[HN Gopher] Classified Challenger tank specs leaked online for v...
___________________________________________________________________
Classified Challenger tank specs leaked online for videogame
Author : notmine1337
Score : 140 points
Date : 2021-07-16 15:56 UTC (7 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (ukdefencejournal.org.uk)
(TXT) w3m dump (ukdefencejournal.org.uk)
| le-mark wrote:
| My understanding was the main secret on modern MBTs is the
| composition of the "sabot catching" armor. Doesn't sound like
| that's what was disclosed here?
| ummonk wrote:
| It doesn't seem like anything dangerous was posted, but the
| individual who posted it shouldn't be making judgement calls
| about what they think shouldn't need to be classified.
| GekkePrutser wrote:
| I would imagine that if a game developer has access to a
| classified document, that actual enemies already own that
| document and the real harm has been done long ago.
| hugh-avherald wrote:
| N.B. The document appears to be marked _Restricted_ which is
| technically lower than 'classified'.
| KineticLensman wrote:
| In the UK, 'classified' is a generic term not a formal
| classification level. Perhaps you meant 'confidential'? But in
| any case, the level 'restricted' was taken out of use a few
| years ago in the UK, and its use indicates that the document
| concerned is not recent. The current equivalent is 'official
| sensitive'
| User23 wrote:
| Back in the 90s my buddies in the military would say that Tom
| Clancy basically got it right.
|
| Also private intelligence sources like Janes probably will sell
| you this info too, although I can't be sure because I'm not
| willing to pay to find out.
| greedo wrote:
| Just because it's classified doesn't mean it's valuable. Lots of
| stuff is classified for bureaucratic reasons. Also, there's
| little about the Challenger 2 that opposing forces couldn't have
| researched. The tank itself has been around for more than 2
| decades, and the Soviets/Russians have been consistently able to
| penetrate British security for the last 70 years.
|
| The gun is nothing special, and it's performance is well known.
| Chobbham/Dorcester armor has been around for quite awhile, and
| isn't unique. The US has sold M1s to Egypt, Iraq etc with
| Chobbham armor.
| jandrewrogers wrote:
| FWIW, the armor on the export M1 is different than the US
| version.
| greedo wrote:
| Yes, but all M1s have Chobbham/Dorcester armor. Some
| additionally have DU (Depleted Uranium) inserts. The DU
| inserts are generally limited to US Army M1s.
| AmVess wrote:
| Export M1's do not have Chobham armor.
| greedo wrote:
| Do you have a source for this? My understanding was that
| DU armor was the only difference in armor on export
| versions (Kuwait, SA, Egypt).
| beowulfey wrote:
| Just because it isn't valuable doesn't mean it is legally
| allowed to be released.
| pyronik19 wrote:
| I think this is understood. The issue is that these
| bureaucratic legalese nonsense needs to go.
| mywittyname wrote:
| Just because its illegal doesn't mean that there was any harm
| done.
| ozim wrote:
| That is a bit more complex issue.
|
| Well if the guy was a commander he should be smart enough
| not to share/discuss such things in gamer forums.
|
| While yes technology on its own could be mostly understood
| by people you still expect commander even if not officer to
| keep his mouth shut.
|
| Person did harm to himself while maybe not to the army.
| Just for being silly and not careful while you are being in
| the army there should be prosecution.
|
| Now compare it with how much work goes into telling people
| that they should not click links in suspicious emails...
|
| People still click those links, companies get ransomed.
|
| At some point it is not "ALL FUN AND GAMES" but "WE ARE
| RESPONSIBLE ADULTS" - well no one died but I would not like
| to work with that guy on serious things.
|
| Commanding a tank is a serious thing not "well no harm
| done, corporate bs".
| weare138 wrote:
| Chobham armor is just an informal/generic name for composite
| armor. The actual designs vary from tank to tank and are highly
| classified. There's no singular style of 'Chobham armor'.
| analognoise wrote:
| It doesn't matter if a technical person looking at it thinks it
| isn't valuable. If it has any marking other than "Approved for
| public release", the book will be thrown at someone
| intentionally releasing it - and rightly so.
|
| If the MOD says it is classified, this person likely just ended
| their career and might go to jail. For a tank game's accuracy.
|
| I mean sometimes people make bad choices, but Jesus, what a
| mistake.
| ManBlanket wrote:
| Seems like this is only news for two reasons: 1. tanks are
| interesting. 2. people get excited about cancelling strangers
| on the internet over whatever loose pretext they can.
|
| How else can you explain this profoundly mundane story ending
| up on the front page of a tech news site? What's next, we
| going to start chiming in on soldiers who don't renew their
| military IDs in time? Y'all are acting like he leaked plans
| for the Army's top-secret death ray, or a bunch of videos of
| helicopters killing civilians, not a boring piece of paper
| work nobody in the military cared about enough to declassify
| after decades of service.
| joe-collins wrote:
| Many people on this website work with governments. National
| security topics intersect with technology often: Snowden,
| Reality Winner, the OPM hack, SolarWinds, really anything
| involving the NSA. There's hardly a day we _don 't_ read
| about some state-backed threat actor.
|
| Does it not seem reasonable, then, that a violation of
| fundamental classification policy catches interest?
|
| The impact of the leak shouldn't be measured in the
| material revelations that might be in those documents,
| especially should they be so underwhelming as many seem to
| think. Rather, the impact is that _a person of rank_ chose
| to execute such a violation for such an overwhelmingly
| trivial reason. Imagine, if you can, the impact that act
| might have on morale within that military, and on the
| capacity for the social pressures within that organization
| to maintain adherence in the future.
| walshemj wrote:
| "Customer" Tanks don't get all the sweet latest tech that the
| host country has.
|
| an Iraqi T72 wasn't the same as the WP ones for example.
| adolph wrote:
| _Chobham armour is the informal name of a composite armour
| developed in the 1960s at the British tank research centre on
| Chobham Common, Surrey. The name has since become the common
| generic term for composite ceramic vehicle armour. Other names
| informally given to Chobham armour include "Burlington" and
| "Dorchester." "Special armour" is a broader informal term
| referring to any armour arrangement comprising "sandwich"
| reactive plates, including Chobham armour._
|
| _Although the construction details of the Chobham armour
| remain a secret, it has been described as being composed of
| ceramic tiles encased within a metal framework and bonded to a
| backing plate and several elastic layers. Owing to the extreme
| hardness of the ceramics used, they offer superior resistance
| against shaped charges such as high explosive anti-tank (HEAT)
| rounds and they shatter kinetic energy penetrators._
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chobham_armour
| josh2600 wrote:
| It sounds like it's basically chainmail for tanks.
| idiotsecant wrote:
| it sounds like it's basically unlike chainmail in all
| possible ways!
| greedo wrote:
| Actually, there are no ceramics in Chobham armor.
|
| https://below-the-turret-
| ring.blogspot.com/2016/03/chobham-a...
| Groxx wrote:
| While an interesting read: it's fairly clearly stated that
| they believe there _were_ no ceramics in _early_ Chobham
| armors. And some newer ones _might_ , though probably not
| most, and that it's not particularly relevant to the
| effectiveness (i.e. it's an armor structural pattern,
| ceramic is orthogonal).
|
| So it mostly supports your claim, since Wikipedia is rather
| focused on the ceramic aspect, but it's in a _somewhat_
| different context.
| bronzeage wrote:
| The U.S has many adversaries, not only nation states but
| terrorist organizations like ISIL. Just because the most
| advanced adversaries probably have access to something doesn't
| mean that you shouldn't protect it from the weaker adversaries.
|
| If anything, most of the U.S. engagement nowadays are against
| inferior enemies, not Russia, and against them, even small
| things like these can be useful to the enemy, especially an
| enemy with really shallow intelligence gathering.
| duxup wrote:
| I remember growing up watching the "military vehicle shows" on
| the Discovery channel when they just output all the various
| specs of every vehicle.
|
| I think a lot of the general operating specs and such are
| pretty well known.
| walshemj wrote:
| Up to a point I recall some one who worked for RAE and was on
| Salisbury plain and their land rover was over taken at speed
| by a MBT (well over the listed spec BTW)
| bserge wrote:
| Tbf, anything can overtake those garage decorations.
| ChuckMcM wrote:
| I was a huge fan of these sorts of shows as well! Having
| talked with folks who had full access to the specs however,
| my understanding is that there are specs and there are specs.
| Basically the specs that give advantage or could be exploited
| as weaknesses on the battlefield were classified whereas the
| kind of stuff you could deduce just by watching one operate
| in the field was not. So for example, seeing how far a tank
| could shoot by watching one compete, not classified. But 'how
| many' shootable things and 'what kind' it carries might be
| classified.
| dylan604 wrote:
| There's also things like published max speeds, and then
| full military power speeds that are more closely held.
| [deleted]
| duxup wrote:
| I think the bigger issue is that this rando user had the
| document, and I think that means it was already out / online?
|
| Amusing context, but I suspect whatever important thing happened
| with this document, it already happened. And that's assuming it
| was actually real / classified.
| chrisseaton wrote:
| > this rando user had the document
|
| They're a Challenger instructor. Who else do you think the
| document is for?
| duxup wrote:
| Wouldn't the crews have this manual to?
|
| Or rando IT guy?
| adolph wrote:
| No, for M1 series the crew manual (back in the day) just
| says it is secret stuff and to cover it with a tarp it with
| a tarp if the outer armor exposes it. That goes for the
| front of the turret, hull and the first track cover.
| chrisseaton wrote:
| It's not an M1 it's a Challenger 2.
| ethanbond wrote:
| And the mechanics
|
| And the archivist
|
| And the printer
|
| And so on and so forth
|
| Even highly sensitive info must be handled by a lot of
| people in a modern military.
| munificent wrote:
| _> this rando user_
|
| Lots of people rightly have access to classified information.
| This user is likely to be a soldier and tank operator. Many of
| these people also play videogames. And apparently some fraction
| of those are dumb enough to leak classified info.
| duxup wrote:
| I wouldn't doubt it. Russia had problems with soldiers
| posting photos online... while working in / around Ukraine.
| ethbr0 wrote:
| You mean while vacationing with their service weapons in
| So^H^HRussian Crimea? /s
| handrous wrote:
| That happened a ton, but I never got the impression it was
| a problem for them. Was it?
| duxup wrote:
| Depends on what you mean by problem.
|
| It's just PR as it's not like other nations that didn't
| like it didn't already know. But Russia did pass some
| laws forbidding soldiers from doing that thing ... so it
| seems politically they didn't like it contradicting their
| stated claims.
|
| I did find the passing of the law amusing tho. It's not
| like the military can't just give a 'don't do that' order
| much faster...
| some_random wrote:
| It's not a rando user, it's a TC of a Challenger 2.
| inopinatus wrote:
| "The Official Secrets Act is not there to protect Secrets, it is
| there to protect Officials."
|
| -- Sir Humphrey Appleby, _Yes, Minister_
| gerdesj wrote:
| A long running documentary, masquerading as an humorous sitcom.
| edrxty wrote:
| This happens more than you'd imagine. DCS World gets in hot water
| for this periodically. It doesn't help that these developers are
| all from Russia
| doodlebugging wrote:
| It also doesn't help that this game has been used in the past
| to spread trojans to user's machines.
|
| As a War Thunder player thru Steam, I quit playing when my
| system monitors flagged an update from War Thunder as a
| malicious trojan. That was a couple or three years ago.
|
| Cool game though.
| duxup wrote:
| I would think that classified or not ... you kinda assume
| almost all manuals eventually leak just based on the number of
| people with regular access.
| lallysingh wrote:
| The only ones who can answer that with any knowledge are in
| counterintelligence. And while the major powers may have
| copies now, the minor powers probably don't.
| na85 wrote:
| I hold a security clearance. That's not what you assume. The
| clearance exists for the purpose of preventing disclosure and
| they take breaches very seriously. I know a guy who had the
| book thrown at him for causing a (fairly minor) breach.
|
| Some stuff is "over classified" but the definition of
| classified data is that which if disclosed is harmful to the
| national interest, and they actively seek to prevent leaks.
| skissane wrote:
| > Some stuff is "over classified" but the definition of
| classified data is that which if disclosed is harmful to
| the national interest
|
| Once a colleague was having some problem calling a product
| API. He wanted coding help. I asked to see his code. He
| said "Sorry, I can't show you the code, it is classified".
| I asked, "Can you boil the code down into a Short, Self
| Contained, Correct Example (SSCCE)?" "I can, but that will
| be classified too." "How can an SSCCE be classified?" "The
| customer is an intelligence agency, every line of code we
| write while on-site is classified automatically, trying to
| get anything declassified is a bureaucratic nightmare".
| Eventually he agreed that he could go home, and try to
| write an SSCCE from memory at home, and that wouldn't be
| classified. In the process of doing that he worked out the
| problem himself, told me he didn't need my help any more.
| duxup wrote:
| That's not what you assume as an individual because it's
| your job. Day to day you do the right thing.
|
| Tell me how long you think a given tank manual that goes
| into the hands of all sorts of people stays secret? That's
| where you assume ... yeah probably not long.
| na85 wrote:
| >Tell me how long you think a given tank manual that goes
| into the hands of all sorts of people stays secret?
| That's where you assume ... yeah probably not long.
|
| I understood your point, I just don't agree with your
| baseless assumption.
| content_sesh wrote:
| I've held clearances before and that was very much not the
| attitude of the security folks I met. But they were big fans
| of reminding you what happens if they catch you doing an
| unauthorized disclosure.
|
| I was very low on the totem pole, so I can't know for certain
| what leadership actually expects. But it doesn't jibe with my
| experience that there would be some kind of "leak budget"
| similar to Google SRE "error budget".
| krisoft wrote:
| This feels like you guys are talking by each other.
|
| You are right. Security folks don't treat leaks lightly.
| Ever. This is part of how they maintain compliance with the
| rules.
|
| But I don't think this is what the GP commenter talked
| about. You definitely design weapons, and doctrine and
| systems by assuming that it can leak to the enemy
| eventually. If your whole battle plan folds like wet
| tissue-paper just because the enemy got their hands on a
| single CAD file or manual then it wasn't a really good plan
| to begin with. Exhaust ports of doom are nice plot devices
| for movies, but in reality you try to avoid designed-in
| Achilles heels. And you do this because leaks happen.
|
| Some information get leaked by carelessness, some by
| disgruntled employees, some are stolen by spies, some are
| picked up from a wreckage, some are stolen in transit, some
| are deduced from signal intelligence.
|
| You can design mitigations against all of these. The scary
| security folks you mentioned are mitigation against the
| first two really. Their existence and behaviour doesn't
| have any bearing on what the leadership will expect.
| duxup wrote:
| I'm sure everyone involved certainly had the attitude that
| you don't dork up / release it.
|
| I think just from a super high level intelligence
| standpoint ... you know it is going to happen.
| rblatz wrote:
| I agree, and if they don't that feels like negligence on
| their part.
| zentiggr wrote:
| I served on a submarine 20 years ago. Fire Control
| Technician... so fairly high clearance given what I had to
| operate, and against potentially whom.
|
| There are a wealth of things I don't know anymore... and no
| one else will ever hear them from me unless I am absolutely
| certain that it's been declassified and is in public access.
|
| While a system that can be abused to protect people from
| consequences will never be perfect, in general those of us
| who have to work with classified information understand that
| adversaries getting hold of it means more danger for our own
| people.
|
| I do not assume this, and if I had met anyone who expressed
| that kind of expectation, I would have mentioned it up the
| chain - they have self identified as a weak link.
| throwaway0a5e wrote:
| There are orders of magnitude less submarine fire control
| techs than there are tank crew-members. I assure you,
| nobody "up the chain" who's deciding what does or doesn't
| go in a tank manual expects the material in it to remain
| secret more than temporarily. It's just not the kind of
| thing you can rely on when you're disseminating the
| document to thousands of people across hundreds of
| facilities.
|
| Basically they tell you boots to STFU. And then then they
| base the rest of their decisions on the reasonable
| assumption that given time some of you will fail at that.
| Classic "defense in depth".
| duxup wrote:
| I wonder how many folks have access to a submarine fire
| control tech manual compared to a manual for a tank?
|
| I'm guessing simply based on the numbers the likelihood of
| a tank manual leaking in some fashion (even accidentally),
| for any reason, is much higher than a fire control
| technician manual.
|
| I would expect individual folks to do their job and not say
| 'well this will leak anyway'. But more generally I think
| expecting that 'this manual that we gave to thousands of
| people won't leak' would be absurd.
|
| That second part is what I was getting at.
| ummonk wrote:
| A few years back some people got charged for trying to export
| F-16 manuals to a Russian flight sim company:
| https://www.standard.net/police-fire/russian-deported-after-...
| renewiltord wrote:
| Okay, but the interesting thing is what you can do now that the
| data is out there. Can you adjust your in-game specs to align? Or
| is that a problem?
| zzt123 wrote:
| The user identifies as a make (sic) in Tidworth with a history of
| "Tanks & AFV's, CR2 Tank Commander, AFV Instr, D&M Instr, Gunnery
| Instr, Former ATDU".
|
| There are less than 250 Challenger 2 tanks. Combined with the
| rest of their professional experience, digital footprint, and
| copious words written, I imagine this person has sacrificed many
| bits of anonymity indeed.
| lostlogin wrote:
| Making 250 tanks is going to involve a hell of a lot of people.
| That said, I'm sure they'll be found pretty quick.
| worker767424 wrote:
| What if it was leaked by Russian intelligence?
| worker767424 wrote:
| I'm serious. Or someone from another country's intelligence
| group went rogue and leaked it. I doubt Russia would be
| looking that hard for the leak, and there's no reason to
| assume the leak was from someone British.
| space_ghost wrote:
| There's a line in the TV show "The Newsroom," after a 4-star
| General speaks anonymously on air about alleged chemical
| weapons usage, that "Generals don't have dumb friends." Two
| minutes of cross-checking military records will be enough to
| figure out who this guy is.
___________________________________________________________________
(page generated 2021-07-16 23:00 UTC)