The general who advised Netflix’s nuclear Armageddon movie doesn’t believe in abolishing nuclear weapons.#News #nuclear
'House of Dynamite' Is About the Zoom Call that Ends the World
This post contains spoilers for the Netflix film ‘House of Dynamite.’Netflix’s new Kathryn Bigelow-directed nuclear war thriller wants audiences to ask themselves the question: what would you do if you had 15 minutes to decide whether or not to end the world?
House of Dynamite is about a nuclear missile hitting the United States as viewed from the conference call where America’s power players gather to decide how to retaliate. The decision window is short, just 15 minutes. In the film that’s all the time the President has to assess the threat, pick targets, and decide if the US should also launch its nuclear weapons. It’s about how much time they’d have in real life too.
playlist.megaphone.fm?p=TBIEA2…
In House of Dynamite, America’s early warning systems detect the launch of a nuclear-armed intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) somewhere in the Pacific Ocean. The final target is Chicago and when it lands more than 20 million people will die in a flash. Facing the destruction of a major American city, the President must decide what—if any—action to take in response.The US has hundreds of nuclear missiles ready to go and plans to strike targets across Russia, China, and North Korea. But there’s a catch. In the film, America didn’t see who fired the nuke and no one is taking credit. It’s impossible to know who to strike and in what proportion. What’s a president to do?
House of Dynamite tells the story of this 15 minute Zoom call—from detection of the launch to its terminal arrival in Chicago—three different times. There’s dozens of folks on the call, from deputy advisors to the Secretary of Defense to the President himself, and each run through of the events gives the audience a bigger peak at how the whole machine operates, culminating, in the end, with the President’s view.
Many of the most effective and frightening films about nukes—Threads and The Day After—focus on the lives of the humans living in the blast zone. They’re about the crumbling of society in a wasteland, beholden to the decisions of absent political powers so distant that they often never appear on screen. House of Dynamite is about those powerful people caught in the absurd game of nuclear war, forced to make decisions with limited information and enormous consequences.
In both the movie and real life, America has ground-based interceptors stationed in California and Alaska that are meant to knock a nuke out of the sky should one ever get close. The early film follows missileers in Alaska as they launch the interceptor only to have it fail. It’s a horrifying and very real possibility. The truth of interceptors is that we don’t have many of them, the window to hit a fast moving ICBM is narrow, and in tests they only work about half the time.
“So it’s a fucking coin toss? That’s what $50 billion buys us?” Secretary of Defense Reid Baker, played by Jarred Harris, says in the film. This detail caught the eye of the Trump White House, which plans to spend around $200 billion on a space based version of the same tech.
Bloomberg reported on an internal Pentagon memo that directed officials to debunk House of Dynamite’s claims about missile defense. The Missile Defense Agency told Bloomberg that interceptors “have displayed a 100% accuracy rate in testing for more than a decade.” The Pentagon separately told Bloomberg that it wasn’t consulted on the film at all.
Director Bigelow worked closely with the CIA to make Zero Dark Thirty, but has tussled with the Pentagon before. The DoD didn’t like The Hurt Locker and pulled out of the project after showing some initial support. Bigelow has said in interviews that she wanted House of Dynamite to be an independent project.
Despite that independence, House of Dynamite nails the details of nuclear war in 2025. The acronyms, equipment, and procedures are all frighteningly close to reality and Bigelow did have help on set from retired US Army lieutenant general and former US Strategic Command (STRATCOM) Chief of Staff Dan Karbler.
Karbler is a career missile guy and as the chief of staff of STRATCOM he oversaw America’s nuclear weapons. He told 404 Media that he landed the gig by scaring the hell out of Bigelow and her staff on, appropriately, a Zoom call.
Bigelow wanted to meet Karbler and they set up a big conference call on Zoom. He joined the call but kept his camera off. As people filtered in, Karbler listened and waited. “Here’s how it kind of went down,” Karbler told 404 Media. “There’s a little break in the conversation so I click on my microphone, still leaving the camera off, and I just said: ‘This is the DDO [deputy director of operations] convening a National Event Conference. Classification of this conference TOP SECRET. TK [Talent Keyhole] SI: US STRATCOM, US INDOPACOM, US Northern Command, SecDef Cables, military system to the secretary.”
“SecDef Cables, please bring the secretary of defense in the conference. Mr. Secretary, this is the DDO. Because of the time constraints of this missile attack, recommend we transition immediately from a national event conference to a nuclear decision conference, and we bring the President into the conference. PEOC [Presidential Emergency Operations Center], please bring the President into the conference.”
“And I stopped there and I clicked on my camera and I said, ‘ladies and gentleman, that’s how the worst day in American history will begin. I hope your script does it some justice,’” Karbler said. The theatrics worked and, according to Karbler, he sat next to Bigelow every day on set and helped shape the movie.
House of Dynamite begins and ends with ambiguity. We never learn who fired the nuclear weapon at Chicago. The last few minutes of the film focus on the President looking through retaliation plans. He’s in a helicopter, moments from the nuke hitting Chicago, and looking through plans that would condemn millions of people on the planet to fast and slow deaths. The film ends as he wallows in this decision, we never learn what he chooses.
Karbler said it was intentional. “The ending was ambiguous so the audience would leave with questions,” he said. “The easy out would have been: ‘Well, let’s just have a nuclear detonation over Chicago.’ That’s the easy out. Leaving it like it is, you risk pissing off the audience, frankly, because they want a resolution of some sort, but they don’t get that resolution. So instead they’re going to have to be able to have a discussion.”
In my house, at least, the gambit worked. During the credits my wife and I talked about whether or not we’d launch the nukes ourselves (We’d both hold off) and I explained the unpleasant realities of ground based interceptors.
Karbler, too, said he wouldn’t have launched the nukes. It’s just one nuke, after all. It’s millions of people, sure, but if America launches its nukes in retaliation then there’s a good chance Russia, China, and everyone else might do the same. “Because of the potential of a response provoking a much, much broader response, and something that would not be proportional,” Karbler said. “Don’t get me wrong, 20 million people, an entire city, a nuclear attack that hit us, but if we respond back, then you’re going to get into im-proportionality calculus.”
Despite the horrors present on screen in House of Dynamite, Karbler isn’t a nuclear abolitionist. “The genie is out of the bottle, you’re not going to put it back in there,” he said. “So what do we do to ensure our best defense? It seems counterintuitive, you know, the best defense is gonna be a good offense. You’ve gotta be able to have a response back against the adversary.”
Basically, Karbler says we should do what we’re doing now: build a bunch more nukes and make sure your enemies know you’re willing to use them. “Classic deterrence has three parts: impose unacceptable costs on the adversary. Deny the adversary any benefit of attack, read that as our ability to defend ourselves, missile defense, but also have the credible messaging behind it,” he said.
These are weapons that have the power to end the world, weapons we make and pray we never use. But we do keep making them. Almost all the old nuclear treaties between Russia and America are gone. The US is spending trillions to replace old ICBM silos and make new nuclear weapons. After decades of maintaining a relatively small nuclear force, China is building up its own stockpiles.
Trump has promised a Golden Dome to keep America safe from nukes and on Sunday Putin claimed Russia had successfully tested a brand new nuclear-powered cruise missile. The people who track existential threats believe we’re closer to nukes ending the world than at any other time in history.
Scientists Explain Why Trump's $175 Billion Golden Dome Is a Fantasy
Shooting missiles out of the sky from space could require a constellation of 36,000 satellites.Matthew Gault (404 Media)
Rapporto Umanitario sulla Situazione nella Striscia di Gaza
Le organizzazioni internazionali e delle Nazioni Unite confermano che gli aiuti umanitari che entrano nella Striscia di Gaza sono del tutto insufficienti a soddisfare i bisogni fondamentali della popolazione, in un contesto di grave deterioramento delle condizioni di vita e sanitarie.
Nonostante le affermazioni israeliane secondo cui gli aiuti entrerebbero regolarmente e che le notizie sulla fame siano esagerate, i rapporti sul campo e le dichiarazioni dell’ONU, dell’UNICEF e di altre organizzazioni umanitarie dimostrano il contrario.
L’UNICEF segnala che la situazione a Gaza è estremamente drammatica: centinaia di camion di aiuti restano in attesa ai valichi, e quelli che riescono ad entrare sono pochi e non bastano a coprire i bisogni essenziali. Il sistema sanitario è al collasso, con ospedali distrutti e una grave carenza di medicinali e attrezzature.
Circa 650.000 studenti non possono tornare a scuola a causa della distruzione della maggior parte degli edifici scolastici e universitari, con la conseguente interruzione totale del processo educativo.
Secondo gli accordi umanitari firmati a Sharm El-Sheikh, sotto la mediazione dell’ex presidente americano Donald Trump e con la partecipazione di Egitto, Qatar, Turchia e altri paesi, è previsto l’ingresso urgente e regolare degli aiuti, ma la loro applicazione rimane molto limitata.
La Striscia di Gaza ha oggi bisogno di oltre 300.000 tende per ospitare le famiglie sfollate e di almeno 600 camion di aiuti al giorno carichi di farina, acqua e beni alimentari di prima necessità per combattere la fame.
In questo contesto, l’Associazione di Solidarietà con il Popolo Palestinese in Italia continua i suoi progetti umanitari per fornire cibo, acqua e pane agli sfollati, soprattutto con l’arrivo dell’inverno e il peggioramento delle condizioni di vita.
Facciamo quindi appello a tutte le persone di buona volontà a contribuire e sostenere i progetti umanitari per alleviare le sofferenze del popolo palestinese a Gaza.
26 ottobre 2025
Associazione dei Palestinesi in Italia (API)
FREE ASSANGE Italia
Rapporto Umanitario sulla Situazione nella Striscia di Gaza Le organizzazioni internazionali e delle Nazioni Unite confermano che gli aiuti umanitari che entrano nella Striscia di Gaza sono del tutto insufficienti a soddisfare i bisogni fondamenta…Telegram
A 3D Printed 16mm Movie Camera
The basic principles of a motion picture film camera should be well understood by most readers — after all, it’s been well over a hundred years since the Lumière brothers wowed 19th century Paris with their first films. But making one yourself is another matter entirely, as they are surprisingly complex and high-precision devices. This hasn’t stopped [Henry Kidman] from giving it a go though, and what makes his camera more remarkable is that it’s 3D printed.
The problem facing a 16mm movie camera designer lies in precisely advancing the film by one frame at the correct rate while filming, something done in the past with a small metal claw that grabs each successive sprocket. His design eschews that for a sprocket driven by a stepper motor from an Arduino. His rotary shutter is driven by another stepper motor, and he has the basis of a good camera.
The tests show promise, but he encounters a stability problem, because as it turns out, it’s difficult to print a 16mm sprocket in plastic without it warping. He solves this by aligning frames in post-processing. After fixing a range of small problems though, he has a camera that delivers a very good picture quality, and that makes us envious.
Sadly, those of us who ply our film-hacking craft in 8mm don’t have the luxury of enough space for a sprocket to replace the claw.
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Gaetano Martino liberale europeo
@Politica interna, europea e internazionale
25 novembre 2025, ore 18:00 – Fondazione Luigi Einaudi, Via della conciliazione,10 – Roma Interverranno Emma Galli, Direttrice comitato scientifico della fondazione luigi einaudi Renata Gravina, Ricercatrice fondazione luigi einaudi
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Gaetano Martino un messinese Presidente del Parlamento Europeo
@Politica interna, europea e internazionale
31 Ottobre 2025, ore 11:00 – Villa Piccolo, Capo D’orlando (Me) Interverranno Giuseppe Benedetto, Presidente Fondazione Luigi Einaudi Andrea Pruiti Ciarello, Presidente Della Fondazione Famiglia Piccolo Di Calanovella
L'articolo Gaetano Martino un messinese Presidente del
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Starmer da Erdoğan, verso l’accordo sugli Eurofighter per la Turchia
@Notizie dall'Italia e dal mondo
Durante la visita ufficiale ad Ankara, il premier britannico Keir Starmer e il presidente turco Recep Tayyip Erdoğan hanno discusso in modo avanzato della vendita di circa quaranta caccia Eurofighter Typhoon alla Turchia. Nel corso dell’incontro il dossier ha guadagnato velocità e
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Bavaglio alla pagina Facebook di Articolo 21, interrogazione alla Presidente del Consiglio
@Giornalismo e disordine informativo
articolo21.org/2025/10/bavagli…
Il blocco forzato e senza motivazioni della pagina Facebook di Articolo 21 arriva in Parlamento, grazie
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Exploding The Mystical Craftsman Myth
As a Hackaday writer, I see a lot of web pages, social media posts, videos, and other tips as part of my feed. The best ones I try to bring you here, assuming of course that one of my ever-vigilant colleagues hasn’t beaten me to it. Along the way I see the tropes of changing content creator fashion; those ridiculous pea-sized hand held microphones, or how all of a sudden everything has to be found in the woods. Some of them make me laugh, but there’s one I see a lot which has made me increasingly annoyed over the years. I’m talking of course about the craftsman myth.
No. The Last True Nuts And Bolts Are Not Being Made In Japan
If you don’t recognise the craftsman myth immediately, I’m sure you’ll be familiar with it even if you don’t realise it yet. It goes something like this: somewhere in Japan (or somewhere else perceived as old-timey in online audience terms like Appalachia, but it’s usually Japan), there’s a bloke in a tin shed who makes nuts and bolts.
But he’s not just any bloke in a tin shed who makes nuts and bolts, he’s a special master craftsman who makes nuts and bolts like no other. He’s about 120 years old and the last of a long line of nut and bolt makers entrusted with the secrets of nut and bolt making, father to son, since the 8th century. His tools are also mystical, passed down through the generations since they were forged by other mystical craftsmen centuries ago, and his forge is like no other, its hand-cranked bellows bring to life a fire using only the finest cedar driftwood charcoal. The charcoal is also made by a 120 year old master charcoal maker Japanese bloke whose line stretches back to the n’th century, yadda yadda. And when Takahashi-san finally shuffles off this mortal coil, that’s it for nuts and bolts, because the other nuts and bolts simply can’t compare to these special ones.
Purple prose aside, this type of media annoys me, because while Takahashi-san and his brother craftsmen in Appalachia and anywhere else in the world possess amazing skills and should without question be celebrated, the videos are not about that. Instead they’re using them as a cipher for pushing the line that The World Ain’t What It Used To Be, and along the way they spread the myth that either there are no blokes in tin sheds left wherever you live, or if there are, their skills are of no significance. Perhaps the saddest part of the whole thing is that there are truly disappearing crafts which should be highlighted, but they probably don’t generate half the YouTube clicks so we don’t see much of them.
Celebrate your Local Craftsmen
My dad was a craftsman in a tin shed, just like the ones in the videos but in central southern England. Partly as a result of this I have known and dealt with a lot of blokes in tin sheds throughout my lifetime, and I am certain I would feel right at home standing in that Japanese one.
Part of coming to terms with the disturbed legacy of my own dysfunctional family has come in evaluating what from them I recognise as part of me and what I don’t, and it’s in my dad’s workshop that I realise what made me. Like all of us, he instinctively made things, usually with great success but let’s face it, like all of us too, sometimes where just buying the damn thing would have made more sense. He had truly elite skills in his craft that I will never equal, just as in my line I have mastered construction techniques which weren’t even conceived when he took his apprenticeship.
But here’s the point, my dad was not unique, and all the other blokes in tin sheds were not necessarily the same age as he was. Indeed one of the loose community of blacksmiths around where I grew up was someone who was in another year at the same school as me when I was a teenager. Even the crafts weren’t all of the mystical tools variety, I am immediately thinking of the tin shed full of CNC machine tools, or the bloke running an injection moulding operation. Believe me, both of those last two are invaluable craftsmen to know when you need their services, but they don’t fit the myth, do they? They’re not exotic.
So by all means watch those YouTube videos showing faraway folks in tin sheds and their craft, you’ll see some amazing work. But please don’t buy the mystique, or the premise that they automatically represent a disappearing world. Your part of the world will have blokes in tin sheds doing things just as impressive and useful, whether they be hand-forging steel on the anvil or working it using cutting-edge technology, and we should be seeking them out rather than lamenting a probably made-up tale from the other side of the world.
Early 20th century Japanese craftsman: Elstner Hilton, CC BY 2.0 .
Whisper 2FA: il nuovo kit di phishing che ruba le credenziali di Microsoft 365
Secondo una nuova ricerca di Barracuda Networks, un nuovo kit particolarmente insidioso e persistente di Phishing-as-a-Service (PhaaS) sta rubando credenziali e token di autenticazione agli utenti di Microsoft 365. Gli esperti di Barracuda stanno monitorando questa nuova minaccia da luglio 2025 e l’hanno denominata Whisper 2FA.
I ricercatori nell’ultimo mese, hanno rilevato quasi un milione di attacchi Whisper 2FA rivolti agli account all’interno di diverse campagne di phishing su larga scala: una cifra che rende Whisper il terzo kit di PhaaS più diffuso dopo Tycoon ed EvilProxy.
L’analisi tecnica di Barracuda dimostra che la funzionalità di Whisper 2FA è sia avanzata sia adattabile. Le sue caratteristiche innovative includono loop continui per rubare i token di autenticazione, diversi livelli di camuffamento e tattiche ingegnose per ostacolare l’analisi del codice malevolo e dei dati rubati. Una minaccia concreta per le organizzazioni che si sta evolvendo rapidamente.
Stando a quanto emerso, le caratteristiche principali di Whisper 2FA comprendono:
- Loop di furto delle credenziali. Whisper 2FA può ripetere continuamente il processo di furto delle credenziali di un account finché gli aggressori non sono certi di aver ottenuto un token di autenticazione a più fattori (MFA) funzionante. Per i difensori, ciò significa che nemmeno i codici scaduti o errati riescono a fermare l’attacco, poiché il kit di phishing continua a richiedere alla vittima di reinserire i propri dati e ricevere un nuovo codice fino a quando gli aggressori non ne ottengono uno funzionante. Inoltre, Whisper 2FA è stato progettato per adattarsi a qualsiasi metodo MFA utilizzato.
- Tattiche complesse per eludere il rilevamento e l’analisi. Queste includono più livelli di offuscamento, come la codifica e la crittografia del codice di attacco, l’impostazione di trappole per gli strumenti di analisi e il blocco delle scorciatoie da tastiera comunemente utilizzate per l’ispezione. Ciò rende difficile per gli addetti alla sicurezza e gli strumenti di difesa analizzare l’attività di Whisper 2FA e rilevare automaticamente azioni sospette e dannose.
- Una tattica di phishing versatile. Il form di phishing di Whisper 2FA invia tutti i dati inseriti dalla vittima ai cyber criminali, indipendentemente dal pulsante premuto dall’utente. I dati rubati vengono rapidamente manipolati e crittografati, rendendo difficile per chiunque monitori la rete rendersi immediatamente conto che i dati di accesso sono stati sottratti.
Il kit di phishing Whisper 2FA sta progredendo rapidamente sia in termini di complessità tecnica sia di strategie anti-rilevamento. L’analisi di Barracuda evidenzia come le prime varianti del kit presentassero commenti testuali aggiunti dagli sviluppatori, alcuni livelli di offuscamento e tecniche anti-analisi che si concentravano principalmente sulla disabilitazione del menu contestuale (tasto destro del mouse), utilizzato nell’ispezione del codice.
Al contrario, le varianti più recenti del kit individuate da Barracuda sono prive di commenti, l’offuscamento è diventato più denso e stratificato e sono state aggiunte nuove protezioni per rendere più difficile ai difensori analizzare o manomettere il sistema. Tra queste figurano trucchi per rilevare e bloccare gli strumenti di debugging, disabilitare le scorciatoie utilizzate dagli sviluppatori e mandare in tilt gli strumenti di ispezione. Inoltre, questa variante consente di convalidare i token di autenticazione in tempo reale attraverso il sistema di comando e controllo degli aggressori.
“Le caratteristiche e le funzionalità di Whisper 2FA dimostrano come i kit di phishing si siano evoluti da semplici strumenti per il furto di credenziali a sofisticate piattaforme di attacco”, afferma Saravanan Mohankumar, Manager, Threat Analysis team di Barracuda. “Combinando l’intercettazione dell’autenticazione multifattoriale in tempo reale, più livelli di offuscamento e tecniche anti-analisi, Whisper 2FA ostacola ulteriormente gli utenti e i team di sicurezza nel rilevamento delle frodi. Per rimanere protette, le organizzazioni devono superare le difese statiche e adottare strategie multilivello: formazione degli utenti, MFA resistente al phishing, monitoraggio continuo e condivisione delle informazioni sulle minacce”.
L’analisi di Whisper 2FA di Barracuda mostra alcune somiglianze con Salty 2FA, un nuovo PhaaS incentrato sul furto delle credenziali M365 segnalato di recente da AnyRun, ma anche notevoli differenze rispetto a rivali più vecchi e affermati come Evil Proxy, tra cui un sistema di furto delle credenziali semplificato e più difficile da rilevare.
Le nuove tecniche di offuscamento dei link malevoli di Tycoon
In un altro report recente, Barracuda ha anche portato alla luce nuove tecniche usate dal kit di Phishing-as-a-Service Tycoon per nascondere link malevoli nelle e-mail. In particolare, queste strategie sono pensate per offuscare, confondere e alterare la struttura dei link o degli URL e ingannare così i sistemi di rilevamento automatico assicurandosi che i link non vengano bloccati. Di seguito, alcuni esempi:
- Inserire una serie di spazi invisibili nel link dannoso, digitando ripetutamente il codice ” ” nella sua barra degli indirizzi;
- Aggiungere al link caratteri insoliti, come un simbolo “Unicode” che assomiglia a un punto ma non lo è;
- Inserire un indirizzo e-mail nascosto o un codice speciale alla fine del link;
- Elaborare un URL solo parzialmente ipertestuale o contenente elementi non validi, come due “https” o l’assenza di “//”, per nascondere la destinazione reale del link, assicurandosi che la parte attiva sembri innocua;
- Utilizzare il simbolo “@” nell’indirizzo del link. Infatti, tutto ciò che precede “@” viene trattato dai browser come “informazione utente”, quindi gli aggressori inseriscono in questa sezione un testo che appare affidabile e attendibile, come ad esempio “office365”. La destinazione effettiva del link si trova invece dopo il simbolo “@”;
- Utilizzare link web con simboli anomali, come barre rovesciate “” o il simbolo del dollaro “$”, che normalmente non vengono usati negli URL. Questi caratteri possono alterare il modo in cui gli strumenti di sicurezza leggono l’indirizzo, aiutando un link malevolo a sfuggire ai sistemi di rilevamento automatico;
- Creare un URL in cui la prima parte è innocua e ipertestuale, mentre la seconda parte, quella dannosa, appare come un semplice testo. Ma, poiché la parte dannosa non è collegata a nulla, non viene letta correttamente dagli strumenti di sicurezza.
L'articolo Whisper 2FA: il nuovo kit di phishing che ruba le credenziali di Microsoft 365 proviene da Red Hot Cyber.
