Slashdot Mirror
Russia's Rise To Cyberwar Superpower (dailydot.com)
"The Russians are top notch," says Chris Finan, an ex-director at DARPA for cyberwar research, now a CEO at security firm Manifold Technology, and a former director of cybersecurity legislation in the Obama administration. "They are some of the best in the world... " Slashdot reader blottsie quotes an article which argues the DNC hack "may simply be the icing on the cyberwar cake": In a flurry of action over the last decade, Russia has established itself as one of the world's great and most active cyber powers. The focus this week is on the leak of nearly 20,000 emails from the Democratic National Committee... The evidence -- plainly not definitive but clearly substantial -- has found support among a wide range of security professionals. The Russian link is further supported by U.S. intelligence officials, who reportedly have "high confidence" that Russia is behind the attack...
Beyond the forensic evidence that points to Russia, however, is the specter of President Vladimir Putin. Feeling encircled by the West and its expanding NATO alliance, the Kremlin's expected modus operandi is to strike across borders with cyberwar and other means to send strong messages to other nations that are a real or perceived threat.
The article notes the massive denial of service attack against Estonia in 2007 and the "historic and precedent-setting" cyberattacks during the Russian-Georgian War. "Hackers took out Georgian news and government websites exactly in locales where the Russian military attacked, cutting out a key communication mode between the Georgian state and citizens directly in the path of the fight."
Beyond the forensic evidence that points to Russia, however, is the specter of President Vladimir Putin. Feeling encircled by the West and its expanding NATO alliance, the Kremlin's expected modus operandi is to strike across borders with cyberwar and other means to send strong messages to other nations that are a real or perceived threat.
The article notes the massive denial of service attack against Estonia in 2007 and the "historic and precedent-setting" cyberattacks during the Russian-Georgian War. "Hackers took out Georgian news and government websites exactly in locales where the Russian military attacked, cutting out a key communication mode between the Georgian state and citizens directly in the path of the fight."
But, it fits a narrative I suppose. Lots of security companies who have a narrative they want to sell and lots of Twitter accounts who try to appear credible retweeting it wildly for the same. But of course, we all know an IP address can be mapped to a particular identity.
In the US, we talk about getting rid of our defensive agencies- the NSA is about half in charge of cyberdefense- and don't even consider attack. My proposal is we offer a $1 billion bounty to anybody that can blow the Great Firewall open. That'll show them.
Meanwhile, in the real world, the USA is the first country which has developed and deployed a first-strike cyber-weapon.
That is known of by the masses. And it failed in the fact that the creators relied on the date setting of the computer to delete itself. Had they done a better job, no one would have ever heard of Stuxnet. Who knows what else preceeded it.
Slashdot mobile ads sent me to a phishing page that tried to pass off as Verizon.
Way to go Slashdot!
Oh noes, the scary Russians want to hack our computers and steal our data. For our own protection, we must give up all our freedoms and give our data to the NSA. The children who must be thought of, the terrorists, the druggies, and the pedophiles welcome scary Russian hackers into the fold.
Don't waste your vote! Vote for whoever you want, unless you live in a swing state it won't matter anyways
The Democrats can't blame their own crappy practices for their problems, so they blame Russia. They can't blame China because China has given Clinton too much money.
I came here for news for nerds, not to read the latest press release from the Clinton campaign. This is pretty much the 5th story ,correction 8th or 9th that is directly in line with press releases from the Clinton campaign https://slashdot.org/index2.pl... .
ABC,CBS,CNN,NBC,NYTIMES and Politico were all colluding with DNC but you're going to cite Politico on basically the same story.
Fuck sakes the Slashdot editors posted a orange story about Michael Moore going off on Trump but not a red hot story about twitter killing the hashtag #dncleaks?
For A) Clintons' computers are a joke for running on Windows 95 with NO antivirus and NO firewall, protected only by a good-hope faith (they're too cheap to buy a real one), and for B) Russians have always been very well educated in mathematics, a matter most hated by all of north-american students (when not flipping hamburgers for a penny per hour, they prefer softie humanistic gender studies where strict logic is unnecessary and only positive emotions are needed in order to graduate). For C) I choose "cyrillic" hacking keyboard, which can be found being used anywhere from Ukraine, over Bulgaria up to Serbia.
List of countries using "russian" hacking keyboards:
Belarus
Bosnia and Herzegovina
Bulgaria
Kazakhstan
Kyrgyzstan
Macedonia
Mongolia
Montenegro
Russia
Serbia
Tajikistan
Ukraine
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cyrillic_script
We thought russia hacked air force one and then it turned out later it was just some guy named George Lasco?
Minimum threshold fixed. Thanks!
The way Iran installed Regan.
Block all access from russia to the rest of the internet.
All just a smoke screen to stem the outrage when it is revealed Hillary Clinton's email server was, indeed, hacked by Russians as well. Hell, her server was an open smorgasbord of secrets for the worlds state funded cyber-units.
When that happens it will be "See, see, see Trump and the Russians are against po' whittle Hillary. Those awful terrible White Men!" (But let's not mention the 143 MILLION dollars Putin gave the Clinton's in exchange for uranium. Look it up.) ~
Shut up, dipshit. Nobody is interested in this. Vote Clinton in 2016 or we will know.
the U.S. is good at that. Don't listen to a word of it.
Yet another story that mentions the DNC hack and carefully avoids mentioning the extremely damaging contents of the emails. The Democrats are really, really good at this game. You push news you don't want out of the news cycle by flooding it with other, irrelevant news. They are putting on a master class in how to get everyone to stop paying attention to the man behind the curtain. Their power extends even here to Slashdot, where there has been a constant barrage of stories mentioning Russia and Trump but little about what was actually in the emails.
This was no ordinary hack, the freaking chairwoman of the DNC has already resigned over it and more resignations will be coming in the days to come. The Democratic Party is not what everyone thought it was.
They ridiculed an African-American woman named LaQueenia Gibson. Yes, the Democrats did this. They wanted to use use Bernie Sanders' religious beliefs against him in the Democratic primary. They blocked off roads to an event the opposition was hosting. Does any of this sound like Third World banana republic bullshit to you? That's because it is. And it really happened, here, in America.
And let's not forget their greatest crime: subverting the democratic process and the people's will in favor of a crooked, rotten career politician. Disgusting. It's like watching a friend you've known for years suddenly start kicking the crap out of a stray dog. The mutt is howling and crying but he just doesn't stop. No wonder they want to change the subject to Russia. Articles like this help and are part of the whole rotten problem.
Shutting down free speech with violence isn't fighting fascism. It IS fascism!
Calm down and pay attention before you open your mouth and spread nonsense you will regret, OK? There are things you should be aware of.
First of all, Hillary will win the elections. No "ifs", no "buts". She will win. Remove any doubt. She will be the President for the next 8 years. The sooner you accept this, the better.
Second, the internet is about to become very, very different from what you know. Computers are about to become very, very different too. The "safe computing act" (it will probably have a longer, catchier and acronymizable name) will take from you many pesky "choices" you don't really need and that pose security risks to the rest of us. General purpose computers will be illegal within 2 to 4 years. Don't worry, they won't come door to door to confiscate them or give any amnesty period, they will simply stop selling them or spare parts. Tablets and smartphones have been wiping the floors with PCs anyway so nobody will notice. In time, connecting to the internet without a "certified" device will become impossible.
Third, we'll go to war with Russia. We WILL go to war with Russia. There is no doubt. It will take years but in the end we will prevail and Europe will be a US protectorate. Think about what it will mean for our economy: 600 (more with the new countries that will have no choice but to join the EU) million customers, all at the disposal of the US economy. Forget Trump and his empty promises, Hillary will indeed make America great again, by giving the whole world no choice but to buy American.
So, that's it. Vote right. Be a part of it. There is no being out. Being against would be... Unwise.
Seems like Red Scare 2.0 has been rolled out along with a brand new version of McCarthyism.
You forgot all the stories in there about how they own the media here. The Washington Post let them send donors to their party, though it was kept off the DNC's donor price list, and the lawyers said no to it. They called the CEO to make them apologize when someone on Morning Joe said something they didn't like.
The media is completely owned by them. There is no 4th estate any more. They're happy to cover up crimes against the American people as long as it suits their interests.
Shut up, dipshit. Nobody is interested in this. Vote Clinton in 2016 or we will know.
Just like they knew about Vince Foster, with the same result. Yep. ~
God, I love politics. On one hand we got the FBI and cronies wanting encryption weaken to make their job easier, and on the other hand, we got a big cyber threat from Russia/China.
Which one is it you fuckers?
Be seeing you...
And what most people in the West don't realize is that the vast majority of Russians side with him on this.
Russia has been invaded over and over again. It informs the national mindset, and fundamentally ingrains the urge to have a strong Russian military, and to retain bordering nations as neutral buffer states.
Dems are shown to be a bunch of corrupt elitist assholes - and they deflect from that by blaming Russia with the same gravely serious tones they used to tell you about Saddam's WMD's.
The people to fear here are the Western Exceptionalist Five Eyes. They're the ones trying to tap every communication from every person on the planet, not the Russians.
"The Russians are top notch," says Chris ...
Russia can not even produce a computer or a smartphone. These fairy tales are being generated by lobbying firms to justify spending of billions on cyber-war crap-ware. American people are so gullible.
Every state is attacking every other state. Some are attacking themselves.
It's the ultimate assymetrical warfare. And hugely successful.
deleting the extra space after periods so i can stay relevant, yeah.
>lobbying firms to justify spending of
>billions on cyber-war crap-ware
Most of cyberwar crapware is made by Russian companies
Trump's hair is the 8th wonder of the world!!!
'Slashdot reader blottsie quotes an article which argues the DNC hack "may simply be the icing on the cyberwar cake"'
There is no evidence that the DNC hack was carried out by the 'Russians'.
You have been warned to stop pumping bullshit.
The most of security crapware is made by Russians...
...yet the peasants living standards are low or complete shit. And God help you if you are poor or homeless.
Russia's been there a long time and the United States seems to be on a race to get there.
You're an idiot if you believe that.
Give your boxes to symantec, see where they leave you.
...on people's necks are comming and only the chosen Good_People will get the key to free their necks. Brexit and the DNC hacking are divine signs of the upcomming Alockopyse, so repent so you won't spend an eternity with the Cruise Ship Boat Lock padlock stuck on your neck!
So, Mitt Romney was an idiot for calling Russia a threat 4 years ago. But now, we have a new narrative to push: the Russians are helping Donald Trump beat Hillary Clinton by releasing emails from the DNC. As part of that, now we have to push the idea that Russia has a badass hacking army that's a threat to the US. Is that about right?
Do you have ESP?
We are ready to insert those taunting viruses into their Apple Macintosh powered motherships. The aliens will lose their marbles simply by trying decipher the Cyrillic alphabet.
By coincidence, I see a lot of spammers posting links to this story in the last 24 hours. And the only evidence to prove the article's case is one guy's personal anecdotes of noticing some people he thinks might be Russians posting comments positive to Trump.
By coincidence, I see a lot of spammers....
Says AC...
Russian hackers tend not to be too reliable or team oriented. Just my 2c.
Just bullshit.
Go ahead, and count the Russian names in lists of contributors to sophisticated open source projects. What percentage would that be? About 2%.
Go ahead, and count top tier quality open source projects build by Russians - nginx, tarantool... oops.
Well, in a impoverished, third-world, highly competitive and highly criminalized economy there are no wonder that Russians are champions in porn, virus/trojan/ransomware producing, online scams, etc. But the quality of these is in 99% of cases is crap, which reflects the situation in open source contributions.
Most of Russians are uneducated, marginalized underclass - do not expect great wonders from them. It is a third-world country.
There are may be a dozen or two of top-tier hackers with real skills and deep knowledge. That's all.
It's interesting to see the narrative evolve on this.
At first, Russia was suspected of hacking the DNC. Then, the hacker used a Russian VPN. Now, "Russians are great hackers, for example they hacked the DNC."
It goes from perhaps, to flimsy evidence to 'everyone knows they did it'.
https://memegenerator.net/instance/70468564