The war in Ukraine is not just a physical war of tanks, trenches, artillery and attrition. It’s also being fought across the Internet on the social media front line and deep within the darkweb where armies of hackers from both sides fight a brutal cyberwar. Sometimes these electronic battles erupt into the daylight with both horrendous and hilarious results.
Are there legitimate reasons to train national cyber-soldiers - a professional army of hacktivists?
Find out what we’ve discovered in Ukraine on this episode of The Decentralists.
The war in Ukraine is not just a physical war of tanks, trenches, artillery and attrition. It’s also being fought across the Internet on the social media front line and deep within the darkweb where armies of hackers from both sides fight a brutal cyberwar. Sometimes these electronic battles erupt into the daylight with both horrendous and hilarious results.
Are there legitimate reasons to train national cyber-soldiers - a professional army of hacktivists?
Find out what we’ve discovered in Ukraine on this episode of The Decentralists.
00:02.46
Henry
Hey, everyone it's Henry Mike and Jeff of the decentralists and welcome to the latest podcast from Kiev mike of course our man is in ki of Ukraine and this time we're going to talk about something that is ah. Pretty fascinating as far as I'm concerned and that is today's modern warfare also known as cyber warfare hacking all that kind of thing. Um, and recently I came across an article that you had sent to me Mike and it was published.
00:24.57
Mike
Um, right.
00:35.91
Henry
By the bbc like about a week ago or two weeks ago and it was all about the united hackers within Ukraine that are literally making a difference. Um, when it comes to ah trying to stop rush's.
00:52.69
Mike
Um, right? um.
00:53.68
Henry
Invasion. But of course people are are are hacking from both sides so can can you give us Mike just a little bit of an overview of this article.
01:01.73
Mike
Sure, um, well first to kind of put it in context. Um, ah you know the the you. So. There's always been or at least probably within the last what say fifteen or twenty years you start to hear this this. This word cyber work. Okay, this this idea of you know there used to be computer hackers you know back in the day there was I remember there was y two k and all this other kind of stuff. It wasn't so much a hacker thing but it was a technology problem and then you had hackers that would do these little. You know, kind of annoying little things where you'd open your computer up and you'd have a virus and there'd be some you know pacman eating all the words off your page or something like this right and and they would do things it was just to be annoying. It was just goops. Okay, and then you got into this kind of hacker thing where you know you would be these.
01:46.76
Henry
Um, yeah, yes.
01:59.11
Mike
These guys and girls would go in use their computer skills to just kind of get access to things. They weren't supposed right? So they'd get access to the Cia's backend and all this other kind of stuff and then you know, not that long ago it became this idea of cyber warfare. And it kind of started with this whole thing Stuxnet or whatever it was where you know apparently the americans had created this virus called stuxnet that got it somehow got itself embedded into the iranian nuclear plants and the kind of the nuclear establishment and then.
02:19.94
Henry
Oh yeah.
02:35.50
Mike
It was set to kind of go off on a date or if somebody clicked the wrong key at the long time or whatever it would go off and it would disrupt all of the computer controlled systems in the iranian kind of nuclear. Um, you know regime shall we say and that was kind of the first. Place where you heard of this idea of cyber warfare which is targeted um, usually military or government kind of directed attacks right? So it's not just hackers having fun. It's it's it's computer specialists increasingly um, employed by the government right and working at a government office and they're basically hacked and and your job is to come in Henry today and disrupt Russia and so you know the the ukrainians.
03:20.20
Henry
Um, yeah, yeah.
03:28.13
Mike
Um, you know I think it was a day or 2 after the war started. Um, you know their minister of digital transformation. His his name is Mikail Federov he is and he's also the deputy prime minister he put out a call on telegram which still. You know, ah, you know how I feel about telegraph we've talked about it before but he put a call out on Telegram recruiting. Um you know I t specialist type people in Ukraine and it wasn't just hackers. It was.
03:45.16
Henry
Yes.
03:58.85
Mike
Regular coders. It was ui ah ux people and Qa people and graphic designers and everything to volunteer for this ukraine cyber army and within three days they had seven hundred and forty five thousand people seven hundred and forty five thousand people
04:03.53
Henry
Who.
04:15.19
Henry
Wow.
04:17.40
Mike
Right? Signed up right? and and that's like 2% of the population of the country and and so so it goes to show you a um how many ah you know technically savvy people there are in Ukraine especially amongst the young population.
04:24.24
Henry
Credible.
04:36.47
Mike
Um, but how many of them also have technology skills. Um, and so you know when you look at you know this this war from a conventional standpoint right? There's been this reticence to give the ukrainians say the longer range high bars rockets. You know the ones that go three hundred miles or something like this.
04:55.22
Henry
Yep.
04:55.99
Mike
They've got the one to go eighty miles because they basically you know everybody's like oh we don't want you shooting those rockets into Russia or anything like this but when it comes to cyber warfare. There is no border right? There are no borders anywhere.
05:06.14
Henry
No yep.
05:11.47
Mike
And it's not. You know it's kind of hard. You know you see governments will say we're going to treat Cyber warfare just like we're going to treat regular conventional warfare. But it's kind of hard to to make that argument when there's nothing physical in you know what? I mean in the country.
05:30.44
Henry
Yep.
05:30.62
Mike
Um, you know now you could argue that somebody using a you know, hacking into a computer system to say shut down the water treatment in Moscow could be potentially interpreted as a direct attack even though there was no physical damage. Okay.
05:47.52
Henry
Right.
05:49.24
Mike
But so you but you can you can shut down a power plant by by firing a freaking iranian drone into it but you can also shut it down by literally disabling the computer system that keeps the generators running right? and so you know it it takes different forms.
05:59.21
Henry
Yeah, yep.
06:06.68
Mike
So I don't know if you guys saw this artifice this little meme type story that was going on a little like really early in the war where some guys some Ukrainian guys hacked in to the to the Russian taxi system taxi dispatch like uberish type thing. Oh no serious. It was the funniest thing I've ever seen.
06:19.22
Henry
No.
06:24.33
Mike
And what they did is they basically ordered 5000 taxis for the same place and like 5000 taxis like every taxi in Moscow gets a thing that says go to this address and pick up somebody and there was literally a traffic jam that never ended. It took him like three days to get rid of the traffic jam because 5000 cabs all zeroed in on this one like apartment location somewhere in the middle of of Moscow.
06:51.47
Henry
Okay, okay, well, that's just annoying but um, ah, no question about that. But what are some of the things that they that that ukraine has accomplished um and and how has Russia responded they got to have a massive.
06:53.37
Mike
Um, and funny.
07:09.13
Henry
A team of hackers.
07:12.65
Mike
Um, you know I think it's interesting I mean I don't know how many hackers they have or how effective they are right because you know like 1 of the you know and and you know you guys have probably heard of this group called anonymous right.
07:23.69
Henry
Who.
07:26.89
Mike
So this is a hacker group. It's called anonymous they use that you know mask from that v movie. You know what? I mean that was right and they end with this with the guy Fox kind of face on it and I always thought they were rush and they were one of the most successful in public kind of you know hacker groups I always thought they were russian nope.
07:31.55
Henry
Yeah, yeah.
07:46.81
Mike
Their urainians Absolutely and so anonymous went after the Russians right? Um, you know So what's happening is is you've got kind of this.
07:46.83
Henry
No.
08:00.70
Mike
Um, you know you've got what has has kind of traditionally been a thing that I've learned a lot while I've been over here is a lot of the innovations and a lot of the famous people and a lot of the things that you you normally associate with being russian artt russian they're ukrainian. And they just kind of were claimed by Russia right? and so you know what you have is is you have a whole bunch of hackers that used to say get up together with the russians and they used to go and cause mischief in the west. Well now Ukraine is the west right? right? And so now they're like.
08:32.95
Henry
Yes, good point.
08:33.91
Geoff
Yeah, yeah.
08:39.86
Mike
Ah, none of this anymore and you know what I mean and so you know I think that I think that if yes I think that if you went to Russia and you looked at their capabilities in terms of cyber warfare and things like this I'm sure they're very considerable but I bet you they're primarily. Um, military computer technicians. So there are computer programmers that work for the military whereas what you've got in Ukraine and this was the this was the interesting kind of angle on this article the Bbc article you mentioned Henry was in Ukraine you have.
09:00.40
Henry
Hu.
09:14.87
Mike
Maybe you have some cyber warfare I'm in the Cyber Army Blah Blah Blah I'm maybe taking my you know I'm just pulling orders out of a hat right? from the government saying this is our priority go mess these guys up and then you have just guys and girls sitting around their house.
09:23.69
Henry
Right.
09:32.11
Mike
And you know they're basically just like well I'm you know maybe I'm a member of anonymous. You wouldn't know because you're anonymous, but they could be members of anonymous. They could just be regular. You know, really good programmers. Whatever and they're they're taking it upon themselves.
09:44.28
Henry
Oh okay.
09:50.15
Mike
To kind of do like guerrilla warfare like has been this. They're like they're like you know what? I'm just going to go in and mess up. Ah you know the the train system in Southeastern Russia right so so it doesn't work. You can't get a ticket.
09:52.93
Henry
Um, oh yeah, like independent sort of Creative hackers.
10:03.55
Henry
Nice.
10:09.33
Mike
Machines don't work and it and there's a big Ukrainian message and it says something nasty with a finger and you know which one I'm talking about right.
10:12.81
Henry
He asked I.
10:16.68
Geoff
And what it comes down to really is. There's all different kinds of categories of of this sort of cyber war and hacking depending on depending on what your what your goal is so if you go back to world war ii and you want to take out a dam. Because you want to flood this valley and you want to deprive electrical power so you invent these new bombers that can come in with these bouncing bombs and bounce across the lake and and blow up the dam today you might have sort of targeted missiles that can do it or or what have you.
10:42.70
Henry
Yeah.
10:42.20
Mike
Um, yes.
10:53.57
Geoff
But you know in the Cyber world you attack the automated computer systems that are running that dam where you sort of open all the gates or you you or you close the pen stocks and the dam overflows and washes itself away or so on.
10:59.73
Mike
Um, correct 1
11:03.89
Henry
Um, slam them shut. Yeah.
11:13.10
Geoff
So that is still a physical attack but instead of manifesting it with bombs or missiles. You are you are manifesting it through data Stuxnet that Mike was talking about where you spin the centrifuges at such a speed that they all thrash themselves to part. So you don't have to try to figure out how to blow this place up inside a mountain. You just have it blow itself up. Um, or if you want to invade a city then you you know, then you might want to turn off all of the power grid in the city. So. It's dark and nobody can see the tanks rolling in and and whatever.
11:38.43
Henry
Ah, yeah.
11:38.45
Mike
Um, totally.
11:51.41
Geoff
So as opposed to bombing the power station. You just hack it to the power station and and turn it off and or you attack the computerized data systems that are coordinating. You know the battlefront which you know which we've heard about or hack Gps are one of a thousand different things. And that is still conventional warfare but it is um but it is you know it's just doing a different way of attacking that isn't necessarily using explosives anymore the other side of the equation is sort of the psychological warfare right? so. Just irritating making life difficult for typical russian people to the point where they just say I'm just tired of this war and you know everything I want to do is such a hassle. We have these economic sanctions and Mcdonald's is closed and.
12:40.33
Mike
Um, right.
12:46.90
Geoff
All these taxis are clogging up the streets and I can't buy a tram ticket and you know you basically want to say screw you Putin I I want you to stop doing this because because you're impacting me because one of the byproducts of twenty first century war is that often.
12:50.60
Mike
Um.
13:06.42
Geoff
The average citizens of the aggressor don't always feel. They don't know they don't often experience the pain so you know if if the you know if the us invades Iraq whether you agree or disagree with that.
13:13.75
Mike
Right? right.
13:23.93
Geoff
For your typical american when that happened twenty years ago there and I'm not talking about gulf war one thirty years ago that's a whole other story but you know the typical american still driving his pickup truck still gassing up his car. Maybe the federal deficit has gone up a little bit but but really their life isn't.
13:41.68
Henry
Yeah, they don't noticed.
13:42.60
Geoff
You know isn't impacted by War They don't notice compare that with World War Ii where bombs are falling and you're shipping your children into small towns and you know the citizenry is directly affected by War Um, and and so that's an example where where cyberattack kind of.
13:42.97
Mike
Um, right.
13:54.10
Henry
That's like Ukraine.
14:00.99
Geoff
Brings the war to the russian people and to the ukrainian people you know Kiev isn't you know I'm sure that maybe Michael here a air raid siren go off in the next ten minutes but generally you know Kve doesn't have bombs raining down but you could still.
14:12.46
Mike
Are.
14:18.18
Geoff
You could still attack the country last week we're talking about the payment systems there you shut that down and suddenly you know life and keep goes back to 1950 so you know so so that is kind of that is kind of a separate side of it as well as just um.
14:26.71
Mike
Um, right.
14:37.98
Geoff
You know as well as the other side of hacking which we haven't really talked about too much which is you know, hacking in to figure out. You know what? the battle plans are right? All this stuff is digital. It's all stored on servers. There was that recent hacking it wasn't really a hack a leak in the United States where that.
14:47.29
Henry
Oh yeah.
14:53.79
Mike
Um, right? um.
14:56.98
Geoff
National Guardsmen wanted to look cool on a bunch of you know, video gaming. Yeah, some gaming chat channels and so he took some pictures of things and posted them there and oh aren't I cool and and it was the Ukrainian battle plans right? that were just shared out into you know into the world.
14:59.47
Henry
Incredible us.
15:01.14
Mike
Um, just seriously gaming websites are something stupid.
15:14.10
Henry
Unbelievable.
15:16.85
Geoff
And so those are kind of the the sort of 3 different tiers that that we can talk about where um, you know where if you talk about you know, eisenhower all his battle plans are on chalkboards and written with typewriters and getting that information.
15:31.46
Mike
Um, totally.
15:34.96
Geoff
Was really difficult but when the Us signals intelligence gathers russian signals intelligence and sends that to Ukraine and Ukraine then uses that information. You know if Russia can intercept that um they can both know what the plan is and they can also know. Who is leaking the information or you know they can well disinformation but also they can um you know if if the Us sends Intel to Ukraine and that Intel is hacked. Russia can can know who the mole is inside their organization right.
15:53.60
Mike
Um, or plant disinformation.
16:09.79
Mike
Um, right right.
16:12.33
Geoff
So you know so it's you know it's very it's faceted on on many different layers and I think one of the questions that that Henry asked before we were you know before we started recording is can you win a war. Can you fight a war just with cyber. And I don't I think in the end to win a war you either need to push out an invader. You can really only do that by blowing them up and killing their soldiers. Um, or you know making it so difficult back home that they're they're forced to do that. Um. Or ah or conversely you know, attacking the capital ah to the you know bombing berlin into submission until the tanks are rolling in and the you know and the government surrenders or what you know the Paris government did when this when the german tanks rolled in.
16:52.13
Mike
Um, right.
17:10.44
Geoff
Seventy years ago and you know and and actually conquer them. So I don't think you could say I am going to conquer finland by hacking their systems I don't you know I don't know that they would ever like surrender to the Soviet Union part of me to Russia freudian slip there. Um.
17:26.65
Henry
Ah.
17:27.10
Mike
Um, yeah, right? um.
17:30.40
Geoff
To to surrender to Russia without an actual invasion. so so I think it's just a new you know a new facet to to the warfare and you know we haven't really talked about Elon Musk and starlink too much. But.
17:47.52
Henry
Yes.
17:47.57
Geoff
Musk went and gave starlink to Ukraine um to to get them internet on the battlefield and then you know fast forward eight months and Ukraine is now using that technology for their ah Gps guided mortars.
17:50.66
Mike
Um, right.
18:05.32
Geoff
Right? And now Elon's like oh well gee I I didn't mean for it to be used to send Mortars and it's like well what's the difference Dude like you're you're you're either. You're either in this or you're not and you can't sort of say well you can use this cyber technology for this and so that.
18:12.50
Henry
Yeah, yeah.
18:12.90
Mike
Um, yeah, totally. Um.
18:24.80
Geoff
You know so that guys on the battlefield can send digital birthday cards to their sweetheart back home but you can't use it to Target Mortars because it's you know you're either in or you're not.
18:30.29
Mike
Um, totally.
18:34.67
Henry
Um, yeah, that's ah, that's ah that's fascinating what about Um I mean let's face it. You gave a little bit of a history of of hacking and and and and and cyber fun I guess ah Mike but but and we would always look at those hackers as. You know illegal sort of you know what are you doing. But I mean this sort of thing hacking for your country. It's almost legitimizes. It's is would you consider it. It's ethical now. It's it's something to be be proud of.
19:02.59
Mike
Um, ah oh.
19:08.80
Mike
Um, and well but Henry this is this is you know what we're what we're seeing and in this kind of cyber warfare thing is no. It's been going on for hundreds of years in some form or another. Okay. So um, you know way back in the day when when Queen Elizabeth the first was was was the queen of england you know there used to be british um pilots right? they were pilots and. She just made them all. Legitimate. She just kind of gave them all charter and made him part of the royal need because because she you know what I mean and she said I don't want you to change what you do I want you to go out there and and harass the crap out of a spanish.
19:48.85
Henry
Ah.
19:58.49
Mike
Because the spanish were shipping these huge boats full of gold back from like you know what? I mean huge boats full of gold right? just sitting ducks in the middle of the ocean with like literally eighty to eighty billion tons of ballast that happens to be made of gold and and it was I think was Francis Drake
20:02.70
Henry
Um, that's right.
20:15.68
Mike
Right? There was always this you know, kind of weird thing where there was some romance or not or whatever but she made drake into a kind of like an admiral or whatever but told him to just a blackbeard go out there and wipe out as long as you're going after everybody who's an enemy of England I don't care and in fact, I'll give you. Like a Royal charter to do this yeah'll give you a give you a piece of the take whatever right? So it. It is not like this is a new thing right? This is something that's been going on forever.
20:35.62
Henry
A percentage of the gold.
20:42.66
Henry
Yeah.
20:47.74
Mike
And and and what what? what? goal do you have? Okay when you say go out and find that big Spanish galleon and sink it. Well, it's not like you're taking the gold right? I mean the gold isn't doing anybody's good good at the bottom of the ocean but what it isn't doing is given the spanishing right.
20:59.10
Henry
E exactly.
21:05.12
Mike
And so this is kind of the point of of what Jeff was talking about where you know you can look at things like cyber warfare as as you know it may not be. Um, you know carpet bombing st petersburg or something right? where it's just level like the russians have so kindly done to so many places in Ukraine it. But but if you can literally make it so that you you now have control over whether there's power in somebody's house.
21:33.16
Henry
Yes.
21:35.20
Mike
Or you now have control over whether their mobile phones will work or whether they have internet service or whether 10000 taxis are going to show up at their house right? You can make life almost as inconvenient shall we say.
21:43.60
Henry
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
21:52.99
Mike
Okay, yes, no, you might not be risking life unless you happen to be getting fun of 1 of those 10000 taxes but you know if if you got up every morning if you got up in the morning Henry and you didn't have any lights and your frigi had been off all day long all night long and you tried to call the power company and your phone didn't work.
22:07.33
Henry
Um, oh yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
22:12.87
Mike
And you tried to send an email to somebody. You couldn't You couldn't because it didn't work. You know what I mean and you went to you went to get on the sky train and you couldn't get a ticket. The train wasn't running or if we just stop in the middle of the track somewhere conveniently hanging up in the middle of the air somewhere like this type of stuff. Um.
22:20.46
Henry
This.
22:30.90
Mike
What it does is it wakes people in the population up. Of course they do. Of course they do. Of course they right? Of course they do.
22:32.40
Henry
Yeah, because they hide the the truth to their own citizens Russia does.
22:39.65
Geoff
But your question Henry about you know, whether or not these are bad guys is which I think is kind of where you're going is is another fascinating subject because it you know? Well it all depends on what side you're on right? So when North Koreans are ah. You know, attacking oracle or attacking any large cloud provider and stealing millions of passwords or doing all of these kind of things you know we consider them. Evil bad guys. But these north korean brainwashed hackers just think they are patriots.
23:12.27
Henry
Yes.
23:13.10
Mike
Um, well or they did or they need some food.
23:14.51
Geoff
Who are who are healthy. You know they need some food or they're they're helping the you know they're helping the the great motherland do this similarly if there are people working at the and nsa that are hacking into Russia to try to break russian signals traffic then.
23:32.27
Mike
Um, right they get a medal for that.
23:34.17
Geoff
You know, then they are air quotes they are air quotes the good guys. But you contrast that with sort of these you know which were called russian troll farms these these guys in Belarus and Bulgaria and other places that were being paid by Russia. To spread dists information to support Donald Trump on Twitter they're not necessarily hackers per se although some of them are hacking but they're basically just black hats for hire who are just working for the for the highest bidder and.
23:53.16
Mike
Um, right? um.
24:07.42
Henry
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
24:10.35
Mike
Um, right? um.
24:10.89
Geoff
You know and and even then it's a little bit difficult because if if you can't find any work and you're making $10 a month and your kids are hungry and you know Vladimir Putin's goons come along and say well I'll pay you $20 a day to write tweets you speak english I'll pay you $20 a day to. Write tweets all day long talking about hunter biden's laptop then you know are they evil I don't probably you know they probably don't care but you know, but my point is it's it's interesting to see that once russia's access to hard currency dried up considerably.
24:32.32
Mike
Um, right? ah.
24:33.11
Henry
Yes.
24:48.30
Mike
Um, totally that's a very good point. That's a great point.
24:48.53
Geoff
All of these guys sort of started to fade away from Twitter and Graham and and and everywhere because they are just working for the highest bidder and if nobody's paying them anymore. They're like well I'm not not doing this for any like patriotic duty I'm not doing this.
24:52.56
Henry
Ah.
25:05.68
Henry
Ah.
25:06.19
Geoff
You know the North Korean guys are patriotic. These Ukrainian guys are patriotic if if they're not or or the you know and Nsa guys are making less money in public sector than they would in private sector because they're kind of patriotic um you know, whereas if you're just being paid to be a troll.
25:19.52
Mike
Um, right right.
25:25.57
Geoff
There's no, there's no patriotism there and and you're you're just you're just um, you're just a black cat. You're just Queen Elizabeth the first pirate where you're just um, you know you're just working for the highest bidder and so I think.
25:26.12
Henry
Um, yeah, no real motivation.
25:27.41
Mike
Um, that's exactly right.
25:42.30
Geoff
You know, certainly that dividing line is quite hazy but to to me, it's nevertheless, a dividing line.
25:48.49
Henry
yeah yeah I understand that now Mike you've been there for I don't know nine months now and you've met a lot of people have you have you met any ukrainian hackers.
25:59.88
Mike
Um, you know Henry Interestingly enough of course I have um I've met I Mett almost everybody here. Um, but in chat have but interestingly enough um I actually spent new years
26:07.37
Henry
I Know you have met a lot.
26:15.45
Mike
Um, with ah Ukrainian happy um, and and so you know we were there was they had this kind of you know party thing and this guy was was with his he was here with his girlfriend or wife right? and um, you know I'll call him maxine.
26:18.27
Henry
Um, no.
26:31.75
Mike
Right? And so we we sat around and next e and I were chatting. You know till the wee hours of of you know 2023 and he told me that um you know he had ah ah an office quote unquote office um in in Keith. Um, and that him and his colleagues were were basically scouring the dark web right? So this is this kind of internet that you can only access through you know, kind of weird browsers like I think tor and stuff like this where could. It's kind of an internet in underneath the internet and this is where it's like the silk road you may have heard this. It's all of these places where basically you can go and buy kidneys drugs missiles and tanks and all this other kind of stuff but it's also the place where.
27:12.88
Henry
Yep.
27:25.16
Mike
Um, let's say ah miscreants ne'er-do-wells spies, whatever, hang out and talk and so they were talking about confused Maxine was talking about how that there was. There's this There's kind of there's there's always still a little bit of tension in Ukraine. Okay, about who potentially is a russian sympathizer right? You know like um, you know there's been There's been. You know, kind of allegations that part of the reason why mary opal.
27:47.93
Henry
Oh.
28:00.63
Mike
Um, was taken so kind of quickly early in the war was because the the governor down there was sympathetic and didn't you know like the the army was like get prepared and he just neglected to pass that on and so so Maxine says to me, he goes.
28:08.37
Henry
Um, yeah.
28:16.19
Henry
Ah.
28:18.72
Mike
Oh no, we know they're out there right? and you know there may not be. There may be certain people that are you know that aren't interested in identifying these folks but will find it and so he's basically got this group of guys and girls that.
28:29.84
Henry
Wow.
28:38.29
Mike
Spend their day scouring the dark web looking to identify russian sympathizers in Ukraine so not so much hacking, but it is kind of hacking.
28:48.36
Henry
That's fantastic.
28:52.21
Mike
Right? Like I think I think you that the that the average human like but I mean I've been around computers since the computers were invented right? like the pc right commodore 64 big 20 all this stuff I wouldn't even know how to get onto the dark web.
29:04.10
Henry
Yeah, yeah, neither why.
29:06.73
Mike
You know what? I mean let alone go through all these weird chat rooms and stuff like this that still probably look like all blinking monochrome you know, kind of like monitors and find ah identify somebody who's a russian sympathizer within Ukraine.
29:13.00
Henry
Yeah, probably.
29:22.62
Mike
And so you know this is this is also kind of you see how Cyber warfare can also be internal warfare Totally totally. You know, um and he's like hey you know any time you come down come down to my office and we'll we'll show you what we're doing. You know.
29:27.87
Henry
Man that could be a great movie.
29:37.80
Henry
Wow.
29:41.28
Mike
And so you know but this is the type of thing where um, you know all of these all of these different things that happen can be um, you know can have positive or negative impacts right? Um, it's almost like ah a virtual a virtual battle that has. That that has um, you know physical um, kind of results right? You know to Jeff Jeff mentioned the you know the dam busters right? bombs the rolling bombs that bounced on water.
30:05.18
Henry
Um, yeah, yeah.
30:13.49
Mike
You can accomplish the same thing by basically taking control of a dam's you know sluice system and just opening the gates right? You don't need to blow the thing up. Yeah sure you can you'd send a bunch of guys out there guns in Avaron and they can stick dynamite all over the thing and hope it works or.
30:21.35
Henry
Ah, right.
30:31.82
Mike
You can nowadays just take control of the systems and make them do whatever you want right? and so it's I think it's very it's very interesting. You know this is just to circle back to you you know, kind of 1 of your original points Henry is.
30:37.70
Henry
Um, yeah, yeah.
30:48.10
Mike
I actually do believe you could win a physical war in the cyber world I actually do believe you could um and I think honestly I think you could win it. You could you could more easily kind of break the will or do whatever by by just. If you had complete control of every kind of computerized system in in every country which is everything right? I mean hell nowadays you know these brand new tanks right? that they're getting from like the m ones and the leopards and all this stuff ukrainians are getting. They're all computer controlled Gps controlled blah blah blah blah bla.
31:11.30
Henry
Yeah.
31:16.94
Henry
The Abrams. Yeah, yeah.
31:23.90
Mike
If you go in and you just say every time somebody has a Gps coordinate you move it ° they can't hit anything right? They can't hit an anything so you you can literally you know and and now oh that guy just dropped the cruise missile I'm just going to turn it around and point back where it came from.
31:31.29
Henry
Um, yeah, yeah.
31:41.23
Henry
So maybe in the future that can be done who knows I mean but technology is advancing so fast. Um I mean it literally makes our heads spin I mean.
31:50.21
Mike
Well, it's interesting. It's interesting because you know that one of the things that um it was in that article right? was and I'll let I'll let we'll finish it off here. But but you know in that article one of the things it mentioned was that um you know the geneva convention right? which is the thing that everybody signed that said.
32:06.93
Henry
Um, rules of law. Yeah, yeah.
32:08.13
Mike
This is how you what rules of war rules of war. Okay trying to civilize something that is literally uncivilized. Um, but the rules of War There's no, there are no ah geneva convention rules for Cyber warfare. You know what? I mean.
32:14.68
Henry
Exactly.
32:22.71
Henry
Yeah, doesn't exist.
32:26.68
Mike
And so the red cross and all these guides are saying well the same rules apply right? But do they you know and and and so this is it's a very you know we we need to really think about how how you know important is convenience. And speed and all of these things right? We talked in a previous episode about things like you know digital identity and idea well that's great, but like you know if that if the database is you know it was what not that long ago five years ago the database of digital identity in Bulgaria was hacked and somebody stole. Every bulgarian residence I did right? So there's ah, there's a there's a plus and a minus right technology is awesome in enabling convenience and enabling you know, kind of more ubiquitous access and it's easier and better and all these other things but it can also.
33:04.51
Henry
Wow.
33:23.22
Mike
You know it can also be turned against you and have some real physical um circuit real physical kind of results. So it's kind of like the virtual warfare creating physical warfare kind of results anyway.
33:29.15
Henry
Yeah, absolutely.
33:37.65
Geoff
And well and and I would say that you know I would say that in this era of twenty first century warfare and you know invaders like the russians just doing these terrible things just slitting the throats of prisoners of war and shipping children into Russia everything.
33:39.29
Henry
Well Mike Ah great points.
33:56.50
Geoff
The whole notion of the gva geneva convention. It's it's all very quaint but you can pretty much I think you can pretty much put put that on the dusty shelf of history. The only you know the the only nations that are respecting. It are the nations that probably wouldn't have needed it in the first place.
33:59.19
Henry
Yeah.
34:12.45
Henry
Yeah, yeah, wow well gentlemen. Thank you so much for the chat today Michael certainly and Jeff I mean great points and and I just want to share with folks if you want to read that Bbc article which is incredible. It was published. Um.
34:12.70
Mike
Um, right? but.
34:31.33
Henry
April Fifteen one five and the yeah and it's called meet. Yeah meet. We'll do it meet the hacker armies on Ukraine's cyber front line. So Mike did anyway. Ah gentlemen. Thank you so much. ah ah Mike
34:34.62
Mike
We'll put a link in the description Henry We'll put a link in the description to this podcast.
34:42.79
Mike
Um, yeah, it actually did. Yeah, it's awesome.
34:50.44
Henry
Um, ah enjoy your your evening.
34:52.51
Mike
Thank you very much and thank you very much gentlemen slopp you any.
34:52.63
Geoff
Stay safe bye for now Slava ukrani.