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from the ask-not-what-Ukraine-can-do-for-you... dept.
The Beeb reports https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-68722542 on hackers (crackers in my old usage) in various countries that are helping Ukraine defend itself.
A team of vigilante hackers carrying out cyber-attacks against Russia has been sent awards of gratitude by Ukraine's military.
The team, One Fist, has stolen data from Russian military firms and hacked cameras to spy on troops.
The certificates are a controversial sign of how modern warfare is shifting.
Concerns have been raised about the practice of states encouraging civilian hackers.
One of the hackers called "Voltage" has been co-ordinating hacks from his home in the US.
His real name is [redacted for SN] and he is an IT worker from Michigan.
The 53-year-old told the BBC he is delighted his efforts for Ukraine have been officially recognised with a certificate of gratitude.
One Fist is made up of hackers from eight different countries including the UK, US and Poland. They have collectively launched dozens of cyber-attacks - celebrating each one on social media.
The certificates were sent to them all for "a significant contribution to the development and maintenance of vital activities of the military". They were signed by the commander of the Airborne Assault Forces of Ukraine.
The story goes on to describe various contributions to Ukraine's defense, such as defeating Russian access to public cameras in Ukraine.
While what appears to be the real name of "Voltage" appears in the BBC story, your AC submitter thought it wise to redact that name (although I think there is a high chance that it is an alias).
(Score: 0, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday April 11 2024, @08:48PM (2 children)
Judging by this, Ukraine and Russia's computers are as easily compromised as the systems we hear about all the time (commercial, gov't, health care, etc). Anyone have information that counters this speculation?
(Score: 3, Informative) by Runaway1956 on Thursday April 11 2024, @10:12PM
SN has published information to support your idea: https://soylentnews.org/article.pl?sid=24/04/09/1850229 [soylentnews.org]
“I have become friends with many school shooters” - Tampon Tim Walz
(Score: 3, Interesting) by canopic jug on Sunday April 14, @02:12AM
Anyone have information that counters this speculation?
No current links, but near the start of the second phase of the war, in early 2022 nearly 10 years after the war started, Ukraine's government's infrastructure was more or less completely captured by M$ [theregister.com] and put into the failing server farm known as Azure. That has continued to ensure that attacks on the computing infrastructure are nearly always successful and that services are easy to knock over. In exchange, the various three-letter agencies have full access. I guess someone in the chain of command somewhere figures that's a good trade. I don't.
I can see the need for hosting outside the borders of Ukraine even if just for load balancing, a fail-over server, or hot backup. However, I can't see an excuse for degrading the defensive capabilities to the levels provided by Azure. That puts the country in a severely weak position as far as 'cyber' capacity is concerned.
Money is not free speech. Elections should not be auctions.
(Score: 4, Informative) by JoeMerchant on Thursday April 11 2024, @09:47PM (4 children)
>co-ordinating hacks from his home in the US.
Russia certainly has the capability to take him out if they felt it was worth it... their agents are probably far more valuable for other tasks and not worth risking, but if they ever have a moment of low risk opportunity...
>your AC submitter thought it wise to redact that name
If anybody has any sense whatsoever, the published name is a well researched fake that leads anyone attempting to use it on a merry little chase before they realize the owner of the name is already dead. And... the IT worker from Michigan is actually a volunteer firefighter from Iowa.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 2, Interesting) by khallow on Thursday April 11 2024, @10:24PM
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Mykl on Thursday April 11 2024, @10:50PM (2 children)
Or the whole thing is a false flag and all of these attacks were co-ordinated by the Ukrainian military.
If Ukraine could goad Russia into complaining to the US about their citizens supposedly getting involved, enough US citizens would shout "You're not the boss of us!" to perhaps re-energise support for the war in Congress?
(Score: 2) by PiMuNu on Friday April 12 2024, @07:36AM (1 child)
> complaining to the US about their citizens
Or even stronger - another "Skripal event"* would surely galvanise the US response.
* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sergei_Skripal [wikipedia.org]
(Score: 3, Interesting) by janrinok on Friday April 12 2024, @05:53PM
Murder is something that they reserve for traitors, ideally in their view something slow and painful, it is not usually something that they would do against a foreigner just to 'get even'. They are perfectly capable of targetting someone in other ways which will not involve direct action inside the USA. They might consider paying someone else to do a 'hit-and-run' accident with a vehicle.
Remember Skripal was a Russian. (As was Litvinenko, Kuzminov, etc,) Killing somebody inside the USA could have far more serious consequences.
I am not interested in knowing who people are or where they live. My interest starts and stops at our servers.