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.

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

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

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)

Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30481202

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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.

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

- 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?

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.

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

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.

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

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