Ukraine Calls on Hacker Underground To Defend Against Russia (reuters.com) 44
The government of Ukraine is asking for volunteers from the country's hacker underground to help protect critical infrastructure and conduct cyber spying missions against Russian troops, according two people involved in the project. From a report: As Russian forces attacked cities across Ukraine, requests for volunteers began to appear on hacker forums on Thursday morning, as many residents fled the capital Kyiv. "Ukrainian cybercommunity! It's time to get involved in the cyber defense of our country," the post read, asking hackers and cybersecurity experts to submit an application via Google docs, listing their specialties, such as malware development, and professional references. Yegor Aushev, co-founder of a cybersecurity company in Kyiv, told Reuters he wrote the post at the request of a senior Defense Ministry official who contacted him on Thursday. Aushev's firm Cyber Unit Technologies is known for working with Ukraine's government on the defense of critical infrastructure. Another person directly involved in the effort confirmed that the request came from the Defense Ministry on Thursday morning. Further reading: Washington steels for Russian cyberattacks.
Hackers of the world unite! (Score:1)
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Re: no (Score:1)
Cyber attacks (Score:2)
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Re:Cyber attacks (Score:4)
Their military isn't particularly computerized, but their people, particularly their oligarchs, I'm sure have smart phones and use electronic banking which are vulnerabilities that could be exploited.
Re:Cyber attacks (Score:4, Interesting)
Surprisingly, I have not seen any reports of high tech weapons used by Russian troops. So there might not be anything to hack
Slashdot has reported twice [slashdot.org] in the last 10 days [slashdot.org] about (presumably Russian) cyberattacks hitting Ukraine, so it is happening. I'll agree that it seems like Russia hasn't rolled out the big cyber-guns for Ukraine, but having your banks, government, and military hit by cyberattacks in the span of about a week is going to disrupt business, hamper information dissemination, and hinder attempts at organizing a response.
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Apparently Russia isn't using high tech missiles because their surgical strikes are hitting civilian targets.
Re:Cyber attacks (Score:4, Interesting)
Surprisingly, I have not seen any reports of high tech weapons used by Russian troops. So there might not be anything to hack - it all analog tanks, analog AKs and piloted aircraft. So far, this is very 20th Century conflict. Perhaps Russia is concerned that NATO would get involved in the cyber warfare?
The cyber warfare doesn't involve weapons, it involves infrastructure. While Ukraine is defending itself from physical invasion Russian hackers are going after critical infrastructure (power, water, electricity, news) to make it harder for Ukraine to support its troops, communicate to the public, and to be just general a-holes.
I doubt the Ukrainian hackers would be of much help defending, they might however be of some use in hacking Russian infrastructure in return. Not sure how much use that would be however (and that's something that non-Russian nations could certainly play at anyway).
Re: Cyber attacks (Score:2)
ukraine is weak & the hackers better be in usa (Score:1, Troll)
ukraine is weak & the hackers better be in usa or other places where they will not be facing any prison time for hacking
Just give them your passwords (Score:2)
And they'll take it from there. No funny business! #PinkyPromise
You can create an army overnight (Score:1)
Same as you asking citizens to defend themselves against the invasion after imprisoning anyone who has violent tendencies.
Should we DDOS Putin ? (Score:1)
My first instinct is to say "no, attacking is bad". However: Russia has already done DDOS [theregister.com] and used data-wiping Windows malware [theregister.com] so they would just get a taste of their own medicine.
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rt.com (Russian news agency) has been DDOSed a few times in the last couple days, so someone is doing something.
I don't think there's anything left to defend (Score:4, Insightful)
Nobody cares as long as the oil, gas and economy keeps flowing. I wouldn't be surprised if Poland is next, NATO country or not. If your country doesn't have Nukes Russia is now eyeing it for military acquisition. Meanwhile China is flying warplanes over Taiwan.
This is the result of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars. American is weakened. When we gave into our bloodlust and let the dog wag us we started giving up sovereignty.
Now a good 30% of our population has shown they'd be fine with installing a dictator here at home so long as it's their dictator, and I've got people telling me with a straight face that voting shouldn't be too easy because the "wrong" sorts might vote (blissfully unaware that if they ever disagree with the people in power they'll instantly become the "wrong" sorts).
I don't know what to do about it. I do know that there's a non-zero number of those 30% here on
Re:I don't think there's anything left to defend (Score:5, Informative)
Let us not forget the con artist telling Ukraine the U.S. would withhold weapons until the country came up with a fake story about an investigation.
Then there was the con artist's attempt to get the U.S. out of NATO, his abandonment of Open Skies, his praise for Putin, including the most recent statement saying the invasion was a smart move, and of course hiding the translators notes when he met in private with Putin so we have no idea what backdoor deal he struck with the dictator.
Nothing says screwing over your own country like abandoning your friends and sucking a dictator's dick.
I like how you can't say it (Score:2)
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What if someone says they love Trump, would they get modded up? And by "love" I don't mean in a threeway with Trump and Putin thing, but in an admiration of Trump's nuance and insightful wisdom (inciteful?).
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And we had dumpkopfs on slashdot saying "if only we had stayed out of NATO like Trump wanted then Putin would be have been appeased." The CPAC conference going on currently is oddly quiet about the war. A lot of Republicans seem to be a bit unsure as to what the politically correct stance on the war is, as they normally just ditto whatever Trump says but Trump is saying some very crazy things.
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IMO people who endlessly complain about the way the withdrawal effort went in Afghanistan are absolutely arguing in bad faith because when pressed on whether we should have stayed for another 20 years or what conditions we should have left on you'll get a sputtering mess of contradictory solutions or infeasible fantasy scenarios.
The framing of the US abandoning it's allies in Afghanistan is just dishonest framing and double speak. Either we abandoned the Afghan army or we were stupid for leaving all that s
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Voting is already too easy, first you need a car to drive to the polling place because they shut the one down near you. Then you need to wait in line for hours because they shut others down too. This of course with a unpaid work day because Election Day isn't a national holiday. Now you get there, find out you were removed from the rolls in some stupid cleanup or your ID isn't one of the few required. If you are lucky and are on the rolls and have an ID then you get to vote on a digital machine without a pa
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Trump abandoned Afghanistan. The deadline for a pullout was written down. Biden actually delayed the pullout, but he was obligated to follow through with it.
The pullout was when we abandoned half-done in Afghanistan to participate in a war over made up rasons in Iraq.
And voting should always be easy in a democracy. No intelligence tests, no litmus tests, no loyalty tests. A democracy weakens itself if only the elite are allowed to vote. A democracy is based upon all the people because it represents all
You're being too charitable (Score:2)
It's why the right wing is so schizophrenic, able to support what looks like socialism in one breath while screaming about communism in the next. The policies are irrelevant, it's supporting the maintenance of hierarchy that's what matters. There must be some people at the top, some in the middle and some at the bottom (and of course never the
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>Biden's abandonment of Afghanistan gave Putin the go-ahead to do whatever he wants: the US made it clear, it won't spend blood or treasure to defend its allies. And it still hasn't.
This was clear from the minute Crimea blew over. Putin has had a plan to invade Ukraine for at least that long so you can't really put this on the abandonment of Afghanistan.
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I wouldn't be surprised if Poland is next, NATO country or not.
Dial down the Red Menace hysteria. Poland is an EU and NATO member.
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the west abandoned the Ukraine. We've already pulled back on locking Russia out of Swift, meaning the oligarchs have plenty of time to move their assets out of the way. We're not seizing any of their foreign owned property (wouldn't want them to stop investing, would we?). Those pipelines are shut down, but it's painfully obvious that in 6 months when this blows over and Ukraine is a Russian province / fiefdom that they'll be started right back up.
That's unfortunately the most the west is willing to do in the way of sanctions. Though I am hoping there's will for them to quickly pass some laws/sign some treaties that say that some of the nasty sanctions stay in place until all Russian forces are gone from Ukraine (including any that Putin is thinking of leaving to care-take his puppet government).
We do however still have the option of continuing to send guns and ammo to Ukraine, I don't think it's a fait accompli that Putin simply steamrolls Ukraine,
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Swift isn't for oligarchs, it's for the average Russian citizens. And it is seriously being considered by EU still, only it can't just be dicated to turn it off like it can be in Russia.
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Also it has just begun. And I believe that though the current government will certainly fall, the Russians will eventually lose, because they are acting on orders, and Ukrainians a
Sure! (Score:4, Insightful)
If I was a hacker, engaged in at least shady and possibly outright illegal activities, I would definitely hand my CV and a bulleted list of accomplishments to government agencies! Oh, wait... And that level of sarcasm can be at least doubled when I consider how vindictive Russia can be, given the likelihood of them winning this war.
I can absolutely see governments appealing to hackers in times of crisis. But asking the ones who are most accomplished and practised at the illegal, destructive stuff to declare themselves and join a team is perhaps not the best approach. Probably better to publish a wish list and let the hackers remain underground while they execute on it.
Re:Sure! (Score:5, Insightful)
If I was a hacker, engaged in at least shady and possibly outright illegal activities, I would definitely hand my CV and a bulleted list of accomplishments to government agencies!
Such things have happened before, where pirates were invited to join the defense. Most famous in the US is probably pirate Jean Lafitte at the battle of New Orleans (for which he and the men serving with him were commended for bravery and granted a pardon). But there are many other examples.
Were I the Ukrainian government, I'd definitely offer some pardons here.
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Were I the Ukrainian government, I'd definitely offer some pardons here.
Good call. I never thought of that, but it would be the smart way for them to proceed. And maybe that's exactly what they're doing - quietly, so as not to upset past victims of those they're pardoning.
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Lots of them do (Score:2)
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"If you're in the mob, go and break a few Russian kneecaps for us!" Same deal, no one is asking for ID first. Smugglers have most definitely be used to advantage in wartime before. If Russia has state sanctioned hackers on its payroll, it's only fair to fight back with the same weaopns.
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Why isn't RT.COM blocked by Youtube and Google? (Score:2)
Youtube and Google block things for the most childish of reasons but they are not blocking the aggressor's mouthpiece?
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They mostly block boobs. Putin is a boob. Therefore, should be blocked.
What are the implications for US citizens? (Score:1)
In the olden days, some US citizens joined foreign units like the famous Flying Tigers before the US entered WW2. That worked out well for them if they survived because the US *eventually* entered the war on that side. Assuming the USA doesn't turn tables and support Russia (bigger if than I would like) what are the legal implications of US citizens supporting people in this way? That and of course you're in Putin's list and could die in an "ordinary street robbery", but that's beside the point. War is
de facto act of war (Score:1)