6 ms·

"No way to prevent this," says only forum where this regularly happens

by robbiet480 3y ago

rewmie 3y ago
Would it be possible that these leaks happen on purpose?
- GaryNumanVevo 3y ago
  Not really much of a conspiracy there, most of the "leaks" are technically public info NATO documents, War Thunder's developer doesn't want to touch ANYTHING that might have been classified at one point.
- 0xDEF 3y ago
  That is almost certainly what is happening. There are tens of millions of Westerners who are sympathetic towards the adversaries of the West (primarily Russia).
  - kakwa_ 3y ago
    Don't attribute to malice what could be attributed to stupidity. Most or War Thunder leaks were basically "the in game stats are wrong, here is the proof: [CLASSIFIED DOC]". And in other cases (like the Ukraine War leaks on Discord) it's just flexing like "I know things you common folks don't know". It doesn't mean nefarious leaks for money or sympathy don't occur, but there are generally far less visible.
serf 3y ago
do you have any actionable suggestions aside from moderator-approved messages or turning the forum read-only? information suppression is pretty tough work, especially when you're trying to suppress the unknown.
- mannerheim 3y ago
  Probably the only thing they could do to fix this problem for good is to basically not include any modern equipment at all.
  - jowea 3y ago
    Even then, don't they have the type of userbase that would still keep arguing about equipment that is not in the game?
- Tostino 3y ago
  Train a ML model as a classified document classifier and scan everything through that... now they just need to dig through their archives for the training set from all the past leaks.
  - jonathankoren 3y ago
    Oh sure! Let me just pull up my training set of unredacted classified documents… Wait. I’ve got a knock on the door.
    - Tostino 3y ago
      I mean I was partially joking about the origin of the dataset, but they likely could work with DoD at this point to get a model that is acceptable to put in place, after as many leaks as they have had.
      - jonathankoren 3y ago
        I believe they already have things track how documents are accessed and copied across their network. There’s definitely flaws in it, but it’s not completely open.
- everforward 3y ago
  Isn't there standard text on these? On a cover page and/or headers/footers? I get that the content of the documents is not known, but I would think the structure of them is known and could be matched on. Perhaps specific phrases that are only likely to appear in military documents, or a classification level in a header/footer, or even some specific combination of font, font weight, line spacing and indentation. They could maybe even slurp up the text from PDF's they blocked to prevent someone from posting similar plaintext. Probably not, though, because an endpoint that says whether something is or isn't classified is basically a classified document generator with enough time or clever tricks. Then just forward the reports to whatever country's military owns those docs (or let the company's government do that). I think War Thunder only needs to make a nominal effort; the various militaries of the world will take care of backing it up with a dire threat.
  - thefurdrake 3y ago
    > Perhaps specific phrases that are only likely to appear in military documents, or a classification level in a header/footer, or even some specific combination of font, font weight, line spacing and indentation. Do you have any idea how difficult it would be to maintain a database of distinguishing sensitive marks on documents? Hell, some documents are so protected even the labeling is protected information. Infeasible. Edit: I don't mean infeasible or difficult from a technical standpoint. I mean procedurally, this isn't viable. You couldn't accomplish it in a way that wouldn't be so full of holes as to be functionally useless.
walrus01 3y ago
People replying to this part of the thread may not be getting the satirical reference to The Onion https://www.google.com/search?client=firefox-b-d&q=the+onion+no+way+to+prevent+this https://www.google.com/search?client=firefox-b-d&q=the+onion...
Arnavion 3y ago
I don't know why they would want to prevent it. It's free publicity for them with no consequences. They just have to make sure to delete it eventually.
- vdfs 3y ago
  Best example of we've tried nothing and we're out of ideas
matheusmoreira 3y ago
They shouldn't have to prevent it.

"No way to prevent this," says only forum where this regularly happens

rewmie 3y ago

Would it be possible that these leaks happen on purpose?

GaryNumanVevo 3y ago
Not really much of a conspiracy there, most of the "leaks" are technically public info NATO documents, War Thunder's developer doesn't want to touch ANYTHING that might have been classified at one point.
0xDEF 3y ago
That is almost certainly what is happening. There are tens of millions of Westerners who are sympathetic towards the adversaries of the West (primarily Russia).
- kakwa_ 3y ago
  Don't attribute to malice what could be attributed to stupidity. Most or War Thunder leaks were basically "the in game stats are wrong, here is the proof: [CLASSIFIED DOC]". And in other cases (like the Ukraine War leaks on Discord) it's just flexing like "I know things you common folks don't know". It doesn't mean nefarious leaks for money or sympathy don't occur, but there are generally far less visible.

serf 3y ago

do you have any actionable suggestions aside from moderator-approved messages or turning the forum read-only? information suppression is pretty tough work, especially when you're trying to suppress the unknown.

mannerheim 3y ago
Probably the only thing they could do to fix this problem for good is to basically not include any modern equipment at all.
- jowea 3y ago
  Even then, don't they have the type of userbase that would still keep arguing about equipment that is not in the game?
Tostino 3y ago
Train a ML model as a classified document classifier and scan everything through that... now they just need to dig through their archives for the training set from all the past leaks.
- jonathankoren 3y ago
  Oh sure! Let me just pull up my training set of unredacted classified documents… Wait. I’ve got a knock on the door.
  - Tostino 3y ago
    I mean I was partially joking about the origin of the dataset, but they likely could work with DoD at this point to get a model that is acceptable to put in place, after as many leaks as they have had.
    - jonathankoren 3y ago
      I believe they already have things track how documents are accessed and copied across their network. There’s definitely flaws in it, but it’s not completely open.
everforward 3y ago
Isn't there standard text on these? On a cover page and/or headers/footers? I get that the content of the documents is not known, but I would think the structure of them is known and could be matched on. Perhaps specific phrases that are only likely to appear in military documents, or a classification level in a header/footer, or even some specific combination of font, font weight, line spacing and indentation. They could maybe even slurp up the text from PDF's they blocked to prevent someone from posting similar plaintext. Probably not, though, because an endpoint that says whether something is or isn't classified is basically a classified document generator with enough time or clever tricks. Then just forward the reports to whatever country's military owns those docs (or let the company's government do that). I think War Thunder only needs to make a nominal effort; the various militaries of the world will take care of backing it up with a dire threat.
- thefurdrake 3y ago
  > Perhaps specific phrases that are only likely to appear in military documents, or a classification level in a header/footer, or even some specific combination of font, font weight, line spacing and indentation. Do you have any idea how difficult it would be to maintain a database of distinguishing sensitive marks on documents? Hell, some documents are so protected even the labeling is protected information. Infeasible. Edit: I don't mean infeasible or difficult from a technical standpoint. I mean procedurally, this isn't viable. You couldn't accomplish it in a way that wouldn't be so full of holes as to be functionally useless.

walrus01 3y ago

People replying to this part of the thread may not be getting the satirical reference to The Onion https://www.google.com/search?client=firefox-b-d&q=the+onion+no+way+to+prevent+this https://www.google.com/search?client=firefox-b-d&q=the+onion...

Arnavion 3y ago

I don't know why they would want to prevent it. It's free publicity for them with no consequences. They just have to make sure to delete it eventually.

vdfs 3y ago
Best example of we've tried nothing and we're out of ideas

matheusmoreira 3y ago

They shouldn't have to prevent it.