US to increase funding for 'hackivists'; aiding Iranians | Hacker News Reader

US to increase funding for 'hackivists'; aiding Iranians

boston.com

13 pointsfuzzmeister7 comments

I wonder how long it will take before the US will learn that every dollar they have ever spent 'aiding' the 'good guys' behind the scenes has in the long term boomeranged back tenfold or more in damage done to the US or its allies.

- korea

- vietnam

- afghanistan

- iraq

Besides giving the Iranian hardliners another reason to claim rightfully that the US incites trouble within its borders I find it hard to see how money will empower the populace. What will change the tide in Iran is another revolution, and it should be manufactured by the Iranians to avoid a repeat of history.

Iran could only become the state it is today because of the foreign support for the Shah.

Jacques my man, "let's wait and let things happen" is political suicide. People demand that solutions be legislated by their governments without considering feasibility or cost or secondary effects. Yeah, there'll be a mess later, but there'll be different politicians that have to deal with it so all is good.

Right, but all intervention is not equal. The US in striving to stop the "reds" has helped some awful people and it's amazing there are no Chilean or Argentinian terrorist, god knows there are people from Latin America that could claim good cause.

And maybe this will fire back too, but at it's core it's decentralizing, anonymizing tech, used against government control. And I happen to think that's a good thing.

Don't mind being down voted, just curious:

1.Isolationists disagreeing with my "not all intervention is bad" position?

2. Against anything that might weaken government control?

3. Outraged by my suggestion that someone who's family was disappeared by Augusto Pinochet might turn their anger at the US?

Foreign policy is not HNs visitors strong suit. Corrected the downvote, but I'm sure it won't last :)

1) It's "Hacktivist," not "hackivist."

2) I appreciate the sentiment, but this is a bad idea on a few fronts. It's more proof that we (as in the US as a state) don't know how to engage, manipulate, or antagonize an opponent properly.

It's very tempting to just go ahead cowboy-style with technology, as it's politically pretty innocuous. No soldiers in harms way and no collateral or even property damage make for very few apologies. But, they're still playing with fire they don't understand (and in capitol hill's case, can't even see or hear).

Then again, outside of a full-on war, state actions seem to follow an "everybody do their own thing and only worry when we conflict between departments" pattern that's depressingly familiar.

My first instinct is: ``Physician, heal thyself.''

It's great that the Obama administration sees Freedom on line as important. They can begin by making sure there is no online censorship in the US...

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