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Albania expelled Iran’s embassy staff over July cyberattack
- stefantalpalaru 4y ago
- tlb 4y agoCountries should start responding to cyberattacks the same as if a black helicopter landed and a team of commandos damaged or stole the equipment. The intention is the same and the effect is the same, so the mechanism isn't important. Expelling embassy staff is within the range of acceptable responses, so good for Albania here. The vast majority of nation-state cyberattacks get far less response.
- colechristensen 4y agoHow do you actually know what responses are? People get told things the government finds useful to tell, definitely not everything.
- 2Gkashmiri 4y agoyeah, as long as its not the "US and allies".... if you are saying this, what do you suppose the response IRAN should've had after stuxnet? or was that fair but if someone else does that to someone else then its a call for war? >Countries should start responding to cyberattacks the same as if a black helicopter landed and a team of commandos damaged or stole the equipment. The intention is the same and the effect is the same, so the mechanism isn't important. remember stuxnet and what if the roles were reversed, what would your response have been?
- philwelch 4y ago
- pphysch 4y agoWhat, precisely, was Stuxnet a proportional response to?
- helloooooooo 4y agoThere were 3 options GWB had. Either A) allow Israel to strike Iran directly using kinetic means. B) prevent Israel from doing so and likely give Iran the capability to arm weapons with nuclear warheads. C) an option C. Stuxnet. Which option in your opinion is most proportionate and least damaging? Either A) or B) would upset power balances in the Middle East leading to war between nations.
- _jal 4y ago> C) an option C. In other words, "We need to do something. This is something. Therefore, we must do it."
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- philwelch 4y agoIran's sponsorship of terrorism, illegal attempts to develop nuclear weapons, and openly stated genocidal intentions towards Israel.
- x86x87 4y agoNot saying you're wrong, but all this is optics and there is quite a bit of brainwashing at work no matter where you live. What is an illegal attempt to do something? Who decides what is legal?
- kurthr 4y agoCake or Death? Hmmm.... does the death come with chocolate on the side? Seriously, more dictatorial states with nuclear weapons in the middle east aren't going to lead to more happiness, fairness, or understanding... any more than arming crips and bloods in South Central. Unless you believe that earlier nuclear annihilation is preferable for humanity, it is objectively bad. One might as well argue that importing cocaine to create the crack epidemic and fund the Contras was morally neutral.
- syrrim 4y agoThe weak suffer what they must. Iran could definitely have gone for some sabre rattling and asking for aid from their allies, but obviously their options were limited.
- x86x87 4y ago> The weak suffer what they must. Realpolitik right here. /s
- MockObject 4y agoWhy the "/s"? Your statement was true.
- colinmhayes 4y agoIran absolutely would've launched military action in response to STUXNET if they thought it wouldn't lead to annihilation. The weak suffer what they must.
- 2Gkashmiri 4y agoSo you are saying, let me get this straight. Iran should have asked for help to retaliate against attackers but since they did not have friends, they could not retaliate. But, if the same thing happens with Israel, then it becomes a matter of threatening world peace ad everyone must unite against a common enemy. Cool.
- golemiprague 4y ago
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- pphysch 4y agoThe problem with this analogy is that the CIA uses frameworks like Marble [1] to stage false flag cyberattacks. Attribution is never as obvious as helicopter landing on your roof, not even close. [1] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vault_7#Marble_framework https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vault_7#Marble_framework
- helloooooooo 4y agoThe wiki article doesn’t even mention false flags? Why wouldn’t the CIA make their malware another language? You think they are going to be hacking Russian networks with English language malware?
- _jal 4y agoPutting aside what any specific intelligence outfit does, attribution is a massive problem in infosec. Google "security attribution problem" if you are unfamiliar with the topic, it is a big one.
- pphysch 4y agoAnd yet people routinely act like the presence of Chinese/Russian/Iranian strings in a malware hexdump is strong evidence of the respective state's culpability.
- mc32 4y agoPeople believe what they're predisposed to believe ideologically. I sympathize with [entity] -> Despite evidence, I cannot admit it was entity. I dislike [entity] -> despite lack of evidence, the plausibility allows me to attribute it to [entity].
- the_af 4y agoThe wiki does mention false flags: > "In its release, WikiLeaks described the primary purpose of "Marble" as to insert foreign language text into the malware to mask viruses, trojans and hacking attacks, making it more difficult for them to be tracked to the CIA and to cause forensic investigators to falsely attribute code to the wrong nation."
- InCityDreams 4y agoTry watching "Yes, Minister" (find 'the best bits' compilations), on youtube, and you may just realise why no-one gives a fuck and even if the pink jeeps turn up, fuck all rareley happens.
- dfc 4y agoPink jeeps, like pink jeeps from the desert in WW2?
- LatteLazy 4y agoLike when the US used Stuxnet against Iran? Maybe fucking with someone else's computers is not actually worth murdering anyone over... Edit: I actually like this new form of "war" where no one dies, we just DDOS websites and people cannot renew their driving licenses or enrich uranium for a period of time.
- suoduandao2 4y agoIt also involves the kind of targeted propaganda that turns families against each other over their voting preferences... and I suspect we haven't seen the worst of it yet.
- WastingMyTime89 4y agoCountries respond to cyberattacks the same way they respond to espionnage. They acknowledge what suits them.
- LtWorf 4y agoEvery time some unfortunate computer shit happens in USA, they inevitably blame it on: china, north korea, iran, russia. In truth they just want the public to hate them. They might not have a clue on who did it.
- ardit33 4y agoTo give some more context: Albania is hosting about 2-3k Iranian political refugees that are opposed to the current regime. They are actually mostly elderly people at this point. This was done with the US request a decade ago. That's why Iran is trying to blackmail/hack the government services. This is not the first time it has removed embassy officials (a couple of Iranian officials were caught spying). Any response the country does, it usually coordinates with the US, for obvious sensitivity issues. Albania is in Nato, so nothing will escalate further than this.
- propagandist 4y agoWikipedia page for the org: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/People%27s_Mojahedin_Organization_of_Iran https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/People%27s_Mojahedin_Organiz... Agreed nothing more will come out of this.
- paganel 4y agoInteresting to see that Albania had enough courage (for all the wrong reasons, but courage nonetheless) to leave the Warsaw Pact in the ‘60s and to end its alliance with the Soviets next door, while right now it plays as baby-sitter at the request of a democratic hegemonic power from a half a world away, no questions asked.
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- xdennis 4y agoWhy does every post with Russian-apologia have you in it and why do you always pretend to be Romanian?
- paganel 4y agoBecause I’m interested in the subject as I live right next door to it all in, well, Romania. Because, yes, I am Romanian (just happened to purchase a book on Jukov from an antiques bookstore, about 2 euros in our money). More generally speaking, I had expected better from HN-ers than personal attacks and stalking, in my 15+ years on this forum yours is only the second comment that touches on that (the first one was also coming in connection to the current war), but I also realize that this whole circumstance is different: the whole NAFO thing, all the 3-letter agencies controlling FB, Reddit and the like, people do actually believe that the war can be won or lost from behind a keyboard. So I give you the benefit of the doubt. Nevertheless, I hope I won’t have to justify myself about anything on this website going forward.
- dmix 4y ago> Rama on Wednesday accused Tehran of recruiting one of the most notorious international cyberattack groups that was involved in similar attacks on Israel, Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates, Jordan, Kuwait and Cyprus Curious which group that was.
- Kukumber 4y agoCIA and MI6 and their "government website cyber attack", something about the west smells very bad, tasteless strategy
- postsantum 4y agoThat feels like it's targeting general non tech-savvy public. OMG, they hacked GOVERNMENT!
- m00dy 4y agohow did they know it is coming from Iran ? Did they look at the IP package header ?
- aborsy 4y agoAccording to Chomsky, the crucial fact about Iran that one should begin with is that, in the past 65 years not a day has passed that Iran has not been tortured by US (via sanctions, constant threats of being bombed, etc). The roots of the conflict date back to the decades following the WWII. Its democratic parliamentary government was overthrown in 1953 by CIA (when it sought independence, not following US orders), replaced with Shah’s regime. Credibility must be maintained; godfather cannot permit independence; so Iran had to be punished. Then, there was war with Iraq and support of West for Saddam. Following 8 years of devastating war, Iran was immediately punished by harsh economic sanctions that further destroyed its economy over the course of several decades. Iran responded seeking development of nuclear weapons, presumably as a deterrence strategy (Iran is surrounded by hostile nuclear powers in the region: Israel, Russia and Pakistan). Iranian scientists linked to its nuclear program have been frequently assassinated in public inside Iran. There have been sophisticated cyber and physical attacks on its nuclear program. The number 2-3 person in the country (head of the army) was killed by a missile a couple of years ago. Iran implemented the the nuclear agreement; as soon as its program was dismantled and its stockpile of uranium was taken out of the country, US pulled out of the agreement and doubled down on sanctions! Albany is hosting a military group that plans and conducts physical operations inside Iran (for whatever benefits it has received). A cyberattack is a minimal response, frankly.
- golergka 4y agoAccording to Homsky, Ukraine is full of Nazis and is fighting a civil war. Stop listening to this war criminal apologist.
- asynchronous 4y agoLot of comments here hand waving away cybersecurity attack attribution as being arbitrary or guesswork, but I think it’s important to note industry leaders like Mandiant don’t point blame lightly. There are plenty of ways for an attacker to give clues to researchers about where they are based out of and who is funding them.
- rightbyte 4y ago> There are plenty of ways for an attacker to give clues to researchers about where they are based out of and who is funding them. How exactly would you know who is founding what by looking at a bitstream originating from anywhere on earth but last jump in Iran to your server?
- asynchronous 4y agoThis comment is a key example of what I’m talking about: Researchers and analysts don’t just look at where the physical address of the packets came from when leveling an accusation as serious as nation state attacks. They take into account things like previously known threat actor capability, nation state actor characteristics, malware specialization, enumeration and exfiltration toolkit, command and control infrastructure, and finally motive. When coming from an industry giant that’s been working with US intelligence groups, it’s really a rigorous process.
- LtWorf 4y ago> They take into account things like previously known threat actor capability, nation state actor characteristics, malware specialization You mean they pin it on whomever they want to. It's all meaningless. It's like telling how someone voted from their shoe print.
- hardnose 4y ago>How exactly would you know I wouldn't worry about it.
- hobo_in_library 4y ago
- etc-hosts 4y agohistory of MEK in Albania is wild https://twitter.com/govhowarddean/status/979381177512587264 https://twitter.com/govhowarddean/status/979381177512587264 https://www.nytimes.com/2018/05/07/world/middleeast/john-bolton-regime-change-iran.html https://www.nytimes.com/2018/05/07/world/middleeast/john-bol... https://www.nytimes.com/2020/02/16/world/europe/iran-mek-albania.html https://www.nytimes.com/2020/02/16/world/europe/iran-mek-alb... https://www.bbc.com/news/stories-50339928 https://www.bbc.com/news/stories-50339928
- csmpltn 4y agoPolitics on the front-page can be divisive and create distance between people (instead of bringing people together). It feels like there's been a lot of politics on the front-page recently. Should this be addressed in some way by HN? Is this something people even care about?
- JumpCrisscross 4y ago> Is this something people even care about? I learned a lot about recent Iranian history in the responses to the top comment.
- tomohawk 4y agoPartisanship is more of an issue than politics. Almost everything involves politics.