Bytes and Borscht

Horrifying thought of the day: I'd currently feel marginally more comfortable visiting Russia - where there's a reasonable chance I'd end up kidnapped by the state to be used as leverage - than the USA - where there's a chance I'd be randomly kidnapped by ICE for no reason. That is .. *bad*.

This post made me realize that the Battlefield 6 Beta is upon us soon and whoever needs me the next two weekends knows where to find me.

Unless your book interests are oddly specific and you end up actually *having* read all the books there are out there - except the ones that you can only get second-hand for 300$.

.. but now that I write this, that's still a sad and wonderful thing.

Fan in front of me /
Heated quilt under me /
And I'm stuck here in the middle with back pain.

When you are simply to angry to die (from "A Long War: Voices from the British Army in Northern Ireland 1969 - 1998" by Ken Wharton).

There's so much to unpack here. I love it.

Went to the local military museum today, and I'll never tire of funny army / navy hats throughout history.

A few years back I enjoyed this.

Art of sailor moon with the words 'my tummy hurts and I'm mad at the government'

morning mood

This is by far the most hilarious, worst, funniest thing I've read in a while. 10/10, would recommending doing the same I did - spending way, way too much money on it.

Retired Gen. Petraeus, who commanded US and coalition forces in Iraq and Afghanistan, said that a ceasefire in Ukraine is unlikely until Western aid allows Kyiv to dramatically shift the battlefield dynamic.

www.kyivpost.com/post/57137

Successful vacation I would say.

Really glad someone is doing this. Because now I can stop asking myself "Is Austria the only target country for which NoName0157(16) picked the weirdest, most meaningless targets while ignoring actually relevant ones?" - no, their target really *is* weird.

I'm not saying that my vacation reading has a certain thematic focus, but .. it seems that it has a certain thematic focus.

Forget about the incident at the "Coldplay" concert. Imagine having your extramarital affair discovered because the IRA tried to kill Margaret Thatcher. (From: "Killing Thatcher: The IRA, the Manhunt and the Long War on the Crown" by Rory Carroll)

I feel personally attacked.

Ukraine’s state security hunts for Russian moles inside anti-corruption agency More than 70 searches were conducted on Monday.

But it might well be the authoritarian-shitshow-move that it looks like from the outside right now. Time will (hopefully) tell. (8/8)

Main sources:
kyivindependent.com/bill-subordi...
www.politico.eu/article/ukra...
unn.ua/en/news/russ...
x.com/Tatarigami_U...

The interesting and important thing is: How is this going to develop. If it's a temporary decision / action for counterintelligence reasons, then it might be a tough, uncomfortable, but ultimately vital decision. (7/x)

*But*: All of this comes from the SBU, who obviously have an interest of making everything look "fine". NABU released a statement, saying: “The risk of agents of influence from the aggressor exists for any government body. However, this can't justify halting the work of the entire institution” (6/x)

An example for this is the allegation that a "high-ranking official" of the NABU had close contact with someone who has fled Ukraine & works with Russian intelligence. Allegedly there are several examples of this kind of activity, which makes sense. Little oversight makes for easy hiding (5/x).

These raids were part of an "investigation into suspected collusion with Russian intelligence". SBU alleges that Ruslan Magamedrasulov, head of the territorial department of NABU detectives, was aiding Russia.

During these investigations / raids other indications for collaboration were found. (4/x)

But: IMO what happens now is what defines how bad it actually is. Because from a counterintelligence point of view, it might be necessary to curtail those two institutions *in the short term* (vital emphasis).

Ukraine's SBU state security service launched a series of raids yesterday. (3/x)

Under the bill, the prosecutor general - Ruslan Kravchenko, allegedly close to Zelensky - has the authority to influence investigations by NABU & to delegate SAPO powers to other prosecutors. It is a lot of power in one pair of hands, and potentially devastating to transparency in the country. (2/x)

Yes, the bill recently passed by the Ukrainian parliament targeting the National Anti-Corruption Bureau of Ukraine (NABU) and the Specialized Anti-Corruption Prosecutor's Office (SAPO) is concerning.

Especially because it's not just about oversight, it's about more than that (1/x).

These are our favorite cyber books on hacking, espionage, crypto, surveillance, and more | TechCrunch These are our favorite cybersecurity books, both by fiction authors, as well as journalists and researchers.

We published a reading list of our favorite cyber and cyber-adjacent books.

We're keeping it relatively broad. Books about privacy and surveillance are and will be a part of this.

This is meant to be a post to be updated regularly. If you have suggestions on what we should read next, please share!

Decoding Secrets Through Symbols: How Military Insignia Revealed Russia's Hidden SIGINT Network - CheckFirst Sometimes the best intelligence comes from the most unexpected sources. Our latest investigation proves this by using Russian online military insignia stores to map one of the FSB's most secretive uni...

checkfirst.network/decoding-sec... Decoding Secrets Through Symbols: How Military Insignia Revealed Russia's Hidden SIGINT Network - CheckFirst

Me to myself: No more conferences this year.
This wonderful thing: Bonjour.

Abstract of Schrijver, P. (2025). Ukrainian Intelligence’s Use of Telegram in Wartime. International Journal of Intelligence and CounterIntelligence, 1–27

Schrijver, P. (2025). Ukrainian Intelligence’s Use of Telegram in Wartime. International Journal of Intelligence and CounterIntelligence, 1–27 doi.org/10.1080/0885...

Published online 8 July 2025.

Illustration of a squirrel carrying a pile of books, walking towards a tree hollow full of books.

Me after saying I wasn't gonna buy any more books for a while

SANS: Makes an onDemand-training for 8.000 bucks.
Also SANS: Charges 40 bucks on top of that for shipping.

💯