Comment by mwcampbell
5 years ago
> Chinese APT malware,
Why is it necessary to point out the foreign origin? Doesn't that just encourage our innate xenophobia?
5 years ago
> Chinese APT malware,
Why is it necessary to point out the foreign origin? Doesn't that just encourage our innate xenophobia?
It should be pretty easy for someone to differentiate between the Chinese people and the Chinese government.
Meanwhile, can you prove that this "innate xenophobia" is present in every human to an extent that it's actually relevant, and that this particular instance of suggesting that the malware is Chinese in origin meaningfully exacerbates it?
Moreover, China is a geopolitical rival to the United States, India, and other countries that constitute a majority of HN readers. Information like this is interesting from that viewpoint.
Threat modelling to develop useful risk mitigation requires that system owners essentially do a means/motive/opportunity test on the valuable data they have. The motive piece includes nation states as actors, and that matters in terms of how much recourse you are going to have against an attacker.
However, I'd propose a new convention that any unattributed attacks and example threat scenarios of nation states should use Canada as the default threat actor, because nobody would believe it or be offended.
If it were Russian, American or Israeli would you have the same reservations?
Lol no s/he likely wouldn’t but s/he’ll argue it’s different bec Trump didn’t make any negative statements about them so it’s impossible to be xenophobic against them.
To prove my point s/he had no problem with the top level comment 6 hrs ago “mossad gonna mossad”
My interpretation, not knowing anything about the field, is that this is a nation state actor or sponsored by such.
It might as well be but since you know nothing about the field what is the value of your interpretation?
To me your interpretation reads like: something is wrong, must be (substitute with your enemy du jour)
Ah, the value is in saying "the thing you're saying reads like this to an uninformed person". If the interpretation is correct, it reinforces the communication style chosen. If the interpretation is incorrect and the writer is aiming at this audience it is evidence against.
For instance, sometimes I say something to a friend and they misunderstand what I intend. The feedback on the misunderstanding permits me to recalibrate my communication and it helps them receive the right information.
I am not claiming that it was "the Chinese". I'm claiming that saying "Chinese APT" reads to me like this.
I guess it depends on when we talk about it but it certainly matters if it is the janitor / secret hacker in the building or someone from somewhere that you have no legal recourse.