Cyber Conflict and Subversion in the Russia-Ukraine War

Metadata

• Author: Default
• Category: article
• URL: https://www.lawfaremedia.org/article/cyber-conflict-in-the-russia-ukraine-war

Highlights

The Russia-Ukraine war is the first case of cyber conflict in a large-scale military conflict involving a major power.

Contrary to cyberwar fears, most cyber operations remained strategically inconsequential, but there are several exceptions: the AcidRain operation, the UKRTelecom disruption, the September 2022 power grid sabotage, and the catastrophic Kyivstar outage of 2023.

These developments suggest hacking groups are increasingly fusing cyber operations with traditional subversive methods to improve effectiveness.

The first exceptional case is AcidRain. This advanced malware knocked out satellite communication provided by Viasat’s K-SAT service across Europe the very moment the invasion commenced. Among the customers of the K-SAT service: Ukraine’s military. The operation that deployed this malware stands out not only because it shows a direct linkage to military goals but also because it could have plausibly produced a clear tactical, potentially strategic, advantage for Russian troops at a decisive moment.

The second exception is a cyber operation in March 2022 that caused a massive outage of UKRTelecom, a major internet provider in Ukraine. It took only a month to prepare yet caused significant damage. It cut off over 80 percent of UKRTelecom’s customers from the internet for close to 24 hours.

Finally, the potentially most severe challenge to the theory of subversion is a power grid sabotage operation in September 2022. The operation stands out not only because it used a novel technique but also because it took very little preparation. According to Mandiant, it required only two months of preparation and used what is called “living off the land” techniques, namely foregoing malware and using only existing functionality.

After all, why go through the trouble of finding vulnerabilities in complex networks and develop sophisticated exploits when you can take the easy route via an employee, or even direct network access?

Some article from the past ;)

Why We Love Music

Metadata

• Author: Jill Suttie
• Category: article
• URL: https://greatergood.berkeley.edu/article/item/why_we_love_music

Highlights

Using fMRI technology, they’re discovering why music can inspire such strong feelings and bind us so tightly to other people.

“A single sound tone is not really pleasurable in itself; but if these sounds are organized over time in some sort of arrangement, it’s amazingly powerful.”

There’s another part of the brain that seeps dopamine, specifically just before those peak emotional moments in a song: the caudate nucleus, which is involved in the anticipation of pleasure. Presumably, the anticipatory pleasure comes from familiarity with the song—you have a memory of the song you enjoyed in the past embedded in your brain, and you anticipate the high points that are coming.

During peak emotional moments in the songs identified by the listeners, dopamine was released in the nucleus accumbens, a structure deep within the older part of our human brain.

This finding suggested to her that when people listen to unfamiliar music, their brains process the sounds through memory circuits, searching for recognizable patterns to help them make predictions about where the song is heading. If music is too foreign-sounding, it will be hard to anticipate the song’s structure, and people won’t like it—meaning, no dopamine hit. But, if the music has some recognizable features—maybe a familiar beat or melodic structure—people will more likely be able to anticipate the song’s emotional peaks and enjoy it more. The dopamine hit comes from having their predictions confirmed—or violated slightly, in intriguing ways.

On the other hand, people tend to tire of pop music more readily than they do of jazz, for the same reason—it can become too predictable.

Her findings also explain why people can hear the same song over and over again and still enjoy it. The emotional hit off of a familiar piece of music can be so intense, in fact, that it’s easily re-stimulated even years later.

“Musical rhythms can directly affect your brain rhythms, and brain rhythms are responsible for how you feel at any given moment,” says Large.

“If I’m a performer and you’re a listener, and what I’m playing really moves you, I’ve basically synchronized your brain rhythm with mine,” says Large. “That’s how I communicate with you.”

He points to the work of Erin Hannon at the University of Nevada who found that babies as young as 8 months old already tune into the rhythms of the music from their own cultural environment.

“Liking is so subjective,” he says. “Music may not sound any different to you than to someone else, but you learn to associate it with something you like and you’ll experience a pleasure response.”

Notes from the podcast:

The president has sole authority to initiate a nuclear war without needing approval from anyone else, emphasizing the speed of decision-making in such scenarios.

Post-nuclear war scenarios lack population protection planning, requiring individuals to rely on their own resources for survival.

Building trust with primary sources for reporting involves navigating conflicts between personal and professional information, especially in high-stakes environments like national security.

The revelation of the Roswell crash being a hoax orchestrated by Stalin highlights the intricate world of government intrigue and secrecy.

Title 50 allows for covert operations like the assassination of Bin Laden in Pakistan, showcasing the blurred lines between military and intelligence operations.

CIA covert operations raise ethical dilemmas, with discussions around the role of assassination in geopolitics and military operations.

Obtaining unbiased insights from different intelligence agencies requires extensive research and multiple sources, emphasizing the importance of transparency in investigative journalism.

Surveillance techniques have evolved to include mass biometric data collection, raising concerns about privacy and the implications of widespread surveillance in modern society.