Russia gave Israel Iranian system's codes

WikiLeaks has released an email exchange between employees of Stratfor, the US-based global intelligence company, which reveals Israel and Russia made a deal to swap access codes for defense and surveillance equipment.

According to the leaked document, Israel gave Russia the "data link codes" for unmanned aerial vehicles that the Jewish state sold to Georgia, and in return, Russia gave Israel the codes for Tor-M1 missile defense systems that Russia sold Iran.

In a document by a Stratfor employee dated February 2009 she says that she had met with a "Mexican source/friend" who told her that Israel and Russia had contracted a deal several years ago as part of which Israel provided Russia with codes of UAVs it had sold to Georgia. In exchange Moscow provided the Israelis with the codes for Iran's Tor-M1 aerial defense systems. The document suggests that the deal was signed before the Russia-Georgia war of August 2008 during which Russian forces invaded Georgia. At the time it was reported that Georgia was using Israel-made weapons. It can also be understood from the document that the Georgians had at one point realized that their UAVs were compromised and were looking for a replacement for the Israeli made drones. The Mexican source also addressed the S-300 aerial defense systems which Israel and the West have spent years trying to dissuade Russia from handing over to Tehran. The source said that Israel and Turkey were collaborating very closely in regards to the system and that since Russia sold them to Greece – Turkey's longtime rival – Ankara has been busy tryinh to crack their codes.

Interestingly, there was a chess-like game board played by the Vikings called “Hnefatafl” or “King’s Table”, but instead of two armies facing off across the board from one another, in Hnefatafl there is a citadel in the center of the board for one player and the other player is in a surrounding or siege position which was more typical of Viking engagements.

From Wikipedia:

“Tafl games were a family of ancient Germanic and Celtic board games played on a checkered or latticed board with two teams of uneven strength.

Although the size of the board and the number of pieces varied, all games involved a distinctive 2:1 ratio of pieces, with the lesser side having a king-piece which started in the centre. The king’s objective was to escape to (variously) the board’s periphery or corners, while the greater force’s objective was to capture him. There is also some controversy over whether some tafl games (i.e. Hnefatafl and Tawlbwrdd) may have employed dice. Tafl spread everywhere the Vikings traveled, including Iceland, Britain, Ireland, and Lapland. Versions of Tafl, comprising Hnefatafl, Alea Evangelii, Tawlbwrdd, Brandubh, Ard Ri and Tablut, were played across much of Northern Europe from earlier than 400 CE until it was supplanted by Chess in the 12th century.”

It could be argued that such games were the first attempt at simulation training.

Thanks!

There is a BBC articled on the lines of exploring the Welsh-Hindi link. You could probably Google it to find it.

It could be argued that such games were the first attempt at simulation training.

From Wikipedia:

The earliest precursor of modern chess is a game called chaturanga, which flourished in India by the 6th century, and is the earliest known game to have two essential features found in all later chess variations — different pieces having different powers (which was not the case withcheckers and go), and victory depending on the fate of one piece, the king of modern chess. Other game pieces (speculatively called "chess pieces") uncovered in archaeological findings are considered as coming from other, distantly related, board games, which may have had boards of 100 squares or more. Findings in the Mohenjo-daro and Harappa (2600–1500 BCE) sites of the Indus Valley Civilization show a prevalence of a board game that resembles chess.

Chess was designed for an ashtāpada (Sanskrit for "having eight feet", i.e. an 8x8 squared board), which may have been used earlier for a backgammon-type race game (perhaps related to a dice-driven race game still played in south India where the track starts at the middle of a side and spirals in to the center).^[17] Ashtāpada, the uncheckered 8×8 board served as the main board for playing Chaturanga.^[18] Other Indian boards included the 10×10 Dasapada and the 9×9 Saturankam. Traditional Indian chessboards often have X markings on some or all of squares a1 a4 a5 a8 d1 d4 d5 d8 e1 e4 e5 e8 h1 h4 h5 h8: these may have been "safe squares" where capturing was not allowed in a dice-driven backgammon-type race game played on the ashtāpada before chess was invented.

The Cox-Forbes theory, started in the late 19th century, mainly from the works of Captain Hiram Cox and Duncan Forbes, proposed that the four-handed game chaturaji was the original form of chaturanga.Other scholars dispute this and say that the two-handed form was the first.

In Sanskrit, "chaturanga" (चतुरङ्ग) literally means "having four limbs (or parts)" and in epic poetry often means "army" (the four parts are elephants, chariots, horsemen, foot soldiers). The name came from a battle formation mentioned in the Indian epic Mahabharata. The game Chaturanga was a battle simulation game which rendered Indian military strategy of the time.

Some people formerly played chess using a die to decide which piece to move. There was an unproven theory that chess started as this dice-chess and that the gambling and dice aspects of the game were removed because of Hindu religious objections.

Scholars in areas to which the game subsequently spread, for example the Arab Abu al-Hasan 'Alī al-Mas'ūdī, detailed the Indian use of chess as a tool for military strategy,mathematics, gambling and even its vague association with astronomy. Mas'ūdī notes that ivory in India was chiefly used for the production of chess and backgammon pieces, and asserts that the game was introduced to Persia from India, along with the book Kelileh va Demneh, during the reign of emperor Nushirwan.

In some variants, a win was by checkmate, or by stalemate, or by "bare king" (taking all of an opponent's pieces except the king).

In some parts of India the pieces in the places of the Rook, Knight and Bishop were renamed by words meaning (in this order) Boat, Horse, and Elephant, or Elephant, Horse, and Camel, but keeping the same moves.

In early chess the moves of the pieces were:

King: as now.
Queen: one square diagonally, only.
Bishop:
- In the version that went into Persia: two squares diagonally (no more or less), but could jump over a piece between
- In a version sometimes found in India in former times: two squares sideways or front-and-back (no more or less), but could jump over a piece between.
- In versions found in Southeast Asia: one square diagonally, or one square forwards.
Knight: as now.
Rook: as now.
Pawn: one square forwards (not two), capturing one square diagonally forward; promoted to queen only.

Two Arab travelers each recorded a severe Indian chess rule against stalemate:

A stalemated player thereby at once wins.
A stalemated king can take one of the enemy pieces that would check the king if the king moves.

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