreeBSD or even Mac doesn't guarantee anything. (Speaking as a FreeBSD user here)
Running Linux, FreeBSD or even Mac doesn't guarantee anything
I absolutely agree - you can still be exposed to a major clanger. The difference lies in the frequency that this happens, and the speed with which it is then addressed (Apple being on the slower side, but still fairly reactive if it's a biggie). Note: I am not assuming self-fixing which is possible but rarely advisable in a production environment.
This is why Windows would never come out on top in a honest TCO study: keeping up with the relentless flow of patches and the hours lost through mid work interruptions would place it at the bottom due to the sheer labour costs. Add to that the now ubiquitous attempts at syphoning data from users where the need to prevent that adds significantly to the platform maintenance burden and I really cannot see an honest justification for the continued use of Windows on the desktop.
Note in my original post I was O/S agnostic.
On my personal linux systems I turn off updates immediately I've done update and upgrade and loaded all the extra modules I will ever need. I could still app load most apps even 2-3 years later.
The way I see it, my systems are NOT part of the 'monoculture' of latest and greatest. So a hacker will have to downgrade his skriptkiddie scripts to attack, good luck with that n00bs.
> Yeah, because lots of unfixed security vulnerabilities are just what's needed.
I'd rather have unfixed security vulnerabilities on my firewalled system than be constantly pulling inscrutable updates from sources whom I do not know and therefore cannot trust. And even if I did trust, could be compromised.
This "update immediately" mentality is the problem tbh. It makes developers too lazy to test for, and fix security vulnerabilities BEFORE they release software, and it makes users too complacent so as to simply trust whatever updates are put on their plate.
"raining nukes" is unlikely to be how it plays out in the end
The most effective way to use a nuke isn't to drop it on a hardened target or a city
See Starfish Prime
Airburst - 10-20 miles up (not so high it fries all the satellites in orbit). The EMP will wipe out electrical and telecommunication grids for several hundred miles in every direction. Negligible fallout, blast or radiation damage on the ground - unfortunately anyone looking in the wrong direction at the time will need a new set of retinas
Very passé.
We have been at war with Russia ever since 1945..CND, Greens, BLM, Extinction rebellion, LBGT, the Unions, and finally every institution that was state funded is now in the hands of people who even if they do not know it are controlled from Moscow.
The EU is a clone of the USSR minus the tanks. Putin is moving the tanks in closer.
Russian soldiers wont even bother to self-identify as women to use female toilets. Oh dear.
We have been at war with Russia ever since 1945..CND, Greens, BLM, Extinction rebellion, LBGT, the Unions, and finally every institution that was state funded is now in the hands of people who even if they do not know it are controlled from Moscow.
Have you checked under your bed, recently? Presumably "every institution that was state funded" includes British Telecom, the NHS, MI5, Scottish Power and National Express buses. Well, it would explain a lot, but if the Boogieman really wanted to cause chaos he'd be funding UKIP, Britain First and the whole Brexit project.
I thought it was an open secret that Kremlin dark money has been funding the Right for years. Just follow the money for Tufton Street, Banks, Farage, GBNews etc. And even the old FN in France. Outstanding long game by Putin/Russia.
And here we are now. Divided, hamstrung and incapable of posing any united opposition to Russian aggression. Reagan & Thatcher must be spinning in their graves tonight.
Very passé.
We have been at war with Russia ever since 1945..CND, Greens, BLM, Extinction rebellion, LBGT, the Unions, and finally every institution that was state funded is now in the hands of people who even if they do not know it are controlled from Moscow.
The EU is a clone of the USSR minus the tanks. Putin is moving the tanks in closer.
Russian soldiers wont even bother to self-identify as women to use female toilets. Oh dear.
Somebody didn’t take their dried frog pills this morning.
Threads was a nice drama, but multimegaton city-killing nukes were history before the end of the 1960s
ICBM MIRV nukes are "dial a yield" 50-150kT devices and almost always set to the low end of that range
You're still going to have a very bad day if one goes off near you but the terror factor of the things was hyped up by a number of organisations/governments for various reasons
(Neutron bombs aren't anti-personnel weapons either. They're anti-weapon devices intended to airburst in front of incoming ICBMs and denature the fissiles, just like the old AIM1 "Genie" air-to-air nuclear missle was intended to work on incoming bombers - they lost their original purpose when the antiballistic missile treaty was signed and defending the Fulda Gap was proposed as an alternative use)
There are plenty of openly hostile networks in the world. They have completely fake registration data, they operate systems that seem to have no purpose but to be infected with malware, and they run brute-force attacks 24 hours a day, 365 days a year, year after year. Some can argue that these are not the exact point from where an attack is deployed but you better believe that they gathered the targets.
Yet Cogent, AT&T, Level 3, Telia, NTT, GTT and all the others have no problem peering with these networks. This needs to stop.
https://www.abuseipdb.com/statistics <-- almost always the same networks in the top 10. Russia has recently stepped up their game and knocked scum-host Frantech out of the list, but that one's still going at it too.
"older russians are taking them at face value because they don't know any better"
That is a rather ludicrous contention. Who, if not older Russians, knows about state propaganda being a dubious source?
Anyone who believes Kremlin propaganda does so because they want to believe. Older Russians want what Putin says to be true, even while they know deep down that it isn't.
Agreed,
the older ones would have been reading "Pravda" on the public billboard with an ENORMOUS pinch of salt, looking for the nuance that might hint that Brezhnev was on the way out, in between all the grain harvest forecasts from Ukraine.
I don't think a scratchy video would fool them one iota.
I argued here against Iran being thrown off SWIFT. I think Russia should be but it will have far less effect now because they learned from the Iran ban. SWIFT is an independent organisation based in Belgium, not London and NY as reported elsewhere, so the Iran ban was only possible when the US threatened to issue international arrest warrants for the senior staff/founders.
Every possible pressure should be brought on Putin swiftly, which means full sporting and cultural sanctions as well as financial sanctions. He is not fit to control more than half the worlds nukes,and our best hope is a palace coup.
Anyone who downvotes this post will face consequences they have never seen.
Pah SWIFT? It's all about the NFTs these days innit!
Original picture of Pres P riding shirtless on a horse into U̶k̶r̶a̶i̶n̶e̶ New Rossiya - you can own it* for just 1 meeeeelion dollars.
*Well you can show you're a fool with a permanent record of your foolishness locked away in 'the' (which?) blockchain forevermore.
The Nuclear Survival Handbook: Living Through and After a Nuclear Attack Paperback – 1 Jan. 1980,
I'm surprised you can still buy this online, it was a pre-prepper prepper bible with a lot of good knowledge but scary stuff too. Teenage Danny memorised the home-made napalm recipe, although to my credit I never used it. (Step1: Melt the polystyrene into the petrol...)
For Brits: What's the difference between a £1 bottle of Morrison's Ghost Chili and pepper spray? A water pistol.
For The Ukrainians, learn from the Finns. When bombing a park of military trucks then only light to sixth Molotov cocktail. Build up a decent puddle first.
I no longer wish to survive a nuclear war, at best I hope to survive until a nuclear war.
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The same day Russia declared war on and invaded Ukraine, China suddenly made a big song&dance about "forgiving" Australia and really we're open & friendly and let's talk and meet in the middle and it's all just been some silly little misunderstanding etc etc
Every major (successful) invasion China has made for many many centuries has relied on Distraction.
And their elites/parasites work in startlingly simplistic theatrical ways -- so simplistic that Westerners think there's much more to it than there is. There isn't.
So on seeing this batshit insane 180º flip by China after > half a decade of increasingly rabid attackdog, my immediate thought was: shit. They're shaping up for something. And soon.
Australia's out -- too far away from their forces' current dispositions, for now, and is not really a territory objective for China. But it IS a highish-profile problem very well known to all Western foreign-offices, so will be alerted to all of them, so a (minor) distraction. So...
Taiwan. Already a well-discussed-for-weeks-now high probability of opportunistic attack while USA's forces are split/distracted by Russia+Ukraine.
But I wonder if it could have just become a lot more certain?
Re-run of 1938 invasion of Czechoslovakia by Hitler's Germany.
UK and USA make gestures Russia makes for War with a constant military build up.
Russia unleashes overwhelming attack. Ukraine fight valiantly. UK and USA say we will not play with Russia anymore.
Where was the UK and USA offer of air support? Where is it now? Why are we paying for Carrier Strike groups and Submarine launched Cruise missiles?
Ah well not Poland next but Taiwan in the Putin - Xi two step.
The difference is, as with the events you refer to, we have a treaty with Poland.
Hell, the RAF is currently patrolling Polish airspace as a part of the treaty.
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