[jmyeet]

Isn't it a weird coincidence that soon after the US and Israel started an unprovoked and unnecessary war (that billionaires will profit handsomely from, as an aside) that we get stories like this to manufacture consent?

I belive that US tech firms have increasingly become valid military targets. There was a post about this yesterday [1]. BUT I don't think that extends to hospitals and medical supplies, regardless of who owns them or if they treat soldiers or not.

But, as best as I can tell, the company has been inconvenienced, possibly massively. Let's put this in context. The US launched a Tomahawk missile at a school and killed 160 school girls.

And I bet that if you look into pretty much any company hit by a hack, you'll find cost-cutting on IT to increase executive pay and bonuses.

Between the Iran-Iraq war, which the US was responsible for, and decades of sanctions, the US has by this point killed millions of Iranians. The real problem here is the general ignorance of the average American of America's 70+ years of war crimes against Iran [2].

I mean this as analysis, not justification. But at some point the incredulity at blowback rings hollow.

[1]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47341007

[2]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47342791

[neodymiumphish]

If you make justifications for non-military targets like that ("tech firms"), then it just becomes a matter of opinion on where we draw the line. _You_ don't think that extends to hospitals and medical supplies, but _they_ might, and you're moral compass is just as righteous as theirs.

[jmyeet]

There was a time when there was less restraint with what prosecuting a war looked like. The Mongols famously wiped out the Khwarazmian Empire after the Sultan killed their traders.

But given the growth in destructive power, particularly with the advent of the nuclear age, it became necessary to establish some rules or norms for war and I'm referring specifically to the Geneva Conventions [1]. Conventions here cover that wounded people and civilians aren't military targets. So it's not my opinion or Iran's opinion that matters.

The question then is do we live in an interntional rules-based order or not? The US and Israel have ignored the rules-based order in favor of "might is right" politics.

As for tech firms, I'm sorry but a company like Palantir has made itself a valid military target [2][3]. And if you work there, you are really no different from the Reaper Drone pilot who fires Hellfire missiles at, say, a wedding procession [4].

[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geneva_Conventions

[2]: https://www.972mag.com/lavender-ai-israeli-army-gaza/

[3]: https://www.business-humanrights.org/en/latest-news/palantir...

[4]: https://aoav.org.uk/2014/drone-strike-yemen/

[w14]

> I belive that US tech firms have increasingly become valid military targets.

Not just US tech firms. So-called dual-use has been embedded into all kinds of what was previously exclusively civilian infrastructure including telecoms networks and data centres.

Of course dual-use has always been a thing up to a point, but there has been a shift in recent years to bring it right to the heart of military doctrine.

For example the UK's Strategic Defence Review 2025 and the new Defence Industrial Strategy:

"A new £11bn ‘Invest’ annual budget has also been established under the NAD. This will fund kit for our front-line forces which is affordable and grows our UK industrial base. Our new partnership with industry and a decade of consistently rising defence spending will encourage more private finance to grow our world-leading scale-up and dual-use tech companies."

"Today, much of the best innovation is found in the private sector, while the increasing prevalence of dual-use technologies has widened the net of potential suppliers that can contribute to Defence outcomes."

The way things are going it won't just be tech firms that will be considered 'legitimate targets'.

[cityofdelusion]

Is there a reason to believe this is false flag per your first sentence? Iran is an advanced technological civilization and very much capable. They would be considered a first world western like nation if they didn’t have a repressive theocracy.

[ImPostingOnHN]

> Isn't it a weird coincidence that soon after the US and Israel started an unprovoked and unnecessary war (that billionaires will profit handsomely from, as an aside) that we get stories like this to manufacture consent?

Manufacture consent for what? Starting a war with Iran? The US already did that, and didn't need any sort of consent.

If anything, this sort of story is more likely to manufacture opposition to the war, because folks already think the war is stupid, pointless, and never should have happened, and now they're suffering more for it.

[cyberpunk]

Boots on the ground? Nukes? Internment camps? It can go much further.

[ImPostingOnHN]

Yeah, but the current administration making their own people's lives worse by starting a war and inviting attacks such as this one, wouldn't manufacture any consent for those things.

If anything, it would manufacture opposition. The US general public blames the administration for any negative consequences resulting from the administration's war of choice: Attacks, high energy prices, further loss of US credibility, etc.

[gruez]

>Isn't it a weird coincidence that soon after the US and Israel started an unprovoked and unnecessary war (that billionaires will profit handsomely from, as an aside) that we get stories like this to manufacture consent?

Are you suggesting that's an inside job and/or false flag attack? If it's not a false flag attack, why imply that the reporting must be to "manufacture consent"? Shouldn't you expect major hacks to be reported?

[jmyeet]

No.

I'm saying that the media suddenly covering stories like this isn't a coincidence. The media is a tool of the state to manufacture consent. Media literacy goes beyond just looking at the facts in a story. It's also what's not mentioned, how is it presented, what stories are written, what stories aren't and, most importantly, why.

All social media companies manufacture consent for American foreign policy. Pretty much all American media does the same.

I find all this particularly funny because our media does the exact thing we accuse the likes of Chinese media doing it. We just pretend it doesn't happen here or are oblivious to it.

[gruez]

>I'm saying that the media suddenly covering stories like this isn't a coincidence. The media is a tool of the state to manufacture consent [...]

What do you mean "suddenly"? Per the reddit thread, they just got hacked yesterday. It's not like they were sitting on the story until the war broke out. Moreover I see hacks covered in the media all the time, even if there's no obvious russia/iran/north korea "manufacture consent" angle.

>Media literacy goes beyond just looking at the facts in a story. It's also what's not mentioned, how is it presented, what stories are written, what stories aren't and, most importantly, why.

There's a huge gulf between "taking every story at face value" and what you're doing which is seemingly assuming every story must be part of some sinister conspiracy to "manufacture consent".

[jmyeet]

> Per the reddit thread, they just got hacked yesterday.

There are constant hacks of companies. Most of them don't get covered. So there's that. But it's also how it's framed. It's an "Iranian cyberattack". Interesting.

Couldn't an equally valid headline be "Lax security results in Stryker getting hacked"? Probably (just guessing).

It's a bit like all the stories about the Chinese stealing IP and jobs. Ok, let's assume those claims are true and have been for decades. So why do companies keep offshoring there knowing this will happen? At what point do you blame short-term cost-cutting by bonus-hunting executives?

My point is that the media is playing along and you're going to get a lot of "Iran = bad" stories because of it.

[gruez]

>There are constant hacks of companies. Most of them don't get covered. So there's that.

Source? You can't just be like "some hacks don't get covered, this hack got covered, therefore there must be some ulterior motive behind this". If the baseline rate for reporting hacks is like 50% (random number), then the fact that it got reported doesn't tell us much. Moreover Stryker Corporation is a S&P 500 company, and this hack had major impact on their business. It's not just some data that got leaked, all their laptops/phones got wiped. It's exactly the type of hack that I'd expect to not get swept under the rug.

>It's an "Iranian cyberattack". Interesting.

Again, unless you're going for the false flag or inside job excuse, the hacker's note makes it pretty clear that it's Iranian backed, or at least by Iranian sympathizers.

>Couldn't an equally valid headline be "Lax security results in Stryker getting hacked"? Probably (just guessing).

>It's a bit like all the stories about the Chinese stealing IP and jobs. Ok, let's assume those claims are true and have been for decades. So why do companies keep offshoring there knowing this will happen? At what point do you blame short-term cost-cutting by bonus-hunting executives?

Same reason we don't put out headlines saying "women going to seedy club results in rape".