That Russia is acting like a spoiled country is not much in doubt. What I hope doesn't happen is a needless tit-for-tat escalation. I think much of this goes back to the ill-conceived and ill fated "Reset" with Clinton (at the behest of Obama). For whatever reason Putin and Obama didn't get along.
I'm hopeful that cold-war warriors don't dominate the policies to come. If we (they and us) take that tack, we're in for a bad stretch. I'm hoping the current administration is capable of bucking the Russophobia the Dems are so attached to and committed to, mostly for internal political reasons.
Let's get real, deal with Russia as the adversary it is, but in a level-headed manner. Let's face it, they do not care about sanctions. One Bit. They will survive with or without the rest of the world but we get to deal with their blow back.
Obama granted N Korea's Kim more respect than he did Putin. I think that was a grave mistake on his part and we're now paying for this slight with these passive-aggressive moves.
Russian-American relations have worsened not because of russophobia, but rather because of several high profile and geopolitically relevant events. The first of these was the invasion of Crimea and the funneling of arms to Ukrainian Separatists engaging in a civil war. These actions are a direct violation of the Budapest Memorandum signed by Russia and the US. Essentially, Ukraine agreed to destroy the nuclear weapons leftover from the USSR in exchange for total respect in regards to territorial integrity.[1] Furthermore, a Russian BUK system, staffed by these separatists downed the civilian airliner Malaysia Airlines Flight 17, killing 298 innocent people.[2]. Furthermore, Russian hackers hacked the emails of both major political parties, and has, literally, a 3 story office complex staffed with internet trolls intent on misleading the American public via social media for the last several years[4]. Finally, you have the most recent incident where Russia attempted to murder not only a former spy in the U.K., but also his daughter, and about twenty other bar patrons, neighbors and first responders. The poisoned used was a nerve gas developed in Russia and exclusively available in Russia.[5]
Clearly, these are meaningful events in the context of American-Russia relations as well as NATO-Russia relations, you can't just handwave them away by saying it's one parties political problem.
People need to understand Russia needs a deep water port in the black sea. There is no way around that. That's what Crimea is about. They couldn't give two shits about it otherwise.
But Obama wanted to thumb his nose at Russia and ignored that to Russia (as well as the USSR) a deep water port on the black sea is a must.
The separatists are often labeled as Russian military in the MSM, but I gather they were essentially militias who overran Ukraine depots and then later got some Russian leadership help. The MSMs though, present them as Russian regulars.
The Russian troll factory for most of its existence was to troll Ukrainians not The West.
It'd be like expecting us (the US) to give up San Diego as a strategic harbor and let it silt up. It is not gonna happen.
>The separatists are often labeled as Russian military in the MSM
That would be strange, especially if they were able to get weapons issued only to Russian military at Ukrainian depots.
>It'd be like expecting us (the US) to give up San Diego as a strategic harbor and let it silt up. It is not gonna happen.
Are you claiming San Diego is a part of another country? Because if it were a part of Mexico and it was annexed tomorrow I'd have very similar concerns.
It did not start with the Ukrainian coup, but rather with the Georgia conflict back in 2008. Can't really blame the Russians, what do you think it'd happen if a pro-Moscow government were elected in Mexico? What would be the US' reaction?
As with virtually every other accusation of "Russian hacking", there is actually nothing presented suggesting that it was Russians that performed these hacks, let alone conclusively proving that. The line of "reasoning" used to accuse Russia of being responsible is, yet again, the same bit of tired tripe. It boils down to, "this attack uses methods that we suspect Russians have used in the past, and we assert that Russians would have liked to do this hack, therefore we have proof that it was Russians".
>Malicious email campaigns dating back to late 2015 were used to gain entry into organizations in the United States, Turkey and Switzerland, and likely other countries, Symantec said at the time, though it did not name Russia as the culprit.
In other words, these were generic fishing attacks that could have been performed by anyone. Since anyone and everyone uses these fishing attacks, we had no idea who it was in 2015. However, now that everyone is blaming everything on Russia, we can safely do so without even casual scrutiny of our claims.
While HN has a liberal bias, it is worth reading and understanding the opposite side's motivation for their opinion. Instead of voting him down, it would be more academic to understand and engage in civil discussions.
Trolls from the Internet Research Agency (the troll farm) have handles tumblr, facebook, reddit, as stated by those who previously worked at the Agency. I do not think it is unreasonable to assume, given HN's popularity and how intensive Russian efforts have been in regards to social media, that some accounts are maintained to manipulate opinions, just like any other social media site.
All my evidence is anecdotal, and I have no means of confirming it on my own.
When I first looked over this post, there were 3-4 comments, all seemingly pro-russia. I see some points being made that are remarkably similar to official Russian positions on issues. Its really similar to when I see a post about China. A whole bunch of users surface abruptly with lots of comments favorable to China. Both of these countries have large, well documented operations to comment extensively on Western media sources. And I'm sure that many HN users like Russia and like China. But it's hard to shake the feeling that there is some astroturfing going on.
Its extremely unfortunate that skepticism of government and/or media declarations are being characterized as "Pro-Russian". Exercising basic critical thinking skills and demanding evidence for accusations is something that we should all practice, in every case, but especially when serious accusations are leveled. I welcome you to re-read my post. I'm not pushing a "Pro-Russia" position. I'm pushing a "pro-intelligent person" position. I linked directly to the evidence they offered to support their assertions. I looked at the evidence they offered, did you? No evidence they presented suggested or concluded that Russians were responsible. Rather than responding intelligently by pointing to evidence that you think rebuts my assessment, you resort to questioning my motives.
So you claim StanislavPetrov is working for the troll factory. Ok, sure, he may be. But let's imagine he isn't, what proof would he have to present to convince you?
Wouldn't it be more productive to say "Here is why this is probably the Russians, or check out this report that captured source IP addresses and patterns and it matches up with the Russian hacking groups attack behavior".
In a civil discussion, the whole notion of the opposite side whose points necessarily contradict yours and should be refuted can make the conversation counterproductive. Most of these political threads are useless for exactly this reason - they usually descend to participants getting locked inside their bubbles or even passively implying other participants are either bots or trolls, without any downvoting.
All due respect, I'm not "the other side". Not much of a fan of political labels, but much closer to what's considered a classical liberal than anything else. The world isn't a binary place, nor is the political spectrum. I'm on the side of skepticism, critical thinking and logical consistency, while being the mortal enemy of hypocrisy. Were the Russians responsible for this hack? Its possible - but the baseless claims of our credibility-free government are worthless as far as proof goes - and it has nothing to do with partisanship. If there is proof, let them show us the proof and evaluate for ourselves. Its disturbing that this position is viewed by anyone as "Pro-Russian".
A code associated with the Russian hacking operation dubbed Grizzly Steppe by the Obama administration has been detected within the system of a Vermont utility, according to U.S. officials.
... but ...
Editor’s Note: An earlier version of this story incorrectly said that Russian hackers had penetrated the U.S. electric grid. Authorities say there is no indication of that so far. The computer at Burlington Electric that was hacked was not attached to the grid.
Generally speaking, anonymously sourced stories in western news outlets about Russian hacking have a very high propensity to collapse or get quietly retracted days later. The DHS is particularly notorious for this: they also claimed Russia hacked various election related systems in multiple states, but the states themselves investigated and said the DHS was wrong.
Glenn Greenwald also wrote extensively about this problem.
So now we have an "unprecedented" story sourced to anonymous officials in the DHS, making the entirely false claim that this is the first time US officials have accused Russia of hacking the electrical grid. The cited evidence is a Symantec report that didn't name anyone in particular.
Is it possible Russia is doing this? Of course. I would be, if I were Putin. But I'd also be doing it if I were the leader of Iran or North Korea or China. Perhaps all of them are doing it.
Regardless of the truth, this sort of story should have no credibility with anyone by now. There have been far too many false stories about Russian hacking published for them to carry weight.
No, this is a first. It's the first time the US has publicly blamed Russia through official channels, as opposed to leaks to the press. The original alert was published by US-CERT:
It's true that both this and previously reports technically involved "anonymous officials in the DHS", in the sense that alert doesn't name any specific officials, but the phrase "anonymous officials" is usually associated with leaks, not official announcements...
The story I linked to has statements from multiple elected representatives stating point blank that Russia had hacked the electricity grid. Official statements by representatives is the same thing as "The US Says" as far as the world is concerned.
I'd say they're not the same as far as the world is concerned, because the legislative branch is not responsible for diplomacy, and they're also mainly 'downstream' from the agencies actually producing the information.
…I was writing a rather long comment that tried to defend the Post story as, in retrospect, probably true, in light of the current report and other more recent showing a pattern. (In particular, the current report actually shows a VNC connection to some kind of generator system, though presumably not Burlington Electric's.) However, the Post's own followup report [1] suggested that (contrary to the company's original statement) the government had not found any indicators on the Burlington Electric laptop that were uniquely linked to Grizzly Steppe:
U.S. officials are continuing to investigate the laptop. In the
course of their investigation, though, they have found on the device
a package of software tools commonly used by online criminals to
deliver malware. The package, known as Neutrino, does not appear
to be connected with Grizzly Steppe, which U.S. officials have
identified as the Russian hacking operation. The FBI, which declined
to comment, is continuing to investigate how the malware got onto
the laptop.
Initially, company officials publicly said they had detected code
that had been linked by the Department of Homeland Security to
Grizzly Steppe.
I still don't think this does much of anything to invalidate the current story. It seems like that was mainly a mistake on the company's part, as they incorrectly treated indicators that were non-uniquely linked to a hacking campaign as evidence it was targeted by that campaign. They then reported this to various authorities, and the information apparently found its way via the state police to one of the state's US senators - probably without the details being vetted by anyone with relevant experience. But both the the US-CERT report and the Symantec report provide evidence of an ongoing, targeted campaign against energy facilities (which, for that matter, was active at the time of the Post report). And one would expect that both reports originate from people that do basically know what they're talking about.
They've been watching this in Ukraine for a few years now.
Russia has been using the Ukraine as a cyberwar testing ground attacking utility systems on a seasonal basis.
US utilities and US officials have been in Ukraine for a while working with these utilities on the assumption that what happens in Ukraine will eventually happen on their home turf.
This is actually a thing and it's an important move that officials are calling people out now.
but who is doing all this "jumping on a tree's branch" ?? We are worse now than in Cold War times! These unspecified retracted stories' authors are traitors! I won't blame Putin for WW3, I will blame them!
> This is not a first. The USA made a nearly identical claim in this retracted story in 2016
Er, no. The story was retracted because what the original version said that authorities claimed was not what authorities actually claimed. It was a journalistic backtrack (WaPo retracted their original reporting), not a government backtrack.
An erroneous media report of the government making an accusation is not an example of the government making the accusation that would, then, invalidate a description of the government later actually making a similar accusation as being unprecedented.
Did you read the story? The claims made to the WaPo were very clear.
Here's an example paragraph:
Rep. Peter Welch (D-Vt.) said the attack shows how rampant Russian hacking is. “It’s systemic, relentless, predatory,” Welch said . “They will hack everywhere, even Vermont, in pursuit of opportunities to disrupt our country. We must remain vigilant, which is why I support President Obama’s sanctions against Russia and its attacks on our country and what it stands for.”
and another
Officials said that it is unclear when the code entered the Vermont utility’s computer, and that an investigation will attempt to determine the timing and nature of the intrusion.
What US officials are claiming here is very straightforward - the journalists simply quoted them directly in many cases, even the anonymous ones. And the story makes clear this story came from many different sources.
So no, it wasn't a simply journalistic error. The government made precise, clear claims multiple times from multiple officials - and then the story was retracted. But only after many people had seen it.
The story was not retracted, only the characterization, in an earlier version of the story, that the Jack had impacted the electric grid rather than a computer at the utility that was not part of the operation of the grid. This is explicitly stated in the Editor's Note that you quoted.
I feel like we're playing a dangerous game, escalating towards war. We've interfered with each other's elections dating back to the cold war. I'm not saying it's moral, but we should maybe reexamine our own actions and what we're willing to sacrifice before asking for things [extraditions] for things we're also guilty of.
Europe is not in good shape to fight a war by themselves against Russia. So Russia could get away with lots of things like they did in Eastern Ukraine or meddle some more in the middle east. It does not hurt them, but it will hurt the EU as well as the US.
Russia can't afford starting conventional war against NATO, but if such a war will somehow flare up, Russia can afford to finish the nuclear war that will follow.
The problem with logicing away MAD is that these hierarchies of power are built where it takes just one madman, not bound by logic, to decide to destroy everything. Then you pray for some breakdown in command down the chain. Dr. Strangelove and all that.
I find myself hoping that there's one person in every hierarchy who loves his (or her, for that matter) country and the world more than the leader, and is willing to execute the leader to prevent a nuclear war.
With the cults-of-personality in place throughout Russia, China, North Korea, and the US, I'm nowhere near believing that such a person is in the right place, but I suppose that's the difference between hope and fact.
I am saying that it's highly unlikely that Russia will start conventional war with NATO. On the other hand I am not so sure about NATO not starting the war with Russia. In that case it can easily escalate to MAD. I have an unsubstantiated feeling (probably too much r/worldnews) that US/EU citizens don't even think that it will escalate that far. I find this very dangerous.
Right. I mean, what happens if Russian forces get cornered, and use tactical nukes? That's how the Cuban Missile Crisis almost became WWIII. I've also read that the Soviets threatened to nuke Tel Aviv during the Six-Day War, if Israel bombed Cairo.
Because Ukraine wasn't a member (only applied for membership, but hadn't met requirements) when "separtists" "freed" the Crimean peninsula to "protect" the Russian civilians "trapped" there. Shooting down MH17, a B777-200ER with 298 aboard, 50km over Ukraine using a SAM was provoked by NATO?
I think I have an idea of who will be invading, escalating, and hoping there won't be consequences.
Do you honestly believe everyone finds life valuable enough to live long enough to pay their debts?
Do you think everyone feels the same about the idea of continuing to live a life hounded by debtors?
Suicide is a reconcilliation option for those who know they will be dumped on the street because what the creditors really want is the real estate the foreclosed house sits on.
Look at how Saddam Hussein paid his debts. Now, imagine you’re a leader in control of a big red button. Tanks are in the streets, people are rioting. What happens next?
It's as crazy as it sounds; a miscalculation could destroy humanity. Consider that their ability to significantly influence foreign publics through social media could be valuable for the de-escalation portion. No doubt we'll see people claiming (false) equivalency between Russia's and the U.S.'s actions - 'they bombed Japan, we bombed Ukraine'.
Nuclear war? A person can go nuts and start shooting at an NRA convention, but Putin Inc has no death wish. Government is government ruled by thousands of top people and almost all are rich and want to live. If Putin goes nuts, he'll be arrested or killed by his own generals.
If we want to postulate the geo-politics of a Russia so crazy as to launch a nuclear attack (hoping for no response), we can also look at the effects of having a Russia so reviled that they become the focus of the entire world's fear and hatred.
Would having a single known enemy make for a more unified and ultimately productive world?
Check my answer to another post of yours. I doubt Russia will launch an unprovoked nuclear attack but I would not put it behind them to escalate conventional war to nuclear if it will start going badly.
Nobody needs a conventional war anymore, unless the takeover of the enemy territory and resources is an objective. Blockades and sanctions are far less efficient than in the past when it was possible to completely cut off a vital supply of resources for an entire nation.
It is much cost-effective and efficient to engage in low-intensity sabotage while making an innocent face, scaring the population, and balancing in the gray zone.
Russia is absolutely prepared to win a land war in their own territory. It kind of appears to be all they're interested in. Which would tend to make one draw some crazy wacky conclusions like maybe it's a defensive force held by a nation of peace-loving people who just want to cooperate and be respected, or at least left alone?
Probably sounds ridiculous to anybody steeped in the current wave of anti-Russian hysteria in the American media (or the earlier wave in the 80s). Why somebody might be producing warmongering propaganda against Russia I don't know, but clearly I'm supposed to take it as an unquestioned first principle that of course Russia is out to get us (as if we weren't busy "getting" ourselves) and of course Putin is the bogeyman -- Putin, a guy who has something like an 80% approval rating among his people and whose every public speech seems to be about conciliation, cooperation and peacemaking. Something isn't quite right. (Probably both sides are full of shit.)
Anyway no one has ever invaded Russia and won, including Napoleon and Hitler. Russians are proud of that. Their navy is about 2/3 as big as the US, but if what you're defending is most of Asia (an ocean of dirt) maybe that's not the biggest concern. Anyway if China does join in, their navy is comparable to the US's, and together with Russia's, it'd be bigger.
The Russian air force is tiny (same for China) but given that all our aircraft carriers are basically sitting ducks for all the various Russian carrier-busting missiles they have nowadays, our air superiority might not matter as much as we'd like to think. Also they tend to stretch money further. Their jets are fairly cheap, indestructible metal cans with loose tolerances... kind of like flying AK-47s... while ours are exquisite and expensive (because they're made out of porkbarrel) and you have to walk the airfield and pick up every little bitty piece of debris before you take off, otherwise it might suck something in and choke... so the equivalent of a flying AR-15 that always jams.
> Ukraine was geographically and culturally part of Russia for centuries
No, it wasn't, though much of it was politically, through conquest, part of Russia for a couple centuries (and a bit more of of it for just over one century) prior to the formation of the USSR, and there was certainly an intense effort by Russia to colonize Ukraine with Russians to break it's distinct culture during that period where much of it was under the Russian imperial rule.
Clearly, you view Russia’s own territory as anything that has ever in the past been subjugated by Russia independently of where modern nation-states lie, and in that respect, sure, Russia may be primarily concerned with fighting wars to re-establish empire in those places.
But that's not a sign of a peace-loving nation, but instead of a warmongering imperialist one that prioritizes restoring it's “glorious” past.
> Their navy is about 2/3 as big as the US [...]. Anyway if China does join in, their navy is comparable to the US's, and together with Russia's, it'd be bigger.
This is way off. The USN is about 4x the size of the Russian navy and about 5x that of China.
> Anyway no one has ever invaded Russia and won, including Napoleon and Hitler. Russians are proud of that.
Pride in this myth is one of the reasons often given for why the New Chronology and the associated conspiracy theory of how all of what is held to be history prior to the middle ages is a fabrication (and much of that of the middle ages, too), since that allows the idea that the Mongol invasion never happened.
> Anyway if China does join in, their navy is comparable to the US's, and together with Russia's, it'd be bigger.
Numerically, maybe, but numerical comparisons aren't comparisons of capability. (Ditto with the comment on Russia’s Navy.)
Don't shoot the messenger but take it from a first-generation Russian who has spent time there: peace-loving is a stretch. Ask yourself what it says about a nation that has a leader who is an authoritarian chauvinist, openly espouses pre-liberal values, and embraces force and deception as a legitimate way of achieving his ends, and that leader has a legit 80% approval rating. Nothing good.
This is somewhat simplistic, but I cannot help but feel that at least a part of this current drama is about giving a Boris Yeltsin variant back to the west.
First, can you back up the claims in this comment? Also, Russia has had very few actual elections, especially when you include the Cold War era. Finally, there is no moral equivalency between totalitarian dictatorships which murder tens of millions and oppress nations from Germany to the Pacific (and elsewhere), and free democracies, with all their flaws.
The false equivalencies appear on every issue that casts the Chinese or Russian governments in a bad light. Speaking of the Cold War, IIRC my history, the KGB liked to use them in their propaganda.
How about the coups in Guatemala or Iran? In one sense, those are different because we viewed both of those countries as lesser powers and within our sphere of influence, but I would argue that the underlying philosophy of democracy is that all men and women, everywhere, are created equal, which means us secretly meddling in the elections of tiny Gadjookistan has comparable moral weight to Evil Empire meddling in ours. We don’t always live up to that ideal; pluralistic democracy certainly does better than a totalitarian system, but we aren’t blameless. I believe we can be a stronger advocate for democracy abroad by owning up to our past mistakes, making some kind of amends, and making plans for what to do in similar situations in the future that avoid making those mistakes. Containing communism was viewed as a critical threat, but how much did we hurt the long-term cause for democracy by taking short-term steps to suppress what may well have been early democratic socialist leaders? I can’t tell you for sure that Arbenz wouldn’t have been an early Hugo Chavez (at whose feet I lay most of the blame for Venezuela’s current troubles), but I think we ought to have at least let the Guatemalans make their own mistakes.
>The false equivalencies appear on every issue that casts the Chinese or Russian governments in a bad light.
Yeah and it even has its own yankee response meme called "whataboutism". If we want to go peak "whataboutism" here, the founding of the US was based on the ethnic slaughter and enslavement of millions of aboriginal and african peoples. American culture and corporations have a hand in nearly every corner of the world. If you want to get into the head of Russian paranoia towards the US and the anglosphere in general, look at the US for what its ruling elites have historically demonstrated itself to do, to dominate everything that exists by any means necessary which includes wiping out inconvenient peoples both culturally and literally.
You brought up a term you don't like, and then complained about it.
> If you want to get into the head of Russian paranoia towards the US and the anglosphere in general, look at the US for what its ruling elites have historically demonstrated itself to do, to dominate everything that exists by any means necessary which includes wiping out inconvenient peoples both culturally and literally.
That's quite a statement. The Americas are generally free, independent democracies, including U.S. neighbors Canada and Mexico. The places conquered by the US in WWII soon became, free, prosperous and completely independent allies, Germany and Japan being the leading examples.
In fact, at the end of the war the US was the only nuclear armed power, had half the world's GDP (!) with a fully functioning economy while competitors were physically and economically devastated, and had a massive military spread around the globe. They could have chosen to become dictators to the world; instead they withdrew and helped form international institutions, such as the UN, World Bank, IMF, GATT/WTO, and others, to promote international peace and prosperity.
Yes, the US also did bad things, but the parent's statement is false and, of course, Russia does not compare.
The US loaned the Yeltsin government 10 billion dollars shortly before the 96 election, at the same time they were involved with the First Chechen War. A Republican consultant team also ran Yeltsin's campaign.
The US looks great when compared to Stalin era USSR. When compared to modern day Russia, it's hard to argue we have the unquestionable moral high ground.
> When compared to modern day Russia, it's hard to argue we have the unquestionable moral high ground.
It's very easy. Putin is a dictator and the Russians have no democracy, undermine others, poison people, etc. The U.S. doesn't have clean hands, but there is no comparison.
Democracy does not mean moral, though you posted this on the day of the Russian election. And though they're obviously rigged, the US one isn't some glorious opportunity for the will of the people to be heard either.
As for your other two issues, the US has had no issue undermining elections for years, and runs a public assassination program in addition to anything that remains secret. There is a comparison, and both sides are awful.
Yes it does. Democracy (the concept) is moral because it gives self-determination and liberty to people. Of course, everything, including democracy, is very imperfect in execution.
> the Russian election. And though they're obviously rigged, the US one isn't some glorious opportunity for the will of the people to be heard either.
Again, there is no comparison. It's like saying Hitler and the U.S. both used internment camps in WWII, therefore they are morally equal.
Self-determination and liberty are not necessarily moral either. There have been moral despots and immoral democracies, there is more involved than that.
>Again, there is no comparison.
Yes, there is. On basic principle, the choice between two is not far better than one choice. Beyond that, some of the things done to rig American elections are worse than what Putin does. For example, in 68 Nixon interfered in Vietnam peace talks to ensure election. What would have happened without that is unclear, but it potentially cost hundreds of thousands of lives.
If I leave my door unlocked can I really blame <bad person> for opening my door and robbing me? Why dont I invest in door locks? The US should really look into a more security focused infrastructure. This year the bad guy is Russia, but last year it was China and next year maybe it will be Iranian hackers. I understand that security is constant game of cat and mouse but when I see and hear of companies running Wimdows XP in 2018... it's like we're not even trying. Might as well leave the doors unlocked.
I'm in full agreement, and I'm shocked that this argument is used so much. Even when faced with a vulnerability, it is absolutely the thief's responsibility if they take advantage of the vulnerability for their own gain.
The adversary in question isn't accountable to our laws. There is no "thief's responsibility." There's just "you got pwned, you have no recourse, now it's your problem."
For all intents and purposes, that thief may as well be a crocodile who slips in during the night and eats your children. We can put it on trial or negotiate with it about as effectively.
Was Equifax blameless in the events leading up to their breach? They could have prevented it, but they didn't. Or do we only expect responsibility from criminals and corporations?
So your argument is that Russia or any other nation state that behaves this way is an amoral entity like a crocodile? This is absurd, nations consist of human beings that can understand concepts of right or wrong and behave appropriately. If your argument is correct, and the adversary is amoral and driven only by the opportunity to take advantage of weakness, the other nations at risk by this entity should logically band together and destroy it.
If they behaved appropriately, we wouldn't be debating their capacity to destroy our infrastructure for the fun of it. We aren't at war with them. Where is the sense of right and wrong? Why are they trying to harm us? Why won't they extradite the persons responsible for their alleged damage to date so we may seek justice?
I'm not advocating a crocodile hunt FFS, only that if they aren't going to play by our rules then maybe we should take responsibility for our own security by locking shit down, and stop acting like pointing the finger at the bad guy of the day somehow shields us from the consequences of mal-intent.
You can play offense and defense... saying it’s either or is a very simplistic mindset. The international community has the capability to both secure from bad actors, and punish bad actors. Sometimes force is necessary and it’s prudent that it be used with Russia.
Yes, burglary is not only wrong, it's against the law.
I agree that companies should do more about securing or disconnecting their networks, but I don't get to shoot someone just because they're so silly as not to be wearing a bullet proof vest.
Yes, you can and you should blame them. Crime isn't morally okay just because the victim hasn't protected themselves well enough. It doesn't matter whether it's hacking a poorly secured network, robbing a poorly secured house, or raping a provocatively dressed woman.
Sure you can blame them and blame yourself. It doesn't have to be either or.
Depending if you think internet is a safe small town neighborhood or a hostile place full of bad actors constantly trying to gain entry into your systems. In the first case, nobody would say you're irresponsible because well it is unprecedented for burglary to happen there, in the second case the perpetrator would be guilty, but you'd be laughed at and ridiculed for being irresponsible as well.
If you happen to hold someone else info (cough Equifax cough) you might even be sued, though ... you probably also have friends in the government and tons of lawyers to not really be bothered by it.
> If I leave my door unlocked can I really blame <bad person> for opening my door and robbing me?
Sure you can! Robbing is not something that happens by accident, and neither is hacking. I agree that the US should invest heavily in improving security, but taking the view that "pfff, who cares who did it!" is a terrible idea.
It's a knee-jerk reaction to totalitarian domestic propaganda.
Has a tendency to breed confused, alarmist, emotional and untechnical conversation.
Here's the truth: Russia isn't evil. Neither is the United States. But they are enemies. The people are getting caught in a propaganda war, which has shifted conversation from the venue of technical to ideological. (Propaganda, in practice, breeds ideological self-affirming thinking.)
The breakdown of conversation isn't the fault of the "traitors who support the evil Russians" or the fault of the "domestic saboteurs who support the US mass propaganda apparatus" but the fact that the two countries can't get their shit straight and work toward a post-Cold War without throwing acid at each other.
(I'm rewriting the last sentence of this over and over because I realize its going to attract ever-yet more comments of the form "but Russia's evil and they started it and you can't really compare the US and Russia - can you?". Screw it.)
I'm surprised how often people are starting to carelessly refer to Russia as "enemy". I think "adversary" is a more accurate term, on the same level as China.
The governments of both sides say they want cooperation but are are annoyed at each other's behavior and actions. However I don't think the people of either country treat the other as "enemy", like they did during the cold war. Back then each side was afraid that the other one may attack them preemptively out of ideological reasons.
Russia by itself is merely a western rival which could normally be worked with by sane western governments.
But Putin is a hostile who's popularity, having ruined the economy, depends on endless conflict and so will never be appeased. Even the extremely pro Putin White House is repeatedly embarrassed by the one sided-ness of the relationship.
But that's a side issue here. If one wanted to save a free discussion site from de-facto censorship and vandalism by totalitarian shills, one would need to apply the ban-hammer with ruthless zeal. Possibly viewing threads like this one as a honeypot to locate them.
One would not, for example, cater to that censorship by penalizing news of cyber attacks off the front page. Which, among other things, eliminates discussion of mitigation strategies.
I've just finished watching the Stuxnet documentary. State funded attacks on critical infrastructure are going to be a world-wide norm. No matter how good your security, you will be vulnerable eventually. We'll have to go back to analogue style systems to be protected.
I'm hopeful that cold-war warriors don't dominate the policies to come. If we (they and us) take that tack, we're in for a bad stretch. I'm hoping the current administration is capable of bucking the Russophobia the Dems are so attached to and committed to, mostly for internal political reasons.
Let's get real, deal with Russia as the adversary it is, but in a level-headed manner. Let's face it, they do not care about sanctions. One Bit. They will survive with or without the rest of the world but we get to deal with their blow back.
Obama granted N Korea's Kim more respect than he did Putin. I think that was a grave mistake on his part and we're now paying for this slight with these passive-aggressive moves.
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