Putin says Russian Navy to get hypersonic nuclear strike weapons - <AUTHOR> https://www.reuters.com/article/us-russia-navy-day-parade-putin-idUSKCN24R0CJ <comment><USER2> Nuclear missiles are normally hypersonic, so it seems like the difference is that these are cruise missiles and not ballistic missiles?

<comment><USER3> > Nuclear missiles are normally hypersonic,

Ballistic missiles usually are, cruise missiles usually are not; both can be nuclear (or not).

> so it seems like the difference is that these are cruise missiles and not > ballistic missiles?

The combination of nuclear, hypersonic, and cruise is what is significant, yes.

<comment><USER4> Add to combination use of atmospheric oxygen to make it really significant and a technological breakthrough.

Its relatively easy to build a rocket carrying both fuel and oxygen and make it go hypersonic. Using oxidiser from air gives it unique range and maneuverability capabilities.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Cool? They'll never use them

<comment><USER6> We hope. To me the worry is less time to consider false notices of attacks. Any attack will be met by devastating counter attacks so there should never be a consideration that any notice is a real attack. There are many almost launches where there was false notice (the moon reflects radar, etc).

<comment><USER7> Definitely, I worry about this a lot. I do wonder about some of the close call stories that are out there. It seems like in its in Russia's best interest to project an image that they are willing to launch without hesitation. So I wonder if any of the stories of "two officers wanted to launch and only the third saved us all" stories are propaganda.

I don't have any evidence of this, and I definitely don't want to play down the risk of nuclear war.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Had to look up "hypersonic," so consider this back of the envelope math from an interested amateur.

Hypersonic is the term used for speeds over Mach 5. Mach 1 is equal to the speed of sound, however the speed of sound varies at different elevation.

Sound travels slower in mediums that are less dense, so the higher you go in elevation the slower Mach is.

Mach 5 is about 6,125km/h (3,805.9mph) at sea level, and about 5,339 km/h (3,317.5mph) at 35,000ft, which makes is where you'll see lots of commercial airliners.

Source: [https://www.quora.com/How-fast-is- mach-5-speed?share=1](https://www.quora.com/How-fast-is-mach-5-speed?share=1)</comment>


Sony's Precarious PlayStation 3 - <AUTHOR> http://extendedsubset.com/?p=47

<comment><USER2> I wonder if Sony every anticipated that the PSN would be THIS big a honeypot?

My PS3 is going in a DMZ, right now.

<comment><USER3> ? I'm curious, because I'm not following you. At least in simple home- networking terminology, wouldn't that be nearly equivalent to putting your device outside your firewall? You put a device that doesn't play well with your NAT into a DMZ, losing the passive security of the NAT in exchange for getting the device to work.

<comment><USER4> In "simple home-networking terminology," you're correct. Most consumer-grade routers misuse the "DMZ" term and aren't capable of creating a "real" DMZ, but if I had to guess, the author isn't using a typical consumer-grade router or network.

For anyone curious about what a "real" DMZ is:

A DMZ doesn't always mean "wide open". It means that you create a separate network with a hard break between the DMZ network and your "trusted" network. You can, and should, firewall your DMZ network at the internet facing side as well. The stack looks something like this:

        <internet>---<firewall>---<DMZ>
                  \--<firewall>---<trusted>

Or

        <internet>---<firewall>---<DMZ>---<firewall>---<trusted>

Wikipedia actually has some good information that is understandable to anyone who can interpret basic networking diagrams.

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DMZ_(computing)>

<comment><USER2> Thst's right. It's still firewalled from the Internet, but now also firewalled from the rest of my LAN.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Interesting speculation, but this likely isn't what happened.

As others have pointed out, for a MiTM/ddos attack, the ps3 isn't a better target than anything else out there. In fact, given the amount of ps3s, it makes more sense to go after windows update and get what is likely an order of magnitude more infected windows machines.

Even if I had a ps3 (which I don't, while I wanted one about 6 months ago, the geohot incident has dissuaded me from touching new sony equipment), I wouldn't be worried.

<comment><USER6> One very important difference between PS3 and WU is that, in the PS3 case, the signing keys for firmware updates are actually known, as I understand it.

<comment><USER5> oh. right. that would make all the difference, wouldn't it?

<comment><USER6> Well, it certainly solves half of the problem!

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> I don't understand the whole botnet fluff. Hackers would first have to create a custom signed image that runs a MiTM attack. Next, they would need to magically break into the Sony update servers and pull a switcheroo without anyone noticing. Wouldn't it be easier to "simply" break into the Microsoft/Google/Apple/etc. update servers and slip in a fake update?

<comment><USER8> Arguably, there's utility in the fact that the ps3s are all the same hardware, and need only one patch.

Of course, the Xbox is also, but the point made in the article was that the PS3 botnet would be quite a lot stronger than a 360 botnet.

Hacking microsoft/google/apple/etc would lead to having to use software on a botnet comprised of a wide range of hardware...

So on what applications does that tradeoff of utility against the difficulty of hacking Sony make sense?

<comment><USER7> Maybe a PS3 botnet would be more powerful, but does it matter? The article itself pointed out two problems (MiTM and DDOS) which would be equally efficient on PS3 or 360. Forget Xbox 360 altogether, if we can break into an update server wouldn't Windows Update be the better target? 350M Windows 7 licenses alone, talk about a botnet. Having different hardware doesn't make a difference.

Edit: I realize none of this this easy, I'm just trying to play devils advocate regarding the glossed over "If they then compromised the PSN update servers...".

<comment><USER8> Try a reply to both watty and retric, which is, if someone wanted a botnet, the case is that they went after Sony, which indicates that Sony had a vulnerability. Of course, everyone has vulnerabilities, but the coincidence is likely that this is one that both existed, and the hackers knew about. Sorry that my best answer to the inherent question is 'coincidence'.

That's supposing that someone wanted a botnet..and we're all supposing they had a great deal of planning. I'd expect such an event to hinge on a great deal of chance..

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Very interesting read. I'm really looking forward to this whole thing being resolved and it actually being revealed who did what and what their intentions were. The prospect of a significant proportion of Playstations being bricked from a malicious firmware update is kinda scary / impressive.

</comment><comment><USER10> TL;DR. PSN is down because Sony is afraid that now that their update servers are running backdoors or trojans.

<comment><USER11> This is very misleading. The article _speculates,_ primarily for the authors amusement, that this may be the case:

 _"Surely everyone has heard the basics by now, and I don't have any new information to add, but my hobby is putting 2 and 2 together and imagining worst-case scenarios."_

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> Interesting speculation.

<comment><USER9> yeah I realise it's all speculation and it's most likely nothing more than someone poking around in places they shouldn't. Speculation is fun sometimes though, as long as we don't venture into the realm of scaremongering.

<comment><USER12> I am still incorporating it into my Cory Doctorow fan fiction, "Little Sister".</comment></comment></comment>