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This is exactly what the NSA should be doing. Everyone (rightfully IMO) complains about overly broad data collection happening within the USA, but here (as with

• Alex3917 12y ago
  > It's not like Iran asked our permission before they launched their nuclear program You do realize the U.S. helped launch Iran's nuclear program, right? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_program_of_Iran http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_program_of_Iran
  • yeahyeah 12y ago
    Well if it's on the US then they should have stopped when we asked nicely, right?
    • FeeTinesAMady 12y ago
      Not right. If the US was peaceful, there wouldn't be much of an argument for developing nuclear weapons, but the US is the most aggressive nation in the world, and nuclear weapons are the only thing that give them pause. The actions of the US since the end of World War II - invading other nations at will, interfering in their internal affairs, starting secret wars - give legitimacy to nations who want to develop nuclear weapons for their own defense. Nuclear weapons bring safety from you.
      • allemagne 12y ago
        As far as superpowers in history go, the United States post WWII is downright benevolent. The other contenders in recent memory being: the Soviet Union, the British Empire, Nazi Germany, Imperial Japan, the French Empire, the Italian Empire, Austria-Hungary, and so on and so forth. Once the United States starts claiming pieces of South America and Arabia as their sovereign territory you can start shouting about Iran's self defense. The United States is far from perfect, and all the criticisms you leveled are completely true. But be honest about the situation. The only thing that Iran's government is protecting by developing nuclear weapons is their own corrupt regime and their influence in the middle east.
        • spopejoy 12y ago
          As far as superpowers in history go, the United States post WWII is downright benevolent I'm not sure the citizens of Guatemala, El Salvador, Nicaragua, Uruguay, Paraguay, Brazil, Argentina, Chile, D.R., Honduras, Panama, the Philippines, Vietnam, or any of the other sovereign nations the US has invaded, would agree with this statement.
          • leroy_masochist 12y ago
            Sorry, please remind me of when the US invaded Paraguay, Brazil, Argentina, or Chile? Our involvement in Vietnam was in fact, at the time, conducted with the full cooperation of a sovereign country, the Republic of South Vietnam. To be fair, US forces definitely did violate the sovereignty of Laos and Cambodia during that conflict. I believe I understand your general point here, but can we at least get basic facts right when we have these discussions?
            • spopejoy 12y ago
              Thanks for asking! Argentina: 1890. Chile: 1891, plus direct support for the 1973 coup. Sorry about Paraguay and Brazil, US merely engineered and directly advised murderous corrupt dictatorships. Invasions however also include Bolivia, Costa Rica, Cuba, Grenada, Haiti, Mexico, Uruguay, and Venezuela. Regarding South Vietnam, does "full cooperation" include assassination of their president in 1963?
    • anon808 12y ago
      troll.
  • GauntletWizard 12y ago
    No, we helped the Pahlavi dynasty launch a nuclear program, whereas the Iranian Republic is now launching a nuclear program using what they've scavenged from that one. You are conflating two different nations that happen to share a name and borders. The US trades technology with the Fourth Republic of Germany; The US did not with the Third Reich.
    • chris1234 12y ago
      You might want to double check that one about the Third Reich!
    • final 12y ago
      Wow, so naive. The Third Reich was established in 1933, WW2 started in 1939. It didn't have time to invent much or to build industry anew. 90% of the technology came from US - directly from US government or through companies like Standard Oil and Ford. Thousands of factories got sold on the cheap in the US after the Great Recession started and all the equipment moved to Germany. A process quite similar to the outsourcing of the last 25 years or so.
      • osconfused 12y ago
        Also IBM: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IBM_and_the_Holocaust http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IBM_and_the_Holocaust
        • kw71 12y ago
          Yes IBM. But if you are considering reading this book I would suggest that it might be a waste of time, unless you are a true disbeliever or are doing research on the topic. Mr Black is angry at IBM and does not try to hide it in his writing. He writes as if he is a prosecutor trying to convince a jury in court. Very frequently and repetitively, he describes the Holocaust and explains why what the reader just read proves that IBM or some of its executives are guilty of murder. I find it insulting to have these conclusions handed to me, even if I don't disagree with them. The repetition gets boring quickly.
    • 12y ago
  • javert 12y ago
    The US already has the responsibility to end Iran's nuclear program, which threatens the safety of US citizens and the world. But if the US also helped start the program, I guess it is even "more" responsible, if that is even possible.
    • deleted 12y ago
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    • lotsofmangos 12y ago
      In that case Hungary has the responsibility to end America's nuclear program, which threatens the safety of Hungarian citizens and the world. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Martians_%28group%29 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Martians_%28group%29
      • javert 12y ago
        Not sure if you're just joking around, but nuclear weapons and material from Pakistan and Iran are likely to end up in the hands of terrorists sooner or later, either intentionally or unintentionally. The same is not the case for nuclear weapons controlled by France, US, UK, Germany, and Israel. So there is a huge difference.
        • fjh 12y ago
          Germany doesn't have nuclear weapons.
          • cocoablazing 12y ago
            Germany possesses twenty B61 nuclear weapons in hardened shelters, ready for immediate loading onto Tornados.
        • lentil_soup 12y ago
          Why would "nuclear weapons and material" from Pakistan and Iran "likely" end up in the hands of terrorists? What's so special about the other countries for which this is not the case?
  • jfoutz 12y ago
    Those atoms were for peace, dammit.
• rosenjon 12y ago
  The problem is it undermines trust in American technology products in general. If the Snowden revelations were that the United States was bugging Iran, Libya and North Korea and monitoring all their communications, that would be one thing. However, we know now that EVERYONE is under surveillance. Therefore, how do we know they aren't doing this to everyone as well?
  • deleted 12y ago
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  • yeahyeah 12y ago
    Fair enough - although with this set of revelations at least it's been credited at least to mail interdictions. I was responding in a limited matter to this project, this is an example of what I'm personally fine with them doing. Other people may very well have more trouble mentally compartmentalizing the broad range of activities that the NSA (and other digital espionage agencies within the US government) are up to. Many of which are clearly unconstitutional and should be (and appear to, in some cases) now being scaled back. In any case, to answer the specific question, we can be pretty sure that our we're not infected with official US government 0day malware by the practical considerations - they go to pretty considerable lengths to keep the spread limited (per the reporting) because once Kaspersky or any other researcher gets their hands on it the utility of the toolsets goes away or becomes highly limited.
    • fnordfnordfnord 12y ago
      This malware isn't needed to infect every individual machine. This is just another tool in the long list of tools that the NSA has. Compromise the CA's and a few other key infrastructure machines, and now all our communications are laid as bare as plaintext. The fact that I'm not interesting enough for the NSA to target me individually does not mean that my communications are secure.
      • asuffield 12y ago
        CAs are not magic decryption boxes. If you compromise a CA, you can generate a false certificate, but this certificate is non-repudiable: it is a sequence of bytes which you must present to the system you are attacking, and which is conclusive, independently-verifiable evidence that the CA has been compromised. While the NSA almost certainly could do something like this, they would run a very high risk of detection every time they did it.
• deleted 12y ago
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• aw3c2 12y ago
  Maybe it is what it should be doing for you. But this is exactly what the IT community should work against. We should be able to trust our devices.
  • yeahyeah 12y ago
    I definitely agree with the second part. It's always going to be a back and forth. As for non-US, well, I don't think we can claim a monopoly on espionage.
• teraflop 12y ago
  According to the report, researchers within the USA were infected with Equation Group malware too.
  • grrowl 12y ago
    Of course, it's necessary to achieve a certain critical mass to make infecting your target effective and mask the true source of the attack.
• user_0001 12y ago
  Which countries did ask permission before starting their nuclear programs? The countries that have nuclear weapons, who do they ask to be allowed to keep them?
  • lazaroclapp 12y ago
    Each other and the U.N., sort of... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Treaty_on_the_Non-Proliferation_of_Nuclear_Weapons https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Treaty_on_the_Non-Proliferatio... Essentially: "no more countries get nukes, those that have them should get rid of them at an unspecified point in the future but get to keep them for now". It is not an ideal solution, nor a particularly fair one, but much better for human survival than "everybody gets a nuke". Unfortunately, it would work better if powerful countries didn't threaten less powerful ones to the point that violating the NPT and getting nukes seems like the only rational response for preserving their own security. Which brings us to why the U.S. unilaterally launching attacks (cyber- or otherwise) against other countries runs counter to non-proliferation goals, whereas coordinated U.N. sanctions/incentives/inspections/interventions have at much better chance of working.
  • wongarsu 12y ago
    >The countries that have nuclear weapons, who do they ask to be allowed to keep them? Well, the 5 official Nuclear Weapon States (with capital NWS) asked nicely with the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, which is signed by just about anyone. Not that there ever was a chance of them just giving up their nuclear weapons, but they did ask and the world said yes.
    • blorgle 12y ago
      Yeah. Signed by just about everyone, except for Israel, India and Pakistan. Funny that this is never mentioned, Iran is an NPT signatory, Israel and India are not. Yet...
    • cocoablazing 12y ago
      The NPT doesn't say that. All nuclear weapon states are bound to seek complete disarmament, verified by the international community.
• cortesoft 12y ago
  You make a good point, but the part about Iran asking for our permission before starting the nuclear program doesn't really add much. Of course they didn't ask, just like the US didn't ask before starting our nuclear program. A nation state is an autonomous entity, and doesn't ask permission before making any action within its own borders. The US, and any other nation state, will of course conduct covert operations, including spying on other nation states. I don't find anything inherently wrong or immoral about this, but I don't think anyone can act surprised or indignant if other nation states don't like being spied on or hacked. You don't gain the moral high ground by pointing out they didn't ask for our permission to build something in their own borders. Yes, we spy on other nations, and we probably should; but the consequence of that is that other nations will trust you less when you are caught, and that is just the natural consequence of spying.
  • dannypgh 12y ago
    As a signatory to the NPT, which has been ratified by the United States and is therefore law, Iran is legally entitled to have a nuclear energy program. It's not particularly easy to tell facilities for making enriched uranium (viable as fuel) from facilities making weapons-grade HEU.
    • aburan28 12y ago
      Israel is not a a signer of this treaty, why don't we scold them for their nuclear weapons? Rules/Laws do not apply to nuclear states.
      • PJDK 12y ago
        The NPT works the other way around. It is a bargain between the nuclear weapons powers and the non-weapon powers. Non-weapon powers get access to civilian nuclear technology and know-how in exchange for a promise (and safeguards) to not develop weapon systems. Additionally weapon powers agree to negotiate towards an end to all nuclear weapons (but in a very woolly, no real commitment kind of way). Non signers get no access to any technology or know-how from signers but are free to act as they please. Israel, Pakistan and India all fall into this category. They can act as they please.
• mabbo 12y ago
  I really appreciate it when someone presents and argument that is from a differing point of view than mine, but is well stated and very convincing. Thank you for that. That said, I'm not certain I agree. The part where they're intercepting mail of citizens without warrants, without much oversight, that scares me. It's one thing to be talented hackers trying to fight the good fight digitally rather than violently, but when we allow the government organizations to violate privacy to further unstated goals, we set a precedent that can be used as a basis to go further next time. The NSA can do incredible things like this, but they need better oversight, a publicly stated set of rules that they must follow when they do their work.
  • plorg 12y ago
    I'd have to look back at the article, but I believe the mail interception took place during the Bush-era warrant-less wiretapping. The FISA courts were created to remedy the warrant-less part of that, though they don't really seem to have done much for the oversight concern that you mention. By this I mean to suggest that such interdiction may not necessarily be truly warrant-less if performed today, even if it is still shady and lacking in accountability.
• javert 12y ago
  Imagine Superman actually fighting criminals and keeping America safe. Now imagine Superman sneaking laxative into criminals' sandwiches so they are slightly inconvenienced, but allowing them to continue to kill people in the long run. The US government is Superman. But it is the second version, while it can and should be the first version. --- We know who the enemies are. We know who funds and harbors terrorism. We need to take them out, not spy on them. --- And no, I am not advocating Vietnam III (note: Iraq/Afghanistan was Vietnam II). That was a purely self-sacrificial program to bring "democracy" to people who didn't want it. I am advocating warfare in the classic sense: Destroy the enemy. I am advocating what we did to the Nazis and Japanese.
  • sfk 12y ago
    Are you a sockpuppet trying to derail the discussion or is this serious?
    • javert 12y ago
      I only make political comments on threads of conversation that are inherently political. In technical discussions, I make technical comments only. I take this commitment very seriously.
      • saiya-jin 12y ago
        how old are ya, kiddo? why I ask - you obviously troll here, nothing more :)
        • javert 12y ago
          That doesn't even deserve a response, but against my better judgement... I have 3448 karma and have been here for 2472 days, you have 20 karma and have been here for 64 days. You have no right to say something like that to me. Also, since I mainly lose karma on any comment I make talking about politics, yet have a large net positive amount of karma, I am obviously not a troll.
• higherpurpose 12y ago
  How is infecting a whole telecom company like Belgacom, which then allows them to get data on everyone, a "targeted" attack?
  • mb0 12y ago
    To play devil's advocate, maybe they were only going to adjust the routing behavior of a certain netblock? Still very out-of-bounds if you ask me.
• discardorama 12y ago
  > but it's not like Iran asked our permission before they launched their nuclear program Why should they? Who died and made us the "World Police" ?
  • krschultz 12y ago
    22% of world GDP, the world's largest & most effective military, the permanent seat on the UN security council, & the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Treaty_on_the_Non-Proliferation_of_Nuclear_Weapons#Iran http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Treaty_on_the_Non-Proliferation... I agree we shouldn't go barging into other countries unilaterally, but are there really people that want to argue it's wrong for the US to use its power to stop other countries from obtaining nuclear weapons?
    • deleted 12y ago
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    • user_0001 12y ago
      Am not sure the only country in the world to use nuclear weapons in aggression and / or for political reasons has much clout in this area. "we'll do what we want, you'll do as your told". In some respects you're right, the leading war lords of the day do get to dictate to the lower players. Has always been the way, and probably always will. Doesn't make it right (or righteous) however those in power deem to "word" it.
    • dingaling 12y ago
      > but are there really people that want to argue it's wrong for the US to use its power to stop other countries from obtaining nuclear weapons? Yes, when the USA shows favoritism. A nation at the eastern end of the Mediterranean Sea has never signed the NPT, has nearly 300 warheads and in 1973 had some of those loaded on US-supplied F-4s about to launch the third-ever nuclear strike in history. When will the USA do something about that?
    • spopejoy 12y ago
      effective military Huh? What wars has the US won recently? Unless "effective" means "effectively redistributing wealth to shareholders of defense contractors", in which case I agree 100%.
• doczoidberg 12y ago
  I am from germany and I hope most of americans don't have this point of view. 1. give up freedom for some stupid terrorist attacks? why should we? We've lost the keystone of freedom when we do this and they have already won. 2. Do you really think these extensive intelligences do stop terror? (maybe they do sometimes, but terrorists will find new ways) 3. IS and others are the result of the Iraq war which was a offensive war from the US justified by a lie (Sadam had no weapon of mass destruction). Do you still think that America is the world police? The reputation of the US has gone rapidly down in the last decade. For the most here in germany the US are not the good ones any more. Other countries have their own way of life. America has to accept that.
  • krschultz 12y ago
    I think if you start with the assumption that it would be unacceptable for the US government to do nothing about protecting the American people from terrorist attack, the kinds of targeted cyber-espionage described in the article sound pretty reasonable. They're better than launching entire wars that kill hundreds of thousands of people, cost unfathomable amounts of money, and last for over a decade, without really achieving the objective of making the country safer. They're better than torturing people. They're better than mass surveillance of the entire population of the country - if not the world. Of all the things the government could be and should be doing, spying on people that in high likelihood are a threat to the US sounds like the one I'm OK with them continuing. You have to admit, slowing down another country's nuclear weapons program with a computer virus is vastly preferable to pretty much any other option on the table - even including "peaceful" sanctions which end up having a human cost.
    • doczoidberg 12y ago
      The war against terror is only an excuse for this overwhelming mass cyber-espionage. Explain me why you spy out german government. Is Merkel a potential terrorist? Yes sure.
      • asheldon 12y ago
        That's why she wasn't spied on. http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/12/11/us-germany-usa-spying-idUSKBN0JP1QG20141211 http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/12/11/us-germany-usa-spy...
• deleted 12y ago
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• rbehrends 12y ago
  Two problems I'm having with this argument: (1) This does not actually look particularly targeted to me, but more like a shotgun approach. While Russia and China are the primary targets, there are also plenty of allied nations on that map. Unless, of course, you're trying to say that all non-US targets are fair game. (2) The NSA targeting medical institutions (presumably hospitals) makes me particularly queasy, because what they are doing is not exactly passive listening, and when they screw something up there (like the router in Syria that they crashed), that could endanger human lives.
• FeeTinesAMady 12y ago
  This statement is the most upvoted piece of propaganda I've ever seen on Hacker News. I think the shills that Greenwald told us all about are all over HN too. There's no point in praising anything the NSA does unless you are perfectly happy with them destroying security for the entire world and spying on everybody at all. The NSA has the power to blackmail politicians and run the country. They lied to congress. They are a completely rogue agency. And you praise them!
  • walod 12y ago
    It's not propaganda, it's a reasonable observation about the NSA's duties, and it's not meant to tell the whole story. The conspiracy types need to tone down a bit so that a thought-out and nuanced discussion can take place. You're just ranting and throwing Alex Jones and Greenwald buzzwords around, disabling any real insight.
    • FeeTinesAMady 12y ago
      But the pro-government shills ARE here. That's not paranoia, that's fact, unless you think they'd target Reddit only for some reason, which makes no sense. So why can't we talk about them? If we don't face up to the reality of this kind of propaganda, we won't be able to have proper discussions about important topics like this one. As the other responder to me pointed out, this account had ONE post to its name almost a year ago before the post I responded to today. I don't think they got their money's worth out of this one due to how easy it was to spot, but all the other ones upvoting it are earning their pay.
      • krapp 12y ago
        Fine. The shills are here, and you're free to accuse people you don't agree with of being puppets of the government, as you have. What does doing so actually accomplish, besides spreading FUD?
        • FeeTinesAMady 12y ago
          You think I am accusing him of being a shill because I don't agree with him? Have you seen his posting history? That's pretty much the definition of a shill who isn't trying very hard. Much more dangerous are the ones who actually make normal posts on stories throughout the year and only turn on the propaganda when the discussion turns to the NSA and government activities. Those ones you can't detect. I don't understand why you're more upset with me for pointing out propaganda than the propaganda machine itself.
• sehugg 12y ago
  I'm not sure I'd hold up Stuxnet as an example -- it did little to impact the Iranian nuclear program and only invited retaliation: http://www.techtimes.com/articles/32209/20150211/edward-snowden-nsa-leaks-hint-iran-learned-cyberattack-tactics-from-u-s.htm http://www.techtimes.com/articles/32209/20150211/edward-snow...
• zmanian 12y ago
  1. The NSA uses all of these offensive information security technologies in mass surveillance as well as targeted attacks. See Belgacom. 2. The more concerning thing is their appropriation of civilian infrastructure and targeting of civilians using offensive attacks. 3. The vast offensive capabilities of the US government undermine their ability to be trusted in the development of improved defensive capabilities. Defensive research and product development funded by the US govt will produce systems that undermine offensive capabilities that are a key form of US hegemony.
• diego_moita 12y ago
  From an American perspective you might be right. But, as a Brazilian, I'd say this is the perfect reason why the rest of the world should stop buying technology from the U.S. You are not trustworthy. Yes, I know that "everyone does it, get over" but it doesn't make you better or even acceptable.
  • SEJeff 12y ago
    As an American eho actually agrees with your comment wholeheartedly, I'd love to see a Brazilian Cisco, a German Microsoft, an Icelandic Bell Labs, and a Swiss Apple. Sadly it seems like the US does come up with a lot of tech that is worldwide dominant. Perhaps it has to do with the way the U.S. culture + government can, in some scenarios be conducive to startups, or perhaps it is luck over and over and over again. I highly doubt luck has anything whatsoever to do with it. All of this being said, capitalism is a game played by multiple parties. If other countries were able to make things like mentioned above as good or preferably better and sell to. Global audience the whole world would be better off. I just wonder why so much tech used everywhere is made in America originally. DARPA has a huge part of what makes this happen I think and like it or not they are part of the security establishment who made things like the Internet.
    • mirimir 12y ago
      Didn't military funding accelerate US tech development?
      • SEJeff 12y ago
        It did, hence my comment about DARPA. After all ARPANET (from DARPA / ARPA), is what became the modern Internet as we know it.
    • mike_hearn 12y ago
      Eh, take a look at the smartphone market outside the Anglosphere. Most likely the OS will be developed by Google in America, the CPU by ARM in the UK, those chips will be customised and fabbed by Samsung in Korea, the screens created by LG/Sharp/Samsung again in Asia, the radio chips designed by Qualcomm (USA) but speaking GSM or an upgrade of it (European-developed) in factories using precision specialised devices created in Germany or Switzerland and then shipped around the world on ships owned by Maersk (in Denmark), piloted by seamen from India and the Phillipines. The USA has done a great job of developing the world's dominant operating systems and cloud software stacks, which gets a lot of attention here at HN. But there's a heck of a lot more to tech than that.
• jrochkind1 12y ago
  If the U.S. can do it, other entities can do it too. I'd rather that the NSA were disclosing the vulnerabilities they discover to vendors, so they can be fixed. Failing that, we rely on white hat researchers like those here (not to mention Snowden). They're doing really important, socially valuable, work. I wonder where they get their funding, we need a lot more of them. It's our job as software/hardware engineers to create secure software.
• deleted 12y ago
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• blazespin 12y ago
  this is horrible and devastates the American information technology industry because there is no chance that any foreign government is going to buy anything from the US that could be infiltrated by the NSA.
• timrs2998 12y ago
  "... indicate that the NSA used Regin to infect the partly state-owned Belgian firm Belgacom." Do you like their targets? The FBI and CIA frequently target dissent as terrorism while the NSA frequently targets economic forums and large companies. And do you not care about the effects of hoarding (and purchasing) 0-days?
• moe 12y ago
  If you hold that something like 9/11 should be prevented, and that (actual) WMD programs should be stalled Except nothing like 9/11 was ever prevented by broad data collection. And: There is no "terrorist threat" to begin with, unless you also believe in Santa Claus and the Easter Bunny. You are still more likely to be killed by a lightning strike than by a terrorist. There's still plenty more and plenty more violent killing going on in Africa than in Middle East. But there's no oil and no convenient media narrative to be had from the former. then it follows that this is a fine way to go about it Non sequitur.
• guelo 12y ago
  So China should be reading Obama's emails, right?
  • LLWM 12y ago
    If they can, they would be stupid not to. And the NSA should be doing everything in their power to stop them from doing so.
• elchief 12y ago
  Ya, except the other Four Eyes are doing the same and trading your info back to the NSA
• chez17 12y ago
  >If you hold that something like 9/11 should be prevented Nice strawman.
• shit_parade 12y ago
  This comment reads very much like astroturfing. I hope the admins of HN take a look at who registered this account and who up-voted this comment to make it the current top comment in this thread. As mentioned by others, this account is nearly a year old with one silly comment before that.
• JoachimS 12y ago
  Millions of harddrives, millions of infected machines all over the world. Sound very targeted to me.
• nikster 12y ago
  Your argument sounds semi-reasonable. It's not though. Everyone hates the USA by now, and that's because they're spying on everyone (even allies), they think they can tell everyone what to do, else they use their military to intervene. The USA is currently the world bully. For the military aggression, hopefully Americans will at some point realize that fighting the world can only end in tears - the USA is drained financially and simultaneously breeding new terrorists through the drone war which should be classified a war crime as there is no telling how many innocents have been killed. Karma's a bitch, friends. This is how empires fall. Really, the USA needs to re-evaluate its foreign policy. Spend half the military budget for 2015, that's $300Bn, on education and hospitals and bingo, you're once again the #1 nation in the world. Then, instead of making war everywhere, make friends and trade partners and watch the money pour in, the soldiers stay home and stay alive. Fight terrorists with gestures of goodwill and they will go away all on their own - as opposed to killing random children in Pakistan, so their fathers, uncles, and other relatives may justifiably become new terrorists with a life-long grudge against the USA. And tell the NSA to focus on defense - keep out the baddies, keep out the Chinese and Russian hackers, keep American businesses and business interests safe, stop others from hacking in the USA. But don't go out and listen to everyone's phone calls and hack allies, and enemies alike, and have secret laws like the Nazis did - because honestly, all that shit will get back to you eventually. Do something bad - somebody will find out. That's the new reality we live in, all facts will be discovered. That Kaspersky was able to uncover the most sophisticated hacker group in the world is a case in point. The internet is the perfect paper trail, no matter how good you are. The ostensibly noble, good goals that secret laws and secret operations supposedly lead up to never materialize. The ends that the means supposedly justify never arrive. So keep the means good, keep it clean. This whole idea that you must deceive, cheat, and betray in order to survive is a wrong idea, and it's proven again and again until the lesson is learned. Your choice when to learn it. Karma is a bitch, friends.