Russia Surrounded

[Leo]

kind of hilarious how the top secret Ukraine document leak seems to have come not from a highly-trained foreign spy, but from some guy who wanted to impress his Discord group.

 

[version]

kind of hilarious how the top secret Ukraine document leak seems to have come not from a highly-trained foreign spy, but from some guy who wanted to impressive his Discord group.

The details of that story are great, like something from Pynchon's Bleeding Edge. Apparently there's one game in particular called War Thunder that's been associated with multiple leaks because the players are always arguing over weapons capability.

Pentagon leak traced to video game chat group users arguing over war in Ukraine

Analysis suggests top-secret documents were first shared on closed gamer chatrooms hosted by Discord

www.theguardian.com

Although the scale and sensitivity of the leaks are significant, this is not the first time that an intelligence breach has been traced back to an argument about video games. One game in particular, the vehicular combat simulation War Thunder, has become notorious for the sheer quantity of leaks linked to it.

The game, which has a reputation for accuracy, has 70 million players worldwide, leading to regular disputes about balance and accuracy – as a result, users have made breaches in at least 10 separate cases since 2020, frequently through posting classified documents about the capability of active weaponry in an effort to argue for the digital version of the vehicle to be improved.

In October 2021, for instance, classified design details about the French Leclerc tank were posted to win an argument about turret rotation speed. In July 2021, a user claiming to be a tank commander in the British army posted documents about the armour structure of the vehicle to win an argument. In January this year, design documents covering at least five separate fighter jets were posted by four different users.

The game has become such a shorthand for intelligence failures that the military contractor Raytheon was forced to deny reports that it specifically asked about War Thunder as part of a security clearance process.

 

[IdleRich]

We are definitely in the matrix, we just don't notice cos there aren't any glitches.

 

[version]

We are definitely in the matrix, we just don't notice cos there aren't any glitches.

The stuff at the bottom of the article about World of Warcraft is gold. I'd forgotten about all that.

One document, written in 2008 and titled Exploiting Terrorist Use of Games & Virtual Environments, warned that it was risky to leave gaming communities under-monitored, describing them as a “target-rich communications network”. The notes warned that so many different agencies were conducting operations inside gaming services that a “deconfliction” group was needed to prevent them spying on each other by accident.

Xbox Live among game services targeted by US and UK spy agencies

NSA and GCHQ collect gamers' chats and deploy real-life agents into World of Warcraft and Second Life

www.theguardian.com

 

[version]

To the National Security Agency analyst writing a briefing to his superiors, the situation was clear: their current surveillance efforts were lacking something. The agency's impressive arsenal of cable taps and sophisticated hacking attacks was not enough. What it really needed was a horde of undercover Orcs.

🔥

 

[IdleRich]

The stuff at the bottom of the article about World of Warcraft is gold. I'd forgotten about all that.

One document, written in 2008 and titled Exploiting Terrorist Use of Games & Virtual Environments, warned that it was risky to leave gaming communities under-monitored, describing them as a “target-rich communications network”. The notes warned that so many different agencies were conducting operations inside gaming services that a “deconfliction” group was needed to prevent them spying on each other by accident.

Xbox Live among game services targeted by US and UK spy agencies

NSA and GCHQ collect gamers' chats and deploy real-life agents into World of Warcraft and Second Life

www.theguardian.com

It's like A Scanner Darkly when he's spying on himself

 

[Leo]

F.B.I. Arrests National Guardsman in Leak of Classified Documents (Published 2023)

Authorities say Jack Teixeira, a 21-year-old member of the Massachusetts Air National Guard, posted sensitive materials in an online chat group.

www.nytimes.com

The leader of a small online gaming chat group where a trove of classified U.S. intelligence documents leaked over the last few months is a 21-year-old member of the intelligence wing of the Massachusetts Air National Guard, according to interviews and documents reviewed by The New York Times.

The national guardsman, whose name is Jack Teixeira, oversaw a private online group named Thug Shaker Central, where about 20 to 30 people, mostly young men and teenagers, came together over a shared love of guns, racist online memes and video games.

Members of Thug Shaker Central who spoke to The Times said that the documents they discussed online were meant to be purely informative. While many pertained to the war in Ukraine, the members said they took no side in the conflict.

The documents, they said, only started to get wider attention when one of the teenage members of the group took a few dozen of them and posted them to a public online forum. From there they were picked up by Russian-language Telegram channels and then The New York Times, which first reported on them.

The person who leaked, they said, was no whistleblower, and the secret documents were never meant to leave their small corner of the internet.

“This guy was a Christian, anti-war, just wanted to inform some of his friends about what’s going on,” said one of the person’s friends from the community, a 17-year-old recent high school graduate. “We have some people in our group who are in Ukraine. We like fighting games, we like war games.”

 

[Leo]

a teenager rocks the global political world.

 

[woops]

a teenager rocks the global political world.

 

[Mr. Tea]

This is the way the world ends.
This is the way the world ends.
This is the way the world ends.
Not with a bang, but an "OMG HEADSHOT, lol pwnd fag, kekekekekeke 🤣"

 

[vimothy]

craner described this to me as a 'remarkably primitive conversation'

maybe so. I don't think the basic realist position, which I've laid out here, is particularly complex, or needs to be. the threat of NATO expansion into Ukraine is obviously provocative from a Russian perspective. If the situation were flipped on its head, the US would be no less aggressive in response. this doesn't justify russia's actions, but it does go some way towards explaining them.

and if craner feels that this is leaving out something important (to be sure it's leaving out a lot), he should join the debate and set us all straight.

 

[Mr. Tea]

maybe so. I don't think the basic realist position, which I've laid out here, is particularly complex, or needs to be. the threat of NATO expansion into Ukraine is obviously provocative from a Russian perspective. If the situation were flipped on its head, the US would be no less aggressive in response. this doesn't justify russia's actions, but it does go some way towards explaining them.

and if craner feels that this is leaving out something important (to be sure it's leaving out a lot), he should join the debate and set us all straight.

In all seriousness, what do you suppose the nature of this NATO "threat" to Russia to amount to? Do you imagine Ukraine being used as a springboard for a land invasion of Russia? Or what?

 

[vimothy]

not at all. nothing ever needs to happen militarily in order for NATO expansion into Ukraine to provide leverage against Russia. just ask yourself, what's the strategic value of aligning Ukraine with the West vs it remaining neutral? clearly it's not nothing. even if we never invade Russia - as I'm sure we won't

 

[vimothy]

think of our nuclear weapons. given that we'll probably never use them, do they provide any value? obviously they do, as a deterrent, or a "threat"

 

[Mr. Tea]

think of our nuclear weapons. given that we'll probably never use them, do they provide any value? obviously they do, as a deterrent, or a "threat"

Obviously they're both, but the situation on the Western side has remained unchanged for decades. All the nuclear threats come from Russia.

Any move to put nukes in Ukraine would be insanely provocative, even in the scenario of Ukraine joining NATO. But as I said the other day, even that is scenario is completely hypothetical, since Ukraine expressing a desire (a justified one, you surely agree) to join NATO is a long, long way from it actually happening. France and Germany were until recently blocking any route for Ukraine to join the EU, either - presumably so as to avoid "poking the bear." They've since changed their tune, presumably as they can see that Russia is going to do whatever the fuck it wants to do, regardless of their actions.

 

[vimothy]

I'm not suggesting that anyone wants to put nukes in Ukraine. it's just an analogy to show that you can have some kind of military resource where the distinction between defensive and offensive purposes is ambiguous, and where this ambiguity contributes to its strategic value. you don't need to use nuclear weapons in order to have your competitors in the international system modify their behaviour in accordance with their presence. if you wanted to use a nuclear weapon to wipe out a competitor, you could. even if you never do and what's more don't intend to, that's an important fact which takes many options off the table. likewise NATO presence in Ukraine changes the relative balance of power b/w the West and Russia, even if it's never used as the entrypoint to a land invasion of Russia, or whatever

 

[DannyL]

maybe so. I don't think the basic realist position, which I've laid out here, is particularly complex, or needs to be. the threat of NATO expansion into Ukraine is obviously provocative from a Russian perspective. If the situation were flipped on its head, the US would be no less aggressive in response. this doesn't justify russia's actions, but it does go some way towards explaining them.

and if craner feels that this is leaving out something important (to be sure it's leaving out a lot), he should join the debate and set us all straight.

The thing I object to about this is that I think you don't really understand what Russia is like as a state, and how fundamental its war on truth is. Peter Pomerantsev's book is good here, the title gives away its argument "Nothing is True, Anything Is Possible". If you follow any of the controversies around various massacres they're covering up - Douma, MH-17, whatever, the MO is to lie and keep on lying forever, no matter the evidence against you, no matter how preposterous the claim. The Skirpal poisoners trolling and lies about Salisbury Cathedral are a interesting illustration of this in practice. I find it a bit absurd you can claim to be making a "realist" case without acknowledging this basic positioning. I mean, just some reading about Russian politics and how its conducted - lying is the absolute baseline from which everything starts. The claim that this is somehow the fault of NATO provocation has to be read in this light.

 

[DannyL]

I mean, this is the state that launched a global campaign against first responders in Syria to convince the world they were actually jihadists, has sunk dark money into funding fascist groups all over Europe, funded protests in the US along the divisive lines possible etc etc etc yet we should take their given motivations for this war at face value, and use it self-criticise? "It's our fault, really?" C'mon.

 

[version]

Funny to see Russia calling for an immediate end to hostilities in Sudan earlier.

 

[DannyL]

Funny to see Russia calling for an immediate end to hostilities in Sudan earlier.

It sort of fits in with what I was saying above, its basically trolling.