RU against the Machine: The failures of machine translation for analysing Russian-language forums

RU against the Machine: The failures of machine translation for analysing Russian-language forums

Introduction Russian slang such as ‘fenya’ and ‘mat’ and cybercriminal-specific dialect is used throughout hidden services, especially on forums. As with any other language, non-fluent researchers, journalists, analysts, and other forum members may need to translate Russian content to interact with the service. When using machine translation (MTL), the use of slang terms may result in missed content and context within forum posts. Whilst cybercr…