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Comment by jmyeet | Hacker News Reader

This is an interesting issue: what constitutes a valid military target?

Traditionally that meant armed forces, their bases, their supplies and so on. But the line has gotten awful blurry. Tech companies have become entwined with the state and are fundamnetal parts of both domestic and foreign policy. Targeting of military strikes is an obvious example [1][2].

I believe that in the very least these companies have risen to the level of defense contractors so Palantir is at least as valid of a target as Lockheed Martin, Northrop Grumman or Boeing. Is that sufficiently valid? I don't know.

But I don't think you can plead ignorance about what your tech platform is being used for, particularly if you're Palantir. You are helping a military force kill people and are deciding which people. You can't wash your hands of that.

[1]: https://www.972mag.com/lavender-ai-israeli-army-gaza/

[2]: https://www.business-humanrights.org/es/%C3%BAltimas-noticia...

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> Traditionally that meant armed forces, their bases, their supplies and so on.

That definition actually isn't traditional, it's recent and was created due to what was seen in both the World Wars last century. Fire bombing Dresden? Not a legitimate military target by modern definitions (parts of Dresden perhaps, but not the way the attack was conducted). The rockets fired at the UK by the Germans almost blindly? Not legitimate by today's standard.

Prior to the Geneva Convention, there was much less debate about legitimacy, it was just done.

Is a cyberattack a military action?

Like if you take over a control system to open a dam, sure i'd buy that as counting. But say ddos'ing a website? Its hard for me to picture that as counting as an armed attack.

> Traditionally that meant armed forces, their bases, their supplies and so on. But the line has gotten awful blurry. Tech companies have become entwined with the state and are fundamnetal parts of both domestic and foreign policy. Targeting of military strikes is an obvious example

The idea of having private companies form part of your defense industrial base isn't new. I would assume the same rules apply to tech companies contributing as a factory making dual use products for the war effort would.

It depends on the target of the cyberattack. Depending on who, what and when it'll be somewhere between a criminal action, a terrorist attack and a military action.

If you take down a power grid, that's pretty much a terrorist attack. The victims are likely heavily weighted to be civilians. Same for opening a dam to flood downstream.

But take the military radar installations the Iranians have bombed on military bases around the region since the US and Israel started this war. What if the Iranians had cyberattacked those same installations? I'd call that a military action. I'd even consider it less of an escalation than, say, blowing up a consulate in Damascus.

I'd point out that "terrorist attack" isn't really well defined here from an international law perspective afaik.

I guess what you are trying to say is it would be a war crime?

> This is an interesting issue: what constitutes a valid military target?

Any form of supply chain was considered a valid military target, e.g., refineries, factories, assembly lines, etc. If an army relies on tech from, say a cloud provider via gov cloud, then it can be argued that disrupting cloud operations and thus hindering army's coordination, information collection, etc., is a valid target.

So, I am not sure there is anything new here.

> This is an interesting issue: what constitutes a valid military target?

I can tell you what's not and then why it's important to know what's not...

The islamist ruling Iran are already using cluster bombs and these are banned in 120 countries because they indiscriminately target civilians: cluster bombs killing civilians aren't aiming at "valid military targets".

Note that the same islamist regime also sent its guards into hospitals to finish the wounded. They killed 30 000+ of their own civilians a few weeks ago. Killing 30 000+ unarmed civilians is not a valid military target.

And the regime in Iran applauded loudly, like in nearly every country ruled by sharia law, when 1200 young people were having fun at a music festival on Oct 7th and considered it an "act of resistance". Killing 1200 young people dancing and enjoying life ain't a "valid military target".

We've now established that the Islamic Republic of Iran won't hesitate to target civilians and shall celebrate the "resistance" when thousands of civilians (including but not limited to their own) are killed.

So, no matter whether the targets are valid or not, nothing they say about the validity of the targets they pick should be taken into account: they're murderers slaughtering and celebrating the slaughter of civilians.

Targeting industrial and economic assets (factories, ports, telecommunications infrastructure, etc.) has always been legitimate. If tech makes an effective contribution to military action, which includes much more innocuous stuff than major defense contracts, it's a valid target.

> This is an interesting issue: what constitutes a valid military target?

Everything that hurts the only thing the orange retard cares about, the stock market, they've been pretty clear about it I think

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