368
submitted 8 months ago by pnutzh4x0r@lemmy.ndlug.org to c/linux@lemmy.ml

If you’re confused why you can’t currently download Ubuntu 23.10 despite the fact it’s been released (and blogs like mine are telling you it’s out) there is a reason.

[From Twitter]: "We have identified hate speech from a malicious contributor in some of our translations submitted as part of a third party tool outside of the Ubuntu Archive. The Ubuntu 23.10 image has been taken down and a new version will be available once the correct translations have been restored."

Now, I’m not 100% certain but from poking around the Ubuntu Desktop Installer GitHub — I know, I’m nosey — appears to have been (sadly) the Ukrainian translation file that was hijacked. I ran the text through a translator and …Honestly, I wish I hadn’t.

It’s a broad range of offensive sentences touching on politics, sexuality, and current events. Though shocking, none of it is particularly coherent in scope. It seems to be written to be provocative for provocations sake – the sort of stuff people post on X to farm likes from far-right bots.

top 50 comments
sorted by: hot top controversial new old
[-] GnuLinuxDude@lemmy.ml 176 points 8 months ago

As an aside remark, it's really funny how everyone has to elaborate what the fuck they're talking about when they talk about Twitter.

In a post on X (formerly Twitter) Ubuntu explains the situation

could have just been written as

In a tweet, Ubuntu explains the situation

but the epic genius elon decided to destroy all brand recognition. Truly incredible thing to witness. Twitter literally got its own branded terms into common lexicon and he just set it all on fire.

[-] lurch@sh.itjust.works 70 points 8 months ago

Their stupid ass logo looks too much like the old X11 logo. At least Xorg has a cirlcle thing. 😤

load more comments (3 replies)
[-] xkforce@lemmy.world 37 points 8 months ago

He didnt just set the brand recognition on fire, elon basically did everything someone would do if they wanted to intentionally run twitter into the ground.

[-] spider@lemmy.nz 26 points 8 months ago

Now spez needs to rename Reddit and make his idol proud.

[-] Holzkohlen@feddit.de 15 points 8 months ago

In a Y (formerly known as post) on Y (formerly known as reddit) a Y (formerly known as user) "vaporeonpissdrinker69" has said that...

load more comments (3 replies)
[-] Venat0r@lemmy.world 12 points 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago)

Maybe that was his plan for creating true free speech, by driving everyone away from twitter to mastodon...

A very 200iq plan, only cost him $44B

[-] xkforce@lemmy.world 13 points 8 months ago

It cost him a lot more than that. He lost about 200 billion in stock value that he owned and among the companies he "runs" about a trillion was lost in total due to investers dumping stock after seeing his ineptitude on full display.

load more comments (5 replies)
[-] ReversalHatchery@beehaw.org 28 points 8 months ago

Or we all could just still call it twitter and tweets, and be done with it

[-] yiliu@informis.land 15 points 8 months ago

I propose we just stop talking about it altogether.

[-] MondayToFriday@lemmy.ca 10 points 8 months ago

No, It's called X now. Elon willed it so, and I'm happy to oblige. Posts are called X-cretions (or X-crement, if they are shitposts).

load more comments (1 replies)
load more comments (3 replies)
[-] Kanda@reddthat.com 19 points 8 months ago

No no, it's not 'a tweet ' anymore, it's 'an X(, formerly known as a tweet)'

[-] Cethin@lemmy.zip 10 points 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago)

"In an X(formerly known as a tweet) on X(formerly known as Twitter) ..."

It just rolls off the tongue!

load more comments (2 replies)
[-] Murdoc@sh.itjust.works 18 points 8 months ago

I hope this practice never dies.
(Also has "the artist formerly known as Prince vibes".)

[-] tricoro@lemmy.ml 6 points 8 months ago

The Prince one is different, since he changed his name to something that can't be even spelled.

[-] darth_tiktaalik@lemmy.ml 10 points 8 months ago

The current branding gives more a placeholder asset feeling than a memorable identity. Sorry the twitter logo isn't loading so we'll show you an "X" in the meantime

[-] authed@lemmy.ml 6 points 8 months ago
load more comments (1 replies)
load more comments (9 replies)
[-] willya@lemmyf.uk 68 points 8 months ago

SMH what is wrong with people.

[-] gravitas_deficiency@sh.itjust.works 46 points 8 months ago

I mean… it’s likely just some Russian trolls fucking around

load more comments (6 replies)
[-] Kalkaline@leminal.space 24 points 8 months ago

Some people just need a punch in the face to understand why they shouldn't use hate speech.

[-] square252@feddit.de 12 points 8 months ago

A punch in the face with a chair…

[-] bluefirex@lemmy.world 6 points 8 months ago

Some people need a high-five. With a billiard table. In the face.

load more comments (2 replies)
[-] quackers@lemmy.blahaj.zone 59 points 8 months ago

Nobody is even slightly concerned that this made it to release? if they can shove in hate speech without anyone noticing, cant be much harder to slowly introduce a backdoor over several commits.

[-] Hildegarde@lemmy.world 57 points 8 months ago

Minecraft got in trouble when the Afrikaans translation had the n-word (in English) due to a malicious translator. CDPR had an issue with the Ukrainian translation making references to the ongoing war.

This sort of thing happens somewhat frequently. It's the same reason how fake sign language interpreters can hold positions. It's hard to verify the accuracy of a translation in a language you don't speak. They have to trust that the translator did their job right.

Translations are usually just text strings. No reasonable project would allow translators to write code.

[-] Azzu@lemm.ee 11 points 8 months ago

I mean honestly though, if there are code reviews, how hard would it be to just make a quick "translation review", putting the stuff through a translator program, and verifying it's not obvious bullshit? Especially for new/unknown contributors. Of course it's additional work, again, but a sanity check should easily be possible.

[-] lloram239@feddit.de 11 points 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago)

Quite hard. We had Open Source'ish LLMs for only around six months, if they are even up to the task of verifying a translation is another issue and if they are up to Debian's Open Source guidelines yet another. This is obviously going to be the long term solution, but the tech for that has simply not been around for very long.

And of course once you have translation tools good enough for the task, you might just skip the human translator altogether and just use machine translations.

[-] Azzu@lemm.ee 8 points 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago)

I more meant that if something contains "fucking kill all ukrainians and trans people", which it sounds like this was something like that, that should be possible to see even with bad translation tools.

load more comments (3 replies)
[-] 2ncs@lemmy.world 32 points 8 months ago

I would assume since it was a block of raw text in Ukrainian in a translation file, it would have passed more under the radar than something like a backdoor. I do not know how things are reviewed before being pushed to release though.

[-] utopiah@lemmy.ml 23 points 8 months ago

Not really, not only because of the language but also because the same scrutiny between code and content wouldn't have to be the same. I also don't expect core aspects of the distribution, e.g kernel, package manager, cryptography libraries, to be verified the same way than a random software, e.g Kdenlive. So... is it bad, absolutely. Does it mean everything should be questioned again? Probably not.

[-] java@beehaw.org 12 points 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago)

I'm sure more people know C or Python than Ukrainian at Canonical. It looks like this particular change has been authorized by a third-party localization project, though I'm not sure the whole process works.

[-] priapus@sh.itjust.works 7 points 8 months ago

Translations are not going to be analyzed as thoroughly as code, and this was still found quite quickly. Submitted code is analyzed much more thoroughly, often by multiple members or the project.

load more comments (10 replies)
[-] TheCrawlingKingSnake@lemmy.world 58 points 8 months ago
[-] Hildegarde@lemmy.world 46 points 8 months ago

Redneck, or pirate, or leet speak language options are there to let developers test the translations without them having to be bilingual.

[-] palordrolap@kbin.social 19 points 8 months ago

OK what's the deal with those m's and w's?? It looks like a standard seriffed BIOS/ROM font except for those.

[-] jaybone@lemmy.world 8 points 8 months ago

That is weird. Didn’t even notice til I read this.

[-] Stewbs@lemmy.world 38 points 8 months ago

This is just messed up and sad. Why do people do this stuff? Why do they have to act like assholes?

[-] atetulo@lemm.ee 27 points 8 months ago

If you're genuinely confused, it's because a lot of people live broken lives and it brings them joy to bring others down.

load more comments (1 replies)
[-] ladyanita22@lemmy.world 8 points 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago)

I read the changes, and it seems to me it was a stupid child. Not even someone malicious, but just a stupid love being edgy.

load more comments (1 replies)
load more comments (3 replies)
[-] inasaba@lemmy.ml 38 points 8 months ago

Someone has been defacing OpenStreetMap with stuff like this for months as well. It's pretty sad.

[-] End0fLine@startrek.website 12 points 8 months ago

I contribute to OSM a lot and thankfully I haven’t ran into vandalism yet. I’ve always been kind of surprised it isn’t way more common. I guess maybe it is, just not around me.

Im amazed by peoples creativity.

I havent thought until now that such things like translations can be misused for hate speech.

load more comments (1 replies)
[-] java@beehaw.org 10 points 8 months ago

The commit in question if anyone's interested: https://github.com/canonical/ubuntu-desktop-provision/commit/6f4028057e55cebfc53cc45cb39831f7e6a176cb

I'm not sure why the author's account is not clickable - has he deleted it?

load more comments (1 replies)
[-] emergencyfood@sh.itjust.works 8 points 8 months ago

But why not release 23.10 but without the affected language pack? The Ukrainian translation can be released once the vandalism is fixed.

load more comments
view more: next ›
this post was submitted on 12 Oct 2023
368 points (98.2% liked)

Linux

45443 readers
1170 users here now

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Linux is a family of open source Unix-like operating systems based on the Linux kernel, an operating system kernel first released on September 17, 1991 by Linus Torvalds. Linux is typically packaged in a Linux distribution (or distro for short).

Distributions include the Linux kernel and supporting system software and libraries, many of which are provided by the GNU Project. Many Linux distributions use the word "Linux" in their name, but the Free Software Foundation uses the name GNU/Linux to emphasize the importance of GNU software, causing some controversy.

Rules

Related Communities

Community icon by Alpár-Etele Méder, licensed under CC BY 3.0

founded 5 years ago
MODERATORS