How Hot is Ukraine Gonna Get?

[billbindc]

10 hours ago, amadeupname said:

I'm curious what he means by this

He means that he doesn't understand that producing a bunch of fighters of specious quality at an unacceptable cost didn't matter much because it was virtually impossible to properly train the personnel to fly them effectively. Kinda like another situation we sometimes talk about around here.

[Lieutenant Ash]

https://www.msn.com/en-gb/money/other/uae-banks-halt-russian-payments-for-chinese-electronics/ar-AA1pApF8?ocid=socialshare&pc=NMTS&cvid=6a5aab144fd14fc29cfd17f538f15404&ei=126#comments

Effects of sanctions on the sale of Chinese electronics to russia (via third parties).

[Vanir Ausf B]

Nerve wracking.

 

[Astrophel]

2 hours ago, Sgt Joch said:

On Durov, I would take the charges with a grain of salt at this point, as with any other court case, the devil is in the detail.

The child pornography charges sound bad and of course the prosecutors will trumpet that, but the question will inevitably be what exactly did he do? If he is only being charged because child porn was being transmitted on his platform without his knowledge, exactly what should his liability be? On the same basis you could charge the CEO of Facebook, Google, etc. OTOH, if he is somewhat complicit, that is a different set of facts.

You also have to be careful to assume that just because he is being charged in France, that the normal rules apply. The Continent’s criminal system is generally based on Civil Law and the investigating magistrates have a lot of power and leeway in how they conduct their investigations. Defendants have a lot less legal safeguards than in Common Law jurisdictions like the good old USA or Canada.

In a larger sense, this also points to an increasing regulation of the internet. The internet/social media is brand new in historical term, barely 25 years and so far has been the Wild West. The law is still grappling with how to deal with it and pretty much just playing catch-up.  In the UK, we are seeing people being sent to jail for 2-3 years for what they posted on the internet:

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cm23y7l01v8o

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c703e03w243o

obviously extreme cases, but one of the basic tenets of English Criminal Law is that you should only be held liable for your actions and not your thoughts. We could argue what side of the fence, i.e. “thoughts” vs “actions”, these fellas were on, but things on the internet are changing fast.

Personally, I now advise all my clients to minimize all their social media exposure as much as possible and to think twice or thrice before posting anything. You never know what will come back to bite you.

Puzzled by your expert opinion here.  It seems to me if you run a bar in which children are bought and sold for sex then you are likely to be closed down whether in England, Canada, France, or here in Netherlands.  English Common Law would seem to be irrelevant.

Clearly Durov knows what his platform is used for and more besides.  He has been told often enough, also by the French authorities.  Pleading ignorance will be no excuse.

Eventually the internet publishers and platform providers will have to fall in line with the legal frameworks established over the last few hundred years.  If Durov chooses to be seen as a platform provider then his clients will not be able to hide behind their anonymity and they will have to take personal responsibility for what they say and do.  A platform provider failing to act to prevent criminal activity will be treated as if complicit.  If Durov chooses to be a publisher on the other hand then he will have to curate his content - as Steve does here and excellently too I would say.

Edited August 29 by Astrophel

[Carolus]

Quote

The defense in the Pokrovsky direction is so disorganized that the Russians themselves do not believe in their advances. 

 

Unfortunately, the higher command is still receiving reports about the "controlled situation", which is far from being controlled. 

 

Among the main problems in the direction:

 

- poor interaction between brigades and smaller adjacent units. 

- shortage of people and their disproportionate distribution in defensive positions. 

- our EW suppresses our drones better than enemy EW. 

- disorganization of brigade rotations. One can leave before the other has entered. The enemy uses this and strikes right there. 

- the OTU command does not actually manage the troops, has not established interaction and does not have information about our real positions. There are often cases of units being sent to positions that are already in the rear of the Russians, because the OTU thinks that they are behind us. 

- lies, lies and lies again.

https://t.me/ssternenko/33026

Sternenko on UA problems in Pokrovsk direction.

[Hister]

Thank you all for your thoughts.

 

Here is another understanding - owner of Telegram sees everything that is going on on the platform.

 

Edited August 29 by Hister

[Eug85]

Ukraine Loses First F-16. Reportedly Air Crash

[Astrophel]

Sorry Hister, I just repeated what you said.  Telegram is not as secure as everybody assumes.

Edited August 29 by Astrophel

[omae2]

3 hours ago, ArmouredTopHat said:

You know its bad the moment they start to classify and hide the actual details of the economy. 

Nah , you don't know why they classifying it. It could be because they don't want our side to know that they have a new buyer or a buyer buying more than before. (Maybe far cheaper than its acceptable in russia.)

[Lethaface]

15 hours ago, Blazing 88's said:

 

 

Someone didn't take his vitamins, again.

[Lethaface]

13 hours ago, ArmouredTopHat said:

Its amusing how often you people say this yet the front doesn't actually collapse. Do you know what the term actually means?

It means situation (is) excellent!

[acrashb]

This report has been on several channels.  If accurate, and if Ukraine continues to interdict pontoon bridge building, several thousand RA soldiers will either swim, be captured, or die (when their food and ammo runs out).  Minimally they swim, leaving behind heavy equipment.

 

[Lethaface]

5 hours ago, Sgt Joch said:

On Durov, I would take the charges with a grain of salt at this point, as with any other court case, the devil is in the detail.

The child pornography charges sound bad and of course the prosecutors will trumpet that, but the question will inevitably be what exactly did he do? If he is only being charged because child porn was being transmitted on his platform without his knowledge, exactly what should his liability be? On the same basis you could charge the CEO of Facebook, Google, etc. OTOH, if he is somewhat complicit, that is a different set of facts.

You also have to be careful to assume that just because he is being charged in France, that the normal rules apply. The Continent’s criminal system is generally based on Civil Law and the investigating magistrates have a lot of power and leeway in how they conduct their investigations. Defendants have a lot less legal safeguards than in Common Law jurisdictions like the good old USA or Canada.

In a larger sense, this also points to an increasing regulation of the internet. The internet/social media is brand new in historical term, barely 25 years and so far has been the Wild West. The law is still grappling with how to deal with it and pretty much just playing catch-up.  In the UK, we are seeing people being sent to jail for 2-3 years for what they posted on the internet:

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cm23y7l01v8o

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c703e03w243o

obviously extreme cases, but one of the basic tenets of English Criminal Law is that you should only be held liable for your actions and not your thoughts. We could argue what side of the fence, i.e. “thoughts” vs “actions”, these fellas were on, but things on the internet are changing fast.

Personally, I now advise all my clients to minimize all their social media exposure as much as possible and to think twice or thrice before posting anything. You never know what will come back to bite you.

'The continent' doesn't have a shared law, unless you refer to EU legislation. 
Anyway as you know he is arrested and charged in France, so 'French' law & justice system applies first and foremost. I haven't looked into it that deep, but it is clear that he is charged with facilitating crimes (from his role in the company); not necessarily being the perpetrator. 
Still it can be criminal to not cooperate and share data in cases like child pornography. I don't exactly know French laws on this subject, it might even be criminal to not have the facilities in place to act on such stuff, which could be worsened if it can be proven that Telegram could have known of such things happening; let alone not providing information which is available.
I guess we'll see how it develops.

Edited August 29 by Lethaface

[Lethaface]

5 hours ago, The_Capt said:

This is not Risk - Russia does not get extra armies because it takes “tiny Ukraine town X” or vice versa.

 Well put, well said. Imo this is the gist of 'it', on a more macro level. 

Theoretically Russia gets more extra armies per turn compared to Ukraine, Ukraine just needs to keep killing m faster. And as CM shows very nicely, not armies are created/conscripted equally.

[Vanir Ausf B]

4 hours ago, Eug85 said:

Ukraine Loses First F-16. Reportedly Air Crash

May have been friendly fire.

According to my information, the F-16 of the Ukrainian pilot Oleksiy "Moonfish" Mes was shot down by the Patriot anti-aircraft missile system due to a lack of coordination between the units.

https://twitter.com/marybezuhla/status/1829222438535680300

 

[quakerparrot67]

6 hours ago, Vanir Ausf B said:

Nerve wracking.

 

Very sf-y,  reminded me of scenes from p.k. dick or dune.  God, that noise- I know it's just the motors but it's as unnerving as the 'jericho trumpet' sirens on the stuka,  I could easily imagine cracking and bolting just from the sound. 

The future terrifies me....

Cheers,

Rob

[Battlefront.com]

9 hours ago, Sgt Joch said:

If he is only being charged because child porn was being transmitted on his platform without his knowledge, exactly what should his liability be?

Adding to what Alison and Astrophel already said, I wanted to highlight a key word in how you chose to frame the charges against him.  Contrary to what you said, the stated reasons I've seen is that he KNOWS WELL what's going on and doesn't care as long as he makes money at it.

The charges explicitly state that governments have brought it to the company's attention that they are allowing criminal activity to occur using their services.  No new laws need to be written to cover this because generic "aiding and abetting" applies perfectly well.  I could come up with a new technology that teleports things from A to B tomorrow and if I knowingly allowed it to traffic children, drugs, and illicit cash, while also explicitly refusing to stop it when I absolutely could have, then I'm complicit under current laws.

There is already plenty of precedent in the Internet age.  Lots of services have tried to break the law and claim that the Internet is a magical place that laws do not apply to.  Anybody here remember Napster?  Same thing.  That company knew damned well it was actively facilitating the illegal transfer of intellectual property via its service.  It tried like Hell to fight the charges and it lost.  As it should have.

Steve

[Sgt Joch]

1 hour ago, Battlefront.com said:

Adding to what Alison and Astrophel already said, I wanted to highlight a key word in how you chose to frame the charges against him.  Contrary to what you said, the stated reasons I've seen is that he KNOWS WELL what's going on and doesn't care as long as he makes money at it.

well that is not really true Steve, from what we know so far from the official press release, there is no allegations that he knew what was going on:

2024-08-26 - CP TELEGRAM .pdf (justice.fr)

and according to his lawyer, none of the charges imply that he was aware of what was going on, directly or indirectly.

Quote

Devant quelques médias au tribunal judiciaire de Paris mercredi soir, son avocat Me David-Olivier Kaminski a estimé qu’«il est totalement absurde de penser que le responsable d’un réseau social puisse être impliqué dans des faits criminels qui ne le regardent pas, ni directement ni indirectement».

Le fondateur de Telegram Pavel Dourov mis en examen et placé sous contrôle judiciaire – Libération (liberation.fr)

To Follow on Astrophel’s Bar analogy. Assume mr. A buys a kilo of Cocaine from mr. B in Bar X. mr. C, the owner of Bar X has no knowledge or complicity in the transaction. Do you think mr. C should be charged as an accomplice to drug trafficking?

It is really too early to make conclusions about what is going on.

Edited August 29 by Sgt Joch

[sburke]

arrested for embezzling and fraud over money at a park?  Really? They have got to be kidding.  No way they give a sh1t about that park money.  So who did Popov piss off?

 

Russia's Ex-Defense Minister Arrested in Massive Fraud Scandal (msn.com)

[LongLeftFlank]

12 hours ago, Degsy said:

Meanwhile, Ukraine must go up in flames with hundreds and thousands of widows in....

 

1.  As noted (and I get you aren't promoting it Degsy), this kind of chest-thumping DUUUDE talk cuts both ways.

So be careful what you wish for, Ivan; your technocrat Tsar is writing cheques your collective bodies can't cash, and never could.

10 hours ago, The_Capt said:

But the RA has adopted such a low quality energy state that it does not need high end assets to simply keep pushing down roads.

2. That is, pushing down (or flanking) roads with.... 10-15 riflemen at a time, with effectively zero higher echelon support or coordination, still less elan (motivation), over half of whom these days speak little to no Russian.

....So, appreciating your expressed aversion to antipersonnel mines, which is fully backed by international law, common decency and lived (and died ) experience (btw, doing solar in Vietnam and Cambodia I have encountered officials my age missing legs but always far too polite to mention the cause to the big honky, so please understand my feelings on this aren't stone cold either), isn't the low-tech, to-date-drone-proof solution to these endless mindless trench raids in what is already largely an uninhabiitable wasteland kind of self-evident?

(yes, that florid question is entirely rhetorical; I literally have no idea why it isn't showing horrid, lethal results today. Or maybe it is, without fanfare?)

Edited August 29 by LongLeftFlank

[billbindc]

43 minutes ago, Sgt Joch said:

well that is not really true Steve, from what we know so far from the official press release, there is no allegations that he knew what was going on:

2024-08-26 - CP TELEGRAM .pdf (justice.fr)

and according to his lawyer, none of the charges imply that he was aware of what was going on, directly or indirectly.

Le fondateur de Telegram Pavel Dourov mis en examen et placé sous contrôle judiciaire – Libération (liberation.fr)

To Follow on Alison's Bar analogy. Assume mr. A buys a kilo of Cocaine from mr. B in Bar X. mr. C, the owner of Bar X has no knowledge or complicity in the transaction. Do you think mr. C should be charged as an accomplice to drug trafficking?

It is really too early to make conclusions about what is going on.

I would submit that quoting Durov's lawyer is not exactly giving us an objective read of the case. As the article itself states: 

"It includes, unsurprisingly, the "refusal to communicate, upon request from the authorized authorities, the information or documents necessary for the realization and exploitation of interceptions authorized by law" , but also the criminal association. As well as counts of "complicity" in offenses committed by Telegram users and prosecuted in France, such as the possession or distribution of child pornography images, drug trafficking or the trade in tools "designed or adapted to attack and access the operation of an automated data processing system" , in other words computer hacking hardware or software. The precise nature and number of the cases concerned have not been made public. Finally, potential violations of the legislation on cryptography tools, absence of "prior declaration" or "compliant declaration" are mentioned . The maximum penalty incurred is ten years of imprisonment."

The proper analogy is that Durov was actually charging drug dealers to use his bar to sell cocaine and actively obstructing police investigations into those criminal transactions. Easily chargeable, actually. 

 

[Fenris]

Oops, cross posted to wrong forum.

Edited August 29 by Fenris

[Joe982]

11 hours ago, Sgt Joch said:

The child pornography charges sound bad .......

....but the question will inevitably be what exactly did he do?

It is more that he did nothing. Other platforms have been informed  of criminal activity on their platforms and done nothing about it.

Edited August 29 by Joe982

[sburke]

how about we just wait until we have more info on Durov?  There may be more going on here than we know (actually that is pretty much a certainty ) and the speculation is just clouding the thread.

[Probus]

14 hours ago, FancyCat said:

Sadly, as I mentioned before, everyone relies on Chinese underlying exports to help fuel essential aspects of their war material.

Almost everyone.  As a former US DoD civilian Program Manager, we had very strict ITAR rules that did not allow us to buy from foreign sources or supply designs for manufacture from foreign sources.  Once I had a PCB manufactured in China (thru a supposedly ITAR compliant US company). We never used them again.  Luckily it was for a piece of GSE so no harm done.  I say that to say this.  US DoD equipment is very independent of China and that's one reason it costs so much.