[logn]

They excluded a few countries and two usernames. Medium-level infection reached 18 countries.

I think it's foolish to defend alleged NSA operations when the NSA won't even acknowledge such operations.

If the government wants to have a debate about the rules of digital warfare (or a particular war), then let's. If they don't, then why should we defend their secret tactics? We have no idea what the motives and objectives are of these operations. And we have little knowledge about how they've affected people, innocent or otherwise.

Your casual analogy to parking vans outside homes seems reasonable. Until you consider what that actually means in our real life. For instance, vans outside homes has been a large part of the war on drugs which has imprisoned a staggering number of black youth. What do you think is the analogous fallout of this malware? Drone strikes? Defend those.

[anologwintermut]

The notation that a debate on the rules of digital warfare will do anything is questionable.

Arms control limitations (SALT,START), the hague convention, etc, work because there are means of verifying countries adhere to what they agree on (and ostensibly punishing those who don't).

Given the difficulty of attributing cyber attacks (e.g. Sony), much less cyber espionage, there's little reason to think this is possible in this case. And that's just for direct action.

If we're talking about tactics and capabilities, it's impossible. How are you going to make sure there aren't 30 people somewhere writing malware for a government? You can't, at least absent far more invasive spying or some kind of DRM that makes writing malware illegal.

[logn]

My point was mostly that I will not defend secret war/aggression/cybercrime especially in light of recent history. I'm surprised so many people here defend this malware claiming that it's (1) justified and (2) targeted. Since, we have no idea what it's for and it's heavily infected 18 countries. I'd guess they also support targeted torture and rectal hydration too. Just as long as it's not citizens. Except for just the really bad citizens.

[trynumber9]

No one in this thread has said they support torture. This malware has nothing g to do with torture. What was the point of that fake argument? Supporting targeted malware is not supporting torture.

[logn]

There was some sarcasm in my comment above and I didn't fully detail what I meant.

The point was that something doesn't become ok just because it's targeted at non-citizens or the targets are more limited than simply everyone. (Unless other context can justify it... but we're being kept in the dark). It's still dragnet surveillance. Similarly torture is wrong and no amount of "targeting" can change that. So I think there's a disconnect in people who oppose mass surveillance but approve of this. I presume many people ok with this malware are opposed to torture; it wasn't to be taken literally.

[LLWM]

Surveillance is situationally justifiable. Torture is not. This isn't a complex problem.

[logn]

I think that surveillance and dragnet surveillance are fundamentally different and not comparable.

[aburan28]

When the state conducting torture and assassinations without due process of its own citizens is the one making the calls about who to round up or kill via metadata they are vis a vis.