Trump's tariff wars...long post.

[edstraker123]

Just now, tegs07 said:

These attacks predominantly originate in Russia, North Korean Iran and China.

Absolutely - Russia are responsible for the ones with the most criminal intent. Intererestingly the VC flagged Russia in a recent talk urging staff to take cybersecurity seriously, but neglected to mention China who aren't far behind (presumably as we are partnered with a Chinese institution and need  more of their students to keep us afloat).

[tegs07]

Just now, edstraker123 said:

Absolutely - Russia are responsible for the ones with the most criminal intent. Intererestingly the VC flagged Russia in a recent talk urging staff to take cybersecurity seriously, but neglected to mention China who aren't far behind (presumably as we are partnered with a Chinese institution and need  more of their students to keep us afloat).

I sometimes wonder if China regret cosying up to Russia. Economically there’s a lot of symbiotic relationships between China, the UK and the EU. 

In terms of military threat they pose far more of an immediate risk to the USA.

[prowla]

3 hours ago, tegs07 said:

I thought the aim was to de-militarise and de nazify ukraine to save the russian speaking inhabitants, the same objective as the georgia invasion and will be for moldova and potentially estonia …..(though if this happens it will probably be paramilitary groups, sabotage etc so plausible deniability like Donbas in 2014).

Russia invading to de-Nazify; that's ironic.

The Russians used half of a swastika on their tanks when they first went in.

[Si600]

51 minutes ago, tegs07 said:

To be fair the vast amount of cyber attacks are just script kiddies probing well known vulnerabilities and ports for kicks.

 

There are state sponsored hackers whose knowledge is vastly superior. These attacks predominantly originate in Russia, North Korean Iran and China.

Most of the stuff that is rejected by our firewall is stuff with a CVE date of years ago, as you say it's script kiddies or automated systems just trying it on.  The big stuff is now in Social Engineering and more and more phishing emails are looking legitimate.  I'm waiting for our first fake invoice to come in with the "wrong" bank details and a company not to get paid because we transferred the money, in expectation of the bill coming in, to the thieves.

[tegs07]

16 minutes ago, Si600 said:

Most of the stuff that is rejected by our firewall is stuff with a CVE date of years ago, as you say it's script kiddies or automated systems just trying it on.  The big stuff is now in Social Engineering and more and more phishing emails are looking legitimate.  I'm waiting for our first fake invoice to come in with the "wrong" bank details and a company not to get paid because we transferred the money, in expectation of the bill coming in, to the thieves.

EVERY and I mean every major incident I have ever dealt with comes down to an end user clicking links, entering credentials, forwarding on emails etc etc. No matter how much training, how reminders it’s always the same. Personally I loathe email. It kills productivity, increases the threat threshold, thwarts effective communication and if I had my way I would phase out its usage at work as much as possible. Use Teams, Slack or pick up the f•••king phone and actually get things sorted in real time.

 

 

Ahhh rant over. Feel better now.

 

Edit: I correct myself. Dealt with a DDOS attack twice. Once involved  paying for extra protection in AWS, another shifting all DNS records to Cloudflare. So every incident minus 2

Edited yesterday at 11:01 by tegs07

[Downunderwonder]

2 hours ago, tegs07 said:

Sorry to be indulgent and take up my soapbox (it’s kind of in my nature) but I find this type of discussion very interesting and it does trigger the academic that never was within me.

 

IMO the only way to stop a real war in Europe involving many more lives is economic. 40% and rising of Russias economy is committed to its war machine. This is not a situation that is easy to reverse without plunging the Russian economy into a severe and protracted recession.

 

It’s an economy geared up to sieze assets, commodities and infrastructure by force.

 

If the force can be contained then eventually one side runs out of cash. 

Russia is simply not a big enough economy to survive this. Ukraine was a costly mistake that has been double downed upon to the point IMO there is no going back. There won’t be a lasting peace without a backstop. Just that precious geopolitical commodity. Time.

What is your time saving solution please?

 

Mine is cut off the cash flow to Russia by not buying anything from Russia and supplying armament to Ukraine. Russia can either fold or actually go nuclear. Only Putin can decide at that point and he should take an asylum deal in a hot minute as no dictator is happy being burned to a crisp. Simple.

[tegs07]

1 minute ago, Downunderwonder said:

What is your time saving solution please?

 

Mine is cut off the cash flow to Russia by not buying anything from Russia and supplying armament to Ukraine. Russia can either fold or actually go nuclear. Only Putin can decide at that point and he should take an asylum deal in a hot minute as no dictator is happy being burned to a crisp. Simple.

Not so simple though. The EU and NATO countries don’t all agree on a course of action nor timeline. So while the UK might have alternative suppliers for oil, Germany might take longer to pivot away from oil and gas without totally destroying its economy, hungary and turkey will and do refuse to do so etc

 

nothing involving multiple countries with totally different economies or interests is simple.

[Wombat]

1 hour ago, Si600 said:

Most of the stuff that is rejected by our firewall is stuff with a CVE date of years ago, as you say it's script kiddies or automated systems just trying it on.  The big stuff is now in Social Engineering and more and more phishing emails are looking legitimate.  I'm waiting for our first fake invoice to come in with the "wrong" bank details and a company not to get paid because we transferred the money, in expectation of the bill coming in, to the thieves.

My mate runs a big tool company and they already suffered this…. Fake invoice from a supplier just paid. They now have checks in place and won’t amend bank details without talking to someone they know.  Not sure how you deal with the fact that staff turnover is so high that I’d be surprised they could talk to someone they know more than once!

[Woodinblack]

4 minutes ago, Wombat said:

My mate runs a big tool company and they already suffered this…. Fake invoice from a supplier just paid. They now have checks in place and won’t amend bank details without talking to someone they know.  Not sure how you deal with the fact that staff turnover is so high that I’d be surprised they could talk to someone they know more than once!

 

Then you send a letter to their registered address asking you to send updated banking details with a reference to quote

[mcnach]

On 20/03/2025 at 07:05, edstraker123 said:

I like being alive to be able to revisit it

 

 

Then by all means let everybody walk all over you, if that's the life you want.  :shrug:

[mcnach]

On 20/03/2025 at 09:49, Burns-bass said:

Your logic - shared by most politicians it seems - will see us inexorably slide into war with Russia. 
 

Fine if that’s what you want, but hugely dangerous and damaging to us all.

 

 

Trump can see this and is trying to avoid it. (The mechanism he’s using is cruel and punitive, but he’s a mob boss and if you want security, you pay for it. I this case, that’s about $500bn)

 

 

And appeasement is not dangerous and damaging?

How many times has That Guy being in a similar situation while collectively the world did precious little nothing?

 

Those of you who still have older relatives and experienced war in Europe might want to talk to them.

 

 

[Downunderwonder]

1 hour ago, tegs07 said:

Not so simple though. The EU and NATO countries don’t all agree on a course of action nor timeline. So while the UK might have alternative suppliers for oil, Germany might take longer to pivot away from oil and gas without totally destroying its economy, hungary and turkey will and do refuse to do so etc

 

nothing involving multiple countries with totally different economies or interests is simple.

What is YOUR solution.

[tegs07]

16 minutes ago, Downunderwonder said:

What is YOUR solution.

I don’t have a solution. All I can do is read, watch and summarise articles and people who seem to have a very good grasp of what is going on. Personally I think the reasons behind the current Ukraine crisis are as complex as the potential solutions. Given Putin’s track record of breaking agreements, his rhetoric around reclaiming former USSR territory, his invasion of Georgia, paramilitary attacks in Dombas and invasion of Crimea in 2014, a subsequent invasion of Ukraine and an war economy geared up towards re-armament on an unprecedented scale, constant cyber attacks, hybrid warfare etc, none of these actions are a nation looking for peace. He is however a highly intelligent and shrewd politician with decades of experience and a trusted team of highly experienced diplomats, strategists and analysts.

His biggest weakness is a low GDP economy with not much capacity for being strangled of investment over the long term.

 

At the other end of the negotiating table is a moron, out for personal gain with a hand picked team of yes men who can’t differentiate between friend and foe and in one month has isolated and upset the UK, the EU, most countries in the middle east, has publicly humiliated the leader of Ukraine, insulted the Irish, threatened to invade Canada and Greenland, gutted NATO, strengthened Russia and provided ample time for China to formulate a strong economic response to the limited tariffs imposed upon them.

 

So I expect the worst and so should Europe.

Edited 21 hours ago by tegs07

[Downunderwonder]

1 minute ago, tegs07 said:

I don’t have a solution. All I can do is read, watch and summarise articles and people who seem to have a very good grasp of what is going on. Personally I think the reasons behind the current Ukraine crisis are as complex as the potential solutions. Given Putin’s track record of breaking agreements, his rhetoric around reclaiming former USSR territory, his invasion of Georgia, paramilitary attacks in Dombas and invasion of Crimea in 2014, a subsequent invasion of Ukraine and an war economy geared up towards re-armament on an unprecedented scale, constant cyber attacks, hybrid warfare etc, none of these actions are a nation looking for peace. He is however a highly intelligent and shrewd politician with decades of experience and a trusted team of highly experienced diplomats, strategists and analysts.

His biggest weakness is a low GDP economy with not much capacity for being strangled of investment over the long term.

 

At the other end of the negotiating table is a moron, out for personal gain with a hand picked team of yes men who can’t differentiate between friend and foe and in one month has isolated and upset the UK, the EU, most countries in the middle east, has publicly humiliated the leader of Ukraine, insulted the Irish, threatened to invade Canada and Greenland. 

 

So I expect the worst and so should Europe.

You are no help at all and should have a lot less to say then.

[tegs07]

2 minutes ago, Downunderwonder said:

You are no help at all and should have a lot less to say then.

Im not Kissenger or Ghandi. I can summarise my rather excessive reading though. If you want to read it do so. If you want to ignore it do so. Simply reducing highly complex issues to just don’t buy gas and oil is futile though. Maybe you could write Erdogan a nice letter on behalf of the EU. He might invite you over for mint tea.

[BigRedX]

2 hours ago, tegs07 said:

EVERY and I mean every major incident I have ever dealt with comes down to an end user clicking links, entering credentials, forwarding on emails etc etc. No matter how much training, how reminders it’s always the same. Personally I loathe email. It kills productivity, increases the threat threshold, thwarts effective communication and if I had my way I would phase out its usage at work as much as possible. Use Teams, Slack or pick up the f•••king phone and actually get things sorted in real time.

 

But one of the advantages of email is that there is a written record of everything. Can you record a Teams meeting? And then that has it's own privacy issues in that all the participants would have to consent to being recorded, and one person declining would scupper the whole meeting. Can you even take part in a Teams meeting if you don't have a microphone or webcam attached to your computer?

[tegs07]

7 minutes ago, BigRedX said:

 

But one of the advantages of email is that there is a written record of everything. Can you record a Teams meeting? And then that has it's own privacy issues in that all the participants would have to consent to being recorded, and one person declining would scupper the whole meeting. Can you even take part in a Teams meeting if you don't have a microphone or webcam attached to your computer?

Doesn’t have to be a meeting but yes Teams meetings can be recorded, backed up etc

Most companies are now cloud or hybrid so predominantly use laptops with microphones and webcams.

 

Teams can be chat, saved files, whiteboard, power-bi, loop etc

 

Yes you can back it up subject to company policy and retention dates etc. It’s basically sharepoint in the back end. Slack etc similar but different platforms…

 

I work for large companies. Smaller or home based businesses would have different requirements.

Edited 21 hours ago by tegs07

[Si600]

Gents, and I assume we're all gents, but obviously I don't know for certain, I've been entertained, educated and enlightened by this thread so lets not let it fall apart because you feel slighted.  I'm sure it's naught but a blip, but the past few exchanges have started to look a little testy, stay friendly please? 

[edstraker123]

1 hour ago, mcnach said:

Then by all means let everybody walk all over you, if that's the life you want.

I don't think Putin is sitting in his evil lair, white cat on lap planning on taking out my local shopping centre despite that being what the media would have us believe.

 

 

[tegs07]

2 minutes ago, edstraker123 said:

I don't think Putin is sitting in his evil lair, white cat on lap planning on taking out my local shopping centre despite that being what the media would have us believe.

 

 

Shoppers at Ikea in Latvia may disagree…

[mcnach]

16 minutes ago, edstraker123 said:

I don't think Putin is sitting in his evil lair, white cat on lap planning on taking out my local shopping centre despite that being what the media would have us believe.

 

 

 

I find it disturbing that you don't think what happens (points) over there will not have a serious impact on what you do (points) over here.

 

I wish I had your calm outlook, and I sincerely hope you're right.

 

[asingardenof]

On 20/03/2025 at 09:24, TimR said:

 

A large majority of his Presidential Orders are being frustrated in the courts as being illegal. 

 

While Karoline is proclaiming he is getting things done, the truth is somewhat different. 

 

Once he starts overruling and ignoring the judges things alter somewhat.

 

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/mar/19/trump-court-order-immigration-constitutional-crisis

 

Trump thinking he can get away with ignoring court orders already suggests the constitutional crisis is already present, not brewing.

[asingardenof]

On 20/03/2025 at 09:44, tegs07 said:

Ukraine will never invade Russia.

Ukraine has already invaded Russia but have been beaten back: https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/russian-troops-battle-last-ukrainian-forces-kursk-region-2025-03-16/

[tegs07]

10 minutes ago, asingardenof said:

Ukraine has already invaded Russia but have been beaten back: https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/russian-troops-battle-last-ukrainian-forces-kursk-region-2025-03-16/

I don’t think you can classify that as an invasion. It was an incursion designed to try and re-deploy Russian troops away from the front lines and buy some time and hopefully get a bargaining chip in any peace negotiations. It might have worked had 10,000 plus North Korean troops been involved in retaking captured territory. Trump taking away intelligence wouldn’t have helped much either.

Edited 20 hours ago by tegs07

[Dad3353]

44 minutes ago, tegs07 said:

... 10,000 plus North Korean troops ...

 

So sovereign Russia can deploy foreign troops, but sovereign Ukraine may not..? Hmm... The definition of 'sovereign' takes a bashing , it seems.
It's a bit late, now (spilt milk..?); the time for unity was 2014, when Crimea was overrun. I rate myself as a pacifist, and am far too old (and far too poorly...) to take up arms now, in any case, but I think that this can only end 'well' if 'willing' neighbours and allies joined forces with sovereign Ukraine to repel the invaders. One could hope that the much-vaunted air defences ('Iron Dome'-style...) could intercept any missiles coming from Russia, and that, in any case, retaliation would put a stop to it all pretty darned sharpish. Not pretty, but the ending of the Pacific conflicts of WWII came about using big weapons. Not pretty, but it worked. Would I press the button, if attacked with nuclear arms..? Yes, I would, if they were aimed at the culprits, and not the innocent. Just my tuppence-worth.