Iran Says It Hit Oracle Facilities in UAE | Hacker News Reader

Iran Says It Hit Oracle Facilities in UAE

gizmodo.com

46 pointsBetelbuddy19 comments

I believe this is fake. Iran repeatedly claims to have struck targets, without evidence to back it up.

The Dubai government denies this strike happened https://gulfnews.com/uae/dubai-denies-reports-of-an-irgc-att...

And the Oracle live status report webpage says everything is online, and there are no active incidents in Dubai. The history page reports no incidents in Dubai since the start of the conflict.

https://ocistatus.oraclecloud.com/#/

As an example of fake claims, Iran claimed to have struck the aircraft carrier USS Abraham Lincoln with hypersonic missiles three times already. But the ship is still sailing and launching sorties. They then post AI generated pictures and videos as 'evidence' that the strikes were successful.

It's also a warcrime, of course. I wonder if, if they lied, is it still a warcrime? I would expect it is.

I guess we'll see what the consequences are to warcrimes. Massive worldwide demonstrations in favor of the people committing warcrimes, like usually?

What motivation would Iran have to not commit war crimes?

It's not as if the US and Israel are restraining themselves from committing war crimes. Certainly the UN isn't going to step in and do anything.

This war started with the US committing a war crime (blowing up a girl's school).

...what? What does the UN have to do with war crimes lol. And why would the US care about war crimes we literally aren't signatory to the Rome statute. how could your comment get so many things wrong in so little text.

war crimes don't have anything to do with Rome, Rome is only about prosecution by ICC

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_war_crimes

And while the US is a member of the UN and therefore subject to the jurisdiction of the International Court of Justice (not the ICC), as a permanent member of the UN Security Council, it also has the power to unilaterally veto any enforcement action (as do China, France, Russia, and the UK).

Ok? The ICC prosecutes war crimes in complementarity. The ICJ does not. Not sure what UN Security Council has to do with anything? I can't tell if this is AI. Add to your slop context you're probably thinking of IHL.

What you are leaving out is that governments can choose whether the ICC definition of warcrime applies to their territory. Iran has chosen that the Rome treaty, and the ICC, does not apply to Iran. It has even used this fact to request the ICC drop cases against them.

We all know why: 99.99% of warcrimes on Iranian territory were committed by Iran's islamist regime.

So Rome statute warcrimes are a legal impossibility in Iran. The Rome statute, that law and that definition of warcrime does not apply to anything happening in Iran.

You do recognize the contradiction saying Rome Statute has nothing to do with war crimes, then saying Rome Statute is how you prosecute war crimes right?

Datacenters aren't categorized for warcrimes. Desalination plants, water treatment plants, power plants, etc. would be highly significant for millions of the population.

Outside of the countries involved, Is it really a war crime though?

If Oracle's providing services to your enemy's army aren't they a "legitimate" target just like a tank factory?

“Israel and the powerful American lobby” don't sign the guestbook when they speak behind closed doors planning the Occupied Territories Cancer in the U.S. Congress and Senate, Gaza.

Are there any military personnel working at the Oracle Facility? Big Tech is very much used in this War so not a stretch to imagine military personnel working there.

Apparently the hotels that were struck in Dubai etc were attacked because US military personnel were working remotely there due to US bases being damaged.

So it's down to a contest of whether to trust the government of Iran, or a cloud vendor status page?

Maybe we can check something hosted in Oracle Cloud as the tiebreaker?

No, most likely Iran actually launched missiles targeted at the Oracle datacenter, but they were intercepted. The UAE successfully intercepts about 90% of incoming Iranian drones and missiles.

Then Iran then claims the attack was successful for domestic propaganda purposes, and since there is no internet in Iran, nobody can verify if it was actually successful.

> The Dubai government denies this strike happened

In the UAE it's illegal to talk about the strikes, or post videos of them online. $55,000+ fine and 2+ years in prison. Over 100 people have already been arrested.

When the two different governments said contradictory things, in other situations a journalist would arrange for a local correspondent to head over to the Oracle building and see if it's visibly damaged, maybe get some photos.

It's interesting, because I initially thought these restrictions in UAE were strictly because of operational security. That is why Israel and Ukraine, for example, also forbid posting images of missile impacts: it provides valuable targeting information to the enemy. In Israel the legal framework is military censorship; in Ukraine it's martial law. Enforcement against individuals is strong in Ukraine, and more selective in Israel - presumably because Ukraine has a bigger internal infiltration problem, or perhaps because Israelis are more disciplined or have more effective social pressure?

In any case, in turns out I was mistaken: apparently in UAE the wave of arrests are not framed as operational security, but a wider ban on information that could "spread misinformation", "cause panic", "affect national security", or "damage reputation". So it's a wider legal framework with more complicated implications - less of a no-brainer than I initially thought!

UAE has always been one of the more repressive government on the planet.

Something confirmed: "UAE Confirms Debris Fell on Oracle Building in Dubai" - https://sundayguardianlive.com/world/us-isreal-iran-war-late...

Reply on news.ycombinator.com