[HN Gopher] Former WSJ reporter says law firm used Indian hacker...
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Former WSJ reporter says law firm used Indian hackers to sabotage
his career
Author : re_re
Score : 125 points
Date : 2022-10-15 18:23 UTC (4 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.reuters.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.reuters.com)
| mrfumier wrote:
| If this "journalist" consider emails to be a safe way to
| communicate, then he deserves to be fired.
| swayvil wrote:
| This is an angle of the uneven distribution of wealth that you
| seldom hear about. As long as there are rich and poor people, a
| rich person can hire a poor person to do basically anything.
|
| Overriding legality, decency, safety. Because the poor person
| just needs the money that bad.
|
| So you get people renting out their backyard as a toxic waste
| dump. Or murdering people. Or breathing smog. Or selling
| children. Crazy horrible stuff that no sane person would do.
| Because they need the money.
|
| And the rich guy is untouched.
|
| So, to a significant degree, as long as there is rich and poor,
| there is no law or morality. It reduces society to a dog-pit.
| seibelj wrote:
| An underappreciated negative aspect of equality is total lack
| of enthusiasm and incentive.
|
| As inequality is a guarantee - no two people are alike in any
| aspect and neither are their abilities as an employee -
| mandating (either by gun or union contract) lockstep equality
| in payments and job security, the highest performers are
| demoralized and put in the bare minimum or quit (if they can).
| The result is the ever-increasing shitty quality of the firm
| and its behavior. For modern examples see the NHS (bleeding
| doctors and nurses to the private sector) and American public
| schools in inner cities (highest global costs per student yet
| abysmal results).
|
| There are valid criticisms about inequality but the pros far
| out way the cons.
| dmix wrote:
| I find that most people arguing for top-down redistribution
| don't seem to care about if it makes everyone poorer as long
| as "equality for everyone" is the modus operandi. They see it
| as a moral imperative, the measurable outcomes and realities
| of the economic systems always get second rate treatment.
|
| It's always much, much easier to argue for 'fairness' and to
| rail against the rich... than it is to be realistic and
| accept that there will be very visible downsides but that
| alternatives are much worse in practice.
|
| Ditto with free speech, censorship is almost always a greater
| evil, with small exceptions, but when you try to defend it
| they try to pretend you only care about nazis/far-right.
| Sometimes doing the right thing is not easy and yes - it
| requires plenty of effort to weed out the assholes and wrong-
| doers (which the courts are doing now by punishing the law
| firms), but it's worth it in the end.
|
| And you don't have to tolerate the bad guys just because you
| didn't compromise societies freedoms and wealth to prevent
| them from existing in the first place. There's more ways to
| stop it than throwing the baby out with the bathwater.
| [deleted]
| another_story wrote:
| This is mostly a strawman, since I don't see almost anyone
| arguing for complete equality of pay, status or position,
| merely that a handful of people shouldn't be able to
| accumulate the wealth of small nations on the back of others.
|
| In countries in Europe, and places in Asia, there are plenty
| of examples where there is less inequality and the students
| perform better.
| ok_dad wrote:
| Sounds to me like we should eliminate the idea that high
| performance and achievement should be rewarded with wealth or
| being raised above others. Perhaps it would be better if
| people learned from a young age that achievement is its own
| reward? Are we such animals that we need special treats in
| order to do the right thing? I think it's a childish attitude
| that if you don't get more cookies than someone else that
| you'll throw down your work and have a tantrum.
| lupire wrote:
| You are overlooking the "extreme" part of "extreme
| inequality"
|
| Bezos and Musk would work just as hard if they only had 10%
| of the financial equity share in their companies that they
| have today.
| redanddead wrote:
| Yeah and the problem is getting worse. sometimes it seems that
| even institutions are trying to maximize human pain.
|
| I thought of writing an economics book about this phenomenon.
|
| I have no idea how we can fix this problem and hope someone
| else can chime in
| permo-w wrote:
| the solutions are there, we implemented them in the post-war
| era, and they worked, massively reducing inequality until
| about the early to mid-1970s, where due to a number of
| reasons, lots of Western economies slowed down, especially
| the UK and the US, and the free-market Milton-Friedman-
| inspired right got into power and more or less has been since
| then. their policies creating overall growth, yes, but at the
| expense of wage growth and (after an initial bump from
| selling off public property) living standards.
|
| as a related aside, if someone ever tells you that taxes are
| at an all-time high so we must reduce them, take a look at
| the top marginal tax rates in the UK and US in the mid-60s.
| or corp tax back then
|
| the way to actually solve these problems was told to us by
| Keynes. the problem is that the political will is just not
| there. that's where we need a solution. how do you circumvent
| the capital-holding elite [to use a meaningless word]?
| ssss11 wrote:
| Individuals need better morals imo. The corporate entries of
| this works however do everything for the benefit of the share
| holder which isn't always the right moral thing.
| permo-w wrote:
| individuals can have all the morals they like. there are
| always going to be sociopaths and opportunists in this
| world, and corporations - and, as you point out, their
| shareholders - benefit from hiring them. the improvement
| must come from society as a whole. public organisation,
| whether that's government, or unions, or even charities,
| must have the balls to stand up to profit-mongering, and
| properly regulate this mess
| permo-w wrote:
| this is a very salient way of explaining the need for wealth
| redistribution in society. this doesn't necessarily mean
| communism or socialism, but it should mean more Keynesian
| economics. high taxes on the rich - including rich corporations
| - and strong public spending in the right areas: education,
| small businesses, healthcare, and safety nets so people feel
| like they can take risks without having the fear of becoming
| homeless
| epicureanideal wrote:
| I assume this has more to do with absolute poverty than
| relative poverty. If a person is starving they'll do almost
| anything to eat. If they're merely relatively poor, having an
| old car instead of a new one, a small house instead of a large
| house, it's unlikely they'd go to extremes.
| PuppyTailWags wrote:
| Relative poverty is also involved imo. Many people would go
| to extremes to ensure their children and their loved ones are
| guaranteed brighter economic futures. Life insurance
| companies wouldn't both explicitly exclude suicide and also
| do investigation to ensure a death wasn't suicide if it
| people weren't willing to literally die to ensure a brighter
| economic future for their dependents.
|
| Hell, I live very comfortably, am not at risk of homelessness
| or starvation. But there is a lot I would do for money that
| guarantees the best start in life for my children, the best
| end of life (medical care, treatments, etc) for my parents.
| swayvil wrote:
| Don't diminish it by choosing an innocuous characterization.
| You see the range of it as clearly as the rest of us.
| pempem wrote:
| I'm not sure I understand the importance of these hackers being
| Indian as opposed as from any other region?
| [deleted]
| greggsy wrote:
| Incidents and stories related to Indian hackers-for-hire have
| been rising in the past couple of years. A few companies have
| built a workable model out of it. It's relevant context from
| the cyber security industry perspective, tangentially related
| in this case.
| puchatek wrote:
| Maybe you missed this sentence while reading the article?
|
| "Solomon's suit is the latest in a series of legal actions that
| follows Reuters' reporting about hired hackers operating out of
| India."
| jotm wrote:
| Law firm being cheap? Or Indians being dangerous, I guess...
| sandGorgon wrote:
| US and India have very enforceable bilateral cybercrime
| treaties. And it is very well enforced on both sides.
|
| The article makes it seem that India as a whole is operating in
| some North Korea-ish way.
|
| A US citizen can well complain to CERT-IN (https://www.cert-
| in.org.in/) for any reported cybercrime with proper documents
| and it will be treated as an enforceable crime.
|
| In fact, quite funny considering the US Chambers of Commerce
| have filed an appeal with CERT-IN that the compliance
| requirements are very stringent
| (https://economictimes.indiatimes.com/tech/technology/cert-
| in...)
| duxup wrote:
| Seems relevant to the difficulty in investigating and getting
| any sort of justice.
| ganoushoreilly wrote:
| > https://archive.ph/YegWz
|
| They're accusing a specific group of for hire hackers (BellTroX
| and CyberRoot) in Delhi.
| edge17 wrote:
| My guess is it has to do with Reuters editorial positioning on
| what's going on with Ukraine and Russia. I agree though, I
| don't see the relevance.
| [deleted]
| SynAck6 wrote:
| I get your point, but I'm assuming it's more about the fact
| that it's relatively cheap labour and difficult to investigate.
| rosnd wrote:
| It's mostly India where these hackers operate like real
| companies with websites, offices, bank accounts, etc...
|
| BellTroX is well known and the Indian government seems to
| approve of their activities.
| WFHRenaissance wrote:
| 1. Foreign hacking groups are often beyond the reach of Western
| law enforcement. If a domestic threat had been to blame here,
| there would be legal/financial recourse for damage done. That's
| not the case here. Implicit in this article is the report of a
| new kind of warfare for which many Americans have no good
| defense against.
|
| 2. Standard editorial racism a la "The Oriental Threat".
| 4oo4 wrote:
| Is that also why this is a civil suit and not criminal
| charges under the CFAA?
| greggsy wrote:
| I don't think number 2 is at play here - the use of Indian
| hackers-for-hire has been topical in the cyber security
| industry recently.
| InCityDreams wrote:
| 'Cus they were from India?
| nier wrote:
| It surprised me to read that reporters for the Wall Street
| Journal communicate with their sources via email. That's
| careless.
| the_optimist wrote:
| Maybe not careless, but not a good convention. Incidentally,
| securedrop is set up only to communicate with specific
| journalistic organizations. I'd be very hesitant to send
| information to a journalistic org without an understanding of
| who's involved. In no way have the vast majority of
| journalistic orgs established the trust necessary to receive
| leaks:
|
| https://securedrop.org/directory/
| 1letterunixname wrote:
| securedrop, pastebin GPG communiques from coffee shop WiFi +
| VPN, i2p, or something with a buffer between them and their
| sources. Perhaps include journalism security hygiene similar to
| foreign intelligence HUMINT and compartmentalization.
| Journalists have to realize they don't know their adversaries
| and should "fail-safe" to assume they include state actors and
| megacorps with unlimited resources. To not do so is to
| recklessly underestimate the threat.
| iinnPP wrote:
| Or just join the dark side as many have.
| bredren wrote:
| Reporters don't always get to pick and enforce the medium of
| communication with sources.
| ChrisMarshallNY wrote:
| One thing that I should point out, is that he is not going after
| the WSJ, for any impropriety in his firing. They are really the
| ones that damaged his career.
|
| So I suspect that there is more to this story than is apparent.
| LatteLazy wrote:
| I believe... In the USA you cannot sue your employer for firing
| you unless it's for membership of a protected class or
| whistleblowing. If your employer wants to fire you because it's
| Thursday or they're just having a bad day or they don't like
| something you wrote in an email, tough.
| collegeburner wrote:
| so you're talking about at-will employment and it's generally
| the rule in America. however there are some states that have
| a good faith rule where you can't terminate a employee for
| malice. here's a map of which states are which:
| https://www.paycor.com/wp-
| content/uploads/2021/02/Employment...
|
| i believe WSJ employs in NY state so this doesn't apply.
| peyton wrote:
| No, employment law is much more complicated than that.
| harles wrote:
| From what I can tell, there's not necessarily more. It's a
| clear conflict of interest to do business with a source for a
| story. Doesn't sound illegal, but certainly gives the
| appearance of bias.
| tedunangst wrote:
| Or he believes he was justifiably fired, but would have been
| able to get another job had the emails not been made public.
| The Journal is not interfering in his future prospects.
| neonate wrote:
| https://archive.ph/YegWz
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