6 ms·

It may be reasonable, but it's not a good idea. We shouldn't trust Russsians, and they shouldn't trust us. I'd rather the US companies be forced not to sell if

It may be reasonable, but it's not a good idea. We shouldn't trust Russsians, and they shouldn't trust us. I'd rather the US companies be forced not to sell if those are the terms. It exposes US companies even more than they are. The Russians should find another product if they aren't happy with it.

mfoy_ 9y ago
Why with the "Us vs. Them" mentality?
- ceejayoz 9y ago
  Because when dealing with nation states, it usually is "Us vs. Them" to at least some extent, even between stalwart allies?
- jbooth 9y ago
  Because there's been a very recent and very public hacking scandal that was "them vs us"?
  - philliphaydon 9y ago
    This one with no evidence?
    - jbooth 9y ago
      Evidence is downthread. CIA, FBI and NSA all concur, they all put out unclassified statements with their conclusions, although they obviously kept much of their supporting evidence classified.
      - 1001101 9y ago
        So, in other words, "trust us."
        deleted 9y ago
        [deleted]
      - baakss 9y ago
        >although they obviously kept much of their supporting evidence classified. Was anything not classified? I have trust issues stemming from an unnecessary war based on false premises when I was a child. Most of my hesitation stems from a lack of information about it. "Russians hacked Podesta's emails and released them to Wikileaks." "Russians hacked voting machines." Those are very targeted statements, and I'd feel better about the whole thing if more questions were answered. Have the hackers successfully been linked to the Russian Government? How? How long has this been going on? Since before this election cycle? If so, why is it only now an issue worthy of public attention? Have other Government entities, China, North Korea, etc, done the same? Have we seen similar attacks from inside the US?
        nl 9y ago
        See this for non-classified evidence: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14620389 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14620389 I don't believe there are any claims Russia successfully hacked voting machines (I may have missed developments in the last week though). I believe there are claims they did successfully attack voter registration databases, but there are no real claims (except by left-wing conspiracy theory people) that they changed those databases - just stole data. I believe there is no non-classified evidence of this though (although I didn't read the document that Reality Winner sent to the Intercept, so that may document some evidence). China has a well known hacking group (ATP-1) - see [1] for further information. There is no evidence or real claims they are involved in political interference within the US. OTOH they are quite good at industrial espionage and tracking Chinese dissidents. I'm not very familiar with North Korea's group, but it is widely believed to be responsible for the Sony hack. I found that bizarre, but NK actions often are. [1] https://www.fireeye.com/content/dam/fireeye-www/services/pdfs/mandiant-apt1-report.pdf https://www.fireeye.com/content/dam/fireeye-www/services/pdf...
        jbooth 9y ago
        Motivations matter. When we had the march to war in Iraq, suspect intel was being selectively and deceitfully pulled out of context specifically to build a case for war in Iraq. By politicians, not by intel professionals. A bunch of former intel people went on record calling BS on it. Right now, nobody's making a case for war with Russia. Retaliatory sanctions at best. They mostly just want to harden our election process and systems to prevent it from happening again, or worse. Yet we see constantly moving goalposts from people who don't want that hardening to happen. What's their motivation?
    - nl 9y ago
      There's plenty of non-classified evidence that goes much further than the joint Intel report goes, and was available before it. It's kind of disappointing this isn't widely understood, but I guess politics gets in the way. Anyway, feel free to share this: 2014 report into ATP-28: https://www.fireeye.com/blog/threat-research/2014/10/apt28-a-window-into-russias-cyber-espionage-operations.html https://www.fireeye.com/blog/threat-research/2014/10/apt28-a..., presenting pretty compelling (if circumstantial) evidence that group is Russian state backed. (July) 2016 report into the DNC hacking, showing it was first breached by ATP-29 (The other Russian state backed hacking group), but the leaks almost certainly came from a second breach by ATP-28 later: https://www.crowdstrike.com/blog/bears-midst-intrusion-democratic-national-committee/ https://www.crowdstrike.com/blog/bears-midst-intrusion-democ... One can of course argue that this is all a conspiracy. However, the fact that this first report was publicly available in 2014 gives some protection against the idea that it is motivated by US internal politics, and the second was also before the election actually occurred.
  - ghostbrainalpha 9y ago
    I just think it might be more helpful to think about this as "Putin vs The U.S" instead of "them vs us". You can probably include his network and the oligarchy in there, but the average Russian citizen shouldn't really have a problem with the U.S. Before Putin started working on actively fear mongering, our relationship was good and trending upward. They have slightly different cultural values than us, but its nothing like it was in the cold war. Our interests are aligned on most significant issues for the average citizen. If both our countries could get rid of their current leader we could quickly become allies.
    - jbooth 9y ago
      Oh, yeah, for sure. Agreed on everything, friends if not allies. But Russia as a state is pretty much synonymous with Putin as a person, right now. Until that changes, it's splitting hairs.
    - mc32 9y ago
      I think it's not that simple. Russians are "proud" peoples, as they say. He has high approval rating. An affront to Putin is an affront to Russia. The Clinton "diplomatic" tack and tact was not effective and likely very unproductive and has lead to much distrust at the govt level but also among the average Dmitrys and Marinas on the street.
      - azangru 9y ago
        > Russians are "proud" peoples, as they say. I doubt that as a people Russians are any more "proud" than any other nation; such a sentiment reminds me of the age of Romanticism, when such kind of analysis of nations, or of national spirit, was commonplace. It is so very human (and so very superficial, too) to want to feel superior to or at least no worse than others, that states exploit this via propaganda. If people are being systematically told that they belong to a great nation (which defeated the Germans in WWII, or was the first to send a man in space, or has a magnificent cultural legacy in XIXth century writers, or has the second largest nuclear arsenal, or other such stuff intended to boost nationalism), they get "proud". When this propaganda stops, they go back to normal again.
- throwaway5752 9y ago
  Almost the entirety of the 20th and early 21rst centurys' history are defined by Us vs. Them in this case. This isn't some baseless tribalism, there were multiple wars via proxy across the globe. Massive intel and cointel operations. There were several occasions that almost ended human life on earth via nuclear conflict. You'd have to be insanely naive to ignore this in the context of this request.
- throw2016 9y ago
  The fall of communism was the perfect time to start building trust. The Russians foolishly trusted the west. Look up the astonishing policies initiated by 'harvard economists' in association with the usual suspects IMF and World Bank that directly led to the loot of hundreds of billions of dollars of Russian state assets and the rise of the oligarchy to understand how obsessive self interest and sabotage operate. Putin exists for a reason. 'Trust' is a naive to dangerous idea in this context. No one is a doe eyed innocent upholding some moral high ground in international politics, people who affect that should be treated with extreme suspicion.
Angostura 9y ago
> We shouldn't trust Russsians, and they shouldn't trust us. The problem at the moment is that 'we' can't necessarily trust 'ourselves'. Paradoxically, having the Russians audit may make our products more trustworthy for our own use. See also Open Source.
- Paul-ish 9y ago
  These companies could sell a product in Russia that is different than the one they sell in the US. Audits by Russia don't mean much unless everyone gets the same binaries.
- AnimalMuppet 9y ago
  Only if they tell us what they find.
CaptSpify 9y ago
The identity of the requester is orthogonal to the issue. Anyone should be able to request the source code. It doesn't matter if it's someone we trust or not.
- origami777 9y ago
  I could get on board with that if that's the way it worked. Here's hoping to that becoming the reality!
1001101 9y ago
I'm not sure the shareholders of those companies would agree with you. They may find another product - I can't imagine there isn't an incentive to seed a competitor to US companies in Russian jurisdiction. Russia has the capital and talent to do it, and I can't imagine the will is that far off.
- origami777 9y ago
  At a certain point it becomes a national security risk. And we have to choose, money or security. Until our overall cybersecuirty improves I vote against the profit incentive. And I say we don't leave that decision to shareholders because they don't act with our nations best interest in mind all the time.
Razengan 9y ago
> We shouldn't trust Russsians, and they shouldn't trust us. WHAT will it take to end this tiresome, counter-productive, primitive tribalism, really?
- AnimalMuppet 9y ago
  Humans becoming trustworthy? In other words, you have to fix human nature.
  - Razengan 9y ago
    Most of "human nature" is taught and learned. If you think "untrustworthiness" is part of our fundamental animal instincts, then just look at how most cultures have managed to repress one of the most basic animal instincts – sex – through indoctrination. Why can't the same be done for violence and maliciousness? Check out the Green Sky Trilogy (aka Below The Root) books, which depict a world where pacifism has been more or less achieved, through teaching children to abhor violence the same way our world does for sex and stuff. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Green_Sky_Trilogy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Green_Sky_Trilogy
yellowapple 9y ago
It's a good idea, but too limited in scope. Everyone should have the ability to inspect the source code of the software they use. At the very least, government-used software should be accompanied with source code for potential independent audit. Transparency is a dependency of trust.

mfoy_ 9y ago

Why with the "Us vs. Them" mentality?

ceejayoz 9y ago
Because when dealing with nation states, it usually is "Us vs. Them" to at least some extent, even between stalwart allies?
jbooth 9y ago
Because there's been a very recent and very public hacking scandal that was "them vs us"?
- philliphaydon 9y ago
  This one with no evidence?
  - jbooth 9y ago
    Evidence is downthread. CIA, FBI and NSA all concur, they all put out unclassified statements with their conclusions, although they obviously kept much of their supporting evidence classified.
    - 1001101 9y ago
      So, in other words, "trust us."
      - deleted 9y ago
        [deleted]
    - baakss 9y ago
      >although they obviously kept much of their supporting evidence classified. Was anything not classified? I have trust issues stemming from an unnecessary war based on false premises when I was a child. Most of my hesitation stems from a lack of information about it. "Russians hacked Podesta's emails and released them to Wikileaks." "Russians hacked voting machines." Those are very targeted statements, and I'd feel better about the whole thing if more questions were answered. Have the hackers successfully been linked to the Russian Government? How? How long has this been going on? Since before this election cycle? If so, why is it only now an issue worthy of public attention? Have other Government entities, China, North Korea, etc, done the same? Have we seen similar attacks from inside the US?
      - nl 9y ago
        See this for non-classified evidence: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14620389 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14620389 I don't believe there are any claims Russia successfully hacked voting machines (I may have missed developments in the last week though). I believe there are claims they did successfully attack voter registration databases, but there are no real claims (except by left-wing conspiracy theory people) that they changed those databases - just stole data. I believe there is no non-classified evidence of this though (although I didn't read the document that Reality Winner sent to the Intercept, so that may document some evidence). China has a well known hacking group (ATP-1) - see [1] for further information. There is no evidence or real claims they are involved in political interference within the US. OTOH they are quite good at industrial espionage and tracking Chinese dissidents. I'm not very familiar with North Korea's group, but it is widely believed to be responsible for the Sony hack. I found that bizarre, but NK actions often are. [1] https://www.fireeye.com/content/dam/fireeye-www/services/pdfs/mandiant-apt1-report.pdf https://www.fireeye.com/content/dam/fireeye-www/services/pdf...
      - jbooth 9y ago
        Motivations matter. When we had the march to war in Iraq, suspect intel was being selectively and deceitfully pulled out of context specifically to build a case for war in Iraq. By politicians, not by intel professionals. A bunch of former intel people went on record calling BS on it. Right now, nobody's making a case for war with Russia. Retaliatory sanctions at best. They mostly just want to harden our election process and systems to prevent it from happening again, or worse. Yet we see constantly moving goalposts from people who don't want that hardening to happen. What's their motivation?
  - nl 9y ago
    There's plenty of non-classified evidence that goes much further than the joint Intel report goes, and was available before it. It's kind of disappointing this isn't widely understood, but I guess politics gets in the way. Anyway, feel free to share this: 2014 report into ATP-28: https://www.fireeye.com/blog/threat-research/2014/10/apt28-a-window-into-russias-cyber-espionage-operations.html https://www.fireeye.com/blog/threat-research/2014/10/apt28-a..., presenting pretty compelling (if circumstantial) evidence that group is Russian state backed. (July) 2016 report into the DNC hacking, showing it was first breached by ATP-29 (The other Russian state backed hacking group), but the leaks almost certainly came from a second breach by ATP-28 later: https://www.crowdstrike.com/blog/bears-midst-intrusion-democratic-national-committee/ https://www.crowdstrike.com/blog/bears-midst-intrusion-democ... One can of course argue that this is all a conspiracy. However, the fact that this first report was publicly available in 2014 gives some protection against the idea that it is motivated by US internal politics, and the second was also before the election actually occurred.
- ghostbrainalpha 9y ago
  I just think it might be more helpful to think about this as "Putin vs The U.S" instead of "them vs us". You can probably include his network and the oligarchy in there, but the average Russian citizen shouldn't really have a problem with the U.S. Before Putin started working on actively fear mongering, our relationship was good and trending upward. They have slightly different cultural values than us, but its nothing like it was in the cold war. Our interests are aligned on most significant issues for the average citizen. If both our countries could get rid of their current leader we could quickly become allies.
  - jbooth 9y ago
    Oh, yeah, for sure. Agreed on everything, friends if not allies. But Russia as a state is pretty much synonymous with Putin as a person, right now. Until that changes, it's splitting hairs.
  - mc32 9y ago
    I think it's not that simple. Russians are "proud" peoples, as they say. He has high approval rating. An affront to Putin is an affront to Russia. The Clinton "diplomatic" tack and tact was not effective and likely very unproductive and has lead to much distrust at the govt level but also among the average Dmitrys and Marinas on the street.
    - azangru 9y ago
      > Russians are "proud" peoples, as they say. I doubt that as a people Russians are any more "proud" than any other nation; such a sentiment reminds me of the age of Romanticism, when such kind of analysis of nations, or of national spirit, was commonplace. It is so very human (and so very superficial, too) to want to feel superior to or at least no worse than others, that states exploit this via propaganda. If people are being systematically told that they belong to a great nation (which defeated the Germans in WWII, or was the first to send a man in space, or has a magnificent cultural legacy in XIXth century writers, or has the second largest nuclear arsenal, or other such stuff intended to boost nationalism), they get "proud". When this propaganda stops, they go back to normal again.
throwaway5752 9y ago
Almost the entirety of the 20th and early 21rst centurys' history are defined by Us vs. Them in this case. This isn't some baseless tribalism, there were multiple wars via proxy across the globe. Massive intel and cointel operations. There were several occasions that almost ended human life on earth via nuclear conflict. You'd have to be insanely naive to ignore this in the context of this request.
throw2016 9y ago
The fall of communism was the perfect time to start building trust. The Russians foolishly trusted the west. Look up the astonishing policies initiated by 'harvard economists' in association with the usual suspects IMF and World Bank that directly led to the loot of hundreds of billions of dollars of Russian state assets and the rise of the oligarchy to understand how obsessive self interest and sabotage operate. Putin exists for a reason. 'Trust' is a naive to dangerous idea in this context. No one is a doe eyed innocent upholding some moral high ground in international politics, people who affect that should be treated with extreme suspicion.

Angostura 9y ago

> We shouldn't trust Russsians, and they shouldn't trust us. The problem at the moment is that 'we' can't necessarily trust 'ourselves'. Paradoxically, having the Russians audit may make our products more trustworthy for our own use. See also Open Source.

Paul-ish 9y ago
These companies could sell a product in Russia that is different than the one they sell in the US. Audits by Russia don't mean much unless everyone gets the same binaries.
AnimalMuppet 9y ago
Only if they tell us what they find.

CaptSpify 9y ago

The identity of the requester is orthogonal to the issue. Anyone should be able to request the source code. It doesn't matter if it's someone we trust or not.

origami777 9y ago
I could get on board with that if that's the way it worked. Here's hoping to that becoming the reality!

1001101 9y ago

I'm not sure the shareholders of those companies would agree with you. They may find another product - I can't imagine there isn't an incentive to seed a competitor to US companies in Russian jurisdiction. Russia has the capital and talent to do it, and I can't imagine the will is that far off.

origami777 9y ago
At a certain point it becomes a national security risk. And we have to choose, money or security. Until our overall cybersecuirty improves I vote against the profit incentive. And I say we don't leave that decision to shareholders because they don't act with our nations best interest in mind all the time.

Razengan 9y ago

> We shouldn't trust Russsians, and they shouldn't trust us. WHAT will it take to end this tiresome, counter-productive, primitive tribalism, really?

AnimalMuppet 9y ago
Humans becoming trustworthy? In other words, you have to fix human nature.
- Razengan 9y ago
  Most of "human nature" is taught and learned. If you think "untrustworthiness" is part of our fundamental animal instincts, then just look at how most cultures have managed to repress one of the most basic animal instincts – sex – through indoctrination. Why can't the same be done for violence and maliciousness? Check out the Green Sky Trilogy (aka Below The Root) books, which depict a world where pacifism has been more or less achieved, through teaching children to abhor violence the same way our world does for sex and stuff. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Green_Sky_Trilogy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Green_Sky_Trilogy

yellowapple 9y ago

It's a good idea, but too limited in scope. Everyone should have the ability to inspect the source code of the software they use. At the very least, government-used software should be accompanied with source code for potential independent audit. Transparency is a dependency of trust.