Russians Suspected of Uroburos Spy Malware 137
judgecorp writes "While Russia's political activity is center stage, its cyber-espionage apparently continues. Russian intelligence is strongly suspected of being behind the Uroburos malware which is targeting Western governments and commercial organizations. There are Russian-language strings in the code, and it searches its victims' systems for Agent BTZ, malware used in previous attacks believed to have been carried out by Russia."
Russians lending a helping hand .. (Score:4, Funny)
to the NSA?
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No way dude, everyone knows that only real Russians know the Russian language therefore they are the only ones capable of inserting Russian-language strings in the code.
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Everyone is copying the US now. I wonder where Russia's GITMO will be?
That's kind of cute. I take it that for you history begins in the year 2000 and is limited to the US?
Just as an FYI, Russia (nee Soviet Union) has been involved with espionage via computer for a very long time. One famous case:
The Cuckoo's Egg: Tracking a Spy Through the Maze of Computer Espionage [amazon.com]
Re:That's all the proof I need .. (Score:4, Interesting)
Except that GP was not talking about copying the US' computer-based espionage operations, but the US' various illegal wars.
You know, there is a bit of a mess unfolding in Ukraine. There are pro-russian and pro-european factions and the russians are obviously supporting the former -- with a completely illegal show of force.
Less well known is that the pro-european factions supported by the West are largely far-right nationalists. Neonazis, pretty much. See, e.g. this piece [salon.com] by Max Blumenthal.
confederate flags? In Ukraine? (Score:2)
Sounds fishy. It SOUNDS like an American columnist came up with it out of his own head and forgot that Ukraine doesn't have southern democrats.
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Sounds fishy. It SOUNDS like an American columnist came up with it out of his own head and forgot that Ukraine doesn't have southern democrats.
Svoboda [wikipedia.org] and right sector [wikipedia.org] are hardly being coy about it.
But yes, confederate flags sound crazy, I agree. In fact, if I were writing a fishy column I would have discarded that bit as being too obviously fabricated.
But then I don't expect a lot of sanity or even rationality from people who suffer from the kind of ideas these guys have. The local far right and left fringes of the spectrum share this habit of exchanging symbols with remote, but like minded, groups it seems.
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Sounds fishy. It SOUNDS like an American columnist came up with it out of his own head and forgot that Ukraine doesn't have southern democrats.
Svoboda [wikipedia.org] and right sector [wikipedia.org] are hardly being coy about it.
But yes, confederate flags sound crazy, I agree. In fact, if I were writing a fishy column I would have discarded that bit as being too obviously fabricated.
But then I don't expect a lot of sanity or even rationality from people who suffer from the kind of ideas these guys have. The local far right and left fringes of the spectrum share this habit of exchanging symbols with remote, but like minded, groups it seems.
Which is bullshit propaganda.
That nazis (or more correctly extremely right wing - though they are more moderate now compared with some years back) are a _small_ part of the group complaining about the corrupt government doesn't have anything to do with this. That a corrupt government goes against the will of the people who peacefully protest until the government forces begins killing people is another.
Trying to paint the protesters as nazis is provably false as the vast majority are liberal and trying to s
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There is nothing controversial about the fact that John McCain stood shoulder to shoulder with Oleg Tyahnybok, the leader of Svoboda, or the fact that the latter are a far right group occupying 37 seats. Or that their paramilitary outgrowth was prominently at the frontline on that square. I don't doubt the ousted leaders' corruption, by the way, but my enemy's enemy is not necessarily my friend.
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Damn, that came out wrong. Of course McCain standing there is (or should be) highly controversial, but the observation that he did so is not.
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There is nothing controversial about the fact that John McCain stood shoulder to shoulder with Oleg Tyahnybok, the leader of Svoboda, or the fact that the latter are a far right group occupying 37 seats. Or that their paramilitary outgrowth was prominently at the frontline on that square. I don't doubt the ousted leaders' corruption, by the way, but my enemy's enemy is not necessarily my friend.
Of course not. But trying to show this as a western supported group of nazis doing a violent revolution against a legal government and they are now threatening the Russian minority is, to be short, obviously and plainly false propaganda.
That Russians maybe think that's the truth isn't that strange given the increasingly state controlled media in that country but for anyone that have access to world wide media that is obvious.
For the sake of the world I hope Putin withdraw the troops as soon as possibly. Gi
shoulder to shoulder? My homework (Score:2)
I could do my own homework on this since I don't know what you're talking about, but I probably won't, so I'll just ask.
By "shoulder to shoulder" do you mean physically, that the two people were at the same event? That is, standing near each other in the same way that the executioner stands next to the condemned? The same way that Bush Jr. physically stood shoulder to shoulder with Obama?
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Google image search "McCain Svoboda". Yes, physically side by side, and not like an executioner and a condemned man.
People seem to somehow have read my post as pro-Russia, but actually I just wanted to point out that at least some if the anti-Russia crowd is rather unsavory and, imho, should probably not be propped up by western officials. For the record, I think the Russian response is completely out of line.
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You know, there is a bit of a mess unfolding in Ukraine. There are pro-russian and pro-european factions and the russians are obviously supporting the former -- with a completely illegal show of force.
That is not accurate. There is a pro-Russia faction and a pro-Ukraine faction. The later are those that have lived there not only all of their lives, but their relatives before them. The former are Russians that the USSR put into place to control the local population, but these ppl stayed AFTER the break-up of the USSR.
So, what you really have, are Russians vs. Ukrainians.
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Except that GP was not talking about copying the US' computer-based espionage operations, but the US' various illegal wars.
The story is about Russian hacking. Naturally the subject won't turn to Russian hacking, or even Russia's invasion of Ukraine, but to false allegations of "illegal" wars by the US. Typical, and a diversion.
So, which "illegal wars" is the US uniquely "guilty" of?
You know, there is a bit of a mess unfolding in Ukraine. There are pro-russian and pro-european factions and the russians are obviously supporting the former -- with a completely illegal show of force.
I've heard.
Less well known is that the pro-european factions supported by the West are largely far-right nationalists. Neonazis, pretty much. See, e.g. this piece [salon.com] by Max Blumenthal.
Yes, I'm familiar with Russian charges that they are going to fight fascists in another smaller neighboring country. That was the excuse to invade Finland. The charge is recycled to invade and take territory from Ukraine.
During the Stalin era, Soviet propaganda painted Finland's leadership as a "vicious and reactionary Fascist clique". Marshal C. G. E. Mannerheim and Väinö Tanner, the leader of the Finnish Social Democratic Party, were targeted for particular scorn.[52] With Joseph Stalin gaining near-absolute power through the Great Purge of 1938, the Soviet Union changed its foreign policy toward Finland in the late 1930s. The Soviet Union began pursuing the reconquest of the provinces of Tsarist Russia lost during the chaos of the October Revolution and the Russian Civil War. The Soviet leadership believed that the old empire had ideal security and territorial possessions, and wanted the newly christened city of Leningrad to enjoy a similar security. -- Winter War [wikipedia.org]
Yes, that is a
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I have no love for the Russian's handling of this, and said so clearly. But the post you originally replied to was emphatically not about Russian spying -- which, since the story as a whole is about that subject, made me wonder why you chose to post your old Cuckoo link specifically at that point in the thread.
Somewhere further down I replied to someone else what I consider "illegal war", hope you don't mind a bit of laziness (it's early where I am at) and let me just copy paste that:
Lacking a mandate from the relevant institutions of international law; in the absence of a credible threat to national security; based entirely on circumstantial evidence, cherry-picked intel and plain fabrication; against the wishes of a large fraction of voters...
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The "illegal war" description doesn't fit Afghanistan at all, and not really Iraq either.
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The "illegal war" description doesn't fit Afghanistan at all, and not really Iraq either.
Really? So Iraq was a real threat to US national security? There were weapons of mass destruction after all? It has recently come to light that Powell's speech at the UN was less than 100% fabrication? A large majority of voters were in favour of it? No outlawed munitions were used?
I guess we're just living in too different universes to be able to get to any agreement here. No biggie, carry on.
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No, I don't. I point people to it since it is both a good read and informative on many subjects that are discussed here, both directly and indirectly. If you read it you might understand.
I prefer to have informed discussions. Unfortunately that is often difficult here, especially on certain topics. If more people were better informed, and maybe left behind various fringe theories or ideas, the discourse would be more useful.
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No, I don't.
It was in your sig at one point.
The point being that I don't get any financial benefit, as you had asked. The fact that my sig had a link to the book's page on Amazon doesn't change that.
I have read it, and it's relevance to TFS/TFA is about as close as Kevin Bacon is to Mary Pickford.
You must have missed my point about the long history of Russian involvement with espionage by computer, as shown in the book.
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The hacker in the book was working for the KGB. That is a direct relationship.
Are we done?
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That is also a direct relationship, is it not?
No, it's not.
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That is pitifully stupid.
Now we're done.
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The problem is that people have forgotten the atrocities of the Soviets. From "Moscow Fried Chicken" (the result of burning up refugees in Afghanistan) to the fact that leaving a country or a "zone" would mean a swift death for the person and their family, all the many atrocities done by the USSR or their puppets are history virtually forgotten since the Berlin Wall fell.
Instead, the focus is on how evil the US is... but I would recommend someone compare the days of living in the early to mid 1980s in west
Re:That's all the proof I need .. (Score:4, Interesting)
The problem is that people have forgotten the atrocities of the Soviets...all the many atrocities done by the USSR or their puppets are history virtually forgotten since the Berlin Wall fell.
Maybe that's because the Soviets/USSR doesn't exist anymore, and hasn't since 1991. If you think Putin's regime is equivalent to the USSR, then you should probably do a re-fresh of your geo-political perspective.
Instead, the focus is on how evil the US is...
You're right! Instead, let's focus on the past evils of the USSR and ignore the more recent evils of the US. Forget the NSA...KGB! US invasion of Iraq? No no no! Soviet invasion of Afghanistan! Abu Ghraib was nuthin compared to Kolyma, Norilsk, or Vorkuta!!! USA! USA! USA!
Your strategy should really improve the credibility and moral authority of the US in the eyes of the rest of the world going forward. Why didn't someone think of this earlier?!?
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Putin is a former KGB officer (Lt. Colonel) who once referred to the fall of the Soviet Union as "the greatest geopolitical catastrophe of the century." Communist or not at this point, it almost doesn't matter. Call it the will to re-establish the Russian Empire. Putin likely sees himself as a latter-day Peter the Great, and is currently operating unchecked by a US executive branch and foreign policy apparatus that at best can be said to embody the culmination of Khrushchev's promise to "bury [the us] from
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Fair job of refuting GGP's assertion that "people have forgotten the atrocities of the Soviets".
I say "fair" because of your grossly exaggerated figures on the death toll in the Ukraine, [wikipedia.org] and your insinuation that there was something "fishy" about Putin taking over after Yeltsin resigned. Yeltsin appointed Putin to be his Prime Minister, and also made it clear he wished Putin to succeed him.
I'm also not seeing much in your post in support of Putin's Russia being just like the old USSR, other than pointing t
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The USSR was no where near as powerful as the USSR that was presented via propaganda (from both sides). I would argue that Russia has much of Europe in a tighter noose now via natural gas exports than they did during Soviet days. Many of the gas lines also run through Ukraine by necessity, which is probably what this is really about as opposed to any feigned concern for Russian speakers in Crimea. It is true that Russia doesn't have as many satellites in its sway as it once did, but that's also largely t
Get a brain, morans! (Score:4, Insightful)
The problem is that American Exceptionalists pretend their shit doesn't stink. You want to talk about Stalin's gulags? Great! But then lets also talk about how the United States was formed by genocide, slavery, and conquering nations that hadn't attacked us. You want to talk current events, start by explaining how Putin is in the same universe as torturing, democracy overthrowing, murdering, invading, droning, innocent-imprisoning universe as George W. Obama?
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But then lets also talk about how the United States was formed by genocide, slavery, and conquering nations that hadn't attacked us.
How about you name one country that was NOT founded in that manner. Hm?
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How about you use your brain for two seconds, or at least read the responses already in the thread, so you don't embarrass yourself. Hm?
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I can rule out the possibility that you're anything but a dim-witted projectionist.
Because, you fucking tool, the point here isn't to wing some game of whataboutery. The point is that no
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Nope.
Irrelevant since I don't play whataboutery. Obviously, the point is that the United States has no moral high ground to criticize anyone on the planet. Obviously.
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Talk about missing the (obvious) point.
You mean the PR campaign when the Soviet Union was still around? The U.S. has never ever ever evah been a beacon for anything but capitalist scumfuckery. Those who live in glass houses should not throw stones.
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when will Russia stop all these illegal wars?
As soon as they win them and declare they were not illegal. The winners write the history book after all.
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The winners write the history book after all.
It used to be like that in 19th Century, but that time is long gone ...
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Oh, the naivety... The winners are just less clearly defined now. Unless it comes to actual combat, that clears things up. Let's hope that doesn't happen.
Anyway, it seems like history will repeat again. Just like 1938. Diplomatic pressure, discussions, etc. right until the West is under attack. Oh, wow, how could that happen? Avoid war at all costs, sure, but find a good way to stop the conflict or don't be surprised later.
Oh, and focus on the facts. This is not the time to discuss whether the political shi
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Please define "illegal wars".
Lacking a mandate from the relevant institutions of international law; in the absence of a credible threat to national security; based entirely on circumstantial evidence, cherry-picked intel and plain fabrication; against the wishes of a large fraction of voters...
Take your pick.
Proof? (Score:4, Insightful)
So any google translating script kiddie can make malware that puts the blame on Russia by just throwing random ruskie strings in and searching for alleged russian virii?
Who came up with this scheme, the same person that talked about WMD in Iraq?
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You think the US gives a damn about that? Only to the extent that this is a new justification for the NSA's spying. The terrorist thing was wearing thin, so let's go back to the tried and true enemy of the Cold War. The FSB - if you can't beat 'em, imitate 'em (or is it the other way around these days?).
Re:Proof? (Score:5, Interesting)
You think the US gives a damn about that? Only to the extent that this is a new justification for the NSA's spying. The terrorist thing was wearing thin, so let's go back to the tried and true enemy of the Cold War. The FSB - if you can't beat 'em, imitate 'em (or is it the other way around these days?).
Uhh... How does this get +5 insightful? Have you read the news the past few days? The past few years for that matter? Russia is currently invading the Ukraine, which borders several NATO members (let's not forget they invaded Georgia in 2008 and took territory as well). Not to mention they are trying to strong arm old Soviet States back into a new economic and military union. Meanwhile, China is making new outlandish territorial claims of land and sea that would be comical if it weren't for their threats to use military force. I think our Cold War troubles are long from over and the world is far from being in a state where we will not need intelligence agencies.
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China is good at economic espionage. The US solar industry is a good example, where companies started reporting hacking attempts... then six months later, China started selling panels cheaper than the rare earths it took to make them.
We are seeing two countries more than willing to throw their weight around because when trade and economies don't provide expansion, tanks and soldiers definitely will... It is only a matter of time before China takes over Taiwan, and possibly Japan. (Think the US will risk
Re:Proof? (Score:4, Insightful)
China is good at economic espionage.
Why bother w/ espionage when we give it away. Applied Materials' solar research center is in China. GE has a joint venture to build jet engines in China (particularly interesting since engines are the last major impediment to building all Chinese military aircraft). What the heck, maybe they can get Electric Boat to help them with their sub designs.
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As long as we keep it a cold war, everybody should be happy. Plenty of defense pork and no one gets hurt.
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How does this get +5 insightful?
Cheer up, it's back down to +2. The usual up/down mod games.
Russia is currently invading the Ukraine, which borders several NATO members
Yes, as many people pointed out at the time, it was clever to add NATO countries that made conflict with Russia more likely. At least somebody was planning ahead. They knew that Iraq and Afghanistan had to wind down eventually. This Russian thing is a wonderful complement to our "pivot to the Pacific". I always figure that was giving the navy a turn after the army and the air force had their wars, but now I see that all services will be given a cha
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How did this get +4, Interesting? Ukraine isn't experiencing a revolution, it's experiencing a US-backed fascist coup by Neo Nazis. A coup overthrowing a democratically-elected government after the Fatherland party couldn't win at the ballot box.
This part is a replay of Syria, where a group that has been demonized by everyone are suddenly great allies worthy of U.S. support. In Syria it was Al Qaeda, and in Ukraine it's a bunch of anti-semetic Neo Nazis. But that's
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It's not that nobody wants to condemn it, it's that the US can't do so without being hypocritical and the EU can't do so without threatening their oil/natural gas supply.
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Which says a lot about our current computing environment - even Windows: one has to be a real expert (like PhD level) to find current exploits.
You can find exploits by stumbling upon them when doing something related to the exploitable functionality. Utilizing them requires skill, though.
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That's what it takes to infiltrate well secured computers and networks. For the most part though infiltrators rely on badly secured stuff these days. The Target invasion was possible due to poor security practices - which Target's own IT/security people warned management about.
Re:Script Kiddie? (Score:4, Interesting)
The problem is that there are -so many- weak links these days. Anything, be it the application, web server, backend server, DB server, Web browser, Web browser add-ons, OS, firmware, NIC firmware, router, switch, can have a weakness that can be easily exploited to cause a lot of issues. Air-gapping will help prevent those attacks, but I'm sure if it is a big organization wanting the data, rich enough to buy 0-day exploits from an auction, they are rich enough to have "boots on the ground" in a target country to perform physical attacks (sticking a USB flash drive into a machine and letting Autorun/Autoplay do the rest, for example.)
In the '90s, the computer industry had two choices, go the secure route, or go the cheap route. It is obvious how the industry went. Even languages that could offer provable security with known states are all but dead [1], so there is no way other than just keep patching holes, to have any semblance of solid security these days.
It would be nice to start from scratch. There are still ways to have provable states and know how a program will function, even with edge/corner cases. Similar with hardware. If we go with known good embedded operating systems, an attack on an IP stack will have limited consequences.
[1]: Ada may be ugly, but it does offer provable security.
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The problem is that there are -so many- weak links these days.
True, but so many of the big invasions, like the Target deal, use things that were securable, and that people (like their own security/IT people) said should be secured. Security is an endless software arms race, but the attackers usually take advantage of the defense's sloppiness or cost cutting. Even Stuxnet required some German engineer to unknowingly plant via a thumb drive.
Ada may be ugly, but it does offer provable security.
Ada has some definite advantages, like avoiding buffer overflows, but in and of itself can't guarantee security. I do agree though
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In the last, what?, ten years all of the exploits have been found by professional security researchers, spy organizations (Stuxnet), and other exploits were done by very serious experts who REALLY knew their shit.
Actually, what you are seeing is criminals taking over the exploitation of exploits, before it was hackers having fun and sending "it's my birthday" messages around, now it's serious criminals using exploits to steal serious money. These people don't advertize their finds, they use them to the fullest extent possible. When PHD's find an exploit you can be sure 90% of the time it's already known to criminals who have used it for a while.
If you wonder at the accuracy of that, just look around at how many viru
Here's one of the russian strings found (Score:4, Funny)
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Where have we heard this before? (Score:2)
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Yep. They're the trendy bad guy this week. Also, to recap:
Protests in Ukraine = good whereas protests in Thailand = bad. It all depends no who is about to be overthrown so a puppet that is friendly to the agenda of the IMF can be installed.
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Riiiiiiiiight. Lets say Putin has supported a far left-wing coup of the democratically elected government of Canada, after the far-leftists had lost an election. Any of you American Exceptionalists going to try and say with a straight face that the US Army wouldn't already been in Ottawa seeing to Harper's return to power?
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In general people are suspicous of protestors who refuse elections.
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Bullshit, the situations in the two countries are not even remotely comparable. You should check your reality distortion field.
The opposition leaders in Thailand do not want to have any new elections, not now and not later, and have publicly declared their intention not to have elections. (They would invariably loose them.) The protesters in Ukraine have already fixed the date for a new election. They got rid of a completely corrupt vassal of Putin who enriched himself, put an important opposition leader
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Of course they're comparable, since both protest "movements" are aimed at overthrowing democratically-elected governments.
So they can install an even more corrupt vassal of Obama, who will happily take those IMF loans with the standard requirement that the government pass crushing austerity measures?
After o
Don't trust anyone anymore (Score:1)
There are Russian-language strings in the code, and it searches its victims' systems for Agent BTZ, malware used in previous attacks believed to have been carried out by Russia
And this would make everyone believe that Russia would be so stupid as to put Russian language into the code? Bullshit. This is exactly what China or US or especially Pakastan or Iran would do to make it look Russian so as to start a fight between the greater powers. Its political bullshit intrigue101 make it so obvious. You can't tru
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It is well known that the black market for software have largely been dominated by Russian coders. High skills and few jobs allows such things to grow. Even if the majority of those programmers switched to "the white market" when the Russian economy grew there still is a huge amount of skilled workers perfect for doing electronic warfare s
I must be Russian (Score:3, Insightful)
"It has Russian language strings in the code, so it must be Russian intelligence behind it!"
(facepalm) Really? This is an example of investigative prowess?
, .
I must be Russian. There are Russian language strings in my post.
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, .
Ha ha! Slashdot has foiled your nefarious plan by not supporting unicode!
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Ha! Yet it looked fine in preview. Well played, Slashdot, well played.
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So that's why CafeWorld loaded slow (Score:1)
Next time, note to self:
Defriend Russians before attack on vital strategic cooking interests.
Uroburos Released into the Atmosphere (Score:1)
Complete Global Saturation!