Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

U.S. to give ransomware hacks similar priority as terrorism, official says

reuters.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

581–590 of 591 posts

Re: U.S. to give ransomware hacks similar priority as terrorism, official says

#581

Post by chitowneats »

bouncycastle wrote: post #568
chitowneats wrote: post #494

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I assume you'd have no issue taking down a database full of child pornography? You know there are some who argue that CP is just "bits on disk". What if society determines that cryptocurrency also has negative externalities? You're free to disagree but I just stuck my finger in the air and it's pretty clear which way the wind is blowing.

The only societies who determine that cryptocurrencies have negative externalities are the ones that are controlled by criminals in the highest levels of their government. Just google a map to see where crypto has been banned. (Note that many these may not even appear as criminals and project a legitimate image to their public) Here's a thought experiment: If you're a political party that had taken over the governmen…

Right. It's the society that is criminal. It's not that actual criminals are using cryptocurrency to circumvent laws.

Good luck pushing that line anywhere other than technolibertarian friendly HN or the various ancap subreddits.

Re: U.S. to give ransomware hacks similar priority as terrorism, official says

#582

Post by graphtrader »

ocdtrekkie wrote: post #36
chongli wrote: post #25

What about the other side of this? Instead of seeking backdoors and using them to spy on Americans, the NSA should be stepping up their game and securing vital infrastructure and domestic businesses against these attacks.

Generally speaking, you'll find the federal government has a litany of agencies, on both the offensive and defensive side of... everything. There are absolutely government resources working on securing American infrastructure. And shifting from one to the other appears to be happening, to some degree: https://breakingdefense.com/2021/06/dod-budget-appears-to-cu...

At this point though we need to have entire new branch of the military. Otherwise, I just don't see how we are taking this serious enough.

The way the Air Force specializes in the air.

It is just incredible how we are always fighting the last war. From 9/11, instead of learning we need to constantly stay on top of a shifting battlefield we learned to fight Islamic terrorism. Not good.

Re: U.S. to give ransomware hacks similar priority as terrorism, official says

#583

Post by jjk166 »

passwordqwe wrote: post #426
WalterBright wrote: post #418

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's impossible to build a safe airliner, but we can get pretty damn close. Airline engineers know one cannot create a component or system that cannot fail. So the question then becomes, assume a system fails. Now how does the airplane survive? With software systems, instead of demanding a perfect defense against the root password being compromised, think "if the root password is compromised, how do we prevent that f…

But there is a big difference between airline safety and software safety. An airliner survives against the environment, it's PvE, a software system has to survive against hackers, it's PvP. If you shoot a rocket at an airliner, the airliner will fail, in that case we blame the person who shot the rocket.

We design military aircraft to fly into warzones. They are very much PvP. We design them with various countermeasures to deal with rockets and ejector seats if those fail. Yeah, planes will be shot down and pilots may die despite these precautions, but skimping on the ejector seat because "hey they might die anyways" is totally unacceptable.

Re: U.S. to give ransomware hacks similar priority as terrorism, official says

#585

Post by MR4D »

WalterBright wrote: post #535
MR4D wrote: post #519

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> And the largest piece of hubris and madness in critical systems is allowing over-the-internet updates. What would you suggest in its place? You'd need to replace the internet with something - postal mail, Fedex, courier deliveries, etc, or just have things that never get upgraded. Every one of those options has significant limitations, and in many countries, I'd trust SSL over postal mail every single day. I think…

For critical systems, I suggest using a usb drive. Do you really want a missile guidance system update-able over the internet? How about the auto drive system on your car? What about the code that keeps track of accounts in your bank? Don't forget the code that keeps the pipeline running!

How do you get the usb drive to the user ?

Re: U.S. to give ransomware hacks similar priority as terrorism, official says

#586

Post by demadog »

throwaway0a5e wrote: post #490
demadog wrote: post #303

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Imagine if all companies had to individually fight pirates in the heyday of pirate hood!

That's exactly what happened. Ship owners invested in arming their ships to the point where the pirates would hopefully pick softer target which is exactly what they did. Incrementally over the 16th-18th centuries the profitability of piracy was highly reduced because the goods had fairly fixed relative value and the risk kept going up and it more or less went away on its own in the Western hemisphere over the course…

Yes, thanks for the details!

The US fought them in the Barbary Wars as well - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_Barbary_War

I think the statement I was hinting at was that essentially all these companies are on their own (vs pirates and hackers) until the problem is too big and dangerous and then the state steps in.

Re: U.S. to give ransomware hacks similar priority as terrorism, official says

#587

Post by bouncycastle »

chitowneats wrote: post #581
bouncycastle wrote: post #568

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The only societies who determine that cryptocurrencies have negative externalities are the ones that are controlled by criminals in the highest levels of their government. Just google a map to see where crypto has been banned. (Note that many these may not even appear as criminals and project a legitimate image to their public) Here's a thought experiment: If you're a political party that had taken over the governmen…

Right. It's the society that is criminal. It's not that actual criminals are using cryptocurrency to circumvent laws. Good luck pushing that line anywhere other than technolibertarian friendly HN or the various ancap subreddits.

I mean, look.. cryptocurrency is a deeply political disruption to nation states that always had absolute controll over their national currencies. If a totalitarian government ever is to maintain power, banning cryptocurrency would be a necessity, and so far there's direct evidence of this as I've pointed out. (Another thought experiment: why crypto is banned in North Korea?)

Re: U.S. to give ransomware hacks similar priority as terrorism, official says

#588

Post by andred14 »

these cyberattacks are lies. i work for an essential utility and none of their control systems are on the internet.

what do the water pumps come with wireless now? if there is no cable connecting to the internet then how do these hacks take place?

we had water, power, etc before computers so the computer part is not essential to operation.

Re: U.S. to give ransomware hacks similar priority as terrorism, official says

#589

Post by DickingAround »

unionpivo wrote: post #456
DickingAround wrote: post #282

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think if you had good attribution it's more like armies. We have been focused on locking our doors, on building better walls, etc. But there is a non-defensive side. In meatspace we expect the government to use kinetic force to stop people from attacking us. Like if I leave my door unlocked and some person comes in to start stealing my stuff, the cops really will respond and come stop that person (I have had a home…

So you have group of 20 somethings in russia that you suspect are behind the hack. What do you do ? Sending a single missile/drone wont work because Russia has air defense (probably - with them you never know how on top they are, but they will after the 1st one). Sending multiple might work, but Russia might fire back and start a war. Sending special forces, or whatever would probably work better first few times, unt…

Yea, I'm not saying I want a kinetic or offensive solution either. More like, it might be possible. Like if someone kills a bunch of people in France and flees to Germany, then Germany is going to hand them back over to France. Clearly not everywhere has extraditions, but you can imagine a world where hacking isn't so much tolerated and defended against as punished and thus uncommon (like breaking into a house; you can but you're not supposed to and there's consequences).

Re: U.S. to give ransomware hacks similar priority as terrorism, official says

#590

Post by unionpivo »

DickingAround wrote: post #589
unionpivo wrote: post #456

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So you have group of 20 somethings in russia that you suspect are behind the hack. What do you do ? Sending a single missile/drone wont work because Russia has air defense (probably - with them you never know how on top they are, but they will after the 1st one). Sending multiple might work, but Russia might fire back and start a war. Sending special forces, or whatever would probably work better first few times, unt…

Yea, I'm not saying I want a kinetic or offensive solution either. More like, it might be possible. Like if someone kills a bunch of people in France and flees to Germany, then Germany is going to hand them back over to France. Clearly not everywhere has extraditions, but you can imagine a world where hacking isn't so much tolerated and defended against as punished and thus uncommon (like breaking into a house; you c…

oh this happens regularly inside EU. And even cooperating with US. A few years ago, someone from town I live was involved in making/selling one of those exploit toolkits on dark web. FBI contacted our police, he got arrested, and convicted. He didn't get extradited to US, but is in prison here.

It's not that uncommon.

Post reply on HN