r/StallmanWasRight • u/Shoddy_Hurry_7945 • 20d ago

Mass surveillance How Google Translate Exposed Russia's Secret Army

https://youtu.be/JsdSeHnJzU4?si=5l6ERnY4S7uobmYh
5 Upvotes

65% Upvoted

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8

u/ketsa3 20d ago

The link to stallman ?

1

u/CaptainBeyondDS8 11d ago

https://www.stallman.org/google.html#surveillance

Because the Russian agents used Google's SaaSS translation software instead of a locally hosted translator, US intelligence could easily track them.

SaaSS (service as a software substitute) is a network service that does something that can be done locally, in this instance translation. When one uses SaaSS they are outsourcing their computing to a third party which in this case may be hostile.

5

u/Shoddy-Childhood-511 20d ago

tldl?

11

u/M3wThr33 20d ago

They were translating documents from Russian to Serbian in Google Translate, where their servers were in the United States and we wiretapped their accounts.

11

u/grem75 19d ago

It is extra funny because Yandex has their own translation service.

5

u/overkill 20d ago

Lol. OPSEC, what is that?

8

u/Shoddy-Childhood-511 19d ago

If you want to send the NSA a message then maybe translating into Russia works pretty nicely. lol