Hacker News Reader

Comment by derbOac | Hacker News Reader

I personally think it says volumes about how those in the Trump-Musk group (Musk group?) see this. They see the task as infiltrating an adversary, requiring someone with the technical skills to do so but who is also disposable. This in their mind is not about improving anything in the government for citizens, or with regard to US interests, it's about gaining access to a hostile entity without regard to their interests or the long-term interests of the persons actually doing the activity. It doesn't matter if they compromise US security, because the US is a hostile adversary, and they don't want to deal with people who might hesitate because of families or a reputation to uphold. If this person gets in trouble for security breaches or racism or whatever, they just fire them and replace them with another 19 year old with nothing left to lose and/or plenty of time left to go another path later.

View on HN

That’s generally true of political operatives.

The problem here is having such activities in his past makes him an exploitable by criminal organizations or foreign adversaries who would seek the sensitive information he now has access to.

Second point is fair.

First point is not even true of the Watergate burglars. What makes crime indistinguishable from politics here is the recent ruling on presidential immunity.

I’ve lost track of the argument here.

I was actually thinking of Hunt and Liddy, who did nothing of worth after their infamy. I don’t think the actual burglars did either?

Or indeed that they are a hostile adversary to the US who have achieved some successes adversarial to the US.

I feel like from the perspective of the US, if we frame this conflict/battle for control of US services and computer systems, we needn't say 'the US is a hostile adversary'. It's fair to frame it as 'the US is the US, and the people seizing control of the systems against the interests of the US are hostile adversaries of the US'.

The specifics of who they're working for, how, why etc. can still be up for speculation or further discovery, but we needn't frame it as 'perhaps the US is actually the enemy and Musk's people are actually the liberators'.

> They see the task as infiltrating an adversary, requiring someone with the technical skills to do so but who is also disposable.

People who have had access to that kind of data, and who have those kinds of skills, you'd better be careful about how you dispose of them. (Consider the term "blowback".)

come on, your average 1337 h4x0r does not have a criminal syndicate ready to exact revenge for their fallen comrade

Seems more likely that this can be completely subdued when the outcome of swatting is not a nuisance, but a conveniently extra-judicial raid by armed militia.

> I personally think it says volumes about how those in the Trump-Musk group (Musk group?) see this.

It's more the Musk, Thiel, Vance Group. Trump is simply a tool.

He wields the sharpie. He's basically a notary public.

> I personally think it says volumes about how those in the Trump-Musk group (Musk group?) see this. They see the task as infiltrating an adversary..

This is what actual schizophrenia looks like.

Seriously yes. Having lived with someone who is schizoaffective, I recognize what is happening to America as an acute manic episode with psychosis and hallucinations.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com