6 ms·

Assuming the self-proclaimed vermin is operating from $mostly_defunct_state without risk of recourse, what would the arguments be against removing all internet

by tpmx 4y ago

Assuming the self-proclaimed vermin is operating from $mostly_defunct_state without risk of recourse, what would the arguments be against removing all internet routes to/from $mostly_defunct_state? (Yes, it's obvious that criminals can find ways out of that, please go deeper than that.) Edit: Seems like the downvotes made me hit my rate limit of HN comments. Can't reply to any more comments; sorry. :(

justeleblanc 4y ago
So what, fuck the people living there? And who are you to decide that some state is "mostly defunct"?
- hackinthebochs 4y ago
  They have their own internal internet. Accessing Google and Youtube aren't critical to modern life.
  - justeleblanc 4y ago
    Neither are western digital services.
f6v 4y ago
That’s like saying you should build a wall around ghettos. Would make for an interesting movie, though.
neoromantique 4y ago
Internet being global and free brings peace and understanding to the world, using it as a weapon is to accept defeat to the totalitarian regimes of yesteryear. Let the $mostly_defunct_state die off with the rest of them without succumbing to their playbook.
- tpmx 4y ago
  > Internet being global and free brings peace and understanding to the world Do you think that worked with China?
  - pc86 4y ago
    China's internet is neither global nor free (and on the flip side, the global and free (mostly-free?) internet of the world is not generally accessible in China. That's not a particularly strong argument against the GP's point.
  - neoromantique 4y ago
    Internet censorship being self-inflicted by China hints at who benefits from censorship, and it isn't democracies.
DoItToMe81 4y ago
No, we shouldn't arbitrarily cut off millions of people from communication because some westerners have bought into a new red scare. That's ridiculous and childish.
- hackinthebochs 4y ago
  When that country is fomenting unrest in the west through various means utilizing the internet, why should the west allow themselves to remain at the mercy of these operations? Liberal principles should not be a suicide pact.
  - pphysch 4y ago
    The idea that this or that Big Bad state is fomenting significant unrest in the West is a false narrative manufactured to scapegoat from domestic mismanagement and distract from the fact that Washington hosts a massive global industry dedicated to destabilizing states, especially those Big Bad ones, via organizations like GEC, NED, USAGM, USAID, etc.
    - filoleg 4y ago
      I don't think it is some big "Washington and the buddies" conspiracy theory, but something much simpler. Fearmongering and doomer attitudes drive clicks for news publishers. Clicks drive money. Money drives their growth and influence. Which, in turn, drives more clicks. And guess who is thrashing around in their desperate attempts to stop bleeding influence and money in the internet age? Traditional news media. Not that difficult to see some clear examples of that either, like the recent bills in some countries trying to extort FB and Google to pay money for every news article shared on their platforms (for google it was in the form of the preview snippets, for fb it was in the form of users sharing links iirc).
      - pphysch 4y ago
        There is a component of click-baiting, but there are also clear mechanisms by which Washington promotes these misleading narratives.
BeepBipBoop 4y ago
[dead]
phailhaus 4y ago
What would this even accomplish? How would that solution generalize to other sources of hackers? It's the equivalent of going "hmm, they all seem to love using Aquafresh toothpaste, what if we banned it?"
jms703 4y ago
Cyber hackers are not limited to particular geographies or ip address blocks. The network approach doesn't work.
- jws 4y ago
  Ultimately, maybe not, but I finally dabbled in geolocation on a property that was receiving comment spam. I ended up eliminated 100%, not nearly 100%, actually 100% of the spam by blocking anonymous content from one country. In another application I got rid of 90% of the flash wear on an IoT device by blocking a single country from a port. A determined, targeted attack will go around a geoblock, but I have to reluctantly admit that it can be useful for the high volume attacks.
  - neoromantique 4y ago
    Perhaps the takeaway is that you shouldn't leave ports wide open rather than go for xenophobia?
    - jacquesm 4y ago
      Blocking an IP range isn't xenophobia.
      - neoromantique 4y ago
        Extending the line of thought of OP sure is. It's not $country's fault that you don't use vpn or port knocking.
        jacquesm 4y ago
        It is $country's fault that there is a free reign for criminals, either state sponsored or acting on their own.
        from 4y ago
sennight 4y ago
Like how the US impotently tried to destroy the Russian economy by fully weaponizing the USD, how did that work out? Not so great - all that served to do is begin the process of displacing the dollar as the world reserve. There is a point when your attempts to isolate a target only serve to further isolate yourself - and we are well past it.
- tomcar288 4y ago
  i don't see why this was downvoted. It's entirely correct that the impact on the russian economy was far less than hoped for. One youtube documentary I saw stated -2% GDP, whereas the expected amount people wanted and expected was on the order of 20 to 30%. they go into quite a bit of detail on why this is the case. And USD, is well on track to be displaced in a few decades: central banks across the world are dumping dollars on average 6% of US dollar reserves per year (although this was already started abeit more slowly in 2008).
tromp 4y ago
The argument would be that we want the Russian people to have access to Western news (and former independent Russian news sites that were forced to setup shop abroad e.g. [1]), to counter all the state fed propaganda. [1] https://dutchreview.com/news/tindependent-russian-news-channel-in-amsterdam/ https://dutchreview.com/news/tindependent-russian-news-chann...
popcalc 4y ago
North Korea doesn't use their own IPs to execute heists. They go on work trips to HK or Eastern China and set up a proxy chain that culminates with the iot lightbulb in your grandpa's garage as the exit node. I'm going to take this opportunity to shill gost, an amazing tool (https://github.com/go-gost/gost https://github.com/go-gost/gost). Can someone tell me why Go is so popular in Chinese dev circles?
- thakoppno 4y ago
  > iot lightbulb in your grandpa's garage as the exit node Obvious hyperbole and all, but just how much data is transmitted to accomplish a sophisticated nation-state level attack? I’d believe a regular laptop is sufficient but not a lightbulb. Then again, if it’s only a matter of 100KB, then maybe a lightbulb makes sense.
  - pseudo0 4y ago
    Consumer routers are a shitshow when it comes to CVEs and updates. Someone who gets on an IoT device can often pivot to the router or something else vulnerable on the network. Also command and control and data theft can happen through different channels. Command and control typically has very low bandwidth requirements.
  - jacquesm 4y ago
    The effect is similar to 'FTP', your control channel is only sending a couple of bytes but the resulting data transfers can be massive.
- rsync 4y ago
  "I'm going to take this opportunity to shill gost, an amazing tool ..." Here is the english readme: https://github.com/go-gost/gost/blob/master/README_en.md https://github.com/go-gost/gost/blob/master/README_en.md ... and here is a better page: https://gost.run/en/ https://gost.run/en/ It seems to have a rich feature set ... can you elaborate on why you like this tool so much ?
csydas 4y ago
it’s a bad idea that is only punishing persons who have nothing to do with what you’re trying to stop. as you said, it won’t even bother the actual criminals, so why punish people for actions that are not their own and not under their control? so they rise up and…get killed by an overbearing government? it would even strengthen the governments position likely as well as the will of the hackers and force the nation(s) in question to be even more dependent on their government and fearful of any disruption or protest. information is and must continue to be a fundamental human right, and the internet is information. you basically doom an entire nation (or nations) to try to stop a small group of actors. this is the same thought process that has gotten the US into pointless wars and allowed awful law to be created all in the name of good. making efforts to block the payment systems they use arguably is a more effective approach (which i am not recommending by any means, but if we want to be serious about this and lowering the reward for ransomware, crypto would be a far better target)

by tpmx 4y ago

justeleblanc 4y ago

So what, fuck the people living there? And who are you to decide that some state is "mostly defunct"?

hackinthebochs 4y ago
They have their own internal internet. Accessing Google and Youtube aren't critical to modern life.
- justeleblanc 4y ago
  Neither are western digital services.

f6v 4y ago

That’s like saying you should build a wall around ghettos. Would make for an interesting movie, though.

neoromantique 4y ago

Internet being global and free brings peace and understanding to the world, using it as a weapon is to accept defeat to the totalitarian regimes of yesteryear. Let the $mostly_defunct_state die off with the rest of them without succumbing to their playbook.

tpmx 4y ago
> Internet being global and free brings peace and understanding to the world Do you think that worked with China?
- pc86 4y ago
  China's internet is neither global nor free (and on the flip side, the global and free (mostly-free?) internet of the world is not generally accessible in China. That's not a particularly strong argument against the GP's point.
- neoromantique 4y ago
  Internet censorship being self-inflicted by China hints at who benefits from censorship, and it isn't democracies.

DoItToMe81 4y ago

No, we shouldn't arbitrarily cut off millions of people from communication because some westerners have bought into a new red scare. That's ridiculous and childish.

hackinthebochs 4y ago
When that country is fomenting unrest in the west through various means utilizing the internet, why should the west allow themselves to remain at the mercy of these operations? Liberal principles should not be a suicide pact.
- pphysch 4y ago
  The idea that this or that Big Bad state is fomenting significant unrest in the West is a false narrative manufactured to scapegoat from domestic mismanagement and distract from the fact that Washington hosts a massive global industry dedicated to destabilizing states, especially those Big Bad ones, via organizations like GEC, NED, USAGM, USAID, etc.
  - filoleg 4y ago
    I don't think it is some big "Washington and the buddies" conspiracy theory, but something much simpler. Fearmongering and doomer attitudes drive clicks for news publishers. Clicks drive money. Money drives their growth and influence. Which, in turn, drives more clicks. And guess who is thrashing around in their desperate attempts to stop bleeding influence and money in the internet age? Traditional news media. Not that difficult to see some clear examples of that either, like the recent bills in some countries trying to extort FB and Google to pay money for every news article shared on their platforms (for google it was in the form of the preview snippets, for fb it was in the form of users sharing links iirc).
    - pphysch 4y ago
      There is a component of click-baiting, but there are also clear mechanisms by which Washington promotes these misleading narratives.

BeepBipBoop 4y ago

[dead]

phailhaus 4y ago

What would this even accomplish? How would that solution generalize to other sources of hackers? It's the equivalent of going "hmm, they all seem to love using Aquafresh toothpaste, what if we banned it?"

jms703 4y ago

Cyber hackers are not limited to particular geographies or ip address blocks. The network approach doesn't work.

jws 4y ago
Ultimately, maybe not, but I finally dabbled in geolocation on a property that was receiving comment spam. I ended up eliminated 100%, not nearly 100%, actually 100% of the spam by blocking anonymous content from one country. In another application I got rid of 90% of the flash wear on an IoT device by blocking a single country from a port. A determined, targeted attack will go around a geoblock, but I have to reluctantly admit that it can be useful for the high volume attacks.
- neoromantique 4y ago
  Perhaps the takeaway is that you shouldn't leave ports wide open rather than go for xenophobia?
  - jacquesm 4y ago
    Blocking an IP range isn't xenophobia.
    - neoromantique 4y ago
      Extending the line of thought of OP sure is. It's not $country's fault that you don't use vpn or port knocking.
      - jacquesm 4y ago
        It is $country's fault that there is a free reign for criminals, either state sponsored or acting on their own.
        from 4y ago

sennight 4y ago

Like how the US impotently tried to destroy the Russian economy by fully weaponizing the USD, how did that work out? Not so great - all that served to do is begin the process of displacing the dollar as the world reserve. There is a point when your attempts to isolate a target only serve to further isolate yourself - and we are well past it.

tomcar288 4y ago
i don't see why this was downvoted. It's entirely correct that the impact on the russian economy was far less than hoped for. One youtube documentary I saw stated -2% GDP, whereas the expected amount people wanted and expected was on the order of 20 to 30%. they go into quite a bit of detail on why this is the case. And USD, is well on track to be displaced in a few decades: central banks across the world are dumping dollars on average 6% of US dollar reserves per year (although this was already started abeit more slowly in 2008).

tromp 4y ago

The argument would be that we want the Russian people to have access to Western news (and former independent Russian news sites that were forced to setup shop abroad e.g. [1]), to counter all the state fed propaganda. [1] https://dutchreview.com/news/tindependent-russian-news-channel-in-amsterdam/ https://dutchreview.com/news/tindependent-russian-news-chann...

popcalc 4y ago

North Korea doesn't use their own IPs to execute heists. They go on work trips to HK or Eastern China and set up a proxy chain that culminates with the iot lightbulb in your grandpa's garage as the exit node. I'm going to take this opportunity to shill gost, an amazing tool (https://github.com/go-gost/gost https://github.com/go-gost/gost). Can someone tell me why Go is so popular in Chinese dev circles?

thakoppno 4y ago
> iot lightbulb in your grandpa's garage as the exit node Obvious hyperbole and all, but just how much data is transmitted to accomplish a sophisticated nation-state level attack? I’d believe a regular laptop is sufficient but not a lightbulb. Then again, if it’s only a matter of 100KB, then maybe a lightbulb makes sense.
- pseudo0 4y ago
  Consumer routers are a shitshow when it comes to CVEs and updates. Someone who gets on an IoT device can often pivot to the router or something else vulnerable on the network. Also command and control and data theft can happen through different channels. Command and control typically has very low bandwidth requirements.
- jacquesm 4y ago
  The effect is similar to 'FTP', your control channel is only sending a couple of bytes but the resulting data transfers can be massive.
rsync 4y ago
"I'm going to take this opportunity to shill gost, an amazing tool ..." Here is the english readme: https://github.com/go-gost/gost/blob/master/README_en.md https://github.com/go-gost/gost/blob/master/README_en.md ... and here is a better page: https://gost.run/en/ https://gost.run/en/ It seems to have a rich feature set ... can you elaborate on why you like this tool so much ?

csydas 4y ago

it’s a bad idea that is only punishing persons who have nothing to do with what you’re trying to stop. as you said, it won’t even bother the actual criminals, so why punish people for actions that are not their own and not under their control? so they rise up and…get killed by an overbearing government? it would even strengthen the governments position likely as well as the will of the hackers and force the nation(s) in question to be even more dependent on their government and fearful of any disruption or protest. information is and must continue to be a fundamental human right, and the internet is information. you basically doom an entire nation (or nations) to try to stop a small group of actors. this is the same thought process that has gotten the US into pointless wars and allowed awful law to be created all in the name of good. making efforts to block the payment systems they use arguably is a more effective approach (which i am not recommending by any means, but if we want to be serious about this and lowering the reward for ransomware, crypto would be a far better target)