May 1, 2022

Happy Labor Day

The Ukrainian volunteer cyber army is possibly the worst thing to happen for Ukrainian cyber security since the 2015 electrical grid hack. They are providing almost no operational benefit to the Ukrainian war effort, while simultaneously forcing the Russians into a more secure cyber posture.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2022/05/01/russia-cyber-attacks-hacking/

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Anton Ptushkin @ptuxerman

“People of the Chechen Republic!” This is the header of a leaflet from a propaganda reactive shell (a red thing in the background) I found in Chernihiv. One of the shells that were fired by the Russian army at the city and suburbs. Wrong with the country, wrong with the year.

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ACAB.

Deena Winter @deenafaywinter

I have read the 72-page state report on MPD, and compiled some of the most jaw-dropping portions. Here are some of them. 🧵

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Ukraine is doing the partisan thing, only it’s behind Russian borders, not just lines.

https://www.rferl.org/a/ukraine-shadow-war-russian-border-attacks/31827632.html

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Great thread on drones equipped with grenades and bombs as the new snipers.

ChrisO @ChrisO_wiki

By now, many will have seen the video of a Ukrainian drone dropping a small bomb through the sunscreen (!) of a car driven by Russian soldiers. Here's a short thread on how it was done (with thanks to @ian_matveev, on whose thread this is based). /1

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Jen Gentleman 🌺 @JenMsft

I feel old now

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America, fuck yeah!

crazy ass moments in american politics @ampol_moment

President Eisenhower sketches a buff version of himself on a memo about how the CIA had just overthrown the Guatemalan government. (1954)

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Some interesting findings about the diets of early medieval elites.

https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-cambridgeshire-61178452

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Mar Hicks @histoftech

this feels canon

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Jailbreak kindle. Exploits here

Tutorial WatchThis - Software Jailbreak for any Kindle <= 5.14.1 - MobileRead Forums

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Some handy helpers for hacking

Charlie Bromberg (Shutdown) @_nwodtuhs

In case you missed it, here are two diagram and table to help understand and abuse NTLM relay attacks 😃 (I could use some help to finish them and do some foolproofing, but they're already helpful as is imo)

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Coverage on how the intelligence war fed the hot war.

https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/national-security/us-intel-helped-ukraine-protect-air-defenses-shoot-russian-plane-carry-rcna26015

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Strong signalling happening these days. Pelosi and a bunch of senators went to meet Zelensky in Kyiv.

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Ignorant legislation about data retention ends up targeting privacy services. News at 11.

Frederic Jacobs @FredericJacobs

Very shortsighted legislation in Belgium on data retention. The bill is effectively outlawing Signal. I doubt it’s going to hold up to scrutiny from the Belgian Constitutional Court, but it’s going to be detrimental for privacy in Belgium. Thanks @bpreneel1 for speaking out

Nikolas Vanhecke @nikolasvh

‘Signal wordt eigenlijk verplicht metadata bij te houden en de autoriteiten er toegang toe te verlenen als ze dat vragen. De implicaties voor Signal zijn enorm, die zullen waarschijnlijk moeten sluiten voor België.’ https://t.co/zT5pvfG3ws

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Woah

Reed Timmer @ReedTimmerAccu

Highest-res drone footage of the Andover, KS #tornado which has received a preliminary rating of EF3. Note how the tornado propagates via vortex dynamics and likely terrain. Incredibly, no lives were lost by this tornado

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Apparently Russian troll farms are a thing? Who knew??

Here’s the takedown thread by a skeptical journalist.

Alexander Martin @AlexMartin

New: Britain has accused a "sick Russian troll factory" of "plaguing social media with Kremlin propaganda" after funding what it said was expert research into the organisation.

news.sky.comUkraine war: Britain accuses ‘sick Russian troll factory’ of ‘plaguing social media with Kremlin propaganda’An organisation based in St Petersburg called Cyber Front Z is said to pay locals about £500 a month to target senior politicians and media outlets on social media platforms and in comment sections.

Here’s part of the story I thought was worth extracting.

Activities on Twitter and Facebook were detected, but were found to be particularly concentrated on Instagram, YouTube and TikTok. A key role in the network is said to be performed by a Telegram channel called “Cyber Front Z”, with the letter Z signifying Russian support for the war.

(I’ll be honest, the fact that Russia is also using a telegram channel to control a crowd of ppl is a datapoint on organization in cyber conflict.)

Here is the dumb ass story:

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/may/01/troll-factory-spreading-russian-pro-war-lies-online-says-uk

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The school of elicitation.

annie @soychotic

Every time I have a programming question and I rly need help, I post it on Reddit and then log into another account and reply to it with an obscenely incorrect answer. Ppl don’t care about helping others but they LOVE correcting others. Works 100% of the time

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This is a good video on how user interface and human factors impact security.

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David Patrikarakos @dpatrikarakos

Odesa security expert tells me: “Security is really tight atm as there's a real fear of infiltration by saboteurs. Last week the security services caught someone skulking around post-curfew. When then grabbed him, he screamed: "It's ok, it's ok, I'm just a drug dealer!"

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