Both Russian and Ukrainian forces have been seen using the popular messenger app for gamers, Discord, to coordinate drone surveillance and strikes.

The effects of the ban are likely to hit the front lines in Ukraine as well, where both Kyiv and Moscow’s troops have been seen using Discord to coordinate drone operations.

Several videos posted online have shown uniformed men watching surveillance drone feeds on the platform, including one clip said to have captured the interior of a command post in Bakhmut.

  • _bcron_@lemmy.worldEnglish
    92·
    2 months ago

    It’s pretty wild to think they took this long to prohibit using US-based software for such sensitive information

    • IcePee@lemmy.beru.coEnglish
      70·
      2 months ago

      Maybe it took this long to develop an alternative. They now have an alternative… Right? The Kremlin wouldn’t send it’s citizens off to fight without being sufficiently equipped… Right?

        • Flying Squid@lemmy.worldMEnglish
          171·
          2 months ago

          They still have those wire phones with a hand crank.

          Good, because I don’t care how nice their soup cans are, there’s no way a string would be able to stay taut between Moscow and Donetsk.

        • Prizephitah@feddit.nuEnglish
          81·
          2 months ago

          Relaying sensitive information over your own wires are a lot more secure then a privately owned service from a foreign country. It’s just a lot more cumbersome.

        • jagged_circle@feddit.nlEnglish
          11·
          2 months ago

          You know there’s phones that don’t need a crank? The voice itself can be used to power the transmission. Its actually brilliant tech for a situation like this

        • xmunk@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
          31·
          2 months ago

          Don’t forget… the cans come full of potatoes so that’s like two tools in one!

        • jagged_circle@feddit.nlEnglish
          21·
          2 months ago

          No, no. Its a tape recorder duct taped to a drone that carries messages back and forth like a carrier pidgin

  • N0body@lemmy.dbzer0.comEnglish
    51·
    2 months ago

    Don’t worry, Russian military. I know a company in Hungary that sells pagers and walkie-talkies in bulk to facilitate communication.

  • RubberDuck@lemmy.worldEnglish
    351·
    2 months ago

    I’m more appalled by the fact that the Russian military was apparently able to use discord as a weapon of war to facilitate their unprovoked war of agression and killing Ukranians. Discord should take a long hard look at what other stuff happens on their platform.

    • JWBananas@lemmy.worldEnglish
      7·
      1 month ago

      Discord should take a long hard look at what other stuff happens on their platform.

      Discord surely does, as surely does the government of the land which hosts their infrastructure.

      If Discord hasn’t been asked/told to block Russia from their side, there is a reason.

      • RubberDuck@lemmy.worldEnglish
        2·
        1 month ago

        I take a far grimmer look on things. If text and image platforms have issues moderating, I’d imagine discord is more difficult and thus worse. They probably monitor for stuff that is detrimental to their service and that’s it. For the rest they rely on reports.

        And about being asked to keep up by governments, I again am inclined to not think anyone did. Why would they.

    • BottleOfAlkahest@lemmy.worldEnglish
      22·
      2 months ago

      Early in the war one of their generals was bombed off the face of the earth because troops at his location were using their regular old cellphones for military coordination. Russian communication issues have been a huge stumbling block for them this whole time.

  • YeetPics@mander.xyzEnglish
    161·
    2 months ago

    Why doesn’t Russia just use the Russian state-sponsored communication platform?

    What do you mean 80 year old radios keyed to commercial bands aren’t adequate in 2024?!?!

  • drathvedro@lemm.eeEnglish
    111·
    2 months ago

    This is absolutely bizarre and a disgrace to the Russian military that this was even a thing. Like, Russia has complete in-house comm systems, all the way down to the silicon. They’re as elegant as charcoal clothing iron, but at least they’re secure. In fact, they’re so paranoid about NSA plants that they even force businesses to use in-house encryption to submit accounting reports. And then the same idiots allow risking lives of officers by using random software in a command center…

    Though I feel like the response is also far from best. There are numerous alternatives they can switch to, so the ban is mostly going to only hit innocent gamers. It’d be much more impactful if they just silently handed access to those channels over to Ukrainians.

    • mlg@lemmy.worldEnglish
      72·
      2 months ago

      They forgot to do the availability part of the CIA triad.

      IIRC they were already using cellphones on day one because everything else was almost immediately jammed lol.

  • stupidcasey@lemmy.worldEnglish
    9·
    1 month ago

    Is nobody in the world capable of forwarding encrypted RTP packets besides Discord? Seriously we had VOIP figured out before we had internet Figured out I don’t think we have to forwards all our communication through adversarial governments to communicate locally.

  • mhague@lemmy.worldEnglish
    6·
    2 months ago

    There can’t seriously be respectable, noteworthy people in Russia saying that banning Discord is a mistake because it helps the Russian military. That’s bizzaro world stuff even for them.