The Main Intelligence Directorate of Ukraine’s Ministry of Defense claims that pro-Ukrainian hacktivists breached the Russian Center for Space Hydrometeorology, aka “planeta” (планета), and wiped 2 petabytes of data.

    • Teanut@lemmy.world
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      8 months ago

      Weather forecasting is actually really important for military operations. Consider weather advisories for aircraft, for example. Or planning an offensive on a clear day.

      That said I don’t know if this place was doing climate science or weather forecasting (or both).

    • partial_accumen@lemmy.world
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      8 months ago

      I wish they could have stolen the data before they wiped it so it wasn’t lost, but that’s a lot of data to swipe.

      Ukrainian hackers could cryptolocker it and exchange the keys for Ukrainian POWs.

      • h4lf8yte@lemmy.ml
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        8 months ago

        I am sure somebody would get suspicious if the servers are on 100% CPU + IO to encrypt 2 petabytes especially if you encrypt the data in place.

        • 🖖USS-Ethernet@startrek.website
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          8 months ago

          Yup, we have certain monitors in place for if a server is maxed out above ~90% CPU/memory utilization for a certain period of time. Wouldn’t take that long for someone to realize if they were properly monitoring their systems.

    • Sprokes@lemmy.world
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      8 months ago

      I am sure they have offline backups. Also sometimes most of the data is garbage in the sense we collect anything in case we need it.

    • DAEMON@lemmy.ml
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      8 months ago

      I will also eat two toasts tonight one because i am hungry and the other because i am also hungry.

      • gregorum@lemm.ee
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        8 months ago

        striking a vulnerable Russian target was political.

        Nothing like “science progresses us” more like “this data hurts people”

        these are not the same. and, these Ukrainian hackers probably were more badass techies than trains on discriminate strategic targeting, so they hit whatever had the weakest security. like, I get it, but if someone sat them aside for five minutes and explained that this data is valuable to humanity, and should, at least, be preserved, they would have thought twice before deleting it without preserving it— or, at least making sure the Russians had backups. (maybe they do?)

        also, as I mentioned, this action is only sorta embarrassing, not statically useful. it’s not military or strategic/spy data they deleted. this cyberattack doesn’t damage any infrastructure or anything related to war-making. it was an indiscriminate attack based, certainly, on opportunity, not static planning.

        given Ukraines recent… budget issues, I think that their innovation in drone attacks in one front they should continue to invest in both because its cheap, but also minimizes casualties. the other they should now explore is cyberwarfare. And cyberattacks should be strategic in nature. They should disable, immobilize, and/or destroy a target. Destroying priceless knowledge is just wrong and benefits nobody.

    • nomad@infosec.pub
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      8 months ago

      Have you ever seen any academic IT systems? They are all underfunded ans run by grad students.

      • cynar@lemmy.world
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        8 months ago

        Even worse, they are often a case of accretion by generations of grad students and undergrads.

        E.g. a university was redoing how it hosted student club websites. When it eventually killed the old hosting, 1 site stayed working. It was eventually tracked down to a little mini pc mounted above the false ceiling. It had been plodding away for 20 odd years, most of that without any maintenance at all.

      • 50gp@kbin.social
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        8 months ago

        and here we have underfunded science with lots of russian corruption on top

        real chance of backup system money disappearing in pockets…

  • derpgon@programming.dev
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    8 months ago

    I see all the comments saying Ukraine targeted non-military entity. But IMO, Russia can get fucked. I am not sure if they shared the data with anyone, or kept it to themselves, but no loss.

      • cheesebag@lemmy.world
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        8 months ago

        The Russian Federation actually does give a fuck about climate… They want to make global warming worse. They get to sell more gas, they get more arable land up north, and they open up shipping routes in the Arctic. Putin is Captain Planet levels of evil, fr.

    • hark@lemmy.world
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      8 months ago

      Following that logic, civilians should be fair game because “Russia can get fucked”.

        • hark@lemmy.world
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          8 months ago

          Taking a “this is justified because fuck Russia” line of logic to its logical conclusion is not the same as equating data loss to loss of human life.

    • maness300@lemmy.world
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      8 months ago

      I disagree wholeheartedly with the idea of collective punishment.

      It’s very easy to turn collective punishment into discrimination and genocide. This solves nothing and only creates more problems.

      • Chocrates@lemmy.world
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        8 months ago

        I agree but this seems to be an attack on a military contractor, similar to if Russia attacked Lockheed martin. Sure Lockheed does civilian stuff but they actively help the military. I am not sure what the UN says about it, and it certainly isn’t the same as Israel collectively punishing Gaza.

        I suppose everything has nuance

      • derpgon@programming.dev
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        8 months ago

        When the people accept this kind of behavior (of Putler), then they can’t have it nice, either.

      • phoenixz@lemmy.ca
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        8 months ago

        I’m sorry, are you saying that genocide (which is what Russia literally is doing in Ukraine)is bad? Because again, that is literally what Russia is doing in Ukraine.

        This is a target because it’s information can be (fuck that, IS) important and be used in the Russian invasion efforts. It’s a legit target

        • S410@lemmy.ml
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          8 months ago

          Are you saying that just because Russia is doing a genocide, doing a genocide to Russia would be justified?
          Ever heard the saying “an eye for an eye leaves the whole world blind”?

          • Cosmic Cleric@lemmy.world
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            8 months ago

            Are you saying that just because Russia is doing a genocide, doing a genocide to Russia would be justified? Ever heard the saying “an eye for an eye leaves the whole world blind”?

            They can put that phrase on Ukrainian tombstones. /s

            A data hack/destruction is not genocide.

            • S410@lemmy.ml
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              8 months ago

              I’m not talking about this case and this data. I’m talking about the take of people above on how things should be handled.

              Derpgon said “russia can be fucked” regardless of whether it’s a military or civilian target.

              Maness300 pointed out that collective punishment can easily turn into discrimination. That is, there’s a big difference between “XYZ is bad, because it’s aiding Russian military” and “XYZ is bad, because it’s Russian”

              Phoenixz points out that Russia is committing genocide, as if it’s a counter argument to the previous statement, somehow.

              I point out that just because Russia is committing genocide, it doesn’t make it right to slip into “XYZ is bad, because it’s Russian” and use that as justification to do anything you want to the country and its people.

              Maness300 is right: targeting entities of any country for the action of said country, regardless of whether the entities in question are responsible, or even capable of influencing the actions, is not a good idea. It will lead to more problems.

              I, for example, don’t support the US selling weapons to Israel. Should go and set the closest 7-eleven on fire? It’s an American company, so, clearly, it’s a valid target, right?

      • okamiueru@lemmy.world
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        8 months ago

        This has got to be the most peculiar downvoted comment I’ve seen on lemmy so far. A principled disagreement with collective punishment? Weird.

        Edit: what am I missing? Or have I stumbled into a part of lemmy that is totally fine with stuff Nazi Germany did, and present day Israel and Russia are doing?

  • dlpkl@lemmy.world
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    8 months ago

    The only reasonable excuse for attacking this data was that it helped the Russian war effort. Eg. flying in supplies, planning offensives, missile and UAV flight planning, etc.

    • helmet91@lemmy.world
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      8 months ago

      1000 Terabytes (TB) = 1 Petabyte (PB).

      Or: 1024 Tebibytes (TiB) = 1 Pebibyte (PiB)

      Or: 1024 Terabytes (TB) = 1.024 Petabytes (PB)

      Or: 1024 Terabytes (TB) = 1 Petabyte (TB), 24 Terabytes (TB)

      But: 1024 Terabytes (TB) != 1 Petabyte (PB)

  • hark@lemmy.world
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    8 months ago

    Hell yeah, score another point for the anti-science team!

  • Paragone@lemmy.world
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    8 months ago

    That was a non-military target.

    That also harmed science.

    That kind of targetting is what I expect of Russia, but if Ukranians are doing it to, then it means they’re losing their ability to discern who the proper targets are, vs who the not proper targets are, and are assaulting more indiscriminately.

    Not wise, Ukraina, sorry.

    _ /\ _

    • Squizzy@lemmy.world
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      8 months ago

      They’re authoritarian war mongers using chemical warfare to assassinate people on foreign soil. They are illegally occupying a country, and this target was supplying the war effort with information. Fuck anything Russia at this point.

    • grozzle@lemm.ee
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      8 months ago

      being “science” doesn’t make make it harmless.

      good meteorology supports military operations.

      if it hurts russia’s accuracy in predicting weather, it helps Ukraine’s chance for surviving this war.

      nobody says this particular action was a top priority, but every little resistance against the russian genocide helps.

      • vaultdweller013@sh.itjust.works
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        8 months ago

        It was actually military R&D that helped develop meteorology to the point it is today since predicting the weather even inaccurately can be a decent boon in warfare.

    • Harbinger01173430@lemmy.world
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      8 months ago

      The civilian script kiddies did that or the Ukrainian government? In both cases…yeah, they are being kinda moronic and harmful by destroying research.