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> We should shut down Russian infrastructure as retaliation. How about, instead of causing harm to innocent Russian people by such pointless escalation, the US

> We should shut down Russian infrastructure as retaliation. How about, instead of causing harm to innocent Russian people by such pointless escalation, the US makes a serious and meaningful effort to secure their critical national infrastructure. As they should have done in the first place.

xvector 5y ago
Yes, let’s meekly sit back and let other countries attack us, only playing defense. Russia caused this. If we shut down Russian infrastructure and Russian civilians get caught in the crossfire, the Russian government can blame themselves. You cannot expect to engage in acts of war without endangering your own citizens to at least some degree. To engage in war is to invite it to your homeland. Hell, if we don’t retaliate, we may be seen as a weak and an easy target. I argue that we already are, in the realm of cybersecurity, which is why state-sponsored attacks on American companies keep happening. Furthermore, American infrastructure, companies, and civilians come first. It should be made clear that we will deal with aggressors and acts of war. Countries do not attack the US in the physical realm out of fear of retaliation, and it should stay that way in the cyber realm.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- crumbshot 5y ago
  This is the most "keyboard warrior" comment I've ever read.
  - xvector 5y ago
    And your lack of understanding around the need for offensive cybersecurity is one of the most naive things I’ve read on HN. I suppose it balances out.
- kgeist 5y ago
  >If we shut down Russian infrastructure and Russian civilians get caught in the crossfire, the Russian government can blame themselves A very naive statement. The Russian government doesn't work like that. They NEVER admit they were wrong. They don't care about civilians. They have culture of complete denial, even in the presence of indisputible facts. They will say US attacks on Russia is yet another proof of US' hostile, aggressive behavior towards Russia in a greater geopolitical game (especially when presented proofs of Russia's involvement are pretty weak, like "the hacker group never attacked Russian infrastructure" - I bet they never attacked North Korea either), giving Putin an excuse to crackdown on opposition and restrict/reduce Russians' freedom/human rights even more, further militarizing things and increasing attacks on US infra. Actually strengthening security is the only proper solution, to make that kind of attacks futile and unprofitable. It's usually not some ingenious attacks but just simple negligence of the targets. Source: I'm from Russia
- neither_color 5y ago
  I was a child when 9/11 happened but I still remember the experts on TV assuring us that Iraq had those weapons of mass destruction.
  - dragonwriter 5y ago
    I was an adult, and I remember the experts on TV (and print and other media) debunking the “experts” you refer to, often in near real time. And, unlike the latter, the former often had the receipts (fairly literally, in the case of the debunking of the “Winnebagos of Mass Destruction”.)
    - Pfhreak 5y ago
      I was also an adult, and the fervor over WMD was unreal. And not just WMDs, but stupid shit like "Freedom Fries" and "These colors don't run". The spike in nationalism was awful to behold.
      - dragonwriter 5y ago
        > I was also an adult, and the fervor over WMD was unreal Sure, the fervor was, as were lots of emotional aspects of the post-9/11 wave of Islamophobic hysteria. And certainly the opinion and commentary programs of the major TV news networks were often engaged in that (Fox, of course, but also MSNBC and CNN, both of whom reacted to Fox in the early 00’s even before 9/11 by chasing the bias in Fox opinion/commentary — not so much actual news — which definitely contributed to their slant and the reinforced the national post-9/11 mood well pay the beginning of the Iraq War.) This effect was smaller in the print media (but even greater in blogs, which were taking off as the new distinctly online media and didn’t tend to segregate fact and commentary or otherwise act like traditional media.) That’s why the widely disseminated debunkings of the WMD propaganda in news coverage were also widely disregarded, but there has since become a revisionist narrative which pretends that the WMD propaganda was generally presented as unquestioned fact and contrary information suppressed by the news media.
- pizzazzaro 5y ago
  Yes, lets escalate! Maybe we can cool our warming planet with a nuclear winter. Or... We could try locking our doors on the internet. We could try limiting our attack surface. I would suggest NOT centralizing a large portion of our economy atop a leaky, damage-prone pipeline from the actual 1950s.

xvector 5y ago

Yes, let’s meekly sit back and let other countries attack us, only playing defense. Russia caused this. If we shut down Russian infrastructure and Russian civilians get caught in the crossfire, the Russian government can blame themselves. You cannot expect to engage in acts of war without endangering your own citizens to at least some degree. To engage in war is to invite it to your homeland. Hell, if we don’t retaliate, we may be seen as a weak and an easy target. I argue that we already are, in the realm of cybersecurity, which is why state-sponsored attacks on American companies keep happening. Furthermore, American infrastructure, companies, and civilians come first. It should be made clear that we will deal with aggressors and acts of war. Countries do not attack the US in the physical realm out of fear of retaliation, and it should stay that way in the cyber realm.

deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
crumbshot 5y ago
This is the most "keyboard warrior" comment I've ever read.
- xvector 5y ago
  And your lack of understanding around the need for offensive cybersecurity is one of the most naive things I’ve read on HN. I suppose it balances out.
kgeist 5y ago
>If we shut down Russian infrastructure and Russian civilians get caught in the crossfire, the Russian government can blame themselves A very naive statement. The Russian government doesn't work like that. They NEVER admit they were wrong. They don't care about civilians. They have culture of complete denial, even in the presence of indisputible facts. They will say US attacks on Russia is yet another proof of US' hostile, aggressive behavior towards Russia in a greater geopolitical game (especially when presented proofs of Russia's involvement are pretty weak, like "the hacker group never attacked Russian infrastructure" - I bet they never attacked North Korea either), giving Putin an excuse to crackdown on opposition and restrict/reduce Russians' freedom/human rights even more, further militarizing things and increasing attacks on US infra. Actually strengthening security is the only proper solution, to make that kind of attacks futile and unprofitable. It's usually not some ingenious attacks but just simple negligence of the targets. Source: I'm from Russia
neither_color 5y ago
I was a child when 9/11 happened but I still remember the experts on TV assuring us that Iraq had those weapons of mass destruction.
- dragonwriter 5y ago
  I was an adult, and I remember the experts on TV (and print and other media) debunking the “experts” you refer to, often in near real time. And, unlike the latter, the former often had the receipts (fairly literally, in the case of the debunking of the “Winnebagos of Mass Destruction”.)
  - Pfhreak 5y ago
    I was also an adult, and the fervor over WMD was unreal. And not just WMDs, but stupid shit like "Freedom Fries" and "These colors don't run". The spike in nationalism was awful to behold.
    - dragonwriter 5y ago
      > I was also an adult, and the fervor over WMD was unreal Sure, the fervor was, as were lots of emotional aspects of the post-9/11 wave of Islamophobic hysteria. And certainly the opinion and commentary programs of the major TV news networks were often engaged in that (Fox, of course, but also MSNBC and CNN, both of whom reacted to Fox in the early 00’s even before 9/11 by chasing the bias in Fox opinion/commentary — not so much actual news — which definitely contributed to their slant and the reinforced the national post-9/11 mood well pay the beginning of the Iraq War.) This effect was smaller in the print media (but even greater in blogs, which were taking off as the new distinctly online media and didn’t tend to segregate fact and commentary or otherwise act like traditional media.) That’s why the widely disseminated debunkings of the WMD propaganda in news coverage were also widely disregarded, but there has since become a revisionist narrative which pretends that the WMD propaganda was generally presented as unquestioned fact and contrary information suppressed by the news media.
pizzazzaro 5y ago
Yes, lets escalate! Maybe we can cool our warming planet with a nuclear winter. Or... We could try locking our doors on the internet. We could try limiting our attack surface. I would suggest NOT centralizing a large portion of our economy atop a leaky, damage-prone pipeline from the actual 1950s.