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Snowden: NSA just lost control of its Top Secret arsenal of digital weapons

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Re: Snowden: NSA just lost control of its Top Secret arsenal of digital weapons

#61

Post by [deleted] »

throwaway71958 wrote: post #40
sillysaurus3 wrote: post #26

It's pretty fascinating to read the Shadow Broker's posts. They have to write something, since they can't just say "I work for Russia and we're reminding America that they're not invulnerable." So they have to come up with all sorts of contrived reasons about why they're doing this, complete with broken english to fool stylometry detection that walks the fine line between being believable and preposterous. Someone sp…

As a Russian myself, I can tell you with certainty that there are mistakes in that text that a Russian ESL speaker would never make, and verb tenses are a bit too good for an unskilled speaker. Due to the combination of these two factors, I bet this was written by a native English speaker who thinks he/she knows the mistakes a Russian would make. They're wrong.

[deleted]

Re: Snowden: NSA just lost control of its Top Secret arsenal of digital weapons

#62

Post by doktrin »

stonogo wrote: post #45
hl5 wrote: post #39

Obviously, Perl is the NSA top language choice due to it's built in support for obfuscation and job security.

Sure. It couldn't be because perl is installed by default on all of the target platforms. Practicality trumps conference talks when there's work to be done, even in the government.

I know it's not the HN norm, but I believe the parent was making a joke

Re: Snowden: NSA just lost control of its Top Secret arsenal of digital weapons

#63

Post by paradite »

DanBC wrote: post #55
snowpanda wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's the popular thing to assume these days. It's also very insulting to Russian people in my opinion. But I guess it's ok to be prejudice towards some group of people but not others.

Russia uses online trolling as a tool. It's widely documented. This use of trolling leaves Russia open to accusations even when they're not involved. For a well documented case: http://www.stratcomcoe.org/internet-trolling-hybrid-warfare-...

Widely documented by "The NATO Strategic Communications Centre of Excellence", the most obvious enemy of Russia?

Human rights violations in the U.S. are also well documented by China:

http://blogs.wsj.com/chinarealtime/2015/06/26/china-issues-r...

Re: Snowden: NSA just lost control of its Top Secret arsenal of digital weapons

#64

Post by mootothemax »

doktrin wrote: post #47
throwaway71958 wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As a Russian myself, I can tell you with certainty that there are mistakes in that text that a Russian ESL speaker would never make, and verb tenses are a bit too good for an unskilled speaker. Due to the combination of these two factors, I bet this was written by a native English speaker who thinks he/she knows the mistakes a Russian would make. They're wrong.

Just seems like general obfuscation to me. It would be very weird for anyone to make assumptions about their identity based on broken english.

While I get your wider point, I find the different types of mistakes that ESL'ers with different mother tongues make absolutely fascinating.

I've noticed, say, that in Poland, where the native tongue lacks articles, people regularly mess up "the" and "a," or miss them altogether. I've never met a French person with the same issue, for obvious reasons.

When I started looking into people's mistakes with tenses in English - dear god, so much about my native tongue that I had no idea about, and yet made particular nationality error combinations really stand out. It's crazy fun.

Edit: and I love my eldest's progress with English. While she's basically a bilingual preschooler, she tends to speak English with polish word order: I like cars red. Her natural instinct is to also use the polish rules for nouns when choosing he/she/it. It's an absolutely fascinating process I feel privileged to observe.

Re: Snowden: NSA just lost control of its Top Secret arsenal of digital weapons

#65

Post by waitwait »

doktrin wrote: post #47
throwaway71958 wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As a Russian myself, I can tell you with certainty that there are mistakes in that text that a Russian ESL speaker would never make, and verb tenses are a bit too good for an unskilled speaker. Due to the combination of these two factors, I bet this was written by a native English speaker who thinks he/she knows the mistakes a Russian would make. They're wrong.

Just seems like general obfuscation to me. It would be very weird for anyone to make assumptions about their identity based on broken english.

Another angle I haven't heard is that they are just having a bit of fun for the lulz: They know their adversaries can (fabricate) attribute with or without obfuscation (cyber war signalling style). So they bring it over the top with some cold war 80s action movie dialogue. It serves no other function than to taunt and confuse and hear some American housewives on Twitter go: I dunno, sounds Russian to me!

Re: Snowden: NSA just lost control of its Top Secret arsenal of digital weapons

#66

Post by doktrin »

paradite wrote: post #63
DanBC wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Russia uses online trolling as a tool. It's widely documented. This use of trolling leaves Russia open to accusations even when they're not involved. For a well documented case: http://www.stratcomcoe.org/internet-trolling-hybrid-warfare-...

Widely documented by "The NATO Strategic Communications Centre of Excellence", the most obvious enemy of Russia? Human rights violations in the U.S. are also well documented by China: http://blogs.wsj.com/chinarealtime/2015/06/26/china-issues-r...

The US does legitimately have an imperfect human rights track record, and most Americans who follow the news would agree (while at the same time being aware of China's own hypocrisy in this matter)

Likewise, Russia has a well documented history of sponsoring online propaganda campaigns, and most people who aren't delusional or paid shills would agree.

Two negative things about two different countries can in fact both be based in truth. Weird.

Re: Snowden: NSA just lost control of its Top Secret arsenal of digital weapons

#67

Post by scythe »

sillysaurus3 wrote: post #26

It's pretty fascinating to read the Shadow Broker's posts. They have to write something, since they can't just say "I work for Russia and we're reminding America that they're not invulnerable." So they have to come up with all sorts of contrived reasons about why they're doing this, complete with broken english to fool stylometry detection that walks the fine line between being believable and preposterous. Someone sp…

I think that any agency with the capability to break into the NSA has also the capability to hire a proofreader. That is, any mistakes left in the documents are there intentionally.

Re: Snowden: NSA just lost control of its Top Secret arsenal of digital weapons

#68

Post by mootothemax »

waitwait wrote: post #65
doktrin wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just seems like general obfuscation to me. It would be very weird for anyone to make assumptions about their identity based on broken english.

Another angle I haven't heard is that they are just having a bit of fun for the lulz: They know their adversaries can (fabricate) attribute with or without obfuscation (cyber war signalling style). So they bring it over the top with some cold war 80s action movie dialogue. It serves no other function than to taunt and confuse and hear some American housewives on Twitter go: I dunno, sounds Russian to me!

By halfway through I was kinda surprised they weren't going the full hog and throwing in a good Da, or Nyet, the people's... for full effect.

Re: Snowden: NSA just lost control of its Top Secret arsenal of digital weapons

#69

Post by ktta »

ooqr wrote: post #53
throwaway71958 wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As a Russian myself, I can tell you with certainty that there are mistakes in that text that a Russian ESL speaker would never make, and verb tenses are a bit too good for an unskilled speaker. Due to the combination of these two factors, I bet this was written by a native English speaker who thinks he/she knows the mistakes a Russian would make. They're wrong.

I'm pretty sure that was GP's point. The text is intentionally garbled with no identifiable first-language bias.

Not really. The GP is implying that they are Russian with this

>since they can't just say "I work for Russia and we're reminding America that they're not invulnerable."

But the person who replied is saying how the grammatical obfuscation doesn't look like something that's done by a Russian but by an English speaker who is trying to sound like a Russian with bad English. Because a Russian with bad English wouldn't make those mistakes.

Re: Snowden: NSA just lost control of its Top Secret arsenal of digital weapons

#70

Post by rev »

DanBC wrote: post #55
snowpanda wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's the popular thing to assume these days. It's also very insulting to Russian people in my opinion. But I guess it's ok to be prejudice towards some group of people but not others.

Russia uses online trolling as a tool. It's widely documented. This use of trolling leaves Russia open to accusations even when they're not involved. For a well documented case: http://www.stratcomcoe.org/internet-trolling-hybrid-warfare-...

Well documented analysis of a corpus of comments on some Latvian sites, yes. Anything in 100+ pages serving as a proof of Kremlin connections with the "hybrid trolls" (gotta love the newspeak)? Not so much. I don't know whether Russians are xenophobic aggressive bastards or knights in shining armor exposing the wrongdoings of others, it's just that claims along the lines like "Russia uses online trolling" seem exaggerated.
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