France uncovers a vast Russian disinformation campaign in Europe

L4sBot@lemmy.worldmod to Technology@lemmy.world – 707 points – France uncovers a vast Russian disinformation campaign in Europe
economist.com

France uncovers a vast Russian disinformation campaign in Europe::undefined

101

You are viewing a single comment
View all comments

Honestly Portal Kombat is a great name.

It's a great pun, but I hate how good an English pun it is, especially for the operation. It suggests that these guys aren't hacks, and have enough language and culture skills to blend in. The recent "warm water ports" gaffe comes to mind.

Also, intelligence agencies don't use cute code names for things like this since it makes it easier to work out the operation scope or intent. To me, this also says that the operation is "at arm's length" and the name was coined by non-government folks. Think: information age mercenaries.

intelligence agencies don’t use cute code names for things like this since it makes it easier to work out the operation scope or intent

It's kind of amusing that during WWII Germany had a penchant for choosing meaningful code names for some of their secret programs, names that actually gave important information to the Allies. Knickebein and Wotan were noteworthy examples, names given to German electronic bomber navigation systems.