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I'm the hacker that brought down North Korea's Internet for over a week. AMA

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Re: I'm the hacker that brought down North Korea's Internet for over a week. AMA

#3
post #2

Why isn’t he in prison? I mean, going by the West’s own laws, or the spirit of them, anyway. Unless he is part of said West’s Armed Forces, in which case this would get really close to a casus belli .

Because the "rules based order" means a diferent set of rules for different situations.

If it's something "we like", then it's ok, if not, then prison.

Same for geopolitics... in one case, we care about teritorial integrity, that minorities should not seced, and in others we help with the breakup of countries... well.. or in some cases, we act is if nothing is happening at all, and noone wants to break away at all :)

Re: I'm the hacker that brought down North Korea's Internet for over a week. AMA

#4
post #2

Why isn’t he in prison? I mean, going by the West’s own laws, or the spirit of them, anyway. Unless he is part of said West’s Armed Forces, in which case this would get really close to a casus belli .

No no no, ofc its morally justified to do such thing against impoverished nations! After all, if they are subjected to famine-inducing embargoes, they probably deserve it!

Re: I'm the hacker that brought down North Korea's Internet for over a week. AMA

#5
post #2

Why isn’t he in prison? I mean, going by the West’s own laws, or the spirit of them, anyway. Unless he is part of said West’s Armed Forces, in which case this would get really close to a casus belli .

No no no, ofc its morally justified to do such thing against impoverished nations! After all, if they are subjected to famine-inducing embargoes, they probably deserve it!

Self imposed poverty due to the authoritarianism. They’re the bad guys, we care less if bad things happen to them.

Re: I'm the hacker that brought down North Korea's Internet for over a week. AMA

#7
The hacker doesn't understand what they're getting themselves into, especially bragging about it. The hard part about going up against an entire nation/state is that it's relentless. The state never gets tired and never runs out of money, they could setup a team of people to 'work' on that individual and also potentially his present and future family members for a very long time. They can keep replenishing their teams with more people. The state always has a few people to spare for high-exposure targets. The leaders of that state might even forget about the existence of the individual but the operation will keep going until it's canceled... But since they forgot about the operation in the first place, it will keep going until there is some kind of broader administrative restructuring, cost-cutting or something... Which could be a long time away. Few things are more terrifying than totalitarian state bureaucracy.

Re: I'm the hacker that brought down North Korea's Internet for over a week. AMA

#8
post #2

Why isn’t he in prison? I mean, going by the West’s own laws, or the spirit of them, anyway. Unless he is part of said West’s Armed Forces, in which case this would get really close to a casus belli .

Because one of the 3 basic principles of sovereignty (as is understood by western political philosophy, known as Westphalian sovereignty) is that there is no other authority inside a State’s borders except its own.

This means no other country has jurisdiction in North Korea, besides, there’s also no incentive to help in case DPRK asks for help.

France doesn’t investigante crimes that happen in Spain, Portugal doesn’t investigate crimes that haven in Canada, the USA doesn’t investigate crimes that happen in Germany, etc…

Re: I'm the hacker that brought down North Korea's Internet for over a week. AMA

#9
post #2

Why isn’t he in prison? I mean, going by the West’s own laws, or the spirit of them, anyway. Unless he is part of said West’s Armed Forces, in which case this would get really close to a casus belli .

> Why isn’t he in prison?

Not an enforcement priority for the same reason a lot of domestic abuse goes unprotected: the victim is uncoöperative.

> going by the West’s own laws, or the spirit of them, anyway

Pyongyang and prosecutors would have to show he attacked a “protected computer” under the CFAA [1]. Given the two routers he allegedly overwhelmed were internet connected, that shouldn’t technically be hard under Trotter and Kane. But it would be a novel expansion of interstate commerce to encompass a country with whom Americans cannot legally trade, i.e. do commerce.

Put another way, North Korea’s status as a sanctioned country might put this into a legal grey area—it might not be criminally punishable. To settle that question would take a lot of prosecutorial resources. It’s not clear those are well spent on a case where the witness won’t coöperate.

[1] https://www.coreyvarma.com/2015/01/what-is-the-computer-frau...

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