Former WSJ reporter says law firm used Indian hackers to sabotage his career
reuters.com
reuters.com
https://darknetdiaries.com/episode/79/
https://citizenlab.ca/2020/06/dark-basin-uncovering-a-massiv...
Easy, you just hire a another hacker/PI to investigate them first...
Well, digging up dirt is also legal in the west, the question is what "any means necessary" is. I cannot believe that it is legal to hack someone for example.
Similarly, I wouldn't be shocked if "by any means necessary" is also illegal in India but is culturally accepted.
On some level it's no different from the stop-sign culture in California. Almost nobody stops, ever, including the police force, and it results in dozens of deaths annually just in my community. The act is blatantly illegal for good reason, but it still happens out in the open, and it's "not illegal" in the sense that if a person blows a stop sign and the police witness it or are sent a video of the act then there's approximately a 0% chance of any negative repercussions for the perpetrator.
So I suspect that there is more to this story than is apparent.
i believe WSJ employs in NY state so this doesn't apply.
It’s like if someone broke into you house and found letters to a lover and published them, and your partner then divorced you, would you blame your partner or the person that broke into your house?
I am curious why he is not naming the Emerati prince that hired the law firm.
> I am curious why he is not naming the Emerati prince that hired the law firm.
I suspect that he doesn't have enough evidence to prove it, or he doesn't want to poke the bear, because the Prince wasn't really after him; it was just collateral damage.
WSJ is entitled to fire someone if they have verifiable evidence supporting that decision. If the evidence was illegally obtained....well, it would be an trial admissibility issue, but that wouldn't apply to a work/employment matter.
9 times out of 10, in case of improprieties, a person is fired, and no further action is taken. In most cases, there is no upside to prosecution, and a lot of potential downside. In every legal case I've been involved with, there were deep improprieties, such as fabrication of evidence. If you're right, that's no guarantee of winning a case, and in most cases, both sides come out scarred and tarnished.
The legal system is random, and a high risk for everyone.
Employers can, but those that are at the size of the WSJ probably don't. The bad PR, reputational damage and legal damages of an unfounded firing, isn't worth it.
They're accusing a specific group of for hire hackers (BellTroX and CyberRoot) in Delhi.
2. Standard editorial racism a la "The Oriental Threat".
Reminds me of the "voter ID is racist" argument
- Because just mentioning it adds the following dimensions to the headline: geopolitics, outsourcing, human resources in the developing world, cybercrime & jurisdiction challenges
- Because it's allegedly true
Also notably, people that have a thong against Indians and Asians I encountered in real life have literally zero idea about internal subdivision. They could not tell sub-groups apart, not by look and not by language. If you have a thing against people from India, it is India in general and you don't care about anything else.
Why not? Doesn't media regularly customize their headlines to avoid stating factually true things that would propagate negative stereotypes against minorities and other protected groups?
I think most responsible media organizations do avoid putting headlines like "Muslim man stabs three in church in Nice". Even if they do mention the religion, it is usually called "Islamic terrorism", and they have also invested quite some significant effort into emphasizing that most of regular Islamic people do not in fact have anything to do with Islamic terrorism.
As far as I can tell, media companies certainly seem to be aware of the effect their headlines can have on propagating negative stereotypes and good editorial judgement usually involves an attempt to avoid doing that as much as possible.
"I think it's covered in the Dark Basin episode of Darknet Diaries, but India apparently has a reputation for especially aggressive private investigators, who were historically used to dig up dirt on families before committing to marriage pacts, but in the modern era are used regularly for PR and corporate blackmail. Apparently this practice is ingrained enough into the culture that digging up dirt on people by any means necessary is widely accepted, and not even illegal in most contexts."
Please tell me more about how India can ever be used purely as a location.
The comment is referring to the standard practices of private investigators in this country, and the nature of the corporate world based on what has been seen in some TV show
What's the problem with this?
Hypothetical example: I once watched a documentary about Africa and smuggling of ivory and it showed X, Y and Z. What does this mean? That because of this documentary I have a bias about Africa which now shapes all my decision making? Where does that line get drawn? I consumed the information, what does that have to do with how it affects my opinion of the people there?
If I walk into a friend's business, and say "woah, I did not know you hired a <derogative racist term>, they're all stupid you should fire him" and the friend immediately goes "ooh I forgot to be racist, yea I'll fire them immediately" then their firing would absolutely be racist despite the person being fired not witnessing the racist logic that causes it.
Equally with voter ID laws, they're not racist because they put mean racist message onto the ID cards or something, and whether or not victims of that sort of racist politics notice doesn't mean racism isn't involved. If somebody says "I don't think we need voter IDs, but in my district only the <some race of people> don't have photo IDs and they would all want to vote for my opponent, so let's require ID to vote!" then those people have had a racist and very unfair thing happen against them, regardless of whether they are "thinking of racism".
edit: and as a slightly easier example, if I edited a newspaper and decided that for every negative story about one skin colour would get front page billing, and every negative story about my own skin colour would get binned rather than published, then all my paper's readers might be able to look at every single article without seeing any racism in them - but their not knowing doesn't change that my theoretical editing was racist.
- Even if you use the broader definition to include nationality, in this case, the "hackers" are physically located in the geopolitical boundaries of India
- Nearly every major country with a large enough population has people in whitehat/blackhat infosec professions. It is an incredible reach to suggest that newspapers should not identify the national origin of these individuals because of what some racist readers might start to believe or become biased towards, by drawing non-existent lines to patterns that don't exist except in their own bubbles. Editorial standards and responsibility should not be driven by the weakest minds.
Popular dictionaries (Webster/Oxford) don't include national origin
The usage of the word "racism" to include xenophobia is common enough in a casual context that I cannot believe that you are simply not aware of that usage. By choosing to argue over the semantics of the word racism over usage you probably already are familiar with, you are diverting attention from what really matters here: that said racism or xenophobia exists and negatively affects real human beings.
(Not that any xenophobia is particularly better than any other, but it’s difficult to talk to people when they use broader meanings for words you thought meant very specific thing. See also terrorism vs insurgency, genocide vs occupation, etc.)
If anything, attempts to redefine racism as only American variant where it is all about shades of color is redefinition.
And obviously, ethnicity and geography goes with races.
"Solomon’s suit is the latest in a series of legal actions that follows Reuters’ reporting about hired hackers operating out of India."
Since I missed that sentence it seemed odd compared to hackers out of Romania or anywhere else.
Baltic hackers have been around since the internet became mainstream really. The fall of the Soviet union lead to economic hardship in most of the areas well known for hacking - and those kids coming of age shortly after had the brand new age of information to take advantage of.
BellTroX is well known and the Indian government seems to approve of their activities.
The article makes it seem that India as a whole is operating in some North Korea-ish way.
A US citizen can well complain to CERT-IN (https://www.cert-in.org.in/) for any reported cybercrime with proper documents and it will be treated as an enforceable crime.
In fact, quite funny considering the US Chambers of Commerce have filed an appeal with CERT-IN that the compliance requirements are very stringent (https://economictimes.indiatimes.com/tech/technology/cert-in...)
Is this documented? If true, I suspect the image of Indian criminals being beyond the reach of the law stems from the spam call problem.
https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/owner-and-operator-india-base...
Your link [1] mentions no sign of Indian law enforcement. Instead, “Singapore authorities apprehended Patel at the request of the United States…after Patel flew there from India…charges remain pending for other India-based defendants.”
[1] https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/owner-and-operator-india-base...
Oct 4 2022:
On inputs from FBI and Interpol, CBI, police forces search 105 locations to combat cyber crime: https://indianexpress.com/article/india/cbi-operation-target...
31 Aug 2022:
Fake call centre busted in Gurugram, six held for cheating foreign citizens: https://www.tribuneindia.com/news/haryana/fake-call-centre-b...
04 Aug 2022:
Fake call centre: Cyber cell contacts FBI, CBI & ED: https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/dehradun/fake-call-...
30 Dec 2020:
India's CBI helped US sleuths shut down a call centre scam that impersonated Microsoft at times: https://www.businessinsider.in/international/news/us-india-c...
17 Oct 2020:
Call centre fraud: US, CBI bust call centres defrauding elderly Americans: https://www.financialexpress.com/india-news/call-centre-frau...
Sure. I am just pushing back on “very well enforced.” It’s not. Not out of malice. But because the problem is hard.
That guy or gal calling your grandparents about that "fixing that virus" or "refunding that amazon purchase" begs to differ...
during our college days our profs literalt recommended studying online resources in youtube made by indians, because they got better coverage than most of our curriculum. we laugh at their accent but we owe them a lot.
Solomon and Azima allege that Dechert undertook the hack-and-leak operation in the interest of its client, Sheikh Saud bin Saqr al-Qasimi, ruler of the Middle Eastern emirate of Ras Al Khaimah.
What kind of gun was used in a killing is much less important than who paid for the killing, no?
Was the Jamal Kashoggi story about NSO's Pegasus (Israeli-made), or the risks reporters face when covering powerful individuals that operate in the shadows of spying and information warfare?
Overriding legality, decency, safety. Because the poor person just needs the money that bad.
So you get people renting out their backyard as a toxic waste dump. Or murdering people. Or breathing smog. Or selling children. Crazy horrible stuff that no sane person would do. Because they need the money.
And the rich guy is untouched.
So, to a significant degree, as long as there is rich and poor, there is no law or morality. It reduces society to a dog-pit.
I thought of writing an economics book about this phenomenon.
I have no idea how we can fix this problem and hope someone else can chime in
as a related aside, if someone ever tells you that taxes are at an all-time high so we must reduce them, take a look at the top marginal tax rates in the UK and US in the mid-60s. or corp tax back then
the way to actually solve these problems was told to us by Keynes. the problem is that the political will is just not there. that's where we need a solution. how do you circumvent the capital-holding elite [to use a meaningless word]?
Hell, I live very comfortably, am not at risk of homelessness or starvation. But there is a lot I would do for money that guarantees the best start in life for my children, the best end of life (medical care, treatments, etc) for my parents.
Most life insurance does cover suicides. Just not in the first year or two.
> But there is a lot I would do for money that guarantees the best start in life for my children, the best end of life (medical care, treatments, etc) for my parents.
For children specifically, the most valuable thing that money can buy is time.
The vast majority of people value safe neighbourhoods, friendships, family get-togethers, etc., far more than they do in procuring mega yachts, or being wealthy enough to do so. Especially when old enough to have children.
Not enforceable in most places. Even if you lie on the forms or commit suicide, the insurance company still has to pay out as long as you've had the policy for 2 years.
As inequality is a guarantee - no two people are alike in any aspect and neither are their abilities as an employee - mandating (either by gun or union contract) lockstep equality in payments and job security, the highest performers are demoralized and put in the bare minimum or quit (if they can). The result is the ever-increasing shitty quality of the firm and its behavior. For modern examples see the NHS (bleeding doctors and nurses to the private sector) and American public schools in inner cities (highest global costs per student yet abysmal results).
There are valid criticisms about inequality but the pros far out way the cons.
It's always much, much easier to argue for 'fairness' and to rail against the rich... than it is to be realistic and accept that there will be very visible downsides but that alternatives are much worse in practice.
Ditto with free speech, censorship is almost always a greater evil, with small exceptions, but when you try to defend it they try to pretend you only care about nazis/far-right. Sometimes doing the right thing is not easy and yes - it requires plenty of effort to weed out the assholes and wrong-doers (which the courts are doing now by punishing the law firms), but it's worth it in the end.
And you don't have to tolerate the bad guys just because you didn't compromise societies freedoms and wealth to prevent them from existing in the first place. There's more ways to stop it than throwing the baby out with the bathwater.
In countries in Europe, and places in Asia, there are plenty of examples where there is less inequality and the students perform better.
Happy to be in the US especially with the global economic recession incoming
Bezos and Musk would work just as hard if they only had 10% of the financial equity share in their companies that they have today.
This is absolutely not a given. Not because the value changes, but because it implies they no longer own a controlling interest in the company and have to answer to a board. Musk explicitly does not want to take SpaceX public because shareholders are terrible bosses for long term visions (colonizing mars).
All this strawman about the failures of absolute equality are just slight of hand to ignore the very obvious problem with a world where a single person have the power of a state.
The state legitimacy should come from the people participation in govering themselves. Not from some psuedo meritocracy. Concentrated power without checks and balances is the problem, not specifically "the state". I wish all libertarians would wake up and see that very obvious threat to freedom.
Or is this vaunted flat democracy only allowed when the result aligns with your morals?
It's called tyranny of the majority
In this case if power isn't in the government it's in the hands of the people. That's a flat democracy.
But you would do well to ask, because you got it totally wrong.
The commenter said that they are against this type of libertarian idealism. Because the result is that it isn't a flat democracy. Instead folks like Musk end up with huge amounts of power.
Specifically you need to understand what they said here:
"If power is concentrated in government, it's as bad if it's concentrated with an individual with his own private police force."
The implication is that the commentator wants power evenly distributed. The opposite of your wrong accusation of the commenter wanting power concentrated in a majority. Nowhere was flat democracy mentioned. You invented that line of thinking.
as opposed to what the US currently has, which is a representational democracy where power is concentrated at the government level with people electing others to represent them (and to wield more power than they, themselves, do).
----
If someone tells you power concentrated in the government is bad and power should be evenly distributed, they're talking about a flat democracy (aka direct democracy).
Which goes back to what I said initially. What if the people want slaves? What if they want segregated schools? Because at one point the majority actually did want these things.
People who argue for things like this imagine that only good will come from it. Not only is that not true, we have precedent that it's not true.
You're wrongly inferring that. No need to assume stuff when you can just ask the other person.
> they're talking about a flat democracy (aka direct democracy).
That does not describe a system where power is evenly distributed. Because of the already widely known problems you mentioned. Lots of folks learn this stuff in high school.
When you answer that you cannot do so, you're admitting to asking for a direct democracy.
"Oh, but what about this adaptation that ..." puts more power into certain hands than another. Maybe it's flatter, but it's not even.
It's sort of like saying people can fly. The second you add the requirement that it be actionable (aka, grounded in reality) is the same second you conclude people need something external to assist rather than flapping their arms really fast.
you can't get around that no matter how much you'd like to.
One attempt at this would be representational democracy.
> When you answer that you cannot do so, you're admitting to asking for a direct democracy.
No one gave that as an answer.
> The votes of elected officials in a representative democracy may not always reflect the will of the people. The officials are not bound by law to vote the way the people who elected them want them to vote.
hummm.... that sounds like more power in the hands of less people.
IOW, your argument is based in fiction. Which is cool, we need stories about people flapping their hands to fly. It's fun!
We just need to be clear earlier in the conversation on whether or not reality is part of the goal or not.
Indeed. Fortunately the only person here that has a problem with that is the strawman you created. The strawman you continue to fight.
From the original comment, with some emphasis to help your comprehension:
"Concentrated power WITHOUT CHECKS AND BALANCES is the problem"
And yes, that may be non-binary in that some of Elon's money has likely come from the government where we have less choice about spending it, other money may come from voluntarily purchased Teslas and whatnot.
I think an honest reading of post ww2 history shows you need both a healthy private and public sector. There's arguments about exactly where to draw the line, but evidence is countries prosper with 1/4 to 1/2 of their economy being redistributed through the public sector. Where to draw the line within that window is more a matter of what society you want than a pure economic question.
A key detail is that you need functional institutions, and those take generations to build.
Oh come on. Is HN suddenly r/antiwork?
I'm pretty sure conspiracy to commit murder is illegal in whatever your locale is.
Look at the case of Daphne Caruana Galizia, the Maltese journalist killed by two idiots who got paid 150.000€. The killer brothers are in jail and the rich asshole who ordered the killing is free. The fact that such a thing can happen in an EU country means that every shady business man can threaten and silence a journalist, not by killing them, just by hinting it could happen, and you will never learn anything about such cases.
Yet, despite all of this, these people are living longer, healthier, more educated, and less violent lives. A more redistrutive society would have the exact same number of greedy assholes as we do today, and they wouldn't be any more altruistic. The difference in our society is that a greedy asshole who wants to outsource a jobs to a developing country will accidentally give the residents of this country the means to buy antibiotics.
Are you sure? Doesn't culture impact human behavior? Won't a society that encourages getting ahead at all costs produce a different social environment (with its own distinct behavioral incentives) than one with alternative priorities?
First of all, this is a anticapitalist meme that has no basis in reality. In American Factory, you can argue that the Chinese workers are encouraged to "get ahead at all costs". They likely share the same work ethic as Americans 100 years ago when they were similarly blase about safety, but this certainly isn't the case today. Today, we use marathon as a verb describing passively consuming media, and we glorify inactivity (FIRE, rest and vest, Office Space, etc) and these attitudes are unique to recent decades. We still celebrate hard work to a certain extent, but that's nothing new.
As far as cultural impact goes, your best case scenario is that people are more altruistic towards their in-group. Norway is renowned for it's redistribution of wealth, yet they're only .07% of the world's population and their sovereign wealth fund alone holds 1.4% of the the world's stocks. This is great for their citizens, but they aren't so keen on redistributing that wealth with Muslim immigrants and their children.
When you look at countries that are actively hostile to private wealth creation, you'll notice that they're all incredibly corrupt. This tells me that at least amongst the elite, they're just as greedy their counterparts in capitalist nations. The difference is that their economic model incentivizes them to chase zero-sum political power, rather than produce something of value.
We seem fairly well-insulated against the reality of the "Average American's" life here on HN, but it's not as comfortable as US GDP-per-capita might suggest. The way out of stressful financial insecurity, at least for most Americans, is the (necessarily) selfish pursuit of individual advancement. Likely no one will fault a low-level employee competing for a promotion that would enable them to afford a more reliable car, however Machiavellian their approach, but those same tendencies will look very different when exhibited by someone with a 9-figure net worth.
I don't think today's "greedy assholes" are anything more than people responding to existing incentives. You want fewer greedy assholes? De-incentivize being a greedy asshole.
This is a typical problem with technical people, where they're used to perfect authoritarian control.
Some children are going to see a puppy get run over and at a very young age and it's going to affect them in ways we can't even fully understand. One child may grow up just fine, the other may find themselves doing bad things 10 years down the road because it started them on a path due to whatever lesson they learned from it.
The fact that paedophiles exist is the glaring counter-example. There is no culture on this earth that finds it ok to have sex with a 5 year old, yet these people exist DESPITE that.