When Activism goes too far - popular npm package adds malicious code that affects Russian/Belarussian IPs

[poochyena]

Just now, Blademaster91 said:

I said massive protests, their police can't haul away everyone.

Is thousands of people not massive? I just looked at the latest numbers and its over 10k that have been arrested for protesting, thats not including everyone protesting. This is absolutely massive for a country where protesting is illegal.

[Master Disaster]

1 minute ago, poochyena said:

Is thousands of people not massive? I just looked at the latest numbers and its over 10k that have been arrested for protesting, thats not including everyone protesting. This is absolutely massive for a country where protesting is illegal.

I realise I have no power to say this but please leave it at this now, politics is a strict no, lets stick to the rules

[Brooksie359]

3 hours ago, Lurick said:

You do realize people lie right to not be hauled away? Like when you can say you support Putin and police still haul you away because you talked to the media you definitely aren't going to answer anything against the government.

Well also alot of the citizens only know the Russian side of the story that has been fabricated by the government so they are more likely to support him when things seem to be good. If you brainwash your citizens its much easier to keep their support. 

[starsmine]

6 minutes ago, poochyena said:

Is thousands of people not massive? I just looked at the latest numbers and its over 10k that have been arrested for protesting, thats not including everyone protesting. This is absolutely massive for a country where protesting is illegal.

It is massive, but that means that people who disagree feel strongly, or are more polarized, not that the numbers have shifted.

Usually you see approval rating polls people are put in 4 buckets, Strongly approve, slightly approve, slightly disapprove, strongly disapprove.
When you move people from slightly disapprove to strongly disapprove, the number of people who disapprove does not actually grow, just those that do become radicalized to some extent. To the extent that they are willing to break the law and protest. 

 

[Blademaster91]

14 minutes ago, poochyena said:

Is thousands of people not massive? I just looked at the latest numbers and its over 10k that have been arrested for protesting, thats not including everyone protesting. This is absolutely massive for a country where protesting is illegal.

Yes that is massive, I didn't know over 10k were arrested, but  as already mentioned that doesn't mean there is a high disapproval rating, if the people knew of the war crimes, or if the media would even call it a war then there would be strong disapproval.

[ravenshrike]

4 minutes ago, Caroline said:

Not as far as Spain tho

 

That's just Freedom Fries 2: Spanish Boogaloo. 

[Heliian]

3 hours ago, Blademaster91 said:

Well Russians have elected Putin 4 times

Oh yes, their electoral process is fantastic. 

3 hours ago, starsmine said:

And there have mathematical mitigations on how to correct people lying about being dishonest to protect themselves

No they don't, they don't really know, it's guesstimation. I'm also guessing they don't include the opinions of the millions of impoverished people in Russia and their annexed counties.

 

It wasn't a good idea to put malware in, I don't agree with that.  They still need to keep communication open and try not to muddy up the dialog.  

[starsmine]

14 minutes ago, Heliian said:

 

No they don't, they don't really know, it's guesstimation. I'm also guessing they don't include the opinions of the millions of impoverished people in Russia and their annexed counties.

You can... idk https://www.levada.ru/en/methods/omnibus/ look up their methodology https://www.levada.ru/cp/wp-content/uploads/2020/09/METHODOLOGICAL-EXPLANATIONS.pdf 
or the Academic paper I linked before saying stuff like that

You dont have to guess

[Luxzio22]

Yeah punish people for their leaders' sins, good idea. I'm sure the the average guy on the street is better poised to take on and overthrow the internationally designated Badman no.1 than the overnight peace activists and their governments (the ''Free World''). Its sad to see people turn on eachother over governmental decisions no one had a say in and play into the hands of the propaganda machines their governments set up. 

 

All the while million dollar corporations make brownie points from appealing to the shallow understanding of these people by throwing their Russian and Belarusian customers under the bus. #IstandwithgoodPR I guess. 

 

Truly a sad state of affairs when we'd rather side with equally ignorant, paranoid and delusional governments or friendly neighborhood corporations than our fellow man. 

[WolframaticAlpha]

On 3/18/2022 at 8:32 AM, Caroline said:

Companies firing devs for using terms like blacklist or master server:  ...heh, y-yea

No one was fired because they accidentally git commited to master instead of main. People don't care. 

[Vishera]

That's definitely illegal...

[Ydfhlx]

On 3/18/2022 at 6:45 PM, Master Disaster said:

Unless you can provide a citation then we can say the same thing back to you.

 

1000s of russians have been arrested for protesting, anybody calling it a war is arrested, Russian state TV staff resigned en masse because they were sick of lying to their viewers about what was happening. Heck even today at the Russian celebration held in Moscow some TV operator cut Putin off mid speech.

 

Its kinda crazy that you'd believe anything coming directly out of the Russian state since they are famous for lying and misinformation.

Except I didn't get these numbers from Russian TV, but from independed analysis.

 

Secondly, I'll find the sources for this just after you guys show proofs for you claims - since one of you was first to say that vast majority of Russians don't support Putin.

[atxcyclist]

Kind of a shitty move, but if this helps motivate one of these people into putting a pitchfork through an authoritarian invader leader’s forehead, the world should be for it.

 

Like making diamonds, time and pressure will be Putin’s undoing. That and a little bit of citizen’s uprising.

[Master Disaster]

1 hour ago, Ydfhlx said:

Secondly, I'll find the sources for this just after you guys show proofs for you claims - since one of you was first to say that vast majority of Russians don't support Putin.

Not what I said, at all. I said the vast majority of Russians don't want war.

[Zodiark1593]

4 hours ago, atxcyclist said:

Kind of a shitty move, but if this helps motivate one of these people into putting a pitchfork through an authoritarian invader leader’s forehead, the world should be for it.

 

Like making diamonds, time and pressure will be Putin’s undoing. That and a little bit of citizen’s uprising.

https://opensource.org/osd
 

This move runs pretty counter to the Open Source Definition (in particular, against discrimination), so no, I do not support sabotaging of open source software. 
 

As much as I despise Putin, Open Source should remain neutral as according to its principles. 
 

This article pretty closely mirrors my thoughts. Certainly way more detailed than I could’ve written myself. 
 

https://beny23.github.io/posts/on_weaponisation_of_open_source/?source=techstories.org