r/technology • u/ArgentineBeauty • 19h ago

Society Ukraine Struck Yandex Data Centers, Russian Bots Went Silent—Now Questions Are Mounting

https://united24media.com/war-in-ukraine/ukraine-struck-yandex-data-centers-russian-bots-went-silent-now-questions-are-mounting-23339
38.2k Upvotes

95% Upvoted

2.1k comments sorted by

View all comments

5.2k

u/ArgentineBeauty 19h ago

Some right wing politicians are about to start wondering why no one is engaging with their posts anymore.

2.9k

u/Pkrhett 18h ago

r/conservative has 0 users at the time of this comment.

625

u/Monterey-Jack 18h ago

You mean we could have fixed this bot problem all this time we just cut russia off from the internet?

315

u/f_crick 18h ago

It’s just temporary. They’ll eventually adapt to whatever the circumstances are.

263

u/MaybeLithiumFlower 17h ago

This is one place the increase in tech costs due to AI is actually a good thing. It's extremely expensive and difficult to source the parts to build a data-centre now. And if Ukraine could hit that one they can possibly do it again.

Russia being kept off the internet would be really nice for a while.

141

u/jeefzors 17h ago

if they could keep it up during election season, that'd be great

76

u/ItalianDragon 16h ago

Perhaps we can ask Zelensky to strike Russian data centers offline just in time for the elections ?

74

u/big_trike 15h ago

It would certainly benefit Ukraine if Russia had less influence on the US and Europe.

42

u/digiorno 15h ago

Certain several Ukrainian generals are prioritizing this. Taking wind of the conservative sails around the globe will only help Ukraine.

40

u/MaybeLithiumFlower 14h ago

Ukraine might just save the world.

13

u/youngishgeezer 15h ago

I'm sure they know this.

1

u/GrandpaJim420 9h ago

"Ukraine, if you're listening"

1

u/okwellactually 5h ago

Ukraine, if you're listening....

1

u/Mshell 3h ago

If enough people donate money and ask them to, maybe they will be able to...

9

u/kent_eh 16h ago

if they could keep it up during election season, that'd be great

And not only during USA's election season.

4

u/Atomic235 15h ago

They should keep it up for their own sake. A lot of the poison flowing out of Russia is intended to disrupt support for Ukraine's defence.

1

u/FlashFlood_29 13h ago

It's a tactic that will pay off dividends if they keep it up

8

u/yeahburyme 16h ago

Ukraine has hit 3 so far. If it's anything like Wildberries, they will keep at it.

2

u/RupeThereItIs 16h ago

It's extremely expensive and difficult to source the parts to build a data-centre now.

Do they NEED to build one.

Are they not able to weasel into standard IaaS providers?

1

u/MaybeLithiumFlower 15h ago

Certainly seems like it. Perhaps the standard providers won't host bot farms.

1

u/doberdevil 15h ago

Russia being kept off the internet would be really nice for a while.

Unfortunately they've been the perfect example of how to destroy a powerful enemy. Hit them in the stupidity with propaganda wars.

This technique has been around for a long time, but it's never been this effective. You can bet your ass other countries have been playing along.

1

u/Necoras 16h ago

Oh, they'll just use botnets. This is an easy problem to get around.

2

u/MaybeLithiumFlower 15h ago

They still need to run somewhere, and AI (which they are using) need decently powerful machines that they'd hammer hard. No way they could secretly run them on random desktops without people noticing their machines and networks are over-worked.

0

u/Earlier-Today 16h ago

It's important to remember that expensive for us is not expensive at all for governments. Russia's federal budget is over $300 billion - the price increases don't mean anything with that kind of purchasing power.

Availability could make things more difficult, but governments just have way more leverage than even corporations do because they get to decide whether you can sell anything to their citizens and their country's businesses.

It's definitely a huge blow to Russia's disinformation machine to hit those data centers, but people need to be pragmatic about how this might not stop them for very long.

3

u/MaybeLithiumFlower 15h ago

Makes no difference if they can't even source the chips.

56

u/DuntadaMan 18h ago

They'll just spend money to offshore the work to a friendly African country where money is scarce but tech is plentiful.

73

u/Typohnename 17h ago

How many poor african countries with an abundance of data centers are there?

22

u/Longjumping_Poet7897 17h ago

Ghana - Accra seems to be like a tech / fintech new area for that type of thing. probably not data centers yet but I could see it happening.

13

u/d3ssp3rado 17h ago

Thanks for adding them to Drone Map.

3

u/iconocrastinaor 14h ago

Nigeria has a LOT of bots. They're human and working scams, but they'll do whatever the money tells them to.

1

u/bollvirtuoso 16h ago

Right now or soon?

8

u/ZealousidealLead52 17h ago

The rampant corruption in Africa tends to make it very difficult to make any kind of large infrastructure project work there. It's not like Africa ended up in the state it is by complete coincidence - there are reasons people don't like doing business there.

11

u/Intellectual-Hamster 17h ago

With the costs of tech, I imagine this will be an expensive fix.

7

u/Allegorist 16h ago

Good thing the US is giving them an infusion of billions of dollars then

1

u/Intellectual-Hamster 16h ago

We will see, it seems like there is some bipartisan support to shut it down.

5

u/Allegorist 16h ago

There have been lots of things that have seemed like they should have bipartisan support, but then enough of them are told how they need to vote to keep their jobs that altogether Congress just rolls over and takes it.

1

u/Intellectual-Hamster 16h ago

I agree, very depressing.

2

u/theBoobMan 17h ago

Bro we've been trying to do the same thing in the US for the last few years and most of it still has years to go before it'll even get close to comparable with Tiawan.

2

u/GB10VE 17h ago

saudi arabia is right there. india is also right there.

2

u/psmgx 16h ago

its a short list bro: it's Nigeria, or maybe S Africa. Nigeria also has a ton of direct undersea fiber.

most of their (Russian) offshore propaganda is out of Nigeria or India

2

u/Keemo-Sabe 16h ago

Cambodia is a big spot, India too

9

u/UsoppIsJoyboy 17h ago

so lets not do anything about it?

-4

u/WeenieRoastinTacoGuy 17h ago

Just like Americans continue to do about everything! “not my problem I voted for the other guy”

-5

u/f_crick 17h ago

How about something that might actually work?

2

u/big_duo3674 17h ago

Kinda... the big ones are, but setting up millions of bots and getting them established isn't exactly a lightswitch that can be flipped. Some may not even have passwords or ability to access anymore, they were just left to freely roam and comment. Those accounts were critical too, because they had engagement numbers and were pushed higher for visibility in places by the various algorithms. The damage done is very real

1

u/SoulWager 17h ago

Millions of bots isn't THAT much infrastructure, you can run many on a single machine. The engagement/algorithm isn't a problem if you have the support of the platforms you're targeting, which based on Elon's reaction, they do.

1

u/-The_Blazer- 17h ago

Yeah I'm pretty sure it's trivial to just offshore some compute and its resources. The Internet has no walls, and unfortunately stopping foreign interference inherently requires building walls which is a very difficult conversation to have.

1

u/sobrique 16h ago

But it's honestly kinda shocking just how much the traffic has dropped, and it highlights just how big a problem it is.

And you're right, they'll adapt and be right back, but still....

1

u/f_crick 9h ago

I think they have a budget like everyone else and concentrate their resources if that’s working at the time.

1

u/DickRhino 16h ago

I literally had a conversation with a guy a couple of weeks ago here on reddit where he was like:

"You don't understand, Trump is trying to stop Russia from selling oil with this sanctions package, the goal is to stop Russian oil trade, just you wait and see!"

I went back to that old comment thread a day or two ago and asked him if he wanted his "fell for it again"-award now, and he literally replied:

"USA buying Russian diesel is a good thing for everyone actually."

You can't reason with them, because they don't actually believe in anything. They'll just say and think whatever they're told to say and think.

1

u/WavecrestRd 16h ago

like cockroaches