Currency Exchange Website Accused of Cyber Terrorism By Venezuelan Government (arstechnica.com)

braindrainbahrain writes: A U.S.-based website that covers the unofficial exchange rate between the U.S. dollar and the Bolivar, the Venezuelan currency, has been accused of cyber terrorism in a civil complaint. Venezuela, suffering from ever increasing inflation, maintains very tight controls on currency exchange, and accuses the website operators of racketeering and conspiracy. In an earlier speech, Venezuelan President Nicola Maduro stated he would ask the President of the United States to hunt down the operators of the DT Site and extradite them to Venezuela to be tried as criminals.

Comments

Not about the law

[RogueyWon]

The coverage I've seen of this today has emphasised that the Venezuelan Government's filing has essentially no chance whatsoever of success. That's undoubtedly true, but I suspect it misses the point.

This is unlikely to be about the law, or even about an attempt to stifle the website in question. Rather, it's likely to be gesture politics aimed at a domestic audience. Maduro, like Chavez before him, keeps his political base motivated by constructing elaborate theories to show that almost the entire world (and particularly the US) is conspiring against them. The sense of victimhood and isolation this creates is a useful political tool.

When this filing is rejected (likely at the first hurdle) it becomes another piece of "evidence" that the US is seeking to destroy Venezuela.

Re:Not about the law

[Kohath]

Why doesn't he just point out all the great things that socialism has done for the people? It should be easy to find an audience. These people waiting in line for food would have to listen.

Re:Not about the law

[Kohath]

He can't, because the U.S is working hard since the elections to wreck their economy. Do you think socialism is bad? Look in northern Europe where people can move boxes in a warehouse and still put the equivalent of $1000 in their savings account after all the bills are paid. Don't use a small country under economic siege as an argument that socialism or socialistic democracy doesn't work.

Yeah, it's amazing how there's always an external bogeyman whenever socialism makes things worse.

And always a story about northern European success. Northern European socialists do ok. Northern European capitalists do ok. Maybe northern Europeans just have a strong, resilient culture?

Re:Not about the law

[MightyMartian]

Latin America has been a disaster since the Spaniards first set foot on it. The US may not have helped, but let us be frank much of the region would be a mess US or no.

Re:Not about the law

[Kjella]

And always a story about northern European success. Northern European socialists do ok. Northern European capitalists do ok. Maybe northern Europeans just have a strong, resilient culture?

It's a very collective culture, if you start bragging about a Norwegian he's probably going to blush and start listing all the other people he shares credit with. Or to discredit himself as special, even though he's done something few others can. Even when in fact you've worked very hard and long for it, you are supposed to undersell your accomplishments and let others talk you up. It makes for good teamwork but less competitiveness, so it's got both pros and cons. Particularly in early education and youth sports there's been a strong opposition to measuring and competition, focusing on learning and improving yourself and being part of a team.

It also has lead to a culture of everybody's job being important, if we didn't have construction workers the brain surgeon wouldn't have a hospital to operate in. Nowhere else in the world is the burger flipper at McDonald's paid so well compared to doctors, engineers, lawyers and so on. And those relatively low differences between "ordinary" people - we still have the 1%'ers - has lead to a very non-aggressive society and good universal services like public education and healthcare, that by far most of the population use. I also think WWII had an effect there, there was an enormous sense of unity built by the occupation and rebuilding the country, even though the generation that remembered that is dying out.

That collective culture also makes people want collective systems to work, rather than abandon it. You shouldn't have to send your kids to private school to get a good education, you shouldn't have to arm yourself because the police doesn't protect you. It's also expected that the government intervenes in the market on behalf of the consumer, like when Apple tried to exclusively bundle the iPhone to a single vendor. The government said we don't like that kind of lock-in, users must be able to terminate for a reasonable fee. So people signed up to get the iPhone, terminated immediately and signed up with their preferred vendor. And the lock-in went away.

If there is a downside, it's that the collective culture also tends to say we know what's good for you and through prohibitions, restrictions and taxes we're creating something of a nanny state. Maybe particularly taxes, I'm paying eight times as much for a beer here in Norway as when I go to Germany. On the other hand when I look at the capitalist US there's everything from dry communities to Las Vegas, so I'm not sure it's really related to economics. Maybe we just have a puritan streak, even though in other ways we're very liberal. And sometimes odd, I think we and Israel are the only two countries with conscription for both sexes. It only took a few insinuations of females being the weaker sex and we had feminists on the barricades to get equal duties and they did.