Russian soldiers newly arriving to occupied Makiivka, Ukraine were gathered together by Putin into a building next to a large ammunition depot and ordered to watch the dictator’s latest message.
Some, or even many, allegedly turned on their cell phones.
Such an obvious concentration of static, undisguised enemy targets sitting on top of explosives probably was impossible for Ukraine to overlook.
Russia’s defence ministry said on Wednesday that 89 servicemen were killed in the Ukrainian attack on Makiivka over the weekend, adding the main reason for the attack was unauthorised use of mobile phones by the troops.
Russia wants to shift responsibility for all the massive loss of life onto the soldiers themselves, as if repeated pointless suicide missions with over 100,000 dead hasn’t yet been proven the fault of Putin himself.
The “main reason for the attack”?
Who are they kidding? Ukraine isn’t at war to stop cell phone use. I’d suggest the outcome might have been even worse for Russians without cell phones, since at least survivors could still surrender if they had one.
Ukraine’s estimate for their missile strike impact is in the hundreds (400 killed and 300 wounded). Given their accuracy in hitting occupation military targets at this point, they probably know casualty rates far better than Russia.
In other words, while Russia has been highly accurate at hitting non-targets (they just shoot at civilians and static critical infrastructure, neither posing any threat), Ukrainians are again demonstrating here the logical opposite: precisely wiping out entire military formations.
Putin’s megalomania unwittingly created a backdoor for those hoping to flee his abuse and tyranny; simply claim an intent to be closer, when actually trying to get further away.
Details are being shared now by Ukrainian refugees who managed to slip through Russian occupation checkpoints.
Much like the Underground Railroad for Black slaves, those seeking to escape were instructed on what to say at the border.
“You never say you are going into Europe,” she said. Nor does one tell border guards their intention is to flee the invasion.
Instead, it is best to say “I’m looking for work because I lost my job,” she said.
It’s best to say because of the situation “I’m heading to Moscow to work,” she said.
That is how those fleeing Ukraine are permitted into Russia.
Her 66-year-old father, meanwhile, could not say he was looking for work. He was retired and had nothing to do with the Ukrainian army.
“They did not particularly care about him,” she said.
Either he was so unimportant or they were stupid, but they let him through, she added.
Moscow elites used to partying in gilded ivory towers (EU reported €17 billion frozen for just 90 Russian citizens) are indeed totally desperate for anyone to do real work, even a 66-year-old.
Factories in Russia producing military equipment are working nonstop and have withdrawn New Year holidays from employees.
While I appreciate the reference to the underground railroad, it was… different.
American slaves were escaping what America had been since its start (under racist tyranny of men like Washington and Lee). They set out to reach freedom in what America was struggling to become (under emancipation by men like Lincoln and Grant).
Ukrainians however (besides not being slaves) escape a foreign occupation to be refugees in a foreign country (Russia first, then elsewhere).
Hopefully it’s clear in Civil War that the American slaves on a railroad weren’t going deeper into the Confederacy. Even areas of the United States occupied by Confederate forces meant escape was towards the remaining Union.
To be fair, Putin claimed Russian troops were sent to occupy Russian territory and shoot at Russians who resisted Russian tyranny.
That does sound a LOT like how the Confederate South had announced their plans for invasion and occupation of the United States to expand slavery (military force used in continuation of the corrupt Missouri “compromise”).
A more historically accurate and exact comparison thus might be if a railroad of Russians were escaping to freedom in unoccupied Ukraine, as Ukrainian forces marched to liberate… Moscow from Russia.
See how the reverse angle, social engineering an appeal to Putin’s absurd ego, is so disarming to Russians?
I point out the broader definitions and differences mainly as a technicality of how Russian security succumbed to a basic and common flaw. A timeless “hack” doesn’t need to be historically grounded to be explained.
If a Ukrainian passed through the Russian ingress test, an egress to safety was almost guaranteed, which is why the modern story about social engineering (use of a trivial fealty phrase for the authority to leave) is so useful as a lesson.
Escape from dictatorship can be unlocked (a trust token achieved) through claims of wanting to gladly be at work for the dictator.
This gaslighting story out of a small African country makes me think that Elon Musk must now be their President.
Somali officials are denying that a member of the presidential office made calls to several media outlets ordering them to submit content for review.
VOA this week spoke with members of at least four news outlets who all said they had received such calls from a person who identified himself as Abdikadir Hussein Wehliye. The caller claimed to be from Villa Somalia, the presidential office.
“Firstly, there is nobody by the name of Abdikadir Hussein Wehilye that is employed with the President’s Communication Office and secondly there isn’t anyone with that name authorized to speak with the media on behalf of the President’s Communication Office or any other departments at Villa Somalia,” Abdikadir Dige, director of communications for Villa Somalia, said in an email to VOA on Friday evening.
Prank calls? Dumb ideas that have no accountability? Cracks in the lines of authority?
Lack of integrity in authorization channels can hilariously awful as trust is destroyed.
Who said what, where?
It looks very bad for Somalia (and easily fixable) but Twitter management has sounded far worse lately, to be honest.
Remember when Elon Musk proudly announced engineers had to submit code for review? And remember when he flipped back and forth repeatedly between censoring people and claiming he would never censor people?
Who here predicted that a chaos of authority within a destabilized devolving African state would still sound better than a giant American tech firm run by a South African?
Germans rightfully expect vehicle drivers to be intelligent.
As their old saying goes…
Der Mensch denkt,
der Chauffeur lenkt
A man thinks, a driver steers.
Tesla has flagrantly violated this German saying on both ends by telling customers they don’t have to think when they sit in a “driverless” box that can’t steer.
Unfortunately, the overtly fraudulent Tesla still seems to sell cars. And it’s buyers, especially Americans, sometimes believe any crazy thing they hear instead of checking the NHTSA records.
The latest news is a Tesla driven by a man in Germany under some unspecified influence (social media, drugs, alcohol, etc.) had to be removed from the Autobahn.
Police have described how the Tesla driver ignored a safety check, then completely ignored their chase from in front of him.
Der Fahrer war gegen 12 Uhr auf der A70 von Bamberg in Fahrtrichtung Bayreuth unterwegs, als die Polizeistreife ihn einer Verkehrskontrolle unterziehen wollte.
Teslas have a very sad reputation for ignoring safety lights and signs but this case is a new low.
The NHTSA is currently investigating at least 40 crashes involving faulty Tesla software.
Checkpoints to remove Tesla from roads seem like a great idea, until you factor they’d have to be staged as moving interceptions over many miles since Teslas are too blind and dumb to stop on any normal notice.
Apparently the driver confidently entered his vehicle unfit to drive (typical for Tesla owners), set cruise control then went to sleep.
While we can blame him for being the kind of person who would buy a Tesla in order to do the wrong thing, it also sounds like he was doing exactly the sort things the CEO has repeatedly encouraged.
Police sirens and lights failed to wake this man or disable his machine for fifteen minutes. They tracked the vehicle from in front observing a blindingly obvious inability to think.
When the driver finally was alert and forced to avoid disaster, he was charged with thoughtless endangerment. The police also noted Tesla’s safety feature to prevent drivers being “inattentive” had been trivially bypassed; yet another design flaw.
His driver’s license then was revoked. But when you really think about the design flaws and CEO messaging… all Teslas should have had their license revoked.
This incident follows German regulators warning since 2019 that Tesla’s abuse of the term “autopilot” is misleading to the point of being negligent fraud (the safety troll phrase “full self driving”, of course, is even worse).
More recently, German regulatory investigations this year reported unsafe “abnormalities” in Tesla software, highlighting unethical engineering practices.
Tesla manche Funktionen nur freischalte, wenn der Fahrer eine bestimmte Punktzahl in Abhängigkeit von seinem Fahrkönnen erreicht. Ein Fahrzeug müsse so sicher sein, dass es von allen Fahrern bedient werden kann, hieß es beim KBA.
Cars are meant to be safe for anyone to drive, yet Tesla introduced “political” points systems in their cars to deliberately curate a false sense of privileged access to safety.
They may as well have been charging $15K for Elon Musk bobble head dolls while telling owners it makes their car invincible.
Neither the points systems nor the high cost have any correlation to achieving basic safety. Tragically, this means “safety warnings” given to Tesla drivers makes them LESS safe because they falsely believe the CEO and think they don’t need the warnings.
I warned about this here way back in 2006, if you will, the year Tesla was founded by copying the tzero EV design:
…countermeasures sometimes may increase danger, rather than diminish it [because] in the rare event it is [needed], the warning will no longer be received and there may be a victim. […] A warning that is not perceived as needed will not be heeded–even when it is needed.
The news therefore continues to be about Tesla owners falsely believing the CEO he is personally elevating them into privilege (again, the “luxurious ignorance” often associated with fans of dictators), when in fact they are a threat to themselves and everyone around them.
Tesla engineering has in this regard always been quite predictably and uniquely toxic to road safety.
Source: tesladeaths.com
This brings me back to 2016 when I very publicly (BSidesLV keynote) explained how Josh Brown would not have been killed by Tesla if he hadn’t been misled by the CEO’s bogus “crash avoidance” propaganda.
Taking away one license isn’t going to solve this problem until that license is the one that gets all Tesla off the roads.
a blog about the poetry of information security, since 1995
