BBC 英语学习 News Review 网络黑客被黑客入侵

Hacking the hackers. World s biggest cybercrime gang stopped.

This is news review from BBC Learning English, where we help you understand news headlines in English.

I'm Neil, and I'm Georgie.

Make sure you watch to the end to learn the vocabulary you need to talk about this story.

Don't forget to

subscribe to our channel so you can learn more English from news headlines.

Now, the story one of the most significant disruptions of the cybercriminal world.

That's what an operation to take control of LOCKBID has been described as.

The criminal organization thought to be based in Russia hacked into company's computers and locked users out until they paid the money.

Now, lockbit has been locked out of its own website after a UK led operation.

You ve been looking at the headlines Georgie, what's the vocabulary?

People need to understand this story.

In English, we have take Down, prolific and infamous.

This is news review from BBC, learning English.

Let's have a look at our 1st headline.

This one's from Reuters. Lockbit cybercrime gang faces global take down with indictments and arrests.

So Lockbit is the name of the cybercrime gang that has had its operation stopped by the British National Crime Agency.

We are looking at the word take down, which seems very straightforward, georgie, when you take something down from the Internet, as a verb, then you remove it.

And so the noun is a take down.

Is it? That's simple? Well, yes, neil, you're right.

We put things up on the Internet.

You are watching news review now, because we put it up online.

The opposite is take something down.

The noun is a take down, but take down also has other meanings, which make this headline interesting.

Yes, so we can describe a heavy defeat as a takedown.

It comes from sport wrestling. If you throw someone to the ground, then that is a takedown.

You defeat them. And so that's important in this headline as well, because for this cybercrime gang, this is a heavy defeat.

It's a take down. Yes, another meaning of take down is strong criticism.

So you'll remember when you told me that you're brilliant juggling, and then you dropped all the balls within a 2nd.

Yeah, you said that even your dog is a better juggler than me, which is a real takedown.

Watch, maybe you'll take down was right.

Let's look at that again. Let's have our next headline.

This one's from CNN. FBI and Allies sees dark web site of world's most prolific ransomware gang.

So here we are hearing about the FBI and their allies.

Allies are people who fight with you on the same side.

They've taken control of this dark website.

Look, bit. We are interested, though, in the word prolific.

It's a very useful adjective, isn't it?

Yes. So we use a prolific to describe something or someone that creates a lot of something.

In this case, lockbit is described as prolific.

It has committed a lot of crimes.

Obviously committing a crime is seen as a bad thing.

But prolific isn't always used for negative situations.

Is it new? No. We can also use prolific to talk about good things.

So, e.g., the footballer Leonel Messi is a prolific goal scorer.

It means he scores a lot of goals frequently.

Or let's think about the writer, stephen King.

He's a prolific author. He's written about 65 novels.

Now, georgie, what is the opposite or prolific?

Well, unfortunately, we can't use unprolific.

We could use unproductive. Neil, you've told me many times that you're a singer songwriter, but you've never actually written a song, have you?

You are unproductive. I am. It's true.

Very unproductive. But you wait, my album is definitely coming next year.

Let's look at that again. Let's have our next headline.

This one's from the mirror infamous cybercrime gang, lock Bit, taken down in huge operation led by U-K and the FBI.

OK, so there's take down as a verb this time that we saw in our 1st headline.

But we are looking at infamous.

And in the word infamous, I can recognize the word famous.

We all know what famous means.

And then there's that prefix in which usually means that it's the opposite in meaning.

But that's not the case here, is it?

No. And this is a slightly confusing bit of English,

because, yes, you're right. When we

see the prefix M or N, it usually means the word becomes the opposite.

So

impossible means not possible. Sometimes, though that isn't the case, like here with infamous.

Yes. So infamous doesn't mean not famous.

It means famous, but for bad reasons, so, e.g., famous criminals are infamous, or dictators, people like that.

Another similar word with a similar meaning is notorious.

Yes. And another good example of when the in prefix in a word doesn't mean not is inflammable.

So flammable means that something can catch fire.

So you would think that inflammable means that it can't catch fire, but actually inflammable means that it's very likely to catch fire, which is confusing.

And a note on pronunciation of Infamous.

The stress is on the 1st syllable.

Infamous. We don't say in famous.

Okay, let's look at that again.

We ve had take down, the removal of something from the Internet, or a defeat prolific, producing a lot of something and infamous, famous, but for negative reasons.

Now, if you're interested in technology, click here for more, and click here to subscribe to our channel so you never ms.

another video. Thanks for joining us, and goodbye.

扫码查看听力音频