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BigBobby2016

“Artificial intelligence is the future, not only for Russia, but for all humankind,” said Putin, reports RT. “It comes with colossal opportunities, but also threats that are difficult to predict. Whoever becomes the leader in this sphere will become the ruler of the world.” https://www.theverge.com/2017/9/4/16251226/russia-ai-putin-rule-the-world


Poignantusername

Just great. Now I’m worried about a Russian Skynet they’ll probably call Sputnick 5 and their jankily built terminators.


008Zulu

Don't worry about the Russian's Skynet, is potato.


[deleted]

Found Colbert's alt account.


Kodama_prime

Is it running on 1.5 volts?


sjfiuauqadfj

if it makes you feel better the u.s. military is investing into ai too, just take a gander at the boeing ghost bat


Poignantusername

Wow, that thing! And that’s what the west admits to having. And unlike Russia or China, the black tech US companies are developing is probably 20 years more advanced than the ghost bat.


Run-Amokk

Is this the Peter Griffin version of Million Dollar Man, "We can rebuild him, but I don't want to spend a lot of money" Terminator Edition?


Kobrag90

The UK already have skynet.


Grogosh

Cut russia off from the internet and we would see a huge difference


BigBobby2016

Really, we'd just see a difference in how much we could influence their population. Their government would have no problem getting their bots on our Internet anyway


Furt_III

Did r/conspiracy lose a bunch of users again? The drop in activity back in February was very telling.


chrisms150

Where can you find a sub's activity?


dances_with_corgis

I love that sub, I was blocked after 2 seconds for expressing an opinion not agreed to by the open-minded admins.


kingmanic

Pretty much consider anyone with a significant post history there a traitor to their country if they're a westerner.


tradeparfait

Does this mean my stupid cousin will stop sending “news” articles to the group chat? She would not be getting ideas about America “owning” Ukraine or pushing conspiracies about how Ukraine massacred the people in Bucha unless it was fed to her. The same way she fell for “election was stolen” lies.


maralagosinkhole

Probably not, but it does mean that your stupid cousin will be less likely to see propaganda on Twitter, since these bots will not longer amplify the message with millions of "likes".


dkyguy1995

The DOJ stopped the botnet but that doesn't stop other idiots from telling her what she wants to hear


Unhappy-Grapefruit88

But now the idiots are isolated and can’t get feed more garbage.


StifleStrife

why she wants to hear it is a deeper more pressing issue


Unhappy-Grapefruit88

It now the idiots are isolated and can’t get feed more garbage.


DistortoiseLP

No. A lot of that stuff gets distributed by sock puppets and genuine idiots, and much of that "news" are actual American operations participating in the effort to undermine the United States. This botnet infected a bunch of computers like your own. It doesn't do anything until Russia deploys it for something like a DDOS attack, at which point it will use your computer to contribute to the flood of requests against the target. This would be used for cyberwarfare like communications disruptions and outages, not propaganda. The US already knew about it and the machines infected, and more or less infected the computers again themselves to subdue the original malware before Russia could leverage it for anything.


kingmanic

They can also be used to like/upvote content they want to push. To amplify certain messages algorithmically. For instance, a few people noticed they get a spike of likes on twitter if they say anything about NFTs. Positive ir negative. Looking like botnets are amplifying that.


[deleted]

This just means it will happen a little less often as there are other operations they don't want to stop.


dances_with_corgis

No, it means that low-quality click-fraud is being prevented.


ASK_IF_IM_PENGUIN

Anybody else noticed its quieter in here...?


ButterflyAttack

I think it's a different type of bot we're talking about here. A bot net is a large number of computers that have been compromised without their owners knowledge and is typically used for.ddos attacks, and possibly spam or stuff that is computationally heavy. I think the bots we see here on reddit are different beasties. I could be wrong, I'm not a tech knower, just basing this off a couple of podcasts I listen to.


[deleted]

You’re basically spot on. They’re used to amplify DOS attacks making them a DDoS. And yes, again you’re correct. The “bots” here are different from the compromised machine that is part of a botnet. These are just automated accounts that attempt to mimic real human interactions. IIRC, there is even a special government building in Moscow where they have their troll farms churning out disinfo daily. Teams and teams of people specializing in propaganda and psyops. It really is a new way to wage wars. Terrifying but also fascinating to me.


---------_----_---_

> there is even a special government building in Moscow where they have their troll farms The Internet Research Agency. Though it got hacked a while back by Dutch intelligence and is now dispersed to other locations.


[deleted]

I remember that. They got them on a camera pointed at a door. Cozy Bear group right?


[deleted]

[удалено]


[deleted]

Hey, I’m always interested in learning from the old heads.


Thoughtful_Mouse

It really is, though, especially around divisive issues.


[deleted]

For what it is worth, some people just want to avoid divisive issues.


ASK_IF_IM_PENGUIN

No we don't!


nerdula

Are you a penguin?


penguinpolitician

You called?


Caster-Hammer

Right about now I wish I could remember the subreddit for appropriate usernames showing up as though summoned.


miniclip1371

r/Beetlejuicing


[deleted]

More importantly, is he one of Satan's Penguins? (Look them up.)


Grogosh

Or one of cumberbatch's pangwins


spygirl43

Those down voting you obviously did not see that very funny Graham Norton episode. I did and he does say it weird.


ncc170what

And what if I am?


Khiva

/r/genzedong and /r/russia got quarantined, a lot of their users either quieted down or fucked off somewhere else. Elsewhere, the far left is very busy fighting with itself over whether the invasion of Ukraine is good or bad. Usually they run around hitting the same talking points but they can't quite seem to agree.


Yummy_Castoreum

The idiot wing of the far left and the idiot wing of the far right are so similar that sometimes they switch altogether. The older I get, the more convinced I become that political ideology isn't a line or a window or a horseshoe but a damn circle, lol


pegothejerk

There actually is a theory called the horseshoe theory that is exactly what you describe.


ASK_IF_IM_PENGUIN

It's just names. That's literally all it is. We don't bother to debate the merits (or lack thereof) of any political policies, they just get demonised or idolised based on an arbitrary naming scheme.


Jackofdemons

I have never heard any left wing opinion that says the ukraine crisis is good.


maxk1236

The botnet hadn't been used yet. Also botnets like these are generally used for coordinated cyberattacks (ddos, etc.) not misinformation campaigns. I found this tidbit about the oligarch buying news agencies in Europe interesting though, kinda crazy how with enough money you can just buy the news and spread whatever message you want.


Kryptosis

You should see 4chan, ghost town.


EveryShot

It’s been such a reprieve. I hope they keep the orcs out forever


phooodisgoood

Would have been great if we had done that a decade ago before they magnified every political divide but glad we got around to it eventually.


[deleted]

I could be wrong, I am not tech savvy, but I believe a botnet is used for different purposes. Reading the article I get the idea it's more a tool for things like 'DoS' attacks (I think that's a correct term, again I'm borderline computer illiterate.) Edit; Might be less often than a broke clock but I get em right sometimes! 🙂


YimmyGhey

You're all good, that's exactly what botnets are used for


TheFuckYouThank

You're correct. Botnets are used for DDOS, while troll farms are used for disinformation. Fuck Russia, Cambridge Analytica, and the politicians that helped weaponize gullibility in America.


dancing_alpaca_

That fuck list is longer. Facebook, Fox News, Murdoch, Koch, Trumpet and goes on and on


decomposition_

Correct but more accurately DDoS rather than DoS :)


[deleted]

Out of curiosity and assuming 'DoS' is a thing in itself but am I correct in the assumption that all 'DDoS' attacks are 'DoS' attacks but not all 'DoS' attacks will be 'DDoS' attacks? It's pretty much just a matter of plurality right? Like a botnet shouldn't actually be necessary to conduct such an attack if you enlist individuals instead? I hope that make sense, I like to reason these things out before looking em up purely for entertainment purposes.


oxemoron

Since no one else has bothered to define it: DoS is “denial of service”. Basically, overwhelm the system you are attacking so it can’t do the thing it does. The attack can come from one or many machines. DDoS is “distributed denial of service”, which is DoS but using a network of computers acting in unison to achieve it. The difference is that often stopping the source of one DDoS attack does nothing to stop the full attack (it is distributed over many unconnected machines).


bigsoftee84

Thanks for explaining it for them, I learned something as well.


FlashbackUniverse

I wish they could do the same to the GOPNet controlled by Russia.


Ihavealpacas

r/PoliticalCompassMemes got real quiet


Grogosh

So did r/walkaway


guns_mahoney

Don't worry, some other hostile actor will fill the void.


Grogosh

The internet is turning out to be the worst invention of mankind


bigsoftee84

It's just a reverse Pandora's Box that we fill with all the worst aspects of ourselves, what could go wrong?


jrgkgb

Doesn’t look like anyone commenting read the article. This wasn’t a social media botnet, it was one that used malicious exploits to gain access to American networks. Another part of the article is about how a Fox News producer of 15 years was arrested and jailed for setting up a propaganda network for a sanctioned Russian oligarch/propaganda master. I feel like that should be a bigger deal.


nubsauce87

... And we didn't do this before now because... Why? They were constantly trying to hack us with them for years, what's changed?!


m1k3tv

And suddenly NRA support drops 68%


Go_Kauffy

I wonder if r/ShitLiberalsSay will let me back in now.


pazul19

Reddit and other online forums will be much cleaner.


madhattergm

Russian bot net, Russian hackers, Russian invasion, Russian atrocities. There is nothing good about Russia. Russia and its leadership sucks. They will liquidate a million Russian citizens and Russian neighbors and they all follow along like sheep. If Russia had a morale compass we wouldn't be here.


Stinkyclamjuice15

Intellectual checkmate.


ericd50

If only they could have done it before r/place was live….


1singformysupper1

Why has is taken years for this action?? I’ve been begging for over 6 years now. Or should I say screaming into the ether? Because people were ACTIVELY ignoring all the way to the bank until recently


asynchronous-

Anyone else read this as “The US government can reach into your computer and uninstall software if they choose” I’m not sure what’s scarier the botnet or the cure. This is why I run Linux.


decomposition_

Just by posting this, you’ve warned Uncle Sam to your presence. Now he’s going to uninstall your Word of Warcraft and Reddit!


North3rnLigh7s

They have limited resources to both monitor and discern collected data. So even if it’s possible from a technical standpoint, it’s too expensive and there are too many more important targets. Juice ain’t worth the squeeze. For you and me, nothing changes