The Ukrainians set up bots in Telegram to trick Russians into trying to repair their Starlinks and get onto the Ukrainian whitelist. As a result they got the exact details, and sometimes exact coordinates, of 2,420 Starlink terminals and made $6,000: https://x.com/256CyberAssault/status/2021900627916267946
Knowing how desperately russians will hunt for any way to bring Elon’s terminal back online –and the risks resumed comms creates for the Ukrainian defenders – we, together with InformNapalm and MILITANT, decided to help. We did so by creating a network of channels and bots that appeared to offer activation services for a fee.
In one week, we received: 2,420 submissions with enemy Starlink details and precise geolocations; 31 messages from would-be collaborators eager to act as registered holder for activation; $6,000 in “donations” from russian troops who were frantically looking for a fix to their comms problem.
Strange! The proxy war in the Ukraine has almost dropped off Western media. Remember those distant days when the Politically Correct were flying Ukrainian flags and Zelensky was getting the rock star treatment?
Instead, now there is near total silence from Western media on the Ukraine, interrupted only by these occasional tales about how great Zelensky’s forces are doing – even while they continue to advance backwards towards the EU border.
Seems that people like me who were concerned that foolish Europeans could drive us into a nuclear WW III got it all wrong. Rather, it seems the West has decided that a squabble between two former Soviet Socialist Republics on the fringes of Europe is of no more concern than those interminable African wars we in the West choose to ignore.
Sadly and annoyingly, I still see a few Ukraine flags around here. It’s always Boomers, of course; fits with the demographic that relies on the legacy media the most.
Chinese have produced several near-term sci-fi war movies in the last few years. They’ve all been some of the top movies in China that year. Here they are in reverse chronological order:
This week, Anthropic delivered a master class in arrogance and betrayal as well as a textbook case of how not to do business with the United States Government or the Pentagon.
Our position has never wavered and will never waver: the Department of War must have full, unrestricted…
Mark me confused. Why would the US “reverse engineer” an Iranian flying bomb? (Suicide drone is a silly term – they are flying bombs, just like Germany’s V1s). The technology goes back to WW II, and is not novel or secret.
Unless we want to say that Airbus “reverse engineered” Boeing planes – which they almost certainly did, in one sense; it would have been foolish NOT to look very carefully at what a competitor was building. One would hope that the US military looks carefully at any foreign weapons it can get its hands on – but “reverse engineering” implies a mindless copying of technology which is not properly understood.
I partially agree on terminology. Having guidance, these are better than the V-1. The better term of art for something that has more than simple guidance is “loitering munition”. Prior to the Ukraine War, this might be something that was remotely retargetable. Now, it includes intelligent munitions programmed to look for targets of opportunity such as armored vehicles, radars, missile launchers…
The reverse engineering is a weird one. Does this imply that Iran’s engineering was so much better than free world counterparts like:
The seven ballistic missiles that struck the Khamenei compound, all hit within a thirty second time frame. The missiles were launched 75 miles into space from Israeli F-15 fighters flying over Syria and Jordan, completely out of range of Iranian radar.
Now here is an interesting take on the situation in Iran. China has released a bi-lingual list of key lessons.
“China Military Bugle, the official press account of China’s armed forces, published a bilingual graphic on X on Tuesday with a commentary on the US-Israeli attack on Iran …”
For those who see China as an enemy – Know Your Enemy!
Look at the per-unit production costs. The Iranians can make Shahed-136’s for (roughly) $35,000 each. The DAR is $100,000-$200,000, the Harop is in the $700,000 range. The SpektreWorks LUCAS is roughly the same cost as the Shahed. Even better, it was apparently designed for mass production, since it is more ammunition than an airplane. The airframe is not identical (it is a bit smaller) though it obviously has the same layout.
There is a serious tendency for the NATO defense contractors to gold plate. However, that is much less likely to happen if you say “Clone this, and it had better not cost more than the original. You can improve it, but we won’t pay more than the original target price. If the Iranians can do it while under an embargo, you can too.” My understanding is the LUCAS software and electronics are considerably better than the Shahed original. It also helps that, in a rare case of a the government fitting a round peg into a round hole, SpektreWorks had previously built the FLM-136, a different clone of the Shahed-136 intended as a training target, which they had designed before they got their hands on a captured drone.
edit: “Tony Stark was able to build this in a cave…with a box of scraps!” gets the flavour though it isn’t entirely accurate, and the Iranian engineers copied elements of earlier Western drone designs such as the DAR and Harpy. Such is the circle of engineering life.
edit: “gold plate” isn’t entirely accurate either, and it happens at more levels than just the contractors. It’s not so much frills, though that occurs, but possibly legitimate capabilities that increase costs and add delays. The right answer is you have to be ruthless about cutting out unnecessary capability that doesn’t aid the designed missions, and leave enough expansion space to fill in with things you don’t yet realize you need.
2,420 submissions with enemy Starlink details and precise geolocations;
