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Comment by rectang | Hacker News Reader

> Not surprisingly, dozens of major ransomware gangs now exist worldwide, including in Russia, Eastern Europe, and North Korea.

To what extent should ransomware activity be considered low-grade economic warfare by nation-states who can't or won't police cyber-criminals, and thus justification for robust national responses such as sanctions?

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This reminds me of privateering during the age of sail.

There is actually some talk in the cyber policy space about this topic. [1] In a sense, all the spam, ransomware, and banking trojans that are thrown by other nation states (or their sanctioned criminal groups) raise the noise floor for what U.S. and allies need to address. This helps mask high-skill high-impact attacks (0days) since everyone is trying to figure out how to get their employees to not click spam emails. The U.S. is kinda missing out on creating this noise for our adversaries to deal with.

1. https://www.usni.org/magazines/proceedings/2019/october/gran...

to the same extent that Hollywood movies function as cultural warfare / propaganda

So, "yes where applicable"?

To the extent that you'd be willing to cut off your nose to spite your face[1] (Impose economic tariffs on the countries in question, thus hurting your own domestic consumers, and strengthening economic bonds between the nation in question, and their other trading partners), or be willing to kill people over money (Go to war with the nation in question.)

[1] This point is debatable, some people feel that tariffs are not 'both-sides-lose' games. Depending on the tariff, and the situation, I too feel that way - but neither I, nor those people hold to an orthodox understanding of neo-liberal economics. [2]

[2] Which as of 2021 are the primary drivers of trade policy in the Western world. This may, or may not change in the decades to come.

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