The Yandex outage probably didn’t blitz Russian bots
The Yandex outage probably didn’t blitz Russian bots
Yandex 的服务中断可能并未摧毁俄罗斯的机器人网络
At least, not the troll traffic that blights social media. Multiple Ukrainian drone strikes over the last week have taken Russian data centers offline and reportedly caused online bot traffic to plummet — but in reality it’s probably not the kind of bot activity most people associate with Russia.
至少，并没有摧毁那些在社交媒体上肆虐的“喷子”流量。过去一周内，乌克兰的多起无人机袭击导致俄罗斯的数据中心下线，据报道，这导致在线机器人流量大幅下降——但实际上，这可能并不是大多数人所认为的那种与俄罗斯相关的机器人活动。
A chart citing Cloudflare data has been circulating around social media platforms, showing a sharp decline in bot traffic following attacks on Yandex servers — a technology company often described as “Russia’s Google.” While many people are inferring that the chart refers to bot farms that push disinformation, conspiracy theories, and other harmful content across online platforms, reputed troll farm exposer antibot4navalny says the data “has nothing to do with social media.”
一张引用 Cloudflare 数据的图表正在社交媒体平台上流传，显示在针对 Yandex（一家常被称为“俄罗斯谷歌”的科技公司）的服务器遭到攻击后，机器人流量急剧下降。虽然许多人推断该图表指的是在在线平台上散布虚假信息、阴谋论和其他有害内容的“水军农场”，但著名的“水军农场”揭露者 antibot4navalny 表示，这些数据“与社交媒体毫无关系”。
In a thread on X, antibot4navalny says the chart is actually measuring requests from automated Yandex web crawlers. These bots have broad uses, so while they can be used maliciously to hack user accounts and target people with spam, they’re also very commonly used to index websites for search engines and provide customer service support. The chart is also specific to Yandex-based traffic, and not bot activity from Russia at large — which remains largely unchanged around the data center attacks, according to Cloudflare.
在 X 平台的一条推文中，antibot4navalny 指出，该图表实际上衡量的是来自 Yandex 自动化网络爬虫的请求。这些机器人用途广泛，虽然它们可能被恶意用于入侵用户账户或发送垃圾信息，但它们也常被用于为搜索引擎索引网站并提供客户服务支持。此外，该图表仅针对基于 Yandex 的流量，而非俄罗斯整体的机器人活动——根据 Cloudflare 的说法，后者在数据中心遇袭期间基本保持不变。
Other charts have also been shared that show the same alleged decline in Russian disinformation bot activity. One such diagram was shared on X by European Parliament member Tomáš Zdechovský, who claimed that online activity around the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) political party plummeted following the Russian data center attacks.
其他一些图表也被分享出来，声称显示了俄罗斯虚假信息机器人活动的同样下降趋势。欧洲议会议员 Tomáš Zdechovský 在 X 上分享了其中一张图表，他声称在俄罗斯数据中心遇袭后，围绕德国极右翼政党“德国选择党”（AfD）的在线活动大幅下降。
Computer scientist Raphael Wimmer says he suspects the source diagram shared by Zdechovský is AI-generated, pointing out several inconsistencies with the activity timeline it’s supposedly tracking, including a data point logged for a future date: October 15th. The image appears to have first been posted by Threads user Robin Schlingheider. The data’s source isn’t established, and the original doesn’t include any reference to Germany’s AfD party. Wimmer says Schlingheider has evaded his questions about where the image originated.
计算机科学家 Raphael Wimmer 表示，他怀疑 Zdechovský 分享的原始图表是由人工智能生成的。他指出了该图表所追踪的活动时间轴存在多处不一致，包括一个记录在未来日期（10 月 15 日）的数据点。这张图片似乎最初是由 Threads 用户 Robin Schlingheider 发布。该数据的来源尚未确定，且原始图片并未提及德国的 AfD 党。Wimmer 表示，Schlingheider 一直在回避他关于图片来源的询问。
“Could we (and especially politicians, journalists and scientists who should know better) please stop sharing unverified images?” Wimmer said. Meanwhile, the vast majority of Yandex-operated systems still appear to be offline following the latest drone strike, including the Yandex Pay digital payment service, leaving users unable to transfer funds, check balances, or make purchases. Yandex Fintech head Dima Pirogov said in a statement (translated via Google) that “we can’t yet give you a precise restoration timeline, but we promise: we won’t stop until the service is restored.”
“我们（尤其是那些本应更明智的政客、记者和科学家）能不能停止分享未经核实的图片？”Wimmer 说道。与此同时，在最近一次无人机袭击后，Yandex 运营的绝大多数系统似乎仍处于离线状态，包括 Yandex Pay 数字支付服务，导致用户无法转账、查询余额或进行购物。Yandex 金融科技负责人 Dima Pirogov 在一份声明中（经谷歌翻译）表示：“我们目前还无法给出精确的恢复时间表，但我们承诺：在服务恢复之前，我们绝不会停下脚步。”