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I just don't understand what the node-ipc dev was expecting when he did that. "Hm, maybe if I put malware into a community-trusted module that destroys files o

I just don't understand what the node-ipc dev was expecting when he did that. "Hm, maybe if I put malware into a community-trusted module that destroys files of people in a certain geopolitical region, the countless innocent citizens that are affected will realize what they did wrong! Wait, who am I actually targeting again?"

Larrikin 5y ago
Probably hoped the effects would negatively effect people there so they could put pressure to stop the murder of other innocent civilians. Arguments like this are similar to the BLM protest that try to equate property with human lives.
- bnt 5y ago
  Or, you know, I’ll never touch Vue.js again?
  - JumpCrisscross 5y ago
    Charitably, it creates a new friction for Russian business in deploying open-source software. That drag further diminishes Russia’s economy, and thus, its warmaking ability.
    - FerociousTimes 5y ago
      At best, this operation could be construed as an act of vandalism or at worst an act of CYBER terrorism. This indiscriminate and malicious act of hostility was carried by what amounted to be a cyber weapon (think IED) housed in a very ordinary and non-suspicious package to cause the greatest damage to the users' data.
      - JumpCrisscross 5y ago
        > this operation could be construed as an act of vandalism or at worst an act of CYBER terrorism Could be. But by whom? To what effect? One of the downsides of losing credibility as a nation state is the concepts of deference, retaliation and proportionality lose weight. There is no indication that the facts on the ground would affect whether Putin deems something a cyber attack. Worse, one's own policing actions are likely to cause more damage as propaganda pieces than ignoring the issue. Yes, in an international law framework this would be prosecuted in the U.S. But in that framework Russia wouldn't be in Ukraine. Add to that it's tacit approval of its own hackers, and it's difficult--in a realpolitik frame--to find support for doing anything about this other than minor finger wagging.
        FerociousTimes 5y ago
        > Could be. But by whom? To what effect? The general public. I speculate that publicity was one of the main objectives behind this operation to draw attention to his political grievances and maybe demands. Perhaps we should focus more on the issue of bragging rights. The perpetrator probably thinks he's some kind of a hero having conducted this operation and it was some kind of a heroic feat sticking up to Putin when he in fact is more of a lousy vandal destroying some poor guy's store window than an epic warrior conquering foreign lands and subduing evil emperors. The more people realize this and esp. people who are prone to commit these acts, the more innocent people would be spared the damage incurred by those reckless attacks.
    - rrsmtz 5y ago
      This is the line that every extremist group uses to justify their horrible acts. Weaponizing open source is such an awful precedent. There are extremist groups of every shade who harbor ill intent towards some other group or institution. For a rather mundane example: "My malicious npm module detects you are running the Brave browser? The evil Brendan Eich runs that, say goodbye to your filesystem!" Never mind if you are part of a group that is mired in controversy, chief among them at this time being Russian.
      - vkou 5y ago
        > This is the line that every extremist group uses to justify their horrible acts. And in this case the 'horrible act' is not wanting your free labour to be used in another country.
      - deleted 5y ago
        [deleted]
    - maccolgan 5y ago
      This isn't a charitable take, you have reinvented total war from the first principles. If all of the currently in war countries start engaging in total war, the world wouldn't be worth living in.
- gruez 5y ago
  >Arguments like this are similar to the BLM protest that try to equate property with human lives. Yeah, but the problem with this is that, taken to its logical conclusion, you end up with a nihilistic view that's basically "do you support The Cause? if yes then any protest action is acceptable, if no then any minor transgression should be cracked down by law enforcement". This works especially well when The Cause is something that could plausibly affect tens of millions of people, so you can excuse quite a lot of damage.
- potta_coffee 5y ago
  Arguments like this are superficial and justify bad behavior. Destruction of property isn't murder, but it's still not ok and it still causes harm to living people who have no influence over the issue.
  - shadowgovt 5y ago
    > who have no influence I believe the crux of the political theory is that in a representative democracy, nobody has no influence over the issue.
    - Miraste 5y ago
      That is obviously not true, and even if it were, the country in question is Russia, an autocracy. What is our poor hypothetical node developer expected to do, march down to the Kremlin and beat Putin with his MacBook?
      - shadowgovt 5y ago
        Parent comment originally referred to Black Lives Matter; I had been responding to that part of the comment (and its relation to US politics).
      - mrguyorama 5y ago
        This is Russia we are talking about right? A country that has had countless uprisings of literal serfs with farming implements replacing their government.
- vorpalhex 5y ago
  It's not acceptable to burn down someone's house because you disagree with them. Even if you disagree with them a lot. Please don't burn people's houses down. If you burn down people's houses, you will be arrested and go to jail.
- baud147258 5y ago
  > they could put pressure to stop In case you haven't checked, both targeted countries are authoritarian regimes where any kind of civil protest is ignored at best or actively suppressed at worst. And violent regime changes (aka revolutions) coming from the people don't work, at least not without the support of part of the governing elites (which aren't impacted by that kind of actions)
  - wrycoder 5y ago
    Revolutions have succeeded time and again. The problem is that in most cases, the kind of people who lead successful revolutions are not the kind who can form a non-autocratic government. It can take generations to correct the resulting chaos and totalitarian excesses.
- HideousKojima 5y ago
  I have a legal (and moral) right to defend my property, often with deadly force. My property came into my possession by my own labors and time, i.e. by sacrificing part of my life to obtain it. Even if the property was gifted to me, that means that someone else sacrificed part of their life to give it to me. When someone violates my rights in the process of "protesting" something, I am legally and morally justified in using force to protect my rights. This includes the right to the property that I own.
  - Larrikin 5y ago
    Where is this true? In the US you have the right to murder if the person is in your home and in some states you have the right to murder if you feel your life is being threatened, in this case because you're being robbed. If you left your car running while you ran into the store you don't have the right to shoot the guy in the back as he drives off. You file a police report and potentially sue for damages. You definitely don't have the right to shoot someone for burning down your local Target.
    - HideousKojima 5y ago
      If someone is trying to burn down my house with me in it, I have a right to shoot them in pretty much every jurisdiction in the US. If someone is burning down my store with me in it, I also have the right to use deadly force to defend it.
      - SamoyedFurFluff 5y ago
        Let’s step back a little, please. This original context was about some BLM protests doing property damage, which included smashing storefronts and trash fires on the street.
        HideousKojima 5y ago
        They also included burning down buildings, not just trash in the street.
- yyyk 5y ago
  I can't agree with these arguments. A) IP geolocation is far from perfect, quite a few completely unrelated people could have been affected. B) There was a chance of massive collateral damage to stuff like hospitals, water company, etc. and therefore affecting civilians, including children. If you think Putin wouldn't use that to rally Russia and launch a massive war, you haven't observed Putin for long. We got very lucky this software equivalent of a warcrime was stopped early. Yet the punishment was absurdly light. I will staying away from NPM after that.
  - FDSGSG 5y ago
    > If you think Putin wouldn't use that to rally Russia and launch a massive war, you haven't observed Putin for long. Do you believe that node-ipc would do this but the current vastly more impactful sanctions regime wont? Also, everybody capable of thinking understands that Russia isn't capable of launching another "massive war" when it already has almost all of its conventional combat power committed to Ukraine. If you think Putin would launch a nuclear war over wiper malware, you're an idiot. There's no other kind of "massive war" he could launch at this point. > this software equivalent of a warcrime Why not call it software holocaust if we're gonna go there? What's wrong with you?
    - yyyk 5y ago
      >Do you believe that node-ipc would do this but the current vastly more impactful sanctions regime wont? >There's no other kind of "massive war" he could launch at this point. Russian society isn't anywhere near enthusiastic. That's why Putin has been searching for ever dumber excuses. Give him an actual indefensible incident to rally society around, and he'll get a lot more manpower. That could expand the war to Odessa and Moldova, and also 'retaliatory' cyberwar in the West. Now, there's a level of escalation I'm fine with risking - say, over stationing peacekeepers in parts of Ukraine. Stuff that actually helps Ukrainians. But over an self-appointed idiot's personal action which doesn't help anyone and nobody asked for? $#@! no. >Why not call it software holocaust if we're gonna go there? What's wrong with you? It's attacking civilians as to influence their government (except Russia is a dictatorship and the government doesn't even care). I have more pointed comparisons in mind, but I'll spare the thread.
gruez 5y ago
>"Hm, maybe if I put malware into a community-trusted module that destroys files of people in a certain geopolitical region, the countless innocent citizens that are affected will realize what they did wrong! Wait, who am I actually targeting again?" "yeah but countless ukranian women and children are getting murdered by russians! surely a few wiped hard drives is worth it to raise awareness?" /s of course, but people who hold this view sincerely isn't hard to find.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
lioeters 5y ago
My guess is that they got caught up in the socially accepted "hate fest" against citizens of a certain country, particularly by private companies.
- pkulak 5y ago
  If a company does business in Russia right now, they are giving money to the Russian government which will be used to kill Ukrainians. Let's not conflate wartime trade policy with Twitter wokeness marketing.
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
  - slig 5y ago
    What about countries buying oil and gas from them?
    - 542458 5y ago
      Yes, that is bad too. However, in some cases it is necessary to prevent people from freezing, so there is a balancing act. Note that fossil fuel dependency just became a much more common political discussion item in Europe.
      - gruez 5y ago
        While it's unreasonable to expect europeans to freeze to death to protect ukranians, I think there's a middle ground between "business as usual" and "protect ukraine at all costs" that's not being considered here. Specifically, turning the temperature down to 5-10°C and wearing a coat. I doubt you'll be freezing to death in those circumstances. Is there widespread effort by europeans to do this? If not, then the parent's is still mostly correct: europeans are not willing to endure slight discomfort to prevent "giving money to the Russian government which will be used to kill Ukrainians".
        5y ago
ryanmarsh 5y ago
I’m ok with it as long as the maintainer is consistent and does it for “the current thing” every time. That means Sudan, Darfur, Iraq war, ISIS, Assad’s regime, etc… Heck why not even Florida after the “say gay” thing?
- KevinEldon 5y ago
  Sounds like an opportunity to create a Protest Current Thing as a Service.
  - octopoc 5y ago
    This is a cool idea. You would probably want to run the PCCaaS as a non-profit and donate some of the money (5% seems generous?) to appropriate causes. The main API would be for displaying an appropriate banner of course. Another API would be to determine if a specific domain subscribes to the service and how much they care about the appropriate topic (in terms of "points" which are partly correlated with how much they spend on the PCCaaS, but also with some human input). This would be useful to people looking to vote with their wallet. I bet there are plenty of artists who would love to make custom banners, kind of like Google's doodle of the day. A third API would be to get notified when a customer downgrades or terminates their plan with the Protest Current Thing as a Service. Journalists could subscribe to this last API to get ideas for news stories. /s
    - a9h74j 5y ago
      Pivoting now from Ad-Blocker development to CurrentThingBannerBlocker development.
  - gadders 5y ago
    NPC as a service.
  - beachy 5y ago
    That's a great idea. The only problem would be determining the correct set of things to be protested at any given time. So I'd suggest grouping them into flavors - say US liberal or US conservative flavors. You just choose the one you subscribe to and then let the service decide whether to insert say BLM or anti-CRT messages at any given time.
raxxorrax 5y ago
Worse, he also provides ammunition for Kremlin propaganda. Which already is easier because people don't trust the press. Which is also understandable because some write a lot of bullshit.
- joshstrange 5y ago
  I don't buy this argument. It's the same argument used for "Well the Democrats can't talk about/attempt doing X because the Republicans will misrepresent it and twist their words" when at the end of the day the Republicans will manufacture whatever they want regardless of what the Democrats say. Better to be called a "socialist" while actively trying to do something that will help people verses still being called a "socialist" while doing nothing. Kremlin is going to Kremlin, aka lie and spread propaganda. Let's not pretend that protestware is making their job so much easier, it's a tiny drop in a tsunami of lies and disinformation that the Kremlin puts out daily.
FDSGSG 5y ago
I just don't understand what Western governments were thinking when they sanctioned Russian businesses. "Hm, maybe if I put laws into the books that destroy the economy of a country and drives people in a certain geopolitical region into poverty, the countless innocent citizens that affected will realize what they did wrong! Wait, who am I actually targeting again?" Oh wait.
- AllegedAlec 5y ago
  It's like they never looked at the effects of the Treaty of Versailles
- kbelder 5y ago
  Poverty and economic distress, deliberately exacerbated by the West, was what took down the USSR... and the fall of the USSR was one of the great achievements of the 2nd half of the 20th century.
  - FDSGSG 5y ago
    Exactly, demonstrating how laughable the comments here are. Malware is somehow supposed to be worse than the far more painful sanctions, it's fascinating to see how detached from reality many commenters here are. Both the sanctions and wiper malware targeting Russia are good things.
rauli_ 5y ago
And he used third party service to do the geolocation, so that whoever maintains that could have caused significant damage by changing it to return fake responses.
DoctorOW 5y ago
Surprised I didn't see this elsewhere in the thread but what they were thinking was totally different. From what I've heard the code wasn't meant to destroy files, it was buggy. Sure it was negligence with a bad outcome, but the intentions were good.
hahaitsfunny 5y ago
Yeah well most software developers, just like most people, would rather engage in warfare with their fellow working-class man than the man, which is unfortunate because that should be everyone's target - not one another. We should be asking ourselves how can we write software the frees us from the tyranny of government, and instead helps us to foster self-reliant, communities of support and mutual-aid, which serve the best interests of those who participate in them. These are the tenants of anarcho-communism and FOSS - not sticking it to Russia and cheering on the dumping of weapons into a war zone...
cthulha 5y ago
How about: “Actors in this geopolitical region are killing people and destroying infrastructure, and I am going to do everything in my power to disrupt them” “If more people stood up like this, then either bad actors would have to abandon open-source and pay a dramatic penalty in cost and speed of IT, or they would have to pay open-source maintainers to ensure the . Either way is a win” “People who don’t like this don’t share my values - they can prioritize the lives of Ukrainians and get on board, or they can maintain a project and provide an alternative, or they can get out of my way while I do something I think is very important”

Larrikin 5y ago

Probably hoped the effects would negatively effect people there so they could put pressure to stop the murder of other innocent civilians. Arguments like this are similar to the BLM protest that try to equate property with human lives.

bnt 5y ago
Or, you know, I’ll never touch Vue.js again?
- JumpCrisscross 5y ago
  Charitably, it creates a new friction for Russian business in deploying open-source software. That drag further diminishes Russia’s economy, and thus, its warmaking ability.
  - FerociousTimes 5y ago
    At best, this operation could be construed as an act of vandalism or at worst an act of CYBER terrorism. This indiscriminate and malicious act of hostility was carried by what amounted to be a cyber weapon (think IED) housed in a very ordinary and non-suspicious package to cause the greatest damage to the users' data.
    - JumpCrisscross 5y ago
      > this operation could be construed as an act of vandalism or at worst an act of CYBER terrorism Could be. But by whom? To what effect? One of the downsides of losing credibility as a nation state is the concepts of deference, retaliation and proportionality lose weight. There is no indication that the facts on the ground would affect whether Putin deems something a cyber attack. Worse, one's own policing actions are likely to cause more damage as propaganda pieces than ignoring the issue. Yes, in an international law framework this would be prosecuted in the U.S. But in that framework Russia wouldn't be in Ukraine. Add to that it's tacit approval of its own hackers, and it's difficult--in a realpolitik frame--to find support for doing anything about this other than minor finger wagging.
      - FerociousTimes 5y ago
        > Could be. But by whom? To what effect? The general public. I speculate that publicity was one of the main objectives behind this operation to draw attention to his political grievances and maybe demands. Perhaps we should focus more on the issue of bragging rights. The perpetrator probably thinks he's some kind of a hero having conducted this operation and it was some kind of a heroic feat sticking up to Putin when he in fact is more of a lousy vandal destroying some poor guy's store window than an epic warrior conquering foreign lands and subduing evil emperors. The more people realize this and esp. people who are prone to commit these acts, the more innocent people would be spared the damage incurred by those reckless attacks.
  - rrsmtz 5y ago
    This is the line that every extremist group uses to justify their horrible acts. Weaponizing open source is such an awful precedent. There are extremist groups of every shade who harbor ill intent towards some other group or institution. For a rather mundane example: "My malicious npm module detects you are running the Brave browser? The evil Brendan Eich runs that, say goodbye to your filesystem!" Never mind if you are part of a group that is mired in controversy, chief among them at this time being Russian.
    - vkou 5y ago
      > This is the line that every extremist group uses to justify their horrible acts. And in this case the 'horrible act' is not wanting your free labour to be used in another country.
    - deleted 5y ago
      [deleted]
  - maccolgan 5y ago
    This isn't a charitable take, you have reinvented total war from the first principles. If all of the currently in war countries start engaging in total war, the world wouldn't be worth living in.
gruez 5y ago
>Arguments like this are similar to the BLM protest that try to equate property with human lives. Yeah, but the problem with this is that, taken to its logical conclusion, you end up with a nihilistic view that's basically "do you support The Cause? if yes then any protest action is acceptable, if no then any minor transgression should be cracked down by law enforcement". This works especially well when The Cause is something that could plausibly affect tens of millions of people, so you can excuse quite a lot of damage.
potta_coffee 5y ago
Arguments like this are superficial and justify bad behavior. Destruction of property isn't murder, but it's still not ok and it still causes harm to living people who have no influence over the issue.
- shadowgovt 5y ago
  > who have no influence I believe the crux of the political theory is that in a representative democracy, nobody has no influence over the issue.
  - Miraste 5y ago
    That is obviously not true, and even if it were, the country in question is Russia, an autocracy. What is our poor hypothetical node developer expected to do, march down to the Kremlin and beat Putin with his MacBook?
    - shadowgovt 5y ago
      Parent comment originally referred to Black Lives Matter; I had been responding to that part of the comment (and its relation to US politics).
    - mrguyorama 5y ago
      This is Russia we are talking about right? A country that has had countless uprisings of literal serfs with farming implements replacing their government.
vorpalhex 5y ago
It's not acceptable to burn down someone's house because you disagree with them. Even if you disagree with them a lot. Please don't burn people's houses down. If you burn down people's houses, you will be arrested and go to jail.
baud147258 5y ago
> they could put pressure to stop In case you haven't checked, both targeted countries are authoritarian regimes where any kind of civil protest is ignored at best or actively suppressed at worst. And violent regime changes (aka revolutions) coming from the people don't work, at least not without the support of part of the governing elites (which aren't impacted by that kind of actions)
- wrycoder 5y ago
  Revolutions have succeeded time and again. The problem is that in most cases, the kind of people who lead successful revolutions are not the kind who can form a non-autocratic government. It can take generations to correct the resulting chaos and totalitarian excesses.
HideousKojima 5y ago
I have a legal (and moral) right to defend my property, often with deadly force. My property came into my possession by my own labors and time, i.e. by sacrificing part of my life to obtain it. Even if the property was gifted to me, that means that someone else sacrificed part of their life to give it to me. When someone violates my rights in the process of "protesting" something, I am legally and morally justified in using force to protect my rights. This includes the right to the property that I own.
- Larrikin 5y ago
  Where is this true? In the US you have the right to murder if the person is in your home and in some states you have the right to murder if you feel your life is being threatened, in this case because you're being robbed. If you left your car running while you ran into the store you don't have the right to shoot the guy in the back as he drives off. You file a police report and potentially sue for damages. You definitely don't have the right to shoot someone for burning down your local Target.
  - HideousKojima 5y ago
    If someone is trying to burn down my house with me in it, I have a right to shoot them in pretty much every jurisdiction in the US. If someone is burning down my store with me in it, I also have the right to use deadly force to defend it.
    - SamoyedFurFluff 5y ago
      Let’s step back a little, please. This original context was about some BLM protests doing property damage, which included smashing storefronts and trash fires on the street.
      - HideousKojima 5y ago
        They also included burning down buildings, not just trash in the street.
yyyk 5y ago
I can't agree with these arguments. A) IP geolocation is far from perfect, quite a few completely unrelated people could have been affected. B) There was a chance of massive collateral damage to stuff like hospitals, water company, etc. and therefore affecting civilians, including children. If you think Putin wouldn't use that to rally Russia and launch a massive war, you haven't observed Putin for long. We got very lucky this software equivalent of a warcrime was stopped early. Yet the punishment was absurdly light. I will staying away from NPM after that.
- FDSGSG 5y ago
  > If you think Putin wouldn't use that to rally Russia and launch a massive war, you haven't observed Putin for long. Do you believe that node-ipc would do this but the current vastly more impactful sanctions regime wont? Also, everybody capable of thinking understands that Russia isn't capable of launching another "massive war" when it already has almost all of its conventional combat power committed to Ukraine. If you think Putin would launch a nuclear war over wiper malware, you're an idiot. There's no other kind of "massive war" he could launch at this point. > this software equivalent of a warcrime Why not call it software holocaust if we're gonna go there? What's wrong with you?
  - yyyk 5y ago
    >Do you believe that node-ipc would do this but the current vastly more impactful sanctions regime wont? >There's no other kind of "massive war" he could launch at this point. Russian society isn't anywhere near enthusiastic. That's why Putin has been searching for ever dumber excuses. Give him an actual indefensible incident to rally society around, and he'll get a lot more manpower. That could expand the war to Odessa and Moldova, and also 'retaliatory' cyberwar in the West. Now, there's a level of escalation I'm fine with risking - say, over stationing peacekeepers in parts of Ukraine. Stuff that actually helps Ukrainians. But over an self-appointed idiot's personal action which doesn't help anyone and nobody asked for? $#@! no. >Why not call it software holocaust if we're gonna go there? What's wrong with you? It's attacking civilians as to influence their government (except Russia is a dictatorship and the government doesn't even care). I have more pointed comparisons in mind, but I'll spare the thread.

gruez 5y ago

>"Hm, maybe if I put malware into a community-trusted module that destroys files of people in a certain geopolitical region, the countless innocent citizens that are affected will realize what they did wrong! Wait, who am I actually targeting again?" "yeah but countless ukranian women and children are getting murdered by russians! surely a few wiped hard drives is worth it to raise awareness?" /s of course, but people who hold this view sincerely isn't hard to find.

deleted 5y ago
[deleted]

lioeters 5y ago

My guess is that they got caught up in the socially accepted "hate fest" against citizens of a certain country, particularly by private companies.

pkulak 5y ago
If a company does business in Russia right now, they are giving money to the Russian government which will be used to kill Ukrainians. Let's not conflate wartime trade policy with Twitter wokeness marketing.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- slig 5y ago
  What about countries buying oil and gas from them?
  - 542458 5y ago
    Yes, that is bad too. However, in some cases it is necessary to prevent people from freezing, so there is a balancing act. Note that fossil fuel dependency just became a much more common political discussion item in Europe.
    - gruez 5y ago
      While it's unreasonable to expect europeans to freeze to death to protect ukranians, I think there's a middle ground between "business as usual" and "protect ukraine at all costs" that's not being considered here. Specifically, turning the temperature down to 5-10°C and wearing a coat. I doubt you'll be freezing to death in those circumstances. Is there widespread effort by europeans to do this? If not, then the parent's is still mostly correct: europeans are not willing to endure slight discomfort to prevent "giving money to the Russian government which will be used to kill Ukrainians".
      - 5y ago

ryanmarsh 5y ago

I’m ok with it as long as the maintainer is consistent and does it for “the current thing” every time. That means Sudan, Darfur, Iraq war, ISIS, Assad’s regime, etc… Heck why not even Florida after the “say gay” thing?

KevinEldon 5y ago
Sounds like an opportunity to create a Protest Current Thing as a Service.
- octopoc 5y ago
  This is a cool idea. You would probably want to run the PCCaaS as a non-profit and donate some of the money (5% seems generous?) to appropriate causes. The main API would be for displaying an appropriate banner of course. Another API would be to determine if a specific domain subscribes to the service and how much they care about the appropriate topic (in terms of "points" which are partly correlated with how much they spend on the PCCaaS, but also with some human input). This would be useful to people looking to vote with their wallet. I bet there are plenty of artists who would love to make custom banners, kind of like Google's doodle of the day. A third API would be to get notified when a customer downgrades or terminates their plan with the Protest Current Thing as a Service. Journalists could subscribe to this last API to get ideas for news stories. /s
  - a9h74j 5y ago
    Pivoting now from Ad-Blocker development to CurrentThingBannerBlocker development.
- gadders 5y ago
  NPC as a service.
- beachy 5y ago
  That's a great idea. The only problem would be determining the correct set of things to be protested at any given time. So I'd suggest grouping them into flavors - say US liberal or US conservative flavors. You just choose the one you subscribe to and then let the service decide whether to insert say BLM or anti-CRT messages at any given time.

raxxorrax 5y ago

Worse, he also provides ammunition for Kremlin propaganda. Which already is easier because people don't trust the press. Which is also understandable because some write a lot of bullshit.

joshstrange 5y ago
I don't buy this argument. It's the same argument used for "Well the Democrats can't talk about/attempt doing X because the Republicans will misrepresent it and twist their words" when at the end of the day the Republicans will manufacture whatever they want regardless of what the Democrats say. Better to be called a "socialist" while actively trying to do something that will help people verses still being called a "socialist" while doing nothing. Kremlin is going to Kremlin, aka lie and spread propaganda. Let's not pretend that protestware is making their job so much easier, it's a tiny drop in a tsunami of lies and disinformation that the Kremlin puts out daily.

FDSGSG 5y ago

I just don't understand what Western governments were thinking when they sanctioned Russian businesses. "Hm, maybe if I put laws into the books that destroy the economy of a country and drives people in a certain geopolitical region into poverty, the countless innocent citizens that affected will realize what they did wrong! Wait, who am I actually targeting again?" Oh wait.

AllegedAlec 5y ago
It's like they never looked at the effects of the Treaty of Versailles
kbelder 5y ago
Poverty and economic distress, deliberately exacerbated by the West, was what took down the USSR... and the fall of the USSR was one of the great achievements of the 2nd half of the 20th century.
- FDSGSG 5y ago
  Exactly, demonstrating how laughable the comments here are. Malware is somehow supposed to be worse than the far more painful sanctions, it's fascinating to see how detached from reality many commenters here are. Both the sanctions and wiper malware targeting Russia are good things.

rauli_ 5y ago

And he used third party service to do the geolocation, so that whoever maintains that could have caused significant damage by changing it to return fake responses.

DoctorOW 5y ago

Surprised I didn't see this elsewhere in the thread but what they were thinking was totally different. From what I've heard the code wasn't meant to destroy files, it was buggy. Sure it was negligence with a bad outcome, but the intentions were good.

hahaitsfunny 5y ago

Yeah well most software developers, just like most people, would rather engage in warfare with their fellow working-class man than the man, which is unfortunate because that should be everyone's target - not one another. We should be asking ourselves how can we write software the frees us from the tyranny of government, and instead helps us to foster self-reliant, communities of support and mutual-aid, which serve the best interests of those who participate in them. These are the tenants of anarcho-communism and FOSS - not sticking it to Russia and cheering on the dumping of weapons into a war zone...

cthulha 5y ago

How about: “Actors in this geopolitical region are killing people and destroying infrastructure, and I am going to do everything in my power to disrupt them” “If more people stood up like this, then either bad actors would have to abandon open-source and pay a dramatic penalty in cost and speed of IT, or they would have to pay open-source maintainers to ensure the . Either way is a win” “People who don’t like this don’t share my values - they can prioritize the lives of Ukrainians and get on board, or they can maintain a project and provide an alternative, or they can get out of my way while I do something I think is very important”