There's a far simpler explanation than some outside actor (either state sponsored or otherwise) deciding that the best thing they can do is to muck around with freezers.

We know there's been a severe rot of operational capabilities in the military thanks for Hegseths purges and general stupidity. It's entirely possible and quite likely that over the course of his various drunken binges he decided to get rid of people who were in charge of operational control for stuff like freezers across military bases.

▲ voidUpdate 2 days ago | parent | next [-]

I would agree, but the freezers going into high heat defrost mode seems like an intentional action from someone, whether that be incompetence or malice on the side of DeCA, or malice from a third party. If they got rid of the people commanding the freezers what to do, I feel like they'd just stay on whatever mode they were already on, rather than suddenly command all the freezers to defrost

	▲	ssl-3 a day ago \| parent [-]
		Defrosting is very often automatic. That can involve mechanical timers, or software timers, or logic/code of any complexity. All of these things can be badly-implemented and/or become broken or stuck. Maybe the mode they got stuck on was defrost. `if n>100 then defrost until y=3` If n is found to be greater than 100 and y subsequently never comes 'round to be 3, then defrost starts and runs forever.

▲ kjs3 2 days ago | parent | prev | next [-]

To be fair, if you want to mess with your adversaries troop morale, screwing up dinner is pretty effective.

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astura a day ago | parent [-]

These are commissary fridges, not galley fridges.

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schiffern a day ago | parent | next [-]

Still troops, still dinner?

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ssl-3 a day ago | parent [-]

Often more like a tax-free cost-plus-5% grocery store that sells some of everything (including cat food), but yeah: Still troops, and some of that stuff might become dinner.

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schiffern a day ago | parent [-]

Fair points.

"some of that stuff might become dinner" is splitting hairs, I feel.

Why? Because disruptions along the supply line are disruptions along the supply line. If a deep Russian ammo depot had a sudden smoking accident, you would (rightly) think it absurd for a Russian mil-blogger to quip that "technically we didn't lose ammo, the fuses are put in right before firing, we lost stuff that might become ammo." Seems less convincing now, right?

Maybe tonight's meal isn't disrupted, but the weekly meal planning is certainly disrupted. I hate to say it, but if the intent was an opportunistic hit to troop morale before a CVE got burned anyway, I'd say mission accomplished. :(

If this does turn out to be an attack, it's from decades of higher-ups ignoring cybersecurity coming home to roost.

	▲	Jtsummers a day ago \| parent \| next [-]
		> Maybe tonight's meal isn't disrupted, but the weekly meal planning is certainly disrupted. This appears to be happening stateside, and most, if not all, of the listed bases have nearby grocery stores (I'm saying most based on the ones I recognize and know where they are, I didn't look up the rest). This is an annoyance, not a massive disruption. Honestly, it probably creates more disruption for the retirees in the areas around the bases than it does the local active duty members.
	▲	ssl-3 a day ago \| parent \| prev [-]
		I'm not splitting hairs. I'm just tryin' to talk about the commissary's role. :) I agree that it is an important role that would be worthy of disruption for a motivated attacker. But also: These things aren't usually at the center of vast food deserts. There's typically other ways to find some grub, like the Wal-Mart right over there.

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kjs3 a day ago | parent | prev [-]

Sorry, forgot '/its-a-joke-not-a-legal-filing'.

▲ Kichererbsen 2 days ago | parent | prev | next [-]

General Stupidity should probably be demoted for this.

▲ odyssey7 2 days ago | parent | prev | next [-]

This is exactly the sort of thing that a saboteur would want its targets to think.

“If sovereign and subject are in accord, put division between them.” —Sun Tzu, The Art of War

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fzeroracer 2 days ago | parent [-]

That's the exact sort of thing the military would want us to think, because 'we were hacked by another nation' sounds a lot better than 'we fired the people responsible for food logistics'. You're not going to be able to divine the real reason this way.

	▲	odyssey7 2 days ago \| parent [-]
		There would be far better excuses here than saying “we’re incompetent.”

▲ avs733 18 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

A quick check says this contract has been in place since 2020.

The internet security practices I experienced when working with the DOD in a prior life were…interesting?

Outside of the classified realm, there seemed to be little to no on the ground understanding of the Internet. Many things where internet connected that shouldn’t be or weren’t that should. I was involved in one contract where we had to demonstrate the ability to remotely access and control a system (to satisfy the system’s owner) as well as demonstrate that the system could not be remotely accessed via the internet (to satisfy the base IT folks). The solution was a hotspot kept in a lock box…that I doubt was ever locked after we left because it was constantly attached to our internal monitoring network despite our pleas.

▲ 566788899999 2 days ago | parent | prev [-]

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