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And if it’s from China?

This is going to be a controversial suggestion, but I have a feeling that we might already be in an asymmetric world war and our leaders might quietly know it. This year has felt like checkmate.

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Then we should not be so meek as to do nothing. During the Cold War, nations did not sit idly by as their adversaries developed nuclear capabilities which, make no mistake about it, targeted civilians and civilian infrastructure. Of course, we developed our own defensive capabilities but then, as now, we faced a type of threat which hugely favored the attacker. So we kept pace with the offensive capabilities of our adversaries. If China or Russia (the states themselves) is identified beyond doubt as the source of this attack, then our policy must be to retaliate in kind.

Mutually assured destruction for the cyber-age.

If it's organized criminal hackers we're dealing with, then we should treat them how we would treat any legitimate terroristic threat. I would want our intelligence agencies to reach out and touch them.

This may not be a popular point of view on Hacker News. I unfortunately cannot fathom an alternative solution.

That is exactly how it feels.

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