* Posts by Voland's right hand

5759 publicly visible posts • joined 18 Aug 2011

Facebook's democracy salvage effort tilts scale in Mississippi primary

Voland's right hand Silver badge

Re: What election?

They are public elections in every meaningful sense

That does not mean that they are not competitions to be elected in their private club. Just their private club is tightly integrated into the state and (ab)uses state resources. Everyone salute the hammer and sickle on the star spangled banner of USsr.

Max Schrems is back: Facebook, Google hit with GDPR complaint

Voland's right hand Silver badge

Re: he is missing the lowest hanging fruit

There is a digital age of consent provided for in the GDPR

Thanks for pointing it - I overlooked it when scanning through GDPR a while back.

However, this makes things even more interesting. Prior to GDPR it was the legal major age which is 16-18 in most countries so there is a good case for historic enforcement.

With GDPR setting it to 16 unless specifically lowered, the cut-n-paste from COPPA in USAsian company terms is still illegal everywhere except Estonia which is the only one to both go for 13 years and actually enact them.

Voland's right hand Silver badge

Re: that isn’t free choice

Google processing of your PII to provide adverts etc *is* essential

Clearly not. You can and should provide advertisements based on the context which is being viewed. It can and should provide adverts based on that. Same as it did before Doubleclick acquired it.

Voland's right hand Silver badge

Re: This will go nowhere in court...

Because nobody is forcing you to use these services...

1. My kids have to use both Google and Office 365 in school. No account - no ability to do and submit homework or sit an exam (if a computer is required).

2. 30-40% of SMEs around Europe have moved to either Google or Office 365 too.

The only sort-a optional is Facebook. Google unfortunately is not.

Voland's right hand Silver badge

Re: Only £3.1M for Google?

My same thought - someone is off by a factor of 1000 here.

Voland's right hand Silver badge

he is missing the lowest hanging fruit

F**book and G00G still have 13 years cut-n-paste from COPPA in their T&Cs.

That is invalid in Europe. A minor cannot consent to their data being processed without written parental consent of at least one parent, usually both parents/guardians until they have reached the age of full legal responsibility - between 16 and 18 depending on which country.

He should add that one too. Just for laughs if not for any other reasons. If he does not have a suitable offspring to file the complaint, I am sure the el-reg readership can give their kids some interesting ideas who to talk to on this one.

FBI agents take aim at VPNFilter botnet, point finger at Russia, yell 'national security threat'

Voland's right hand Silver badge

Re: Usual bulshit

Not sure if doesn't understand how attribution works or is shilling for Russia...

I have worked for a CERT amidst other things - so yes, I do understand how attribution works.

What I see here is not attribution - I see propaganda. On both sides - them claiming it is not them and us blaming them at "state level" using every possible opportunity regardless of how inappropriate.

This includes clear opportunities to nail them for shit which is much worse than the purported state involvement.

Voland's right hand Silver badge

Usual bulshit

The hope, says the FBI, is that by trying to reconnect the devices will give away the location of those servers,

So, as a matter of fact, the FBI does not yet know who runs the botnet, but it has already attributed it to a particular very Fancy Bear. There is a Red Under Our Bed. RUN FOR THE HILLS!!!

US websites block netizens in Europe: Why are they ghosting EU? It's not you, it's GDPR

Voland's right hand Silver badge

Two years was not long enough, these plans were (wait for it)...

No amount of years may be enough if what you are doing with the users private parts is not legal to start off with.

Goodbye and thank you for admitting to be utter scum. You will not be missed. Can we have a bit more of that please.

Trio indicted after police SWAT prank call leads to cops killing bloke

Voland's right hand Silver badge

Yes, but it is not what US prosecution does.

It piles a whole garbage dump worth of accusations on the target trying to get a guilty plea deal.

One of the favourites in this case is wire fraud which can cover everything from submitting wrong information to police and all the way to fake timesheets.

UK's Royal Navy accepts missile-blasting missile as Gulf clouds gather

Voland's right hand Silver badge

Re: One question...

for example supercavitation torpedoes.

Which IRAN has licensed from Russia and was testing in the Hormuz area more than 5 years ago. Just as an added icing on the cake of the Gulf and guarding the gas supply from Qatar being a use case for any of these ships.

Voland's right hand Silver badge

Re: [None] of the UK/USA anti-missile weapons has had [proper] testing against [...] adversaries.

So what do you want us to do ... start a war?

No. Go shopping. As one of the old Kosturica films said: "What cannot be bought with money can be bought with a lot a of money".

To be more specific - do not sabotage Russian weapon sales to NATO countries. It is actually in the western weapon's manufacturers FAVOR - we get to test stuff against their gear while they do not (or at the very least they get LESS information than we do).

However, instead of that what do we do - idiocies. Like the most recent one with S400 and Turkey.

Voland's right hand Silver badge

Re: How fast is 'fast moving'

Or of course a Mach 10 hypersonic missile?

That one is still mostly an advert.

I would be more worried about the non-export "hunting pack" mode of all Russian anti-ship missiles starting from the ancient Basalt, going to Granit and the more resent Onix/Sunburn.

So in addition to "has it been fired at a supersonic sea skimming target" there is the question of "has it been fired at a group of those trying to take out a target cooperatively".

That one is a definitive confirmed and documented NO.

Voland's right hand Silver badge

Re: How fast is 'fast moving'

Putting any single ship in range of a bigger/better shore battery

Oh, nobody disagreed with that. I was simply pointing out that no amount of weaponry short of making most of south-eastern Iran a glass lake can keep the straights of Ormuz open if they decide to close them. So the "advertised" use case is actually a load of bollocks. As usual - we do not expect anything less from the ex-fireplace salesman.

Voland's right hand Silver badge

Re: How fast is 'fast moving'

Actually, there is a target drone that's designed to simulate the likes of Sunburn and Brahmos

Good catch. That is still not its designated target though - Sunburn/Brahmos class missile.

And the answer to that is still no. Not a single one of the UK/USA anti-missile weapons has had any testing against its proper potential adversaries.

Voland's right hand Silver badge

Re: Judging by the volcanic cloud on the horizon

And what the hell are they burning to make so much soot?

Whatever they are, most likely they will not be next time it is out at sea. It is in dry dock for a full refurb of the power unit and one of the options is to use one of the next gen small reactors instead. Same as most of their fleet by the way. They have a total of 2 active large displacement capital ships in the North Fleet, 1 in the Pacific and zero in the Baltic and Black sea fleets. Everything else is in for repairs.

By the way hat's off to El Reg that it did not take the bait and try to reproduce the Fear-The-Bear spin which our best beloved ex-fireplace salesman put when presenting the news to the other media. It is not supported by facts at present. In 3-4 years time when they refurb the fleet - maybe. But not before then.

Voland's right hand Silver badge

Re: How fast is 'fast moving'

No it was not.

We have not yet bought any from the two sellers which export them (Russia and India) and we have not managed to steal one from the third country claiming to have some - China.

So first of all no, it was not tested.

Second, you would be surprised how narrow the straights of Ormuz and several other Gulf chokepoints are. They are narrow enough to be fully within range of a low cost coastal missile launcher. So if the situation there get hot, all it takes for Iran would be to buy a couple of 9A52 Tornadoes or even worse - license them. An AA frigate will run out of munitions trying to counter a coastal salvo with one of these about half-way into the salvo. From there on it is a dead AA frigate.

You know that silly fear about Alexa recording everything and leaking it online? It just happened

Voland's right hand Silver badge

But the truth is that if Alexa devices can easily be turned into bugs

They are bugs. So are our phones, Smart TVs, etc.

We have voluntarily walked into a scenario which would give Comrade Erich Honeker a priapic fit. The scariest part is that a lot of us are enjoying it too and not having any second thoughts about the specific possibilities which are disturbing the marble plate in the graveyard near Berlin.

Brit Attorney General: Nation state cyber attack is an act of war

Voland's right hand Silver badge

Re: Imagine a future of the "election interference" bullshit in your face ... forever

yesterday Pompeo was talking about an Iranian assassination ops in Europe, something that nobody has heard of since the 80s

He probably misread a report about one of his department's own operations in his previous job.

On a more serious note, we live in strange times. I do remember the days when there were no News in Izvestia and no Truth in Pravda. It is really strange that at present the amount of lies per line in their press and lies per minute on their TV is lower than in ours.

Voland's right hand Silver badge

Some more mindless and not thought through posturing

Hostile states targeting essential infrastructure and services in Britain should be dealt with in the same way as any other attack against the nation, the UK Attorney General said today.

So where does it put sanctions against an essential infrastructure and services company in a foreign state which are specifically designed to cripple that nation infrastructure? How it is any different?

You have to be very careful in what do you declare an act of war as the other side may apply a reciprocal definition which when nuclear armed nation states are involved is mostly to the benefit of cockroaches.

Kids and the web latest: 'Won't somebody please think of the children!' US Congresscritters plead

Voland's right hand Silver badge

Re: Yes, because we all know how well laws work....

Wrong suspect list. The right one is: Google, Facebook, etc. Or to take things even further various Californicating school support platforms used by schools in UK like Edmodo.

Read their T&Cs for Europe - they have COPPA cut-n-pasted into them courtesy of the firm belief that the only law which applies is USA law and it is universal. Similarly, courtesy of COPPA they assume that they are entitled to process the data of anyone above 13 years old anywhere based on their concent alone.

Well... Easy Tiger on that one. As anybody who actually has done some work with DPA and contracts will tell you that is not the case by far in most of Europe. You cannot process minor's data without written parental consent (in a lot of countries both parents) until their "legal major age" which varies between 16 and 18.

President Trump broke US Constitution with Twitter bans – judge

Voland's right hand Silver badge

Re: So...

Constitution too, right? Same effect.

There is a difference between ignoring and sending the secret service goons to apply some ducktape to their mouths. Similarly, there is a difference between ignoring and disallowing people to comment on your tw*tter feed.

UK chancellor puts finger in air, promises 15 million full fibre connections by 2025

Voland's right hand Silver badge

It is not necessarily their fault. I have said it before, I will say it again.

Someone needs to check the water supply in Whitehall for contamination with Bolivian marching powder.

That would explain quite a few things regarding their behaviour and pronouncements...

Big bimmer bummer: Bavaria's BMW buggies battered by bad bugs

Voland's right hand Silver badge

Can they hack mercs and BMWs so that the Indicators feature is enabled?

There are bugs inside the crankcase which prevent it. That is the crankcase which is driving it.

Voland's right hand Silver badge

Re: firewall

if I was designing something to connect the engine management system to entertainment system - presumably for display purposes?

The OBD-II and its GM Tech/Ford predecessors were never intended for that. As a result they cannot display faults properly without two-way interactions. Additionally, there is no authentication, no crypto and very little security. So if you can connect something to the OBD the car security is compromised as a given.

The solution is to have a dedicated unit connected to the OBD and have a limited modern one way interface using a messaging protocol of choice from that unit to the infotainment. You can implement that in ~ 10£ and do the software in a week with off the shelf components. It is also utterly trivial - you just give the problem to any security geek and that is what they will come up with.

Unfortunately, this is too "hard", too "expensive" and "does not make sense" for your average car manufacturer - let's face it their computing and security people in their vast majority are clueless.

Voland's right hand Silver badge

Re: Are You Surprised

Then perhaps you should read Pot calling the kettle black.

Keyless entry - just say no. All you need is a transmitter relay as demonstrated by a spate of recent thefts around London (apologies for using the beobachter as a reference): http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-4456992/Shocking-moment-car-hackers-steal-60-000-BMW.html

When I talked to my colleagues in Eastern Europe after reading this they giggled: "Here you do not get an insurance with a factory fitted keyless entry on BMW or Merc until you fit a fully independent passive (not transmitting until you press a button) immobilizer".

Zuckerberg gets a night off: Much-hyped Euro grilling was all smoke, absolutely no heat

Voland's right hand Silver badge

Typical mess caused by the "too big too work" over reaching EU structures.

That exists and is very prevalent especially in Eu foreign policy.

Though the questioning becomes as toothless. Ever heard the phrase "Berlusconi stooge"? The questions debacle has more to do with that than any fundamental Eu failing (of which there are a quite a few).

In any case - the political section of this https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kwxWyJU1WY4 has some excellent extra illustrations.

Voland's right hand Silver badge

President of the European Parliament, and mastermind of the session, Antonio Tajani

What do you want from a "Made by Berlusconi" product? I had some hopes for this session as some of the people present and willing to grill him were on the level to do so (Green and SD). However looks like Zucki has had it all pre-arranged.

'Facebook takes data from my phone – but I don't have an account!'

Voland's right hand Silver badge

Re: There are two groups of people that can't use Facebook ...

according to Facebook's T&C's the under 13

That is a regurgitation of a specific USA law which has no legal standing in Europe.

Every European country has different definitions of age of consent, age of criminal responsibility as well as sometimes various additional ages/permissions you need to comply with.

Nearly all of them are NOT 13.

In most cases we are looking at 16 with a couple of countries being on the extreme of 18. Providing a service which involves processing personal data to anyone younger than that without explicit parental consent (in some cases of BOTH parents) in writing is illegal as per the laws of the countries in question.

This is one thing for which F***book, Google and other slurps should have been taken to the cleaners long ago. It is an open and shut case and they should have been found criminally liable and dealt with.

Unfortunately, in most countries the DPA is either in their pocket or sleeping at the wheel. Even when it is related to "thinking about the children".

Voland's right hand Silver badge

If Facebook paid high enough, at least one manufacturer would make the FB app the default launcher.

I believe that was done at least once. I recall something called "facebook phone" being shown at MWC a few years back.

Voland's right hand Silver badge

Immediate kill in our house

Any Android device is used only after Facebook has been killed with extreme prejudice.

1. It has an abominable level of access to your phone - more than google's own apps. I have dumped the permissions in human readable format before - have a read: https://forums.theregister.co.uk/forum/containing/3518874

2. It used to go into a tailspin without you having an account and use 100% CPU in some versions. So disabling it was a requirement if you did not have a f***book account.

3. Even if you do not have an account some versions still register as attempting to talk to mothership in an app level firewall in Android. So it is guilty of data collection until proven innocent even if you do not have an account and/or have agreed to Facebook terms. That as we all know is a GDPR no-no. I am eagerly awaiting the end of this month to unblock the "not uninstallable" factory f***book app on my phone for 5 minutes and capture its data profile. If it will be what I would expect it to be the Minuteman will start a final countdown for a 4% Turnover GDPR nuclear strike.

RAF Air Command to take on UK military space ops

Voland's right hand Silver badge

Re: Why Not RSF?

Russia has been calling their icbm force space command for a few decades now.

Voland's right hand Silver badge

Re: Why would airstrip one need a different GPS

make new alliances with other, less democratic,

Excuse me for being blunt, the key factor in an alliance, treaty or any relationship between countries is "will the other guy renege on the deal". Is the other guy democratic or not is an important factor, but it is somewhat secondary.

This is is especially the case for long term things like trading pacts or surprise, surprise Space Programs. The average time for a satellite to get from the drawing board to up there is quite often the better part of a decade.

So the issue here is simply - can you rely on the other side to keep its side of the bargain for a decade or more.

With America it is a definitive no. With Europe it is sort-a, but usually yes. With Russians, funnily enough, you can rely that they will stick to what has been agreed down to the exact letter (doubly so after Putin make "sticking to the bargain" a propaganda quintessentially Russian item).

So where does that put UK and its "potential" space program by comparison?

The current lot in charge of UK is trying to prove that Americans are the pinnacle of reliability and dependability. So any ideas that they can establish a partnership for a new "take back control" space program are frankly on the delusional side. Doubly so if it is of military value. And as far as doing it alone, I do not think that you can xerox those 300 million enough times for that.

Voland's right hand Silver badge

Re: Why would airstrip one need a different GPS

One of the reasons that Russia is putting in new pipelines is so they can bypass the Ukraine to their major customers and so can take further action in Ukraine

Correct. You just missed the REAL further action in Ukraine.

This is about money. Ukraine cumulative debt to Russia for gas supplies alone is in excess of 30Bn which Ukraine is refusing to pay (*). If you add other debts you are looking at >40Bn.

As long as Ukraine holds the rest of Europe hostage it can afford not to pay it and it has been doing this for 20 years.

As someone who has assets and relatives in one of the countries which suffers every time they use Europe as a hostage, my point of view is the same as the German, Bulgarian, Greek, Austrian and the rest of Europe. Enough is enough they can f*ck off. Similarly the US which is mandating the Ukraine's right to hold Eu as a hostage can f*ck off too.

The international interconnects and bypasses will be built. In fact they are coming online at a rate of 2-3 per year since 2014-ish and this train has already left the station so Ukraine has to find another way to avoid paying its debts.

(*)Most of it is from the period when Gasprom gave them 60%+ discount for transiting gas by the way - before the Eu agreed with Gasprom the removal of the tiered pricing upon Eu insistence.

Braking news: Tesla preps firmware fling to 'fix' Model 3's inability to stop in time

Voland's right hand Silver badge

Re: Whilst I agree ...

.. many people already drive far too close.

Come on, not everyone is driving an Audi or BMW.

UK digital committee fumes: You didn't answer our questions, Facebook. (Psst. EU. Pass 'em on)

Voland's right hand Silver badge

Re: Guess what!

Kentucky Derby fried lasagna rather than eastern European horse meat anyone

European horse-meat any day and especially the fraudulent origin "pretend-beef". I have seen it reared. The gypsies running this scam were doing it primarily on national parks land. There was a point where there were 3-4 "burger destined" groups of horses passing my summer house daily. My summer house happens to be 13 miles from the closest habitation and 50 miles from the closest city - one mile up in the mountains with a few hundred square miles of national park forests and meadows around it. That is where the horses were reared and they were all completely free range too.

So, please do not try to compare it to USDA beef. Kentucky Derby fried lasagne will not do. It will have to Yellowstone fried lasagne or Yosemite fried lasagne to get anywhere near that standard.

On a more serious note - size matters. Or as the Denmark foreign minister put it a while back: There are two types of countries in Europe - Small ones and ones that are yet to find out that they are small.

Brit water firms, power plants with crap cyber security will pay up to £17m, peers told

Voland's right hand Silver badge

Fine is a cost of doing business

Without criminal responsibility for the C-suite to accompany the fine it will become a classic case of threatening a dog with a salami stick.

EU considers baking new norms of cyber-war into security policies

Voland's right hand Silver badge

Re: Good luck with that

it wasn't a new tactic and it lasted for a long time after that too - all the way till the Napoleonic wars.

That is how Napoleon, Blucher and Suvorov won their battles - their armies pretty much ate everything within 30-40 miles from the road they travelled on. As a result they travelled light with minimal or no supply trains and were mobile allowing them near-blitzkrieg marches around Europe. It is also what defeated Napoleon's Russian campaign. The Russians knew the tactics all too well and worked their counter-tactics accordingly. Denis Davydov(*) organized the termination of any "foraging parties" and the main Russian army kept the Napoleon's army within the area they devastated on their way in. As a result they did not need to win any major battles - they simply had to be successful in preventing Napoleon from escaping the "scorched earth" area +/20 miles on either side of the old Smolensk road. Winter, hunger and disease did the rest.

Military brainboxes ponder 'UK needs you' list of AI boffins

Voland's right hand Silver badge

Re: Oxymoron ?

It is failing on mere basics and prerequisites even before offering jewels and trinkets.

You have to walk (or even crawl) before you can run. You have to have working indigenous unmanned systems to automate. Sure, you can try to automate the manned ones instead. That, however, is more difficult - just ask anyone who was unfortunate to try to wire for remote anything that is designed for human operation.

So where is UK relative to the "first world" as far as unmanned combat systems are concerned. 10 years or thereabouts behind USA, 10 years behind Israel and if the specs on what was carted out on the 9th of May on the Red square are believable at least 7 years behind Russia which used the Syria conflict to gain on the undisputed leaders in the field.

The only "British" military system of sorts UK is developing sort-a indigenously (the Watchkeeper) has no combat hours clocked and it has no attack functionality. There is no indigenous combat attack helicopter system comparable to Grumman MQ8. There is no British made ground attack system comparable to the Russian Uran-9. The sea-going drones are also pretty much years behind Sea Hunter and Status-6 which are in testing since 2016 (the latter based on NATO reports of its sighted test runs).

Asking for AI with this "base" is frankly laughable. How about sorting out the basics first and having a drone which is not lost every other times it flies? How about a couple of missiles on it for starters?

10 social networks ignored UK government consultations

Voland's right hand Silver badge

Re: "rapid removal of abusive and objectionable material"

In no universe is "false" a synonym for "abusive".

Wait and see and remember my word - this will go together with "fake news counter" censorship into the same legislation making it clear that as far as HMG is concerned false==abusive=="inconvenient truth"

Voland's right hand Silver badge

"rapid removal of abusive and objectionable material"

'We are going to ask social media companies to take down abusive content immediately'

I have some serious doubt about the UK government classifying anything as objectionable material.

Based on recent examples quite a few statements by other countries which it claimed to false and/or objectionable material proved to be true in the end. Like it together with Sweden, CZ and USA having Novichok in the 90-es. Now fully confirmed: https://www.zeit.de/politik/ausland/2018-05/geheimdienst-nowitschok-bnd-nervengift-russland

It screamed bloody murder when that was stated 2 months ago. Under this law that would have had to be removed.

Blood spilled from another US high school shooting has yet to dry – and video games are already being blamed

Voland's right hand Silver badge

Re: Early information

Please don't say, "Ban all guns,

Try the father as an accessory to murder of 10 people. And give him the same tariffas to someone who gives a hitman a gun to kill 10 people.

That should give other parents some food for thought.

Voland's right hand Silver badge

gun even the US constitution only mentions "a WELL regulated militia..." (emphasis added).

You missed half of the problem. The above sentences finishes with "has the right to bear arms".

It does not say "Has the right bear arsenals".

Facebook Android app caught seeking 'superuser' clearance

Voland's right hand Silver badge

Re: Sorry, but it's a very poor sensationalist article

BUT "superuser" is a feature *only* on rooted android phones. Facebook pointed this out in their response, why couldn't el reg?

Which is exactly why this is a Hanlon Razor case - do not seek malice where stupidity will suffice.

F***book has a RIDICULOUS permission list on a normal phone. It asks for nearly everything. Here is the list after purging duplicates resulting from permission name changes across Android versions (make sure you are sitting comfortably and do not fall off your chair):

This app has access to:

Device & app history: retrieve running apps

Identity: find accounts on the device, add or remove accounts. read your own contact card

Calendar: read calendar events plus confidential information, add or modify calendar events and send email to guests without owners' knowledge

Contacts: find accounts on the device, read your contacts, modify your contacts

Location: approximate location (network-based), precise location (GPS and network-based)

SMS: read your text messages (SMS or MMS)

Phone: read phone status and identity

Photos / Media / Files: read the contents of your USB storage, modify or delete the contents of your USB storage

Storage: read the contents of your USB storage, modify or delete the contents of your USB storage

Camera:take pictures and videos

Microphone: record audio

Wi-Fi connection information: view Wi-Fi connections

Device ID & call information: read phone status and identity

Phone: directly call phone numbers, read phone status and identity

Phone: read call log, read phone status and identity, write call log

Identity: find accounts on the device

Contacts: find accounts on the device

Identity: find accounts on the device, add or remove accounts

Other: download files without notification, receive data from Internet, adjust your wallpaper size, view network connections, create accounts and set passwords, read battery statistics, pair with Bluetooth devices, access Bluetooth settings, send sticky broadcast, change network connectivity, connect and disconnect from Wi-Fi, full network access, change your audio settings, read sync settings, run at startup, draw over other apps, control vibration, prevent device from sleeping, modify system settings, toggle sync on and off, install shortcuts, read Google service configuration,

change network connectivity, reorder running apps, set wallpaper

I believe that this is all permissions known to Android +/- one or two. So someone in their development team got lazy and decided that "if I am on a rooted phone I might as well just ask for everything at once".

Voland's right hand Silver badge

First thing to disable on a new phone (disabled on all phones in the household).

Second is Tw*tter

Third is GooTube.

Fourth is the new slurp verion of the Android Email app that actually shoves your mail to Google - K9 instead.

That is the minimum "surgery" reqs before use.

US Congress mulls expanding copyright yet again – to 144 years

Voland's right hand Silver badge

Re: Crony Capitalism at it's best

How many Senators actually wrote this law?

Who told you it was written by a senator? It was written by character with large ears, tail and traditionally wearing short pants with two big buttons. From the species Mus Musculus if memory serves me right.

The senators are simply its servants.

Domain name sellers rub ICANN's face in sticky mess of Europe's GDPR

Voland's right hand Silver badge

Re: In reality

A quick poll in the form of voting on your post will shortly inform you about wanted vs unwanted in the industry.

Popcorn please.

Blighty's super-duper F-35B fighter jets are due to arrive in a few weeks

Voland's right hand Silver badge

Re: STOP BUYING FIGHTER PLANES !!

if you want to deploy a submarine hunter - buy a helicopter

I am not aware of a submarine hunter helicopter which has anything like 5% of the range of an Orion or Tu-142.

if you want a intercept - buy a missile

I suggest reading on some on the issues Russians had (and resulting incidents) from having missile only interceptors like the Iranian border incident, the first Korean jet they took down (the one over Kola peninsula), etc. You simply cannot use anything short of lethal force in that case and in 99% of the cases you want to at least try non-lethal first. In fact norms of international law oblige you to do so.

if you want to attack an enemy - buy a helicopter / drone The attack helicopters have gone a long way in terms of lethality and survivability. In fact a Ka52 is not that different from an A10 in terms of how much deadly toys it has as standard and how many it can carry as extras. They still have one major issue though - loiter time. A key requirement for air support is to be somewhere near on hand and ready to whack the opponent. No helicopter can do it (yet).