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Again? Intelligence people are sleeping on the job if they're not scraping those forums all day every day.

by bagels 2y ago

whamlastxmas 2y ago
I really doubt there’s anything meaningful coming out of these documents. It’s not going to change any literally a single country spends their military budget
- wutwutwat 2y ago
  I don’t think anyone is concerned about budgets. Having intimate details into the systems of these craft and understanding how they operate in great detail makes it much easier to 1. Copy it, 2. Defend against it, 3. Find critical vulnerabilities in its design, 4. Build offensive systems that take advantage of any shortcomings, 5. Fast tracks their own jet fighter programs (which to your point does affect budgets because someone else had paid for the R&D) The same is true for any IP/competitive advantage. It’s funny how in our industry security through obsecurity is a thing we avoid, but other industries are literally built on the foundation of hiding information in order to stay ahead
  - stavros 2y ago
    We avoid it because there are better ways, not because security through obscurity isn't security. Sometimes, obscurity is all you have.
    - gpm 2y ago
      Also because so much of software is uniquely poorly suited to obscurity. Attackers will often be able to probe the "obscure" system at their leisure trying to reverse it, or in non-SAAS cases get their hands on the actual (compiled) algorithm itself. And once you figure it out every single copy works exactly the same. It's not like trying to measure the penetrating capabilities of a tank round, where you need physical access to a batch of large, expensive, explosive, tightly controlled objects to figure it out.
      - brutal_chaos_ 2y ago
        Everything is open source* if you know assembly, so to speak. Edit: *source available
  - KennyBlanken 2y ago
    At least some classified stuff is well known to other country's intelligence services, friend, neutral, and foe. It can be so far out of the bag, it's had kittens. Lot of stuff is classified not because it would actually prevent other nations from finding out stuff, but to hide from the American people and press embarrassing things like how much money is being spent on that particular project or weapons system, how much of a failure it has been, how much toxic waste is being created in its manufacture, and so on. There's also all the stuff Internet Armchair Intelligence Officers think is "sensitive" or "classified."
- giancarlostoro 2y ago
  China has access to all of our tech leaks, and yet, they cannot replicate it, neither can Russia, heck Russia has these really powerful jet planes... but they got less than a handful of them, and their GDP is comparable to the state of Florida's GDP.
  - JumpCrisscross 2y ago
    > yet, they cannot replicate it, neither can Russia, heck Russia has these really powerful jet planes Russia has powerful Soviet-era planes. Their new kit is demonstrably crap, being unable to establish even air supremacy against a foe wielding handfuls of decades-old air defence equipment. There is also a P != NP difference between replicating a war machine and reverse engineering it sufficiently to defeat it, e.g. designing a radar that mitigates its stealth.
    - Roark66 2y ago
      I can confirm, as someone who collects Soviet era electronics and buys replacement parts. Russian manufacturing is really bad now and very far from what it was during the Soviet era. Perhaps in part because of past cooperation between various countries of the communist block that is no longer there. For example Belarus and Poland made a lot of the integrated circuits(chips) back then. There are certain items, for example military radios like the R-140M almost every country had a local version of. For example the Russian version still used a vacuum tube as a delay timer well into the 80s while the Polish version had a box of digital logic.
      - giancarlostoro 2y ago
        Can I ask how you even got into such a thing?
        bayindirh 2y ago
        Just get a HAM radio license :)
  - 2y ago
- altairprime 2y ago
  There is one meaningful thing coming out of these documents; WarThunder has become a reliable form of education in “how to evaluate information distribution restrictions regarding militarily-applicable topics” for the generations that grew up without the events of PGP / ITAR fresh in mind.
righthand 2y ago
It’s probably some other intelligence agency leaking it.

Again? Intelligence people are sleeping on the job if they're not scraping those forums all day every day.

by bagels 2y ago

Again? Intelligence people are sleeping on the job if they're not scraping those forums all day every day.

I really doubt there’s anything meaningful coming out of these documents. It’s not going to change any literally a single country spends their military budget

wutwutwat 2y ago
I don’t think anyone is concerned about budgets. Having intimate details into the systems of these craft and understanding how they operate in great detail makes it much easier to 1. Copy it, 2. Defend against it, 3. Find critical vulnerabilities in its design, 4. Build offensive systems that take advantage of any shortcomings, 5. Fast tracks their own jet fighter programs (which to your point does affect budgets because someone else had paid for the R&D) The same is true for any IP/competitive advantage. It’s funny how in our industry security through obsecurity is a thing we avoid, but other industries are literally built on the foundation of hiding information in order to stay ahead
- stavros 2y ago
  We avoid it because there are better ways, not because security through obscurity isn't security. Sometimes, obscurity is all you have.
  - gpm 2y ago
    Also because so much of software is uniquely poorly suited to obscurity. Attackers will often be able to probe the "obscure" system at their leisure trying to reverse it, or in non-SAAS cases get their hands on the actual (compiled) algorithm itself. And once you figure it out every single copy works exactly the same. It's not like trying to measure the penetrating capabilities of a tank round, where you need physical access to a batch of large, expensive, explosive, tightly controlled objects to figure it out.
    - brutal_chaos_ 2y ago
      Everything is open source* if you know assembly, so to speak. Edit: *source available
- KennyBlanken 2y ago
  At least some classified stuff is well known to other country's intelligence services, friend, neutral, and foe. It can be so far out of the bag, it's had kittens. Lot of stuff is classified not because it would actually prevent other nations from finding out stuff, but to hide from the American people and press embarrassing things like how much money is being spent on that particular project or weapons system, how much of a failure it has been, how much toxic waste is being created in its manufacture, and so on. There's also all the stuff Internet Armchair Intelligence Officers think is "sensitive" or "classified."
giancarlostoro 2y ago
China has access to all of our tech leaks, and yet, they cannot replicate it, neither can Russia, heck Russia has these really powerful jet planes... but they got less than a handful of them, and their GDP is comparable to the state of Florida's GDP.
- JumpCrisscross 2y ago
  > yet, they cannot replicate it, neither can Russia, heck Russia has these really powerful jet planes Russia has powerful Soviet-era planes. Their new kit is demonstrably crap, being unable to establish even air supremacy against a foe wielding handfuls of decades-old air defence equipment. There is also a P != NP difference between replicating a war machine and reverse engineering it sufficiently to defeat it, e.g. designing a radar that mitigates its stealth.
  - Roark66 2y ago
    I can confirm, as someone who collects Soviet era electronics and buys replacement parts. Russian manufacturing is really bad now and very far from what it was during the Soviet era. Perhaps in part because of past cooperation between various countries of the communist block that is no longer there. For example Belarus and Poland made a lot of the integrated circuits(chips) back then. There are certain items, for example military radios like the R-140M almost every country had a local version of. For example the Russian version still used a vacuum tube as a delay timer well into the 80s while the Polish version had a box of digital logic.
    - giancarlostoro 2y ago
      Can I ask how you even got into such a thing?
      - bayindirh 2y ago
        Just get a HAM radio license :)
- 2y ago
altairprime 2y ago
There is one meaningful thing coming out of these documents; WarThunder has become a reliable form of education in “how to evaluate information distribution restrictions regarding militarily-applicable topics” for the generations that grew up without the events of PGP / ITAR fresh in mind.

righthand 2y ago

It’s probably some other intelligence agency leaking it.