6 ms·

Maybe I'm old fashioned but I take any hacking blame from gov to gov as likely propaganda.

threeseed 9y ago
The idea that the US needs to actively spread propaganda about North Korea is pretty ridiculous. You are aware that they have been sending missiles on a regular basis and inviting criticism from pretty much everyone. Who exactly is pro-North Korea that the US is trying to sway ?
- zabana 9y ago
  And what has the US been doing for the last 50 years exactly ? If not dropping missiles and bombs on civilian populations abroad under the pretence of "spreading democracy" and "stopping terrorism"
  - threeseed 9y ago
    Your comment is just nonsense on so many levels. 1) The US does not actively target civilians. That's a war crime. There are incidental deaths absolutely but if the US was intentionally trying to cause mass deaths they would simply drop a nuclear bomb a few more times. 2) What does this have to do with spreading propaganda, cyberattacks or North Korea ?
    - zabana 9y ago
      Well they refuse to bend to your will so you desperately need a way to portray them as the ultimate enemy to justify the use of force against them as someone mentioned in the comments up above. This sounds to me like the internet version of "Iraq has weapons of mass destruction, we absolutely must obliterate them to protect our freedoms", yeah right.
    - zabana 9y ago
      Btw I'm not defending NK and their government nor am I saying that it's heaven on earth, but a bit of balance and fair treatment doesn't hurt sometimes.
    - notfreeyet 9y ago
      It's an indisputable fact of history that the U.S. military actively targeted civilians in WW2, Vietnam, and Philippines. Women and children were murdered by the hundreds of thousands. Members of the U.S. military have murdered huge numbers of surrendering POWs and raped countless people over its existence. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_war_crimes https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_war_crimes But I agree that (in general) the modern U.S. military tries its best not to kill civilians in an excessive way. But if we really cared about civilian deaths, we would send in SEAL teams 100% of the time and sacrifice an order of magnitude more soldiers. We do still choose to kill civilians instead of risking own, when possible. We consider it common sense, but there is another ethical line we could take, which is a hard rule not to kill civilians at almost any cost. That is not our rule.
    - _jal 9y ago
      Re (1), it is worth noting that the GP didn't say the US was actively targeting civilians. The GP said "dropping missiles and bombs on civilian populations abroad". You are in agreement with that multilevel nonsense.
    - random314 9y ago
      > 1) The US does not actively target civilians. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Menu https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Menu https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Rolling_Thunder https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Rolling_Thunder http://abcnews.go.com/International/bombing-laos-numbers/story?id=41890565 http://abcnews.go.com/International/bombing-laos-numbers/sto...
  - anigbrowl 9y ago
    Among other things, yes. I'm fairly sure you'd rather live in the US than North Korea, though. And I say that as someone who's not American and has a very dim view of capitalism and imperialism.
- cottsak 9y ago
  The point may simply be to move the attention away from the NSA, who are perhaps the real authors of WannaCry.
  - threeseed 9y ago
    So the logic conclusion for you is not that North Korea did this who has no foreign currency and minimal income. But rather it was the NSA who is bankrolled by the US government and who will be receiving additional funds in the upcoming budget process. Makes complete sense.
    - cottsak 9y ago
      I don't know who did it. I'm just saying it's not a stretch to accuse the NSA given their history with hacking tools becoming public and the Snowden leaks. To use the revenue generating argument from the OP article as a good indicator of the author is weak at best.
      - intern4tional 9y ago
        Why is the revenue generating argument weak? Even Kasperky who was unsure of the author is leaning towards it being NK.
        cottsak 9y ago
        Yes they are, but not on the basis of revenue.
    - fiblye 9y ago
      One of those groups has the funding and experience to create malware that finds its way into 150000 computers. This group already monitors billions of other devices. The other is an isolated nation that's decades behind on technology, only recently building weapons that can compete on a global scale, and struggles to feed its starving population. It wouldn't be the first or even hundredth time that the US gov did something shady and pinned it on an enemy. It's less about the money and more about justifying their expanding powers.
- claytonjy 9y ago
  While I don't think this is the case here, specifically, propaganda isn't always about swaying people from anti- to pro-; it could be for swaying people from "they are bad, but not that dangerous" to "they are dangerous enough that we should intervene with force"
  - threeseed 9y ago
    So it's not North Korea testing ballistic missiles capable of destroying Tokyo, Seoul, Hawaii etc. Or the fact that they are actively developing nuclear weapons capable of hitting anywhere in the US. No it's not billions of lives that are the impetus to use force. Rather it's the huge sum of a few million dollars worth of Bitcoins i.e the cost of one of their more expensive bombs.
    - claytonjy 9y ago
      Again, I'm not saying this is NSA propaganda. I agree that this hack pales in comparison to other bad shit DPRK is up to. My point was more general: propaganda can have various goals, only one of which is to turn supporters to detractors. Further, propaganda doesn't have to be well executed to be propaganda.
    - yongjik 9y ago
      US, Russia, and China have ballistic missiles capable of destroying all the cities you mentioned and some more. And what are you going to do about them? All this talk of "North Korea may have missiles that can hit us!" is getting tiresome and, frankly, worrisome. The only reason people talk about North Korea and, say, not Russia is that the US can preemptively attack North Korea and they can do nothing about it. Everywhere you live, your place can be incinerated in 30 minutes if one or another national leader decides to push the red button. And it has been like that for ~50 years. Deal with it, and if anybody feels extra warlike and feels like they have to invade yet another country to save the civilized world from WMDs, remember Iraq.
      - jeffdavis 9y ago
        You are both entirely logical and entirely foolish. The DPRK is dangerous and may make our lives materially worse even if they never detonate a nuke in a city.
- flashmob 9y ago
  > Who exactly is pro-North Korea that the US is trying to sway? Perhaps China. However, propaganda doesn't have to be false. It just has to fit the narrative. Hmm. This could even be an attack on bitcoin itself? We already know North Korea is bad, then North Korea uses bitcoin, therefore bitcoin = bad? In this case, there would be a motive to plant a false attribution to North Korea.
  - mirimir 9y ago
    Yes, perhaps China. Or perhaps, a goal is making China look bad. Or as you say, Bitcoin.
- igivanov 9y ago
  Is it as ridiculous as US spreading propaganda against Saddam's Iraq?
- grecy 9y ago
  > exactly is pro-North Korea that the US is trying to sway ? What if the point is not to sway any "pro-North Korea" people, but to make as many as possible "anti-North Korea". It will be much easier to justify a war with them that way, because, you know, the US needs someone to go to war with next.
jhiska 9y ago
You usually can't say that without an avalanche of agent provocateurs derailing your thread, though.
elevensies 9y ago
Similarly, I don't doubt that the NSA has the ability to attribute an attack to an attacker. What I doubt is that the NSA has the ability to tell the truth in public.
- Buge 9y ago
  You are correct that it seems the NSA is unable to tell the truth to the public. The NSA never stated publicly that WannaCry is from North Korea. >The NSA declined to comment.
  - BearGoesChirp 9y ago
    The NSA having the information leaked is more beneficial than saying it directly. If at any point something shows it clearly wasn't North Korea, the NSA can claim they have made not official statements and the leak was using bad information. But if such information doesn't come out, then we get what we currently have, which is the public having been informed that North Korea is responsible. What more could the NSA have asked for? Well maybe North Korea directly claiming responsibility, but besides for that.
anigbrowl 9y ago
Very possible, but any refusal/dissuasion against considering such possibilities can equally serve propaganda. This observation is no more profound than the insight that advertising is usually trying to get you to buy something.
deleted 9y ago
[deleted]

The idea that the US needs to actively spread propaganda about North Korea is pretty ridiculous. You are aware that they have been sending missiles on a regular basis and inviting criticism from pretty much everyone. Who exactly is pro-North Korea that the US is trying to sway ?

zabana 9y ago
And what has the US been doing for the last 50 years exactly ? If not dropping missiles and bombs on civilian populations abroad under the pretence of "spreading democracy" and "stopping terrorism"
- threeseed 9y ago
  Your comment is just nonsense on so many levels. 1) The US does not actively target civilians. That's a war crime. There are incidental deaths absolutely but if the US was intentionally trying to cause mass deaths they would simply drop a nuclear bomb a few more times. 2) What does this have to do with spreading propaganda, cyberattacks or North Korea ?
  - zabana 9y ago
    Well they refuse to bend to your will so you desperately need a way to portray them as the ultimate enemy to justify the use of force against them as someone mentioned in the comments up above. This sounds to me like the internet version of "Iraq has weapons of mass destruction, we absolutely must obliterate them to protect our freedoms", yeah right.
  - zabana 9y ago
    Btw I'm not defending NK and their government nor am I saying that it's heaven on earth, but a bit of balance and fair treatment doesn't hurt sometimes.
  - notfreeyet 9y ago
    It's an indisputable fact of history that the U.S. military actively targeted civilians in WW2, Vietnam, and Philippines. Women and children were murdered by the hundreds of thousands. Members of the U.S. military have murdered huge numbers of surrendering POWs and raped countless people over its existence. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_war_crimes https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_war_crimes But I agree that (in general) the modern U.S. military tries its best not to kill civilians in an excessive way. But if we really cared about civilian deaths, we would send in SEAL teams 100% of the time and sacrifice an order of magnitude more soldiers. We do still choose to kill civilians instead of risking own, when possible. We consider it common sense, but there is another ethical line we could take, which is a hard rule not to kill civilians at almost any cost. That is not our rule.
  - _jal 9y ago
    Re (1), it is worth noting that the GP didn't say the US was actively targeting civilians. The GP said "dropping missiles and bombs on civilian populations abroad". You are in agreement with that multilevel nonsense.
  - random314 9y ago
    > 1) The US does not actively target civilians. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Menu https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Menu https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Rolling_Thunder https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Rolling_Thunder http://abcnews.go.com/International/bombing-laos-numbers/story?id=41890565 http://abcnews.go.com/International/bombing-laos-numbers/sto...
- anigbrowl 9y ago
  Among other things, yes. I'm fairly sure you'd rather live in the US than North Korea, though. And I say that as someone who's not American and has a very dim view of capitalism and imperialism.
cottsak 9y ago
The point may simply be to move the attention away from the NSA, who are perhaps the real authors of WannaCry.
- threeseed 9y ago
  So the logic conclusion for you is not that North Korea did this who has no foreign currency and minimal income. But rather it was the NSA who is bankrolled by the US government and who will be receiving additional funds in the upcoming budget process. Makes complete sense.
  - cottsak 9y ago
    I don't know who did it. I'm just saying it's not a stretch to accuse the NSA given their history with hacking tools becoming public and the Snowden leaks. To use the revenue generating argument from the OP article as a good indicator of the author is weak at best.
    - intern4tional 9y ago
      Why is the revenue generating argument weak? Even Kasperky who was unsure of the author is leaning towards it being NK.
      - cottsak 9y ago
        Yes they are, but not on the basis of revenue.
  - fiblye 9y ago
    One of those groups has the funding and experience to create malware that finds its way into 150000 computers. This group already monitors billions of other devices. The other is an isolated nation that's decades behind on technology, only recently building weapons that can compete on a global scale, and struggles to feed its starving population. It wouldn't be the first or even hundredth time that the US gov did something shady and pinned it on an enemy. It's less about the money and more about justifying their expanding powers.
claytonjy 9y ago
While I don't think this is the case here, specifically, propaganda isn't always about swaying people from anti- to pro-; it could be for swaying people from "they are bad, but not that dangerous" to "they are dangerous enough that we should intervene with force"
- threeseed 9y ago
  So it's not North Korea testing ballistic missiles capable of destroying Tokyo, Seoul, Hawaii etc. Or the fact that they are actively developing nuclear weapons capable of hitting anywhere in the US. No it's not billions of lives that are the impetus to use force. Rather it's the huge sum of a few million dollars worth of Bitcoins i.e the cost of one of their more expensive bombs.
  - claytonjy 9y ago
    Again, I'm not saying this is NSA propaganda. I agree that this hack pales in comparison to other bad shit DPRK is up to. My point was more general: propaganda can have various goals, only one of which is to turn supporters to detractors. Further, propaganda doesn't have to be well executed to be propaganda.
  - yongjik 9y ago
    US, Russia, and China have ballistic missiles capable of destroying all the cities you mentioned and some more. And what are you going to do about them? All this talk of "North Korea may have missiles that can hit us!" is getting tiresome and, frankly, worrisome. The only reason people talk about North Korea and, say, not Russia is that the US can preemptively attack North Korea and they can do nothing about it. Everywhere you live, your place can be incinerated in 30 minutes if one or another national leader decides to push the red button. And it has been like that for ~50 years. Deal with it, and if anybody feels extra warlike and feels like they have to invade yet another country to save the civilized world from WMDs, remember Iraq.
    - jeffdavis 9y ago
      You are both entirely logical and entirely foolish. The DPRK is dangerous and may make our lives materially worse even if they never detonate a nuke in a city.
flashmob 9y ago
> Who exactly is pro-North Korea that the US is trying to sway? Perhaps China. However, propaganda doesn't have to be false. It just has to fit the narrative. Hmm. This could even be an attack on bitcoin itself? We already know North Korea is bad, then North Korea uses bitcoin, therefore bitcoin = bad? In this case, there would be a motive to plant a false attribution to North Korea.
- mirimir 9y ago
  Yes, perhaps China. Or perhaps, a goal is making China look bad. Or as you say, Bitcoin.
igivanov 9y ago
Is it as ridiculous as US spreading propaganda against Saddam's Iraq?
grecy 9y ago
> exactly is pro-North Korea that the US is trying to sway ? What if the point is not to sway any "pro-North Korea" people, but to make as many as possible "anti-North Korea". It will be much easier to justify a war with them that way, because, you know, the US needs someone to go to war with next.

jhiska 9y ago

You usually can't say that without an avalanche of agent provocateurs derailing your thread, though.

elevensies 9y ago

Similarly, I don't doubt that the NSA has the ability to attribute an attack to an attacker. What I doubt is that the NSA has the ability to tell the truth in public.

Buge 9y ago
You are correct that it seems the NSA is unable to tell the truth to the public. The NSA never stated publicly that WannaCry is from North Korea. >The NSA declined to comment.
- BearGoesChirp 9y ago
  The NSA having the information leaked is more beneficial than saying it directly. If at any point something shows it clearly wasn't North Korea, the NSA can claim they have made not official statements and the leak was using bad information. But if such information doesn't come out, then we get what we currently have, which is the public having been informed that North Korea is responsible. What more could the NSA have asked for? Well maybe North Korea directly claiming responsibility, but besides for that.

anigbrowl 9y ago

Very possible, but any refusal/dissuasion against considering such possibilities can equally serve propaganda. This observation is no more profound than the insight that advertising is usually trying to get you to buy something.

deleted 9y ago

[deleted]