[HN Gopher] Former WSJ reporter says law firm used Indian hacker... ___________________________________________________________________ Former WSJ reporter says law firm used Indian hackers to sabotage his career Author : re_re Score : 125 points Date : 2022-10-15 18:23 UTC (4 hours ago) (HTM) web link (www.reuters.com) (TXT) w3m dump (www.reuters.com) | mrfumier wrote: | If this "journalist" consider emails to be a safe way to | communicate, then he deserves to be fired. | swayvil wrote: | This is an angle of the uneven distribution of wealth that you | seldom hear about. As long as there are rich and poor people, a | rich person can hire a poor person to do basically anything. | | Overriding legality, decency, safety. Because the poor person | just needs the money that bad. | | So you get people renting out their backyard as a toxic waste | dump. Or murdering people. Or breathing smog. Or selling | children. Crazy horrible stuff that no sane person would do. | Because they need the money. | | And the rich guy is untouched. | | So, to a significant degree, as long as there is rich and poor, | there is no law or morality. It reduces society to a dog-pit. | seibelj wrote: | An underappreciated negative aspect of equality is total lack | of enthusiasm and incentive. | | As inequality is a guarantee - no two people are alike in any | aspect and neither are their abilities as an employee - | mandating (either by gun or union contract) lockstep equality | in payments and job security, the highest performers are | demoralized and put in the bare minimum or quit (if they can). | The result is the ever-increasing shitty quality of the firm | and its behavior. For modern examples see the NHS (bleeding | doctors and nurses to the private sector) and American public | schools in inner cities (highest global costs per student yet | abysmal results). | | There are valid criticisms about inequality but the pros far | out way the cons. | dmix wrote: | I find that most people arguing for top-down redistribution | don't seem to care about if it makes everyone poorer as long | as "equality for everyone" is the modus operandi. They see it | as a moral imperative, the measurable outcomes and realities | of the economic systems always get second rate treatment. | | It's always much, much easier to argue for 'fairness' and to | rail against the rich... than it is to be realistic and | accept that there will be very visible downsides but that | alternatives are much worse in practice. | | Ditto with free speech, censorship is almost always a greater | evil, with small exceptions, but when you try to defend it | they try to pretend you only care about nazis/far-right. | Sometimes doing the right thing is not easy and yes - it | requires plenty of effort to weed out the assholes and wrong- | doers (which the courts are doing now by punishing the law | firms), but it's worth it in the end. | | And you don't have to tolerate the bad guys just because you | didn't compromise societies freedoms and wealth to prevent | them from existing in the first place. There's more ways to | stop it than throwing the baby out with the bathwater. | [deleted] | another_story wrote: | This is mostly a strawman, since I don't see almost anyone | arguing for complete equality of pay, status or position, | merely that a handful of people shouldn't be able to | accumulate the wealth of small nations on the back of others. | | In countries in Europe, and places in Asia, there are plenty | of examples where there is less inequality and the students | perform better. | ok_dad wrote: | Sounds to me like we should eliminate the idea that high | performance and achievement should be rewarded with wealth or | being raised above others. Perhaps it would be better if | people learned from a young age that achievement is its own | reward? Are we such animals that we need special treats in | order to do the right thing? I think it's a childish attitude | that if you don't get more cookies than someone else that | you'll throw down your work and have a tantrum. | lupire wrote: | You are overlooking the "extreme" part of "extreme | inequality" | | Bezos and Musk would work just as hard if they only had 10% | of the financial equity share in their companies that they | have today. | redanddead wrote: | Yeah and the problem is getting worse. sometimes it seems that | even institutions are trying to maximize human pain. | | I thought of writing an economics book about this phenomenon. | | I have no idea how we can fix this problem and hope someone | else can chime in | permo-w wrote: | the solutions are there, we implemented them in the post-war | era, and they worked, massively reducing inequality until | about the early to mid-1970s, where due to a number of | reasons, lots of Western economies slowed down, especially | the UK and the US, and the free-market Milton-Friedman- | inspired right got into power and more or less has been since | then. their policies creating overall growth, yes, but at the | expense of wage growth and (after an initial bump from | selling off public property) living standards. | | as a related aside, if someone ever tells you that taxes are | at an all-time high so we must reduce them, take a look at | the top marginal tax rates in the UK and US in the mid-60s. | or corp tax back then | | the way to actually solve these problems was told to us by | Keynes. the problem is that the political will is just not | there. that's where we need a solution. how do you circumvent | the capital-holding elite [to use a meaningless word]? | ssss11 wrote: | Individuals need better morals imo. The corporate entries of | this works however do everything for the benefit of the share | holder which isn't always the right moral thing. | permo-w wrote: | individuals can have all the morals they like. there are | always going to be sociopaths and opportunists in this | world, and corporations - and, as you point out, their | shareholders - benefit from hiring them. the improvement | must come from society as a whole. public organisation, | whether that's government, or unions, or even charities, | must have the balls to stand up to profit-mongering, and | properly regulate this mess | permo-w wrote: | this is a very salient way of explaining the need for wealth | redistribution in society. this doesn't necessarily mean | communism or socialism, but it should mean more Keynesian | economics. high taxes on the rich - including rich corporations | - and strong public spending in the right areas: education, | small businesses, healthcare, and safety nets so people feel | like they can take risks without having the fear of becoming | homeless | epicureanideal wrote: | I assume this has more to do with absolute poverty than | relative poverty. If a person is starving they'll do almost | anything to eat. If they're merely relatively poor, having an | old car instead of a new one, a small house instead of a large | house, it's unlikely they'd go to extremes. | PuppyTailWags wrote: | Relative poverty is also involved imo. Many people would go | to extremes to ensure their children and their loved ones are | guaranteed brighter economic futures. Life insurance | companies wouldn't both explicitly exclude suicide and also | do investigation to ensure a death wasn't suicide if it | people weren't willing to literally die to ensure a brighter | economic future for their dependents. | | Hell, I live very comfortably, am not at risk of homelessness | or starvation. But there is a lot I would do for money that | guarantees the best start in life for my children, the best | end of life (medical care, treatments, etc) for my parents. | swayvil wrote: | Don't diminish it by choosing an innocuous characterization. | You see the range of it as clearly as the rest of us. | pempem wrote: | I'm not sure I understand the importance of these hackers being | Indian as opposed as from any other region? | [deleted] | greggsy wrote: | Incidents and stories related to Indian hackers-for-hire have | been rising in the past couple of years. A few companies have | built a workable model out of it. It's relevant context from | the cyber security industry perspective, tangentially related | in this case. | puchatek wrote: | Maybe you missed this sentence while reading the article? | | "Solomon's suit is the latest in a series of legal actions that | follows Reuters' reporting about hired hackers operating out of | India." | jotm wrote: | Law firm being cheap? Or Indians being dangerous, I guess... | sandGorgon wrote: | US and India have very enforceable bilateral cybercrime | treaties. And it is very well enforced on both sides. | | The article makes it seem that India as a whole is operating in | some North Korea-ish way. | | A US citizen can well complain to CERT-IN (https://www.cert- | in.org.in/) for any reported cybercrime with proper documents | and it will be treated as an enforceable crime. | | In fact, quite funny considering the US Chambers of Commerce | have filed an appeal with CERT-IN that the compliance | requirements are very stringent | (https://economictimes.indiatimes.com/tech/technology/cert- | in...) | duxup wrote: | Seems relevant to the difficulty in investigating and getting | any sort of justice. | ganoushoreilly wrote: | > https://archive.ph/YegWz | | They're accusing a specific group of for hire hackers (BellTroX | and CyberRoot) in Delhi. | edge17 wrote: | My guess is it has to do with Reuters editorial positioning on | what's going on with Ukraine and Russia. I agree though, I | don't see the relevance. | [deleted] | SynAck6 wrote: | I get your point, but I'm assuming it's more about the fact | that it's relatively cheap labour and difficult to investigate. | rosnd wrote: | It's mostly India where these hackers operate like real | companies with websites, offices, bank accounts, etc... | | BellTroX is well known and the Indian government seems to | approve of their activities. | WFHRenaissance wrote: | 1. Foreign hacking groups are often beyond the reach of Western | law enforcement. If a domestic threat had been to blame here, | there would be legal/financial recourse for damage done. That's | not the case here. Implicit in this article is the report of a | new kind of warfare for which many Americans have no good | defense against. | | 2. Standard editorial racism a la "The Oriental Threat". | 4oo4 wrote: | Is that also why this is a civil suit and not criminal | charges under the CFAA? | greggsy wrote: | I don't think number 2 is at play here - the use of Indian | hackers-for-hire has been topical in the cyber security | industry recently. | InCityDreams wrote: | 'Cus they were from India? | nier wrote: | It surprised me to read that reporters for the Wall Street | Journal communicate with their sources via email. That's | careless. | the_optimist wrote: | Maybe not careless, but not a good convention. Incidentally, | securedrop is set up only to communicate with specific | journalistic organizations. I'd be very hesitant to send | information to a journalistic org without an understanding of | who's involved. In no way have the vast majority of | journalistic orgs established the trust necessary to receive | leaks: | | https://securedrop.org/directory/ | 1letterunixname wrote: | securedrop, pastebin GPG communiques from coffee shop WiFi + | VPN, i2p, or something with a buffer between them and their | sources. Perhaps include journalism security hygiene similar to | foreign intelligence HUMINT and compartmentalization. | Journalists have to realize they don't know their adversaries | and should "fail-safe" to assume they include state actors and | megacorps with unlimited resources. To not do so is to | recklessly underestimate the threat. | iinnPP wrote: | Or just join the dark side as many have. | bredren wrote: | Reporters don't always get to pick and enforce the medium of | communication with sources. | ChrisMarshallNY wrote: | One thing that I should point out, is that he is not going after | the WSJ, for any impropriety in his firing. They are really the | ones that damaged his career. | | So I suspect that there is more to this story than is apparent. | LatteLazy wrote: | I believe... In the USA you cannot sue your employer for firing | you unless it's for membership of a protected class or | whistleblowing. If your employer wants to fire you because it's | Thursday or they're just having a bad day or they don't like | something you wrote in an email, tough. | collegeburner wrote: | so you're talking about at-will employment and it's generally | the rule in America. however there are some states that have | a good faith rule where you can't terminate a employee for | malice. here's a map of which states are which: | https://www.paycor.com/wp- | content/uploads/2021/02/Employment... | | i believe WSJ employs in NY state so this doesn't apply. | peyton wrote: | No, employment law is much more complicated than that. | harles wrote: | From what I can tell, there's not necessarily more. It's a | clear conflict of interest to do business with a source for a | story. Doesn't sound illegal, but certainly gives the | appearance of bias. | tedunangst wrote: | Or he believes he was justifiably fired, but would have been | able to get another job had the emails not been made public. | The Journal is not interfering in his future prospects. | neonate wrote: | https://archive.ph/YegWz ___________________________________________________________________ (page generated 2022-10-15 23:00 UTC)