Hacked Emails Reveal Russian Plans To Obtain Sensitive Western Tech

blando writes: A trove of emails provided to The Intercept detail Russian schemes to obtain a crucial component for military thermal-imaging systems. Though emails about the thermal imaging systems date back as far as 2006, the plans to acquire them began in earnest much more recently, in 2013. To try to hide Russian involvement, a company called Cyclone established a new company in the Republic of Cyprus. They did so with the help of a company called Rayfast, which was owned by three other companies itself. After obfuscating the new company's ownership and military ties, they reached out to several Western companies who worked with the technology.

Comments

Just...wow.

[Anonymous Coward]

FTA:"In April 2014, Viktor Tarasov wrote to the head of Ruselectronics, a Russian state-owned holding company, about a critical shortage of military equipment. The Russian military lacked thermal imaging systems — devices commonly used to detect people and vehicles — and Tarasov believed that technology might be needed soon because of the “increasingly complex situation in the southeast of Ukraine and the possible participation of Russian forces” to stabilize the region."

Are they saying for the last 30 years they have had "zero" military thermal imaging capabilities? Couldn't they have just bought a few off e-bay? Something doesn't fit here...

Alibaba is your friend

[Anonymous Coward]

"(Pentagon spokesperson Eileen Lainez confirmed that the Department of Defense had provided thermal imaging devices and night-vision goggles to Ukraine in 2014, along with a variety of other military equipment)."

http://www.alibaba.com/showroom/night-vision-goggles.html

I have to say I'm very skeptical, even a quick search shows Night Vision goggles are easy to obtain and mostly made in China, but then again it does refer to 'advanced imaging' non-cooled types and this is military kit on the sights of ground weapons not soldiers kit.

But when I search for the microbolometer-arrays non cooled chips, those are freely available too:
http://irthermalimaging.manufacturer.isp.org.cn/c1305084-thermal-imaging-module
http://irthermalimaging.manufacturer.isp.org.cn/c1305083-uncooled-infrared-detectors

I sooo want to believe this, Putin is an election rigging murderer no doubt. His popularity is fake no doubt. Ukraine is invaded by Russia no doubt, Crimea is not free and certainly did not vote massively to become Russian, no doubt at all that Russian soldiers are there, but as soon as the emails mentioned it was needed in Ukraine by the russian troops, it sort of went too far.

Like the bad guy giving away the plan to the good guy, in a movie just so the audience can understand the plot.

You know, a security company whose spokesman is its owner, reveals leaked emails from hackers revealing secrets full of names and plots, I sort of expect to see Wikileaks style details of the emails, not a novella from the security company showing the big houses of the Russians the way a Jame Bond movie shows the villains hideouts..

I'm still willing to believe this, but really i needs a Wikileaks dump of the emails.

What is the point?

[Karmashock]

Russia can't build any of that stuff even if they got the plans.

Their tech is mostly bluster and bravado at this point.

Take their new fighter jet... looks cool right? Well, that's about all it does with any competence. That is in fact its point. To look cool. As a weapons platform, it is a joke.

And that goes for the majority of the Russian armory. It is either some cold war rusting piece of shit that hasn't been upgraded with new sensors or weapons. Or it is some Potemkin village farce.

The Russians have their heads so far up their own asses that they're using mobile crematoriums to hide their own war dead from their own people in Ukraine.

Talk to a Russian about Ukraine. They'll swear that this talk of Russian soldiers in Ukraine is just western propaganda.

Never mind that literally everyone else contradict that from the Ukrainians to about a dozen NATO members to sat photos showing Russian tanks crossing the border... etc.

So what are the Russians going to do if they steal our tech? They're not competent enough to build it regardless.

Their economy is a joke... look at this:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...

So, they rank lower than Slovakia and Slovenia... below Greece.... you know, that country in the EU that everyone is laughing at for being incompetent.

Seriously, what is Russia going to do?

They talk a big game but Russia is the Black Knight of Asia:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?...