Evidence of Russian Cyberwarfare Against Georgia 316
An anonymous reader writes "In what seems to be a repeat of what happened in July, a few news sites have mentioned that there is evidence of a campaign against Georgia. For example, both the government's and the president's sites are inaccessible, among other official websites. For some analysis, the RBN Exploit blog demonstrates various traceroutes that have failed to several sites. They also claim that the RBN (Russian Business Network cyber-crime organisation) are behind the attacks, and that 'Many of Georgia's internet servers were under external control from late Thursday,' before the actual war began. Finally, according to this Twitter account of someone in Georgia (written in Russian), he claims that 'Russia has blocked access to Georgian websites from within Russia' (rough translation)."
They hit CNN (Score:5, Funny)
After Google told them they were based in Atlanta, Georgia.
The Russians hit the truth. (Score:4, Informative)
To understand how Russian "justice" works, read the shocking story [washingtonpost.com] published by "The Washington Post" (TWP). Natalia Trufanova was driving a Zhiguli [washingtonpost.com] (a lightweight Russian car) with her family in Moscow in September of 2007. She was minding her own business and dutifully obeying the traffic laws. Then, suddenly, a motorcade carrying Supreme Court President Vyacheslav Lebedev and coming from the opposite direction entered the wrong lane -- the lane in which Trufanova was driving. A vehicle in the motorcade smashed into the Zhiguli, killing Trufanova and her family. The Russian police wrote a false report, claiming that Trufanov drove into the wrong lane.
TWP notes, "When angry witnesses started posting video on the Web clearly showing that it was the motorcade that was driving in the wrong lane, the lead investigator looking into the accident said that he didn't have access to the Internet."
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So soon we forget (Score:2)
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Putin is KGB. He is running Russia. He is running Russian media. That makes my process to doubt Russian reports from the start until proved otherwise.
This is a prime example of why we shouldn't outsource information technology work to places like Russia and China. What I think is scary is that the company that programmed the provisioning/network system for a major Canadian telco (starts with a T), and a significant number of other telco provisioning systems, outsources the work to Russia. How does it fe
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Here's some British coverage [dailymail.co.uk] for you. It looks like its a_real_thing to that woman in the photo.
Bullshit, BP says pipeline has not been bombed (Score:4, Informative)
The owners of the pipeline say it has not been bombed. See http://ca.news.yahoo.com/s/afp/080809/world/georgia_sossetia_russia_unrest_oil_bp [yahoo.com]
The report about the pipeline attack is almost certainly Georgian propaganda (unless it's simply unsubstantiated rumors) - and it looks like the British journos fell for it. But hey, in this modern world of journalism 2.0, who cares about truth and fact-checking, as long as you can get the pageviews?
Re:The Russians hit the truth. (Score:5, Insightful)
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The UK, the US and France, are pinpointing what they say is Russia's aggression as the key factor in the slide towards war, while Moscow insists Georgia is to blame.
Re:The Russians hit the truth. (Score:4, Insightful)
The daily mail is the UK equivalent of Fox news by the way
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"-We- didn't start the war"?
Sounds to me like all you're doing is eating a different brand of propaganda.
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You're obviously being spoon-fed by domestic propaganda when you feel able to assert without doubt that the Georgian military attacked Russian forces first. You seem to be an almost frighteningly complete example of how media can manipulate people. Russia has been bombing Georgia, something both sides agree on, yet you seem to think that the Georgians are responsible for the deaths and the carnage, and that Russia are the mighty saviours of South Ossetia.
Get real.
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You're obviously being spoon-fed by domestic propaganda when you feel able to assert without doubt that the Georgian military attacked Russian forces first.
And you aren't?
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No. I may be exposed to it through local media, but I'm not the one taking any of it as absolute truth.
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Anybody can close their eyes to facts they don't like. That hardly makes one an unbiased observer.
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Mind elaborating on where it is that I close my eyes to anything?
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Weren't you just proudly claiming to do just that?
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I can't see how you would arrive at that assumption. Treating any media reporting with a bit of scepticism isn't closing ones eyes to facts; it's merely taking into account the very real possibility of the reported facts being less than factual. This is especially likely in situations where conflicting reports exist. Such as this particular situation.
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You don't really come off sounding like you're saying "we can't be sure". You seem more like you're pushing the opposing view. If that's not the case, then I misread you, and I apologize.
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How about making one independent Ossetia out of the two Ossetias? Independent like "not under Russian rule"?
That's what _both_ Russia and Georgia don't want at any cost.
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The point of this entire discussion is that the facts are provided by unreliable sources, and put both sides in favourable light. Yours are no more genuinely factual than mine. The difference is, though, that your media is controlled by the government, and the government of your country has a history of altering any inconvenient truth to a justification for their actions, regardless of legality and morality.
You're blindly eating their propaganda, believing it to be genuine fact, and you're projecting your g
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What is it exactly that my point is? What I'm claiming is that you're asserting everything you say as being factual, despite being based off of historically inaccurate, biased, manipulative and propagandist media, and horribly unreliable "second hand eyewitness accounts", while suggesting that -I'm- the gulliable one for being sceptical about the accuracy of your claims.
You claim that I'm a troll, but you're so caught up in your "you're wrong, I'm right" game that you've completely lost track of what it is
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Funny that you should leave out ".. and horribly unreliable "second hand eyewitness accounts", while suggesting that -I'm- the gulliable one for being sceptical about the accuracy of your claims.." when citing my posts.
By your logic, my claims would trumph yours, had I been posting this from South Ossetia. Merit, evidence or insight into the conflict irrlevant. You also fail to acknowledge that I don't base any of my claims off of any claims made by media. You're either trolling this thread, or you're simpl
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Where do you see me claiming that Georgia never had troops in South Ossetia? It'd be somewhat strange for a sovereign nation not to have a military presence within its own borders. Because, you know, South Ossetia is Georgian sovereign territory.
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I was in the Okefenokee (spelling?) just before Thanksgiving of last year. I was off the main roads and out in "real" Georgia, not the Atlanta area or cities. I can confirm the above statement as being likely factually correct. ALL of the racks in the trucks had firearms.
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The Russian is also unsurprising, as most Linux zealots are hardcore Marxist-Leninists.
Wow, you're just as much of an asshole as twitter himself.
Of course they cut access (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Of course they cut access (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Of course they cut access (Score:5, Insightful)
they could do more serious damage to Georgian communications infrastructure
from what I understood, Russia just bombed a relatively important Georgian port and they are actively bombing a georgian town centre close to the border. I feel like Russia forces in the area are already bombing as much as they can. The whole Russian army isn't concentrated in that part of the world.
Anyway it was truly foolish for the Georgian government to attack the rebel region if they knew that their army was no match for the Russian forces...If they didn't know, they should leave the office at once. You didn't need to be a expert to understand that.
The truth is that Russia is about to seize two ex Georgian territories for some good reasons (oppressed minorities) and somes bad ones (Russia is historically interested by southern territories near the black sea...It all started in the XIX, see the crimea war). The current Georgian state cannot do much against it. They should concentrate themselves on economic recovery (there were good signs lately), diplomacy (looking for support in the west was a good idea...But it takes time...Such a strategy requires decades of hard work and diplomatic skills) and building a better future for their citizens.
I had always some sympathy for Georgia, they used to be the last european bastion in front of invaders of all sort (mongols, muslims, etc.), I truly hope they'll get the leaders they deserve.
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Anyway it was truly foolish for the Georgian government to attack the rebel region if they knew that their army was no match for the Russian forces...If they didn't know, they should leave the office at once. You didn't need to be a expert to understand that.
My guess is they thought the Russians wouldn't dare fight back too hard after the US voiced support for Georgia entering NATO. They probably overestimated what words are worth in western politics.
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There are enough air bases with bombers close enough to Georgia to bomb it back to stone age.
Fortunately, Russia doesn't want to do it.
Twitter | Google language tools (Score:2)
Twitter | Google Translate
http://translate.google.com/translate?u=http%3A%2F%2Ftwitter.com%2Fwardirect&hl=en&ie=UTF8&sl=ru&tl=en [google.com]
The Redcross (Score:5, Funny)
Times like these are when the red cross is most appreciated. They will likely soon be flying in C-130's full of porn and lol-cats jpegs. 'Round the clock flights will continue until the Georgian internet connections can be restored.
(additionally, the traceroutes could also fail because the routers and computers have been exploded by the russians with bombs from airplanes. this would be a worrying escalation of cyberwarfare).
How about a much simpler explanation? (Score:5, Interesting)
Georgia is a small republic with very little traffic to web resources under normal conditions. Now they are getting likely several orders of magnitude more traffic. And these are the consequences. But of course the "cyberwarfare" is much juicier piece for journalists to chew on.
Welcome to 21st century warfare... (Score:3, Funny)
...where astroturfing, sock-puppetry, slanted journalism and propaganda matters far more than the reality on the ground. Slashdot is a contested territory, and it looks like Georgia's propaganda troops have launched a first strike.
Not that I'm defending Russia here. The only reason Georgian astroturfers have overpowered the Russian ones on Slashdot is that the moronic Russian leadership, as usual, hasn't been investing enough resources in information warfare.
Re:How about a much simpler explanation? (Score:4, Interesting)
Please read the news once in a while. Russia has launched cyberattacks on smaller neighbors before, most notably Estonia. See: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cyberattacks_on_Estonia_2007 [wikipedia.org]
By all accounts, Russia and Georgia are both to blame for what's going on here. But if you look at the pattern of behavior in the past few years... well, we've seen Russian dissidents poisoned with radioactive sushi, Russian journalists assassinated, an opposition leader in the Ukraine poisoned with dioxin... Jesus H. Christ, wake up and smell the coffee already. Maybe we don't think we're in the next phase of the Cold War, but Putin pretty clearly does, and he's acting accordingly.
America has enough enemies in the world that we don't need to make another one out of Russia. And as an American, I don't see any real reason that the United States and Russia can't be allies, rather than enemies. But that doesn't matter; Putin quite clearly thinks otherwise, and that is the only thing that matters. Russia sees the West as a threat, and they are treating us (and the Western-allied Georgia) accordingly. This is not just Russia vs. Georgia, this is Russia vs. Georgia + EU + USA. And the question is, what are the EU and the USA going to do about it? The last thing the United States needs is more conflict and war, of course. But appeasing tyrants is generally not a good move, either.
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I wonder if Georgia made this move without informing the US first. Not that Georgia needs to receive the USA's consent before doing anything, but lets face it, Georgia is heavily relying on the United States influence should the conflict go south (and it is). This is one of those moments where Russia is testing the international community, and flexing its military muscle against an small nation that wants badly to join NATO. Luckily for Russia Georgia has not been given better access to NATO equipment (espe
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"But appeasing tyrants is generally not a good move, either."
The problem the U.S. has here is much of the world thinks Bush is a tyrant. Because he invaded Iraq under false pretenses, and condoned torturing people he doesn't really have any moral high ground to stand on at this point. I recall when Bush and the U.S. started lecturing Putin about issues with elections in Russia he shot back that the elections in the U.S., after irregularities in Florida, Georgia, Ohio and Alabama, weren't anything to be br
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Maybe I am showinf an arrogant bias but, is the IT infrastructure of Georgia redundant enough to resist a real-world conflict ?
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No, that's because they're using Microsoft web servers. Way too easy for script kiddies :)
No shit! (Score:4, Interesting)
"In what seems to be a repeat of what happened in July, a few news sites have mentioned that there is evidence of a campaign against Georgia."
A campaign against Georgia? You don't say! What tipped you off, the explosions? The Black Sea Fleet moving off the coast? The miles-long military convoys crossing into Georgian territory? The planes dropping bombs in populations centers?
Oh, the IP logs. Can't have a real war until Netcraft confirms it, I s'pose.
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Huh, go figure.
Great Jokes (Score:2, Insightful)
Everyone is making fun of the invasion of a democratic country?
Thats slashdot for ya i guess. Depends on which country does the invading.
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Nah. But just see how many people here get upset if you cut off their access to pirated pr0n, movies and tunes or even threaten the possibility.
Cheers,
Dave
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Do you mean Georgia, or South Ossetia? Because both have democratically elected leaders and parliaments.
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shouldn't that be "War of the Rebellion?" After all, slashdot was founded in Michigan.
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Organized crime (Score:2)
Is not the same to have a group of people that believing government sponsorized news decide by their own to cyber-attack a country, to being hired by or belong to the government to do that.
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What's the difference between the government and the Mafia?
One of them is organised.
Welcome to the New G-Mail, Tavarisch (Score:2)
In Soviet Russia... (Score:2)
Oh nevermind...
Go Georgia! (Score:2, Insightful)
Time to root for the little country trying to get its own territory back under its own control.
Puting's claims of "genocide" [bbc.co.uk] are pathetic and would only work on the already brainwashed Russians [libertyforum.org] themselves. Seeing these assholes trumpet their government's lies is just as scary as seeing Chinese bloggers' anti-Tibet postings [slashdot.org].
They are trying to paint South Osetia as some sort of Kosovo, where the evil Georgians deserve to be punished the same way Serbians did. Except, unlike then, there is no genocide or "
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Re:Go Georgia! (Score:5, Interesting)
Note: not saying that what happened in Kosovo was all right by any means, my point is that the parallels between the two situations are entirely justified and they expose hypocrisy by the west. There is hypocrisy in the Russian position as well but at least they pay a lip service to preservation of territorial integrity (as per international law) in both cases.
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What? Do you have any idea how many moslem women were systematically gang raped by serbian forces over the course of their captivity? Have you not seen pictures of the mass graves of their husbands? Do you really think NATO went to war for ideals like the ones coming from Putin?
And like others have stated, just because there is no "good guy" in this conflict doesn't mean we cannot put correct labels on the respective atrocities being committed by either side. Georgia bombed and killed 1500 civilians in thei
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Genocide is only genocide when you have, you know, genocide. Otherwise at worst it's attempted genocide. Murder is bad no matter what you call it, but there's times when a label is appropriate and times when it isn't. Even using the word genocide is similar to invoking Hitler - it may be warranted, but it is polarizing. That doesn't mean you shouldn't do it, but you should be correct. Killing 1500 civilians isn't genocide unless you're destroying an entire people outright - it's enough to call it an atrocit
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No — and I tried to forestall this argument, that Putin has put into your head. Unlike Russia, US was not justifying its actions by giving Kosovars citizenship. That's was a difference in method. The goal is different too — unlike Russia, US did not gain — nor planned to gain — any territory. If you are still seeing parallels, you need to remove those glasses, that Russian propaganda gave to you — the "parallels" mus
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There are no good guys in this war. (Score:5, Interesting)
This may be hard for an American mind to grasp, but *there are no good guys here*.
Georgians are not good guys. Their goal is to militarily crush a national independence movement and to subjugate a people who hate the Georgians' guts. They've been planning this blitzkrieg operation for years (a nation doesn't increase its military spending by a factor of 30 if they aren't planning to invade somebody.) They cynically violated ceasefire terms, used massed artillery to bombard residential areas (killing ~1400 Ossetian civilians in one day), and were ethnically cleansing Ossetian villages. Now that their military effort has failed, they've launched a massive propaganda offensive to convince ignorant westerners that white is black and that a nation that launched an offensive war is somehow a victim.
But Russians ain't good guys either. Instead of trying to limit the killing, it looks like they are escalating the conflict by supporting the Abkhazians in Kodori. They are cynically using the excuse of protecting Ossetians from genocide to conduct a massive bombing campaign against Georgia's military infrastructure. And Russia has neither the desire nor the technological capability to limit collateral damage from its bombs.
What you are seeing is, essentially, a small bully being bullied by a bigger bully.
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Weeeelll....actually it's more like Russia has been planning this for years. Those Ossetian peaceniks you talk about opened fire across the "border" at Georgian villages, knowing Georgia had vowed to protect their territory. Of course they wouldn't have done this without knowing Russia had an invasion plan ready.
Or do you really believe a country whose leadership insists that "we can't control this, our volunteers have taken action", while fighter jets and bombers are flying about and tank columns are rol
Re:There are no good guys in this war. (Score:4, Insightful)
No, Russia was not planning this for years - primarily because this war significantly weakens Russia's position. Russia's main goal is to keep Georgia out of NATO. To do so, all it had to do was sponsor the Ossetian and Abkhazian independence movements (nations with unrecognized de-facto independent provinces are not allowed to be NATO members). But now that Russia has sent an army brigade into South Ossetia, the Ossetian independence movement no longer looks genuine (some Western observers have compared it to a Russian land-grab), and as a result, there is now a good chance that Georgia will be let into NATO. Given that starting this war would make it much harder to achieve Russia's foreign policy goals, do you really think Russia would have wanted to start it?
The invasion of Ossetia was a very shrewd move on Georgia's part. Massive military retaliation was the least bad of several bad response moves that Russia had at its disposal.
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I'm sorry, but WHY bombing Serbia to "protect" "innocent" albanians in Kosowo is "right", and trying to protect osetinian people is wrong? Pay attention, that S.Osetia had "de facto" independence from 1992, and until Georgians got US weapons and training they have not tried to attack it. Kosowo had not any indepence. Or, why "liberating" Kosowo is "good" and deliberating Serbska Kraina (Serbian republic in Kroatia) is good too?
Oh, of course there is Afganistan and Iraq. Why Soviet Union got "Evil empire" t
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I concur, wholeheartedly.
Lithuanian President's Website (Score:4, Informative)
http://www.president.lt/en/news.full/9475 [president.lt] [Joint Press Release on the Lithuanian President's Webpage]
I know it's not so slashdotty, but it's relevant to the conflict in general and interesting nonetheless.
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Latvia, Estonia, Lithuania, and Poland -- where have I seen this list before?
Oh, that's right, it's the list of countries that had sucking up to US and taking political potshots at Russia as the cornerstone of their foreign policy since 1991. With such famous successes as celebrating Estonian Nazi volunteers (Estonia, obviously), providing torture camps for their new American friends (Poland), harassing Russians traveling between a small Russian exclave accessible only through their territory and the rest o
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1. Russia occupied (occupied is not even the right word since occupation is temporary, but their troops decided to stay) all these countries for almost 50 years. They prefer US for a reason.
An equivalent of your arguments as applied to US history: "Free Texas!!!"
Every time those three tiny Baltic countries change "ownership" (no matter in what manner and how peacefully) they suddenly discover that their previous "masters" occupied them for decades or centuries. In 50-100 years they will claim that they were duped into being "occupied by EU".
2. In 1940-s they had to choose between joining Germany or Russia. If you think anybody knew at that time about Hitler's workings you are dead wrong and by the way - soviets at that time slaughtered far more innocent people than Nazi Germany, but the winners are not judged in a war. So they just chose what seemed lesser of two evils at the time.
WTF are you talking about? Nazi volunteers in Estonia? They were occupied by Nazi at the very beginning of the war, thus "reversing" the long-decried Molot
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I don't think, Soviet Communists were fond of Wheaties in 1991.
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Thanks a lot for that link. It restores some of my trust in humankind.
Re: Translation (Score:2, Informative)
Good translation, and thanks for the twitters.
The person also mentions that protesters are out in Tbilisi, notwithstanding Russian bombing runs, that Russian hackers are attacking any news site that relates what is really going on in Georgia, that he has asked some hacker friends to attack CMI (rough translation of a Russian news site) and they have (seemingly) complied, that he hears rumblings - the light has been knocked out, as well as telephone towers and no TV exists now, and finally asks for humanity
Relevant Charles Stross short story (Score:2)
Hell, I'd take what he depicts there to the usual government-sanctioned mass-murder type of war...
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My thought exactly, it's a good book describing more or less what happen in Estonia. Using fools to attack (basically telling lots of people on blogs to do things that are not that effective on its own, but in the large picture it does something..
A fifth column called the mob? (Score:2)
The appropriate authorities were alerted to the danger of this becoming a national security risk as growing sophistication on the part of the perpetrators, if not held at bay early on, would allow them to wreak havoc on critical infrastructures "at their fingertips", as the bot h
Ah I see now... (Score:2)
THIS is why 4chan is down, right?
--
BMO
Halting State (Score:2)
Sound just like a good SciFi book read, where you use lots of useful fools to take political action.
Halting State [wikipedia.org] by Charles Stross
Not that anyone read stuff this long down on slashdot...
Why Is Anyone Surprised? (Score:5, Informative)
Anyone who is surprised at this is probably unaware that disruption, denial and subversion of communications is a common factor in all modern (as in more modern than two groups of grunting and growling rock throwers) warfare. Telegraph and phone lines got cut. Radio got jammed. Alexander had fires built upwind of enemy columns to make it hard for them to see each other easily. The US Army confiscated the radio of the British ham operator on Grenada that was broadcasting a running commentary of infantry firing over the heads of the medical students being "rescued". The US news broadcast footage clearly showed them being forced to run under a line of firing (most likely blanks) M-16s; the early news shows broadcast the ham operator's reports along with the footage, but his reports were absent from the late news broadcasts.
Command and control (C2) refers to the ability of military commanders to carry out strategy and tactics. The addition of Communications (C3) refers to inclusion of the ability to carry out C2 without being present on the battlefield and the ability of units to coordinate over distance. That's the US version, the NATO version of C3 being "Consultation, Command and Control", just a different label for the same process. It's now frequently referred to as C4 because it includes computers. Since they are used for more than communication, the fourth C is not redundant. The other thing they're used for is data analysis for intelligence generation, so the "I" in "C4I" *is* redundant. And all the other extensions out to C4ISTAR is just showing off.
Being "cyber", it's pertinent to /. but it's not news unless one assumes that one particular form of communication should be immune to this "time honored tradition".
IT.Sec.Con Insight (Score:2, Interesting)
president.gov.ge took down it's MySQL database temporarily during the attack and changed it's front page during the downtime as an effort to reduce automated attacks upon it's initial page.
The National Bank of Georgia took down it's images temporarily when it was attacked producing text-only pages. It has since restored them.
There is no access to The Ministry of Foreign Affair's website, I have no inside information on what occurred but when the attacked start I do know they purposely turned off web service
DarthLion (Score:5, Funny)
Big Mac Thesis: No two nations with McDonald's franchises have ever gone to War
It seems like this rule is going to be broken.
McDonalds Moscow vs MCDonalds Tbilisi
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Nonsense. How can Russia go to war with itself? ;)
The new crop (Score:2)
The new crop of Russian trolls on slashdot seems to be quite large and very vocal. I'm seeing a disproportionate number of posts attacking both Georgia and anyone who seems to support the Georgians. I have no idea if the Russians are really using the RBN to engage in cyberwar with Georgia as per the original article. A few posts note some legitimate reasons why various Georgian web sites are down or inaccessible. On the other hand, the number and vehemence of the pro-Russian posts even just here on slas
Georgia blank on Google Maps? (Score:3, Interesting)
Anyone else seeing Georgia, Armenia and Azerbaijan as blank areas with no towns or roads in Google Maps? The change happened sometime in the last few hours.
Re:Georgia blank on Google Maps? (Score:5, Informative)
Anyone else seeing Georgia, Armenia and Azerbaijan as blank areas with no towns or roads in Google Maps? The change happened sometime in the last few hours.
Umm...WRONG!
As someone who was born and raised in Armenia and often visits Google Maps to see if the map data or satellite imagery has been updated, I can definitively say that throughout the entire existence of Google Maps, all three Transcaucasian republics have always been blank with no road and city data.
Russians cyberwarfare? How is it that (Score:2)
the Russian state news agency (RIA Novosti) [en.rian.ru] web site is out since this morning? Their two DNS servers (her.rinet.ru, her.rian.ru) seem to have dropped off the face of the earth. Seems someone is might be engaged in cyberwarfare against them, doesn't it?
Twitter - English (Score:3, Informative)
I don't blame you. (Score:2)
--points at World War I
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A WW is unlikely for a simple reason: nukes. There won't be a world war simply because it won't have a winner (at least not one among fighters.)
Re:The Spark (Score:5, Insightful)
"I have a bad feeling that this conflict is going to spread,"
You're young. People always get a little jittery when an invasion happens somewhere and they're not the ones behind it. Now you know how the rest of the world feels.
"catalyzing all the violence that has been the undercurrent of world politics in the past few years."
Except that, if you turn off the television from time to time, you'd see that things are still rather peaceful compared to recent history.
"A possible world war."
It's difficult to have a world war without two large international factions aligned against each other. It'd be difficult (to say the least) to determine common enemies in the smattering of brushfire regional wars we're seeing.
Heck, what we're seeing in Georgia right now stands out because it's just so damned old skool: using a fifth column to destabilize a neighbor to soften them up for some good ol' fashioned land-grabbing. You gotta give credit to Putin, he knows his stuff.
Re:The Spark (Score:5, Interesting)
In 1991, when Georgia seceeded from the soviet union, a civil war followed in which these two provinces separated themselves from Georgia.
Historically, when a province or state seceeded from another country, there has rarely been unanimous agreement as to exactly where the new border should be. Take as an example a certain secession attempt in the western hemisphere in 1861.
Quite often the province borders aren't drawn along ethnic lines, sometimes they're even completely arbitrary. For example the borders between Croatia and Serbia and Bosnia were the one time border between the Austrian and Turkish empires.
In the last two decades, a number of provinces have seceeded from larger eastern european countries, and every time the international community ("the west") was quick to recognize the independence, and the new borders exactly as the breakaway province claimed them, disregarding any claim by the other side as imperialism.
The war in Bosnia for example was a result, as a large chunk of the new country felt more Serbian than Bosnian, and attempted to break away from Bosnia by military means.
More such conflicts (and probably wars) are almost certain, as about 15 million Russians live in former Soviet republics (up to 30% of the population in some), many of whom presumably would prefer to be part of Russia.
The same situation took place in the countries of the present EU as nation states took form in the 19th century, which was followed by about 100 years of terrible wars, and ultimately settled by ethnic cleansing and assimilation politics on a massive scale. (15 million ethnic Germans were deported from central and eastern Europe after WW2, for example, forever ending any German territorial claims)
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"In the last two decades, a number of provinces have seceeded from larger eastern european countries, and every time the international community ("the west") was quick to recognize the independence,"
Because more often than not those eastern countries maintained their borders solely by force of arms. Practically since inception, Yugoslavia had been a state dominated by Serbian people and Serbian interests, with the ruling Serbian elite viewing the other nationalities as racially inferior, imposing Serbian l
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Because more often than not those eastern countries maintained their borders solely by force of arms. Practically since inception, Yugoslavia had been a state dominated by Serbian people and Serbian interests, with the ruling Serbian elite viewing the other nationalities as racially inferior, imposing Serbian language, customs and religion on the rest. The eventual ethnic cleansing campaign initiated by Belgrade in the 1990's as Serbian power over the state waned is a pretty good indication of how Serbians felt about their "fellow" Yugoslavs.
Your facts seem to come from a parallel universe...
Tito was a Croat, and under his 40 year rule it was practically forbidden to call oneself Serb. Serbian, Croatian and Bosnian people are of the same race and speak the same language. To an outsider they're completely indistinguishable, and I personally never understood what the fuss was about, but that's up to them, not us. Ethnic cleansing is something all sides are guilty of. All ethnic Serbs have been forcibly removed from Croatia and Kosovo for example.
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Re:How about when the government is net-based? (Score:4, Insightful)
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...where would you put a screen door on an M1A1?
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I think a BMP-1 [wikipedia.org] would be a better example for this part of the world. And the screen would go on the back, where the door is.
Yep, that's what the Georgians use. 149 with reactive armor in 2008. 40 in 2007. Originally 667 were inherited from former USSR in 1991. 80 BMP-1 and BMP-2 IFVs were claimed by the Abkhaziyan Army and the same amount by the South Ossetian Army. But Russia still has 1,543 in active service and more than 9,057 in reserve.
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Well, yes. But a BMP-1 has very different access points to an M1.
Screen-hatch, perhaps...