that's awesome man. oh and feel free to be encouraged but don't ever get discouraged based on other people's behavior or actions. experts like you are definitely needed in today's world. people will eventually appreciate your research.

> Pretty cool I was able to help in a minimally viable way to understand what was happening

But how much were you paid?

Trolling the Russians is fun but it won’t pay your rent.

Intelligence agencies should pay for skilled labor, or accept the risks of unexpected incidents.

(I respect the effort but you put yourself in danger when you oppose Putin in public, even if you live in the supposedly free United States.)

A lot of people geolocate stuff on /r/combatfootage for fun because they like following the progress of the war. It's a personal challenge.

> A lot of people geolocate stuff on /r/combatfootage for fun because they like following the progress of the war. It's a personal challenge.

Or because they like gore and /r/watchpeopledie got got.

Living life in fear of reprisal isn’t much of a life. We all should strive to live up to our ideals and convictions, no matter the consequences. If we don’t then what are we actually doing here?

> Living life in fear of reprisal isn’t much of a life. We all should strive to live up to our ideals and convictions, no matter the consequences. If we don’t then what are we actually doing here?

I agree, so why not do something truly brave, like spark a riot outside the mayor's house with nothing more than a well timed GIF rather than waste time confirming what folks already know in forensic detail?

(Sorry to be flippant, but it's been a long day and it's so late it's early.)

If Putin is going to come after every Westerner that both hates his guts and that has contributed in one form or another to the Ukrainian side of this war then he has his work cut out for him. I'd say OP is too low value a target from cost/benefit analysis point of view and the backlash of committing acts of war on Western territory could well be much, much worse than anything that Putin is willing to deal with at the moment. Putin has gotten away with the occasional assassination of Russians on foreign soil, with innocents as collateral damage, if he steps that up to a targeted assassination campaign of Western citizens then that would be a serious miscalculation on his part.

On the other hand cost/benefit can change, especially with new technology - machine learning, ai, quantum computing, etc… That may be why the military is so interested in encouraging it, to distribute (thin out) the risk.

> Putin has gotten away with the occasional assassination of Russians on foreign soil, with innocents as collateral damage, if he steps that up to a targeted assassination campaign of Western citizens then that would be a serious miscalculation on his part.

On the other hand, targeting nobodies abroad would be a highly-effective form of stochastic terrorism inflicted with the unpredictability and resources of a state-sponsored serial killer.

Anybody attempting attribution would be dismissed as crazy.

>> Putin has gotten away with the occasional assassination of Russians on foreign soil, with innocents as collateral damage, if he steps that up to a targeted assassination campaign of Western citizens then that would be a serious miscalculation on his part.

>On the other hand, targeting nobodies abroad would be a highly-effective form of stochastic terrorism

I don't think that word means what you think it means.

Stochastic terrorism is "The use of mass public communication, usually against a particular individual or group, which incites or inspires acts of terrorism which are statistically probable but happen seemingly at random."[1]

What you're describing -- "murdering nobodies" is just run of the mill terrorism[2] where I'm from[3].

>§ 2717. Terrorism.

>(a) General rule.--A person is guilty of terrorism if he commits a violent offense intending to do any of the following:

>(1) Intimidate or coerce a civilian population.

>(2) Influence the policy of a government by intimidation or coercion.=

>(3) Affect the conduct of a government.

Be more careful with your language, words have immense power.

[1] https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/stochastic_terrorism

[2] https://www.legis.state.pa.us/WU01/LI/LI/CT/HTM/18/00.027..H...

[3] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vl3jK8NCLFc

Bravo. That is definitely probably the only true 'hacker badge' that I would really want. I would wear that little patch on my jacket at the little meeting for sure.

This is a great story. Don't get discouraged!