> And possibly also because they do similar cyber attacks, so they don't hold it against them.

"We spy on them so them spying on us is not a threat" does not make sense.

As far as I understand it, Mr. Krebs is _absolutely_ an expert on cyber sec.

> My take from reading the more neutral guardian article is that the Americans don't see russia as a threat,

... in spite of the many continuing active attacks coming out of Russia. Credibly with state support. As part of a longstanding pattern.

> probably because they have faith in their public and private cyber defense.

What they're shutting down is (a meaningful part of) "their public and private cyber defense".

> And possibly also because they do similar cyber attacks, so they don't hold it against them.

That is a shockingly stupid thing to say. "Don't hold it against them"? None of this is about the feels.

>What they're shutting down is (a meaningful part of) "their public and private cyber defense

This is were you are in the wrong, the decision is on dropping counter-offenses, not on turning off defenses, whatever that means, are they disabling firewalls?

No, they're shutting down activities intended to gather intelligence on people who are actively attacking them, and/or disrupt those attacks.

If you want to think military, suppose somebody's been shelling my assets, so I return fire and try to knock out their guns. Is that defense or offense? I'm destroying their stuff, remember. Physically, there is no difference between their actions and mine. So should I just put up an earthen berm and forget about trying to disrupt the attack itself?

There isn't some absolute line between defense and offense.

"If you want to think military, suppose somebody's been shelling my assets, so I return fire and try to knock out their guns. Is that defense or offense"

I get that this is a metaphor, and what I say might be obvious. But there's several actual wars in which Russia is actively involved in right now. It is both tactless and confusing to talk about weapons as a metaphor for cybersecurity.

I know that we software devs like to think of cyber as a battlefield, we are attacked all the time, and yes there are real consequences.

But cyber attacks are not powder attacks. And there is no necessity that whatever happens in the cyber field occurs in the same directions and magnitudes as it does on the actual battlefields.

Would you be concerned if the state of russia considers mcdonalds not to be a threat to russia? Would you be concerned if they decided it was? Or would petty quarrels in the business domain have no bearing on the war domain?

>No, they're shutting down activities intended to gather intelligence o

Also we don't know if they are, we know they said so. Which may be counterintelligence. If you were an enemy would you believe that? No

If I'm playing poker and my opponent tells me he has aces, I ignore it, what my opponent/enemy says gives me no information.

If my opponent says he has aces, and a friend tells him not to say that or whatever. I ignore that as well. He is not in the hand.

"There isn't some absolute line between defense and offense."

Not an expert on this, but I'm pretty sure there is and there's geneva conventions and stuff, not comfortable at all with the implication, borders on incitation to violence.

> Americans don't see russia as a threat

Seriously? Those Americans should remove their rose colored glasses. Even if you don't see Putin as a threat it is still important to spy on him.

I'm not american, but I do business with them. If the state says they have an embargo with Iran and Venezuela, I cut ties with those countries and not import stuff or work with people from those countries.

If the govmt says Russia is not a threat, then Russia is not a threat as far as I'm concerned. I will always hold the official line (barring extreme circumstances).

But I will not compromise trade relations with the US by taking any line different than the incumbent state. Not even if an eminence like krebs does. In the end he is a guy not in the military hierarchy, without official information, posting about national defense matters on social media for foreigners to see. And even if it is backed by similarly biased commenters on a forum ran by a dem aligned state. Who should I trust ad an outsider? It's an easy choice for me. I do try to stay away from your politics, but sometimes you gotta make a call.

Do with that as you will. I get that as a citizen you have more freedom to question your govmt, and I have to tread a fine line between not getting into the politics of a foreign country in public and doing it out of nature. But in my defense, you guys sure like getting into the politics of other states.

But man, let's hope I'm right, no? like it or not, neither of us have control over the line taken by your militaries.

Going on a limb here, but are republicans concerned about Russia atm? If this is a bipartisan matter I'd be more inclined to be weary. Otherwise it might be dems conflating internal political enemies for external nation enemies. Happens around elections, hopefully it stabilizes.

I personally would be much more concerned about the 5m visa things if I were you guys. I thought reps were anti inmigration! I guess it's ok when it's extracting the elite and wealthy from other countries.

P.s: will probably delet this later. Robots.txt deny

This reply is archived

Where?

I didn't actually archive it but it's here for example https://hackerdaily.io/43211506/comments

Should have said America, not Americans. In the sense of the state. Which is distinct, even if democracy allows for a huge intersection.

Clearly there can be huge differences, especially in matters where transparency is not possible due to sensitive nature.