
U.S. sweeping up Russian hackers in a broad global dragnet - mzs
http://www.mcclatchydc.com/news/nation-world/national/national-security/article141997444.html
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itchyjunk
I see two major possibility.

a] Russians hackers are the biggest problem on the internet causing billions
of dollars in loss and are possibly being guided by the Russian state.

b] A narrative is being passed to justify all the negative publicity certain
agencies have been getting. (We keep internet safe)

Of course, the story might be something else and the author of the article
wanted to make it seem that way. But I think the choke hold on the internet
has been getting tighter.

Maybe the power struggle that always existed is now shifting to the virtual
world and I'm witnessing that.

Edit: Is HN fimiliar with phrack zine? Noticed today that it went bye bye as
well. [0] phrack.org

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trendia
What amazes me is the focus on _Russian_ hackers when the much bigger threat
is Chinese ones. They have a larger budget, a bigger incentive to steal
American IP, and sense a huge threat from Trump that would justify spying to
get a leg up in negotiations.

So why the focus on Russia?

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JabrZer0
It was recently put to me like this (I'm not sure I agree with the analysis
completely, but I think there's some truth to it, at least in the perceptions
of the two countries):

While the Chinese are certainly sometimes nefarious in their online
activities, their goal, as you mentioned, seems to usually be gaining IP. The
perception is that Russian hacking is usually more (a) directed at stealing
directly from the populace (credit card phishing, etc), or (b) directed
towards political ends (see recent American politics for examples). These
effects are both more visible to the general public and politically damaging.
Thus they receive more focus on the political stage.

To me, (b) seems like the real differentiating factor.

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oxide
The Cold War didn't end after the fall of the wall, IMHO.

We've been fighting a repeat of the 80's proxy war in Afghanistan for nearly
15 years. Roles reversed, though. Russia arms the Taliban, just like we did in
the 80's with the Mujahadeen.

Syria, another blatant proxy war, is probably a better example. We're arming
rebels and providing support to fight Russian (and therefore communist)
interests. Sounds just like the Cold War to me.

With the recent Russian propoganda campaign (see: "fake news") going over so
well that they took to celebrations in the streets, expect a lot more funny
business in elections in the West.

France's election seems to be the next plaything for Russia to influence, it's
setting a precedent that will restore Russia to superpower status if allowed
to continue unchecked.

The power of the internet works both ways. Information, and therefore
misinformation, is spread more quickly than ever. Propoganda has never been
easier to dress up and present as fact. Nor have people been so willing to eat
it by the spoonful, as long as it validates their own opinions and/or biases.

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dragonwriter
> The Cold War didn't end after the fall of the wall, IMHO.

It didn't with the fall of the Beeline wall, but did with the fall of the
USSR. Unfortunately, by the late 1990s (particularly, this was noted during
the Serbia/Kosovo conflict and subsequent peacekeeping operation) a _new_ Cold
War had clearly started between NATO and Russia.

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yorwba
I looked at one of the guilty pleas linked in the article
([https://media.scmagazine.com/documents/290/vartanyan_guilty_...](https://media.scmagazine.com/documents/290/vartanyan_guilty_plea_72377.pdf)),
hoping that it might contain more details concerning how he was caught.

Unfortunately, that information is not included. However, the plea has a
section about "removal from the united states" (on page 4). I found this
highly amusing, considering they went to great lengths to get him to the US in
the first place.

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oneobservation
What about a discussion of _how_ they were caught?

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Implicated
Or why they're just now being 'swept up' as opposed to prior.

