Russia opposition leader poisoned with Novichok • Hacker News Board

Re: Russia opposition leader poisoned with Novichok

#351

Post by lazyjones » Thu, Sep 03, 2020, 7:31 AM UTC

sireat wrote: post #259

ogogmad wrote: post #135

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think many Russian people, especially those who watch or read mainly Russian news, hold such views with complete sincerity. The internal propaganda is quite effective.

Anecdotally, my inlaws who are NOT Russian also hold pro-Putin and pro-Lukashenko views. I avoid politics with them. Why? Because they mostly watch Russian TV (those Russian WW2 serials are addicting). The propaganda in the Russian TV talk shows and news is very well done. It is just like any other echo chamber. Just like watching Fox News,listening to Limbaugh in US, etc. There are echo chambers for all political sp…

> There are echo chambers for all political spectrums and all countries.

And your conclusion is to avoid politics with your in-laws, so you can stay in your own echo chamber. Well done...

Re: Russia opposition leader poisoned with Novichok

#352

Post by sam_lowry_ » Thu, Sep 03, 2020, 7:33 AM UTC

lazyjones wrote: post #350

sam_lowry_ wrote: post #280

Earlier quoted context omitted.

@dang, I collected 5000 exit points of what seems to be sources of Kremlinbot activity here: https://gist.github.com/mikhailian/5d65694fdaaf0ccbab4c6cf39... watch out these are IPv4 and IPv6 formatted lists of subnets as exported from ipset. There are some specifics to my use case, take this with a grain of sault. Hope this helps sorting genuine Putin-lovers from Kremlin bots.

I picked a random IPv4 address from this list and looked at it. It's a dynamic mobile IP address from Belgium, used by thousands of customers. Come on people, apply some common sense and stop the hysteria.

I know, there are quite a few of those. Pick one of the subnets, they are more interesting.

Re: Russia opposition leader poisoned with Novichok

#353

Post by PoroTheMurderer » Thu, Sep 03, 2020, 7:55 AM UTC

YarickR2 wrote: post #174

Where are those toxicology results ?

It doesn't matter. Putin is the one to blame.

Re: Russia opposition leader poisoned with Novichok

#354

Post by lazyjones » Thu, Sep 03, 2020, 8:04 AM UTC

sam_lowry_ wrote: post #352

lazyjones wrote: post #350

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I picked a random IPv4 address from this list and looked at it. It's a dynamic mobile IP address from Belgium, used by thousands of customers. Come on people, apply some common sense and stop the hysteria.

I know, there are quite a few of those. Pick one of the subnets, they are more interesting.

But what is somebody supposed to do with this list, when it contains dynamic IP addresses used by many people? Ban everything on it, based on the assumption that some of them are actually endpoints of suspicious activity, thereby preventing many innocent people from using the Internet?

At my previous company I dealt with all the scraping bots for 15 years, in the end I even banned all of Tor and many of the commercial proxy network providers, with the justification that our site (CSE) didn't need anonymous posting because there was nothing sensitive and no private information on it. But I couldn't ban dynamic IP addresses for more than a few minutes since all the abusers originating from them happily obtained a new address within seconds and continued the scraping, rendering the IP address pool used by their provider completely banned from using our site.

Re: Russia opposition leader poisoned with Novichok

#355

Post by Udik » Thu, Sep 03, 2020, 8:09 AM UTC

mprovost wrote: post #289

Udik wrote: post #226

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But why the hell did they do it?

Sergei Skripal was a colonel in the GRU who was also a spy for MI6 and who moved to the UK as part of a prisoner swap. Apparently he hadn't quite retired and was still briefing western intelligence services just before his poisoning. https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2018/may/14/sergei-skrip...

> Apparently he hadn't quite retired and was still briefing western intelligence services

He had stopped been a Russian agent in 2004. Then, after being released from prison and moving to the UK, he had 8 years to brief the UK services about everything he knew. What kind of briefing could he do, exactly?

Note that if you read carefully the article that you linked, it says repeatedly that none of Skripal's activity was new, or uncommon, or important. Despite the subheader saying "may offer motive for poisoning" the various experts mentioned in the article repeatedly say that those "neither explained nor justified the nerve agent attack", "dismissed them as a likely motive for the poisoning attack".

Re: Russia opposition leader poisoned with Novichok

#356

Post by sam_lowry_ » Thu, Sep 03, 2020, 8:56 AM UTC

lazyjones wrote: post #354

sam_lowry_ wrote: post #352

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I know, there are quite a few of those. Pick one of the subnets, they are more interesting.

But what is somebody supposed to do with this list, when it contains dynamic IP addresses used by many people? Ban everything on it, based on the assumption that some of them are actually endpoints of suspicious activity, thereby preventing many innocent people from using the Internet? At my previous company I dealt with all the scraping bots for 15 years, in the end I even banned all of Tor and many of the commercia…

I should have filtered IP addresses, leaving only ranges before posting. Mea culpa.

IP addresses are blocked in a different context but land on the same list.

Still, to answer your question, dynamic IP addresses can be sticky. Where I operate, some ISPs lease the same IP address for each IP lease renewal. The only way to get an IP address is to wait until the lease expires by e.g. switching off the router.

Re: Russia opposition leader poisoned with Novichok

#357

Post by amai » Thu, Sep 03, 2020, 9:25 AM UTC

itroot wrote: post #294

Guy from Russia here. Not an expert, but I feel the pain when my country looks so negative in the news. First, I wish Alexey fast recovery. Second, Alexey wasn't a popular politic figure in past time, I believe that his peak of popularity was in 2013-2015. Third, I think no one here is actually benefiting from this tragic event... the whole story just seems quite strange. Frankly, there a lot of more simple approache…

Navalny wasn't popular? I have seen Russian people cry, when they heard about the assassination attempt on him.

Here are some videos of the many videos from his anti-corruption campaign that made him popular and even a hero in the eyes of many Russians:

- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chaika_(film)

- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/He_Is_Not_Dimon_to_You

- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RQZr2NgKPiU

- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZjY3IMXMmVE

For more, see

- https://fbk.info/english/english/

- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-Corruption_Foundation

Re: Russia opposition leader poisoned with Novichok

#358

Post by thewinnie » Thu, Sep 03, 2020, 10:35 AM UTC

jamescontrol wrote: post #81

thursday0987 wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Terrorists prefer simpler approaches. that is a very dangerous assumption to make.

Why? It’s likely the reason why we have seen terrorist attacks where people drive into crowds of people. Cars and trucks is everywhere, its easily accessible. I would argue that the other way around is the dangerous assumption, that people will NOT use the easiest accessible means to hurt other people.

But what if we deal with a country-terrorist problem?

Re: Russia opposition leader poisoned with Novichok

#359

Post by Paradigma11 » Thu, Sep 03, 2020, 11:55 AM UTC

occamrazor wrote: post #24

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?

Probably the same reason for poisoning someone with Polinium: leaving a clear signature, but being still able to deny any involvement.

I do think it's two fold. If nobody specifically looks for it, it clears as natural causes. If it comes out, it sends a clear message.

Sometimes you get steak and sometimes you get chocolate.

Re: Russia opposition leader poisoned with Novichok

#360

Post by [deleted] » Thu, Sep 03, 2020, 1:07 PM UTC

lazyjones wrote: post #133

criley2 wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The known facts are that the most prominent critic and opposition to the Russian dictator was poisoned in a situation that is highly similar to previous incidents that are confirmed Russian. Considering Putin has had journalists and opposition leaders killed before, and the Russian government tried to prevent the opposition from leaving the country or seeing outside doctors, one has to choose an answer which makes th…

> * confirmed Russian.* By biased investigators who already claimed so before any investigation was started. By the same elusive club that wanted Russia blamed for MH17 all along, where doubts are still increasing years later. > USA is run by someone who is likely under Russian control You're a crazy conspiracy theorist.

[deleted]