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Comment by marssaxman | Hacker News Reader

I think you all must have a different relationship with your government in Canada than US citizens do.

None of these agencies are "on my own team". They are all adversaries. I feel far more threatened by US government hacking precisely because I live inside US jurisdiction. If we were to have a difference of opinions, and they were to snoop around in my data and decide they didn't like what they found, well, I'm sitting right here; they could easily ruin my life.

What are the Koreans or the Russians or anyone else going to do to me? They're an ocean away and I pose no conceivable threat to them. Harassing me would be expensive and pointless; they're not going to bother.

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I suspect we have a similar % of Canadians who distrust the government as Americans do. I'd count myself among them.

However:

1) I maintain that the only reason to fund an intelligence agency is to expect them to perform intelligence activities, and today that requires being the best in the world at black hat infosec.

2) I mistrust my government less than I mistrust yours or Russsia's, because at least my government depends on me for votes and taxes and general compliance with laws.

>2) I mistrust my government less than I mistrust yours or Russsia's, because at least my government depends on me for votes and taxes and general compliance with laws.

But this also means that they have way more reason to lie to you and to mislead you.

Well, their incentives are different, this is true. I don't know that it's MORE reason.

I mean, if they successfully lie to me, they get my taxes.

If they successfully lie to you, maybe you don't invade our country.

Poison you?

How much does a clandestine international assassination cost? Why would anyone bother?

I suspect you're being downvoted because of the below. Spoiler alert: dictators don't follow the same value calculus as normal people for when they should "bother".

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poisoning_of_Alexander_Litvi... https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sergei_Skripal

Sure, I'm aware of those cases - but I am not a former Russian military intelligence officer, and I'll wager that nobody else participating in this thread is, either. There is no conceivable reason that any dictator, anywhere in the world, should care enough about any of us to bother spending the enormous amount of money and presumably political capital that would be involved in executing such an attack, so why should we worry about it?

That's obviously true (most people will not be targeted). But there's plenty more cases than the last few prominent ones. There are also low level cases that are not reported globally, only in local news.

It's ranging from secret services trying to use people to bomb planes and public places, to dissidents active abroad being threatened, beaten up or assassinated by suspected secret services of their origin countries. On source of such activity is Assad's regime in Syria.

https://www.middleeastmonitor.com/20190119-is-assad-trying-t...

It's uncommon, unlikely, but not that unique.

+1 for the idea that I (an American citizen) would much rather have Putin or the Chinese compromising my security than most American intelligence.

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