

Are bombs an acceptable response to hacker attacks? - jfruh
http://www.itworld.com/security/169737/pentagon-finds-another-way-chase-its-tail-threatening-bombs-response-cyberattacks

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nextparadigms
The first thing that comes to my mind is "Wow. Even the question itself sounds
dumb/absurd. The action itself would be even worse. A lot worse"

I think USA is just finding more excuses to start more wars to keep the
Defense contractors well-fed. You have to ask yourself, what happens if the
military/weapon contractors get some fat contracts for a few years because of
a war or two, and then (almost) suddenly the wars stop. What happens to those
companies? Clearly they are going to take a hit in revenues, because they are
not going to make as much money in peace time as they are in war time, and
selling weapons in war time is a lot harder.

I think this creates a perverse incentive for those companies and it gets them
to lobby the Government or scare it with "doomsday cyberwars" and such. We can
see how easily it can happen with Big Content lobbying the Government, so why
not with these companies, too? Their motivation would be to keep increasing
revenue and "shareholder value", and a lack of wars would dramatically reduce
that.

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pavel_lishin
Is it absurd to arrest domestic hackers who commit actual harmful crimes -
e.g., stealing ten thousand credit card numbers and going on a shopping spree,
or selling them off to other criminals - by sending armed policemen to their
house?

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nextparadigms
What? How does arresting someone even come close to bombing a city? Would that
make you feel more like a "patriot"?

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chrisbennet
That web site had the pop-up blocker in my browser clucking away (mine makes a
"cluck" moise for every pop up it blocks).

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Helianthus
Bit of a loaded question, isn't it?

Consider that "hacker attacks" nominally includes fucking up power plants and
other infrastructure (targeting civilian hospitals)--a country-sponsored
malicious cyber assault.

Obviously that would be considered an act of war, because it probably _would_
be an act of war.

