Toyota Suspends Domestic Factory Operations After Suspected Cyber Attack

Toyota said it will suspend domestic factory operations on Tuesday, losing around 13,000 cars of output, after a supplier of plastic parts and electronic components was hit by a suspected cyber attack. From a report: No information was immediately available about who was behind the possible attack or the motive. The attack comes just after Japan joined Western allies in clamping down on Russia after it invaded Ukraine, although it was not clear if the attack was at all related. Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida said his government would investigate the incident and whether Russia was involved. Kishida on Sunday announced that Japan would join the United States and other countries in blocking some Russian banks from accessing the SWIFT international payment system. He also said Japan would give Ukraine $100 million in emergency aid.

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[MightyMartian]

We've been down this road, though perhaps not quite in this way, before. The Prague Spring comes to mind of when the West pretty much had to sit by and watch a revolution get crushed by Soviet tanks. To some extent, Russia has spent the last two hundred years as a pariah state, with shifting allegiances (Alexander I startest out as Napoleon's BFF until he switched sides and joined the Quadruple Alliance), war between the Russian and British Empires duking it out in Crimea, Russia joining the Grand Alliance

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[RobinH]

That is a very interesting post. It certainly seems like Putin's made some kind of mistake, either in underestimating Ukrainian resolve, or underestimating the willingness of the world to punish Russia. It also seems odd that a high resource military like Russia would barge into a country without first establishing air superiority, and not bring enough troops to seriously hold the territory, particularly a city like Kyiv. It doesn't look like the Russian military is organized enough to actually pull this

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[MightyMartian]

At the end of the day, barring anything else, Ukraine cannot militarily prevent a Russian takeover. Even with what appear to be tactical blunders, Ukraine simply doesn't have the military strength to do more than give Russian forces a few black eyes. But there's pretty strong evidence that even early measures by the West and its allies are damaging the Russian economy. Russia's central bank has had to hike interest rates to stop a downward plunge of the Ruble, and as expensive as it is to maintain a standin

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[RobinH]

Totally agree. I'm skeptical of news about how well Russia is doing, as it's all propaganda from both sides, but nobody can argue the fact that Russia's invasion has been uncoordinated by any modern standard. As you say, now that the Ukrainians have proven that they're willing to stand up and fight, the entire Western world is going to ship them an endless supply of weapons and support, and Russia has no reasonable way to block that. I donated to the red cross' Ukraine fund on the weekend, but there are

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[jacks smirking reven]

While you are right about sanctions being a message to China I think there is a difference in that the economies of China and the US/EU are far, far more intertwined than those of Russia and the US/EU.

Yes, the EU relies on Russia for quite a bit of oil and some agriculture there is not nearly the volume of trade. $615B with the US alone with both imports and exports, $710B with the EU.

Russia by comparison accounts for $174B in total trade with the EU, although being a large amount of energy that trade coul

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[shanen]

Mod parent and GP up.

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[shanen]

Way more of a substantive response than the AC deserved, though I admit you got me to look at it, and as AC comments go, at least it wasn't a steaming pile. I still think you're encouraging the essentially antisocial behavior, but your comment justifies leaving the Subject alone.

Responding to your substance, your capsule history was interesting, but I think you went too lightly on the racist aspects. I've sort of forgotten the details, but the Russians were regarded as "contaminated". Many European racists

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[Darinbob]

But if Russia became western aligned itself, then it'd all be ok, right? I think this is a bit like the reactionary response when France decided not to go along without misguided war in Iraq and of course the extremists immediately started insulting France, calling it full of surrender monkeys, and the congress cafeteria started serving freedom fries. Absolute nonsense, the entirety of it, merely because our ally, who never stopped being an ally, decided not to go to war. So "aligned" in this context see

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[jellomizer]

The issue is, Russia has a large nuclear arsenal.

As much as I would like the see NATO and the rest of the civilized world to join all their Armies and fight Russia. That nuclear arsenal, that can be launched all around the world, means we can't back them into a corner where they feel threatened. This is True with the United States as well, as much as an other nation may want to attack the United States, they won't because of our Nuclear Arsenal.

I don't think Putin cares what the rest of the world thinks

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[nightflameauto]

Putin is an egomaniac that has bought his own bullshit for so long that when he decided the Ukrainian people were begging to be "saved" from the "Nazi" regime as he's been saying, that he probably couldn't be convinced by any of his advisors that were brave enough to disagree with him that this was not a good idea. He's unhinged and not thinking clearly. There's no way he thought through the consequences of his actions. Even if he had succeeded, it would still put Russia in a horrible situation on the wo

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[shanen]

On that aspect, the bizarre meetings with Putin's "advisors" caught my attention, leading to a bad joke:

"The master has become the student."

I'm thinking of TFG's bizarre ass-kissing cabinet meetings, though in Putin's new situation Putin might be as concerned with sharing the blame as with building the personal loyalty. In particular, I don't think the weirdness of Putin's security council meeting was just a case of nuances getting lost in translation. At least some of them were feeling at least somewhat we

It's a great time to be in cybersecurity!

[Somervillain]

"Hmm, you don't want those scary Russians disrupting your business do you? For a low monthly fee, we can protect your infrastructure!"

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[Ostracus]

Darn. There goes my kneecaps.

Possiblities

[Comboman]

In order of likelihood:

1. Russian hackers attacked Toyota supplier as payback for sanctions.

2. Other government hackers (North Korea, China, etc) think this is a good time to attack a rival and have Russia take the blame.

3. Non-government hackers working for another car company think this is a good time to attack a rival and have Russia take the blame.

4. Workers at the factory screwed something up and blame Russian hackers while they fix the problem.

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[Ostracus]

Future possibility. That everyone realizes that one shouldn't have relations with the internet without wearing a condom. Otherwise your infrastructure will catch an ITD (Internet Transmitted Disease).

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[oh_my_080980980]

I think you mean inverse order. Remember when SONY blamed North Korea and it was an inside job.

This really is a great leap forward for Humanity

[Hasaf]

In WWII closing a single factory would have required hundreds of bomber flights with an incredible number of noncombatant casualties. This is annoying, but it is much cleaner.

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[shanen]

Not so much. I recommend you read The Bomber Mafia by Malcolm Gladwell. But times have changed.

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[Hasaf]

It may surprise you, but I already read it. He is one of my favourite authors. That is what prompted the WWII comparison. As you certainly recall, at that time precision bombing didn't work out.

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[shanen]

Yes, it surprised me because of your mention of noncombatant causalities. That wasn't his focus in that part of the book, though it became the focus when they failed. However we now have the technology to target accurately, and I think all three of us (you, me, and Malcolm Gladwell) agree on that.

Still technically at war with Russia

[Megane]

I heard recently that Japan had never signed a peace treaty with Russia after WWII because of the Kuril Islands. [wikipedia.org] There have been attempts since the 1990s, but so far no progress.