Russia has the last laugh since they confiscated 3 copies of The Sims 3.
https://www.vice.com/en/article/88gpmg/russia-sims-3
It almost makes less sense WITH context.
Before anyone asks, yes, russia really is that dumb.
recollecting from memory: Early in the war, russian news reported they busted a nazi hideout in the occupied donbass region. The report was accompanied by a picture of swastika flags, nazi tshirts, 3 copies of the “Sims 3” game and a document signed with “Illegible”. All layed out neatly on a bed.
Apparently, the instructions for staging the photo was to include Nazi paraphenalia, 3 SIM Cards and a document with an illegible signature. And someone didn’t read the instructions properly (or took them too literal), and instead used 3 copies of Sims 3, as well as a document signed with the name “illegible”
How does this have negative three comments??
why are these are being set up in Ukraine and not Russia? What do they gain from having them within reach of the Ukrainian police?
Couldn’t they set up a VPN / Proxy in Ukraine and have the actual bot farm run from within Russia.
If they did that it would be pretty easy to spot for anyone looking, all the bot accounts would be connecting through the same IP address(es). For it to be believable, you would need thousands of Ukrainian IP addresses, owned by Ukrainian internet providers. What Russia did is an effective way to achieve this. With thousands of sim cards on multiple Ukrainian mobile networks, the traffic is very hard to distinguish from real Ukrainian internet traffic. Of course the downside is that all the devices with those sim cards have to be in Ukraine for it to work. It’s also possible that at least some of these devices were essentially just acting as VPNs for more devices in Russia.
My guess is that it’d make it look like it were actual ukrainians spreading the disinfo, as the IP wouldn’t show russian addresses. Could also be that Ukraine is blocking internet traffic from Russia, so being there is a way to bypass the block.
I fully expect the assholes behind said farms to be safely within russian territory, so they’re just sighing and shrugging as having to set up a new base.
Still, being physically there is weird. Aren’t there reliable ways to fake it?
Depends what you mean by “faking”. You can fake Ukrainian IP by using some VPN service, but then you’re using VPN IP which is quite obvious. If you want many genuinely residential IPs, you could use some botnet and infected computers in Ukraine. This is more authentic and harder to filter out. But some services actually require phone number and at least capability to receive texts to verify the number, some use the number as user account. (Telegram and such) Then you need actual SIM cards (not to be confused with Sims 3, the game 😉) and you need to connect to local cell tower. (perhaps you could do roaming, but that would be quite obvious long term) Now to fake all that, you’d need at least some devices operated in Ukraine and at that stage it’s probably easier to find some people willing to do this locally for money or because they are high on russian propaganda themselves.
Daily comment to say fuck Russia
I agree that there’s nothing wrong with being any ethnicity (although that’s a creepy way to say it), however the Russian public does have extremely high support for Putin’s actions: https://www.statista.com/statistics/896181/putin-approval-rating-russia/
Notice the huge jump in approval when he invaded Ukraine. Only FDR, Truman, Kennedy, and the Bushes have ever gotten that high of approval in the US.
And Americans voted Trump.
I’m not trying to whataboutism here, my point is that even an actual democracy people are fooled by the (political)elite. We can’t blame the Russian people for living in a dictatorship and for (foolishly) trusting / listening to their media, I think. Still open to be convinced otherwise.
If you had left out “gorgeous Russian girls” you would probably have significantly fewer downvotes. I generally agree it’s not the people’s fault their nation is a dictatorship, but I think generally when people say fuck Russia they mean fuck the Russian state, not the geographical area nor the people that happened to be born there.
Russian girls part was the best for it shows how unhinged they are if they aren’t a troll.
I happened to be born there, and I’ve seen a discussion about who’s to blame for so long it’s nausiating.
Idk what foreigners mean by that, probs they just react to the news and socialize by saying that without a second thought most of the time.
But the sad truth is regular people were purposefully fucked in the head for two decades (after just ten years of promising chaos). That’s not easy to undo. They won’t magically wake up after wishing another drone strike on Kiyv, they don’t believe they deserve political power or freedom, all they talk is how they are wronged by the world and how they get their sweet revenge.
If they weren’t so submissive it couldn’t have happened. It’s a learnt serf mentality. And they are complicit in that tragedy as well. Not as much, but it sure feels like there we see the whole country acting as a one, not a handful of leaders doing that against their will. And others like me not having means or courage to speak up. I’ve been already disowned by some friendgroups, thankfully without telling on me.
The whole thing about carving out ‘the good russians’ is done by people who didn’t (or couldn’t) do anything before it’s too late, to feel better and to bear with it. It’s its’ own subculture. And I really doubt this distinction means much in the big picture. Unvocal minority not even hitting the margin of error, and not deserving support like those who actually fucking die. A community without it’s place.
And I’m really surprised I see this group named in english language.
edit: Originally there were three or four paragraphs. I sent it too early.
I always wonder if Russia would collapse, if suddenly a lot of the disinfo & hate on various online media would become noticeably quieter.
That partially already happened at the start of the war. There was a massive “brain drain” among the higher educated part of society, which did include a bunch of hackers. Why live inside russia these days when you can move elsewhere and get paid better?
communist propaganda
It’s like you know that these are words, and they’re words that you’ve seen people put together in the past, but you have no idea what they mean.
Where is anyone talking about communism? Where is the propaganda? What the fuck are you even talking about??
Where is anyone talking about communism?
Lemmygrad.ml, I assume? I dunno if it’s “propaganda,” though, mainly because I haven’t really seen much from that instance. It isn’t defederated or anything; it just apparently isn’t popular enough to show up in Active/Hot/Top.
there’s also iran, I wouldn’t be surprised if north korea and china also have bot farms, and then even in america evangelical christians fund shady hate operations around the world too
its well known china has an enormous online presence set around spreading misinformation, and of course the worlds best ‘whataboutisms’ you are ever likely to see
You can see them all over the lemmy.ml worldnews community talking about how Ukranians dying needlessly isn’t anybody else’s concern and any aid to them will immediately mean nuclear annihilation of the entire world.
