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On the high seas of the Internet there is a thin line between pirates and state actors. There could even be "privateer" (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Privatee
by thesuperbigfrog 5y ago
On the high seas of the Internet there is a thin line between pirates and state actors. There could even be "privateer" (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Privateer https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Privateer) attackers who work for a nation and for profit at the same time.
From the victim's perspective it matters less who is attacking you or why they are attacking you and much more what the results of the attack are, how you can mitigate and recover from the damage, and what needs to be done to prevent future attacks.
For the case of DarkSide and Colonial Pipeline, the attackers did not claim to have a political motive, but the resulting fuel shortages and panic buying might as well have been a form of terrorism.
- wongarsu 5y agoJust causing terror doesn't make it terrorism. Causing terror as a means to further some political (or religious) goal would make it terrorism.
- bluefirebrand 5y agoWith that definition this is explicitly not terrorism, because it was for money not for political or religious reasons?
- akiselev 5y agoYes. Its an important distinction because they are fundamentally different motives. If the motive is money, various strategies can drive up the cost until the behavior is no longer profitable and the bad actors stop. Religion and ideology are completely different beasts and most strategies that work on profiteers only entrench the others.
- omgwtfbbq 5y agoJust like how robbing a bank may cause terror to the people in the bank or the neighborhood but it was done for profit not politics.
- suifbwish 5y agoWealth is the primary means of expanding ones political influence. It’s a primitive tool like a talking stick to coerce all the other monkeys to do shit for you. Trying to gain money is absolutely political
- Dylan16807 5y agoI think you just defined yelling at someone over money to be terrorism. You can make a reasonable argument that "nothing is apolitical" but but that's not the definition of political being used when people say what terrorism is.
- suifbwish 5y agoYou are correct; that is the consequence of taking the definition to its ultimate conclusion. Either our definition of terrorism is incomplete or our idea of money is.
- 8ytecoder 5y agoNot sure why you're getting downvoted. That's literally the Oxford dictionary definition. https://www.google.com/search?q=define+terrorism https://www.google.com/search?q=define+terrorism
- shelbyKiraM 5y agoFTFY: https://duckduckgo.com/?q=define+terrorism+oxford https://duckduckgo.com/?q=define+terrorism+oxford
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- suifbwish 5y agoMoney is pure politics. The attacker becoming rich can legally be considered a political goal as the nature of money is political. If they endanger an entity or someone else’s resources to gain that political goal they are guilty of terrorism as they used fear to enact political change.
- mhluongo 5y agoThe mental gymnastics here are incredible. I'm a frequent "everything is political" commenter myself, but since when is naked self interest through theft a political action?
- waheoo 5y agoThese are the same types of people that claim "there are no good books" with a smirk on while suggesting books to read on white privilege after just telling you it's not his job to educate you on such matters even though he's literally being paid to sit there and educate you. The insanity of it all is incomprehensible.
- stjohnswarts 5y agoOnly if you're a Marxist and limit your world view to what you can see through that lens.
- dools 5y agoNo, money is inherently political as a matter of observable fact. It is created by governments and its value is driven by taxation.
- sonograph 5y ago> It is created by governments and its value is driven by taxation. How does taxation drive value? Which taxation? There are governments that don't charge income taxes, there are governments that don't charge property taxes, there are governments that don't charge sales taxes.
- tw04 5y agoYou could call it unintentional terrorism I suppose. The timing with what's going on in Ukraine along with Putin's repeated threats makes it look political even if it wasn't. It's entirely possible they just happened to be a group of Russians who picked the wrong target at the wrong time. It's also entirely possible they were doing the Kremlin's work and just not announcing it publicly because that's not really how Putin plays the game. I have to believe that played a role in the response they received as well.
- notatoad 5y ago>On the high seas of the Internet there is a thin line between pirates and state actors maybe in as far as their capabilities go, but the important characteristic of a state actor is that retaliating against them is construed as a retaliation against the state that backs them. Darkside is very different to a state actor, as demonstrated here - retaliation has no significant geopolitical implications, so it can be swift and harsh.
- monkeybutton 5y agoI think Evil Corp falls under the definition of privateer: >As noted in previous stories here, during times of conflict with Russia’s neighbors, Slavik was known to retool his crime machines to search for classified information on victim systems in regions of the world that were of strategic interest to the Russian government – particularly in Turkey and Ukraine. >“Cybercriminals are recruited to Russia’s national cause through a mix of coercion, payments and appeals to patriotic sentiment,” reads a 2017 story from The Register on security firm Cybereason’s analysis of the Russian cybercrime scene. “Russia’s use of private contractors also has other benefits in helping to decrease overall operational costs, mitigating the risk of detection and gaining technical expertise that they cannot recruit directly into the government. https://krebsonsecurity.com/2019/12/inside-evil-corp-a-100m-cybercrime-menace/ https://krebsonsecurity.com/2019/12/inside-evil-corp-a-100m-...