It would be extremely stupid of Russia not to spy on Slovakia. If they had properly spied on Ukraine, they could have turned around 2014 and all of Nuland's "regime change" machinations. They have learned their lesson well now - do as the Americans do and spy on everyone - and most especially the "friendly" nations - by any and all means.
vrganj 1 hours ago [-]
One could say that Fico himself is a Russian backdoor...
tonyhart7 1 hours ago [-]
acting like western nation didn't spy to each other
reaperducer 1 hours ago [-]
[flagged]
tonyhart7 37 minutes ago [-]
[flagged]
Yiin 24 minutes ago [-]
it's not about Russia being good or bad, they will do anything in their interest like every other country. What's bad is Slovakia apparently not being careful enough about that.
ricardobeat 34 minutes ago [-]
so Russia is the good guy here?
tonyhart7 31 minutes ago [-]
now you putting word in my mouth, no one says that
but pointing "huh huh duurrr Russia is bad" while doing the same shit Russia doing is peak level irony
You don't have moral high ground
throwaway_49409 1 hours ago [-]
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greenavocado 2 hours ago [-]
You must be new to state sponsored malware. Recent false flags are a thing: 2018 Olympic Destroyer, Marble Framework, Silver Fox, MuddyWater Chaos
pbrum 12 minutes ago [-]
Silver Fox is a very vaguely defined Chinese cybercrime group of malware and actors...or are you referring to something else?
sofixa 1 hours ago [-]
> Recent false flags are a thing: 2018 Olympic Destroyer, Marble Framework, Silver Fox, MuddyWater Chaos
How are any of those false flag? They're state sponsored, by different state actors.
chimpontherun 1 hours ago [-]
I find it amusing that the biggest supporters or Russia in its current war of aggression against Ukraine are/were Hungary, Slovakia, and Serbia -- precisely the countries that should know better, since they were the principal recipients the "love and friendship" from Russia:
- Hungary: November of 1956
- Slovakia: "spring" of 1968
- Serbia: the Stalin's betrayal at the end of WW2
codedokode 39 minutes ago [-]
Hungary and Slovakia are largest importers of Russian natural gas in Europe. France is third as I remember.
vkou 58 minutes ago [-]
Geopolitical decisions aren't made by countries, they are made by individual people.
Sometimes those people are a plurality that organically endorses that decision and votes some representative in. Sometimes those people are a plurality that has been brainwashed by compromised media to do it. Sometimes those people are just a small ruling elite that get voted in by people who didn't think very hard about those particular geopolitical decisions and just want, I don't know, their political and cultural enemies brutalized and $1.99 gas.
spiderfarmer 46 minutes ago [-]
My brother visited some of these countries. He said most people there are oblivious to what happened to their countries. They simply don't care. It also didn't help that everyone he met (agricultural sector) was a day-drinker.
That's why they're doomed to repeat it. Again and again.
Loughla 2 minutes ago [-]
It's almost like people who are simply trying to survive don't have the time, energy, or space to worry about international, or even national affairs. Weird.
ReptileMan 23 minutes ago [-]
Are there any other wars that are not of aggression? What do you gain by parroting the legalese speak? Implying that it is extra bad and extra illegal war? Not your run of the mill PG-13 war? This one is X-rated kids.
Everyone knows who the attacker is - just some people root for Russia for their own reasons. Usually tied to the internal politics of their countries - like hating for unrelated reasons the political actors from their states that happen to support Ukraine.
cindyllm 1 hours ago [-]
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inglor_cz 44 minutes ago [-]
The Slovaks ultimately got federalization of Czechoslovakia from the crisis (1969), which both distracted them and made their memories less negative.
As far as Hungary goes, I asked my friend who studied Hungarian history. He explained to me that while the Soviet invasion was very traumatic, the subsequent Kádár "goulash socialism" was a lot more lenient on the people than all the other Soviet Bloc regimes, and that the Hungarians made an incorrectly confident conclusion that losing a small war to the Russians is not catastrophic.
Of course, this is NOT the experience of basically anyone else who happened to be in a similar situation. A potential puppet regime of Russia in Ukraine wouldn't look like Kádárs by any means, it would rather look like the Kadyrovian microstate in Chechnya, minus the Islam of course.
Animats 3 minutes ago [-]
> the cameras expose live streams to anyone without a password and who knows their broadcasting IP.
Are these cameras in use in Russia? Can people outside of Russia look in at Russian traffic in this way?
bdhdhduuyd 2 hours ago [-]
So they bought the cameras and some people pointed out they look exactly the same as Russian cameras. The government denied this but after they figured out the serial numbers matched the Russian cameras they started this investigation.
Good they investigated this before using them, but this sounds like a big fu...
caminante 52 minutes ago [-]
This would be far more impressive if not for:
> multiple reports in Slovak media that linked the purchase to a Cyprus shell company with fake certifications.
We're talking about this as if it's some precursor to a James Bond plot, but it really fizzles after learning Nina in the sourcing department skipped the compliance paperwork. James Bond doesn't need to leave the bed!
Trojan exploits aside, I just assume that it'd be easier for someone in SVR/GRU to bribe an admin.
NuclearPM 2 hours ago [-]
A big what?
GauntletWizard 2 hours ago [-]
A big fuck-up, but some people prefer (nobly even if I don't abide by the same rule) to keep some words out of their mouths.
bdhdhduuyd 2 hours ago [-]
fuck up
yieldcrv 1 hours ago [-]
[flagged]
phatfish 56 minutes ago [-]
Sounds plausable.
There is a video somewhere of a Finnish university professor from around the time the war started (maybe a bit before), explaining the Russian attitude to sportsmanship, or whatever you want to call it.
Basically he suggested cheating is not considered unethical in Russia. If you are not using all means available to reach your goal you are leaving something on the table and are weak. This applies to all levels of society.
I would be cautious of such generalisations normally. But the industrial scale cheating at the winter Olympics says a lot.
pepperoni_pizza 22 minutes ago [-]
"Who does not steal [from the state] steals from his family." - Eastern bloc communist era worker proverb.
FpUser 41 minutes ago [-]
>"it’s just cultural" - so is being fucking racist
yieldcrv 33 minutes ago [-]
generalizations about a group of people are not “racist” when not talking about race, they’re also not inherently pejoratives either. reduction is to know what to expect
still buy the cameras, still buy the natural gas
just dont go on the public record saying its not backdoored knowing the supply chain
but assuming there was some introspection you were hoping to reveal, which culture were you considering to be racist?
spwa4 1 hours ago [-]
They also like to bomb people, so probably best to not let them locate individuals (or anything else) easily by using Russian traffic cams ...
varjag 1 hours ago [-]
It's remarkable how much the Russians love fighting given how generally inept they are at it.
vkou 56 minutes ago [-]
They are only losing one war in the last few decades, another major empire has in that timeframe lost one and is currently losing another.
juliusceasar 17 minutes ago [-]
Russia to Slovakia is Israel to USA.
Puppet state.
The article is neither about Germany nor about the US.
sssilver 33 minutes ago [-]
It's about allies spying on each other, a common practice since the dawn of civilization.
tokai 1 hours ago [-]
It seems like a silly mess. But its easier than it sounds to end up in such a situation. We're are a lot of HN Kagi users that just have to trust that the Yandex collaboration is fully watertight.
tomas789 2 hours ago [-]
Imagine somebody being able to track almost anyone using road side cameras. Good thing such things happen only in eastern Europe wink wink
somenameforme 1 hours ago [-]
Most cameras are insecure by default. Check out: http://www.insecam.org/en/ or https://www.shodan.io/ The first isn't even using default access creds, which I suspect is what was 'discovered' in this case, but cameras that immediately hook up to the internet with 0 restrictions to access.
lifestyleguru 1 hours ago [-]
For the goal of recording a cat scratching their car or catching an imaginary thief neighbour (a magpie or fox stole that thing that one time, you dullard) people will plug into Chinese, Russian, and American video surveillance networks in no time and pay for it.
lifestyleguru 1 hours ago [-]
Slovakian prime minister is doing proud photos with Putin despite the ongoing war so the backdoor looks like a desired feature not a bug or fuck up.
irishcoffee 2 hours ago [-]
Next up, chinese solar inverter firmware.
victorbjorklund 2 hours ago [-]
To do what? Turn off the power in random individual houses?
jwr 2 minutes ago [-]
I think synchronized operations could really disrupt the grid — think thousands of inverters switching backfeeding to the grid on/off, causing waves and disruption. Or thousands of inverters having their grid sync disabled, simultaneously operating to shift the frequency of the grid (very bad).
wongarsu 2 hours ago [-]
I'd be worried about the inverters in large commercial solar plants. On a sunny day you could easily cause a blackout by turning enough solar capacity off at once. Maybe shut down the entire grid when the sudden power imbalances trip the self- protection in half the grid. That's a pain to recover from. Spain went through that not too long ago
But maybe rapidly switching residential solar on and off in a coordinated way can also do funny things to grid equipment
rollulus 1 hours ago [-]
Any idea what happens to the grid when a significant chunk of solar power suddenly disconnects?
nom 48 minutes ago [-]
nah, the ones connected to the grid... you turn them all off during peak sun hours at the exact same time
same issue with large loads like boilers, this stuff should never be connected to the internet, but it is
if you can control enough load on the grid you can do real damage
randoot 2 hours ago [-]
DDoS, anonymizer proxy, and turn off power in large commercial installations. They kinda deserve it for investing in solar. US holds all the power in social media, can't blame China if they want to utilize their lead in solar for something too.
Hopefully mutually assured annoyance keeps everyone at bay.
vkou 19 minutes ago [-]
To piss away decades of hard-earned trust in its products for some short-term one-time political 'pwn' of the enemy.
If that goal sounds stupid to you, that's because it is. I would expect some countries that are not China to act with such a capricious lack of foresight.
bdhdhduuyd 2 hours ago [-]
To set roofs on fire?
In the end it's all about trust.
Right now I don't see why China would like to burn down their market.
cyanydeez 2 hours ago [-]
guys, do we need to reinvent the same Hanlon razor but for capitalism: Dont attribute to malice that which can easily be explained by capitalism?
probably_wrong 1 hours ago [-]
If we're reinventing sayings, I suggest Clarke's third law first: Any sufficiently advanced capitalism is indistinguishable from malice.
emdash 2 hours ago [-]
Some of those are networked I think?
tomas789 1 hours ago [-]
Most of them are. Including the biggest ones.
newsclues 2 hours ago [-]
Track usage patterns to know when people are at home and then rob them.
2OEH8eoCRo0 2 hours ago [-]
The HN version of "I have nothing to hide."
giancarlostoro 2 hours ago [-]
The nothing to hide thing isnt even an HN only thing unfortunately.
szundi 2 hours ago [-]
[dead]
LogTrim 1 hours ago [-]
[dead]
yodon 59 minutes ago [-]
Zero chance of vulns in flock, so we're good in the US /s
You reap what you sow, MFs!
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slovak_opposition_to_sanctions...
but pointing "huh huh duurrr Russia is bad" while doing the same shit Russia doing is peak level irony
You don't have moral high ground
How are any of those false flag? They're state sponsored, by different state actors.
- Hungary: November of 1956
- Slovakia: "spring" of 1968
- Serbia: the Stalin's betrayal at the end of WW2
Sometimes those people are a plurality that organically endorses that decision and votes some representative in. Sometimes those people are a plurality that has been brainwashed by compromised media to do it. Sometimes those people are just a small ruling elite that get voted in by people who didn't think very hard about those particular geopolitical decisions and just want, I don't know, their political and cultural enemies brutalized and $1.99 gas.
That's why they're doomed to repeat it. Again and again.
Everyone knows who the attacker is - just some people root for Russia for their own reasons. Usually tied to the internal politics of their countries - like hating for unrelated reasons the political actors from their states that happen to support Ukraine.
As far as Hungary goes, I asked my friend who studied Hungarian history. He explained to me that while the Soviet invasion was very traumatic, the subsequent Kádár "goulash socialism" was a lot more lenient on the people than all the other Soviet Bloc regimes, and that the Hungarians made an incorrectly confident conclusion that losing a small war to the Russians is not catastrophic.
Of course, this is NOT the experience of basically anyone else who happened to be in a similar situation. A potential puppet regime of Russia in Ukraine wouldn't look like Kádárs by any means, it would rather look like the Kadyrovian microstate in Chechnya, minus the Islam of course.
Are these cameras in use in Russia? Can people outside of Russia look in at Russian traffic in this way?
Good they investigated this before using them, but this sounds like a big fu...
> multiple reports in Slovak media that linked the purchase to a Cyprus shell company with fake certifications.
We're talking about this as if it's some precursor to a James Bond plot, but it really fizzles after learning Nina in the sourcing department skipped the compliance paperwork. James Bond doesn't need to leave the bed!
Trojan exploits aside, I just assume that it'd be easier for someone in SVR/GRU to bribe an admin.
There is a video somewhere of a Finnish university professor from around the time the war started (maybe a bit before), explaining the Russian attitude to sportsmanship, or whatever you want to call it.
Basically he suggested cheating is not considered unethical in Russia. If you are not using all means available to reach your goal you are leaving something on the table and are weak. This applies to all levels of society.
I would be cautious of such generalisations normally. But the industrial scale cheating at the winter Olympics says a lot.
still buy the cameras, still buy the natural gas
just dont go on the public record saying its not backdoored knowing the supply chain
but assuming there was some introspection you were hoping to reveal, which culture were you considering to be racist?
But maybe rapidly switching residential solar on and off in a coordinated way can also do funny things to grid equipment
same issue with large loads like boilers, this stuff should never be connected to the internet, but it is
if you can control enough load on the grid you can do real damage
Hopefully mutually assured annoyance keeps everyone at bay.
If that goal sounds stupid to you, that's because it is. I would expect some countries that are not China to act with such a capricious lack of foresight.
In the end it's all about trust. Right now I don't see why China would like to burn down their market.