How Ukrainians Infiltrated Internet-Connected Security Cameras, Exposed Russian Bases (ft.com) 71
The Financial Times tells how the head of a Ukrainian cybersecurity company recruited dozens of "high-level Ukrainian hackers" and borrowed a Starlink internet satellite for "the large-scale infiltration of internet-connected security cameras to surveil Russian-occupied territory, and honey-trapping Russian soldiers into revealing their bases."
[T]hey hacked thousands of security and traffic cameras in Belarus and parts of Ukraine that Russia had occupied. To filter the information, the team wrote machine-learning code that helped them separate military movements from ordinary traffic, and they funnelled the information to the military via a public portal.
In one example, described to the Financial Times with photographs and locations, they identified a remote Russian base near occupied Melitopol in southern Ukraine. Then, using fake profiles of attractive women on Facebook and Russian social media websites, they tricked soldiers into sending photos that they geolocated, and shared with the Ukrainian military....
A few days later, they watched on TV as the base was blown up by Ukrainian artillery.
In one example, described to the Financial Times with photographs and locations, they identified a remote Russian base near occupied Melitopol in southern Ukraine. Then, using fake profiles of attractive women on Facebook and Russian social media websites, they tricked soldiers into sending photos that they geolocated, and shared with the Ukrainian military....
A few days later, they watched on TV as the base was blown up by Ukrainian artillery.
So why tell us now? (Score:2)
Given how effective this strategy has been, presumably it's not being so effective any more. So 'they' have decided to reveal this trick. Let's hope that means that the revelation will allow some other trick!
Re:So why tell us now? (Score:4, Informative)
Why tell us now? Because progress in war is typically slow, and most of the first world's population has the attention span of a dog in a forest full of squirrels. Plus they probably want their own people to know of their military's successes.
Re:So why tell us now? (Score:5, Insightful)
Or it's actually fictional or was only a small effort relative to the techniques that Ukraine uses that are found incredibly effective.
Blaming the base being shelled because of horny soldiers stupidly sending photos makes a great copout, and given the nature of horny soldiers, can continue to be used down the road as an explanation. The Russians can't really disprove it, meaning it doesn't give them anything to use to try to counter whatever the real threat is.
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Maybe there's now a tactical advantage to cutting the soldiers' access to their phones/social accounts. Even if it's just a morale thing.
Re:So why tell us now? (Score:4, Informative)
There's always a tactical advantage to limiting the soldiers' communications. Even back to WWII, "loose lips sink ships," was very true, as the average person in the armed services probably isn't going to have the capability to discern what's safe to say and what isn't. It also means that soldiers aren't as likely to learn bad news, or to spread bad news, which allows the service to try to influence morale through things like the entertainment brought in.
Letters to/from home may well be censored if it's necessary, same with e-mail through controlled points.
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In WWI / WWII soldiers knew of plans days / weeks out, so a person in a port might know that they're getting deployed and going to attack a certain point. Someone who was a spy in port might find that out by hanging around in a bar, and get that confirmed from somewhere else and relay that back. The enemy could then reinforce that point. It was very heavily ingrained to not ask questions, and, if you were asked, not to tell anyone.
Nowadays with information as compartmentalised as it is and modern communicat
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Your comments reminds me of WW2's RAF pilots eating lots of carrots, given as the reason why they were effective at night. They didn't advertise that they were using radar though.
This Ukrainian situation is probably a similar case of misdirection, so that there's some noise, and kind of obfuscates what they're really doing. However, the story serves multiple purposes, in that it aims to keep moral up, keeps people thinking that there are successes and that Ukraine still has plenty of fight left in it, but a
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Because it sounds a lot better than, "Hey! The U.S.A just fed us a bunch of absolutely fantastic info about military bases that are soft targets!"
We're not involved, we were never here.
FFS (Score:1)
It's not like Ukraine has thousands of Ukranian civilians in the Russian occupied territories. It's not like they could notice hundreds or thousands of Russian soldiers. Wouldn't notice tanks driving down the street, and where they stop.
It must be the mighty Americans telling them where to shoot...
Re: FFS (Score:1)
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It must be the mighty Americans telling them where to shoot...
The Ukrainians have said as much. Seriously, get help. They don't have military satellites as they are the poorest nation in Europe. They lack AWACS and high altitude drones. They focus the military funds on the most vital things they need and that isn't going to include a space launch division (despite their history in the Soviet space program). And you can trust a satellite picture, human intel...that's harder.
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paywalled. that people even pay for this bullshit ... to good to be true :D
Re:So why tell us now? (Score:4, Informative)
1. That law was passed in December of 2021, before the war. It comes into effect in October.
2. There's no need to conjure up propaganda victories for anyone who's been watching the battlefield recently (even though there's a big effort to maintain opsec). Not a single Russian village on the frontlines of in the Kriviy Rih front managed to be held by the Russians. The northern Russian stronghold of Vysokopilla fell the other day after a 2-day siege. The Davydiv Brid salient now extends nearly a third of the way to Nova Kakhovka, which should be making any Russian troops between there and Kriviy Rih *very* nervous, unless they're eager for a swim across the Dnieper. On the south front there have been reports that Tomyna Balka has fallen to Ukraine, which would turn the Russian stronghold of Stanislav and two neighboring towns into a pocket - athough opsec silence makes it hard to confirm. Bayraktars are once again active after months of conservative use, now that they have cover from AGM-88 HARMs; air defense seems to be basically nonexistent within HARM range, with most Russian AD crews too afraid to turn on their radars. Bayraktars are even hitting low priority targets, like tanks. The total number of functioning Russian-controlled bridges over the Dnieper and Ingulets is "zero", with numerous GMLRS and Excalibur strikes per day against their attempts to repair them and create pontoon bridges and ferry crossings. The southern bridge at Nova Kakhova outright collapsed. Russian forces are so depleted from the Kharkiv front that Ukrainians literally just sailed across the Siversky Donets and took two towns without a fight. Half a dozen to a dozen ammunition depots and bases in Russian-held areas are getting hit per day, with strikes as far away as Sevastopol.
Ukrainians don't need "artificial cheering up" these days.
I'm trying to think of if there's ANYTHING recently that's been good news for Russia. I mean, they claimed to have captured Pisky (near Donetsk), but that's like the 8th time they've claimed that - maybe 8th time's the charm?
Re:So why tell us now? (Score:4, Interesting)
Not to mention that Wagner, which until recently didn't even exist if you ever asked anyone in Russia, is now pretty much openly and quite aggressively recruiting throughout Russia, which kinda suggests that it ain't Ukraine that has a manpower problem.
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Russia has a massive manpower problems. Overwhelming majority of people are only fine with the war as long as it doesn't concern them. Actually going to fight? Latest recruitment drive in St. Petersburg supposedly only got 100 people total. Lots of laughs about that one were had on Ukrainian domestic propaganda.
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It's funny you say that, when there bitching about the law and difficulties about recruitment are so great that Ukrainian propaganda aimed at domestic audience has a field day stating that this law is not going to come in effect as written.
Because people were actually up in arms about it.
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yeah well, those people are hardly reading the financial times at this moment. this is indeed propaganda, but just for a different audience.
Re:So why tell us now? (Score:5, Informative)
Propaganda. War is long and grueling, and Ukraine is starting to noticeably suffer from lack of replacement manpower. They're about to sign a law that will now forcibly conscript women in certain professions and block them from exiting the country just like men already are as an example of things that point toward this issue.
In that situation, you need propaganda victories to maintain fighting spirit and attract more people to sign up for military service. Revealing simple tricks that show that Russian soldiers are actually really easy to fool with simple tricks helps in this endeavour.
Wow, total and complete bullshit. All of it.
A) Ukraine's military manpower is increasing, not decreasing. They are having thousands of people trained in England and other places, and this is after these people already received basic (really basic) training from the Ukrainian military.
B) Russia is the one suffering egregious manpower losses. So much so they are trying to entice criminals and the homeless [businessinsider.com] to fight in Ukraine. Putin is doing everything he can to not have a general conscription because everything is going to plan.
C) No, Ukraine is not about to "forciby" conscript women to fight. Women are already vounteering to fight, and have been doing so.
D) Those "propaganda" victories you speak of. Is that the liberation of villages and towns in the Kherson oblast? The liberation of towns in the Donetsk oblast? The ongoing daily destruction of Russian ammunition depots, command posts, and troop concentrations? The severing of bridges across the Dnipro river? The Bayraktars blasting away at armor and vehicles seemingly unchallenged? The destructive attacks against air bases and C&C in occupied Crimea?
Ukraine's push to retake Kherson is producing results, in many cases more than expected. It won't be accomplished overnight, but it will happen. Possibly by the end of the month though next month most likely. Russia has exhausted itself. It's a spent force. That is why they suddently said they want to discuss a ceasefire. They can see the writing on the wall and it won't be pretty when Russian troops are forced out of Ukraine and sent home in rags.
Luckyo is Rus propagandist. (Score:2, Informative)
He confidently claimed early on Russia was swatting Bayraktars like flies" [slashdot.org]
And that Russia don't need to import for their military, they make it all local. [slashdot.org]
And the always classic "Both sides are lying" [slashdot.org]
Seems he's still at it.
Or is commenting again on yet another topic he knows absolutely nothing about.
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The Trojan Horse (the original one) was a great military trick. But it only worked once.
I think it's safe to say that this, too, would no longer work too well and may well backfire if detected and exploited by your target.
non-paywalled link (Score:2, Informative)
https://archive.ph/m2GlH [archive.ph]
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I hope you aren't being paid in rubles
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Re:When does the movie come out? (Score:4, Informative)
\Getting local women to betray the invaders is a tactic thousands of years old. It only gets harder on Russia from here.
Not to mention that Russia's behavior to this point in the occupied areas of Ukraine only reinforces the idea of the local women that they'll sleep much better once the Russians are gone / dead.
Anonymous Vatnik detected. (Score:4, Informative)
Russias record is why most of the now-free former Warsaw Pact hate their guts. Russian culture is unusual in being purely predatory thus unable and disinclined to benefit the common peoples. Only Moskals matter which is why your paymasters haven't sent them to this recreational constabulary operation.
It's not critical enough to mobilize yet somehow important? Nice reasoning but I approve of Russian self-destruction. You exterminated your intelligentsia choosing your natural mafia state and the consequences are hilarious. Your shilling won't save you because your policies drive hate for gopniks money could never buy.
Slashdot Editors are uselessfire them already (Score:5, Informative)
Huh. (Score:2)
Then, using fake profiles of attractive women on Facebook and Russian social media websites, they tricked soldiers into sending photos that they geolocated, and shared with the Ukrainian military....
I thought Facecrook scrubbed EXIF data which is what they're implying they used. Who knows about "russian social media" though.
Re:Huh. (Score:5, Informative)
People have been using the term "geolocated" to mean "recognized where it is."
So someone sends a picture of themselves in a warehouse with weapons, and a Ukrainian recognizes where that warehouse is (because he used to work there or something). Then the soldier dies.
Re:Huh. (Score:5, Interesting)
Those morons included a street sign in the photo:
https://www.bbc.com/news/world... [bbc.com]
The image, shared on the social media site but since deleted, shows five people in military uniform with a street sign in Popasna, Luhansk visible in the top left corner.
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People have been using the term "geolocated" to mean "recognized where it is."
Well, you have to admit it does sound much cooler...
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It's certainly more recognisable ;-)
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People have been using the term "geolocated" to mean "recognized where it is."
... or simply "located"
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Nooooooooo we are in the modern world how can you use such un-hip terminologies.
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Yes, it's way easier to trick people into posing with nazi imagery so you can pretend to have an excuse for a pillaging and raiding tour.
That's why Russia could pull it off, duh.
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You may want to ask that guy, whoever he may be. I don't know.
Paywalled (Score:2)
totally and utterly
I bet they didn't have to infiltrate too hard (Score:2)
And it underscore how much of a problem interconnected cameras can be.
I'm looking at you ring
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Disinformation? (Score:4, Insightful)
Wow. machine learning, starlink satellite borrowed, connected cams, announcing it to the army via a public portal?
Checks a few to many check boxes of how I would write a cover up story for intelligence help.
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There is probably some truth to these stories. But you are correct that their release is certainly also a distraction from more interesting intelligence gathering that will not be made public in our lifetimes.
I knew it! (Score:3)
I was always suspicious of those hot single moms...
Re: I knew it! (Score:1)
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As you should be.
Is that a Kalashnikov... (Score:3)
...in your pants or are you just happy to see me?
Deja Vu alll over again (Score:1)