[HN Gopher] Classified tank specs leaked on War Thunder game for...
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Classified tank specs leaked on War Thunder game forums again
Author : weare138
Score : 101 points
Date : 2021-10-10 21:16 UTC (1 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (ukdefencejournal.org.uk)
(TXT) w3m dump (ukdefencejournal.org.uk)
| alexklark wrote:
| Omg somebody posted obvious info for general soldiers from manual
| that is already in possess of every other army in the world
| including taliban since its first print. By knowing rotation
| speed anyone on the forum who attack erm france can erm run
| faster around it and force it to erm surrender? Of course fat
| cats and war mongers that sits on taxpayers' war money will never
| allow anything regarding they precious war secrets to be
| published. But then, imagine world of open sourced weapons...
| bserge wrote:
| Open sourced weapons would benefit rich countries
| disproportionately.
|
| Even if poor countries have all the access to classified
| information, they can't do anything with it, as you said.
|
| However, the information can be sold.
| Igelau wrote:
| Reminds me of the Nth Country Experiment
| https://www.atomicheritage.org/history/nth-country-
| experimen...
|
| There's a difference between knowing how to do something
| (even without classified information) and being able to pull
| it off.
| ClumsyPilot wrote:
| The OP is right, if half the army has it in a manual, then
| this info is not a secret for anyone relevant.
|
| For all intents and purposes the AK is the opensource weapon.
| Hard to see how open source weapons would benegit rich
| countries, they already have the designs.
| blauditore wrote:
| The blurred text is still readable (somewhat). How do you arrive
| at 31deg per second if a full turn takes 11s?
| JorgeGT wrote:
| There's probably a slower acceleration phase at first?
| addaon wrote:
| Rounding, perhaps? 31.45 * 11.45 ~= 360.
| dmoy wrote:
| xkcd/386 urge is _strong_
| Waterluvian wrote:
| When Facebook failed to stay online, there was someone who shared
| a lot of internal info before deleting their Reddit account.
|
| When I worked for company B I had learned through friends some
| really really juicy intel about competitor A (which I never
| shared).
|
| Through that experience and seeing all of these other examples,
| I've come to realize that there is an intoxicating effect of
| having info that can make you a "hero for a day" in the eyes of
| some audience.
|
| Has anyone else ever felt this allure before?
| grepfru_it wrote:
| >When Facebook failed to stay online, there was someone who
| shared a lot of internal info before deleting their Reddit
| account.
|
| back in the day you would be tainted if you had read any of
| this material. today those lines have been blurred and even my
| employer, who was known to viciously keep tainted people out of
| the kernel, is nowhere near as strict
| Zababa wrote:
| What do you mean by "tainted" and "the kernel"?
| tgsovlerkhgsel wrote:
| Tainted = aware of non-public information that must not be
| incorporated into the product, so it's easiest to just not
| let those people work on it at all.
|
| By only allowing people who don't know anything secret to
| work on a product, you keep the product safe from
| allegations (justified or not) of illegally incorporating
| third party material.
|
| If you don't do it, you risk that a competitor claims "your
| product contains our proprietary material, pay us royalties
| or we'll sue your customers". Even if you're 100% in the
| right, until you've had that decided in court, your
| customers have to worry about getting sued, and you'll lose
| business (and also spend a lot of money on lawyers).
|
| The model is particularly known/used in reverse
| engineering: One team (that is not tainted with knowing any
| NDA'd materials, I assume) looks at the product you're
| trying to reverse engineer, and writes a specification.
| Another team (not tainted by NDA'd knowledge or knowldege
| of the code of the original product) then implements the
| spec. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clean_room_design
| morcheeba wrote:
| That's a reference to clean room design - you don't want to
| be accused of stealing a competitor's design, so anyone
| with knowledge of that design is considered "tainted" and
| not allowed to work on your core systems ("kernel").
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clean_room_design
| ClumsyPilot wrote:
| "back in the day you would be tainted if you had read any of
| this material"
|
| For most jobs, if you've worked in the industry for 20 years,
| you have seen 'secret sause' of several companies. They often
| look remarcably similar. Indeed thats kind of the value of an
| experienced hire?
| 1270018080 wrote:
| Isn't preying on that allure the mark of successful journalism?
| Getting info from unofficial channels etc.
| bserge wrote:
| Yes, it is incredibly alluring to share something only I know
| and either see people be amazed, surprised or _not believe_ it,
| which gives the best feeling imo. Really hard to stop myself
| sometimes, especially when drunk.
| mhh__ wrote:
| SIS (MI6) literally have a page on their website for sharing
| dirt with them "securely"
|
| https://www.sis.gov.uk/contact-us-form.html?lan=en
| fnord77 wrote:
| imagine sharing classified information via an https webform.
| Yikes!
| samsonradu wrote:
| The allure seems to be there:
| https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/navy-nuclea...
| baybal2 wrote:
| > Toebbe allegedly asked for $100,000 in cryptocurrency,
| saying "I understand this is a large request. However, please
| remember I am risking my life for your benefit and I have
| taken the first step. Please help me trust you fully."
|
| Well, that not not even funny, more of cringeworthy.
| dillondoyle wrote:
| That story is wild!
|
| First: this leaker simply mailed a packet to a random foreign
| government address which allowed usps to flag it?! Otherwise
| seems pretty shot in the dark they found it. 1234 Russia KGB,
| Russia ;)
|
| Second: the FBI either got the cooperation of said unknown
| country, or was able to somehow make a signal looking like it
| originated from their embassy (maybe as comical as we'll fly
| our countries flag, which happens to always be flying). Maybe
| it's an ally?
|
| Third: this person had a good amount of access? It sounds
| like schematics/info on the small nuclear reactors in the
| subs? Maybe that's not super valuable info?
|
| So much I want to know! Would make a good dramedy someday if
| it's as dumb as it sounds.
| ren_engineer wrote:
| it's in human nature and in every industry. It's just a
| variation of gossip, which is what the majority of the news
| industry is based on. Almost all the news is "sources" giving a
| peek behind the curtain for everybody else, or at least the
| illusion of a real glimpse
|
| humans are curious by nature
| ogurechny wrote:
| Quite the opposite. People naturally feel more "important" and
| "knowing" when they have access to internal or "secret"
| information, while in fact they perform the work of a cog in
| the system. In 100 years -- often much less than that -- none
| of that secret stuff would matter, and it will become clear
| that someone's life was wasted on transitory things for the
| benefit of some bureaucracy of corporation.
| newacct583 wrote:
| Exactly. Note that the same analysis can work in reverse, too.
| The lack of leaky corroboration for a juicy, tempting-to-
| believe theory is a really high quality prior that it just
| isn't true. (With, maybe, an exception for very tightly
| controlled intelligence organizations. But in general anything
| juicy in the civilian world isn't going to stay hidden.)
|
| For example: this is my #1 for why COVID Was Not A Lab Leak.
| The incentives for someone involved to blab are just way too
| high. If there was an incriminating email anywhere, we'd know.
| ( _Edit: and right on cue multiple people want to storm in
| arguing why this principle is not applicable in this particular
| situation. That 's how you know it's "juicy", not how you know
| it's true!_)
| vimy wrote:
| https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/life-style/health-
| fitnes...
|
| https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2021/09/lab-
| leak...
|
| https://www.fr24news.com/a/2021/09/former-chinese-
| communist-...
| tgsovlerkhgsel wrote:
| It depends on a) how many people know about it b) how much
| they have to lose if the information gets out. The latter is
| a particularly powerful deterrent if it will hurt the person
| who shares it even if the leak isn't traced to them.
|
| For the tank manuals a) is likely hundreds of thousands of
| people, and b) is zero unless the leak is traced to them, and
| they possibly don't expect much even if it is.
|
| For the lab leak, b) is a strong deterrent - every virologist
| working on even moderately risky research would face trouble
| (in the form or stricter restrictions and possibly bans on
| the category of research) if the theory got confirmed, and
| for the people working in the Chinese lab, embarrassing the
| Chinese govt is probably pretty far up on the "mistakes you
| don't get to make twice" list. a) is less clear: They might
| not even be aware of a lab leak if it was one. However, one
| piece of sensitive info that could leak would be "we worked
| on something that was more similar to SARS-CoV-2 than the
| previously known sample", and I'd expect that to be
| reasonably well known at a research institute.
|
| However, that adds a third aspect: Verifiability of the leak.
| Even if a drunk scientist sat in a pub in Wuhan, telling his
| friends that it totally was a lab leak, and someone overheard
| that - what then? They post on Twitter "I heard some people
| talking that it totally was a lab leak"? Even if their
| friends say "hey, I know someone from the place and it
| totally is a lab leak", it'd at best be yet another
| unconfirmed and unconfirmable rumor that would be unlikely to
| make it far.
|
| Just because there are many leaks, doesn't mean there isn't
| also a lot of spicy information that never becomes public.
| These leaks are news because they're rare, even when hundreds
| of thousands of people have access to a piece of info. Reduce
| the circle of people in the know to 100, and the probability
| of a leak drops drastically.
| newacct583 wrote:
| I don't buy that. The kid who leaked those tank manuals is
| likely going to jail. Anyone with evidence of a cultured
| covid ancestor gets a free ticket to any academic position
| in the west they want. Remember that all those folks at WIV
| aren't cloistered prisoners of a totalitarian system,
| they're educated scientists in a worldwide community. Most
| of them probably hold degrees from western institutions.
| They're extremely mobile and well connected.
|
| But tank kid is going to jail for sure.
| rootbear wrote:
| I have only been in that position once or twice, but yeah,
| knowing some secrets can be exciting.
| dejawu wrote:
| I believe that's exactly how intelligence agencies will compel
| people to spy for them and betray their own nations: they make
| them feel smart and special for sharing information.
| armchairhacker wrote:
| There's an intoxicating effect of just contributing to a
| conversation, saying something interesting to other people.
|
| But there's also shyness and paranoia: what if whatever I say
| makes me look bad? What if it comes back to screw me over
| later?
|
| The Internet dilutes the latter a bit because you're anonymous.
| But you can still get caught e.g. if someone goes through your
| post history and recognizes you.
|
| Some people are very paranoid and don't like to share anything
| because they're afraid somehow it will affect them later. I
| guess on the other hand, there are people willing to share
| confidential information for attention without protecting
| themselves adequately (or at all!).
| swayvil wrote:
| I know (from a forum) a guy who is VERY paranoid.
|
| His ideas are strange.
|
| His conversational style is combative.
|
| He published a book. He used his forum nick as the author
| name.
|
| He won't let anybody even know his age. Forget occupation or
| nation.
|
| Par. A. Noid.
| tornato7 wrote:
| It's amazing how some people will risk their job, their
| clearance, and potentially their freedom, just to impress some
| random dudes online for a few minutes.
|
| I tell people this whenever I'm asked about something I'm not
| supposed to reveal. "You want me to risk my _ just so you can
| satisfy your curiosity?"
| babuskov wrote:
| > It's amazing how some people will risk their job, their
| clearance, and potentially their freedom, just to impress
| some random dudes online for a few minutes.
|
| Maybe they just feel alone, depressed, underappreciated and
| like nobody cares about them?
|
| Revealing it to total strangers somewhat obscures potential
| negative impact, while still getting them to feel important
| for a day.
| temp8964 wrote:
| Hey, not just "impress", that's tons of upvotes!
| ethbr0 wrote:
| It begs the inclusion of "How much time do you spend online?
| And how much do you value the opinions of online
| communities?" as security clearance questions. Are they, now?
|
| Historically, they'd be very interested in what you'd say to
| your friends, family, etc. But the allure of internet fame
| would seem to have a more pursuasive effect.
| eganist wrote:
| > Are they, now?
|
| They're not included in Standard Form 86, latest revision
| November 2016: https://www.opm.gov/forms/pdf_fill/sf86.pdf
|
| That's not to say it's excluded from polygraph questions; I
| can imagine a world where online associations are very
| relevant to an agency in need of a CI or full scope poly
| for compartment access.
| User23 wrote:
| Reminds me of the Google SRE who got literally frog-marched
| out of the Kirkland office for reading the messages of a
| female acquaintance. He got busted, because creep that he
| was, he tried to impress her by revealing that he did. And
| the Internet never forgets[1]. Persons, especially young
| persons, really need to be cautioned about the stupidity and
| consequences of this kind of behavior.
|
| [1] https://www.ecampusnews.com/2010/09/15/google-engineer-
| fired...
| withinboredom wrote:
| How did he think that conversation would go?
| EamonnMR wrote:
| I've spent an inordinate amount of my life chasing that high,
| not by leaking information but by trying to be the guy who
| finally remade the game everyone liked.
| bmsleight_ wrote:
| I liked the game http://flythrough.space/
| monkeybutton wrote:
| I've definitely been in that position before (though the stakes
| were much lower) and spilled the beans to my personal audience.
| It was so very exciting! Then I regretted it. Not because I was
| caught or suffered any consequences, but because I felt
| childish and attention seeking. The allure is gone for me now.
| I wonder if others come to the same conclusion?
| 101008 wrote:
| Same here. Posting an exclusive online is not satisfaying
| anymore. Maybe because I grew up on times where other
| websites used to link to your website as Source? Now
| "influencers" will copy your exclusive on Twitter and
| Instagram without giving any credit.
| HMH wrote:
| Discussion of the previous leak:
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27857636
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