5 ms·

Tracing Military Command Chains Through Time and Location

103 points by Gigamouse 2y ago

throwup238 2y ago
> Together, we re–developed the data format and domain logic to fit both the ergonomics of existing research tools and to allow for easy analysis. That is some weapons grade marketing speak. The rest of the article is relatively interesting once they get to their use of Datomic/Datalog but it was really hard to get past that BS.
- nikodotio 2y ago
  Hello! Author here: what I was trying to say with this line is “we didn’t charge them for building tools they didn’t need or changing the way they work” — but I very much appreciate the feedback!
trhway 2y ago
There is a reason Russian forces are wearing face-covers in Ukraine. That anonymity even became integral part of the official propaganda with the country plastered with images with covered faces like this https://ok.ru/group/53906516017252/album/922573735012/931001252708 https://ok.ru/group/53906516017252/album/922573735012/931001...
- deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]
- sorokod 2y ago
  Amusingly, the slogan on the right hand side says: "we don't start wars, we finish them".
  - trhway 2y ago
    War is peace, peace is war.
  - timeon 2y ago
    There are some exceptions for the first part like current war in Ukraine or WW2.
    - trhway 2y ago
      Or Chechnya, or Afghanistan, or Russian-Polish war (with WW2 and Ukraine it covers most of the post-WWI period, especially if one adds things like the China-Soviet conflict in 1929 when USSR was defending its colonial holdings). It isn't "exceptions". Russia, be it Grand Duchy of Moscow, Russian Empire, USSR or the current Russia has always been an aggressive state. You don't become such a large empire like Russian Empire or USSR without military aggression :)
  - aaron695 2y ago
    [dead]
- deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]
- PoignardAzur 2y ago
  Why is that guy breaking trigger discipline on a propaganda poster?
  - nradov 2y ago
    Trigger discipline is a decadent Western concept.
    - rjsw 2y ago
      All the pictures of Taliban fighters that I saw after they took over in Afghanistan have good trigger discipline.
      - c22 2y ago
        Because they're trained by CIA.
  - sandworm101 2y ago
    He isnt posing for a poster. That image appears cut from something else.
    - trhway 2y ago
      It doesn't matter. That is for example painted poster https://www.ozon.ru/product/poster-100-na-65-sm-plakat-voennyy-patrioticheskiy-nashe-delo-pravoe-pobeda-budet-za-nami-914221674/?__rr=1&abt_att=1&origin_referer=yandex.ru https://www.ozon.ru/product/poster-100-na-65-sm-plakat-voenn... or another https://stihi.ru/pics/2024/06/14/4714.jpg https://stihi.ru/pics/2024/06/14/4714.jpg (and if it reminds you something with 4-limbed symbol from 80+ years ago - it isn't an accident, it is the nature of the current regime in Russia) While it sounds like a pun, there is no "trigger discipline" in Russia (I myself an ROTC officer). In USSR/Russia the "never point your barrel at anybody or anything" discipline has been taught instead.
      - sandworm101 2y ago
larusso 2y ago
Very interesting and I think important. Something that should be done for any Armee even. I found the writing style … interesting. The author assumed we the reader would have a specific understanding how to model this data. And that they cracked the code. Well that military posts, commands and in some cases government loyalty can change is known. Maybe I read too much into it this morning :). I dislike being treated as ignorant that’s all.
lifeisstillgood 2y ago
Sounds a fantastic idea and a great addition to OSSINT overall
paganel 2y ago
> making it easier for journalists, courts, and researchers to connect commanders to their subordinates’ actions. We all know that G.W. Bush and Tony Blair were at the top of their countries' chains of command during the illegal invasion of Iraq and yet, here we are, they're free of any International Penal Court meddling. Which is to say that maybe these guys and ladies here should focus their "desire for war-justice" a little bit closer to home. Of course, an organization (the Security Force Monitor mentioned in the article) that literally receives money from George Soros through his Open Society Foundations [1] would never go after its own Western leaders, but it's good to at least have that written down on the internet, like in this comment. [1] https://securityforcemonitor.org/about/ https://securityforcemonitor.org/about/
- wbl 2y ago
  When we found out that soldiers in Iraq were mistreating prisoners we put them all on trial and gave the guy who said this wasn't right a medal. What the Burmese military does to maintain its sixty year old dictatorship is wanton murder of civilians.
  - ceejayoz 2y ago
    And then we did this. https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2019/dec/27/eddie-gallagher-trump-navy-seal-iraq https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2019/dec/27/eddie-gallag...
  - mschuster91 2y ago
    > When we found out that soldiers in Iraq were mistreating prisoners We didn't "find out", some media and/or Wikileaks got evidence. And the consequences were not even close to harsh enough - each and every instance of war crimes should have led to a thorough cleanup and massive sentences for everyone involved, especially for everyone who tried to cover it up.
  - no_exit 2y ago
    > we put them all on trial All the mooks, maybe.
motohagiography 2y ago
valuable. a variation should be applied to public services by privacy offices, as gov often uses virtual entities under the guise of projects or working groups, where the legally accountable entity almost never receives documents or decisions, but pushes them down onto technology teams to implement. A standard open organization specification that shows people, authorities, budget flows and beneficial parties, and then only funding anything expressed in that spec would go a long way to improving institutions.
the-alchemist 2y ago
They go into detail on their technical decision making, very cool: Choosing Clojure6 and Datalog7 was a calculated risk–but one which paid off. The Datalog model offered the simplest and most ergonomic queries, had strengths in graphs and relationships, and the entity model could easily transform to more standard formats. In–memory Datomic was chosen on the server, allowing complicated relational rule–based queries to map over tens of thousands of claims, linking sources to the attributes of entities. Using Clojure allowed for rapid prototyping and fast feedback cycles. Together, this allowed constructing arbitrary graph traversal queries, without having to round–trip from the database to execute recursive code, allowing the nature of traversing the domain model to be separated from the specifics of the relationship. How entities relate, and how relations work through time, could be developed as separate concepts. Using Datalog queries, it was possible to get every subordinate, as well as the time ranges they held true for, with a simple query like (subordinate-of ?a ?b ?start-date ?end-date)

103 points by Gigamouse 2y ago

> Together, we re–developed the data format and domain logic to fit both the ergonomics of existing research tools and to allow for easy analysis. That is some weapons grade marketing speak. The rest of the article is relatively interesting once they get to their use of Datomic/Datalog but it was really hard to get past that BS.

nikodotio 2y ago
Hello! Author here: what I was trying to say with this line is “we didn’t charge them for building tools they didn’t need or changing the way they work” — but I very much appreciate the feedback!

trhway 2y ago

There is a reason Russian forces are wearing face-covers in Ukraine. That anonymity even became integral part of the official propaganda with the country plastered with images with covered faces like this https://ok.ru/group/53906516017252/album/922573735012/931001252708 https://ok.ru/group/53906516017252/album/922573735012/931001...

deleted 2y ago
[deleted]
sorokod 2y ago
Amusingly, the slogan on the right hand side says: "we don't start wars, we finish them".
- trhway 2y ago
  War is peace, peace is war.
- timeon 2y ago
  There are some exceptions for the first part like current war in Ukraine or WW2.
  - trhway 2y ago
    Or Chechnya, or Afghanistan, or Russian-Polish war (with WW2 and Ukraine it covers most of the post-WWI period, especially if one adds things like the China-Soviet conflict in 1929 when USSR was defending its colonial holdings). It isn't "exceptions". Russia, be it Grand Duchy of Moscow, Russian Empire, USSR or the current Russia has always been an aggressive state. You don't become such a large empire like Russian Empire or USSR without military aggression :)
- aaron695 2y ago
  [dead]
deleted 2y ago
[deleted]
PoignardAzur 2y ago
Why is that guy breaking trigger discipline on a propaganda poster?
- nradov 2y ago
  Trigger discipline is a decadent Western concept.
  - rjsw 2y ago
    All the pictures of Taliban fighters that I saw after they took over in Afghanistan have good trigger discipline.
    - c22 2y ago
      Because they're trained by CIA.
- sandworm101 2y ago
  He isnt posing for a poster. That image appears cut from something else.
  - trhway 2y ago
    It doesn't matter. That is for example painted poster https://www.ozon.ru/product/poster-100-na-65-sm-plakat-voennyy-patrioticheskiy-nashe-delo-pravoe-pobeda-budet-za-nami-914221674/?__rr=1&abt_att=1&origin_referer=yandex.ru https://www.ozon.ru/product/poster-100-na-65-sm-plakat-voenn... or another https://stihi.ru/pics/2024/06/14/4714.jpg https://stihi.ru/pics/2024/06/14/4714.jpg (and if it reminds you something with 4-limbed symbol from 80+ years ago - it isn't an accident, it is the nature of the current regime in Russia) While it sounds like a pun, there is no "trigger discipline" in Russia (I myself an ROTC officer). In USSR/Russia the "never point your barrel at anybody or anything" discipline has been taught instead.
    - sandworm101 2y ago

larusso 2y ago

Very interesting and I think important. Something that should be done for any Armee even. I found the writing style … interesting. The author assumed we the reader would have a specific understanding how to model this data. And that they cracked the code. Well that military posts, commands and in some cases government loyalty can change is known. Maybe I read too much into it this morning :). I dislike being treated as ignorant that’s all.

lifeisstillgood 2y ago

Sounds a fantastic idea and a great addition to OSSINT overall

paganel 2y ago

> making it easier for journalists, courts, and researchers to connect commanders to their subordinates’ actions. We all know that G.W. Bush and Tony Blair were at the top of their countries' chains of command during the illegal invasion of Iraq and yet, here we are, they're free of any International Penal Court meddling. Which is to say that maybe these guys and ladies here should focus their "desire for war-justice" a little bit closer to home. Of course, an organization (the Security Force Monitor mentioned in the article) that literally receives money from George Soros through his Open Society Foundations [1] would never go after its own Western leaders, but it's good to at least have that written down on the internet, like in this comment. [1] https://securityforcemonitor.org/about/ https://securityforcemonitor.org/about/

wbl 2y ago
When we found out that soldiers in Iraq were mistreating prisoners we put them all on trial and gave the guy who said this wasn't right a medal. What the Burmese military does to maintain its sixty year old dictatorship is wanton murder of civilians.
- ceejayoz 2y ago
  And then we did this. https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2019/dec/27/eddie-gallagher-trump-navy-seal-iraq https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2019/dec/27/eddie-gallag...
- mschuster91 2y ago
  > When we found out that soldiers in Iraq were mistreating prisoners We didn't "find out", some media and/or Wikileaks got evidence. And the consequences were not even close to harsh enough - each and every instance of war crimes should have led to a thorough cleanup and massive sentences for everyone involved, especially for everyone who tried to cover it up.
- no_exit 2y ago
  > we put them all on trial All the mooks, maybe.

motohagiography 2y ago

valuable. a variation should be applied to public services by privacy offices, as gov often uses virtual entities under the guise of projects or working groups, where the legally accountable entity almost never receives documents or decisions, but pushes them down onto technology teams to implement. A standard open organization specification that shows people, authorities, budget flows and beneficial parties, and then only funding anything expressed in that spec would go a long way to improving institutions.

the-alchemist 2y ago

They go into detail on their technical decision making, very cool: Choosing Clojure6 and Datalog7 was a calculated risk–but one which paid off. The Datalog model offered the simplest and most ergonomic queries, had strengths in graphs and relationships, and the entity model could easily transform to more standard formats. In–memory Datomic was chosen on the server, allowing complicated relational rule–based queries to map over tens of thousands of claims, linking sources to the attributes of entities. Using Clojure allowed for rapid prototyping and fast feedback cycles. Together, this allowed constructing arbitrary graph traversal queries, without having to round–trip from the database to execute recursive code, allowing the nature of traversing the domain model to be separated from the specifics of the relationship. How entities relate, and how relations work through time, could be developed as separate concepts. Using Datalog queries, it was possible to get every subordinate, as well as the time ranges they held true for, with a simple query like (subordinate-of ?a ?b ?start-date ?end-date)