Russia opposition leader poisoned with Novichok • Hacker News Board

Re: Russia opposition leader poisoned with Novichok

#61

Post by osipov » Wed, Sep 02, 2020, 4:33 PM UTC

ogogmad wrote: post #54

osipov wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I love it how the mainstream media gets to decide what's a conspiracy theory and what's not.

The attempted murder of Sergei Skripal by Russia is a conspiracy theory? Who else would poison him with a nerve agent? Who else would have the motive? Who'd have access to such an agent?

I'm training a machine learning model that honeypots commenters like you with provocative news articles. Next, the comments section is cleaned up to eliminate commenter spam. It works amazingly well!

Re: Russia opposition leader poisoned with Novichok

#62

Post by baron_harkonnen » Wed, Sep 02, 2020, 4:34 PM UTC

z6sic6z wrote: post #42

Stupidly to poison someone, and then give them to other country.... 0_0 Say someone is a leader this less then 2% stupidly too...

We've seen this poisoning technique used plenty of times by the Kremlin. The message here isn't "we want you dead" but an empirical demonstration that "we can, if we want, kill you anywhere, any time and it doesn't matter how obvious it is that we're the ones doing it. We will face no consequences. In fact we'll make sure to 'sign' our poisoning attempt and do it in a place you think you're safe."

Killing a member of the opposition is pointless, broadcasting despair to all potential opposers is very valuable.

Re: Russia opposition leader poisoned with Novichok

#63

Post by osipov » Wed, Sep 02, 2020, 4:34 PM UTC

hkai wrote: post #60

billiam wrote: post #16

If it was in his tea he never would have made it on the plane. The inventor of Novichok pointed this out and said it was likely applied to his skin.

In the case of the Skripals, the effects were slower than that, seems to be around three hours, from quick googling.

I'm training a machine learning model that honeypots commenters like you with provocative news articles. Next, the comments section is cleaned up to eliminate commenter spam. It works amazingly well!

Re: Russia opposition leader poisoned with Novichok

#64

Post by osipov » Wed, Sep 02, 2020, 4:35 PM UTC

golergka wrote: post #55

If you had any doubts that HN was for a long while also targeted by Russian comment farms, you should definitely read through this comment section.

I'm training a machine learning model that honeypots commenters like you with provocative news articles. Next, the comments section is cleaned up to eliminate commenter spam. It works amazingly well!

Re: Russia opposition leader poisoned with Novichok

#65

Post by archgoon » Wed, Sep 02, 2020, 4:35 PM UTC

osipov wrote: post #53

MattGaiser wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Depends on what you want to achieve. A reliable source just verified to all other potential opponents that they might be poisoned.

>A reliable source Right...my reliable source just verified that they might not be poisoned.

The "reliable source" here is the German Government. It has confirmed that, yes, Navalny was poisoned, and yes, he was poisoned with a hard to obtain poison that has been used in the past by the Russian government.

This does seem to reduce the likelihood that Navalny wasn't poisoned, or that he was poisoned by someone unconnected to the government. MattGaiser's argument is that the implied threat is the goal, which is helped by confirmation of the above.

Re: Russia opposition leader poisoned with Novichok

#66

Post by [deleted] » Wed, Sep 02, 2020, 4:35 PM UTC

osipov wrote: post #61

ogogmad wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The attempted murder of Sergei Skripal by Russia is a conspiracy theory? Who else would poison him with a nerve agent? Who else would have the motive? Who'd have access to such an agent?

I'm training a machine learning model that honeypots commenters like you with provocative news articles. Next, the comments section is cleaned up to eliminate commenter spam. It works amazingly well!

[deleted]

Re: Russia opposition leader poisoned with Novichok

#67

Post by hnarn » Wed, Sep 02, 2020, 4:35 PM UTC

osipov wrote: post #53

MattGaiser wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Depends on what you want to achieve. A reliable source just verified to all other potential opponents that they might be poisoned.

>A reliable source Right...my reliable source just verified that they might not be poisoned.

You're insinuating that the German government is lying? Or that they're not a reliable source?

Re: Russia opposition leader poisoned with Novichok

#68

Post by siliconvalley1 » Wed, Sep 02, 2020, 4:35 PM UTC

rosywoozlechan wrote: post #40

I wouldn't be so quick to point the finger at Putin or a government conspiracy personally. There are a lot of powerful billionaires in Russia who exist thanks to Putin and it seems plausible that one of them, given their vested interest in keeping their patron in charge, might have poisoned the man.

And that billionaire just happens to have access to a Russian Military Chemical Weapon?

Re: Russia opposition leader poisoned with Novichok

#69

Post by thursday0987 » Wed, Sep 02, 2020, 4:36 PM UTC

pps43 wrote: post #47

gonzo41 wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is bad. But it was targeted. I worry about how easy it would be for terrorists to do something very bad with a large quantity of this stuff seeing it's so easy to move about.

It's not easy to obtain or synthesize. Terrorists prefer simpler approaches.

> Terrorists prefer simpler approaches.

that is a very dangerous assumption to make.

Re: Russia opposition leader poisoned with Novichok

#70

Post by hexfaker » Wed, Sep 02, 2020, 4:36 PM UTC

chinhodado wrote: post #17

Maybe I'm too skeptical, but this seems a bit too obvious to me. Why would you try to poison someone with no real threat to you and risk him becoming a martyr, using a method that immediately brings you to mind, with a nerve agent that is also strongly linked to you?

Not real threat, huh?

There is at least "Smart vote" (aka умное голосование) initiative, that helped to beat government on some regional elections earlier.

Oh, and it's big election day in less than two weeks, so there is definetely a motivation for poisoning.