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Hackers post fake stories on real news sites 'to discredit NATO'
- kryogen1c 6y agowhy is the BBC calling NATO Nato? I had to internet search to figure out what they were talking about
- bovermyer 6y agoSpelling acronyms in title case instead of all uppercase is a British thing generally.
- oarsinsync 6y agoNot sure I agree with that. The BBC blog about their decision to use Nato (instead of NATO)[0] is from 2013, a month after their decision to make that change, and starts with: > Barely a week goes by without at least one BBC News website reader asking why acronyms are in lower case: ‘it should be NASA, not Nasa.’ I disagree that this is a British thing generally, and rather it's a conscious stylistic choice made by the BBC. If it was a British thing generally, it holds that there wouldn't have been a need for the blog post at all. I also don't think 7 years is enough time to bastardise a language (unless you're talking about a dialect, at which point it doesn't always take very long to literally destroy the meaning of words) [0] https://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/collegeofjournalism/entries/8f7cf269-9ee1-341b-81a8-1ebfe73c80a0 https://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/collegeofjournalism/entries/8f7c...
- vngzs 6y agohttps://www.bbc.co.uk/academy/en/articles/art20130702112133530 https://www.bbc.co.uk/academy/en/articles/art201307021121335... > Use the abbreviated form of a title without explanation only if there is no chance of any misunderstanding (eg UN, Nato, IRA, BBC). Otherwise, spell it out in full at first reference, or introduce a label (eg the public sector union Unite). > > Where you would normally say the abbreviation as a string of letters - an initialism - use all capitals with no full stops or spaces (eg FA, UNHCR, NUT). However, our style is to use lower case with an initial cap for acronyms, where you would normally pronounce the set of letters as a word (eg Aids, Farc, Eta, Nafta, Nasa, Opec, Apec). For the average reader, I would argue there is little chance of misinterpretation, and BBC certainly agrees. Besides that, because "NATO" is pronounced "nay-toh", they spell it with an initial cap.
- jhrmnn 6y agoInteresting. Is this really not confusing? I haven't seen it done elsewhere. I find it confusing just because of that. Their reasoning for why they do it seems actually reasonable. EDIT: Actually the fact that their rule is followed by a list of exceptions, because NICE -> Nice, SAD -> Sad would be confusing shows why this style might be not so good after all. Also, whereas N.A.T.O. -> NATO is really just a style change in some sense, because NATO can be still interpreted only as abbreviation, NATO -> Nato feels like stealing a part of the identity from the subject. NATO emphasizes some meaning behind the letters, whereas Nato resigns on that origin.
- vngzs 6y agoPerhaps it's confusing to Americans, but it's common among the UK press: > Use all capitals if an abbreviation is pronounced as the individual letters (an initialism): BBC, CEO, US, VAT, etc; if it is an acronym (pronounced as a word) spell out with initial capital, eg Nasa, Nato, Unicef, unless it can be considered to have entered the language as an everyday word, such as awol, laser and, more recently, asbo, pin number and sim card. Note that pdf and plc are lowercase. https://www.theguardian.com/guardian-observer-style-guide-a https://www.theguardian.com/guardian-observer-style-guide-a It appears they are doing the equivalent of considering pronounced acronyms to be proper nouns. Despite the style ambiguity, it makes a bit of sense if you read the text aloud, as the style gives some indication of how to say the word.
- zeristor 6y agoShouldn't that "Bbc" which looks odd to me?
- chrisseaton 6y agohttps://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/collegeofjournalism/entries/8f7cf269-9ee1-341b-81a8-1ebfe73c80a0 https://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/collegeofjournalism/entries/8f7c... It’s the house style to avoid too many capitals in prose. Remember how people used to write N.A.T.O. decades ago but then simplified to NATO? Now they’re simplifying to Nato.
- ardy42 6y ago> Remember how people used to write N.A.T.O. decades ago but then simplified to NATO? Now they’re simplifying to Nato. I wouldn't call it "simplifying": capitalizing it has the same number of characters and is less ambiguous. I was already somewhat aware of BBC's style, but I still mis-parsed the headline and and thought "Nato" was the name or nickname of a natural person.
- chrisseaton 6y agoI don't understand - do you expect everything that isn't the name of a natural person to be written in all caps? If I write an article about how 'France is having a heatwave' do you get confused and think 'France' must be referring to a natural person?
- jannyfer 6y agoIn the article you linked: "We retain the middle cap in YouTube and MySpace because we think it prevents readers being confused by a word they are used to seeing in a particular way." I'm used to seeing NATO, and thought Nato might have been a political figure I hadn't heard of.
- wutwutwutwut 6y agoAfter reading this article you weren't sure what Nato was referring to? And thought maybe it was a political figure? Sorry, I can't believe that.
- 6y ago
- shellac 6y agoIt's an initialism vs acronym thing: when the initials are treated as a word (e.g. NASA, but not BBC) you don't have to capitalise the whole thing (Hence 'Nasa' is ok). See https://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/collegeofjournalism/entries/8f7cf269-9ee1-341b-81a8-1ebfe73c80a0 https://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/collegeofjournalism/entries/8f7c... for an explanation.
- kryogen1c 6y ago> initialism vs acronym oh how interesting, ive never seen this debate before. I guess it confused because, internally, i dont treat acronyms as words. I dont think of NASA as Nasa or NATO as Nato, i find this counter-intuitive. to think out loud, this seems antithetical to what an acronym is in the first place. NASA is a pointer, not an object. creating a new object Nasa templated from the pointer NASA (not the object the pointer is referencing) makes my head hurt. the Bbc ( :-D ) does it, so apparently im the exception and not the normal.
- oarsinsync 6y ago> the Bbc ( :-D ) does it, so apparently im the exception and not the normal. I assume the smiley indicates that you're aware that 'BBC' would actually be correct, and that 'Bbc' is not appropriate (because we say 'Bee Bee See', not 'Bubk'), unlike NATO/Nato ('Nay toe') Also, I prefer NATO over Nato personally. NATO reads 'Nay toe', while Nato reads 'Nat oh' in my head.
- shellac 6y agoIt's language evolution, in part. 'Radar' and 'scuba' are famous examples which have become regular names. At some point all-caps started to look pedantic, I suppose, or odd because their origin was not familiar to people.
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- jessaustin 6y agoEvery time I see this affected, illiterate spelling I initially read it as "nattō", the smelly fermented bean preparation.
- bovermyer 6y agoOnce the USA has a sane commander-in-chief again, it's going to need to completely overhaul its approach to the Eastern European region, among other things.
- HenryKissinger 6y agoUS policy toward NATO has been remarkably consistent, despite the confusing rhetoric from the commander-in-chief. The United States still refuses to recognize the Russian government's claim over Crimea, the Trump administration has continued selling arms, including lethal arms and armored vehicles, to the government of Ukraine, the United States conducted a cyberattack against Russia prior to the 2018 midterm elections, and US forces are actively participating in NATO's multinational training exercises and forward deployments in Eastern Europe. A Biden administration is expected to continue these activities.
- mschuster91 6y ago> US policy toward NATO has been remarkably consistent. Yeah, with Trump moving troops out of Germany because he believes, contrary to all facts, we'd be trying to rip them off. Not to mention the whole Iraq fiasco with Bush trying to rope NATO allies in a war based on lies.
- swsieber 6y agoSo Germany is not deliquent on NATO payments? Or that doesn't qualify?
- mschuster91 6y agoGermany is not delinquent on NATO payments, at least not on the formally agreed-upon budget contribution of 313 million € (https://www.dw.com/en/germany-to-match-us-contribution-to-nato-budget/a-51446211 https://www.dw.com/en/germany-to-match-us-contribution-to-na...). The thing you (and Trump) are meaning is the total defense spending as percentage of GDP. Germany cannot be "delinquent" here by definition! Every country is legally free to spend whatever it wants on defense. The "2%"is an informal goal only, not backed by any international treaty!
- seventytwo 6y agoGee, I wonder what nation could possibly be behind this?
- YarickR2 6y agoSay it out loud ?
- opqpo 6y agoThe one this fake story was designed to make you think it is behind it
- hnarn 6y agoWow, how clever. So are you saying Russia never do these types of operations, or do they, but only sometimes? If so, I'd love to know how you can tell the difference.
- opqpo 6y agoThe truth never matters since you got the downvotes. Of course Russia is behind all attacks. Even all the attacking IPs are coming from near the Kremlin according to many articles in the western MSM!
- AndrewBissell 6y agoRussia would know that any fake stories it posts after hacking the BBC will be immediately taken down and corrected. Not only that, but it lets Western governments know Russia has that capability and take measures to counter it. There's a lot more damage they could do with hacked news sites than just "discrediting NATO." They get little or no benefit out of a hack like this. On the other hand, if this thread is any indication, domestic intelligence agencies which want to foment anti-Russian sentiment can get a lot of mileage out of the idea this is another dastardly cyberattack by the Russkies.
- T3RMINATED 6y agohow is change.org considered a news site? BCC is drunk
- opqpo 6y agoThis is a fake story about nonexistent hackers posting fake stories on "real" news sites 'to discredit Nato'.
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- umvi 6y agoUSA itself is already souring on NATO, no hackers needed. Many in the USA are tired of being criticized for being the "world police" yet the same critics also scream when the USA starts pulling its military personnel out of their country (like Germany, most recently). I say Europe should use their own money to build their own Navy and Air Forces to protect their own interests and make their own trade and travel routes secure. Right now most EU countries are putting virtually none of their budget into military because everything is taken care of by the USA (and they can launder protection of interests through USA as well so USA takes all the heat if something goes wrong). Maybe people will complain less about the US military when they have to use their own tax dollars to secure their own borders, shipping and air routes, protect their own interests, etc.
- foepys 6y agoMost Germans would actually be happy if the US closed Ramstein. There was a large uproar in Germany when it came to light that the US is controlling their drones in the Middle East from there.
- hnarn 6y agoUnfortunately for you and the rest of Americans that feel this isolationist tendency, your country will be a part of the world whether you like it or not. A modern conflict that does not involve the US is not the same thing as a modern conflict that does not affect the US. Also, your opinion of Europe doesn’t seem founded in reality. Since when does European nations not have their own standing armies, and since when are American army resources used to protect European borders and shipping routes? And from who? The US needs the rest of the world as much as the rest of the world needs the US. You seem to be under the influence that the US is somehow being fleeced by the rest of the world while nobody but you (conveniently enough) contributes anything.
- umvi 6y agoWell, I'm sick and tired of being lambasted by the rest of the world 24/7 and would like to go back to pre-WW2 isolationism. EU can fend for itself. It doesn't need the US military. And the USA doesn't need NATO. Our military is bigger than the rest of NATO combined. > Since when does European nations not have their own standing armies Europe spends very little on their military compared to USA, China, Russia, etc. > and since when are American army resources used to protect European borders and shipping routes? US Navy protects merchant ships, oil tankers, cargo ships, fiber optic cables, and more from damage, sabotage, seizure, piracy, and more. If you don't recognize global trade and communications stability provided by US Navy, it's time to be reminded. It's time you protect your own interests with your own money. It's time you deal with Russia on your own without a US presence. > The US needs the rest of the world as much as the rest of the world needs the US You just said you don't need "American army resources" because the European nations have their own "standing armies". I whole-heartedly agree. Let Europe use its own military to protect its own interests. > You seem to be under the influence that the US is somehow being fleeced by the rest of the world It does seem like "biting the hand that feeds you". From my perspective EU is like "Cool, USA is taking care of tons of stuff we would normally have to pay for military-wise, so we can use that money instead to provide more social services to our citizens! Also the USA sucks [insert criticisms at every opportunity]"
- winter_blue 6y agoIf the recent HN story of Apple taking 30% of refunded purchases is any indication, fabricated stories have a frighteningly strong staying power. What was especially sad was that a highly knowledgeable group of people (HN) were misled and deceived by the Apple story (which could have been easy verified). If HN is so easily misled, how much more likely is the general population vulnerable to these foreign-government-orchestrated intentional information war campaigns?
- cbg0 6y ago> highly knowledgeable group of people (HN) were misled and deceived Just because you work a high paying job and you're very good at it, that doesn't mean you are impervious to deceit.
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- perl4ever 6y ago>a highly knowledgeable group of people (HN) Threads don't attract the same people. It's reasonable to suppose that the vast majority of people that didn't believe the story didn't participate at all - they said to themselves "this looks dumb/boring/improbable" and clicked on something else.
- josh2600 6y agoDisinformatziya. No document I have ever read covers this topic in more detail than this briefing by Peter Pomerantsev, author of “Nothing is real and everything is possible.” https://imrussia.org/media/pdf/Research/Michael_Weiss_and_Peter_Pomerantsev__The_Menace_of_Unreality.pdf https://imrussia.org/media/pdf/Research/Michael_Weiss_and_Pe... This briefing, which is held in the library of Congress, is where I first heard the term “fake news” in 2014. It’s a stunning contextualization of what has been happening in the last decade.
- gdy 6y agoIs it worth reading? Anything different from the CIA's PsyOps?
- 082349872349872 6y agoUnlikely to differ much, at least as of mid-twentieth century practice: http://www.gutenberg.org/files/48612/48612-h/48612-h.htm http://www.gutenberg.org/files/48612/48612-h/48612-h.htm > "The lower down the echelon, the nearer the armies of the world came to standardizing psychological warfare organization. They did this for the same reason that they all organize into regiments instead of centuries, cohorts, or tribes. Modern war is a self-standardizing process if the enemy experience is to be copied, enemy techniques improved, allied assistance accepted, and military practice kept up to world standards. Psychological warfare units needed printing and radio sections; to service these sections they all needed intelligence and analysis offices; to distribute their materials they all needed agents and liaison. Black propaganda organization varied more than did white, but it was amazing to Americans, uncovering Japanese subversive-operations units, to see how much the Japanese organization resembled their own." (White propaganda is material one admits one has written. Black propaganda is material one claims someone else has written. Both go back to well before the last century. Linebarger has historical notes, with examples going back thousands of years. Having been one of the people who "lost china", Linebarger also offers some opinions on why the communist propaganda was more effective than the capitalist in that case.)
- blaser-waffle 6y agoIn a strictly military context, is maskirovka. This involves NATO in a non-shooty context, so OP or maskirovka might be valid.
- Zenst 6y agoAlways irks me how the media use the term "hackers" as some usurped terminology to describe criminal acts using technology. For me, it is like calling burglars a locksmith - that don't happen and yet we see the word "hacker" used by the media to describe criminal acts so far removed from the words original meaning that it just pains me and i'm sure many others. More so when the populus definition of that word now parallels what the media have been putting out for years, it just creates whole generations that will never know what a true hacker is.
- toohotatopic 6y agoThe meaning of all words changes. It would be ironic if the meaning of the word hacker would be unchangeable, impenetrable.
- Zenst 6y ago> The meaning of all words changes. It would be ironic if the meaning of the word hacker would be unchangeable, impenetrable. Hats off, brilliantly put and the whole aspect that the word hackers got hacked is one that I'll remember with a smile upon this subject. Thank you for that perspective - I'll think better for it.
- lioeters 6y agoIndeed, that was insightful - the word "hacker" has been hacked by mass media to re/present a politicized and criminalized interpretation. The predicament itself feels ironic, in that "hacker" culture reveled in the amoral, going beyond conventional behavior, thinking outside the box, getting around rules and systems, manipulating technology for fun and profit. In a way, that dark side of the hacker attitude now pervades politics, business, and the media. Public institutions and private organizations are surveilling, cataloguing, identifying trends, and maniputing public opinion and social behavior. I suppose it was inevitable that "hacker culture" itself was infiltrated and hacked, to serve an ulterior purpose. A healthy reaction has been the rise of "maker culture". What is old is new again!
- 6y ago
- JohnTClark 6y agoIn Romania, fake news try to say that NATO military bases run a prostitution rings with underage girls. There was a case[1] where a criminal raped and killed a girl in a city near a NATO military base and all the fake news articles were trying to say that the criminal was providing underage girls for the NATO soldiers. [1] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kidnapping_of_Alexandra_M%C4%83ce%C8%99anu https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kidnapping_of_Alexandra_M%C4%8...
- alexc05 6y agoOther than Russia, does any other nation state have a major problem with NATO? Is there any reason to be opposed to the existence of NATO other than: "I'd really like to invade country X, but can't because it's mean retaliation by x,y,z & n"
- gdy 6y agoYou mean reasons like being invaded or bombed by the NATO or NATO members? Or like NATO's Supreme Commander in Europe giving an order to attack your country's paratroopers [0]? [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wesley_Clark#Pristina_International_Airport_incident https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wesley_Clark#Pristina_Internat...
- runarberg 6y agoNot just nation states, but plenty of citizens—in and out of NATO member states—have plenty of reasons to have quite a few problems with NATO, and other military alliances, and any military, and state supported violence in general.