Hacker News Reader

Comment by winkeltripel | Hacker News Reader

If the NHS has been significantly crippled by this, and the NSA is partly at fault, could the NHS successfully sue the NSA in the UK?

(edit: my logic and phrasing was really bad)

View on HN

At least in the US, there is limited ability to sue foreign sovereigns in our courts - not sure if that's the case in the UK too. Beyond that, I doubt this is a rabbit hole any government, much less the UK - which has a fairly imperialistic past - wants to go down. Glass houses and all.

Now that the U.S. has set an alarming precedent that the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia can be sued in U.S. court over terrorist funding, maybe the U.S. government could be sued.

I don't think they'd win; the ransomware authors and operators are the ones who perpetrated the act. The U.S. government probably wouldn't be found negligent since the software was stolen. NHS carries partial liability since it was negligent with its patching, according to industry-wide IT security standards.

Comparing it to firearms, I can be held partially liable for a wrongful death if I leave my Colt 1911 out on my porch; it's different if a burglar stole my gun safe and committed a crime.

(obligatory disclaimer that I am not a lawyer, I just play one on Hacker News)

They've been told for years to get off XP. They weren't paying MS to keep it updated. The exploit was patched months ago. Why were these machines even on the internet?

I'd say the NHS is far more at fault than anyone else here.

That would be a tough argument to make. Similar to how you would have trouble going after a gun manufacturer for murder rather than the attacker.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com