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Comment by reaperman | Hacker News Reader

There are generally 4 major cyber powers that I consider when hearing about new advanced techniques / applications / threats: USA, Russia, Israel, China (in roughly that order). Israel is obviously complicated because historically a lot of their work has been in partnership with the USA, but that seems to be mildly less the case these days.

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> Israel is obviously complicated

They also have a large and profitable industry selling state of the art tools to authoritarian regimes/dictators to target democracy activists and journalists.

But would they sell to Russia/China which is in opposition to their biggest sponsor - the USA? The answer is obviously: if they can get away with it. Personally it seems more likely to be US but that's just a gut feeling.

So does every other industrialized country.

Source? I've not heard of an NSO Group equivalent in any other country.

How much attention do you pay to the space? (I'm asking sincerely.)

Perhaps not enough. I've certainly heard of shady companies, but I simply am not aware of a direct analogue to NSO Group. I am curious if you know of one!

I could be very wrong, but I feel Israel’s cybersecurity tech is more advanced than Russia (could be my western programming lol)

When you look at home media, every major development has been Russian.

Software for cracking Blu-rays? Russia was first.

Software for cracking 4K UHD Blu-rays? Russia was first.

Software for cracking Nintendo Switch games (DBI)? Russia was first.

The new flash-cart for the Switch, assuming it's legit? Russia.

The only hacker left who can crack Denuvo video games? Russian.

Necessity is the mother of all invention. This could just be related to socioeconomic factors.

A dysfunctional criminal justice system probably doesn't hurt either.

> A dysfunctional criminal justice system probably doesn't hurt either.

Actually, I would argue that a system that allows DRM cracking is far more functional than the one we have in the west.

You're comment history doesn't suggest that you're a Russian troll, so my interpretation is that you're making a pointed remark that you either don't really mean or perhaps haven't fully thought through. So without meaning any offense, let's pick this apart.

To be fair, I disagree with my country's cracking laws as well. We should do better here, the right to one's data is an important freedom. I support the fight for saner copyright laws.

But let's also be real: There's no universe where that injustice somehow outweighs the entirety of human rights violations that go on inside Russia. Persecution of minorities, decriminalization of domestic violence, torture in prisons. Just to name a few.

Western copyright laws aren't good. But there are worse fates in life than not being able to watch old blu-rays.

I was intentionally ignoring any other aspect of their criminal justice system in writing that comment. I absolutely condemn Russia for many reasons, including their human rights violations.

France and the UK are also world class. Anyone else?

Imo the siloing / rehacking smacks of multiple contractors being coordinated by a government agency.

The contractors don't want to share 0days, so the hack boundary handoffs between contractors seems apparent to me.

That would suggest US or Israeli sourcing, or maybe Saudis who are eager buyers of Israeli hacking products

The Dutch have a few high profile hacks I’ve read about. Including literally watching the Russians hack the DNC.[1]

[1] https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/worldviews/wp/2018/01/26...

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