Albania expelled Iran’s embassy staff over July cyberattack | Hacker News Reader

Albania expelled Iran’s embassy staff over July cyberattack

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According to Chomsky, the crucial fact about Iran that one should begin with is that, in the past 65 years not a day has passed that Iran has not been tortured by US (via sanctions, constant threats of being bombed, etc). The roots of the conflict date back to the decades following the WWII. Its democratic parliamentary government was overthrown in 1953 by CIA (when it sought independence, not following US orders), replaced with Shah’s regime. Credibility must be maintained; godfather cannot permit independence; so Iran had to be punished. Then, there was war with Iraq and support of West for Saddam. Following 8 years of devastating war, Iran was immediately punished by harsh economic sanctions that further destroyed its economy over the course of several decades. Iran responded seeking development of nuclear weapons, presumably as a deterrence strategy (Iran is surrounded by hostile nuclear powers in the region: Israel, Russia and Pakistan). Iranian scientists linked to its nuclear program have been frequently assassinated in public inside Iran. There have been sophisticated cyber and physical attacks on its nuclear program. The number 2-3 person in the country (head of the army) was killed by a missile a couple of years ago. Iran implemented the the nuclear agreement; as soon as its program was dismantled and its stockpile of uranium was taken out of the country, US pulled out of the agreement and doubled down on sanctions!

Albany is hosting a military group that plans and conducts physical operations inside Iran (for whatever benefits it has received). A cyberattack is a minimal response, frankly.

> According to Chomsky, Iran has been under sanctions and constant threat of being bombed by US & Israel since 1965. The roots of the conflict date back to the decades following the WWII. Its democratic governments were overthrown in 60s and 70s (they sought independence, not following US orders), replaced with Shah.

You've got some simple facts wrong. Iran's democratic government was overthrown by the CIA and MI6 in 1953, not in the 60s or 70s. And it's not "according to Chomsky", though I'm sure he says it too. The primary source for this is the US Government, they declassified some of the documents.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1953_Iranian_coup_d'état

Their analysis, which is typical of someone quoting Chomsky, also pretends as if Iran would be a secular democracy today if the US/UK merely had not meddled. The fact is, the mullahs and the ultra-religious were already on the rise in Iran since at least the 1920s, and while they initially supported Mossadegh, by the time of the coup, they were actively moving against him. It seems likely they would have overthrown whoever was in their way - whether it was Mossadegh or the Shah.

Afghanistan in the 70's is proof of that. When the cities started modernizing, including education more women and giving them more freedoms, the people in the countryside and the clerics got pissed off and deemed it un-Islamic. Shah or not, Iran would have had a revolution either way.

We have no way to know for sure. Turkey managed to keep the religious hardliners out of power for nearly a century. Even now the people in power there are nowhere near the same as Iranian leadership. And there's still a chance Turkish democracy may recover.

Well let's have a quick look at https://uis.unesco.org/en/country/af vs. https://uis.unesco.org/en/country/ir.

Afghanistan:

Literacy rate 15-24 (2015): m 80.4%, f 29%

Tertiary education rate (2020): m 15.1%, f 5.8%

Iran:

Literacy rate 15-24 (2016): m 98.3%, f 97.9%

Tertiary education rate (2020): m 59.2%, f 57.2%

I think your argument is completely invalid.

The point was about being a modern democracy and not just literacy rates. You're cherry-picking to prove your point. Afghan literacy rates are abysmal because the Taliban follows a much more stricter interpretation of Islam than Iran does.

Also, Iran wasn't invaded by two superpowers within the span of two decades like Afghanistan was.

It's a counterfactual, there is no "proof" of it at all.

Sure sure. You keep believing that they'd be a great example of a functional democracy.

If the coup was an inevitability then the CIA and MI6 got their hands dirty for nothing. Personally, I'll err on the side of giving them credit for the things they did, rather than absolving them of blame because of the way things might have gone.

If anticommunist religious fundamentalists were an inevitable force of nature then the US and UK over paid.

Oh glad the fact the US decides of other countries government isnt at all a factor then !

You are right, I probably mixed up 1955 with 1965.

Yes, it was Mosadegh’s parliamentary regime in 1953. I corrected the error, am refined the wording. Thanks for linking.

It is customary when you edit your comment and make substantial changes that you put a note at the bottom identifying the edit (see below). This helps avoid people being confused when they read a comment referring to or correcting the original comment.

edit:Changed data to 1953

So We should have just supported them developing intercontinental ballistic nukes while they have continued to chant death to America and called for the destruction of Israel to wipe it off the map for decades and heavily find terrorist groups. If only we had left them alone they’d have developed into a perfectly rational democracy like all the other Middle East / western Asian countries guided by principles of freedom and womens rights would have flourished? Nothing we did truly changed their path and they can complain about us destabilizing their new democracy 70 years ago but they control their destinies and they chose to follow extremist Islamic leaders violate international laws and norms torturing embassy personnel. They’re the ones committing mass executions of political prisoners, allowing 10 year old girls to marry, using chemical weapons and nerve gas etc. They can blame us for all their woes but they’ve been belligerent and working against us and burning American flags for 50 plus years.

Well, maybe. Thing is, political/economical systems are kind of path dependent. It's easier to go from democratic to authoritarian than the other way around, for reasons that I should hope are obvious[1] The reality is that 70 years while a lot for a single creature, is not very long in historical terms. Things from very long ago can have a continuous effect that is hard to stamp out as groups and cultures form in society that benefit from the existing or new structures.

It's just not realistic to treat countries, organizations, or other large groups of people the same as if they are individuals, any more than it makes sense to treat a computer program like a transistor.

Of course, in the USA at least, there is a pervasive culture of pretending the past doesn't matter, but this is childish. Two books I can recommend if you want to expand your ability to think this way are Why Nations Fail and Prisoners Of Geography.

[1] But since common sense isn't so common: a democracy can vote to become authoritarian, but an authoritarian place can only usually become democratic by force. Also, a democracy, to survive, needs an economy that is dominated by a relatively large, not relatively small number of interests, so they will check and balance each other and no single interest can capture the whole system. But once you become authoritarian it is easy for the economy to decline, simplify and become less diverse (and thus even better fit for authoritarians). It becomes an attractor. Have you not noticed that authoritarian states have a tendency to suppress development/innovation sometimes when it seems "irrational" to pass up economic gains? This is to avoid creating more powerful elites that would compete with the existing elites. Once you own a huge enough part of the pie, it becomes more important to keep yourself on top than to make the pie bigger.

> It's easier to go from democratic to authoritarian than the other way around, for reasons that I should hope are obvious

I'm not actually sure this is correct. Consider: every democracy in the world used to be an authoritarian state. But not every authoritarian state used to be democratic.

> Have you not noticed that authoritarian states have a tendency to suppress development/innovation sometimes when it seems "irrational" to pass up economic gains? This is to avoid creating more powerful elites that would compete with the existing elites. Once you own a huge enough part of the pie, it becomes more important to keep yourself on top than to make the pie bigger.

Which, in the long run, leaves authoritarian regimes vulnerable to more prosperous and thus better-armed democracies. Which is why Germany and Japan are two of the biggest examples of large authoritarian states that were transformed into democracies.

> I'm not actually sure this is correct. Consider: every democracy in the world used to be an authoritarian state. But not every authoritarian state used to be democratic.

This is a very good question, but I think the real answer lies elsewhere in your comment:

> Which, in the long run, leaves authoritarian regimes vulnerable to more prosperous and thus better-armed democracies.

My interpretation of history is that democracy and the industrial revolution is like panspermia: it is rare and hard for it to happen on its own, but once it has somehow happened, it does tend to spread easily through "conquest" (literal or indirect/metaphorical)

But without some outside competitor or existential threat, it is very hard for an authoritarian, static system to become a more democratic, dynamic system, for the reasons I mentioned.

Thus, by installing an authoritarian government in a place that used to be democratic, we condemned them to likely stay authoritarian until EXTERNAL factors are able to force things otherwise. And that is outside of the population's control and could go on for a very long time. Especially if the ruling elite have some accomodation with the global system that allows them to avoid the competition you speak of, like an unspoken deal to keep fossil fuels flowing in exchange for being left alone.

Interesting points. I have a few responses.

I think you might be slightly underrating the internal stability of democratic institutions. Nascent democracies like the Weimar Republic are vulnerable to the "vote to become authoritarian" failure mode (though even the Weimar Republic "voted to become authoritarian" via the dubious mechanism of a minority government and a political culture where every major party engaged in street violence), but a well-established democracy has a fair amount of internal stability. France, for instance, has successfully reestablished democracy even after foreign conquest and the military coup of 1958. The US and UK have been even more stable.

> Thus, by installing an authoritarian government in a place that used to be democratic, we condemned them to likely stay authoritarian until EXTERNAL factors are able to force things otherwise. And that is outside of the population's control and could go on for a very long time. Especially if the ruling elite have some accomodation with the global system that allows them to avoid the competition you speak of, like an unspoken deal to keep fossil fuels flowing in exchange for being left alone.

I assume you're talking about Iran again here. Iran's democracy was already in the midst of an internal collapse towards authoritarianism even before the coup, though. Mossadegh suspended Parliament and invoked emergency powers in the face of internal opposition. Even the coup itself arguably had more internal than external causes (see: https://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/middle-east/2014-06-... as archived at https://archive.ph/wdEy8).

But if you look at things more broadly, there are examples of authoritarian regimes giving way to democracies for largely internal causes, in countries such as Chile, Argentina, Spain, Portugal, and South Korea. So there's some evidence for democracy also being a stable attractor, though this is far from universal if you look at countries like Russia, Afghanistan, or most of the Arab world.

> Well, maybe

Was that maybe answering the first questions of the GP? The following:

> So We should have just supported them developing intercontinental ballistic nukes while they have continued to chant death to America and called for the destruction of Israel to wipe it off the map for decades and heavily find terrorist groups

Dropping a "maybe" after that is worrying to me. For me it's a definite no, we should not allow such behaviour. I feel as if you should have a definite answer on something like that or you can't really have a debate on it, as it's the core issue.

On a related note, how do you feel about the Ukraine / Russia conflict and US involvement?

I think it was to this.

> If only we had left them alone they’d have developed into a perfectly rational democracy like all the other Middle East / western Asian countries guided by principles of freedom and womens rights would have flourished?

What makes you think that? I'm still curious the answer to the first question though.

All paragraph after, makes it more likely than nuclear subject.

Nothing we did truly changed their path and they can complain about us destabilizing their new democracy 70 years ago but they control their destinies...

If they lost their democracy, they don't control their destinies. All the executed, prisoners, 10 y.o. girls, etc. seem to have very little control.

In the 1970s the nuclear power industry was bragging in US magazine ads about how Iran was becoming a nuclear power

https://imgur.io/gallery/IzEWU8o

The UK (and US) overthrew Mossadegh and Iran's parliament in the 1950s and installed a dictator (who the US had to beg to come to Iran at one point, the diplomatic record is now open). They got the right wing mullahs as support (Mossadegh gave women the right to vote) and the CIA worked with the SAVAK secret police to wipe out the secular left. Finally towards the end of 1970s Iran threw itself off the boot of imperialism, but as the CIA had wiped out the secular left, the patriotic moves came from the mullahs the US had backed (and bazaari merchants too).

So Iran throws off the boot of imperialism, and suddenly the US can decide it won't let Iran develop nuclear power any more (but no such rule for the orthodox Jews making the aliyah to west Bank settlements, they can have not just nuclear power, but weapons).

I also understand that this was done to protect the assets of British Petroleum (BP) from nationalization.

For some reason, we did not object so vehemently when Venezuela did this with PDVSA.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/1953_Iranian_coup_d%27%C3%A9...

...I did not know this:

"On 21 March 1935, Reza Shah changed the name of the country from Persia to Iran."

> chant death to America

While literally true, Marg bar Amrika is used to mean something closer to "Down with America". Just like saying damn isn't wishing eternal suffering upon someone. It's an expression.

> Nothing we did truly changed their path

A literal coup didn't truly change their path?

Spot on! The issue with Chomsky and his supporters is that they seem to completely paint the US as a monster, and authoritarian nations like Iran as completely innocent.

It is funny as hell that Iranians will happily chant "Death to America" in Tehran but many of their STEM graduates can't wait to get to the US on a student visa and work on moving to a green card. IMO, all green card applications from hostile nations like China, Russia, Iran, must be very heavily scrutinized, with most of them getting rejected.

> It is funny as hell that Iranians will happily chant "Death to America" in Tehran

It’s very likely that you would chant the same, if living in Iran. As the joke goes, the guy in the USSR could freely complain… about the President of the USA

It's like the people of Iran have a variety of opinions about America or something.

How did you jump from X individuals do this hence we must ban A-Z type of individuals.

Because X here is a very large number. Almost all Chinese nationals are very pro-CCP. The results are being seen in Canada, where a lot of the Chinese diaspora has started "Confucius Centers" as a way to support the CCP and spread their ideas.

In a few years, these people will be Canadian citizens. Pretty cool, eh? (/s)

Same with the Iranians. Many of them are in support of their government and their anti-America and anti-Israel agenda. Of course they seem to forget that, once the aroma of the US dollar hits their nose.

Speaking of godfathers that don't allow independence Iran controls militias in Lebanon, Iraq, Syria, Yemen and the Gaza Strip, and has an history of terror attacks in Argentina, Bulgaria, and Turkey

Lebanon in particular has to be subservient to the funders of Hezbollah or else. Just some months ago a couple of terror attacks were thwarted at the last moment against Israelis in Istanbul, Yemen is a mess in the middle of a civil war thanks to their meddling.

But of course if they were the hegemon everything would be peaceful. That's what they claim..

None of the talking points you listed as Iranian grievances seem to concern Albania at all. Albania didn't have anything to do with the Shah, with the US supporting Saddam or opposing him, with US sanctions, with interference in Iran's nuclear program, or with strikes on Iranian terrorist leaders.

Why is a cyberattack against a random, uninvolved country a "minimal response" to the grievances you're saying they're upset about?

I believe the logic is that Albania is in NATO, there are (I suspect) US troops stationed in Albania, therefore Albania is a participant in the US's evil deeds, and is a legitimate target for Iran to vent its anger on... or something like that.

> Why is a cyberattack against a random, uninvolved country

It's in the article, Albania hosts a group of Iranian dissidents. Maybe the Iranian 'intelligence' thought it was a great idea to perpetrate a cyberattack on Albanian government websites and services, as this would somehow convince the Albanian government to extradite them to Iran? Instead their diplomats got kicked out of the country.

About the dissidents Albania is hosting:

"It was during 1988, the regime carried out its worst atrocity ever, when Khomeini ordered the deaths of 30,000 dissidents, mainly belonging to the Mujahedin-e-Khalq (MEK), who were fervent opponents of his regime, having turned against him when they realized he was replacing one dictatorship for another."

https://english.alarabiya.net/features/2018/08/31/How-Iran-d...

> According to Chomsky, Iran has been under sanctions and constant threat of being bombed by US & Israel since 1965.

Why 1965? The shah was there until 1979; we didn't have a particular beef with Iran while he was running it. Why 1965?

> The number 2-3 person in the country (head of the army) was killed by a missile a couple of years ago.

Head of the Revolutionary Guards, which is probably politically above the army. Yes, he was killed while in the act of meeting with a terrorist organization that attacks US military personnel.

1953, actually, in overthrowing Iran's government to save British petroleum assets from nationalization.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/1953_Iranian_coup_d%27%C3%A9...

You do realize attacking an armed military inside your own country does not count as terrorism in most non-political dictionaries, right?

Attacking an armed military that is inside your own country with the permission of the country's government? And doing so with the help of a different foreign country?

More: Do you think that the US military was the only ones that militia targeted?

Your post is full of errors in date. It undermines whatever it is you're trying to say.

In 1941 the British and Russians invaded and occupied Iran. US armed forces were eventually deployed there too. After the war the US diplomatically worked to remove the Soviet-backed secessionist states of north Iran in 1946. Then US intelligence was involved in supporting the Shah's coup in 1953. Thereafter the US and Iranian governments had good relations until the revolution of 78-79.

Chomsky also blames the West for the Russian invasion of Ukraine. Chomsky blames the West whenever possible.

Forget Chomsky, he claimed Pol Pot was wrongfully accused for no reason other than because America said otherwise.

The US Government has admitted their role in the 1953 Iranian coup: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1953_Iranian_coup_d%27%C3%A9ta...

We shouldn't listen to anything Chomsky says, because of a very bad take of his nearly fifty years ago? Or maybe we should simply treat what he says with skepticism, as we should everyone else, as well.

We shouldn't cite Chomsky for historical claim about what the US government did or didn't do during the Cold War when there are much better sources. Citing Chomsky in a conversation like this is poisoning the well. Just look at the responses his comment got, like the one I responded to above; people doubting that America overthrew Iran's democratic government because the top level comment cited Chomsky.

People should not use the source as an argument for or against a statement. This is illogical fallacious thinking that should be discouraged. Instead, take claims on their own merits.

> The US Government has admitted their role in the 1953 Iranian coup

Mistakes were made. That doesn't mean the world should accept Iran's war mongering.

It doesn't mean the world should accept the US bullism either. And whoever makes mistakes has to pay for them.

> whoever makes mistakes has to pay for them.

No they don't. If no one makes them pay for it, they don't have to.

Obviously Iran and the west have different moral and philosophical frameworks, but since none of that is objective the only thing that matters is who is strong enough to enforce theirs.

I'm fine with it if we quit any pretense of western moral superiority.

You do of course realize that an entire country and a single dissident group are not the same entity, yes?

Attacking and effectively shutting down Albania's public electronic services, or any country's public electronic services, is a very low blow that's uncalled for.

Can we please not normalize extremism?

Well the group is there on the government's invitation.

The article sounds pretty sketchy on evidence that Iran even performed that cyberattack in the first place:

> "Mandiant, a leading U.S. cybersecurity firm, expressed “moderate confidence” last month that the attackers were acting in support of Tehran’s anti-dissident efforts."

A US based firm expresses mere "moderate confidence" that the attacks were meant to support Iran is being taken as confirmation? From the same country that claimed it was positive that Iraq had WMDs just to drum up support to go to war?

Even the experts who don't like Iran say that the Iranian government is smart and only takes calculated risks when going on the offensive. Hacking a website for the sake of demanding a few bitcoins in "ransomware" hardly sounds like a surgical government led attack against it's opponents.

According to Chomsky, the Cambodian Genocide didn't happen and Srebrenica massacre was just a little misunderstanding. Anything he says about history or politics has to be taken into consideration alongside the fact he is fundamentally opposed to the liberal western world.

Who cares what Chomsky thinks. He’s a genocide denier (Bosnia & Cambodia)and blames the US (via NATO expansion) for the invasion of Ukraine. Let’s be real, no one forces Iran to fund terrorists who murder innocents, to seek weapons of mass destruction, to execute gay rights activists or any of the other myriad of horrors this government have chosen to commit. Why is it when shitty countries are “Surrounded” by enemies all their evil is excused, yet any measure to contain them is seen as tyrannical. Would you have defended apartheid South Africa for building nukes? They were surrounded by hostile nations and faced foreign funded fighters. Would you applaud their forces?

> Who cares what Chomsky thinks.

Agreed. The GP is presenting a weak case for something that shouldn't be controversial. The US did overthrow Iran's democracy in 1953, and has officially admitted it.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1953_Iranian_coup_d%27%C3%A9ta...

Him and people like him have the same routine:

1. Paint the US as a monster.

2. If you counter them with the "xyz is an authoritarian nation", they'll all circle back to #1 as the main reason as to why some country is authoritarian.

Far left academics and their followers are some of the most annoying people.

Look, as much as I despise most of what Chomsky says -- his position on Ukraine is downright embarrassing -- he's the broken clock who happens to be right.

US foreign policy after the Korean War has been terrible, and Iran is the epitome of everything that's wrong with it. Iran is a country full of people of culture that could have been basically a Western country in the Middle East. It's only a dystopian religious hellhole because America went "lmao xd communism". Some of it is just basically racism: "they're arabs, they're all the same", ignoring that Iran in the 70s was on its way to become a modern society.

The fundamentalists were already extremely powerful before the coup. In fact, they formed a huge base of support for Mossadegh(strange bedfellows, since he was largely secular, but whatever gets you in power right?). And before the coup, they had already broken with him. If Mossadegh remained in power, why do you think the fundamentalists would not have just performed the coup themselves, leading Iran to a fundamentalist regime just a few years earlier than they did against the Shah?

I find these analyses strange, as if Iranian people lack autonomy, and are merely passive victims to the vicissitudes of Western will.

> He’s a genocide denier (Bosnia & Cambodia)and blames the US (via NATO expansion) for the invasion of Ukraine

These claims have been debunked so many times, please stop repeating them.

Does everyone have to pretend that NATO expansion and activities in Ukraine are not at least partially to blame for the Russian invasion for the next 2 years now?

Pretend for 2 years, then it's widely understood fact, like so many other topics of the day.

And this is not to excuse Russian activity either.

If NATO hadn't expanded, Russia would be killing estonians right now. The first and primary reason for this expansion was not NATOs desire for additional members, but Russia's neighbours desire for protection from Russia. And current invasion of Ukraine had proved that they were absolutely right.

I don't think it proves any such thing.

The two situations (Estonia and Ukraine) aren't comparable unless one has a preconceived notion that current Russia is intent on conquering as much area militarily as possible. (Which, given history, some might be excused for believing).

This isn't really the place for geopolitical discussions. But even you appear to admit expansion was occurring because "reasons".

I just hate pretending, that's all.

> Russia is intent on conquering as much area militarily as possible

This is absolutely true, if by Russia you mean the revaunchists who are in power right now. And especially so in regards to former colonies, which are universally viewed with contempt, aggression and racism by people from these circles.

Why world hates Iran?

Probably because their leadership radicalizes and sponsors people who put bombs on planes, in theatres, kill journalists who draw mocking cartoons of their prophet and drive trucks into crowds. You see, the world likes a good laugh but they don't like being blown up while enjoying a concert.

I know regular Iranians can be quite nice. We have an Iranian acquaintance. Aside from some cultural oddities he's okay. But their leadership and the Revolutionary Guards aren't anything like that.

> kill journalists who draw mocking cartoons of their prophet

You're speaking of the Charlie Hebdo attack right? I'm looking over the wikipedia pages for it and I don't see any links to Iran. The two were ethnic Algerians born in France. One of them got arrested while trying to travel to Syria, presumably to fight for al-Queda in Iraq. Mentored in prison by an Algerian terrorist who had been radicalized by Jordanian and Egyptian preachers. Arrested again for recruiting fighters for a Jordanian jihadis. Trained with al-Qaeda in Arabia (AQAP, a Sunni group.)

Where is the Iran/Shia connection? When I search for "charlie hebdo attack Iran" I find articles about Iran denouncing both the cartoons and the attack. Denouncing the cartoons doesn't make Iran culpable for the attack; free speech cuts both ways. The cartoons are free speech and so is denouncing the cartoons.

You are right, it was the other group of jihadists, the one fighting against another Iranian backed group. That time Iran's leadership basically implied the attack was somewhow okay, without literally saying it.

https://old.iranintl.com/en/world/irans-khamenei-calls-publi...

But somehow Saudi Arabia, which is worse in every way is fine.

Ask Salman Rushdie.

According to Homsky, Ukraine is full of Nazis and is fighting a civil war. Stop listening to this war criminal apologist.

Incidentally, on this topic, he has an interview with Friedman last week or so. He provides a high level analysis (different from what what you say).

As an aside, Ukraine is an extremely conservative country and really has a neo-nazis problem by the way. It has nothing in common with what the Russian propaganda pushes and doesn’t affect the Ukrainian government but it’s a significant problem nevertheless.

They still need to be supported because having a state using war as a geopolitical tool at the border of Europe is unacceptable but people need to realise that what was pushed by the media at the beginning of the war doesn’t necessary paint a realistic portrait of the country.

I feel this has to be said because they were made a candidate member to the EU for electoral reasons.

Azov is a Nazi-loving organization, as is the Right Sector. They’re both taking part in this war on the Ukrainian side.

So is the Wagner Group and a good deal of Russian soldiers. Russia has far more Neo-Nazis than Ukraine does.

I haven't seen Nazi memorabilia and branding on current Wagner soldiers fighting in Ukraine. I know of that bold dude with lots of tattoos from Wagner that was most definitely a Nazi, but I think he has been dead for a few years now. I have seen lots of Nazi memorabilia and branding on Azov, Right Sector and other brigades that are part of today's Ukrainian Army.

But, ignoring the Azov guys (even though that's hard to do), what gets me it's stuff like this [1] or this [2], i.e. Ukrainian kids being brainwashed behind the lines to adopt the Nazi ideology (because, yes, adopting the Nazi salute en masse means that you're teaching those kids to adopt the Nazi ideology). I had sincerely hoped that we had managed to come past those very dark times, that Europe's kids wouldn't have to do the Nazi salute of their own volition anytime soon. Looks like I was wrong, and it's frightening that the West takes the side of those who teach their kids the Nazi salute.

Later edit: To say nothing of Bandera, whose name is still carried by lots of streets in Ukraine. But I've had this discussion before here on HN and I was told that it's totally ok for a WW2 war criminal to be idolised in this day and age, so I will not fight that battle anymore.

[1] https://twitter. com/anatoliisharii/status/1567434109886111745/photo/1 (pls. remove the white space between the . and com, not sure it is legal inside of the EU to link to people doing the Nazi salute, this looks like it's back from 2018).

[2] https://twitter. com/DeuNachrichten/status/1566044503680884737 (the same, pls remove the white spce after the ., this is from a few days ago)

>I haven't seen Nazi memorabilia and branding on current Wagner soldiers fighting in Ukraine

here you go https://twitter.com/RALee85/status/1567010713473802241

in case you missed it https://twitter.com/bentarzynski/status/1567017093777989633 https://twitter.com/zolotoybaton/status/1567018154617880578

>that bold dude with lots of tattoos from Wagner

Dmitry Utkin, founder of wagner. Yes, even the boss is a nazi.

> I know of that bold dude with lots of tattoos from Wagner that was most definitely a Nazi, but I think he has been dead for a few years now

You mean the leader of Wagner group who literally has nazi ss symbols tattooed on him and named the group after one of hitlers favourite composers?.

> I have seen lots of Nazi memorabilia and branding on Azov, Right Sector and other brigades that are part of today's Ukrainian Army.

There’s plenty of nazi symbology on non Wagner soldiers in Ukraine too. Here’s one example.

https://www.newsweek.com/russia-ukraine-mariupol-azov-nazi-1...

The Azov Regiment has 900–2,500 members and 10% to 20% of them are believed to be Nazis. You think that makes it okay to call Ukraine "full of Nazis"?

A single city in Russia has more Nazis than that.

This is something which people like Kissinger and others were writing in Foreign Policy, the New York Times etc. prior to February of this year.

Chomsky also is saying the same thing he has been saying about the Ukraine since 2013 and before that.

> something which people like Kissinger and others were writing in Foreign Policy, the New York Times etc. prior to February of this year

Kissinger said Ukraine is fighting a civil war against Nazis? Really?

Kissinger was saying more or less what Chomsky was saying at the beginning of the year. The hysterical hyperbole you mention is from the author of this thread.

> Its democratic governments were overthrown in 60s and 70s (they sought independence, not following US orders), replaced with Shah

Iran has never been a democracy in its entire history. The supposedly democratic leadership that was overthrown was appointed, not elected. Mohammad Mosaddegh was not elected by democratic vote of the people of Iran, he was installed by feudal lords (Majlis) and a king (the Shah).

Today Iran is a theocracy, not a democracy. 70 years ago Iran was a feudal kingdom, not a democracy.

The Parliament of Iran circa the early 1950s could hardly have been any less democratic.

Countries should start responding to cyberattacks the same as if a black helicopter landed and a team of commandos damaged or stole the equipment. The intention is the same and the effect is the same, so the mechanism isn't important.

Expelling embassy staff is within the range of acceptable responses, so good for Albania here. The vast majority of nation-state cyberattacks get far less response.

The problem with this analogy is that the CIA uses frameworks like Marble [1] to stage false flag cyberattacks. Attribution is never as obvious as helicopter landing on your roof, not even close.

[1] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vault_7#Marble_framework

Attribution can be difficult with IRL attacks too. So you can't be sure about every attack, but you're often sure about some of them because secrecy is hard.

For example: Stuxnet was one of many responses to Iran's nuclear weapons program. Another response was, allegedly [0], assassination of some senior scientists. Attribution is still disputed about the latter, but not the former.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_program_of_Iran#Possib...

> Attribution is still disputed about the latter, but not the former.

Is anyone seriously considering that it was not Mossad/CIA? Cui bono?

The wiki article doesn’t even mention false flags? Why wouldn’t the CIA make their malware another language? You think they are going to be hacking Russian networks with English language malware?

The wiki does mention false flags:

> "In its release, WikiLeaks described the primary purpose of "Marble" as to insert foreign language text into the malware to mask viruses, trojans and hacking attacks, making it more difficult for them to be tracked to the CIA and to cause forensic investigators to falsely attribute code to the wrong nation."

Ah that must be why i code in english: put the blame on the americans! :D

And yet people routinely act like the presence of Chinese/Russian/Iranian strings in a malware hexdump is strong evidence of the respective state's culpability.

People believe what they're predisposed to believe ideologically.

I sympathize with [entity] -> Despite evidence, I cannot admit it was entity.

I dislike [entity] -> despite lack of evidence, the plausibility allows me to attribute it to [entity].

> Why wouldn’t the CIA make their malware another language? You think they are going to be hacking Russian networks with English language malware?

When you disguise yourself to look like somebody else when doing something nefarious, knowing that you will be mistaken for that somebody else, that's a false flag.

> A false flag operation is an act committed with the intent of disguising the actual source of responsibility and pinning blame on another party.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/False_flag

Putting aside what any specific intelligence outfit does, attribution is a massive problem in infosec.

Google "security attribution problem" if you are unfamiliar with the topic, it is a big one.

How do you actually know what responses are? People get told things the government finds useful to tell, definitely not everything.

yeah, as long as its not the "US and allies".... if you are saying this, what do you suppose the response IRAN should've had after stuxnet? or was that fair but if someone else does that to someone else then its a call for war?

>Countries should start responding to cyberattacks the same as if a black helicopter landed and a team of commandos damaged or stole the equipment. The intention is the same and the effect is the same, so the mechanism isn't important.

remember stuxnet and what if the roles were reversed, what would your response have been?

The weak suffer what they must. Iran could definitely have gone for some sabre rattling and asking for aid from their allies, but obviously their options were limited.

> The weak suffer what they must. Realpolitik right here. /s

Iran absolutely would've launched military action in response to STUXNET if they thought it wouldn't lead to annihilation. The weak suffer what they must.

Why the "/s"? Your statement was true.

So you are saying, let me get this straight.

Iran should have asked for help to retaliate against attackers but since they did not have friends, they could not retaliate. But, if the same thing happens with Israel, then it becomes a matter of threatening world peace ad everyone must unite against a common enemy. Cool.

Like when the US used Stuxnet against Iran?

Maybe fucking with someone else's computers is not actually worth murdering anyone over...

Edit: I actually like this new form of "war" where no one dies, we just DDOS websites and people cannot renew their driving licenses or enrich uranium for a period of time.

It also involves the kind of targeted propaganda that turns families against each other over their voting preferences... and I suspect we haven't seen the worst of it yet.

Try watching "Yes, Minister" (find 'the best bits' compilations), on youtube, and you may just realise why no-one gives a fuck and even if the pink jeeps turn up, fuck all rareley happens.

Pink jeeps, like pink jeeps from the desert in WW2?

Countries respond to cyberattacks the same way they respond to espionnage. They acknowledge what suits them.

Every time some unfortunate computer shit happens in USA, they inevitably blame it on: china, north korea, iran, russia.

In truth they just want the public to hate them. They might not have a clue on who did it.

Politics on the front-page can be divisive and create distance between people (instead of bringing people together). It feels like there's been a lot of politics on the front-page recently. Should this be addressed in some way by HN? Is this something people even care about?

> Is this something people even care about?

I learned a lot about recent Iranian history in the responses to the top comment.

Partisanship is more of an issue than politics. Almost everything involves politics.

Lot of comments here hand waving away cybersecurity attack attribution as being arbitrary or guesswork, but I think it’s important to note industry leaders like Mandiant don’t point blame lightly.

There are plenty of ways for an attacker to give clues to researchers about where they are based out of and who is funding them.

> There are plenty of ways for an attacker to give clues to researchers about where they are based out of and who is funding them.

How exactly would you know who is founding what by looking at a bitstream originating from anywhere on earth but last jump in Iran to your server?

This comment is a key example of what I’m talking about: Researchers and analysts don’t just look at where the physical address of the packets came from when leveling an accusation as serious as nation state attacks. They take into account things like previously known threat actor capability, nation state actor characteristics, malware specialization, enumeration and exfiltration toolkit, command and control infrastructure, and finally motive.

When coming from an industry giant that’s been working with US intelligence groups, it’s really a rigorous process.

> They take into account things like previously known threat actor capability, nation state actor characteristics, malware specialization

You mean they pin it on whomever they want to. It's all meaningless. It's like telling how someone voted from their shoe print.

>How exactly would you know

I wouldn't worry about it.

They also only claimed "moderate confidence" in their assessment

history of MEK in Albania is wild

https://twitter.com/govhowarddean/status/979381177512587264 https://www.nytimes.com/2018/05/07/world/middleeast/john-bol... https://www.nytimes.com/2020/02/16/world/europe/iran-mek-alb... https://www.bbc.com/news/stories-50339928

To give some more context: Albania is hosting about 2-3k Iranian political refugees that are opposed to the current regime. They are actually mostly elderly people at this point. This was done with the US request a decade ago.

That's why Iran is trying to blackmail/hack the government services.

This is not the first time it has removed embassy officials (a couple of Iranian officials were caught spying). Any response the country does, it usually coordinates with the US, for obvious sensitivity issues. Albania is in Nato, so nothing will escalate further than this.

Interesting to see that Albania had enough courage (for all the wrong reasons, but courage nonetheless) to leave the Warsaw Pact in the ‘60s and to end its alliance with the Soviets next door, while right now it plays as baby-sitter at the request of a democratic hegemonic power from a half a world away, no questions asked.

Well that former times had USA and NATO beyond the Adriatic Sea, this time the Adriatic Sea is an American hegemonic lake (not eastern Mediterranean though)

You also see similar things happening now, ... In Asia and Africa. Smaller countries do try to leave their Hegemon and realign themselves to the challenger.

> this time the Adriatic Sea is an American hegemonic lake

Yeah, good point, even though I hadn't realised it.

And to share some more about my recent new knowledge on Russia and on the Soviet system, and also related to Albania, I was a little surprised to learn that one of the reasons used to de-throne Khrushchev in the autumn of 1964 was the Albanian–Soviet split [1] that he, supposedly, had helped create. I say I was surprised because I didn't think the highest echelons of power in Moscow cared that much about a country from their hegemonic "periphery", so to speak, one that wasn't directly geographically confronting the West, like Czechoslovakia or the GDR.

To be honest I don't see almost anyone attacking the US President for "losing" a current peripheral ally that is part of their hegemonic area.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Albanian%E2%80%93Soviet_split

Why does every post with Russian-apologia have you in it and why do you always pretend to be Romanian?

Because I’m interested in the subject as I live right next door to it all in, well, Romania. Because, yes, I am Romanian (just happened to purchase a book on Jukov from an antiques bookstore, about 2 euros in our money).

More generally speaking, I had expected better from HN-ers than personal attacks and stalking, in my 15+ years on this forum yours is only the second comment that touches on that (the first one was also coming in connection to the current war), but I also realize that this whole circumstance is different: the whole NAFO thing, all the 3-letter agencies controlling FB, Reddit and the like, people do actually believe that the war can be won or lost from behind a keyboard. So I give you the benefit of the doubt. Nevertheless, I hope I won’t have to justify myself about anything on this website going forward.

Wikipedia page for the org: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/People%27s_Mojahedin_Organiz...

Agreed nothing more will come out of this.

Those "refugees", the MEK, are some of the most loathsome terrorists alive today. They belong in front of a firing squad, not a guarded complex in Tirana.

Even their supposed ally, the US, considered them terrorists until the neocons in DC decided they were more useful than dangerous as anti-Tehran forces. Except, of course, the US wont touch them; Albania is the only country subservient enough to give them refugee status.

Subservient just like when Albania accepted Syria's chemical weapons.

What made Albania the country they ended up in? It is quite interesting, in Sweden, a well known but controversial politician, (Hanif Bali), grew up in a camp in Iraq to parents from this group, and while he was sent to Sweden as a child, his parents eventually ended up in Albania. When I heard that story, I did not pay particular interest to "why Albania", but now I start to wonder why.

Albania is very subservient to the US. Pro- US sentiment stretches back to the early 20th century when the Albanian diaspora in the US helped Albania establish her national identity.

They're powerless, but quite unsavory - no one really wants to have an authoritarian cult on their territory, even if they can't stomach letting Iran execute them as seems likely.

Hence giving them asylum is considered a relatively cheap way for a NATO member state like Albania with limited military and economic resources to pull its weight.

Could be that Albania has a unique Muslim majority in Europe so it would be more sympathetic to other Muslims, in this case refugees from Iran?

Bosnia is also majority muslim.

Also, consider that a quarter (half?) of Albanians and Kosovaars have left for Germany and other places in non-muslim Europe and are fairly well integrated.

How is it that the MEK prefers Albania when Albanians themselves prefer to leave?

What's unique about Albania is not that they are muslim, but the stratospheric corruption of the country. Its makes the country a very useful dumping ground for certain problems NATO encounters (chemical weapons, laundering, terrorists)

"refugees"

CIA and MI6 and their "government website cyber attack", something about the west smells very bad, tasteless strategy

That feels like it's targeting general non tech-savvy public. OMG, they hacked GOVERNMENT!

> Rama on Wednesday accused Tehran of recruiting one of the most notorious international cyberattack groups that was involved in similar attacks on Israel, Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates, Jordan, Kuwait and Cyprus

Curious which group that was.

how did they know it is coming from Iran ? Did they look at the IP package header ?

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