Everyone seems to be missing an important point here, especially for HN users. Hackers and anyone supporting them are now live bomb targets. Hackers are no longer punished by just putting them in jail. Death is a punishment option too.
In the past, they were collateral damage now they are a direct target.
If you treat it as a war, was it really any different? SIGINT is generally considered legitimate military targets. So if you're explicitly hacking on behalf of one of the parties in the conflict, and especially if you're hacking military targets, why shouldn't you be considered a combatant?
It's interesting that the tweet in this article makes this point:
> this is the equivalent of saying blowing up drone pilots at Ellis AF Base is okay too.
For a party currently engaged in military conflict with US - say, Taliban - why would it not be, in terms of international rules and customs of war? Drone pilots are definitely combatants - you don't get to lob Hellfires at targets remotely, but then complain when they find you in person and shoot back. Does anybody seriously thinks otherwise?
>If you treat it as a war, was it really any different?
It's a huge difference. It's a game changer. The rule has been to respond in kind. In the past cyber attacks were responded with cyber attacks. Now a bomb will be dropped on the attackers. Hackers haven't gone into war thinking they are direct targets. That's changed now. Of course, that means that the targets will get better defenses but don't expect to be a supporting player and be treated as such.
At some level, it's a recognition of how much of modern society is managed in cyberspace and how much damage can be done with a cyber attack.
I don't think there was ever an "in kind" rule that is that narrow. I remember back in 1999 during the Kosovo war, NATO bombed the Yugoslavian Ministry of Defense, for example - and it was generally considered a legitimate target, even though the people inside weren't directly shooting at anybody.
I think the broader context is important here. A cyber attack by itself does not justify this sort of response. But a cyber attack that is intended to bolster one side in a military conflict, carried out by people explicitly aligned with that side, is a part of the broader war effort. Responding to that with deadly force is still responding "in kind".
It's my understanding that a hacking incident that principally contributes to injury/death can justify a kinetic response.
Hacking incidents with kinetic effects are only rare outliers today, but that could change tomorrow.
Kinetic deterrence & reprisal for hacking incidents is a legitimate option, but ripe for significant abuse if allowed without clear attribution of hack and/or link to related kinetic effects.
Much like how terrorism is(or should be) mostly a law enforcement function.
Hacking should be as well.
But planning for exceptions is also important.
Especially planning to ensure exceptions don't become the norm.
> They claimed it housed Hamas cyber operatives, which had been engaging in a cyberattack against Israel's "cyberspace."
> "We were ahead of them all the time," said Brigadier General D., the head of the IDF's cyber defense division. "The moment they tried to do something, they failed."
> Israeli officials did not disclose any details about the Hamas cyberattack; however, they said they first stopped the attack online, and only then responded with an air strike.
No details, at all, except that they had already stopped the attack, and from things like "ahead of them all the time", it doesn't exactly sound like they didn't know any other way to prevent injury or death other than to level the building.
> But planning for exceptions is also important.
Just because they killed people doesn't mean that it was an exceptional case that required it, so I would start there.
But quite happy to criticise them when and where warranted on specific issues/incidents.
In this case, it certainly sounds like a very serious and incongruent disconnect between the public affairs officer for Cyber and the actual kinetic response.
The Israelis have always been pretty quick to kill or capture not only leadership, but technical talent.
In this case, if I had to guess, there was a rare opportunity to hit apex and/or volume technical talent the IDF justified by the rocket attacks and/or it’s signalling that moving forward insurgent cyber will be considered a valid target for kinetic action.
It’s also worth mentioning that the people targeted may not be hackers, but social media camapigners/influencers.
> But quite happy to criticise them when and where warranted on specific issues/incidents.
It rather seemed you came up with a rationalization for the deed just because it was done. Presented with facts, you don't skip a beat either.
> In this case, if I had to guess
That's the thing, you don't have to. So why do you? And what's with the weasel words like "kinetic action"? If someone mistook someone you loved for a threat and killed them, and someone else just said "oh yeah, they've always been quick to capture or kill people", and "this may be signalling that going forward people mistaken for threat are considered a valid target for physical removal", would you like that?
> Every powerful state relies on specialists whose task is to show that what the strong do is noble and just and, if the weak suffer, it is their fault. In the West, these specialists are called "intellectuals" and, with marginal exceptions, they fulfill their task with skill and self-righteousness, however outlandish the claims, in this practice that traces back to the origins of recorded history.
-- Noam Chomsky
When I said "start there", I meant start with the deed. Start with the principles, and if you would like them to be applied to you and people you love. There are things we cannot bless. We can support them, but that just degrades us, it doesn't enoble these things one bit.
> People who call themselves supporters of Israel are actually supporters of its moral degeneration and ultimate destruction.
-- Noam Chomsky
I rather consider Yeshayahu Leibowitz "pro Israel" -- in a sense of supporting the heart, body and soul, not just the body come what may -- just like I would have considered Sophie School "pro Germany", not "anti Germany". Principles, and applying them equally, and not having double standards, those are real, being pro this or that is just rhetoric.
I don’t have skin in this particular “game” so I’m emotionally detached.
Feel free to change kinetic action to violence, death, or murder.
I’ve seen and experienced enough conflict up close and personal so I hope you don’t think my remarks are flippant.
It’s not my fight.
I’m simply describing what should be obvious extensions of violence by one group of humans directed at another, based on their behaviour in a new domain(digital).
Leveraging a new domain(digital) as a weapon(cyber/information operations) can expect to have weapons from across other domains(air land sea space) used to detect, deter, destroy them.
My posting doesn’t equate to agreeing with all of it.
But based on consistent human behaviour of one tribe towards another, isn’t shock in seeing it more than a bit naive?
Fair enough, sorry for reading it as flippant, which I kinda did.
> But based on consistent human behaviour of one tribe towards another, isn’t shock in seeing it more than a bit naive?
I'm not expressing shock. I'm expressing anger and the refusal to normalize this.
It's not like Hamas and IDF enjoy the exact equal respect in (the polite companty of) the Western world. I can mention Leibowitz, and nobody in their right mind would attempt to smear the man; but quoting him would be different, and saying it in my own words ouldn't go over smoothly at all. Netanyahu goes around talking about how the Palestinian Mufti gave Hitler the idea to kill Jews instead of just re-settle them, a German protester holds up a sign just quoting Netanyahu, and gets arrested. It's been an unadulterated shitshow for a long, long time, and it seems that as a German citizen, I can't claim neutrality, the actions and flowery words of my government make that impossible. That goes tenfold for US citizens. That ship has sailed in my books. So the least I can and must do do is say "not in my name".
Also, Israel isn't a monolith, Palestine isn't a monolith. Individual actions and reasons for them are on a wide spectrum, and are culpable for what they do. There's warmongers on all sorts of "sides", and they use each other to justify each other. It's not human behaviour, it's corporate behaviour for lack of a better word. People do and justify things in groups they cannot justify as individuals. For me the dividing line is not between various tribes or nations, but human individuals on one hand, and any and all "tribes" (that rise to the rank of nationalistic, jingoist delusion and express themselves in murder) on the other. Maybe that stuff was good for something 50k years ago, but we kind of have to decide if we want our technology, or that. Insisting to keep both together might just mean we won't have either.
It's worth noting that a number of Iranian's involved with Iran's nuclear program were the victims of targeted assassination in Iran.
Israel has also aggressively targeted engineers back in the 80's/90's reportedly involved in asymmetric weapon design/engineering(prior to advent of easier cross border info sharing).
Perhaps hacking tool developers would also be similarly targeted, or already have been?
the argument is that they were/are terrorists. which is partly true, hamas and islamic jihadis control gaza, want the destruction of the state of israel and are classified as terrorist orgs.
In a case like this when you can’t go in and arrest someone who is attacking your country and lives are at stake, there’s not a lot of options besides dropping a bomb on them.
From the article: - "The attack on this building was part of other offensive operations that took place after Hamas was alleged to have fired rockets into Israel over the weekend."
"Alleged", right, there were aliens firing rockets on Israel. There is nobody else to fire the rockets. Only Hamas has them. And placement of the "offensive" as a response on firing rockets at the Israel's civilians. Looks like this is very offensive to protect your civilians!
The rule across all media is to always precede reports of Israeli killing of Palestinians in Gaza with a number of rockets, even if 24 hours before said rockets Israel has snipered unarmed protestors attempting to practise their Right of Return as guaranteed by UN Resolution 194. Anyone who has an iota of knowledge about what's going on there knows that continuous building of settlements by Israel and the daily harassment the Palestinians have to endure is the root of the problem.[0]
I truly wonder if there's anyone who isn't completely ignorant on the issue, who still buys the zionist talking points.
israel withdrew from gaza in 2005, but kept control of access points, air travel etc making gaza a weird place, partly under israel control.
hamas (basically a terrorist org) literally took over gaza from fatah (a nationalist party) in a war in 2007. then you’ve got the islamic jihadis, a bonafide terror org, which started taking over from hamas, in the same gaza strip.
both hamas and islamic jihadis want the annihilation of the state of israel.
i see no end in sight to the bloodshed, no matter how many civilians die.
but i do understand why people would side with israel when it comes to gaza, and side with the palestinians when it comes to occupied territories.
"this is such a long and convoluted conflict"
- Not really, this is just a simple case of settler colonialism, anyone who claims that this is a "complex" conflict is either ignorant or deliberately trying to confuse people.
Recommended reading from Theodor Herzl (founding father of zionism) to Noam Chomsky (secular jewish intellectual) for those who are truly interested in the facts:
Usually people who see things as "simple" when most consider them complex are either extremely smart or extremely shallow. Providing Ilan Pappe as a serious source tells where you are in that range.
You just throw in anti-Israel propaganda regardless to what I've just said. Any comment will do. And this is going beyond accusing the state. You say "zionist talking points", - this is a pure anti-Semitism.
Where exactly are your arguments tho? Accusing people of being anti-semitic neither makes them anti-semitic nor does it make you automatically right on the issue. The burden of proof is upon the accuser, you. The anti-semitism card really lost its power because you cried wolf falsely too many times, as illustrated here.
Using "zionist" as a derogatory term makes you a racist in a first place. And, because it shows your hatred towards jewish people, it make you anti-Semitic.
That's complete nonsense. Not that I used "zionist as a derogatory term" to being with, but even if I did, that wouldn't make me a racist, because zionism is a nationalistic ideology, you like to conflate with judaism in order to be able to silence any criticism of unjust actions by falsely accusing people of being anti-semitic. There are probably even more evangelical christian zionists than one might expect, does that make me christianophobic as well, or is the victimhood only reserved for people from your group? Either way, I love the jewish people, but I oppose injustice, your 'arguments' are really childish.
Opposing a state does not equate to having "hatred" of Jewish people.
To no surprise, Israel with its history and conception will warrant criticism and even disgust from anyone.
The same goes for any other state that acts similarly. My feeling are not exclusive to Israel, stealing land (to the degree of perfection) and oppressing minorities daily is pretty telling of Israels precieved superiority over others.
The Israel-Palestine conflict runs by its own rules, or rather lack thereof. With the exception of nuclear holocaust, if there is a line or threshold to cross, you can bet someone involved in that problem has already crossed it. It’s like humanity felt obliged to have a reference implementation of all the worst behaviour it might engage in, conveniently located at the intersection of three continents.
The replies are somewhat ignorant of the nature of the Hamas-Israel conflict. It assumes that the building was populated during the bombing, which is usually not the case when blowing up buildings in a civilian area. Too high risk of hitting bystanders.
It's pathetic watching people from the safety of their own homes commenting on how Israel should be waging war. Israelis are being killed and if Hamas had their way they would go over the border and massacre all Israelis in sight.
No other democracy is currently fighting a war against a neighbor that's shooting missiles at them and located only a few km from 80% of their population.
Israel's use of kid gloves against the Palestinians just emboldens them and encourages more cycles of violence.
Poor Israel, can't even dehumanise, colonise a people, drive them out of their homes and kill them without being criticised. You are dishing out the same old washed out propaganda and people know it's utter bullshit. Israel is the coloniser and the oppressor no matter how hard you push your propaganda, people can see the evidence from too many sources now, even secular jewish ones.
"The Lobby" - Documentary exposing the vile and venomous smearing tactics of the Israeli lobby (undercover reporter is jewish) [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ceCOhdgRBoc]
We left Gaza. There are no Israelis left in Gaza. It's not occupied.
Now that we can see what happens when we give the Palestinians territory, we won't be doing that again.
Am I the only one to see echoes of Cold War stories, with spies and spymasters respecting each other and The Game more than they do their own military personnel...? It’s like Smiley had been told Karla’s office was purposefully bombed.
If humans ever managed to eventually move most or all conflicts to cyber methods, would that make us more civilized? Are we turning war into a game of bits, or are we tainting the networked Utopia with our never-extinguished bestial instincts?
The cold war was not honorable. You let non-US/soviets do the actual fighting. In almost every other conflict on the world, the US and Soviets were picking sides and supporting militants. Millions were killed. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_proxy_wars#Cold_War_pr...
"You" who? I'm Italian, and from a city (Bologna) who suffered hundreds of casualties as a result of being on the actual front line of the Cold War.
Of course all wars are dirty, in one way or the other; but there is a spectrum, and there was certainly an element of honour code in a lot of the spying activities going on in Europe at the time - particularly in places like Germany and England.
The official IDF Twitter account @IDF posted something rather distasteful about the attack:
“CLEARED FOR RELEASE: We thwarted an attempted Hamas cyber offensive against Israeli targets. Following our successful cyber defensive operation, we targeted a building where the Hamas cyber operatives work.
HamasCyberHQ.exe has been removed.”
Counterproductive and narrative losing if you ask me.
I completely agree with your point, but OP has also a valid point. The brutality of the situation on the terrain (for the last one hundred year) makes people living there be extremely blunt and down-to-earth. And so saying like "target eliminated, good riddance" when the target in question has tried to kill you numerous times feels completely natural.
However, IDF (and israel public relation in general) is also trying to win the public opinion's hearth. And then it's a completely different audience. Most people in the west haven't experienced violence in any kind of direct way. They generally despise violence and killing above everything (which is a good thing). So whenever Israel (or israelis) speaks publicaly, they should never forget that people on the receiving end aren't as hardened and "pragmatic" as they are.
Note that this is becoming less and less true as the west is also becoming a target or radical islam terrorists. But the order of magnitude remains completely different.
I see your point. On the other hand Jews are sick of having to be constantly judged by others, others who are no better than them, and usually ones that are extremely ignorant. For centuries Jews have tried to keep quiet, keep their happiness/sadness to themselves, stay out of the way of the gentiles. That didn't work. The Israeli Jew is a different Jew, who is proud and will fight when necessary. That's just how it is now and the new Jew won't be constantly succumbing to the desires of ignorant antisemites.
I know that's how many israeli feel, however you should note that everybody's judging everybody those days, not just Israel (although Israel most certainly has a special treatment at the UN, but that's another story).
International relationships now has become a game of trying to look as peaceful as possible, even when you're waging war in some remote locations, or strong-arming entire regions. That fact that Israel choose to say "f*ck off, we know we're doing this for a good reason", and be blunt, is absolutely entirely against the general etiquette. I really think Israel should be more careful with that.
I'd agree with you if the "everybody's judging everybody" would be an accurate way of putting it. There's a lot more judging done of Israel than of other countries. If the judging would be comparable between cases, then yes, but regardless of what Israel does it will be judged poorly. So the hell with them in that Hamas office that is no more.
Make no mistake, I ave zero sympathy for Hamas. Absolutely zero.
But the dark humour of the IDF’s tweet that I understand as a soldier, I find distasteful as a citizen as well as counterproductive in terms of influencing the unaligned bearing witness to it.
In the past, they were collateral damage now they are a direct target.