5 ms·

This new US Navy acronym is going to make googling for Linux installation issues a lot more tricky: "Ruggedized High Energy Laser (RHEL)"

raxxorrax 7y ago
That is actually a good way to hide public information. Even the best search engines might fail you here.
- rapnie 7y ago
  Wonder if there are more examples of this hiding, intentionally or not. I recently could not find the Trinity and Beyond [0] movie on DDG, because all hits were of some family vlog (though I still find it on Google first page). [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trinity_and_Beyond https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trinity_and_Beyond
  - lm28469 7y ago
    Happens all the time, I don't have links right now but i've seen several instances of individual or companies publishing tonnes of content right after something bad happened (crime or other) to try to push the bad news away from the front page.
  - rjsw 7y ago
    Somebody posted a French example recently. EDIT: There have also been suggestions that the current UK Prime Minister has done this.
  - lmkg 7y ago
    Rudy Giuliani's company is named Fraud Guarantee. This was apparently chosen to push down search results about one of the co-founders' legal issues. https://www.wsj.com/articles/giuliani-associate-left-trail-of-troubled-businesses-before-ukraine-probe-push-11572527608 https://www.wsj.com/articles/giuliani-associate-left-trail-o...
    - mattkrause 7y ago
      Seems incredibly...apt in retrospect.
  - sitkack 7y ago
    Counter-Strike: Source
  - saganus 7y ago
    Ah, that is one hell of a documentary. I hope I still have my copy laying around because it's one of those films that I can watch every few years and be amazed again and again. Edit: I guess it will not be long before it's even harder to find, but at least the page is archived: https://web.archive.org/web/20190129000701/http://www.atomcentral.com/trinity-and-beyond.aspx https://web.archive.org/web/20190129000701/http://www.atomce...
    - micah94 7y ago
      Also awesome is the motion picture soundtrack! Can still be found on Amazon.
  - Johnny555 7y ago
    The worst I've run into is back when I was still doing a lot of Cisco networking, and Apple came out with IOS, which was the same name as Cisco's IOS operating system. As I remember, Apple ended up having to license the name. Seemed like overnight it became nearly impossible to search for Cisco IOS (since many relevant posts didn't call out Cisco by name, since why would you, IOS is obviously Cisco IOS)
  - parksy 7y ago
    Doubt it's intentional but ISIS springs to mind https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Integrated_Sensor_is_Structure https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Integrated_Sensor_is_Structure
- rtkwe 7y ago
  True but only if you're using just RHEL. Usually adding just one word will disambiguate the multiple uses of a word or acronym. RHEL weapon vs RHEL OS for example.
  - dragonwriter 7y ago
    First Google search result I get for “RHEL weapon”: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Red_Hat https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Red_Hat And #7: https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2013/10/the-navys-newest-warship-is-powered-by-linux/ https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2013/10/the-n... But #2-#6 are more what you'd probably expect.
    - branchan 7y ago
      Not anymore. Especially not if you google "RHEL laser".
- lostlogin 7y ago
  Boris Johnson has been accused of this. His truely bizarre bus making hobby is one example.
  - mikeyouse 7y ago
    To expand, Boris Johnson heavily promoted a bus manufacturer in Northern Ireland (they went so far as to call them Boris Busses). The company eventually went into administration right during the Brexit fight and were laying off 1,500 people. People speculate in an effort to "SEO" this along with some really damaging news where he was alleged to be having an affair with a model and steering contracts her way, Boris gave a completely bizarre response in an interview: > Speaking on Talk Radio on Tuesday, the frontrunner to replace Theresa May was asked by the interviewer, Ross Kempsell, what he did to relax. > Johnson replied: “I like to paint. Or I make things. I have a thing where I make models of buses. What I make is, I get old, I don’t know, wooden crates, and I paint them. It’s a box that’s been used to contain two wine bottles, right, and it will have a dividing thing. And I turn it into a bus." > “So I put passengers – I paint the passengers enjoying themselves on a wonderful bus – low carbon, of the kind that we brought to the streets of London, reducing C02, reducing nitrous oxide, reducing pollution.” A few more cases have been ID'ed by people on Twitter: https://twitter.com/genmon/status/1169719026060320768 https://twitter.com/genmon/status/1169719026060320768
    - buckminster 7y ago
      Don't forget the other Boris bus with the claim that Brexit would save £350,000,000 per week.
  - snthd 7y ago
    https://mobile.twitter.com/GrantWhiteTZ/status/1144077131602960384 https://mobile.twitter.com/GrantWhiteTZ/status/1144077131602... >Boris Johnson has created the #BorisBus situation to bury the fact that three years ago he campaigned with an actual bus, promising Brexit millions for the NHS.
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
- adatavizguy 7y ago
  I share the same name as the heads of public relations for two of the largest corporations on Earth. I love the anonymity.
  - nitrogen 7y ago
    How many possibilities does that leave? You might have just given your real name to a sufficiently motivated researcher, assuming what you said is accurate.
Aperocky 7y ago
tbh, it will probably make searching for this laser more difficult.
- vsareto 7y ago
  Search “RHEL laser” without quotes RHELinux pages are unlikely to mention lasers as well. Qualifying searches like this is pretty easy.
  - yellowapple 7y ago
    Until Red Hat comes out with some new enterprise software tool called "Laser".
brian_herman__ 7y ago
When I saw this acronym in the article I thought of Red Hat Enterprise Linux. https://www.redhat.com/en/technologies/linux-platforms/enterprise-linux https://www.redhat.com/en/technologies/linux-platforms/enter...
mcguire 7y ago
"High Energy Laser Counter-ASCM Program (HELCAP)" I so wanted that to be the Association for Supply Chain Management, but it's really Anti-Ship Cruise Missile.
badrabbit 7y ago
In my experience looking for RHEL always leads to paywalled answers so I search for "centos" instead which 99% of the time applies to my RHEL question.

raxxorrax 7y ago

That is actually a good way to hide public information. Even the best search engines might fail you here.

rapnie 7y ago
Wonder if there are more examples of this hiding, intentionally or not. I recently could not find the Trinity and Beyond [0] movie on DDG, because all hits were of some family vlog (though I still find it on Google first page). [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trinity_and_Beyond https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trinity_and_Beyond
- lm28469 7y ago
  Happens all the time, I don't have links right now but i've seen several instances of individual or companies publishing tonnes of content right after something bad happened (crime or other) to try to push the bad news away from the front page.
- rjsw 7y ago
  Somebody posted a French example recently. EDIT: There have also been suggestions that the current UK Prime Minister has done this.
- lmkg 7y ago
  Rudy Giuliani's company is named Fraud Guarantee. This was apparently chosen to push down search results about one of the co-founders' legal issues. https://www.wsj.com/articles/giuliani-associate-left-trail-of-troubled-businesses-before-ukraine-probe-push-11572527608 https://www.wsj.com/articles/giuliani-associate-left-trail-o...
  - mattkrause 7y ago
    Seems incredibly...apt in retrospect.
- sitkack 7y ago
  Counter-Strike: Source
- saganus 7y ago
  Ah, that is one hell of a documentary. I hope I still have my copy laying around because it's one of those films that I can watch every few years and be amazed again and again. Edit: I guess it will not be long before it's even harder to find, but at least the page is archived: https://web.archive.org/web/20190129000701/http://www.atomcentral.com/trinity-and-beyond.aspx https://web.archive.org/web/20190129000701/http://www.atomce...
  - micah94 7y ago
    Also awesome is the motion picture soundtrack! Can still be found on Amazon.
- Johnny555 7y ago
  The worst I've run into is back when I was still doing a lot of Cisco networking, and Apple came out with IOS, which was the same name as Cisco's IOS operating system. As I remember, Apple ended up having to license the name. Seemed like overnight it became nearly impossible to search for Cisco IOS (since many relevant posts didn't call out Cisco by name, since why would you, IOS is obviously Cisco IOS)
- parksy 7y ago
  Doubt it's intentional but ISIS springs to mind https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Integrated_Sensor_is_Structure https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Integrated_Sensor_is_Structure
rtkwe 7y ago
True but only if you're using just RHEL. Usually adding just one word will disambiguate the multiple uses of a word or acronym. RHEL weapon vs RHEL OS for example.
- dragonwriter 7y ago
  First Google search result I get for “RHEL weapon”: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Red_Hat https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Red_Hat And #7: https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2013/10/the-navys-newest-warship-is-powered-by-linux/ https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2013/10/the-n... But #2-#6 are more what you'd probably expect.
  - branchan 7y ago
    Not anymore. Especially not if you google "RHEL laser".
lostlogin 7y ago
Boris Johnson has been accused of this. His truely bizarre bus making hobby is one example.
- mikeyouse 7y ago
  To expand, Boris Johnson heavily promoted a bus manufacturer in Northern Ireland (they went so far as to call them Boris Busses). The company eventually went into administration right during the Brexit fight and were laying off 1,500 people. People speculate in an effort to "SEO" this along with some really damaging news where he was alleged to be having an affair with a model and steering contracts her way, Boris gave a completely bizarre response in an interview: > Speaking on Talk Radio on Tuesday, the frontrunner to replace Theresa May was asked by the interviewer, Ross Kempsell, what he did to relax. > Johnson replied: “I like to paint. Or I make things. I have a thing where I make models of buses. What I make is, I get old, I don’t know, wooden crates, and I paint them. It’s a box that’s been used to contain two wine bottles, right, and it will have a dividing thing. And I turn it into a bus." > “So I put passengers – I paint the passengers enjoying themselves on a wonderful bus – low carbon, of the kind that we brought to the streets of London, reducing C02, reducing nitrous oxide, reducing pollution.” A few more cases have been ID'ed by people on Twitter: https://twitter.com/genmon/status/1169719026060320768 https://twitter.com/genmon/status/1169719026060320768
  - buckminster 7y ago
    Don't forget the other Boris bus with the claim that Brexit would save £350,000,000 per week.
- snthd 7y ago
  https://mobile.twitter.com/GrantWhiteTZ/status/1144077131602960384 https://mobile.twitter.com/GrantWhiteTZ/status/1144077131602... >Boris Johnson has created the #BorisBus situation to bury the fact that three years ago he campaigned with an actual bus, promising Brexit millions for the NHS.
deleted 7y ago
[deleted]
adatavizguy 7y ago
I share the same name as the heads of public relations for two of the largest corporations on Earth. I love the anonymity.
- nitrogen 7y ago
  How many possibilities does that leave? You might have just given your real name to a sufficiently motivated researcher, assuming what you said is accurate.

Aperocky 7y ago

tbh, it will probably make searching for this laser more difficult.

vsareto 7y ago
Search “RHEL laser” without quotes RHELinux pages are unlikely to mention lasers as well. Qualifying searches like this is pretty easy.
- yellowapple 7y ago
  Until Red Hat comes out with some new enterprise software tool called "Laser".

brian_herman__ 7y ago

When I saw this acronym in the article I thought of Red Hat Enterprise Linux. https://www.redhat.com/en/technologies/linux-platforms/enterprise-linux https://www.redhat.com/en/technologies/linux-platforms/enter...

mcguire 7y ago

"High Energy Laser Counter-ASCM Program (HELCAP)" I so wanted that to be the Association for Supply Chain Management, but it's really Anti-Ship Cruise Missile.

badrabbit 7y ago

In my experience looking for RHEL always leads to paywalled answers so I search for "centos" instead which 99% of the time applies to my RHEL question.