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Why is it 'incredibly dangerous' to do so? I continue to be blown away by Hacker News' collective refusal to believe that NK is likely behind this hack. Do you

Why is it 'incredibly dangerous' to do so? I continue to be blown away by Hacker News' collective refusal to believe that NK is likely behind this hack. Do you all also doubt that they were behind the other hacks mentioned by the FBI (e.g. on South Korean banks and media outlets)? Is it 'incredibly dangerous' to accuse them of that as well? I understand the post-Iraq mentality of demanding evidence before going to war with a country, but that's not what's going on here. Also, given how mouthy North Korea is, nobody finds it telling that other than a single denial on December 7th, they've been quiet? That denial, by the way, consisted of bullshit like saying that there were “a great number of supporters and sympathizers” with North Korea “all over the world,” including “champions of peace” who might initiate more “righteous reaction” against the United States’ “evildoings.”

dmschulman 12y ago
"I continue to be blown away by Hacker News' collective refusal to believe that NK is likely behind this hack." Skepticism is healthy and encourages discussion. I am not observing a "collective refusal" as you put it, but instead a strong skepticism from the tech community (a community who has a good basis to interpret this story with). "Do you all also doubt that they were behind the other hacks mentioned by the FBI (e.g. on South Korean banks and media outlets)? Is it 'incredibly dangerous' to accuse them of that as well?" The discussion is around a specific cybersecurity attack, not North Korea's capabilities, so that's a bit of a straw man argument. "I understand the post-Iraq mentality of demanding evidence before going to war with a country, but that's not what's going on here." No rational person is making a case for war over this, but the fact that you mention going to war over this demonstrates why it is incredibly dangerous to make these assumptions about North Korea without looking at all the available evidence. "Also, given how mouthy North Korea is, nobody finds it telling that other than a single denial on December 7th, they've been quiet?" Quite the opposite. I think it would fit the profile if North Korea was being mouthy at this point in time. Their silence would suggest this is a delicate situation for them politically and they don't know how to respond to it.
- unchocked 12y ago
  It's like what Lenin said...you look for the person who will benefit and uh...
  - happyscrappy 12y ago
    I didn't really study anything in college I was too busy occupying various administration buildings and smoking a lot of Thai stick.
  - jchrome 12y ago
    I am the walrus.
    - mattmaroon 12y ago
      Vladimir Ilyich Ulyanov
    - lostlogin 12y ago
      Lost me. The Big Lebowski (how could I forget). http://coub.com/view/rvf8 http://coub.com/view/rvf8
  - anigbrowl 12y ago
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cui_bono http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cui_bono
- sillysaurus3 12y ago
  Skepticism is healthy and encourages discussion. I am not observing a "collective refusal" as you put it, but instead a strong skepticism from the tech community (a community who has a good basis to interpret this story with). Actually, we don't really have a good basis to interpret the story. The evidence that the US government has used to verify that NK was involved is most likely classified. The most straightforward way to verify the NK government's involvement is a high-level NK spy, or a communications tap on NK's political leadership. If it captured a high-level meeting regarding the "progress of the Sony hack," for example, then that would be pretty strong evidence of NK's involvement. Yet there's no way that any press release could include such info without also compromising their sources. The point of the US government saying "NK is involved" is to say "We have verified NK is involved," not to give hard proof. Such proof may exist, but it may not be possible to divulge without also causing other consequences, as I mentioned above. It's not a trial, and they're under no obligation to present any of their core evidence or reasoning. It's up to us whether we choose to believe them or not. The tech community sometimes overestimates how informed it is. For example, consider how someone would be viewed by the tech community if they claimed that governments were writing BIOS malware, and they made that claim before 2013. So it seems mistaken to believe that the tech community is any better suited to interpret the story than any other community. Various intelligence communities or politics communities might even be better suited than we are at figuring out reasons why the story shouldn't be taken at face value, if any such reasons even exist.
guelo 12y ago
> Hacker News' collective Has there been a poll or are you just making that up?
zenogais 12y ago
I think dmschulman summed it up pretty well, but your outrage over a healthy does of skepticism, demands for evidence, and a desire not to jump to conclusions is the truly bizarre thing to me.
l33tbro 12y ago
It is hard to be convinced that North Korea were responsible. I think people just can't see them having a sophisticated enough hacker culture within government to pull this off. Sure, maybe it was outsourced to Russia. But an internal op like this seems so unlikely given what we know.
deleted 12y ago
[deleted]
jjcc 12y ago
>Why is it 'incredibly dangerous' to do so? Most of human beings are "belief oriented” which is the result of hundreds of thousands of years’ evolution. It’s the cause of most conflicts in the world. The widely supported Iraq war is an example. That’s why it is dangerous to do so. In hacker news community, there are more “evidence oriented” post-modern people. This makes a difference.
- cmdkeen 12y ago
  Your belief that you're "evidence oriented" is endearing. I can't help but think that in many cases it is merely another form of belief, and one that people are equally sanctimonious about holding. Any discussion about Uber, or the evils of traditional capitalism (especially HFT) on here is full of distinctly belief driven people.
  - pas 12y ago
    Okay, so on what do you base your belief of HFT, Uber and "traditional capitalism"? I have to assume that information inferred from data. HFT is the easiest, it provides liquidity, helps to keep spreads narrow, flash crashes are nasty, but so rare there have been only 2 (and the cost of those was minimal, a few failed margin calls, oh noes). Uber is tricky, because it's run by assholes, but that's not really different from the taxi (cab) industry in most cities. Plus they skirt the law, which was largely instituted to protect the interests of the incumbent taxi companies. It arguably helps to make the taxi market healthier, thanks to its increased efficiency, lower prices (larger supply), which leads to a bigger overall market, which likely leads to better relative wage for drivers. The potential negative externality happens when demand dries up, drivers are forced out of the market pretty fast, due to the more efficient pricing they must apply (or lose market share). And of course, Uber has competition Lyft (in the US) and Wundercar (in Europe) comes to mind. And on traditional capitalism, the simple truth is that it's inescapable. People are locally rational, they have limited information, and oftentimes they have utility function that are non-optimal even locally, but they are rational nonetheless, and again, people are price sensitive. So capitalism is just the machine of progress that seeks more efficient allocation of capital. And even if you do away with property ownership (and try to opt for a temporary property possession model) you'll find that other types of capital still remain, they just get more perversely important (human capital, who knows who's who, influence, reputation, use of force, and so on). And you can see that for these inferences you need evidence, but these are not single instance based cases like the Sony hack. It's much more sound and safe to trust and act upon these aggregates, than upon a single FBI "post" and the resulting drama.

dmschulman 12y ago

"I continue to be blown away by Hacker News' collective refusal to believe that NK is likely behind this hack." Skepticism is healthy and encourages discussion. I am not observing a "collective refusal" as you put it, but instead a strong skepticism from the tech community (a community who has a good basis to interpret this story with). "Do you all also doubt that they were behind the other hacks mentioned by the FBI (e.g. on South Korean banks and media outlets)? Is it 'incredibly dangerous' to accuse them of that as well?" The discussion is around a specific cybersecurity attack, not North Korea's capabilities, so that's a bit of a straw man argument. "I understand the post-Iraq mentality of demanding evidence before going to war with a country, but that's not what's going on here." No rational person is making a case for war over this, but the fact that you mention going to war over this demonstrates why it is incredibly dangerous to make these assumptions about North Korea without looking at all the available evidence. "Also, given how mouthy North Korea is, nobody finds it telling that other than a single denial on December 7th, they've been quiet?" Quite the opposite. I think it would fit the profile if North Korea was being mouthy at this point in time. Their silence would suggest this is a delicate situation for them politically and they don't know how to respond to it.

unchocked 12y ago
It's like what Lenin said...you look for the person who will benefit and uh...
- happyscrappy 12y ago
  I didn't really study anything in college I was too busy occupying various administration buildings and smoking a lot of Thai stick.
- jchrome 12y ago
  I am the walrus.
  - mattmaroon 12y ago
    Vladimir Ilyich Ulyanov
  - lostlogin 12y ago
    Lost me. The Big Lebowski (how could I forget). http://coub.com/view/rvf8 http://coub.com/view/rvf8
- anigbrowl 12y ago
  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cui_bono http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cui_bono
sillysaurus3 12y ago
Skepticism is healthy and encourages discussion. I am not observing a "collective refusal" as you put it, but instead a strong skepticism from the tech community (a community who has a good basis to interpret this story with). Actually, we don't really have a good basis to interpret the story. The evidence that the US government has used to verify that NK was involved is most likely classified. The most straightforward way to verify the NK government's involvement is a high-level NK spy, or a communications tap on NK's political leadership. If it captured a high-level meeting regarding the "progress of the Sony hack," for example, then that would be pretty strong evidence of NK's involvement. Yet there's no way that any press release could include such info without also compromising their sources. The point of the US government saying "NK is involved" is to say "We have verified NK is involved," not to give hard proof. Such proof may exist, but it may not be possible to divulge without also causing other consequences, as I mentioned above. It's not a trial, and they're under no obligation to present any of their core evidence or reasoning. It's up to us whether we choose to believe them or not. The tech community sometimes overestimates how informed it is. For example, consider how someone would be viewed by the tech community if they claimed that governments were writing BIOS malware, and they made that claim before 2013. So it seems mistaken to believe that the tech community is any better suited to interpret the story than any other community. Various intelligence communities or politics communities might even be better suited than we are at figuring out reasons why the story shouldn't be taken at face value, if any such reasons even exist.

guelo 12y ago

> Hacker News' collective Has there been a poll or are you just making that up?

zenogais 12y ago

I think dmschulman summed it up pretty well, but your outrage over a healthy does of skepticism, demands for evidence, and a desire not to jump to conclusions is the truly bizarre thing to me.

l33tbro 12y ago

It is hard to be convinced that North Korea were responsible. I think people just can't see them having a sophisticated enough hacker culture within government to pull this off. Sure, maybe it was outsourced to Russia. But an internal op like this seems so unlikely given what we know.

deleted 12y ago

[deleted]

jjcc 12y ago

>Why is it 'incredibly dangerous' to do so? Most of human beings are "belief oriented” which is the result of hundreds of thousands of years’ evolution. It’s the cause of most conflicts in the world. The widely supported Iraq war is an example. That’s why it is dangerous to do so. In hacker news community, there are more “evidence oriented” post-modern people. This makes a difference.

cmdkeen 12y ago
Your belief that you're "evidence oriented" is endearing. I can't help but think that in many cases it is merely another form of belief, and one that people are equally sanctimonious about holding. Any discussion about Uber, or the evils of traditional capitalism (especially HFT) on here is full of distinctly belief driven people.
- pas 12y ago
  Okay, so on what do you base your belief of HFT, Uber and "traditional capitalism"? I have to assume that information inferred from data. HFT is the easiest, it provides liquidity, helps to keep spreads narrow, flash crashes are nasty, but so rare there have been only 2 (and the cost of those was minimal, a few failed margin calls, oh noes). Uber is tricky, because it's run by assholes, but that's not really different from the taxi (cab) industry in most cities. Plus they skirt the law, which was largely instituted to protect the interests of the incumbent taxi companies. It arguably helps to make the taxi market healthier, thanks to its increased efficiency, lower prices (larger supply), which leads to a bigger overall market, which likely leads to better relative wage for drivers. The potential negative externality happens when demand dries up, drivers are forced out of the market pretty fast, due to the more efficient pricing they must apply (or lose market share). And of course, Uber has competition Lyft (in the US) and Wundercar (in Europe) comes to mind. And on traditional capitalism, the simple truth is that it's inescapable. People are locally rational, they have limited information, and oftentimes they have utility function that are non-optimal even locally, but they are rational nonetheless, and again, people are price sensitive. So capitalism is just the machine of progress that seeks more efficient allocation of capital. And even if you do away with property ownership (and try to opt for a temporary property possession model) you'll find that other types of capital still remain, they just get more perversely important (human capital, who knows who's who, influence, reputation, use of force, and so on). And you can see that for these inferences you need evidence, but these are not single instance based cases like the Sony hack. It's much more sound and safe to trust and act upon these aggregates, than upon a single FBI "post" and the resulting drama.