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   Michał "rysiek" Woźniak · 🇺🇦 (rysiek@mstdn.social)'s status on Thursday, 20-Feb-2025 23:34:12 JST Michał "rysiek" Woźniak · 🇺🇦

   • Ars Technica

   When writing about pretty much any kind of attacks, we tend to recognize that while people with certain skills were certainly involved, that is not their defining characteristic.

   Would @arstechnica write a headline featuring "Russia-aligned driver groups"? 🤔

   No, that would obviously sound ridiculous. "Russia-aligned mercenary groups" makes way more sense. Even though most of them likely can and do drive.

   And yet over and over again: "Russia-aligned hackers". 🙄

   https://mastodon.social/@arstechnica/114032647463343969

   • Kim Scheinberg repeated this.
   • Embed this notice
     Michał "rysiek" Woźniak · 🇺🇦 (rysiek@mstdn.social)'s status on Thursday, 20-Feb-2025 23:34:11 JST Michał "rysiek" Woźniak · 🇺🇦

     in reply to

     • Ars Technica

     "Russia-aligned cyber-criminal groups"

     "Russia-aligned malicious actors"

     "Russia-aligned cyber-espionage groups"

     "Russia-aligned cyber-warfare groups"

     All of these are better, more clear, and more relevant to the actual attack that is being reported on.

     All of these also avoid implying responsibility of some nebulous hackers and harmfully stereotyping a global creative community.

     And it took me a few seconds to come up with these.

     Come on, @arstechnica , you can do better.

     Alfred M. Szmidt repeated this.
   • Embed this notice
     Paul Cantrell (inthehands@hachyderm.io)'s status on Thursday, 20-Feb-2025 23:37:45 JST Paul Cantrell

     in reply to

     • Ars Technica

     @rysiek @arstechnica

     I think it’s fair game to mention the •political• alignment of an attacker, if in fact they have one. I’m not sure whether that’s a fair judgement in this case — nationality is not the same as political alignment — but it is in principle a reasonable practice.

   • Embed this notice
     Paul Cantrell (inthehands@hachyderm.io)'s status on Thursday, 20-Feb-2025 23:41:10 JST Paul Cantrell

     in reply to

     @rysiek
     Ah, I see. What noun should go there?

   • Embed this notice
     Michał "rysiek" Woźniak · 🇺🇦 (rysiek@mstdn.social)'s status on Thursday, 20-Feb-2025 23:41:12 JST Michał "rysiek" Woźniak · 🇺🇦

     in reply to

     • Paul Cantrell

     @inthehands I am not complaining about the "Russia-aligned", I am complaining about the "hackers" bit. I thought the example I gave was pretty clear.

   • Embed this notice
     Michał "rysiek" Woźniak · 🇺🇦 (rysiek@mstdn.social)'s status on Thursday, 20-Feb-2025 23:48:42 JST Michał "rysiek" Woźniak · 🇺🇦

     in reply to

     This matters a lot, because – as the NEWAG DRMed trains thing in Poland clearly shows – stereotyping hackers as some nebulous cyber-criminals enables companies that do something shady to just shout "oh, hackers!" when researchers call them out on that.

     And it works! It's a strategy that is being used consciously and with purpose by NEWAG, and has been used in the past by other huge companies who wanted to deflect criticism related to their own cyber-shenanigans.

   • Embed this notice
     Paul Cantrell (inthehands@hachyderm.io)'s status on Thursday, 20-Feb-2025 23:50:11 JST Paul Cantrell

     in reply to

     @rysiek
     Ah, I missed that! Yes, I think you have a point.

   • Embed this notice
     Michał "rysiek" Woźniak · 🇺🇦 (rysiek@mstdn.social)'s status on Thursday, 20-Feb-2025 23:50:12 JST Michał "rysiek" Woźniak · 🇺🇦

     in reply to

     • Paul Cantrell

     @inthehands literally next message in the thread.