6 pointsby speckx4 hours ago2 comments
  • saidnooneever3 hours ago
    what i think is kind of weird about this. in a lot of countries you have reservists, also for cyber. This move makes it sound to me that hackers do not want to work for US govt anymore, and so they try to lean on pvt.companies and their workforce. Why would these people not sign up to be reservists if they would want to engage in such acitvities.

    Either the US military doesnt have a good way to recruit additional whipping power as neede through a pool of well trained reservists (which are usually ppl from corporate wanting to do good) or they have a lack of people wanting to even consider to work for them for whatever reason ( which would likely make this whole move yield bad results).

    It seems either of these problems could be managed better with a proper program where people can sign up as reservists to :serve when needed: - which will be the same pool of individuals in the end... ( which is much more controllable regarding activites conducted etc. - seems like something ud want..)

    • bigyabai3 hours ago
      > Why would these people not sign up to be reservists if they would want to engage in such acitvities.

      For cybersecurity? Hacking is a form of asymmetric warfare, it really only works when you're a David hunting down a proverbial digital Goliath. For attacks like Salt Typhoon, America genuinely lacks a reciprocal target; what would they hack, the Great Firewall? The VK homepage?

      There are other issues too, like five-figure compensation and a general risk of physical, digital or mental attacks on your person if discovered. If you are a talented cybersecurity expert, it makes way more sense to go private sector, lower your individual risk and get paid enough to retire while you're at it.

  • bediger40002 hours ago
    What if, say, Comcast, decides to hack back, the intruder ends up being the Equation Group, a.k.a. NSA, and Comcast disables a good deal if the federal government's capabilities.

    The NSA isn't what it used to be, after all, and market forces have forced large network operators to be very good in this context.