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Ukraine is hit by a massive cyberattack that targeted government websites [Dated 14 Jan.]
Dozens of Ukrainian government sites have been hit by an ominous cyberattack, with hackers warning people to "be afraid and expect the worst."
The attack took over websites of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Cabinet of ministers and security and defense council, posting a message on screens in Ukrainian, Russian and Polish that read: "Ukrainian! All your personal data was uploaded to the public network. All data on the computer is destroyed, it is impossible to restore it."
"All information about you has become public, be afraid and expect the worst. This is for your past, present and future," the hackers said.
"As a result of a massive cyber attack, the websites of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and a number of other government agencies are temporarily down," a Foreign Ministry spokesperson said on Twitter. "Our specialists have already started restoring the work of IT systems, and the cyberpolice has opened an investigation."
First on CNN: US intelligence indicates Russia preparing operation to justify invasion of Ukraine
The US has information that indicates Russia has prepositioned a group of operatives to conduct a false-flag operation in eastern Ukraine, a US official told CNN on Friday, in an attempt to create a pretext for an invasion.
The official said the US has evidence that the operatives are trained in urban warfare and in using explosives to carry out acts of sabotage against Russia's own proxy forces.
[...] The US intelligence finding comes after a week's worth of diplomatic meetings between Russian and Western officials over Russia's amassing of tens of thousands of troops along Ukraine's border. But the talks failed to achieve any breakthroughs, as Russia would not commit to de-escalating and American and NATO officials said Moscow's demands -- including that NATO never admit Ukraine into the alliance -- were non-starters.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday January 15 2022, @11:00AM (13 children)
Maybe what we are fed in the media is all orchestrated?
The economic impacts of war are well known and so are probably being considered behind secret meetings.
Wars cause massive economic losses due to:
-damage to buildings and infrastructure,
-a declining working population,
-consumer and investor uncertainty,
-inflation,
-and increases in national debt.
BUT
Government spending on wars can
-stimulate national economies in the short term, particularly through spending on military and health care.
-create new jobs to build back infrastructure
-reduce population burden
Case in point, most American wars followed economic booms, (except the Gulf War which followed a recession).
We also get technology,
GPS, radar, microwave, rocket science, cell phones, weather forecasting, and modern air travel.
If it weren't for wars, we might not even have the internet
And without Revolutionary War, the United States of America wouldn't even exist.
(pay up bitches, the King of England wants his due!)
War can also stimulate a sense of national unity and shared identity.. 9/11?
Humans have been at war for 90% of history, tragic as it is, maybe those in power are considering the pros and cons.
Greed will most likely prevail, after all a 10 Trillion Dollars per year Arms industry is a hungry child to feed.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday January 15 2022, @11:25AM
That's depressing..
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday January 15 2022, @01:49PM (8 children)
Meanwhile, it seems that we (USA) have got it all backwards: the costs of our recent war in Afghanistan exceed the benefits...at least by my definition. Because as far as I can see there were no possible benefits, even at the outset. Thank you very much George Bush II, Cheney et al(sarc).
I can remember a different take on a different problem, probably from about 1980(?) For all the money we were spending on/in the Middle East (specifically Palestinians and Israel), could we have just bought suitable land for resettlement?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday January 15 2022, @02:15PM (3 children)
The benefits include Al-Qaida not setting off a dirty bomb in Times Square in 2007, which I think is worth quite a bit.
We could have done without the second Iraq war, which was about half of the cost [brown.edu].
(Score: 2) by driverless on Sunday January 16 2022, @12:41PM (2 children)
Also, it prevented them from parking a giant spaceship over the White House and blowing it up with some sort of laser weapon. It's amazing what those Al Quadaists could have got up to if we hadn't invaded Eastasia.
Uh, I mean Afghanistan.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday January 16 2022, @01:53PM (1 child)
Yeah, just ignore the terrorists and they'll go away. That's what Bill Clinton said after the first two attacks, because he was too busy trying to dip his wick to bother defending the country. Third time was the charm, though. Too bad you missed it.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday January 16 2022, @06:48PM
"That's what Bill Clinton said after the first two attacks"
Presidents are just puppets for the masses of children to watch while the real power operates unseen behind the curtain.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday January 15 2022, @04:12PM (3 children)
(Score: -1, Flamebait) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday January 15 2022, @07:21PM (2 children)
and in many cases sending our soldiers off to die for Israel's interests (against our own, except the MIC). Do lazy minded slaves still not understand that the planes did not bring down the twin towers on 9/11? I guess you think it's a big coincidence that it happened on that date? Who do you think had the skill, the access, and the motivation to "pull" the towers as Larry Silverstein is on video admitting? Wake up, Goyim!
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday January 15 2022, @08:10PM (1 child)
Yes, that is the price of controlling the energy economy. We can't move off oil fast enough. Now go whip yourself for being a degenarate bigot.
(Score: -1, Spam) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday January 16 2022, @07:00PM
You got me! Jews are totally not trying to destroy all White nations and the White race for centuries now.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday January 15 2022, @02:04PM
I don't remember the numbers, but one of the Rules of Acquisition is that war is good for business. Another one is that peace is good for business.
The economic benefits of war are greatly overstated. The Civil War was followed by the Gilded Age, which was a time of mostly prosperity, but also tremendous wealth inequality. World War 1 was followed by a time of prosperity in America, but ruin in Europe, and the American prosperity turned out to be a bubble. World War 2 was followed by an economic boom, again mostly in America, but this time driven by technological advances. The Korean War was followed by prosperity, but the wartime itself was a recession. And Vietnam was followed by years of stagflation.
It's true that war tends to accelerate technological development. Most of the key technology of the 50s and 60s was a direct result of advances made during World War 2. Suburbs (as a result of better cars), widespread air travel, computers, and the space age probably would have all been delayed by at least a decade. But they would have all happened anyway, especially computers and suburbs. Cell phones and weather forecasting are not really military derived technology, except that weather forecasting depends on radar (but it's so useful that it would have been invented anyway, just a few years later). Microwaves depended on radar too, but they only became common in the 80s, by which point the technology would have certainly existed either way. The abundance of microwaves was culturally driven (working women, later marriage, and divorce), not technological.
The Internet was originally a military program, but it wasn't invented as a result of a war. If it had been developed privately, and absolutely something Internet-like would have been, it would have turned out differently but it's difficult to guess how. Would it have been more open, or less? Would it have been developed at universities, or by corporations? I don't know.
The only technology on the list that probably wouldn't have come into existence without the military is GPS. Well, SpaceX would have invented it if it didn't exist, so maybe it would have been delayed 40 years. Deploying it when it was actually built would have only been possible by a major government, and none would have without the military applications. But even that wasn't the result of any particular war, just military R&D in general.
I'm not sure if war even helps with national unity, outside of something like a revolution. Most of today's divisions already existed in the 90s, but 9/11 caused us to ignore them for 15 years instead of dealing with them when we were healthier. But, again, even in Europe, similar conflicts have arisen.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Thexalon on Saturday January 15 2022, @04:14PM
There are 2 situations in which war has been useful to society whose leader starts it:
1. When the value of what they plunder is greater than the cost of the war.
2. When the cost of fighting a war is lower than the cost of letting your enemy do whatever they were going to do without fighting. The old "kill them before they kill you" idea. It's worth noting, however, that leaders know that fighting for plunder is less popular than fighting for security, so when they're fighting for plunder they claim they're fighting for security.
There are 2 situations in which war hurts the society whose leader starts it:
1. When they end up losing the fight and thus their society is the one that gets plundered, or their own territory is the area being fought over.
2. When the cost of conducting the war is greater than any plunder they can pick up.
It's worth noting that the longer a war goes on, the more it costs everybody, and the less plunder anybody can win from it, so it steadily moves from being a smart war to a stupid war the longer it drags out. The defenders use those same resources to fight back and/or use scorched earth tactics to prevent their enemies from gaining from any conquered territory. Also, guerilla/paramilitary/partisan/resistance activity increases over time, which diminishes the ability of a conqueror to actually collect whatever resources they were trying to snag. That's why military planners generally claim they can get quick wins rather than extended drawn-out fights if they're trying to convince politicians to attack. And a pretty consistent pattern is that promises of quick victory turn out not to be true, because a lot of those factors operate even if the military and government of the conquered territory aren't functioning.
As for how to protect Ukraine: I'd think a few known-functioning nukes aimed at Moscow under the control of the Kiev government would do the trick.
The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
(Score: 2) by RedGreen on Sunday January 16 2022, @02:46PM
If I were the Ukrainians I wouldn't even wait for the war I would have all the natural gas pipelines mined and ready to blow. The second the Russians cross the border it all goes up in smoke. I would inform my so call friends and allies in the rest of Europe get ready to freeze you ignorant assholes who have nothing but words of appeasement for the Russians. They certainly are doing nothing to help them like they should be doing. To the Russians daily it would be bombing after bombing taking as many of the scum as possible down, I would have the body bags piling up like cordwood. In short scorched earth and it would be taken into the motherland right into downtown Moscow blowing/shooting up as many of them cocksuckers as possible. Well there is my rant of the day hopefully they take my advice.
"I modded down, down, down, and the flames went higher." -- Sven Olsen
(Score: 5, Funny) by Gaaark on Saturday January 15 2022, @11:34AM (5 children)
In Russia, prepositions something something...
--- Please remind me if I haven't been civil to you: I'm channeling MDC. ---Gaaark 2.0 ---
(Score: 4, Touché) by Thexalon on Saturday January 15 2022, @11:56AM (1 child)
I believe the intent was "pre-positioned" rather than "preposition-ed". But hey, in Soviet Russia, military assets pre-position YOU!
The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
(Score: 2) by Gaaark on Saturday January 15 2022, @09:57PM
Ah! I was thinking 'propositioned' as in approached and hired.
My bad.
--- Please remind me if I haven't been civil to you: I'm channeling MDC. ---Gaaark 2.0 ---
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday January 15 2022, @01:47PM
Actually it's not so much the prepositions that kill you. It's that you have to remember your Russian declensions and the right case to use with each.
Old English used to have an elaborate case system too but lost that when Viking raiders found the grammar too complex.
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday January 15 2022, @03:49PM (1 child)
Back off or I'll onomatopoeia.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday January 16 2022, @03:01AM
You'll pee on a mat?
My puppy grew out of that.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday January 15 2022, @01:51PM (4 children)
If you are interested in Ukraine, this recent journal entry is worth a look:
[quietus] Roots of the Ukraine/Russia conflict
(Score: 1, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday January 15 2022, @06:31PM (3 children)
Worth a look? That journal entry is just a copy of an article written by Vladimir Putin himself. Literally Putin himself!
Sheesh...
(Score: 2) by quietus on Saturday January 15 2022, @07:06PM (2 children)
And posted on the Kremlin website. The Kremlin website itself! Sheesh ...
Should I quote Sun Tzu here (Know Thy Enemy and such) -- I read somewhere them Marines have to study it, in officer training ...
(Putin makes a number of valid points; the way the article is set up, its referencing and conclusions give some insight into Russia's thinking. Well worth a read.)
Oh, and shameless plug here [soylentnews.org].
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday January 16 2022, @07:59PM (1 child)
Yes it is good to get insight into your enemy's thinking, but two big problems.
1. It is propaganda
2. You label it as fact "Roots of the Ukraine/Russia conflict"
Soylent News: now home to agitprop.
(Score: 2) by quietus on Tuesday January 18 2022, @02:25PM
Note that the primary cause of the chain of events which led to the first and second world war was a historical dispute over a small piece of land you've never heard about, called Schleswig-Holstein [wikipedia.org]. It is well advised, therefore, to take all these historical references seriously.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday January 15 2022, @02:14PM (3 children)
i doubt anything will happen.
methinks nobody in european nato wants to throw lead and other assorted stuff at russia, thus leaving only the non-european part of nato to do the heavy lifting.
furthermore i doubt the non-european nato partner wants to wage war over a ocean and thru 5-6 country against a technology formidable foe, considering that the mainstay is air-force and bombs and the foe can defend against this ...?
(Score: 2) by quietus on Saturday January 15 2022, @07:23PM (2 children)
There is indeed a strategic schism within NATO about this, but not (completely) as you expect. In Putin's article [soylentnews.org], he explains, at length, the historical background of the conflict.
The names of Poland and Lithuania are dropped in there. You can read that as a suggestion that these countries historically fall within the Russian sphere of influence, as the natural order of things; or you can read that simply as a description of Ukraine as a buffer zone between different nations/spheres of influence.
Take that as you will, but it could be that Poland (and others) read this as the first suggestion (and Russia's demands to NATO -- no NATO exercises on the territory of former USSR countries --only enforce that view). So, it wouldn't be strange if they decide to get a little more actively involved in the conflict. Once Russian and Polish troops meet each other on the battlefield, Poland could in principle call in Article 5 of NATO's Treaty.
Western European nations, on the other hand, are not unhappy with the idea of going back to the old situation, with Ukraine as a kind of a border zone between Russia and the EU. They can also understand that Russia has some valid concerns there.
The two sides against each other could cause a rift within NATO, especially if the invasion is a limited one (e.g. to reinforce the Donbass rebel region, and re-establish the border agreed to in the latest Minsk agreements).
(Score: 3, Informative) by captain normal on Sunday January 16 2022, @04:14AM
https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/45319/the-charge-of-the-light-brigadehttps [poetryfoundation.org]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crimean_War [wikipedia.org]
Everyone is entitled to his own opinion, but not to his own facts"- --Daniel Patrick Moynihan--
(Score: 2) by PiMuNu on Monday January 17 2022, @11:34AM
Were I cynical, I could imagine trying to bog down Russia in an endless war against Ukrainian insurgents.
(Score: 2, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday January 15 2022, @02:35PM (2 children)
From NY Times (syndicated in my local USA paper (online edition) this morning):
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday January 15 2022, @03:38PM
From the Kiev Daily Pierogi (syndicated in my local USA paper (online edition) this morning):
Fellow Ukrainians. Please go about your business normally. The stores are still filled with Chicken Kiev. Our troops have plenty of socks and mittens. Weather forecast today is a spring-like -40C. That is all.
(Score: 2) by driverless on Sunday January 16 2022, @12:51PM
How do you say "Seit 5 Uhr 45 wird zurückgeschossen!" in Russian?
(Score: -1, Spam) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday January 15 2022, @07:25PM (5 children)
the Jews are behind this somehow. They always are. At the back where it's safe, rubbing their greedy little rat paws.
(Score: 2, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday January 15 2022, @08:12PM (4 children)
Obviously you've never met a Republican if you think Jewish people are the greedy rats. Someone spam mod the troll.
(Score: 2) by driverless on Sunday January 16 2022, @12:53PM (3 children)
Alternatively, maybe they have met Republicans if they believe there's a secret Jewish conspiracy behind things.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday January 16 2022, @05:27PM (2 children)
That's two different uses of Republican though. The GP meant republican politician, while you're obviously speaking of republican voters.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday January 16 2022, @08:01PM (1 child)
Indeed, republican politicians are the ones conspiring the Russians against American interests. If only it weren't so fucked it might be funny.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday January 18 2022, @04:36AM
And the Democrats are conspiring to enslave us, the Greens want to sell out to China, the Libertarians think the Republicans need to be more radical in riding corporate cock, and the whackjob sovereign citizens are the only ones who give a damn about the Constitution.
(Score: -1, Flamebait) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday January 15 2022, @08:54PM
Getting biden into office made us look super weak and now russia is going to test attacking things while china goes after taiwan. NK is shooting missiles, canada speculating about invading us. What a time to be alive.
They didn't have to pick trump but holy balls. Can we have an actual president?
Who in their right mind picked this guy: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Konstantin_Chernenko [wikipedia.org]
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday January 16 2022, @02:29AM
終わり
(Score: 2) by Username on Sunday January 16 2022, @02:51PM (1 child)
Interesting. Two known DNC propaganda sources are advocating for military intervention in ukraine. I'm guessing the current administration will have to do something about it, if these sources say so.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday January 16 2022, @07:55PM
It would mark one of the few times Amurrikkka World Police actually does the right thing.