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There's an elephant in this room and its name is ethics. When I was a mainframe programmer at IBM, one of they first things they taught us was how to stop the
by mimixco 5y ago
There's an elephant in this room and its name is ethics.
When I was a mainframe programmer at IBM, one of they first things they taught us was how to stop the processor of a System/370 machine. If you can do that, ladies and gentlemen, you can bring down Bank of America, the US Army, the Social Security Administration, etc. So everyone there knew how to be a "black hat" hacker if we wanted to.
Was there money to be made in that? Surely. More money than IBM ever paid anyone! But the reason neither I nor any of my colleagues would ever dream of using our skills to hurt people is that last part of the sentence: it hurts people.
Yes, IBM did some awful stuff from helping Nazis to keeping apartheid alive in South Africa (over employee objections while I was there), but overall, the "corporation" provided valuable goods and services to real people who had to slog on in real jobs every day to get the world's real work done.
Oil companies are in the same boat. The world runs on oil and some ransomware attacks aren't going to change that. The idea that terrorism (and black hat hacking is absolutely a form of terrorism) is a useful way to change corporate behavior is so ill-informed that it's pathetic.
When asked about taking a "white hat" approach and selling legal pen testing (or even PTaaS), these developers declined saying they probably couldn't monetize their skills at the same level that way.
Well, I say, too effin' bad. If everyone optimizes solely for himself, there will be no one left. It's appalling to me that criminal organizations now recruit, have price lists, and get PR placement. These people and their products (and their communication channels) need to be turned off ASAP for everyone else's sanity and self-preservation.
- draw_down 5y agoSeeing the word “ethics” emphasized, followed by “sure they helped Nazis but...” was really something. Congratulations, I guess.
- fleddr 5y agoWhat elephant in the room? They are self-admitted criminals. They admit to be in a destructive industry to line their own pockets. The only reason they are selective in their targets is because critical targets will increase the chances of them being caught.
- mimixco 5y agoI was referring mostly to the suggestions that attempted to justify this behavior by saying the targets are "bad companies."
- fleddr 5y agoAh ok. When reading the article, I don't get the impression that they try to frame themselves as somewhat ethical, I think that may be an interpretation by some of us here.
- dcow 5y ago> These people and their products (and their communication channels) need to be turned off ASAP for everyone else's sanity and self-preservation But they can't be because enough people don't share your worldview. Do you believe private communication is a human right? Well then you can't stop them communicating either. How would we achieve a world where these products and services could be universally banned immediately? You are right, the problem is ethics. The problem is that it's not universally criminal to attack other countries' wealth. If it came out that this group ran their infrastructure on IBM cloud, and you still worked at IBM, what would you do? It seems you think that the generation of wealth for IBM's shareholders is more important stopping genocide therefore it's okay to be complicit. So you seem to have some general notion of ethical total harm. > The idea that terrorism (and black hat hacking is absolutely a form of terrorism) is a useful way to change corporate behavior is so ill-informed that it's pathetic. It does change behavior, though, whether you like it or not.
- mimixco 5y agoI certainly can't argue that you're wrong! Private communication, even for business, is a human right. I was not suggesting that some authoritarian arm "shut them off," but rather that a profusion of businesses and individuals simply chose to ignore them. Death by recission. It's also one's right to choose to be in an ethical business or not. I've rejected many customers and employers because I didn't want to help in their aims. I was among the people who protested IBM's continued involvement in apartheid and it did end before I left. Companies can chose to "not be evil" or they can just say that. And yes, sadly, everything changes human behavior. What I was going for is that ethics is a practical phenomenon as well as nice one for other people. I still believe that more can be accomplished through volunteerism (including volunteer agreements about money and work rather than coercive ones) than through violence. Perhaps that's naive or hopeful but I hope a few of us persist in keeping the idea alive.