[jtsuken]

If you don't want to engage on the offensive side, there is plenty of work on the defensive side of things.

* Detect and notify the Ukrainian government about threats or upcoming attacks.

* Identify coordinated manipulative behaviour on social media.

* Last but not least contact Patreon's management to release the funds that have been donated to Ukrainian veterans (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30461038)

Feel free to add to the list, as there is going to be a lot of work in the upcoming days.

[black_puppydog]

Sorry but what?

* It looks like there won't be a Ukrainian government to speak of in a few days.

* Manipulative behaviour has been identified on twitter and Facebook almost every day for the last few years, and it hasn't really led to much anything. The Ukrainian government can't do anything about that, if the independent banana republics of FAANG don't decide to act, nothing is gonna change.

* Likewise for patreon. It's a private Company and thus sadly, regrettably, out of reach of public scrutiny or regulation. Thoughts and prayers are free and abundant though! Besides, what is the Ukrainian government gonna do with money right now? I bet tanks and air defense systems have long lead times these days, chip shortage and all.

Sorry for the overboarding sarkasm... I guess. But these are my points.

Edit:

Collecting downvotes for that. Not surprised, but I'm not seeing any counterpoints, really. It's okay if you just need a valve to let off your frustration, have at it, but what the parent suggested seems.... pointless, sorry to be blank. I mean, this sort of soft influence might be useful, but we ("the west") have been proving, on an ongoing basis, for multiple years now, that corporate decisions shall not and will not be questioned by our governments, that essentially an american-based platform has unbridled control over what they want to do, and that if they don't care about trolls and bots and harassment and nationalism andandand then there's not much "we" (read: the government, first of all the US government) can^Wwill do. What is the ukraininan government gonna do with more intel on russian propaganda? What's the actionable on that? Start a war with twitter?

As for the first point. Yeah... I don't see the mechanism by which any of this will slow down the physical process of soldiers marching on Kyiv. No NATO state will enter into this conflict, Putin has been pretty openly threatening with nuclear annihilation. And I would doubt that the russian soldiers will be hanging out on twitter enough to really get distracted by some well thought-through anti-propaganda measures.

[Aeolun]

> It looks like there won't be a Ukrainian government to speak of in a few days.

I don’t see why this would be true. The legitimate government doesn’t have to be in kiev to coordinate the defense of the country.

[selfhoster11]

But an illegitimate government can be installed fairly easily in Kiev instead.

[cloverich]

And the legitimate government can operate in exile, ready to return if it becomes viable. Inusrgents fighting on their behalf could coordinate with them. I'm very out of my depth but it seems like this must be a common scenario, particularly when the displaced government is legitimate.

[Aeolun]

Certainly, but that is fairly pointless if the existing government still controls 90% of the country.

I think the psychological effect of losing Kiev would be much lower if they planned on that from the start too, but I guess that bird has flown.

[mapcars]

>* It looks like there won't be a Ukrainian government to speak of in a few days.

Do you know the future for 100%? If not doesn't it worth a try?

[ukrleut]

It's the same "into Kyiv in two weeks" narrative for last 8 years.

[TrickardRixx]

Surely you agree that the situation today is quite different than it has been in the last 8 years?

[reitanqild]

You are probably downvoted for - voluntarily or involuntarily (I cannot judge) - running the errands of the enemies of the free world by suggesting that it is hopeless while it is absolutely not.

(Why is it not hopeless? Russian forces suffer large losses and their morale is breaking, after all, what sane person wants to shoot their peaceful neigbours and relatives? Russians are already taking to the streets to protest the madness one day into this stupid war, who would have expected such bravery from the already suffering Russian people? Half of the European population is already looking for anything they can do to support Ukraine, ordinary Russians raising up or to make Putin and his closest people suffer. Pro Russian trolls who were previously tolerated since we wanted to hear all sides are now kept down. The list probably goes on.)

Every free human is now at war, and for now, for us it is information warfare.

So lets make sure the madmen get nothing for free. Don't run their errands.

[MarcellusDrum]

The phrase "the free world" rubs me the wrong way. I'm obviously against what Russia is doing, any sane man would be. But as a middle eastern, the US to us has been 10x worse than Russia: They killed a million Iraqis, they killed Syrian civilians by bombing hospitals and schools. They overthrew a functional government in Libya, and they supported Syrian/Iraqi separatists (Kurds). They forcefully tried to build a military base in Lebanon. Not only that, but they also tortured, raped, and humiliated innocent Iraqis in Abou Gharib, without any major repercussions.

Just because the US did it, doesn't mean that Russia is justified or less wrong, both are wrong, and neither get to call out the other for humanitarian reasons.

[reitanqild]

All good points. I am ashamed for both some of the things that happened and that way too few has been held responsible.

Please forgive those of us who where tricked into it, too young to vote etc.

I'll try to do my part to prevent more of it.

Edit: as for the phrase "the free world", read it to mean "freer to those inside it" if that helps.

[avgcorrection]

> Please forgive those of us who where tricked into it, too young to vote etc.

Then you blame the voters of America when their government started an illegal war based on falsehoods.

[mvc]

Yes, UK and US foreign policy has been, and in many places around the world, is currently, ethically, morally questionable.

As a UK citizen, of voting age for 20 years now, I'm guilty as charged. I voted for Blair before the Iraq war, but like many others protested on our streets in the build up (and I haven't voted for them since).

Doesn't make us wrong about Putin though.

[randomsearch]

If you think the US has been worse for the Syrians than Russia’s indiscriminate bombing of its cities, I cannot take the rest of your argument seriously.

[MarcellusDrum]

The US overall has been worse to the Middle East overall than Russia is my argument. You knew that, of course, but you chose the vaguest claim in my argument, and ignored the rest which are also valid just to make yourself feel better. Which is fine, of course.

[reitanqild]

Reading this for a second time and sticking to what I said about being ashamed for many of the things the west did I'd also like to remind that Russia hasn't really done much at all in the middle East.

But I can remember stories from my childhood about Russians tying up Afghan fighters and driving over them with tanks to make an example, so again without defending drone strikes on weddings or Abu Ghraib or anything other spectacularly bad I

1.) think it wouldn't have been much better if it was the Russians who went in

2.) think the reason why the Russian government hasn't been involved in more badness in the middle east until recently has not been its peaceful nature but the fact that they have been cash strapped.

[Aeolun]

While I think that’s true to some extend, I have the feeling that Afghanistan is regressing now, which means that it must’ve arguably been better than it was before. at least for some half of the population.

You can certainly question whether that was worth the cost.

[mellavora]

If you want to be historically (more) accurate, you might want to go back to Churchill's decision to extend UK power to this region of the world, in an attempt to get the UK fleet to move from coal to oil power.

You could also look at some of the responses and choices made by the people/cultures native to this region over the years since then. Yes, "cultures" is plural.

[mellavora]

I agree with your point that "the free world" seldom lives up to the values it proclaims.

The difference might be that at least it proclaims them, and good people like yourself can hold them accountable to those values.

[Chris2048]

> good people like yourself can hold them accountable

Seems to me you can't really hold the US military to account, any more (or less) than you can the US police. Maybe a win here-and-there for political PR, but overall no.

[trasz]

Lol, what? Remember when US Navy shot down a commercial airliner, killing some two hundred people? None of the responsible was punished for that; they got decorated instead.

[throwrqX]

I suppose then if Nazi Germany just killed Jews and other undesirables in Germany and didn't try take over Europe then we should just stand back and do nothing because otherwise millions of Germans would also die? I wonder why people here seem to consider violent dictatorships and other such governments in equal standing with democracies.

[oneoff786]

There are plenty of countries with active genocidal events going on right now. Should we invade all of them?

[throwrqX]

Well in a perfect world yes we would. However the world is not perfect, and most "white" people so to speak care more about white people than some Muslims in the Middle East or some Africans in Africa, that's just the reality of the situation. Hence why they're more interested in what goes on in European countries than in other ones.

[wowokay]

Yes but at least the US had probable cause to go into Iraq. The world was pretty much behind that decision. We were attacked, civilians were attacked directly, none of that conflict would have occurred if Iraq or neighboring countries stopped their terrorism.

[rfrey]

The world was not 100% behind the US invasion of Iraq, or even 20%. The US had the world's support, after 9/11, to go into Afghanistan. The US was emboldened by that and attacked Iraq with very little global support, for reasons unrelated to the 9/11 attack.

[trasz]

What you’ve just said isn’t any different from Russian propaganda.

[wiseowise]

Uhuh, isn't any different from calling Ukraine fiction, that it basically never existed, everyone is neonazi. Annexing Crimea, East of country and then attacking under deluaion claims.

[graphpercolator]

I would question if you were alive at the time then because the world basically thought our evidence was bullshit to go into Iraq but we went in anyway and the evidence turned out to be bullshit.

[FollowingTheDao]

> Yes but at least the US had probable cause to go into Iraq.

Oh my, this is disturbing. What was the probably cause? WMD's? :^/

[cutemonster]

Assad and Putin intentionally bombed hospitals in Syria

Not the US. Maybe they did some time unintentionally, but with Putin it was part of his plans.

> they supported [the] Kurds

Of course, the Kurds and the US and Iraq were fighting together against Daesh (the so called Islamic State).

You're giving the impression that you like Assad, Putin, Erdagon, possibly Daesh as well. What kind of person are you, I start wondering.

Agreed that the US has done lots of bad things in the middle east though. (Eg helping the Talibans climb to power, supporting Saddam Hussein for quite long etc)

[jessaustin]

USA unsupervised services created Daesh, and supplied most of its weapons. This was done to destabilize Assad, and of course to enrich the weapons manufacturers. The idea that Assad and Daesh were ever allies is bizarre.

[cutemonster]

> The idea that Assad and Daesh were ever allies

No one here said they were.

You're misreading.

"Seems someone likes Assad, maybe X" does not mean "Assad and X are allies".

It's possible for someone to like both Stalin and Hitler although they weren't allies (in the end).

[vman81]

> They overthrew a functional government in Libya

That's not really an argument in itself tho.

[MarcellusDrum]

It is if you look at the state of Libya today. They overthrew Ghadafi for the sole reason of him being anti-Imperialist, killing and ruining the lives of millions in the process.

[Aeolun]

More or less. They overthrew Gadaffi, but the country tore itself apart.

I’m all for blaming the US where it’s warranted, but I don’t think that particular instance is it.

[Dudeman112]

And yet the USA would be all pissy if some other country overthrew their government.

[amcoastal]

The difference is the voters of the U.S. punished the presidents who did those things with huge political defeats that have now made most oversea invasions and hawkishness very unpopular political positions at the moment. Russians have a much tougher road to hoe to do the same thing, but it needs to be done for the moral reasons you lay out here.

[trasz]

Not true, both got re-elected.

[Loic]

The most important part in what you wrote:

> no sane person wants to shoot their peaceful neighbors and relatives

and this is the case for all Russians even most of the ones in the army in Ukraine, right now. People do not want war. Period. For a human being to go to war, he/she needs to be heavily indoctrinated to the point of partially losing is normal references. Even today, with heavily indoctrinated armies, only a small subset of the forces are effectively shooting bullets.

War is decided by crazy leaders (and I am polite) far away from the lines.

[reitanqild]

Luckily this also favours the defending side somewhat I hope:

From listening to people who grew up with the veterans here in Norway I've learned that:

- Germans were told they came here to protect us against the British so they would - in the beginning of the war - shoot to suppress, not to kill. I guess Russian soldiers coming into Ukraine has been tricked to believe the "peace keeping" nonsense too and had a rude awakening.

- Norwegians however were already mad and shot to kill. I guess this holds true for Ukrainians too. This is natural and we've seen it in Afghanistan, Iraq etc too I think.

- German soldiers would cryingly admit to POWs already at the start of the war that they were absolutely not voluntarily there, they'd just be shot if they refused.

[ChuckNorris89]

>German soldiers would cryingly admit to POWs already at the start of the war that they were absolutely not voluntarily there, they'd just be shot if they refused

No shit they weren't there voluntarily, no sane people want to go to their death, but those were the rules for mandatory conscription for them back then.

Even today some European countries still have mandatory conscription, and while they won't shoot you for refusal, if you don't show up for conscription, military police will come to your house and arrest you, and if you run away, an arrest warrant will be issues on your name.

So yeah, you have to do your mandatory service, even if you don't want to.

[vidarh]

Ironically given the comment you replied to, Norway is one of them. I had military police trying to reach me the last few weeks before I moved to the UK to try to hand deliver a conscription notice as a necessary step before charging me if I again failed to show up (I'd ignored several prior notices).

I didn't leave because of that, but I did delight I telling them I was beyond their reach. Finally picked up the phone the very day I left.

My dad and uncle both served 3-4 months in prison for refusing as a matter of principle, and my intent was to do so too until we decided to move our startup at the time to London.

Of course the main reason for that conscription was the Soviet Union/Russia. It's gotten very lenient since I left in 2000, as the size of the Norwegian military has been scaled back to the point they only need a small portion of potential recruits.

[amcoastal]

I'd sit in a jail cell before I got drafted into an unjust war. Doesn't seem like a hard decision to me. Now if you're repelling aggressive invaders, that's a different story.

[tonguez]

"what sane person wants to shoot their peaceful neigbours and relatives?"

Apparently ethnic Russians were being killed in Ukraine (or they have been the last 8 years, but more serious shelling started on February 17, 2022) and that is why Russia invaded.

[CRConrad]

> Apparently

At least according to Putler's propaganda.

> ethnic Russians were being killed in Ukraine

Far, far more ethnic Russians were not being killed in Ukraine.

Sure, some of the instigators, perpetrators, and fellow travellers of the armed insurrection in East Ukraine are (or were) ethnic Russians, but they:

A) Are being killed for being armed insurrectionists, not for being ethnic Russians.

B) Are (or were) themselves killing ethnic Ukrainians in the course of their armed insurrection.

C) Probably themselves killed quite a few ethnically Russian members of the Ukrainian armed forces.

> (or they have been the last 8 years,

Yeah, exactly: Since they started an armed insurrection.

> but more serious shelling started on February 17, 2022)

Oh, what a convenient date.

> and that is why Russia invaded.

Putler says that is why Russia invaded.

Oh: And so do you. Coincidence?

[sidibe]

Luckily Russia had anticipated the increased shelling months before and therefore just happened to have 180000 soldiers surrounding Ukraine before this increased shelling happened right?

[black_puppydog]

Wow, I guess it's hat-eating time. Glad to see they are holding up much better than I anticipated. I mean, not surprising that I'd be way off-base, given that I know jack shit about all of this.

[glogla]

I'm guessing you're getting downvoted for aggresive tone.

But you are right that social media networks are strong enablers of evil and helpers to enemies of freedom and democracy. Facebook and Twitter could easily stop (almost) all the misinformation and propaganda, but they don't because it makes them money.

[graphpercolator]

I think we confuse though doing data science on historic data to spot these manipulative communities vs doing that same data science in near real time to have any real counter effect on it.

I really doubt they could stop propaganda before the message is sent without deleting a ton of accounts that are false positives.

[thesz]

What you consider misinformation and propaganda I may consider valuable vantage points.

I also should point that any defense of the freedom of speech also defends freedom of misinformation and propaganda.

[watwut]

> What you consider misinformation and propaganda I may consider valuable vantage points.

If they are actual misinformation and propaganda and you are unwilling to even admit existence of that category, then you yourself are threat to freedom - of speech or otherwise.

> I also should point that any defense of the freedom of speech also defends freedom of misinformation and propaganda.

Nah. Defenders of free speech not being willing to criticize misinformation and propaganda, calling those "valuable vantage points" and being quick to criticize and attempt to shut up criticism of those is what is dangerous for free speech.

Pointing out misinformation and propaganda as such is a good thing.

[glogla]

I agree, drowning out normal voices in fake news and bots is as much censorship as banning them outright - it is just a form of censorship that (some) free speech advocates are complicit with.

But the biggest issue in my mind is that fake news, misinformation and bot bullying makes social media money, so they are never going to stop it.

[thesz]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BiqDZlAZygU

"The answer to the speech is... more speech"

And I agree that this is exactly the problem - winners are who have more energy and opportunity to speak. "Drowning the voices" as you pointed out.

But, how to determine which voice is normal?

Per your suspicion that fake news and misinformation make money, fact checking is alleged to make money to Facebook and fact-checking Facebook affiliates. The links on fact checking materials divert viewers from one arrticles to other and increase clicks and retention at Facebook.

Yes, you are right again - misinformation may bring money to FB, at the very least, when FB tries to fight it. I guess it is a nature of capitalism, to try to make money out of everything.

[thesz]

I think I clearly pointed out that there is misinformation and there is propaganda.

Yet those are classes of speech.

Let me point out that I was answering the call to stop these classes of speech nearly completely, using magic of Twitter and Facebook.

[idkwhoiam]

> No NATO state will enter into this conflict, Putin has been pretty openly threatening with nuclear annihilation This basically means 2 things: 1. NATO is dead. 2. Putin is free to do whatever he wants wherever he chooses.

[thomaslangston]

Neither of those points follow from the premise.

NATO's mission has always been mutual defense of members. Ukraine is not a member.

The threat of Russian nuclear weapons has been more poignant in the past than today. Neither of your conclusions was true before.

[idkwhoiam]

"Ukraine made the decision to completely denuclearize. In exchange, the U.S., the U.K. and Russia would guarantee Ukraine's security in a 1994 agreement known as the Budapest Memorandum." [0]

We can see this security guarantee in action right now. Same will happen with NATO's mutual defense guarantee.

[0] https://www.npr.org/2022/02/21/1082124528/ukraine-russia-put...

[servercobra]

I don’t know how that means NATO is dead. Ukraine is (unfortunately for them at this moment) not a part of NATO, so the response is different. If Russia continues and invades Lithuania, etc, the rest of the countries are obligated to defend it.

[irthomasthomas]

I can't understand how chaps like Mendelev are welcome on Twitter, but the president is permanently suspended. (Orwellian phrasing, too)

[throwaway69123]

I’m sure you could work out why Twitter suppressors speech that the deem effects them as Americans doing that overseas would just cost them money

[gjsman-1000]

Ukraine VPNs are probably still up - in which case, another way you could serve is by doing analysis and writing documentation on Russia's cyberattack methods, where they come from, patterns in their design, but most importantly, how they may best be prevented or reduced in their effectiveness.

Documenting the behavior and collecting intelligence is a difficult skill and intensely valuable even if it is not direct retaliation.

[spockz]

I have a limited understanding of large scale networking. Can you explain how using a vpn to an endpoint in the Ukraine allows someone to observe behaviour?

I imagine if you are on an isp or IX backbone you could observe flows of packets. But how do you do that from a vpn?

Or should they break in to target systems first, shore up the defences, and then document who else tries to break in?

[agumonkey]

Also preemptive detection of flaws in their own safety.

[unconed]

>Identify coordinated manipulative behaviour on social media.

You mean the Russian propaganda, or the West's propaganda?

Seriously, two years after "two weeks to flatten the curve" everyone is at it _again_ and it's embarrasing.

[Terry_Roll]

I wonder if Reuters is trying to create a cyber war much like the BBC has been blasted by some in the UK for sparking Xmas panic buying and the fuel crisis.

https://www.express.co.uk/showbiz/tv-radio/1506903/BBC-blast...

https://www.express.co.uk/showbiz/tv-radio/1497043/BBC-backl...

[midasuni]

So let me get this straight, on 27th September it’s the BbC causing panic, despite every petrol forecourt in the country having the print press on display showing these headlines

https://www.expressandstar.com/news/uk-news/2021/09/27/what-...

And the government promising the send the army in?

[Terry_Roll]

The BBC broke the news first. Today's media are quite rapid and who knows what's been discussed down the pub the night before.

When looking at the 30-40min delays in filling in which was largely concentrated in cities, how many people sat queueing for fuel were considering an electric car? And then those filling up were limited to £20 or £30 of fuel so they experienced the same range anxiety as someone with an electric car.

Sometimes its not the message that is important, its the resulting changes that are more important. So the fuel crisis created an uptick in electric vehicle sales.

Its not just Govt discounts for new tech like solar cells that cause a change in behaviour, other entities can also take advantage of situations, or just be manipulated into reporting it.

Take the chip shortage and the Ukraine crisis when thinking of Ukraine being the largest Neon producer and its relevance to the chip supply chain. Neon production is a global supply change risk at the moment so events are making changes occur. Bosch is now fabricating their own chips albeit 300mm https://techcrunch.com/2021/06/07/bosch-opens-1-2-billion-ch... and Intel have also announced a new chip fab in Germany. https://siliconangle.com/2021/12/23/report-intel-build-new-c...

So Russia going into secure Ukraine and thus Neon means the EU & US get a stick poked into their bike wheel!

Nothing is ever what it seems!

[midasuni]

Daily Mail headline at 0930BST on 24th was

Panic buying begins

Prepare for the worst

Winter of discontent

Fuel rationing

ARMY to step in

BBc headline was

“Petrol shortage, don’t rush to buy say ministers”

[Terry_Roll]

BBC has more clout for serious issues than the Daily Mail.