Not a Russian hacker, just a filthy rich one

There’s a reasonably interesting little story in Foreign Policy—I wear a big Napoleon hat when I post—about Russia’s cyber response during last week’s conflict with Georgia. It seems the Russians know a thing or two about Internet trolling, since instead of defacing Web sites and crashing anti-Russia servers, they teamed up and went around to popular sites like CNN and the BBC and posted, you know, pro-Russia stuff. “Ignorant West, you have no idea what’s going on. *This* is what’s happenning…” That type of thing. It was a co-ordinated effort, like what the Chinese did earlier this year when Western media was all over the Tibet story.

Apparently, in one of the pro-Russia threads, someone eventually posted a photo of a naked woman. It sorta took the wind out of the thread’s sails, as you might imagine.

In other news, Michael Phelps is really good . Early word is that he’s going to swim home after the Olympics are finished.