Hacker News Reader

Comment by airza | Hacker News Reader

I'm not sure i would want to cause the end of human civilization in response to the breach of a credit report company.

Who said the "end of human civilization"?

I specifically said "respond with the use of force as permitted by the UN Charter and international laws and norms."

It seems clear the people responding talking about all out war and "end of human civilization" don't have much experience with the UN Charter, security council and international laws and norms for the use of force. Generally the legal terms of art I used.

The idea is a proportional response to deescalate future cyber warfare attacks...not end all of humanity.

Given that the US and China are both permanent members of the United Nations Security Council, any vote would just be vetoed though right?

That produces a Security Council deadlock that then opens the door for General Assembly action under the Uniting for Peace resolution, as has happened roughly a dozen times since UfP was adopted in 1951.

Think bigger.

The CCP routinely engages in this class of behavior of salami slicing. Tiny little cuts that unto themselves wouldn’t be cause for aggression.

This is the child poking another. Violence isn’t preferable but if one refuses to correct...

I'd be very surprised if the US isn't performing similar hacks on China. They're probably just better at covering their tracks.

Also plausible is that the Americans don't want to toot their own horn (as the CIA and NSA seldom do) and the Chinese don't want to appear vulnerable and admit they were hacked. The difference in responsibilities to the people that a dictatorship and a democracy are stark, almost regardless of how broken of a democracy it is.

I am no hacking expert, but the fact that the internet is such an open place and knowledge sharing is so widespread, I would lean to the side that they have comparable hacking capabilities as America. I've yet to hear of a reason why they wouldn't other than the standard " 'Murica #1". And given a dictatorship presiding over a massive economy and a valid raison d'etre for such capabilities, there is no reason they cannot fund an equivalent of the NSA

Think better.

So does the US. If you treat this as an act of war, you automatically classify any cyber operation your operatives have executed as an act of war. Against Russians, against EU countries etc. I don't think anybody really wants that.

It's clearly not the right approach, however the severity of what the breach entails does require a very sharp, adequate response - which hasn't happened yet.

'Doing nothing' (or very little) by no means reduces the possibility of conflict escalation, possibly the opposite.

By declaring such intrusions as an 'act of war' (or maybe something literally just a little less hard sounding) it's a signal to foreign powers of the seriousness of such activities.

There is no doubt that this is a really, really serious act that has to have serious consequences.

In this new 'information era' we have to establish new boundaries. Those boundaries will help establish clarity, validate responses, enable 3rd parties to take a judicial view instead of just a political one etc..

Edit: For the last 30 years, China has been on a fairly exponential path to increasing aggression, there's no reason at all to believe this will not continue to the extent they have the material ability (i.e. supporting economy) unless they are stopped, or it becomes too painful for them to continue. If there is little meaningful response to this action, it will grow 10x. Charging the military staff responsible is the wrong tactic as the state is responsible, not these actors (it may even be against the Geneva convention), but more importantly, the cost to the state is nothing. Throw a few officers under the bus for a massive attack? That is 'no consequence' to them, and maybe even not said charged officers. There won't be any lack of volunteers. There has to be a pretty comprehensive coordinated response, and definitely not just some artefact/negotiating point in a trade war. The response may include trade, but it shouldn't be part of a tit-for-tat in a trade deal.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com