4 ms·

If there is a war (hot or cold) with China, I doubt consumer tech will be spared as much as I love my Govee and TCL smart devices.

dmix 3y ago
Where was Russias great cyber warfare teams? They wouldn't have held back against consumer devices. From what I've read western agencies helped Ukraine and the cyber efforts were mostly neutered. It's one thing to be a random org in peace time but in war the deep penetration into Chinese networks will have exposed plenty of Chinese efforts not yet disrupted and all that was super secret and careful before turns into open warfare. So it's not like the west is going in blind. The US spends mountains on this stuff, not including the mass of western commercial infosec companies tracking these critical "threat groups" as their business model. NSA is huge as it is and who knows how many federal and DOD agencies have cyber mandates these days. All systems are inherently vulnerable but some mass back doors in routers has been speculated to death by people way smarter than me and most I've read is that the risk is largely over stated to the civilian population. The router doomsday scenarios are always super hand wavvy in the details.
- chaostheory 3y ago
  > Where was Russias great cyber warfare teams? They wouldn't have held back against consumer devices. The difference is that we’re fighting a proxy war with Russia over Ukraine. With Taiwan, it will be a direct war due to the security guarantees we have given Taiwan.
- jstarfish 3y ago
  > Where was Russias great cyber warfare teams? They wouldn't have held back against consumer devices. I don't think their goal has ever been sabotage as much as it has been intelligence gathering, but I suspect a lot of their efforts have gone underreported. Russia did successfully brick thousands of consumer satellite modems to disrupt communications in the opening hours of the Ukraine campaign. Everybody reported on Elon Musk swooping in and playing savior, but they acted like he's the first person to bring satellite service to Ukraine and neglected to mention incumbent ISPs' devices operating in the area had been destroyed in targeted cyberattacks (later, Russia went low-tech and just started lobbing artillery at ground stations). Because of this oversight, nobody really understood why he pulled the service from the front lines-- he saw what Russia was capable of and didn't want Starlink to become a military target itself.
- vGPU 3y ago
  Russia appears to be spending most of their budget on the EW side, as seen by the incredibly heavy Ukrainian drone losses. https://www.forbes.com/sites/davidhambling/2023/05/22/ukraine-drones-losses-are-10000-per-month/?sh=7278d566384a https://www.forbes.com/sites/davidhambling/2023/05/22/ukrain...
  - rasz 3y ago
    Those are disposable $500 suicide drone numbers, no one is losing 10000 Mavics a month.
    - vGPU 3y ago
      Does it matter what they’re losing? It’s all our tax dollars going poof either way.
      - rasz 3y ago
        Are you really arguing about ~$5mil a month in drones? Thats around the cost of ONE PATRIOT interceptor or 5 HIMARS salvos. Its not going poof, its splattering invaders. This is what $500 delivers in the field https://twitter.com/UAWeapons/status/1706705383220191290 https://twitter.com/UAWeapons/status/1706705383220191290 ~$3mil T-72B3 obr. 2022 going in smoke https://gagadget.com/en/osint/324992-a-500-fpv-drone-destroyed-russias-newest-2022-model-t-72b3-tank-at-a-cost-of-3-million/ https://gagadget.com/en/osint/324992-a-500-fpv-drone-destroy... Few days earlier 2S9 Nona-S https://twitter.com/UAWeapons/status/1705852827233300773 https://twitter.com/UAWeapons/status/1705852827233300773 ~$1mil If you really want to get outraged by something read about russians behind Lancet suicide drones https://www.sensusq.com/blog/sensusq-analysis-on-the-zala-421-16e-zala-421-16e2-and-zala-421-16em-reconnaissance-uavs https://www.sensusq.com/blog/sensusq-analysis-on-the-zala-42... Son of the de facto owner/ceo of the company currently works at UN Institute for Disarmament Research (UNIDIR) in Geneva.
        vGPU 3y ago
        And yet we see headlines like “UK out of tanks to give Ukraine” - that was this morning, I believe. I don’t see Russia running out of tanks.
- psychlops 3y ago
  Apparently, they spend all their resources manipulating US elections.

dmix 3y ago

Where was Russias great cyber warfare teams? They wouldn't have held back against consumer devices. From what I've read western agencies helped Ukraine and the cyber efforts were mostly neutered. It's one thing to be a random org in peace time but in war the deep penetration into Chinese networks will have exposed plenty of Chinese efforts not yet disrupted and all that was super secret and careful before turns into open warfare. So it's not like the west is going in blind. The US spends mountains on this stuff, not including the mass of western commercial infosec companies tracking these critical "threat groups" as their business model. NSA is huge as it is and who knows how many federal and DOD agencies have cyber mandates these days. All systems are inherently vulnerable but some mass back doors in routers has been speculated to death by people way smarter than me and most I've read is that the risk is largely over stated to the civilian population. The router doomsday scenarios are always super hand wavvy in the details.

chaostheory 3y ago
> Where was Russias great cyber warfare teams? They wouldn't have held back against consumer devices. The difference is that we’re fighting a proxy war with Russia over Ukraine. With Taiwan, it will be a direct war due to the security guarantees we have given Taiwan.
jstarfish 3y ago
> Where was Russias great cyber warfare teams? They wouldn't have held back against consumer devices. I don't think their goal has ever been sabotage as much as it has been intelligence gathering, but I suspect a lot of their efforts have gone underreported. Russia did successfully brick thousands of consumer satellite modems to disrupt communications in the opening hours of the Ukraine campaign. Everybody reported on Elon Musk swooping in and playing savior, but they acted like he's the first person to bring satellite service to Ukraine and neglected to mention incumbent ISPs' devices operating in the area had been destroyed in targeted cyberattacks (later, Russia went low-tech and just started lobbing artillery at ground stations). Because of this oversight, nobody really understood why he pulled the service from the front lines-- he saw what Russia was capable of and didn't want Starlink to become a military target itself.
vGPU 3y ago
Russia appears to be spending most of their budget on the EW side, as seen by the incredibly heavy Ukrainian drone losses. https://www.forbes.com/sites/davidhambling/2023/05/22/ukraine-drones-losses-are-10000-per-month/?sh=7278d566384a https://www.forbes.com/sites/davidhambling/2023/05/22/ukrain...
- rasz 3y ago
  Those are disposable $500 suicide drone numbers, no one is losing 10000 Mavics a month.
  - vGPU 3y ago
    Does it matter what they’re losing? It’s all our tax dollars going poof either way.
    - rasz 3y ago
      Are you really arguing about ~$5mil a month in drones? Thats around the cost of ONE PATRIOT interceptor or 5 HIMARS salvos. Its not going poof, its splattering invaders. This is what $500 delivers in the field https://twitter.com/UAWeapons/status/1706705383220191290 https://twitter.com/UAWeapons/status/1706705383220191290 ~$3mil T-72B3 obr. 2022 going in smoke https://gagadget.com/en/osint/324992-a-500-fpv-drone-destroyed-russias-newest-2022-model-t-72b3-tank-at-a-cost-of-3-million/ https://gagadget.com/en/osint/324992-a-500-fpv-drone-destroy... Few days earlier 2S9 Nona-S https://twitter.com/UAWeapons/status/1705852827233300773 https://twitter.com/UAWeapons/status/1705852827233300773 ~$1mil If you really want to get outraged by something read about russians behind Lancet suicide drones https://www.sensusq.com/blog/sensusq-analysis-on-the-zala-421-16e-zala-421-16e2-and-zala-421-16em-reconnaissance-uavs https://www.sensusq.com/blog/sensusq-analysis-on-the-zala-42... Son of the de facto owner/ceo of the company currently works at UN Institute for Disarmament Research (UNIDIR) in Geneva.
      - vGPU 3y ago
        And yet we see headlines like “UK out of tanks to give Ukraine” - that was this morning, I believe. I don’t see Russia running out of tanks.
psychlops 3y ago
Apparently, they spend all their resources manipulating US elections.