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Comment by teekert | Hacker News Reader

Recently a wave of DDOS attacks hit the banks of the Netherlands. While the large Bank CEOs were on the news saying this was a professional, very possibly the Russians, Jelle M. from the small town of Oosterhout was caught and confessed that he had spend something like 50$ on some DDOS stress testing service. There is a very nice story on this [0], unfortunately it is in Dutch.

Yes, this is different but the ease with which the Russians are blamed seems to be very wide spread. Of course, we never get to see and investigate the evidence.

[0] https://tweakers.net/reviews/6031/een-ddoser-betrapt-hoe-de-...

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Same thing with the French election email leaks. Google "french election russia hack" and look at the assertions. The French intelligence agency very quietly denied Russia was behind the hack months later.

It's starting to become a problem, honestly.

There was a case with a local MP here who was supporting an unpopular bill, so his website got DDOS'd and the next day he was in the media talking about how this had to be a sophisticated attack. Basically implying that it had to be a rogue state behind it, not mentioning Russia by name, but it was obvious, cringy, sad and obvious.

I'd say if Russia wasn't messing with other countries (either by hacking, invading or trying to overthrow governments[0]) blaming something on them will be indeed a problem.

But now they're reaping what they sow.

[0] - http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2017/02/18/russias-deadly-pl...

It's kinda sad the public just eat it up.

Makes you wonder how much other BS is being forced down our throats. Often as a subject matter expert, when you see media coverage of your domain, you know it’s BS. But then you forget about that the second an “expert” in another domain is on TV telling you what to think.

There have been psychology studies on this effect but I can’t find the references atm.

Gell-Mann Amnesia

Yep, that's it. I guess the idea comes from a quote attributed to him [0]:

> Briefly stated, the Gell-Mann Amnesia effect works as follows. You open the newspaper to an article on some subject you know well. In Murray’s case, physics. In mine, show business. You read the article and see the journalist has absolutely no understanding of either the facts or the issues. Often, the article is so wrong it actually presents the story backward-reversing cause and effect. I call these the “wet streets cause rain” stories. Paper’s full of them. In any case, you read with exasperation or amusement the multiple errors in a story-and then turn the page to national or international affairs, and read with renewed interest as if the rest of the newspaper was somehow more accurate about far-off Palestine than it was about the story you just read. You turn the page, and forget what you know.

I swear I've seen this confirmed in some psychology studies but I can't find them right now.

[0] https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Murray_Gell-Mann

Russia does employ 'Maskirovka' so it is pretty standard for them to deny anything despite being aware of it.

Same with social justice outrage sells the product.

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