Slashdot Mirror
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?
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.
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 Day turned into the April Fool's decade...
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.
Plus, you have the problem such as the hacking command center in Canada, ran by the US NSA, that launches attacks on the US with the intent on pointing the finger at other countries. How can anybody be sure it isn't a false flag attack as long as the NSA runs something like this?
Oh, and I'm pretty sure an order very similar to this would have happened if we had President Romney too. I'm not forgiving Obama for it but, the name in office matters very little any more nor does the party affiliation. The same corporations pull the strings. All the party hate serves is that people are watching Republicans or Democrats when they should be watching Northrop Grumman, Goldman Sachs, Bank of America, Monsanto, etc.
"Be particularly skeptical when presented with evidence confirming what you already believe." -
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.
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.
So the Germans, Swiss, French and the UN can reciprocate and bill USA for having a par tay?
You know, if you keep doing ridiculous shit long enough (and getting away with it), eventually you can do something super ridiculous and send out the PR release on April 1. Everyone will think it's a joke.
Someone flopped a steamer in the gene pool.
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.
The penalty is being flooded with bad April Fool's jokes.
Table-ized A.I.
Does the same apply for other countries who are being attacked by america's cyber soldiers? *cough* NSA?
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.
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!