[adventured]

So you wouldn't be super worried about Russia and its hacker farms having deep info on every US citizen, for one example?

Foreign attacking agents can do much worse than garnish your wages. They can get a no-knock raid sent to your home if they have your info and you're a target of theirs. That's relatively easy. They can drive the US system to attack you by screwing with your life from outside the US where you can't do anything to stop them. And that can be done in so many ways it's rather obscene. Let's talk about the IRS economic ways they could do it; let's talk about the child protective services way they could do it; let's talk about the no-knock SWAT raid way they could do it; let's talk about the way they could go after your identity and bank accounts; let's talk about how they could focus in on your job, boss, co-workers, etc. and try to make your life hell there; and on and on and on it goes.

Yeah right. I dare anybody on HN to proclaim that, I want to see the supporting premise where the foreign party like Russia having all your info is not as big of a deal.

The notion that the FBI would do worse things from that position than Russia would is absurd, given what we've seen out of Russia. And China is absolutely no different in terms of its willingness to attack the US opportunistically (the Obama Admin had to obtain a cease fire agreement with China in regards to aggressively attacking the US re hacking, recall).

There are no chains at all on what Russia can do to screw with the US citizenry, given the information. And more advanced AI systems should make it even easier for them to do it in the near future.

If Russia could push a button and blank out 30 million US bank accounts, via a hacking plausible deniability means (anything that gives them the required minimum cover), they'd do it immediately. There's so little downside from where Russia is sitting these days, it'd be a no-brainer for them. What are you gonna do? Sanction them? We're sure as hell not going to war with Russia over that.

[enterprise_cog]

So Russia having info is worse because they would then sick the overreaching and cruel US govt on you? You do see how silly that sounds, don’t you? It proves the parent comment’s point that we should be fearing our domestic government more than a foreign one.

Imagine if the US wasn’t a police state, and the average person had good social/financial protections. We’d make China and Russia powerless according to your logic.