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Understanding the word is getting diluted recently, generally terrorism is meant to indicate violent acts intended to coerce behaviour for political / ideologic
by NikolaNovak 5y ago
Understanding the word is getting diluted recently, generally terrorism is meant to indicate violent acts intended to coerce behaviour for political / ideological purposes.
It seems most ransom ware is used for fairly explicit and immediate commercial gain.
We already have a word for "bad thing", "crime". If we start using terrorism for every bad thing it becomes meaningless.
Mind you, irregardless is becoming a word and literally now has two opposing meanings, so it's likely based on current USA usage terrorism will become a catch all phrase as well if it hasn't already. I am curious however what use it then becomes calling something terrorism. Today there's implicit notion it is a higher threat demanding higher response but even that I think is diluted.
- bagacrap 5y agoArguably it is political. These ransomware attacks are not state-sponsored, but they are state-condoned, like British privateers of the past. They serve to harm the society and way of life of a country Putin sees as a political rival. Arguably it is violent. The threat in this case, should the ransom not be met, is to release information that will lead to violence.
- NikolaNovak 5y agoFair argument; but for what I think are desired purposes and effects, I think declaring it something like 'National Security Threat' is more productive and less ambiguous/debatable.