
Cyberattack in Germany Shuts Down Official Sites - dnetesn
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/01/08/world/europe/german-government-websites-shut-down-and-ukraine-group-claims-responsibility.html?ref=technology
======
jevgeni
Oh, great, it's those jokers from the Russian Reich again.

<sarcasm> Because nothing says "valid political concerns", like a cyber attack
on a foreign government. </sarcasm>

~~~
drzaiusapelord
I don't see how pissing off your trading partners is helping the Putin regime
and its apologists. This is what got them in this mess to begin with. I
suspect we're dealing with a regime that refuses to learn the lessons of
history and thus more sanctions and isolation are justified.

~~~
higherpurpose
One of the worst things about dictatorships is that the leaders start making
very irrational decisions, just because you "embarrass" them or so they "don't
look weak" or whatever. They take it _personal_.

In a (real) democracy that's usually much harder to do, since there are many
more decision makers who have to act on something, and even if there are a few
emotional ones, the rest can keep cool heads and restrict them and make
decisions for the long term future of the country.

~~~
hga
There's nothing in the least irrational about their decisions of this nature.
They're trying to avoid, for example, a preference cascade that could take
them from being at the top of the world to in front of a firing squad in as
little as 4 days:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ceau%C8%99escu%27s_final_speec...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ceau%C8%99escu%27s_final_speech)

Whatever makes you think most of them give a sh*t about "the long term future
of the country"?

Hitler, strangely enough, actually did ... just very very poorly.... That's
actually something he had in common with what I might call some of the "first
generation revolutionary dictators", like Lenin (New Economic Policy) and Mao
(where country != the people, who he believed to be very expendable in part
because there were so many). But the 2nd generation, such as Stalin, or those
who didn't actually do the revolution thing, like Ceaușescu ... I can't think
of any examples off the top of my head.

------
iamcharlie
I see this on the front page of HN, and nothing about the terrorist attacks in
France (which happened more than 24 f* hours ago), and I am sad.

Granted, these events have nothing to do with tech, but I'm amazed that nobody
here is willing to show their support for freedom of speech and democracy.

I am sad that absolutely no one upvoted this:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8856502](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8856502)

~~~
mtmail
Current news, anything CNN reports 24/7, generally get flagged by users (like
me) because it's off-topic.

~~~
hncritique
I'm honestly slightly annoyed by that pseudo-intellectual, opaque use of the
super-downvote "flagging". HN regularily votes boring CSS hacks and fleeting
technology topics to the top and hastily flags submissions about feminism,
politics and AI, instead of trying to turn them into interesting discussions.
There is also a strange aversion against any kind of humor, which does not
really suit what hackers stand for either. The reason for this is, of course,
to prevent trolling, flame wars and memes, but it seems HN is often overly
strict in that regard.

~~~
ihsw
Have you been paying any attention to HN for the past three years? Plenty of
articles about feminism, politics, and AI make it to the top on a fairly
irregular basis, but they still make it to the top.

And who are you to make a point about "what hackers stand for"?

~~~
hncritique
Yes, I have been here for some years, I know plenty of hackers and many of
them are pretty humorous too. I think the HN site guidelines capture the
things hackers are interested in quite well: "anything that gratifies one's
intellectual curiosity". Though there should probably be an appendix to match
the current state of HN: "… but is not controversial". However, I think
especially the controversial things are intellectually curious, for example
when Musk and Hawking warn against AI and when three female CS students try to
raise awareness for gender issues.

I think HN is trapped: On the one hand flagging is necessary to mitigate the
constant influx of people who write poor comments which might scare people
away, on the other hand it often chokes off interesting topics. What's left is
a lot of boring and fleeting stuff, which eventually scares people away too.
Fixing this situation is difficult, but maybe it would be a good start to stop
downvoting contrary opinions, digressing and humorous comments, and to stop
hastily judge other people. What's wrong for example with someone who is
concerned that there is not enough awareness for free speech and democracy on
HN? If that is his or her perception, why does it deserve a downvote?

~~~
mkal_tsr
I've never seen a compiler throw a compilation error due to a user's genitalia
nor self-identification. Can you link me to which compilers are doing that?

