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...
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.
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?
I'm not going to be able to match your colloquialism on that, words have meaning and this one hasn't changed yet despite mods of illiterate people using it your way
> 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.
> 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.
That's exactly the sort of thing that James Bond would do.
Current government is extremely pro-russian to the point of treason, and people involved in this case double so.
This wasn't some oversight of the proverbial Nina in any way. They just did sloppy job from both sides covering tracks, not uncommon with current government. They are loud (and racist, xenophobic, and often dumb), not competent smart people.
> Nina in the sourcing department skipped the compliance paperwork.
Well the interior ministry didn't really demand one (yes really) but the opposition people have read the documentation for the cameras and the hash of the supplied software was exactly the same as the hash for the russian simicon camera.
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.
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:
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.
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.
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.
exactly. they need a foreigner that visits for a weekend to tell them what is happening in their own country. those stupid day-drinking eastern europeans... the arrogance of you and your brother is incredible
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.
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.
A lot of Eastern European countries have oligarchs who largely made their fortunes with help from the Russians. In Czechia one such example is the prime minister Andrej Babiš, who was a bureaucrat in a state owned business who then sold it to himself in the 90s (with the help of some "Swiss" money) and became a billionaire. He's consistently been as pro-Russia as he thinks he can get away with (the positive is that Czechs hate Russians a lot).
Also in these countries there's a lot of old people who have never been able to adapt to living in a free, capitalist society, so for them, there's some nostalgia for communism.
And maybe they mistake current Russia for a communist country? It has every single ingredient of Stalin's Russia except the pretense of socialism or communism.
It doesn't matter what Russia actually is. They play both sides with their propaganda. Old people who thought positively about communism still support Russia.
Fico and Babiš for example were both communist party members and both pro-Russia politicians today.
oh no, they see very clearly, to the West it's a (more or less) rule-based order and to the East it's a might-makes-right one, so they having acquired their power and money in a not entirely legal way, naturally are drawn to the east.
edit: ah you mean the old people? not really, no, it's just pure propaganda, it doesn't have to make sense.
Older people in these countries have good memories of that time, employment and housing were basically a given, healthcare and public transportation were solved, etc. They're very easy to manipulate, promise them a 13th month of pension and they'll vote for you.
I don't think you understand how bad globalization fucked up these countries, people live with their parents until they're 30+, young people can't find decent jobs, etc.
No, globalization gave them as a nation a chance and they mostly didn't do any serious effort to use that. Its 1000 little decisions here and that that led to some post-soviet-sphere countries to thrive, while others stumble and generally gain prosperity mostly from being dragged into it via EU membership. Ie specifically Slovakia is / used to be a big car factory for whole EU due to low salaries. Not really something to build long term success on, ie if Ukraine would join EU all of those foreign factories would move even further east.
Sure, we can blame politicians which were mostly bad to worse and stole everything that was previously state-owned (meaning everything). But folks kept voting for them in similar fashion you describe so this is the result, its trivial to 'buy' votes with relatively low budget. I mean current PM has very tight and visible connections to Italian 'Ndrangheta mafia, he or people around him did a contract murder of reporter looking into that. He didn't ever faced jail and is back being PM like there is no tomorrow. There is only so much blame one can point outwards, you can't be dumb / do dumb shit and expect long term marvels of prosperity on Switzerland's level.
Lived in both of those countries, and they look exactly as they should given overall population efforts towards hard work, honesty, rule of law and so on. If US would be a nation of slackers and thieves it would also look very differently to how it is.
> and they mostly didn't do any serious effort to use that.
Those countries who were fresh from behind the iron curtain were really dealt a bad hand. They had lived in a "protective bubble", albeit a very unsustainable one and suddenly were thrown in the ocean surrounded by sharks looking for an easy meal. Almost every one of those people found themselves desperate but "inexperienced" and unprepared for the new world, every politician was absolutely blown away by the fortune they could make, and every other country jumped on the opportunity to make money. Like shooting fish in a barrel.
For every politician who took a bribe, someone who already had money paid it. That money didn't come from inside those poor countries. This leveraging of poorer countries never stopped. That's how some countries get a better deal than others when the EU adopted the Euro, for example. But it's never been so bad as back then because it's incredibly rare that entire countries find themselves exiting a time capsule, just ready to be exploited by people who already know how the game is played.
This reminds me of two things. The people who always think others are poor because they're lazy, and the people with perfect hindsight and no pressure judging that Captain Sully could have landed the plane back on the runway instead of the Hudson.
Well, yes and no. This is valid across 2 decades, not something that happened over 6 months after iron curtain fell. And in some way it continues till today, rule of law is still pretty weak for example and politicians often sidestep laws valid for everybody else. Thats really indefensible and completely on population, not some evil forces outside conspiring to harm.
Also, most corruption, or ie sale of factories worth billions for thousands/millions was mostly to local people, not outsiders.
> something that happened over 6 months after iron curtain fell
That's how you think it went, huh? Six months and every country and person got over the decades of communism like they never existed? Six month was just enough for the euphoria to wear off.
If reading a book got you 1 million HN karma you'd jump on it. Instead it just makes you more educated. Here, gift link [1], check out what did most countries manage to achieve before say June 1990.
> No, globalization gave them as a nation a chance and they mostly didn't do any serious effort to use that.
Sure buddy... That's why the country is full of german supermarkets, french banks, german factories, etc. They totally were not accepted in EU just to milk the low ages at all.
>precisely the countries that should know better, since they were the principal recipients the "love and friendship" from Russia
Goes to show that 1984-style conditioning really does work, decades later.
Remarkably, it can even be passed through generations, as it gets ingrained into the mentality of how parents raise children: "The nail that sticks out gets hammered down. Don't rock the boat."
Which was a survival trait in those times.
The current incarnation of Russian propaganda is different, but is even more virally poisonous:
> I'm not political. Politics is dirty. There's nothing you can change anyway. "Two sides" is an illusion. Everybody is lying and has an ulterior motive. Only naive fools believe otherwise, only naive fools ever trust. You can't know anything for sure. What you think is true is actually a lie. The only thing that's real is who you're with. That's the only truth. That's the only thing to look for in anything anyone says, that's the only thing one really says. That's what makes something true or false. The words uttered don't matter at all.
You might have seen this kind of mentality spouted by your friends on either side of the political spectrum.
Remarkably, whatever the political persuasion of people who have it is, the end result is the likes of Orban/Fico coming to power.
Sadly, this thing not only spreads, it also sticks.
If you know of an antidote, please tell me what it is.
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.
"learned their lesson well now" - I don't think Russia has learned any lessons at all since Ukraine. Russia's sheer incompetence keeps getting worse and worse, as Prigozhin exposed on the inside. The war went from total failure to achieve any objectives for 5 years, to now 4 hour lines in Moscow to fill up your car at the gas station - i.e. Russia went from "failing to capture Kyiv in 3 days" to now "getting hit in the center of Moscow regularly".
Given the level of incompetence that Russia has demonstrated on both the political and military front, I highly doubt it could've turned anything around in Ukraine even if knew everything about 2014.
That does not make much sense. In 2014 Yanukovic was in power, who had been bought off by Russia. Lets not forget that Yanukovic ran on a pro EU platform and then reversed a day or so before signing the EU association agreement. Naturally the people went to the streets and eventually Yanukovic fled. Not sure what you would have wanted to spy on.
> Lets not forget that Yanukovic ran on a pro EU platform and then reversed a day or so before signing the EU association agreement.
During his 2010 presidential campaign, Yanukovic promoted a "multi-vector" foreign policy that sought to balance relations with both Russia and the European Union. He explicitly campaigned on maintaining economic and diplomatic ties with Russia. Also, do note that he was elected by the Russian-ethnic regions that subsequently rebelled after their duly-elected and EU-observer vetted President was overthrown in a coup.
Nuland didn't want to wait for formal elections or even a formal impeachment under the Ukrainian constitution. Because she had already planned the replacement govt and even the people for specific roles. She actively glued the political transition together quickly before Russian backstage maneuvering could undermine the anti-Yanukovych movement.
It was the crowning glory of her state department career. Only the US can get away with this sort of shameless regime change and Americans pat themselves on the back for being the "good guys".
So, what exactly did Nuland do?
What are the actions she took and how did those actions accomplish a coup?
Besides, afaik there had been a plan in place for a peaceful resolution but Yanukovic chose to flee to his handlers in Moscow.
God forbid for national politicians to think about their națion first! Remind me again, how many British and French soldiers died protecting Poland in 1939? Tens of thousands, isn’t it? The same Brits who were fricking thinking of invading Finland in April of 1940 for daring to sign a peace treaty with the Soviets.
Fico get all the free shit from Europe to build his country and a boat load of free money from his personal investments in shady businesses, so in that case he does get both upsides.
ceding sovereignty and to many degrees cultures to another nation to kinda like be a vassal state is quite literally not thinking about your nation first lmao. even less so when the other nation funds your political ascension, like.. that's the opposite of thinking about your nation first. that's flat out doing it for the other nation man.
That's a pretty harsh and uninformed take. Russia operates by capturing foreign governments and making their leaders beholden to Russia's interests. When it succeeds, it happens regardless of what the populace actually wants. They've been grooming Trump (along with a dozen or so other potential up-and-comers) since the 80s (Trump was considered a long shot and too unpredictable, but fortune favors the prepared - better weak support of their enemies than full belligerence).
The Belarusians aren't too thrilled that Russian troops are operating in their country, but Lukashenko needs Russian support to stay in power, so he walks a tightrope. Notice how noncommittal he is about pretty much everything...
In the case of Slovakia, it's purely Russian misinformation that was able to capture a large part of the population, mainly older people. First anti-EU, then anti-vax, and now anti-Ukraine and anti-EU.
> Russian misinformation that was able to capture a large part of the population, mainly older people.
'Capturing' the population is worthless. Anti-immigration sentiment has 'captured' the UK, to the point that in every election since 1964, the public voted against immigration [1]. Yet every time they got increased immigration instead.
Slovakia is heavily influenced by Russian propaganda, which started way before Corona times.
It's mainly the older people that are influenced by this, and a lot of young people either left the country already, or have concrete plans to leave.
It's really sad, how these old people are ruining the future of their children and grandchildren, really crazy.
You can say a lot about Russia, but they are very good with misinformation, it's a real threat for Europe.
My wife is from Slovakia, so I have front row seats on the whole situation. The kinds of misinformation these older people are willing to believe is really nuts.
That's wrong. Even the pro-Russia politicians did not support the genocide Russia commits against Ukraine. And they are not even in the majority right now anyway; people are not going to elect bribed russian tools anymore. You could see this in Hungary. The rest will follow - everyone sees the daily genocide Putin commits here. No amount of bribe money will convince regular people from what they can see with their own eyes here.
There's no genocide, I find it funny that techies on HN still can't get a proper definition right. Gaza is genocide, Russians don't touch civilians. If it was a genocide we wouldn't have millions of Ukrainian refugees going to Russia after the conflict.
Russians very much do touch civilians, please don't spread lies of these mass murderers.
Aside of what is happening on the frontlines and behind them, they target civilians in towns and cities in all of Ukraine with drones and rockets daily.
Moreover a genocide is the stated objective from beforoe the war - according to the chief mass murderer, Ukrainian nation does not exist and so the state must be destroyed.
but it still doesnt imply that slovakia is therefore politically pro-russian.
they might care about pro-slovak advantages it brings. or they might think that sanction dont work as intendet. or they might think that sanction paradoxically cause too many problems in EU. or that it is not the right approach to resolve the conflict.
When populations resist wars of conquest from imperial powers, and request aid, it's not "sacrificing" them to send them aid as they requested.
That is a pro Russian narrative you have just deployed though.
Just look at how officials in positions of power in the the British state reacted, especially people like Ben Wallace.
They’re clearly, shamelessly happy that this war is going on. They love it! The fact Ukraine is getting destroyed as a viable nation is neither here nor there, they don’t care at all.
To them it’s still 1880 and they’re playing the Great Game again, never mind the fact Britain would struggle to fight its way out of a wet paper bag in 2026
If Putin is going continue Russia's imperial politics then I think that the British engaging in their very long habit of opposing conquerers on the Continent should be appreciated by everyone.
The complicated start of the war is that the circumstances of the Soviet breakup created a Ukraine entangled with Russia, and when the Ukrainians wanted to join the EU and attain the associated prosperity and reforms, Russia responded in the ways familiar to it, and to Putin.
lets say you have a digital privacy activist, and someone says their actions are literally "pro CP".
well technically, existence of some private messaging network can help predators. i dont know if there is a way around that.
but saying that the actions of the activist are "pro CP" is not fair IMO. its often a manipulative labeling. it might be what it motivates the activist or it might not be. they might have completely different reasons to advocate for digital privacy.
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 moron) people will plug into Chinese, Russian, and American video surveillance networks in no time and pay for it.
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.
Add Secure Boot being disabled and unauthenticated live streams and this seems less like one unfortunate backdoor and more like nobody established what the trust boundary was supposed to be in the first place.
Absolutely.
Malicious actor could just lock it down to their own firmware and be done with it.
"Not exposed to the internet" means exfiltration is hard in this case. If I were to dream about defense in depth, these SIM cards should be monitored for traffic anyway or have filtering rules at carrier level. Because at the end of the day, Russian numbers or not, mobile networks are insecure.
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.
Most people talking about Slovakia wouldn't even be able to put it on a map or know what currency they use, but they become instant geo political expert.
They don't even know how to pronounce Fico properly... Give me a break lmao
There is a small number of cameras which broadcast the video publicly. For example, Moscow: [1] (Taganskaya square), [2] and Saint-Petersburg: [3] (Nevsky prospect and Gostiniy Dvor). Sadly the quality is not great and in reality those places look much better. For example, many of the small 2-floor buildings on Taganskaya square are over 100 years and have a nie classical architecture but one cannot see any fine details in the camera view.
Please don't fulminate on HN. The guidelines make it clear we're trying for something better here. You may not owe nation states better, but you owe this community better if you want to participate here. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
Slovakia's national security service ... says the cameras [NERO R-ONE high-speed traffic cameras] contain a backdoor mechanism that grants shell and network access to the devices via an SMS message received from a list of hardcoded Russian phone numbers.
According to the NBU, the cameras are a rebranded version of a Russian traffic camera model named CORDON PRO.M, produced by St. Petersburg-based Russian firm Semicon.
So, it's not a spy operation, but a commercial deal.
Thing everyone seems to be missing, that threat is not imposed by Russia (state) on Slovakia, but:
- On Slovakian drivers/citizens by a company, registered in Russia
- On Russian drivers/citizens by a company, registered in Russia
- On Slovakian drivers/citizens by actors who may gain said backdoor from said company, registered in Russia
- On Russian drivers/citizens by actors who may gain said backdoor from said company, registered in Russia
- On anyone else anywhere in the world where traffic cameras installed by those, who control them, because there doesn't seem to be a proper regulation/enforcement of such regulation for those cases.
What seems to be most concerning, that the story appears to be only newsworthy because the word "Russia" is present.
Instead of highlighting the issue of uncontrolled public surveillance, focus is shifted to international politics.
P.S. lol, critical thinking is forbidden, must stay in the party line or instadownvotes
The comments here seem to presuppose that somehow Slovakia is the only ones who would need to worry about this, and not, say, any town with Flock in it
Perhaps. What actually happened is that we have a demented interior minister in a unbelievably corrupt but also pro-russian government. So it's really anybodys guess if it's just pure corruption (the interior ministry wanting to buy some traffic cameras and someone bribing to get the contract while buying the cheapest they could find which were these russian ones) or indeed some covert russian operation (the responsible minister wouldn't know about it, he's too dumb for that, but there might be other government people who did know). In any case in a functioning state this would end up with the minister leaving his post at least. Not in Slovakia.
The problem I see is that Putin fully committed to the war. It is not only clear that he has no interest in ending the war, despite the lip service, but will continue to create problems and cause issues. This backdoor here is not an isolated problem - it is a systemic, concerted problem. All retaliatory moves are handicapped by orange Agent Krasnov being an asset for Russia. The EU needs to stop outsourcing its security. That includes having a nuclear arsenal available for all member states.
Over 100 comments, zero mentions that government funds should be spent on devices with auditable open-source firmware. Anyone here? No? Then I'm the first one to say this.
SecureBoot is a funny one. It should be signed with the deployer's keys (Slovak), not the manufacturer's. Trusted boot probably wasn't a consideration here, really.
Ironically, a custom firmware can now be used thanks to the lack of a digital lock... if you still trust the hardware.
"at all" -> I would like to believe a government tender to wield more power than just being at the mercy of commercial market offerings.
"similar price to closed source" -> Good argument. But what if the _lower price_ is only lower thanks to a vendor lock-in? Thus, over a long period of time, you don't get a better deal? Furthermore, here an expensive reverse-engineering project had to discover the backdoors? Why can't the government have this work done on a contract basis?
First step: "we want this and that, you may choose the hardware freely, but the project source code will be perpetually licensed to the government to use and extend upon." Second step: "we have this source code from the last contract, we want another 1000 of these traffic cameras with improved specs/features."
The belief, that the market will do anything right, perpetuates this system of outsourcing everything to the market. Though I don't think it can work any other way, because nobody among the government workers wants to bear responsibility and liability. It's much easier to give party B the money and then argue with them based on the paper trails. This is what they've been trained to do after all.
Maybe you trust the hardware and software and firmware to not be malicious or negligent (currently such assurances are extremely rare [1], so it's hard to overstate what a step up in security just this bare minimum would be), but what if it simply gets hacked by a nation-state level opponent? And there are so many ways to hack it - hardware and software supply chains, interdiction and replacement with compromised parts, attacking the software systems connected to it (maybe the camera is secure, but what about the computers it sends its signals to?), or the human systems, blackmailing an employee to insert a backdoored USB key somewhere...
Are traffic cameras worth the risk of giving away the movement of your key personnel, military and political, in the age of drone warfare and targeted strikes?
Fair. I see, you are against traffic cams in general? One approach is to take away their networking capabilities. Dump the data from them manually, physical access :) like 26 years ago in the year 2000 AD. But the police and agencies will cry about losing real time access (and surveillance) capabilities.
While you raise good arguments against wide deployment, politics will not backtrack. Despite the loopholes, despite the vulnerabilities, despite real life precedents, the juggernaut will keep moving. Much like blackouts or internet outages (Canada) that make payments, digital communication impossible, people will not rely any less on cashless payments etc. That's the blackpill.
The Navy drones article is terrifying. The easier solution is to not have wars at all (lol) then the problem is reduced to only corporate espionage.
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[ 0.25 ms ] story [ 19.4 ms ] threadGood they investigated this before using them, but this sounds like a big fu...
Like, it’s not just Putin, or the government, it’s just cultural
If there is an opportunity to embarrass someone from your position of power or discretion, it will be taken
People try to be aligned with Russian interests to avoid it, but there is no exemption
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?
> 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.
That's exactly the sort of thing that James Bond would do.
This wasn't some oversight of the proverbial Nina in any way. They just did sloppy job from both sides covering tracks, not uncommon with current government. They are loud (and racist, xenophobic, and often dumb), not competent smart people.
Well the interior ministry didn't really demand one (yes really) but the opposition people have read the documentation for the cameras and the hash of the supplied software was exactly the same as the hash for the russian simicon camera.
Occam's razor says this was simply a custom batch that was available cheap.
You reap what you sow, MFs!
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slovak_opposition_to_sanctions...
How are any of those false flag? They're state sponsored, by different state actors.
Is he? I don't see that in his comment at all. Can you point out that part to us?
Perhaps your handlers never taught you that two things can be bad at the same time.
- 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.
Is that arrogance or ignorance?
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.
So maybe natural gas imports aren't the thing that determine the outcome.
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.
There are concepts like wars of necessity or just wars (e.g. of liberation), but that depends on how cynical you're feeling.
Propaganda always tries to convince people that the current war is the just war and everyone else is wrong.
Also in these countries there's a lot of old people who have never been able to adapt to living in a free, capitalist society, so for them, there's some nostalgia for communism.
https://www.newsweek.com/putin-says-communism-comes-bible-co...
It doesn't matter what Russia actually is. They play both sides with their propaganda. Old people who thought positively about communism still support Russia.
Fico and Babiš for example were both communist party members and both pro-Russia politicians today.
edit: ah you mean the old people? not really, no, it's just pure propaganda, it doesn't have to make sense.
I don't think you understand how bad globalization fucked up these countries, people live with their parents until they're 30+, young people can't find decent jobs, etc.
Sure, we can blame politicians which were mostly bad to worse and stole everything that was previously state-owned (meaning everything). But folks kept voting for them in similar fashion you describe so this is the result, its trivial to 'buy' votes with relatively low budget. I mean current PM has very tight and visible connections to Italian 'Ndrangheta mafia, he or people around him did a contract murder of reporter looking into that. He didn't ever faced jail and is back being PM like there is no tomorrow. There is only so much blame one can point outwards, you can't be dumb / do dumb shit and expect long term marvels of prosperity on Switzerland's level.
Lived in both of those countries, and they look exactly as they should given overall population efforts towards hard work, honesty, rule of law and so on. If US would be a nation of slackers and thieves it would also look very differently to how it is.
Those countries who were fresh from behind the iron curtain were really dealt a bad hand. They had lived in a "protective bubble", albeit a very unsustainable one and suddenly were thrown in the ocean surrounded by sharks looking for an easy meal. Almost every one of those people found themselves desperate but "inexperienced" and unprepared for the new world, every politician was absolutely blown away by the fortune they could make, and every other country jumped on the opportunity to make money. Like shooting fish in a barrel.
For every politician who took a bribe, someone who already had money paid it. That money didn't come from inside those poor countries. This leveraging of poorer countries never stopped. That's how some countries get a better deal than others when the EU adopted the Euro, for example. But it's never been so bad as back then because it's incredibly rare that entire countries find themselves exiting a time capsule, just ready to be exploited by people who already know how the game is played.
This reminds me of two things. The people who always think others are poor because they're lazy, and the people with perfect hindsight and no pressure judging that Captain Sully could have landed the plane back on the runway instead of the Hudson.
Also, most corruption, or ie sale of factories worth billions for thousands/millions was mostly to local people, not outsiders.
That's how you think it went, huh? Six months and every country and person got over the decades of communism like they never existed? Six month was just enough for the euphoria to wear off.
If reading a book got you 1 million HN karma you'd jump on it. Instead it just makes you more educated. Here, gift link [1], check out what did most countries manage to achieve before say June 1990.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Revolutions_of_1989
Sure buddy... That's why the country is full of german supermarkets, french banks, german factories, etc. They totally were not accepted in EU just to milk the low ages at all.
Goes to show that 1984-style conditioning really does work, decades later.
Remarkably, it can even be passed through generations, as it gets ingrained into the mentality of how parents raise children: "The nail that sticks out gets hammered down. Don't rock the boat."
Which was a survival trait in those times.
The current incarnation of Russian propaganda is different, but is even more virally poisonous:
> I'm not political. Politics is dirty. There's nothing you can change anyway. "Two sides" is an illusion. Everybody is lying and has an ulterior motive. Only naive fools believe otherwise, only naive fools ever trust. You can't know anything for sure. What you think is true is actually a lie. The only thing that's real is who you're with. That's the only truth. That's the only thing to look for in anything anyone says, that's the only thing one really says. That's what makes something true or false. The words uttered don't matter at all.
You might have seen this kind of mentality spouted by your friends on either side of the political spectrum.
Remarkably, whatever the political persuasion of people who have it is, the end result is the likes of Orban/Fico coming to power.
Sadly, this thing not only spreads, it also sticks.
If you know of an antidote, please tell me what it is.
Given the level of incompetence that Russia has demonstrated on both the political and military front, I highly doubt it could've turned anything around in Ukraine even if knew everything about 2014.
During his 2010 presidential campaign, Yanukovic promoted a "multi-vector" foreign policy that sought to balance relations with both Russia and the European Union. He explicitly campaigned on maintaining economic and diplomatic ties with Russia. Also, do note that he was elected by the Russian-ethnic regions that subsequently rebelled after their duly-elected and EU-observer vetted President was overthrown in a coup.
Nuland didn't want to wait for formal elections or even a formal impeachment under the Ukrainian constitution. Because she had already planned the replacement govt and even the people for specific roles. She actively glued the political transition together quickly before Russian backstage maneuvering could undermine the anti-Yanukovych movement.
It was the crowning glory of her state department career. Only the US can get away with this sort of shameless regime change and Americans pat themselves on the back for being the "good guys".
Being pro-russia is being anti-Slovakian though. You get zero upside for teaming with terrorist state and all the downsides.
The Belarusians aren't too thrilled that Russian troops are operating in their country, but Lukashenko needs Russian support to stay in power, so he walks a tightrope. Notice how noncommittal he is about pretty much everything...
'Capturing' the population is worthless. Anti-immigration sentiment has 'captured' the UK, to the point that in every election since 1964, the public voted against immigration [1]. Yet every time they got increased immigration instead.
[1] https://www.woes.blog/p/tgr-democracy
It's mainly the older people that are influenced by this, and a lot of young people either left the country already, or have concrete plans to leave.
It's really sad, how these old people are ruining the future of their children and grandchildren, really crazy.
You can say a lot about Russia, but they are very good with misinformation, it's a real threat for Europe.
My wife is from Slovakia, so I have front row seats on the whole situation. The kinds of misinformation these older people are willing to believe is really nuts.
Aside of what is happening on the frontlines and behind them, they target civilians in towns and cities in all of Ukraine with drones and rockets daily.
Just from today we have some examples:
A russian drone targeting a civilian train: https://bsky.app/profile/wartranslated.bsky.social/post/3mtr...
A russia drone targetting a cyclist and bragging about it: https://bsky.app/profile/wartranslated.bsky.social/post/3mtr...
And a few days ago, a targetted attack on a shoppping mall in Kryvyi Rih, 16 dead and scores of missing and injured: https://bsky.app/profile/wartranslated.bsky.social/post/3mtr...
Moreover a genocide is the stated objective from beforoe the war - according to the chief mass murderer, Ukrainian nation does not exist and so the state must be destroyed.
but it sure is easy to think that when you are fed propaganda.
maybe it could be pro-slovak stance? but what do you care about that, they are MFs to you.
also, F you.
Tell me how it’s not advantageous for Russia to enable trade with them.
but it still doesnt imply that slovakia is therefore politically pro-russian.
they might care about pro-slovak advantages it brings. or they might think that sanction dont work as intendet. or they might think that sanction paradoxically cause too many problems in EU. or that it is not the right approach to resolve the conflict.
That makes you "pro Russian" apparently
Just look at how officials in positions of power in the the British state reacted, especially people like Ben Wallace.
They’re clearly, shamelessly happy that this war is going on. They love it! The fact Ukraine is getting destroyed as a viable nation is neither here nor there, they don’t care at all.
To them it’s still 1880 and they’re playing the Great Game again, never mind the fact Britain would struggle to fight its way out of a wet paper bag in 2026
The complicated start of the war is that the circumstances of the Soviet breakup created a Ukraine entangled with Russia, and when the Ukrainians wanted to join the EU and attain the associated prosperity and reforms, Russia responded in the ways familiar to it, and to Putin.
Short term, they may benefit by getting access to cheaper resources.
Long term, there will be Russian tanks in Bratislava.
well technically, existence of some private messaging network can help predators. i dont know if there is a way around that.
but saying that the actions of the activist are "pro CP" is not fair IMO. its often a manipulative labeling. it might be what it motivates the activist or it might not be. they might have completely different reasons to advocate for digital privacy.
And yes, digital privacy is obviously advantageous to the child pornographer, unfortunately.
Go ask any Slovak if they think their govermnent is pro-Russia.
Same questions to opposite side.
Please don't post like this here. We're accustomed to better from you than this.
Malicious actor could just lock it down to their own firmware and be done with it.
They don't even know how to pronounce Fico properly... Give me a break lmao
Are these cameras in use in Russia? Can people outside of Russia look in at Russian traffic in this way?
[1] https://gidcam.ru/camera/moskva-panorama-centra-stolicy-s-ma...
[2] https://gidcam.ru/camera/moskva-volgogradskij-prospekt-i-plo...
[3] https://camguide.net/ru/europe/russia/saint-petersburg/nevsk...
Thing everyone seems to be missing, that threat is not imposed by Russia (state) on Slovakia, but:
- On Slovakian drivers/citizens by a company, registered in Russia
- On Russian drivers/citizens by a company, registered in Russia
- On Slovakian drivers/citizens by actors who may gain said backdoor from said company, registered in Russia
- On Russian drivers/citizens by actors who may gain said backdoor from said company, registered in Russia
- On anyone else anywhere in the world where traffic cameras installed by those, who control them, because there doesn't seem to be a proper regulation/enforcement of such regulation for those cases.
What seems to be most concerning, that the story appears to be only newsworthy because the word "Russia" is present.
Instead of highlighting the issue of uncontrolled public surveillance, focus is shifted to international politics.
P.S. lol, critical thinking is forbidden, must stay in the party line or instadownvotes
https://simicon.ru/rus/product/gun/cordon_pro.html
SecureBoot is a funny one. It should be signed with the deployer's keys (Slovak), not the manufacturer's. Trusted boot probably wasn't a consideration here, really.
Ironically, a custom firmware can now be used thanks to the lack of a digital lock... if you still trust the hardware.
PS: Props to NBU for doing their job.
"similar price to closed source" -> Good argument. But what if the _lower price_ is only lower thanks to a vendor lock-in? Thus, over a long period of time, you don't get a better deal? Furthermore, here an expensive reverse-engineering project had to discover the backdoors? Why can't the government have this work done on a contract basis?
First step: "we want this and that, you may choose the hardware freely, but the project source code will be perpetually licensed to the government to use and extend upon." Second step: "we have this source code from the last contract, we want another 1000 of these traffic cameras with improved specs/features."
The belief, that the market will do anything right, perpetuates this system of outsourcing everything to the market. Though I don't think it can work any other way, because nobody among the government workers wants to bear responsibility and liability. It's much easier to give party B the money and then argue with them based on the paper trails. This is what they've been trained to do after all.
Are traffic cameras worth the risk of giving away the movement of your key personnel, military and political, in the age of drone warfare and targeted strikes?
[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49248678
While you raise good arguments against wide deployment, politics will not backtrack. Despite the loopholes, despite the vulnerabilities, despite real life precedents, the juggernaut will keep moving. Much like blackouts or internet outages (Canada) that make payments, digital communication impossible, people will not rely any less on cashless payments etc. That's the blackpill.
The Navy drones article is terrifying. The easier solution is to not have wars at all (lol) then the problem is reduced to only corporate espionage.
"Please use open source systems whenever possible so you can review the source code."
<https://floss.social/@mikebabcock/117134334377276076>
Public Security Intelligence Agency (公安調査庁) apparently is sitting on a massive amount of data from China which imported their tech