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

Attack Is Suspected as North Korean Internet Collapses

nytimes.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

141–150 of 205 posts

Re: Attack Is Suspected as North Korean Internet Collapses

#141

Post by digi_owl »

sondr3 wrote: post #132
_delirium wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> the Norwegian Nobel Committee (which is a private organization which awards a private prize, despite having some members selected by Norwegian parliament) The Peace Prize is a bit closer to the Norwegian government than that. Alfred Nobel left that part of his will directly to the Norwegian Parliament, not to a private organization, and he tasked the Parliament with using the money to establish a peace prize. The P…

But the Norwegian government has absolutely nothing to do with who gets the prize, which is the whole point here. The fact that China gets angry at Norway et al because of a committee in Norway gave the peace prize to someone almost nobody in China knows about is a bit petty.

That could be because China looks at politics more like a old boys club than Norway does.

Then again, there have been some eyebrow raising choices over the years.

Re: Attack Is Suspected as North Korean Internet Collapses

#143

Post by digikata »

eyeareque wrote: post #88
digikata wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Or this could be some kind of reverse false flag operation (a soccer flop?) to give NK a platform to escalate some other negotiation point...

That would be an interesting development, good point.

It may not have been an intentionally initiated plan either. Say NK starts getting suspicious traffic, one possible response is to just pull the plug. I doubt that there are a lot of non-state users to worry about - and if an enemy of the state is blamed ... oh well.

Re: Attack Is Suspected as North Korean Internet Collapses

#144

Post by aragot »

d55 wrote: post #115
Crito wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There seems that people living under regimes with limited freedom often fail to comprehend that people living in other countries might produce something without the explicit approval of their government. To the North Koreans, it is beyond comprehension that people living in the US made something, rather than the US government making it. To them, if Americans made it, that means America made it. This misunderstanding…

I have seen this line of thought some times now but I can't help but having a hard time believing it to be true. The notion that in other countries people have the right to express themselves freely is not particularly hard to grasp and pass on, even if told otherwise by state media (which are probably not very well respected under oppressive regimes.)

Think of it as molding and allowing. The nation molds people into producing the same unsurprising results (I mean the frequency of couch-potatoes-who-get-offended-by-the-sight-of-alcohol-but-not-guns is unmatched in the rest of the world, despite the freedom) and lets them to make unrespectful drawings. In which case the nation is as much producing the drawings as the individuals.

Re: Attack Is Suspected as North Korean Internet Collapses

#145

Post by s_q_b »

eyeareque wrote: post #13

The public /22 (1024 IPs) that is used by North Korea is widely known now, so it is bad form to assume the US is behind this attack. Heck, a 14 year old with a few bots could take down their whole country. This outage won't hurt North Korea. At best it makes for a good head line to see the whole country offline. At worst this means that their elite citizens cannot access social networks or email outside of their coun…

What we could be seeing could be a very small part of a much larger operation. We could have bricked or infected their entire infrastructure (quite literally), and then DDoS'd it off the internet to:

1. Give the world a visible sign of response.

2. Perhaps trick the DPRK into believing this was the USA et al.'s real move.

Re: Attack Is Suspected as North Korean Internet Collapses

#146

Post by unclebucknasty »

dragonwriter wrote: post #118
unclebucknasty wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But, I wonder, if a case could be made for such an attack being a defensive maneuver on the part of the USG? That is, due to the claimed recent activity by NK and future threats articulated by NK to engage in cyber warfare, might taking their access offline be construed as a defensive measure? If so, would there be anything under the U.S. Code or otherwise that would supersede the CFAA; or are there exclusions in the…

Acts of the executive branch (or of anyone the executive branch agrees with) can escape criminal prosecution (whether or not they are technically crimes) simply because (1) the executive branch controls prosecutions, and (2) the executive branch has the power of the pardon. Criminal law, except from a political standpoint, does not constrain the policy of the executive branch.

So, you're saying that the GP's point is moot, in that the USG would disregard any perceived constraints imposed by the CFAA in limiting an attack like this?

If so, we're effectively saying the same thing, with the exception that I do believe individuals are, and know themselves to be, technically liable for criminal conduct. As such, I believe that individuals and groups working within the USG (Executive or otherwise) do seek legal cover for their actions.

Re: Attack Is Suspected as North Korean Internet Collapses

#148

Post by driverdan »

r109 wrote: post #22

ooh thought this would happen. driverdan called it, reference: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8777811

I really hope no one took my question as a prompt to attack them. That wasn't my intention. I was, and am, genuinely curious about their capacity.

Re: Attack Is Suspected as North Korean Internet Collapses

#149

Post by BHSPitMonkey »

n09n wrote: post #136
darkstar999 wrote: post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That twitter account is banned. What's to stop me from creating an "Anonymous" account and acting like "them"?

What is it with old people and their complete inability to understand Anonymous? If you did that, you wouldn't be acting like "them", you would be part of Anonymous.

That's the entire point. Anyone attributing an action to "them" inherently wrong in doing so.

"Because Anonymous has no leadership, no action can be attributed to the membership as a whole. Parmy Olson and others have criticized media coverage that presents the group as well-organized or homogeneous." (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anonymous_%28group%29)

Post reply on HN