deutschewelle

This is quite worrying. Again its not clear who is behind this disinformation campaign and who stands to benefit from it.

I don't want to say it's Ukranian intelligence because it seems illogical to me but would confirm my suspicion that it is sabotaging its own: that they could use disinformation to shore up international support at the risk of inevitably being debunked and losing credibility.

Again, cui bono, who benefits here from this disinformation? It is still not clear because why would you raise the morale of your enemies troops on purpose in the opening hours of the war?

This is an endless hall of mirrors, whatever it is they are doing, its working, its raising the cost of discovering truths while lowering social cost of emotional outbursts (seen that already here from someone accusing me of being a Russian bot) to further distort reality.

Everybody needs to remain calm, and question what they are seeing is real or fake, before choosing to disseminate it.

On the topic of video game footages being used seemingly by unknown actors with various intent, if a gamer like me can be tricked, how gullible is the average user?

I LEGIT thought the whole Ghost of Kiev video was REAL the first time I watched it. It was only when the whole scene did not make sense——why would the Russian jet slow down and slowly ascent with a pursuing Ukranian jet and why would it use AA missile instead of opting for guns at such close range moving slowly?

It was only after this exercise in logic did I take a second look at the video and saw the person holding the camera was moving way too stable without the artifacts you normally get from software stabilization.

Many, many people saw that video and retweeted it thinking it was legitimate. I almost did too until I saw it a second time and realized Twitter's compression algorithms degraded the quality in an authentic manner that hides anti-aliasing and uncanny valley.

Games are increasing becoming photorealistic where I can't tell from preview thumbs (ex. Ride 4) and we are probably witnessing the cusp of a new type of war. Our morales can be influenced by the hour now thanks to social media and advancements in light ray tracing.

Like in 2011 I was certain that photorealism was far off because of the computation difficulties with real-time ray tracing, I had not anticipated the leaps in GPU, AI, Deepfake technologies as well as software advancements like Nanite and Lumen in UE5

Ukrainian, Russian and Belarusian use the Cyrillic alphabet and I don't trust a random burner twitter account making that claim.

Rob Lee, who has been independently reporting about Ukraine since 2014, is fairly credible and does not appear to stand to gain anything from accusations that he is pro-Russian

How do we know these aren't Ukranian intelligence playing Russian? How can you be so certain of anything?

The crux of your argument appears to be that Gabe is lying and not to be trusted :D

Few theories:

1. Ukraine is behind disinformation campaign to temporarily boost morale.

2. Russia is behind disinformation campaign to mount an element of surprise (an all out offensive was suddenly ordered this morning).

3. Social media is facilitating disinformation with variety of incentives for its participants ranging from merchandising (as was for Ghost of Kiev) and internet points (DCS World footages)

Twitter does a great job of elevating expertise signaling individuals, especially with long threads where mentions of "past experiences" and other name dropping dramatically boosts one's exposure.

it's incredible just from this thread alone the confusion and inability to tell what is going on.

In 2003, we just saw whatever CNN was feeding us but now anybody can become a CNN and you don't even need to be at the place of war.

Can I just point out how freaky this all is? We have never been more connected and have low barriers to access unlimited information, yet despite this, we have no bearing.

The Russians have deployed SAMs in Belarus and has an operating radius that covers almost the entire theater.

According to Rob Lee's twitter it appears Grand Parent's deduction is correct because previously a Ukranian Su-27 that blew up in Kiev was being falsely reported as Russian jet.

https://twitter.com/RALee85/status/1497083662814244864

I have to note how difficult it is right now. "Ukranian side" (it is not clear who the original disseminator network is) appear to be using footages of ARMA 3 and DCS: World overlayed with voice and artifacts from Twitter's compression algorithms really can fool many to believe Ukraine is putting up fierce resistance.

The latest disinformation seems to be a seemingly staged conversation between a Ukranian driver and a Russian APC squad. I don't know who stands to benefit from these disinformation campaign but :

1) Ukranian side can raise morale by selling perception that Russia is poorly equipped and suffering from poor morale.

2) Russian side would purposefully allow such disinformation to spread for an element of surprise, might even be the one manufacturing it.

It is probably a combination of the two but from today's executive order from Putin to launch an all out offensive from all direction will be telling.

Send in the poorly equipped, inexperienced troops in first to feign false sense of security and send in your regular well equipped army.

White noise on all sides and I am noting too, just how difficult it is to get the real story but it seems Twitter makes this extra difficult and its not clear who is leaking these fake disinformation stories and to whom it is aimed to ultimately benefit.

We simply do not know what is happening but I am leaning towards #2, today's encirclement and seige of Mariupol, which was long touted as putting up effective resistance by pro-Ukraine twitter accounts, seems to have collapsed in a matter of hours, sort of like the "Ghost of Kiev" myth

What exactly is the valuable problem you are thinking in your head and how is it better solved by cryptocurrency and blockchain that can't already be done with existing methods, technologies and contractual agreements backed by various international treaties and dialectic tests for loopholes through thousands and thousands of years trading between countries, provinces, cities and entities?

I feel like your comment is unjustified and incoherent. It is obvious to many of us what "fraudulent" mean here, it could be an array of:

- previously flagged wallets moving through mixers

- purchases and refunds to facilitate money laundering

- converting to and from steam wallet to crypto etc.

It is NOT at all ambiguous which is what you are insinuating as the basis for not reading past the headline and discouraging others from doing so.

Bitcoin is a public ledger where all transactions are PERMANENTLY recorded. The law enforcement agencies have much better deobfuscation tools than 10 years ago and the tools will just continue to improve as they have INFINITE resources.

But if a criminal has access to someone else’s Bitcoin, it’s already “cashed out”.

You are describing one type of crime that has existed far long before crypto as basis to discredit Gabe's claims and its an unconvincing argument/poorly baked logic that they tell in maximalist echo chambers.

Rather I ask, what is it that you fear so much whenever criticisms are raised? Did you transfer your savings to purchase jpegs and other insane APY that seasoned hedge fund managers can't produce?

Kumbhani is charged with conspiracy to commit wire fraud, wire fraud, conspiracy to commit commodity price manipulation, operation of an unlicensed money transmitting business, and conspiracy to commit international money laundering. If convicted of all counts, he faces a maximum total penalty of 70 years in prison.

Liberty Reserve operator Arthur Budovsky is serving his 20 year prison sentence, Kumbhani will likely serve 40+ years.

Liberty Reserve wasn't even incorporated in US or did a lot of business after getting booted but that didn't stop it from being used as money laundering.

Tether isn't very much different, LR/E-gold both tried various forms of insulation (LR not providing fiat on-ramp/off-ramp but through "verified" 3rd party).

In the end, the trail of money and cui bono ultimately indicted Arthur for facilitating money laundering and subverting US banking system. It's very likely that DOJ and other three letter agencies are utilizing Tether/Bitcoin/Monero as a honeypot to gather intelligence on the parties.

Imagine the wealth of information they are sitting on after capturing the hard drives of darknet marketplaces like Alphabay which were allegedly used to trace a former YC alumni's stolen Bitcoins.

Tether is a well known cable for moving money out of China and into real estate markets in the West, it's ironic that so many do not see the complete geopolitical ramifications: housing affordability has been hijacked to facilitate money exfiltration in authoritarian countries by the elites in the West, to make cheap goods.

In the West, lower and middle class unwittingly traded affordable housing for affordable consumer goods produced by authoritarian labor control and the beneficiaries of this were able to move their wealth out of reach from the same authoritarian government. Now that the musical chairs is ending, the same demographic in the West are being encouraged to become unwitting exit liquidity for the upper class. I predict this would have destabilizing effect on societies all over the world, especially countries that are over-leveraged and buying crypto on margin.

Love love these nostalgic takes, reminds me of this Windows 98 demo in a 3D simulation I recently came across. There is a real demand for 90s aesthetics

https://twitter.com/PCBANGio/status/1493850712471527426

Seeing North Korea, I somehow doubt he will be restrained significiantly.

KJU has served as a role model for Putin and Xi....Kim Jong Il mastered brinksmanship with US.

Push too much you risk getting spanked. Push the right amount...you just might win protection racket from states

When democracies have too much to lose they will surely deal....is what Putin believes and he isn't wrong.

The West was more than happy to do business with the CCP knowing its risks.

No since all of Russia can be declared his....

he could lose access to fiat USD/EUROs but his assets are good as gold: Gazprom,Rosneft etc

unpopular opinion: half a cup of wine. any procrastination is gone!

Excellent read and some of these tactics would be still applicable in urban settings but the Russian army is in a very different state than in the 90s, early 2000s.

Although I ponder how you could defend against RPGs launched from a skyscraper or high rise.

incredible!!!

80% is the theoretical limit and we are struggling to get past 30% but I forsee dramatic economic incentives to increase this a lot higher. Doing so might raise costs of production however

Can we get some benchmarks to get a rough ball park estimate of performance/$ ?

Is it say possible to run a production quality server that can handle hundreds of thousands of concurrent users on digital ocean lets say?

It's not clear to me as a "buyer" what its selling points are and what makes it uniquely different from other Rust frameworks

Thanks I had quite a laugh reading your last sentence because most peers here in Berlin couldn't be bothered to report anything that doesn't directly impact them.

For people living somewhere out rural shthole in West Germany perhaps might be triggered enough to file a report with the myriad of administrative concerns available to the spoiled citizen

I never defended this it seems you have some other issue here

which I care very little about

Good response I will concede that lithium seems our best bet given the current situation but I think ICE cars still have lot of room for CO2 reduction. While we are on topic of cars, I would slap additional environmental tax for old classic cars or straight piped V8, V10, V12. One does not need so many cylinders to get from point A to B.

How will Germany pay for Russian oil if they cannot use SWIFT anymore? I know! Our politicians will simply use whatever financial system that Russia will propose.

It would be even possible to trade a fleet of AMGs for a week of oil if need be. Removing SWIFT would only delay trade between Russia and Germany not hinder it in anyway.

In fact bartering system would produce more efficiencies, a bullet proof AMG G-wagon for instance would fetch more oil than a regular C-class offered to Putin's low ranking officers!

All in all, Ukraine gains nothing from this action, it would only give Putin the political ammunition to sell the narrative that Russia is under attack.

The US certainly stands to gain everything and risk nothing in this region and its puzzling to me why Ukraine would choose this as a hill to die on as if their self sacrifice would move the hearts and minds of NATO officers on some emotional basis

and HN is the epitome of Dunning-Kruger effect

heiliger strohsack! this is a good suggestion but the site itself seem to be very much like Grammarly or am I mistaken here?

The golden chalice appears to be a self-hosted solution!

The problem isn't oil itself but rather the byproducts, namely CO2 that is the cause of global warming and there just isn't enough of an impact from switching from modern ICE to EVs, rather the biggest source of CO2 emissions are the countries people in the West are outsourcing to make cheap goods.

It appears the CO2 emission standards can be achieved overnight simply by boycotting of all goods produce in countries where there is zero qualms about CO2 emissions, namely coal based power plants, which Western allied nations are more than happy to sell and point the finger at the said country they are exploiting.

But imagine telling virtue signaling West coast individual who believes he/she has superior moral values while happily consuming products produced in Authoritarian states under the threat of violence and exploitation of children that they need to trade their comfort for a greater collective.

If a society can't even come to agreements over wearing masks, there's zero chance such society can cut back on our reliance on the Petrodollar because doing so would put them on the same level of discomfort as other developing nations.

Leave it to third world countries to fix it while happily consuming and fueling the product of CO2 emissions and reminding them what a shthole country they live in.

This is my observation as a German looking into the West's mindset, its riddled with hypocrisy and self-contradictory ethic system aimed at distracting its citizens from the truth that their comforts are at the cost to this planet and rest of humanity.

We enjoy what we have because others could not have it and there is zero chance individualistic societies can reverse its mindless competition for vanity consumption.

tbh what is the harm done to Alphabet/Youtube here? Bunch of alleged russian bots mass report youtuber's account temporarily and Youtube reversed their incorrect ban.

It seems to me the system is working as intended as demonstrated by the reversal of the bans being reported 90 minutes ago.

title written by OP is obvious clickbait. Youtube isn't banning accounts that support Ukraine, the automated queue mod system's threshold has been breached and after a human review on the AI's decision, the bans were reversed.

This constant pandering to us-vs-them partisan narrative will only drive American policy makers to not weigh real geopolitical consequences in the long run but their own re-election prospects

Not sure why this comment is being downvoted, there is credible evidences that support this view, if not obvious from the US elctions