[HN Gopher] Cyber Attack, Possible Serious Breach, at U.S. State...
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       Cyber Attack, Possible Serious Breach, at U.S. State Department
        
       Author : BrianOnHN
       Score  : 59 points
       Date   : 2021-08-21 20:29 UTC (2 hours ago)
        
 (HTM) web link (twitter.com)
 (TXT) w3m dump (twitter.com)
        
       | zepto wrote:
       | I would like to see this corroborated somewhere other than in
       | tweets from a fox news correspondent.
        
         | bsenftner wrote:
         | As long as it's only Faux News and just tweets... sure, ya,
         | sure... <eyes roll>
        
         | mark_l_watson wrote:
         | I would also. Still, I stand by my other comment in this thread
         | that much more resources need to be devoted to cybersecurity
         | and stem education - regardless if this particular story is
         | true or not.
        
         | pengaru wrote:
         | Well, there's this:
         | 
         | https://news.yahoo.com/u-state-department-recently-hit-20404...
         | 
         | > Without confirming any incident, a knowledgeable source told
         | Reuters the State Department has not experienced significant
         | disruptions and has not had its operations impeded in any way.
         | 
         | not worth much
        
           | elliekelly wrote:
           | This is an impressive non-answer. It provides a fair bit of
           | reassuring detail while saying absolutely nothing of value of
           | at all. Was there a cyber attack? Wasn't there? Either way
           | this answer looks good when mentioned in an article and is
           | (hopefully) truthful while admitting nothing.
        
         | [deleted]
        
       | mark_l_watson wrote:
       | I have seen the cost per day of being in Afghanistan as $300
       | million, each day, for 20 years.
       | 
       | While that greatly increased stock price for defense contractors,
       | there seems in retrospect to be little other value for that
       | money.
       | 
       | More of that tax money should have been devoted to cybersecurity,
       | stem education, and even physical infrastructure that would
       | safeguard water and food supply.
       | 
       | I am not naive, I understand that both political parties are
       | controlled by corporate/Wall Street interests. Still, you would
       | hope that our elected officials could perhaps accept fewer
       | kickbacks and function more in the interests of the American tax
       | payer and not serve those financial interests who pay to get them
       | elected and control them.
       | 
       | Really a sad situation. President Eisenhower was a good guy, and
       | he nailed it when he warned the American public about the
       | military industrial complex.
       | 
       | /rant
        
         | mlosgoodat wrote:
         | Meanwhile, the people of the country "by, of, and for the
         | people..." stroll into corpo HQ and login every day.
         | 
         | You don't HAVE to commit code to a git repo they control.
         | 
         | The socio-political reality isn't like 100 years ago.
         | 
         | As soon as Wall Street is seriously threatened by a worker
         | related revolt, laws change.
         | 
         | Keep the laptop shut and DON'T "job from home" (work is not the
         | same as a social job).
         | 
         | But come now, let's all coalesce around a VC incubators forum
         | instead.
         | 
         | If the US is truly a nation of free people, why do they keep
         | doing as they are told?
        
           | FpUser wrote:
           | >"If the US is truly a nation of free people, why do they
           | keep doing as they are told?"
           | 
           | It is not and it never was. It is relatively better than some
           | others. that is all about it. Not a single country can claim
           | what you just said.
        
         | l332mn wrote:
         | Over a 100 years ago this was part of Lenins analysis of
         | capitalism, and the closely connected aspect of imperialism,
         | both military and economic. This is not new, it has been a
         | central part of a Marxist (in particular Marxism Leninism)
         | understanding of the world in its economic expression long
         | before it became obvious to Eisenhower.
         | 
         | The value of that money is the continued global class
         | oppression by the international financial bourgeoisie, and the
         | US-lead western hegemony.
         | 
         | The Afghanistan stalemate served several purposes as I see it.
         | 
         | 1) To funnel money to the military industrial complex.
         | 
         | 2) To contain China's Belt and Road initiative.
         | 
         | 3) To maintain an active military presence in oil producing
         | regions in order to dominate and control trade and to ensure
         | supply (same for Iraq and Libya).
        
           | neartheplain wrote:
           | If only Brezhnev had listened. Or were you talking about the
           | American invasion?
        
             | l332mn wrote:
             | America's invasion. BRI wasn't a thing back then. Also, the
             | USSR was invited by the Afghanistan government to contain a
             | rebellion, it wasn't an aggressive (imperialist) invasion.
        
               | neartheplain wrote:
               | My comment was sarcastic. Your points about the
               | imperialist "Afghanistan stalemate" fit the Soviets
               | equally well with only minor modifications.
        
               | l332mn wrote:
               | How? The planned economic system of USSR means that
               | wartime production is a net economic loss serving no
               | financial purpose. In contrast with the capitalist
               | system, where war serves as a basis for the transfer of
               | capital to the war profiteers, i.e. the national
               | bourgeoisie. The comparison is invalid.
        
         | nicoffeine wrote:
         | Through 2050, the cost could be closer to 6.5 trillion in
         | interest alone for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. This is
         | the first set of wars that were not funded by raising the top
         | tax rate. Our grandchildren will be paying for for these
         | mistakes long after the architects of this catastrophe are
         | dead.
         | 
         | "Overall, the U.S.' net interest costs -- payments the federal
         | government sends to investors and public debt holders minus
         | interest it collects -- are rising. That includes the interest
         | on borrowing to fund the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. Net
         | interest is projected to widen to 2.7% of GDP in 2031, up from
         | 1.3% in 2024, according to a July report by the nonpartisan
         | Congressional Budget Office." [1]
         | 
         | As a point of reference, we spent 2.5% of GDP for a decade to
         | pay for the Apollo missions.
         | 
         | [1] https://www.cbsnews.com/news/afghanistan-iraq-wars-
         | debt-6-tr...
        
         | gruez wrote:
         | [deleted]
        
           | someperson wrote:
           | Your plot shows the MSCI Aerospace/Defence index did far
           | better than the S&P 500.
        
           | stefan_ wrote:
           | This doesn't seem to show what you think it does at all.
        
           | samvega_ wrote:
           | Does that account for the extraction of dividends?
        
         | s5300 wrote:
         | > cybersecurity, stem education, and even physical
         | infrastructure that would safeguard water and food supply.
         | 
         | ...But then there would be less people dumb enough to not raise
         | issue to the provoking of non-stop wars that funnel money into
         | the military industrial complex
         | 
         | They're not going to work against their own interest, you
         | surely know.
        
         | pessimizer wrote:
         | Imperial overstretch is what happens when suppliers to the
         | military become so powerful that they get to decide when to go
         | to and when to withdraw from war. Their motivation is to keep
         | fighting and to never actually win. Eventually it unwinds like
         | a ponzi scheme.
        
         | taurath wrote:
         | The list of things we could have achieved with that money is
         | what is the most distressing.
         | 
         | Make a countrywide high speed rail system.
         | 
         | Universal free preschool
         | 
         | Universal free college
         | 
         | Paid off half the mortgages in the US
         | 
         | The list goes on and on. Let nobody say we don't have money for
         | improvements to our society.
        
           | misiti3780 wrote:
           | Why would the US government pay off peoples mortgages? Surely
           | you don't think that is viable thing to spend public money
           | on?
           | 
           | To be clear, I think the other ideas are great, except that
           | one.
        
             | gruez wrote:
             | > Why would the US government pay off peoples mortgages?
             | Surely you don't think that is viable thing to spend public
             | money on?
             | 
             | Yeah that's a dumb idea. All that would do is cause houses
             | to be even more expensive.
        
             | taurath wrote:
             | I'm not saying it should by any means, only to appreciate
             | the sheer scale. There are of course way better ideas.
        
           | FpUser wrote:
           | >"Universal free college"
           | 
           | This would greatly increase the amount of critically thinking
           | population. I do not think it lines up well with what the
           | government and elites want.
        
           | beamatronic wrote:
           | Here's the good news though: This proves that money is
           | imaginary, and we should print up as much as we want, and do
           | these things (in your list).
        
             | taurath wrote:
             | Money is a social construct. We create money for investment
             | every day. Investing in the population creates returns in
             | tax revenue. You open opportunities for wealth creation by
             | putting down roads and train stations and modes of
             | commerce.
        
           | listenallyall wrote:
           | Why is the govt (i.e., taxpayers) paying off a mortgage good
           | for society? And if you later sell the house, do you keep the
           | money, or pay back what the govt paid? Who benefits from the
           | enormous appreciation (if the govt will be paying off the
           | mortgage, why not offer $5 million for a typical 3br?)?
        
             | glitchcrab wrote:
             | I don't think they meant that the government should
             | actually do this, it was just to indicate the scale.
        
         | nickff wrote:
         | I think it's a bit naive to expect that a government which
         | wasted a huge sum of money would have achieved great things
         | with that money if not but for that one event. A more realistic
         | assessment would be that they'd just waste it a different way.
        
           | beamatronic wrote:
           | Let's waste it in a way that educates people, feeds them, and
           | provides for their basic health care needs.
        
       | hoppyhoppy2 wrote:
       | https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1429173367643516936.html
        
       | HenryKissinger wrote:
       | After the fallout of the SolarWinds hack, and the situation in
       | Afghanistan, I'm afraid I don't want to know the answer to the
       | question of what the climate is like inside the State Department
       | at the moment.
        
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       (page generated 2021-08-21 23:00 UTC)