7 ms·

How internet mercenaries do battle for authoritarian governments

103 points by clydethefrog 8y ago

stcredzero 8y ago
Today even the smallest countries can buy digital espionage services, enabling them to conduct sophisticated operations like electronic eavesdropping or influence campaigns that were once the preserve of major powers like the United States and Russia. Corporations that want to scrutinize competitors’ secrets, or a wealthy individual with a beef against a rival, can also command intelligence operations for a price, akin to purchasing off-the-shelf elements of the National Security Agency or the Mossad. There were books in the 1980's predicting such a cyberpunk future in years around now. 2019 would have sounded right in place in such stories. Cybersecurity consultants gone rogue, hiding out in Russia. Hackers turned into CIA assets, playing head games with ex-soldiers who opt to change their gender. Corporations and tin-pot governments hiring hackers to do surveillance. Eccentric billionaires seeking to jump-start space industry and the colonization of Mars. We are in the 1980's cyberpunk future. It's just that the names, time scales, and pay scales have changed. Just get rid of a few details like RAM being a valuable pocketable item and revolvers with Xenon weaponlights being used by mercenaries, and Neuromancer holds up kinda ok.
- zeropnc 8y ago
  In a very roundabout way, RAM being a valuable item isn’t too far off from bitcoin
  - whatshisface 8y ago
    The cost of bitcoin is mainly determined by the price of electricity and the price of ASICs. RAM is more important for other coins, but for Bitcoin it's mainly about the hashing output of some specialized circuits.
    - jstanley 8y ago
      The cost of bitcoin is determined by supply and demand. The hashrate is determined by the price of bitcoin, the price of electricity, and the price of ASICs.
      - whatshisface 8y ago
        >The cost of bitcoin is determined by supply and demand. That's the price of bitcoin, not the cost. Price is what you can sell it for, cost is what you can make it for. The cost is determined by the price of the inputs, which are electricity and ASICs.
        thaumasiotes 8y ago
        The cost of creating bitcoin is dynamically adjusted so that a fixed number are created in a given period of time based on the hashrate. You'd have the same number of bitcoins regardless of the price of electricity and ASICs. So in this case, the price determines the cost, not the other way around. People will invest money into creating bitcoins until their cost of acquisition equals the price they can sell for, and this effort purely drives up the cost without generating any additional bitcoins.
- everdev 8y ago
  > Cybersecurity consultants gone rogue, hiding out in Russia. What's up with Snowden? I find it very hard to believe that Russia doesn't know where he is. One leading theory was he was being saved as a bargaining chip. But don't you think he would have been traded for sanctions relief early on? Presumably his value to the US diminishes over time.
  - lawnchair_larry 8y ago
    Russia knows where he is, but I'm not sure what that has to do with anything. They aren't interested in him. And that theory wasn't "leading".
  - kome 8y ago
    Snowden has nothing to do with this. And he has some legal status in Russia, he is not hiding at all.
    - stcredzero 8y ago
      Sheltering, if you like. "Hiding out" can be used as a synonym for that. He's not hiding if everyone knows where he is, and he's streamed media events talking about where he is.
  - onetimemanytime 8y ago
    >>What's up with Snowden? I find it very hard to believe that Russia doesn't know where he is. Frankly I don't believe it at all. I think, Russia knows very well where he is. ;) But as big as he is, a trade over sanctions will not happen, he's still too small of a fish. Maybe they'll trade him with a few Russian spies over time, but then Russia would lose some sort of street cred in those circles.
  - jsnider3 8y ago
    They gave him asylum.
- cobbzilla 8y ago
  Also seemingly imported from a sci-if world, click farms are fascinating: https://mobile.twitter.com/JamieJBartlett/status/1105151495773847552 https://mobile.twitter.com/JamieJBartlett/status/11051514957...
- malvosenior 8y ago
  Sadly we have all of that but the cyberpunk aesthetic didn't make it :( I want my neo-Tokyo.
  - 52-6F-62 8y ago
    Hope this helps: https://imgur.com/6onsmkK https://imgur.com/6onsmkK https://preview.redd.it/vg6dv29rkqb01.jpg?width=960&crop=smart&auto=webp&s=373018f2eb6185f083cbe6cbe3d68cf7cecb6cba https://preview.redd.it/vg6dv29rkqb01.jpg?width=960&crop=sma...
    - stcredzero 8y ago
      Working on the "Spinners": https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zcmHXvR-W1c https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zcmHXvR-W1c It's cool that the Blade Runner name works for those things.
  - drak0n1c 8y ago
    The population will never be high enough for neo-Tokyo to exist, barring some kind of widespread program (public or private) creating babies in addition to those conceived normally. Even Hong Kong eventually found its Kowloon Walled City unnecessary. Humans prefer not to live so densely if they don't need to.
    - stcredzero 8y ago
      The population will never be high enough for neo-Tokyo to exist Futurists have done reasonable calculations showing we could have 100 billion on Earth alone, if we have fusion power.
      - drak0n1c 8y ago
        I fully agree that the Earth could sustain over a hundred billion people (and even keep vast natural spaces) with proper advances in infrastructure, construction, and technology. However, people just tend not to have enough babies to make the population grow much higher than the projected peak of 12-20 billion. Even the most fertile countries and cultures don't have the size and growth rates necessary the species to hit 100 billion. It would have to take some kind of massive program making hundreds of millions of extra babies per year in test tubes and implanting them in surrogates (or machine surrogates, if technology allows). I could see pseudo-religious motivations for such a thing (allowing every possible child to exist), or secular motivations (needing a vastly more productive and space-faring population, or creating a new form of egalitarianism by inundating births with masses of randomly-but-equally birthed). But that is social-science fiction on top of science fiction - the chances are slim.
- ohaideredevs 8y ago
  As great as Gibson is, I think the revolver part just comes from him not really understanding combat/warfare to any reasonable degree. Not nearly as much as Stephenson does.
  - e12e 8y ago
    I think this is more Bruce Sterling ca "Islands in the Net"...
  - stcredzero 8y ago
    As great as Gibson is, I think the revolver part just comes from him not really understanding combat/warfare to any reasonable degree You have to remember this was the 80's. Revolvers being more reliable was still a dying mainstream-ish viewpoint back then with police/mercenaries, arguably appropriate for a grizzled veteran character with very high marksmanship skills. Xenon was the best weapon-light technology widely available. It's more that Gibson couldn't reasonably be expected to have forseen the tremendous strides LEDs and Li-ion batteries have taken since back then.
Proven 8y ago
Are there non-authoritarian governments? If they force you to do something, how can you find them to be anything else?

103 points by clydethefrog 8y ago

Today even the smallest countries can buy digital espionage services, enabling them to conduct sophisticated operations like electronic eavesdropping or influence campaigns that were once the preserve of major powers like the United States and Russia. Corporations that want to scrutinize competitors’ secrets, or a wealthy individual with a beef against a rival, can also command intelligence operations for a price, akin to purchasing off-the-shelf elements of the National Security Agency or the Mossad. There were books in the 1980's predicting such a cyberpunk future in years around now. 2019 would have sounded right in place in such stories. Cybersecurity consultants gone rogue, hiding out in Russia. Hackers turned into CIA assets, playing head games with ex-soldiers who opt to change their gender. Corporations and tin-pot governments hiring hackers to do surveillance. Eccentric billionaires seeking to jump-start space industry and the colonization of Mars. We are in the 1980's cyberpunk future. It's just that the names, time scales, and pay scales have changed. Just get rid of a few details like RAM being a valuable pocketable item and revolvers with Xenon weaponlights being used by mercenaries, and Neuromancer holds up kinda ok.

zeropnc 8y ago
In a very roundabout way, RAM being a valuable item isn’t too far off from bitcoin
- whatshisface 8y ago
  The cost of bitcoin is mainly determined by the price of electricity and the price of ASICs. RAM is more important for other coins, but for Bitcoin it's mainly about the hashing output of some specialized circuits.
  - jstanley 8y ago
    The cost of bitcoin is determined by supply and demand. The hashrate is determined by the price of bitcoin, the price of electricity, and the price of ASICs.
    - whatshisface 8y ago
      >The cost of bitcoin is determined by supply and demand. That's the price of bitcoin, not the cost. Price is what you can sell it for, cost is what you can make it for. The cost is determined by the price of the inputs, which are electricity and ASICs.
      - thaumasiotes 8y ago
        The cost of creating bitcoin is dynamically adjusted so that a fixed number are created in a given period of time based on the hashrate. You'd have the same number of bitcoins regardless of the price of electricity and ASICs. So in this case, the price determines the cost, not the other way around. People will invest money into creating bitcoins until their cost of acquisition equals the price they can sell for, and this effort purely drives up the cost without generating any additional bitcoins.
everdev 8y ago
> Cybersecurity consultants gone rogue, hiding out in Russia. What's up with Snowden? I find it very hard to believe that Russia doesn't know where he is. One leading theory was he was being saved as a bargaining chip. But don't you think he would have been traded for sanctions relief early on? Presumably his value to the US diminishes over time.
- lawnchair_larry 8y ago
  Russia knows where he is, but I'm not sure what that has to do with anything. They aren't interested in him. And that theory wasn't "leading".
- kome 8y ago
  Snowden has nothing to do with this. And he has some legal status in Russia, he is not hiding at all.
  - stcredzero 8y ago
    Sheltering, if you like. "Hiding out" can be used as a synonym for that. He's not hiding if everyone knows where he is, and he's streamed media events talking about where he is.
- onetimemanytime 8y ago
  >>What's up with Snowden? I find it very hard to believe that Russia doesn't know where he is. Frankly I don't believe it at all. I think, Russia knows very well where he is. ;) But as big as he is, a trade over sanctions will not happen, he's still too small of a fish. Maybe they'll trade him with a few Russian spies over time, but then Russia would lose some sort of street cred in those circles.
- jsnider3 8y ago
  They gave him asylum.
cobbzilla 8y ago
Also seemingly imported from a sci-if world, click farms are fascinating: https://mobile.twitter.com/JamieJBartlett/status/1105151495773847552 https://mobile.twitter.com/JamieJBartlett/status/11051514957...
malvosenior 8y ago
Sadly we have all of that but the cyberpunk aesthetic didn't make it :( I want my neo-Tokyo.
- 52-6F-62 8y ago
  Hope this helps: https://imgur.com/6onsmkK https://imgur.com/6onsmkK https://preview.redd.it/vg6dv29rkqb01.jpg?width=960&crop=smart&auto=webp&s=373018f2eb6185f083cbe6cbe3d68cf7cecb6cba https://preview.redd.it/vg6dv29rkqb01.jpg?width=960&crop=sma...
  - stcredzero 8y ago
    Working on the "Spinners": https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zcmHXvR-W1c https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zcmHXvR-W1c It's cool that the Blade Runner name works for those things.
- drak0n1c 8y ago
  The population will never be high enough for neo-Tokyo to exist, barring some kind of widespread program (public or private) creating babies in addition to those conceived normally. Even Hong Kong eventually found its Kowloon Walled City unnecessary. Humans prefer not to live so densely if they don't need to.
  - stcredzero 8y ago
    The population will never be high enough for neo-Tokyo to exist Futurists have done reasonable calculations showing we could have 100 billion on Earth alone, if we have fusion power.
    - drak0n1c 8y ago
      I fully agree that the Earth could sustain over a hundred billion people (and even keep vast natural spaces) with proper advances in infrastructure, construction, and technology. However, people just tend not to have enough babies to make the population grow much higher than the projected peak of 12-20 billion. Even the most fertile countries and cultures don't have the size and growth rates necessary the species to hit 100 billion. It would have to take some kind of massive program making hundreds of millions of extra babies per year in test tubes and implanting them in surrogates (or machine surrogates, if technology allows). I could see pseudo-religious motivations for such a thing (allowing every possible child to exist), or secular motivations (needing a vastly more productive and space-faring population, or creating a new form of egalitarianism by inundating births with masses of randomly-but-equally birthed). But that is social-science fiction on top of science fiction - the chances are slim.
ohaideredevs 8y ago
As great as Gibson is, I think the revolver part just comes from him not really understanding combat/warfare to any reasonable degree. Not nearly as much as Stephenson does.
- e12e 8y ago
  I think this is more Bruce Sterling ca "Islands in the Net"...
- stcredzero 8y ago
  As great as Gibson is, I think the revolver part just comes from him not really understanding combat/warfare to any reasonable degree You have to remember this was the 80's. Revolvers being more reliable was still a dying mainstream-ish viewpoint back then with police/mercenaries, arguably appropriate for a grizzled veteran character with very high marksmanship skills. Xenon was the best weapon-light technology widely available. It's more that Gibson couldn't reasonably be expected to have forseen the tremendous strides LEDs and Li-ion batteries have taken since back then.

Proven 8y ago

Are there non-authoritarian governments? If they force you to do something, how can you find them to be anything else?