Comment by darkwater

1 day ago

> Russian locale kill switch: Exits silently if system locale begins with "ru", checking Intl.DateTimeFormat().resolvedOptions().locale and environment variables LC_ALL, LC_MESSAGES, LANGUAGE, and LANG

So bold and so cowards at the same time...

The worst thing is that you can't even tell if that's "real" or just a false flag.

  • Does it matter? Lots of groups do such checks at startup at this point, because every news outlet who reports on it suddenly believe the group to be Russian if you do, so it's a no brainer to add today to misdirect even a little.

"Discretion is the better part of valor", "Never point it at your own feet", "Russian roulette is best enjoyed as a spectator", and many other sayings seem applicable.

ah yes, because everyone sets locale on their npm publish github CI job.

obvious misdirection, but it does serve to make it very obvious it was a state actor.

  • > but it does serve to make it very obvious it was a state actor

    Lol no, lots of groups do this, non-state ones too.

That isn't a smoking gun. I think it was the Vault7 leaks which showed that the NSA and CIA deliberately leave trails like this to obfuscate which nation state did it. I'm sure other state actors do this as well, and it's not a particularly "crazy" technique.