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Obama Authorizes Penalties For Foreign Cyber Attackers
An anonymous reader writes President Barack Obama has today signed an executive order extending the U.S. administration's power to respond to malicious cyberattacks and espionage campaigns. The order enforces financial sanctions on foreign hackers who action attacks against American businesses, institutions and citizens. It will enable the secretary of the Treasury, along with the attorney general and secretary of State, to inflict penalties on cyber criminals behind hacking attacks which "create a significant threat to U.S. national security, foreign policy or economic health or financial stability of the United States," Obama said. Sanctions could include freezing of assets or a total ban on commercial trade.
And what about the non-stop attacks from the US government against... everyone else?
I'm tired of these April Fool's articles!
This is ridiculous. Law is part of the agreement between citizens and their government. Citizens get certain benefits like public education and healthcare, and in return must pay the government taxes and obey their laws. If the citizen disagrees with this, he can resign his citizenship, but by doing so loses the benefits of citizenship as well.
Foreigners, on the other hand, have no such agreement, and therefore it's ridiculous to charge them. What's next, Saudi Arabia charges me for having a beer tonight? North Korea charges me for criticizing their regime? Should I serious have to look up every single country's law before I do something, just to make sure I'm not breaking some obscure country's law?
Anyone can pretty much check the honeypots out there - These three are some of the absolute worst offenders. Sanctions on them and lower any cooperation with other countries if they just want to let shit like this slide.
this is totalitarian fascist idiocy. how can you prove the origination of the attack? (hint: YOU CANT)
let china ship chips with hidden backdoors triggered by radioactive decay... only ship them to enemy states... backdoor triggers, botnets self assemble and start attacks. china's enemy gets sanctioned from the world without trial.
or, just ask the 13 year old kid down the block to route the command and control through one of his VPNs.... too easy.
thanks, obama.
The other half is companies that don't properly secure their information systems. And with a law like this in place, there's even less reason to.
Any sufficiently unpopular but cohesive argument is indistinguishable from trolling.
While I totally support what the President is trying to achieve, and I am of the opinion that he is not going far enough with this, I believe the implementation will be difficult.
Obama has no authority to impose sanctions on anybody for these acts, unless (1) Congress passes a law that says he does or (2) a foreign country says he does, creating jurisdiction. Neither has happened.
Obama said "From now on, we have the power to freeze their assets, make it harder for them to do business with U.S. companies, and limit their ability to profit from their misdeeds" in the making (apparently) of an executive order. If the power existed, it existed prior to Mr. Obama's order because it was authorized by 1 or 2 above. Mr. Obama's declarations of power are worthy of the bottom of my birdcage.
This idiot of a reporter at The Stack dot com thinks that an executive order is "legislation". Someone should inform her that legislation almost always appears in the U.S. Code, not in some press release on the White House Blog. I can't wait for this administration to try to enforce these sanctions: they're going to get tossed out of court on their rear ends if they try.
april fool's joke yet
Making rules against cyberattacks against US computers? LOL!!! Foreigners should just be able to hack away with no repercussions! This HAS to be an April Fools! LOLOLOL!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Slashdot: providing anti-social weirdos a soapbox, since 1997.
So the tens of thousands of systems the NSA has broke into around the world are going to cost us how much?
Yet another consequence of poor software design. Now we will spend a lot of resources punishing people instead of creating robust software. I wish software development was a profession instead of a bunch of chickens pecking out horrible code!!
This sounds more like the usual slashdot front page material. Someone forgot to mention that it also gives him the right to eat your firstborn - regardless of their age - but it is nonetheless much closer to what we usually see here now. It isn't funny, but neither were any of the April Fool's articles.
Damn_registrars has no butt-hole. Damn_registrars has no use for a butt-hole.
just hit them hackers with drones.
At least a useless person does nothing, which is better than doing the wrong thing
as Obama repeatedly has done.
By the way, anyone who wonders why some people in other countries hate the US
needs look no further than the incredible arrogance of the US which doesn't have
the moral or legal right to impose sanctions on the rest of the world.
I knew they would get serious when people started stealing money from the government by filing false tax returns. The USG won't bestir itself for hackers stealing military secrets, but if you affect the flow of tax dollars you're in trouble.
given what the NSA does, how it attacks, breaches, and infiltrates foreign networks and systems.
I remember the good old days when Whitehouse.com was a porn site and we tried to trick people into clicking on it in public computer labs.
So the Germans, Swiss, French and the UN can reciprocate and bill USA for having a par tay?
I can't down mod you any harder damnit!
Executive orders hardly seems viable against foreign invaders of US computers. As if we don't already have plenty of laws on the books already. Gee, Obama spend your time doing constructive things rather then playing with your pen creating dumb and rather unenforceable cyber criminal orders which don't help anymore then the laws in place already.
So, what's he gonna do about his BFF Iran? Cuz, you know, they never hack the U.S...
Funny. The Russians seem to have your backs to the wall over the Ukraine...
Not really. We're willing to go to war over some things and not others. Ukraine was serious in the diplomatic community but its ties to the US population are relatively small. Striking a NATO country or certain NATO allies would get the Americans involved in a hurry.
There have been times in the past when America has not gone in, when we know from evidence that came out after the fact that Russia would have backed down if we had. Going into the western part might well have worked here, might have started a major war, or might have gotten us stuck there for ten years while our budget is not in the greatest shape to begin with--it could have severely impacted our readiness to carry on other wars if they become necessary. With Iraq and Afghanistan fresh in our minds, somebody made a call they didn't want to get mired in it. The Russian attack into Ukraine sucks, but it's not a line in the sand for us.
Invade Germany or Poland and you'll see a much bigger response, from the United States and Europe.
Don't you ever bad-mouth the US government or their dogs will be after you for the rest of your pathetic life
Look at what happened to Gaddafi of Libya of Saddam of Iraq and you will understand that you can *NEVER* say anything bad about the government of the United States of America
When (and if) the USA attacks you, it is YOU who must be bad, as USA is the de-facto "good guy" in the whole goddamn world
So, the US has decided they will apply penalties/punishment for people who break into their computers.
But the US has decided they can break into any and all computers.
On behalf of the part of the world who thinks you shouldn't have access to our communications ... what the hell gives you the right to penalize someone for things you openly do? Why are attacks against you special?
Why does American foreign policy boil down to "we are special because we're Americans", and why the hell should the rest of the world agree to this bullshit?
If America has decreed they can break into any system legally for any reasons of their choosing .. America needs to accept the fact that is true of any country (or possibly individual) in the world.
Unless somehow it's magically different, because 'Murica.
Lost at C:>. Found at C.
April fools!
The penalty is being flooded with bad April Fool's jokes.
Table-ized A.I.
Fool Obama, try'n to hid the perps again and again and agin and agin ....
Dis Nigger never stops!
He Wrong!
Dead Wrong!
Fuck'n Nigger Wrong!
It da NSA.
WHY? Day pay'n O-Boy-Butt Billions $$$$$.
Dat right.
Ha ha
Does the same apply for other countries who are being attacked by america's cyber soldiers? *cough* NSA?
How about Russia? Can they sue airlines and individuals violating their airspace? Hell, can they redefine international borders to be 100 miles and assert control over that space in international waters?
If not, then all you're doing, USA, is bullying.
I think the US president can't demand money from people in other countries, even with all those unilateral treaties. What this really means is the fascist US will force their companies to punish the relevant countries, or possibly persons, like the US already does with international banking. I'm now imagining the US president demands that Cisco and Apple shut operations in China: Nope, not gonna happen.
American idiots. "action" is a noun, not a verb.
The US just unilaterally decides that they're guilty. There's no trial or anything, and an innocent person gets their life made harder only based on suspicions.
You know, I liked the GNAA back when they had press releases relating to recent event, and up-to-the-minute trolling for news stories. But now it's all stale copy-pasta. You aren't the GNAA, you're just lame imitators.
Financial sanctions for Bubba from Burkhina Faso or Vlad from Chechnya?
No more wire transfer for their Nigerian scams anymore?
Yay, swatting just got an upgrade.
Since internet based crime is already hard to track down to individuals or groups who are only making reasonable efforts to hide their identities I envision a new from of cyber-attack, DOFBA attack or Denial Of Funds By America attack. All that is needed is to commit a 'cyber' attack on the US or its citizens in a way that upon investigation tracks back to some group that you wish to punish. Though come to think of it, this may have already happened see the timeline of the Sony Hack.
I'm sure that the Russian and Chinese hackers are absolutely terrified of Obama's penalties.
Ah the days of GNAA and TripMasterMonkey!
I am Bennett Haselton! I am Bennett Haselton!
So - foreign cyber attckers are bad, but Iran with nukes is good?
You can bet this ties in with the Trans Pacific Partnership. Somehow other governments throughout the Middle East will try to silence American's speaking out against Islam. But too bad, and if Obama or anybody else goes along with it, they too can expect a measured response from the general population.
The scary thing is that the reporter called an executive order "new legislation". The president does not have the power to create laws. He can only enforce the current laws. Yet the reporter does not explain where the authority is for these actions. So, either the reporter is very stupid, or they are trying to make it seem that a president, by executive order, can create law. This is a dangerous ground to tread as that is how dictators operate. It's doubly dangerous for reporters, as they are the first to be executed.