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The EU could also supply Ukraine with weapons, which could destroy Russias entire electricity grid, oil refining capacity, gas network and key pieces of its transport infrastructure. However there is no need to be loud about it, since everybody knows that is true.
Russian warfare is 90% cyber these days. They troll, hack, spy and attempt to influence elections using the internet. Are they really going to cut off their ability to engage in those activities? It's like saying they will blow up their own weapons factories if people don't start catching their bullets.
They did waste vast amounts of own men and material when deciding to enter Ukraine to take a quick "short stroll" that somehow now already takes over 900 days. Wouldn't be the first time they shoot themselves in the foot proper.
The foot keeps getting in the way.
It cant. Russia can't. And there is no such thing as "The internet" there are many many different parts of it. This is just another version of "wE hAVe NuKes"
They can knock out huge sections. Most of the Middle East was taken offline some years ago with only one cable cut. The old redundant Internet of the Cold War is long gone even within the US. Most of the rest of the world never had redundancy to begin with.
If they take out the internet, they lose their biggest manipulation tool. As if that'd ever happen...
Oh no... I can't do my job without Internet... please don't do this... /s
Ah jeez that'd be terrible. I'd probably have to stay home because nothing in society would be working. Then to pass the time I'd have to do things like reading the books I've been dying for time to read or finally getting to my collection of handheld consoles and emulators.
Might even have to have a glass of wine to calm my nerves from the stress.
How are you planning to get the wine when every store is closed, and your credit card doesn't work?
From the cellar.
Can I come over?
All are welcome, but you may be forced into a D&D campaign. And you must accept my voices.
Nobody needs to force me to roll up a new character and start a campaign!
Yeah, it's really disheartening that instead of simply going back 30 years and making them back in a decade or two, we'd probably fall all the way into the 1200s because of all the mass hysteria and chaos.
When I was a kid and power went out, cashiers would whip out their calculators and process stuff my hand. Now they just shut the whole store down.
Yea, same for the mess with Crowdstrike, there are few failsafes (some plces sorted things in paper), the most important being whatever social goodwill there is between people stick it out and figure the problem out.
What degree of aggression against the EU would spur the EU into action?
Russia already can't take over Ukraine. It would not be able to fight on more fronts, and certainly not against a strong EU with many more resources to spare.
Cyberwarfare and individual assassinations, sabotage, and disinformation campaigns were not enough yet. The EU is patient, because there's nothing to win. But the invasion of Ukraine showed that the EU can suddenly and significantly oppose Russia when certain lines are crossed.
Surely, it's in the interest of Russia both as preparation, but in large part to try to unsettle the EU, mainly its citizens. Much like it tried with Nuke warnings. GPS disruptions across borders. Gas and oil cutoffs. Blocking Ukraine food exports. Etc etc.
I really wonder about this too. If Russia destroys those undersea cables, would that get a direct response? I would like to think so, because that's a planet-scale disruption (I think?), but it really depends on the people in charge of the countries involved and their stomach for violence and escalation.
I'm passionate about minimizing war and I seriously hope we never fire nukes at each other again. But a country willing to inflict global damage as a kind of tantrum over their failures in a conflict they single-handedly started...I mean, we can't tolerate that as a species. There's gotta be a line somewhere.
I don't think an attack on undersea cables would spur aggressive/invasive action. I would expect more direct, obvious, and public military presence, observation, and possibly isolation of Russia on it's borders though.
Human, especially civilian lives are probably a line. Sabotage that would be inconvenience rather than disabling and cause direct suffering - I don't think it'd spur direct military action. Political - sure. The EU is already driving a hard sanctioning course, and would likely increase such political responses.
There are alternative internet routes, and we're not that dependent on them - in a fundamental, life or death or direct human suffering kind of way.
Sandboxing Russia likely won't happen without some form of reaction. Look at the conflict in the "Spratly Sea"; where Philippine ships literally get pushed from their territory, people died already; now imagine the scale of a whole country and not some WW2 ship turned to island fortress. The civilian reaction alone (aka smuggling) would put several continents into instability.
Realistically the writing is on the wall here. Either Russia comes to its senses, or it will be dealt with eventually. Yes that will be painful, but it will be less painful than letting a nuclear terrorist dictate global norms.
The reality is that if Russia was willing to walk down the latter path, they would have probably done it already.
Do they wish all their cities were glassed? Because that's how you achieve that.
I mean, my local server is the backup plan.
I can game for days without food or water and only need to emerge to forage like once a week.
Perhaps even visit the local market for fresh memes, but thats it.
I have like 800gb of memes I've saved like currency over the years.
Please give me a torrent so I can download culture too. ๐
And the vast majority only those games only take up a fraction of that total spaces.
But yes, this is how digital shit survives the ages.
I have every GB, GBC and NES game ever on a HDD, so don't worry about me either.
Oh, right, forgot about the golden era of (Linux) handheld emulators. All the games you mentioned on each one.
No, retroarch on 13 yo thinkpad and possibly a raspberry pi if needed.
Thats better, and the more fossy/techy approach to accessible software, what people need, what should be preserved for historians, instead of massive-online-predatory-gambling-"games".
This and big tiddy Skyrim mods.
Doom on the other hand will survive for longer than bacteria (probably for a time also running on bacteria).
As the Sun starts to dim it will spontaneously install itself and run on the great intergalactic web.
Well, let them try. It's unlikely to result in anything more than a temporary disruption and as a result a lot of current shitty practises would need to be improved so I see that as a net positive.
I got a report that this article is paywalled but am not seeing a paywall here. Is anyone having issues?
I can't read the article, first paragraph gives a subscription scroll over popup.
Russia is full of shit
The moment every hoarder with a home PLEX-server and an overflowing NAS has been waiting for.
Hell yeah come watch if you bring food.
I need a new goal since I reached my last one of "more hours of content than the duration of The American Civil War".
Like we couldnโt wreak havoc on them tenfold. Anyone want to bet on the blyats instead of the West?
Good fucking bye.
I wish a motherfucker would try
the backup plan is destroy russia and build new GPS from its broken parts