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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

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.

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.