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Re:Cyberattacks in 12 Nations Said to Use Leaked N.S.A. Hack... by anigbrowl on Friday May 12, 2017 @03:19PM (#14327025)
Your last sentence seems to contradict your first, whereas what you would really prefer is to disarm the police. Sadly I don't think that's so practical, in the same way that it would be impractical for US police to go unarmed given the high incidence of gun ownership in the US. I grew up in a country where police are not normally armed (other than with a small baton or similar personal defense weapon) and much prefer that, but when there's a lot of weapons around that's a reality you have to deal with.

As regards these cyberattacks, the NSA is at fault for its poor security allowing the weapons to become available to bad actors, but the mere existence or stockpiling of weapons is not the direct cause of crime. It might be more useful right now to consider who is operating these weapons, where they are firing them from, and how best to neutralize them.

tl;dr when you're under fire is not the time to worry about gun control.

Re:Cyberattacks in 12 Nations Said to Use Leaked N.S.A. Hack... by SCHiM on Friday May 12, 2017 @03:53PM (#14327344)
The problem with the gun analogy in your particular argument is that a 'cyber weapon' or exploit is the flip side of a flaw in normal software.

The NSA is in a very weird position because they have a task to protect the systems of the US (Information Assurance) but also to attack those of adversaries.

In this case I think they are legitimately to blame for failing to discharge their assurance duties. They've failed to properly calculate the risk of leaking the exploit and now US interests are harmed because of that failure. This is a direct result of stockpiling exploits and not exposing them to the respective software vendors. In my opinion the security of your own systems is more important the insecurity of that of your adversaries, which is why I believe that the hoarding is bad.

Re:Cyberattacks in 12 Nations Said to Use Leaked N.S.A. Hack... by anigbrowl on Friday May 12, 2017 @04:12PM (#14327478)
I'm not defending the NSA's poor security of bad strategic choices; the reason I use the gun analogy is that mass -production of weapons is as much the flip side of industrial production as cyber weapons are the flip side of normal software vulnerabilities.

Also, when you're under attack it might be more useful to worry about the identity and source of your attackers than where they stole the weapons from. Weapons facilitate aggression but are not the cause thereof, and we're not the only people who know how or maintain an interest in such weapons.

Re:Cyberattacks in 12 Nations Said to Use Leaked N.S.A. Hack... by Keverw on Friday May 12, 2017 @03:33PM (#14327146)
I think we should have armed police, along with anyone else that's sane. All for the second amendment. Just in the cyber world, it just feels irresponsible because of the unlimited nature the internet has. Also probably the fact, I read posts that get popular on HN from time to time where the researcher does a responsible disclosure is probably influencing that feeling too.

I guess what's standard in the "tech world", is probably totally different in the intelligence community.

Like companies can't protect themselves, if there's no updates. There's basically no defense. Same reason I'm not a fan of nuclear power. Once you make the waste, it's hard to get rid of.