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Comment by kichik | Hacker News Reader

Any indication to suggest it's DDoS and not just too many legitimate visitors for the site to handle?

The article doesn't talk about the site of the initiative, but Nordea one of the banks whose services can be used for identification. Nordea says on twitter they are under a DDoS attack and their services are slow at the moment (but don't seem to say anything about the identity service or citizens initiative specifically).

https://twitter.com/Nordea_Aspa/status/1498681430993473542

I think Nordea might be the second most popular retail bank in Finland, at least if we go by mortgages as a proxy metric. Osuuspankki would be the largest one, but I haven't heard of them having any issues.

Nordea in Finland is known for having slight issues several times a year, and they usually end rather quickly.

Yesterday, 2022-03-01 at roughly 09:00 UTC, I was completely blocked from accessing my bank account. Eight hours later, at roughly 17:00 UTC, it took me several attempts, each loading for over a minute, until I gained access to my account. "Normal" issues fail immediately, so this time felt completely different.

The YLE news article stated that this was indeed a DoS attack, and I think it's been years since a Finnish bank was targeted.

This is a very valid question. While Russia likely cares, I'm not sure this is "top of mind" for them to dedicate resources against.

> While Russia likely cares, I'm not sure this is "top of mind" for them to dedicate resources against.

I'm not so sure. It seems Putin really doesn't like NATO, and especially doesn't want Russia's neighbors belonging to it.

I agree on that point, and it's history with Finland is quite...terse. It's been a duchy inside Czarist Russia, a buffer zone between it and Sweden (when both were kingdoms), it's had civil unrest fomented by the USSR, etc.

It's a relationship fraught with bad blood, but strategically it's second tier compared with CIS states, the Middle East, or the Baltic states.

At this stage I'm more curious as to whether (if Russia was actually DDoSing instead of just a poorly configured webhead with extra traffic due to 'timeliness' of the initiative) it makes sense to draw more negative attention to oneself, as Putin has, by doubling down on taking jabs at everyone he shares a border with...and if he's starting to see that himself, or if he's only observing through a very paranoid, myopic lens that he simply can't get out of his own policy rut long enough to not totally collapse the Russian state, and him with it.

> I'm not sure this is "top of mind" for them to dedicate resources against

This entire war is about Ukraine joining NATO, and the expanding NATO influence in general. How would another bordering country having a NATO referendum not be top of mind for Russia?

Ukraine is a much larger fixation to Putin beyond NATO. There wasn't really any indication of Ukraine joining NATO before Russia started its attacks, and Finland and Sweden have been floating the idea of joining NATO if Russia started a full assault.

"There wasn't really any indication of Ukraine joining NATO"

Yes there was. Going back to Clinton, there were moved to expand NATO eastward (at least once Nuclear possession was sorted out under Bush I/Baker) and it's been a sore spot for Putin ever since, although only distractingly so since about 2014. https://www.nato.int/cps/en/natohq/topics_37750.htm

Because the Finns and Russians have form. A second invasion against Finland would be a second go at the Winter War, and while they may not be a nato member, they are a full fledged EU member and Ukraine has shown that the EU will absolutely step up.

The EU may not include the US or UK, but it does include every other nuclear weapon on continental Europe.

Russia has a ton of resources in psyops and cyber espionage, this isn't a big operation. Why is keeping the Finns and Sweden out of NATO not "top of mind"?

Slowing down this vote would do nothing for a potential for NATO membership process. It's quite far-fetched that this would be a valid target.

Friends are seeing escalating probes here in Canada. It's incredibly naive to believe they don't have the resources to attack pretty much anything they want.

They don't HAVE to prioritize is my point.

> While Russia likely cares, I'm not sure this is "top of mind" for them to dedicate resources against.

It's top of mind enough for them to have just issued a threat of “military and political consequences” if Sweden or Finland were to join NATO.

https://thehill.com/policy/international/russia/595853-russi...

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