Ukraine Prepares Potential Move of Sensitive Data To Another Country (reuters.com) 31
The Ukrainian government is preparing for the potential need to move its data and servers abroad if Russia's invading forces push deeper into the country, a senior cybersecurity official told Reuters on Wednesday. From the report: Victor Zhora, the deputy chief of Ukraine's State Service of Special Communications and Information Protection, emphasized his department was planning for a contingency, but that it is being considered at all suggests Ukrainians want to be ready for any Russian threat to seize sensitive government documents. The move could only happen after regulatory changes approved by Ukrainian lawmakers, Zhora said.
Government officials have already been shipping equipment and backups to more secure areas of Ukraine beyond the reach of Russian forces, who invaded on Feb. 24 and are laying siege to several cities. Last month Zhora told Politico there were plans to move critical data out of the capital Kyiv should it be threatened, but preparations for potentially moving data abroad go a step further. Ukraine has received offers to host data from a variety of countries, Zhora said, declining to identify them. For reasons of proximity "a European location will be preferred," he said.
Zhora gave few details of how such a move might be executed, but he said past efforts to keep government data out of Russia's grasp involved either the physical transport of servers and removable storage devices or the digital migration of data from one service or server to another. Government agencies would have to decide on a case by case basis whether to keep their operations running inside the country or evacuate them. [...] Russia possessing Ukrainian government databases and intelligence files could be helpful if Russia wanted to control Ukraine.
Government officials have already been shipping equipment and backups to more secure areas of Ukraine beyond the reach of Russian forces, who invaded on Feb. 24 and are laying siege to several cities. Last month Zhora told Politico there were plans to move critical data out of the capital Kyiv should it be threatened, but preparations for potentially moving data abroad go a step further. Ukraine has received offers to host data from a variety of countries, Zhora said, declining to identify them. For reasons of proximity "a European location will be preferred," he said.
Zhora gave few details of how such a move might be executed, but he said past efforts to keep government data out of Russia's grasp involved either the physical transport of servers and removable storage devices or the digital migration of data from one service or server to another. Government agencies would have to decide on a case by case basis whether to keep their operations running inside the country or evacuate them. [...] Russia possessing Ukrainian government databases and intelligence files could be helpful if Russia wanted to control Ukraine.
how much damage can war beating roads to hdds? (Score:2)
how much damage can war beat roads to hdds?
Re: how much damage can war beating roads to hdds? (Score:2)
Re: (Score:1)
From the WD spec sheet: https://www.westerndigital.com... [westerndigital.com]
These are the Gs it can sustain. Assuming they power off the drives they can handle 250Gs.
Shock (Gs)
Operating (2 ms, read/write) = 30
Operating (2 ms, read) = 70
Non-operating (2 ms) = 250
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That's assuming they bought WD/HGST drives. If they bought Seagate drives, their data would be safe from the Russians without even moving the drives... they're basically a physical /dev/null device as far as I can tell.
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I still have a stack of unshredded Seagate 3TB disks from one of our arrays. 11 dead disks. A 4 disk array.
Fucking Seagate.
Sneakernet. Quickly. (Score:2)
Re: Sneakernet. Quickly. (Score:2)
Do you ever really think about that? I mean a pop star, a silver spoon with ultra pure coke in a ritzy place, sure that is a good time, and the photo is dirt. But naked crack in a cheap hotel room, with what appears to be a comatose child⦠Does sound like a good time to you? Is that the comfort zone of a wealthy man?
No. I think we are at a point where politicians manufacture dirt on themselves and send it abroad to get support from people who think they have leverage. We are actually getting to t
Re: (Score:2)
Don't be afraid to destroy the physical media if it appears likely to fall into hostile hands.
Thermite [hackaday.com]?
Was wondering about this (Score:2)
I had thought about this a while back, probably before Russia's invasion, and wondered what their plan was to get their digital information securely out of the country. Good to know the Ukrainian government is far more organized and competent than the shitshow in Moscow. Just like the Ukrainian military is far more competent than their Russian invaders. When you can take out 30 helicopters in one go [newsweek.com], you know you're doing good.
Data throughput band widths ... (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
The old saying still holds:
"Never underestimate the bandwidth of a station wagon full of hard drives speeding down the highway at 100kph."
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"Never underestimate the bandwidth of a station wagon full of tapes hurtling down the highway." - Andrew S. Tanenbaum, Computer Networks, 3rd ed., p. 83. (paraphrasing Dr. Warren Jackson, Director, University of Toronto Computing Services (UTCS) circa 1985)
Hmm.... (Score:3)
... I'd probably pick Sweden since they have a long history of neutrality, and strong data protection laws. They aren't the sort of country to take kindly to Russia trying to get access to data they've agreed to keep.
It would be hard for the Russians to govern a country without a list of who the citizens were, and I doubt the Ukrainians would co-operate with a Russian census after their country had been invaded, and their cities devastated. It would be anarchy.
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... I'd probably pick Sweden since they have a long history of neutrality, and strong data protection laws.
Ukraine was also neutral. Why would the Russian's not invade Sweden if they do anything that might offend? Sweden has already declared that it won't join NATO so they are an obvious target.
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Which is why Russia will not invade them. You don't even know that Putin's main stated issue was he wanted to have assurance that Ukraine would never join Nato.
ROFL. Russia invades Ukraine to ensure Ukraine doesn't join NATO. Doesn't invade any NATO countries. Now suddenly every country around recognizes just why they absolutely need to be part of NATO. I'm pretty sure that's about as self-defeating as strategies can get.
Of course, that was never Russia's real reason, and anybody who believes that is a fool. Russia's economy was hit pretty hard by COVID. That, coupled with a huge over-reliance on fossil fuel exports (just as Europe was debating banning non-e
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The demographic problem has already hit Russia hard, and getting the few millions of ethnic Russians in Ukraine would help with that.
Also, a rich (compared to Russian standards of living) country just next door (on a >1,000 km border) where Russian language was actually somewhat usable would prove a powerful attraction for emigrants.
(the demographic problem exists in the Old World / Occidental Europe, and we don't actually have a solution for that).
As for ethnic Russians (or russian-speaking Ukrainians),
No Problem (Score:2)
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It would be hard for the Russians to govern a country without a list of who the citizens were, and I doubt the Ukrainians would co-operate with a Russian census after their country had been invaded, and their cities devastated. It would be anarchy.
Probably not as hard as you think. (At least, compared to having the data, which is the only thing that matters to this particular argument.)
"Oh, we can't know who you are? Guess this isn't your house then."
The problem is not that something is sensitive (Score:2)
But that the others aren't sensible enough! Stand your ground, data!
So, Russia is winning? (Score:2)
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Almost all the mainstream media are saying Russia is getting its butt kicked. Reality⦠no much of a thing anymore.
Not the MSM I've been reading.
Russia was expected to essentially bulldoze the Ukraine military (the occupation wasn't supposed to be so easy). Instead their offensive has essentially been halted because the Ukrainian military has been more competent than expected and the Russian military far worse.
There's still a really good chance Russia will win since their military is so much larger they can afford a lot of huge screw-ups, but what's shocking is that Ukraine might be able to hold off the invasion until t
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Russia will take a lot of butt kicking. The formula has proven successful in the Napoleonic War, and in the Second World War.
Ukraine will win, but only for some definitions of "win". And Russia will lose, but - again - only for some definition of "lose".
It takes a lot of "winning" to send 150,000 soldiers back over the initial borders.
Lessons for would be tyrants (Score:1)
0. Don't fuck with people who can fight back.
1. Make sure your own people can actually fight.
2. To bring an enemy to his knees, you must render him blind, deaf, and dumb before he realizes he has a problem. If you can't do that, he's got a problem, but you do too.
The consequences of violating of one or more of these rules explains much of the last century or so of geopolitics. And the studious avoidance of violating these rules explains by less stupid actors explains much of the remainder.
Ukraine's needs (Score:3)
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" (c) it wants to be able to continue to reach people all over the world with information about Ukraine and what is happening" ...
Basically anyone that wants information about the current Russia-Ukraine situation will get it from their favourite source - be it Tik Tok, YouTube, online journalism, print gazettes, television, radio,
So I don't see value in (c), other than "your passport has expired, please visit one of our embassies to replace it".
Ukraine’s guide to surviving SHTF (Score:2)
But for the grace of God