Because life is not black and white. Everything is is just shade of grey. Russian Hacker have a choice: - hack for Russian Government, potentially leading to p

Because life is not black and white. Everything is is just shade of grey. Russian Hacker have a choice: - hack for Russian Government, potentially leading to people being killed. - hack for blackmail where hacked western company will need to pay fee data/ddos. - work as bounty hunter making pennies for sometimes weeks of work. Someone from US with the same skill is working as: - penetration tester, - security consultant, - do bounty hunting as hobby Majority of hacks you will never hear, It is only happening when: a) Company decide not to pay blackmailers and screw the users,(Tumblr?) b) Competing company pay for hack to destroy competitor(Ashley Madison?), c) Is done by foreign country as mean of attack (Estonia/Github) Single people being blackmailed is usually done by friends family. Let say that you "best" friend knew about "your" Ashley Madison account, he would use this as opportunity to blackmail. Were Russian vegetate in the middle of Siberia, US gentleman is having fancy dinners in SF. If you want to have moral outrage do it for US companies Yahoo, Google for sharing data with Chinese Gov.