• Cyborganism
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    729 months ago

    Vigilante hacker attacks foreign nation internet infrastructure on behalf of the U.S. without the U.S.'s consent and wants to encourage the U.S. to perform more similar cyber attacks, but witout the approval of the chain of command, without thinking of the repercussions on international relations.

    I don’t know, but this doesn’t sond likea good idea.

      • Cyborganism
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        189 months ago

        Yeah good point on the anger glasses. He sounds like an agressive type of dude. Says he worked for Blackwater? The mercenaries company known for their crimes against humanity in Iraq, if I’m not mistaken? What normal person would want to work there?

      • @mojofrododojo
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        139 months ago

        DDoS’ing a nation is effectively carpet bombing citizenry for government actions when you should be taking a scapular approach to threat actor countermeasures.

        my understanding is that the only NK citizens that have access to the actual internet is microscopic and concentrated in information warfare / scams.

          • @mojofrododojo
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            29 months ago

            I do love me some links to read after a nice pithy comment :D

      • @[email protected]
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        109 months ago

        Are you laboring under the false impression that the average citizens of North Korea have, forget regular, but ANY access to the internet? Carpet bombing doesn’t work if you’re already a ghost.

          • @[email protected]
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            39 months ago

            No. No I’m just calling out that this particular cyberattack was not as impactful to the everyman of North Korea as it would fit any other, more modernized country. Your point gains more validity the more networked a country is.

            The article is paywalled. Did you read all of it? Does it specifically quote the author as saying “I want the same baseline response. Doesn’t matter who I attack”? Because I didn’t see that, but I didn’t bother to bypass the paywall. If you did and it’s in there, cool, guys a weirdo. If not, quit making up shit to fill out your narrative. You don’t know any better than anyone else unless you asked him or are him.

              • @[email protected]
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                19 months ago

                I’ll have you know I’m fully baked, and don’t have any reason not to express myself here, so naturally, I’ma gonna.

      • @[email protected]
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        89 months ago

        I generally agree with you but isn’t the n Korean internet only used by the government and whatever rich people can afford it? I say fuck em.

    • @[email protected]
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      9 months ago

      It sounds like a Hollywood movie. “Hacker tattoos”? Single person took on an entire country? I dunno, something about this is off, like it’s too juicy of a story for Wired to scrutinize it properly and there’s really more (or less) to the story.

      • Cyborganism
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        89 months ago

        Yeah, especially since the NSA or FBI or CIA has never accepted the dude’s methods. And he’s the only one giving his own testimoy about all of this. It’s weird.

      • @[email protected]
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        39 months ago

        Are you saying you don’t keep your pgp key tattooed on your face? How do people know if they are actually talking to you then?

  • @[email protected]
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    319 months ago

    Something tells me the last thing the world needs from a cybersecurity standpoint is a leaner, meaner Pentagon that can launch cyberattacks faster than they can assess the likely impact

      • @[email protected]
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        9 months ago

        In the article it states the average lead time for a Pentagon-organized cyberattack is six months.

        The main point of the article is that this guy is basically trying to push the Pentagon to be more like him, a guy who took personal offense when a North Korean hacker tried to drive-by hack him then took the entire country offline without first considering whether or not they might retaliate against an actual lone wolf attacker, or whether this is a rational response as an individual to the existence of organized nation-state attackers.

        Basically, he’s lucky the Pentagon took an interest in him. The article points out that the officials he shared his attack with were well aware the main reason they couldn’t do something similar is literally just bureaucracy. He’s not offering anything new on a technical level, he just wants the Pentagon to shoot from the hip more often and worry less about the consequences of their actions.

        TBH, probably everybody in the world would prefer the slower, less aggressive Pentagon we have now rather than one that goes around picking fights with every nation-state and group that pisses it off for like, any reason.

  • @mx_smith
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    229 months ago

    “cybersecurity entrepreneur with hacker tattoos on both arms“ what’s a hacker tattoo? Your IP address? This article was really short on how he did it.

    • kamenLady.
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      129 months ago

      Everyone knows that hacker tattoos enable their wearer to be able to do sick hacks. The better the tattoo, the better the hacker skill.

    • @[email protected]
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      39 months ago

      There is a picture in the article. Its his previous handle and a what looks like a md5 hash along his entire left arm from hand to shoulder.

  • @[email protected]
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    59 months ago

    Their IP address range is hilariously small at 1024 addresses total (175.45.176.0/22). That’s about one IP address for every 24,400 people.

  • @PrinceWith999Enemies
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    59 months ago

    DPRK has a reputation for using assassination and kidnapping on foreign soil. It’s probably not as bad as taking on a Mexican drug cartel, organized crime, or Donald Trump, but it’s still something I’d probably want to keep on the DL.

    • @[email protected]
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      -29 months ago

      DPRK has a reputation for using assassination and kidnapping on foreign soil.

      US has a history of that with a lot more deaths, so we should thank hackers who attack US infrastructure.

      • @PrinceWith999Enemies
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        59 months ago

        Do you just enjoy doing hot takes or trolling?

        Nowhere did I imply that the DPRK’s practices justify the attack - that’s left to individuals to think about for themselves. I was saying that their tendency to engage in covert ops against individuals outside of their own borders means that, if I were the hacker, I wouldn’t want my name publicly known. The same goes for the US - even more so. I would expect that someone who managed to disable significant parts of the US internet infrastructure not to then immediately publish their identity.

  • @merthyr1831
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    49 months ago

    I’m sure this had absolutely no benefit beyond pissing off the few DPRK citizens who have intranet access. What a dick

  • @bizarrocullen
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    19 months ago

    Tiday, he’s a healthy young man, next week he’ll die of a sudden and mysterious heart attack.

    • FiveMacs
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      109 months ago

      North Korea has a lot…just none of the citizens can use or know about it.