The issue isn't software developers working with the military. It is a matter of offensive U.S. military operations and the associated self-serving geopolitics being treated as countercultural.

> Western strain of extreme pacifism

While there certainly are some Western hackers who eschew all military applications because of their extreme pacifism, the examples in the article (e.g. pro-Palestinian activists) are not necessarily pacifist. I'd describe them more as out of alignment with their country's current governments, or perhaps actively aligned against them.

And given recent (and not-so-recent) behavior of the US government, I don't think it's irrational for hacker in the US to conclude that their own government presents a greater threat to their freedom than Putin or Xi. (I don't necessarily agree, I just don't think it's an irrational conclusion.)

Guess who cooperates with any security conferences in Russia that aren't abysmal and how many smart hackers attend those.

The world hasn't changed.

>Western strain of extreme pacifism that encourages smart hackers to eschew military applications entirely

Not what people are saying. There would be little noise if there were talks at defcon about Ukrainian cyberwarfare or hacking Russian military infrastructure.

This is about the united states military industrial complex. Can you even point out a military that did more harm to the world at large in the last 50 years? How many dead? How many human right violations?

The head of the NSA as well, post-snowden? Come on.

The only reason there still is a Ukraine is the US so-called "military industrial complex." And guess who the ooga-booga scary NSA is probably giving intelligence products to, or at least probably was until January?

The flimsy support for Ukraine doesn't erase 50 years of catastrophic effects of USA interventionism

You can cherry pick a few good things. Ukraine, Kosovo, Korea, maybe Libya, the first Gulf war, the Berlin air-lift

Then you come back to reality. The war on terror, El Salvador, Chile, Guatemala, Nicaragua, Laos, arming the Saudis, Irak, Afghanistan

If you engage in 50 or so interventions and all except one fail miserably, often in horrifying ways that result in the deaths of millions of people, it’s really hard to maintain that that’s a good record.

OK, so we're just going to handwave away any positive impact the US has had in preserving the rules-based international order for the past 70 years and amplify every US failure, while not even taking into consideration the alternatives like Russia and China. Keep living in your bubble.

Exactly. We can just look at the North/South Korea divide to see the alternative world histories that could have been.

You do whatever you want.

>preserving the rules-based international order

The USA's foreign policy is anything but rules-based. They're brutal and barbaric. You can agitate China and Russia as being scarier, that doesn't make the U.S. military a force of good.

If you're asking the whether they have their place being shoved at the center of Defcon you have to take in the whole picture

Who do you think are the ones actually supporting Ukrainian cybersecurity and hacking Russian military? Ill give you a hint they are the ones sitting in office parks in maryland writing software for the NSA and DOD.

It doesn't erase the last 50 years

Broken clocks, all that.

State of the clock pending what's going to come out in the news about Orange guy's meeting with Putin where they are discussing the surrender of Ukrainian territories without Ukraine's opinion.

Ah yeah that "extreme pacifism" that has grotesque ideas like people shouldn't murder other people just because their governments think so.

How dare them being opposed to that poor military sector, that nobody ever speaks up for. Completely forgotten by politics and media, nobody ever takes their side and see how in reality they make the world a much better place.

After hundreds of thousands of deaths and daily news about one war crime chasing another by all sides, daily uncovered cruel lies, essentially all wars being illegal and not defensive according to UN laws. Laws that the very countries that now break them established. Only not being sanctioned because of vetoes by these countries.

And all of them being lobbied against by some nerds meeting in their spare time to follow their interests. Those horrible, horrible extreme pacifists!

In the US:

* employers can rescind job offers over 20-year-old social media posts.

* rents are sky high and constantly increasing.

* health insurers routinely kill people if they are deemed too expensive to be alive.

* a literal fascist rapist billionaire is now president.

Consequently, we have a society no one will defend. It’s not that people like Putin or Xi. What Putin is doing in Ukraine is unforgivable, even if the West is partially at fault too.

The human rights issues of US-led capitalism have always been severe, but 50 years ago there were redeeming qualities, at least domestically. These days, those are gone, and I don’t blame Gen Z for deciding there is nothing about our society to defend.

I think a lot of folks just aren't stoked on making things that could be used against them. And a lot of us are smart enough to see how that could happen.