[foolmeonce]

Irregardless of who succeeded in such an exploit, the only high paying buyer that is likely to risk overt use is Russia, hence irregardless of what happened the course of action is to threaten Russia.

The US needs a boogie man but has created its own boogie man gap by destabilizing small safe boogie men.

Really it is a comedy to believe other nations don't have multiple ways into any network exposed to private sector pen testing software, just as it is a joke to believe pen testing will stop an actor that can afford to buy zero days vulnerabilities. If you need pen testing to review the standard vulnerabilities your network has had then you know your network is wide open to anyone with a multi-million dollar budget. You are assuming the US, China, Russia, NK, UK, Canada, ... won't decide this network has the highest value data of all networks they could attack to raise their GDP. There is no real boogie man, there is just a global excess of nationalist oriented powers with no accountability. Powder Keg 2.0.

[ThePowerOfFuet]

>Irregardless

I think you meant "regardless".

[cafard]

"Caroline huffily replied that regardless was a footless, weak word and got you nowhere, that on the other hand you threw in the word irregardless and won any argument hands down."

Dawn Powell, The Locusts Have No King

[callinOutLiars]

The problem is people use irregardless to mean regardless. The prefix ir is meant to mean not or opposite (like responsible and irresponsible). I’m scared the word is already following the path of literally when people actually me figuratively.

[foolmeonce]

And inflammable? Literal is a result of very recent extended use of exaggeration, but prefix/suffix oddities are really part of the language.

In places that use irregardless, I would view it as implying it is foolish to regard as opposed to regardless which often means foolishly not heeding. The fact that "heed" is missing from my spell check might explain why new intention distinctions were needed..

[foolmeonce]

It's interesting to learn it is a local word, perhaps "irrespective" is less upsetting to HN users who were too upset to express their complaint.