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Why do those people think "it's ok" for NSA to hack Huawei's servers? Is it ok for China to hack Google's servers, then? You can't have it both ways. Also, I re
by higherpurpose 13y ago
Why do those people think "it's ok" for NSA to hack Huawei's servers? Is it ok for China to hack Google's servers, then? You can't have it both ways. Also, I remember Obama saying that a "cyberattack" is just as bad as a real world attack. That reinforces the fact it's bad for both China and US to be doing these sort of attacks - unless they are outright calling each other "war rivals".
This is still very much WW2 thinking that you need to have spies within a country and hack into them at all times. It also exposes US for its hypocrisy, because until now they've only said about "how bad China is for hacking others". Something tells me they'll shut up about that now.
I also disagree with the Lawfare guy. Here's the thing, if either NSA or CIA starts conflicts abroad, then it's very much in the interest of the US public. The people deserve to know when it's the US starting conflicts for various reasons, otherwise they'll only experience the backlash from those conflicts, and they'll wrongly think that country is the aggressor. And of course the US government will do whatever it can to paint them like that, too. This is why it's so important in such cases to unveil the truth, even if it "damages national security".
Governments are often led by corrupt psychopaths, and the people should know the truth so it can stop its own government, before creating a major crisis that everyone will pay for with blood. The American people deserve to know if the US gov is pissing off China with its hacks, to the brink of war, just like the Chinese people deserve to know if its own government is doing the same with its cyberattacks against US. Either way, the people need to know, and secret ops should be kept at a minimum.
- EGreg 13y agoOK is relative to whoever is making the judgment. US, Russia and China have an imperialistic mindset. They violate sovereignty of other nations to further their own nationalistic agenda, often to increase their influence on the international world stage. Sad to say, the USA now truly believes that controlling the world is crucial for its national security, when in fact this foreign policy invites blowback in many different forms. Elected officials are known to do backroom deals. However, bureaus and agencies such as the NSA can be even less accountable, since they have YEARS before anyone representing the public would find out. And someone with the technology and incentives like the NSA would OF COURSE go overboard doing whatever they could do and push the envelope because they could do it. Sadly the system of oversight and checks and balances in empires always gets corrupted.
- nemesisj 13y agoActually, of the three, China is the only country that has no demonstrable history of imperialism outside of its historically occupied borders. Setting Tibet, Xinjiang, and Taiwan aside (for at various times throughout history, all three of them have been occupied or fallen under the umbrella of Chinese influence), China as a civilisation has operated on a tribute model. Not one of imperialism. The same can't be said of Russia or the USA. While it's convenient to portray China as just another modern (western) country with the typical aims of a modern western power, the facts don't really fit this view. For thousands of years China has been content to stay within it's nominal boundaries. Even now, most of the forays China makes that the USA or Russia feels threatened by are economic overtures (hospital ships to africa, supporting less desirable governments, etc) designed to secure raw materials and achieve economic (not imperialistic) objectives.
- EGreg 13y agoI agree, it's interesting that the Chinese build their Great Wall and haven't expanded past it since. Is that mostly true?
- skybrian 13y agoI think you're letting China off too easily. Similar reasoning could be used to justify Russia's invasion of Crimea, or even all of eastern Europe. Having ruled a country before doesn't justify attempting to occupy it again after independence. That's imperialist reasoning.
- Zigurd 13y agoYou can look at specific cases: the 97% "vote" in Crimea is worthy of a banana republic. You can legitimately call that "imperialist" or "expansionist." You can also find deep flaws in the transfer of Hong Kong. It wasn't an open expression of the will of the people. But we also have the track record of how Hong Kong has been run since then. You will find good and bad in that record but it would be hard to call it an indication of imperialism.