- Moderator
- #41
There is another aspect as well, that is worrisome about hacking and things like wikileaks - and that is publishing what is sensitive material.
A lot of negotiation goes on behind closed doors long before anything public is announced. This means there is the rhetoric that is for public consumption - either at home or abroad, and the conversations in private aimed at establishing what is and isn't possible for each side to agree to, concede to, or oppose without public loss of face or need for face saving that would be needed if a situation were misjudged. When Nixon opened relations with China - it wasn't just all of a sudden. It was preceded by several years of intensely private and secret negotiations between Kissenger and the Chinese in order to establish a public position both countries were comfortable with in order to begin more public negotiations. In the process, negotiaters might indirectly imply positions to test the waters and the reactions of the other side - without worry as to how it might come off publically at home or abroad. Imagine if all that had been played out in public ahead of time.
The problem with Wikileaks - even presuming it's not an indirect extension of Russia's propoganda arm is that it releases information with no thought about consequences or very real damage - such as revealing sensitive information, real names, etc. Real people can be put at risk and for what reason? What illegal things did they do to deserve having their privacy shredded, their credit card info posted?
You can stack all the blame on the victims for being lax with security but that is disengenius - it's a way of justifying the crimes and in the world of cybertechnology the hackers are often a step ahead of the latest security, it's a rapidly evolving field.
A lot of negotiation goes on behind closed doors long before anything public is announced. This means there is the rhetoric that is for public consumption - either at home or abroad, and the conversations in private aimed at establishing what is and isn't possible for each side to agree to, concede to, or oppose without public loss of face or need for face saving that would be needed if a situation were misjudged. When Nixon opened relations with China - it wasn't just all of a sudden. It was preceded by several years of intensely private and secret negotiations between Kissenger and the Chinese in order to establish a public position both countries were comfortable with in order to begin more public negotiations. In the process, negotiaters might indirectly imply positions to test the waters and the reactions of the other side - without worry as to how it might come off publically at home or abroad. Imagine if all that had been played out in public ahead of time.
The problem with Wikileaks - even presuming it's not an indirect extension of Russia's propoganda arm is that it releases information with no thought about consequences or very real damage - such as revealing sensitive information, real names, etc. Real people can be put at risk and for what reason? What illegal things did they do to deserve having their privacy shredded, their credit card info posted?
You can stack all the blame on the victims for being lax with security but that is disengenius - it's a way of justifying the crimes and in the world of cybertechnology the hackers are often a step ahead of the latest security, it's a rapidly evolving field.