this is unsettling :( if they hit the button and start knocking out american infrastructure, even with "harmless" small-scale attacks or limited to certain sectors, i wonder how fast this is going to escalate... this mere unspoken threat is an aggressive move already https://theguardian.com/us-news/...

Hm, the evidence is quoted as "largely circumstantial". Maybe even as circumstantial as the evidence for weapons of mass destruction in the Iraq back then. Just gotta trust them on that.

The other question is why they are hooking up infrastructure to a game starter OS, often even with no proper separation between office click monkeys and critical sections.

It is an aggressive move, but that doesn't mean that it's outstanding. the USA has military bases right next to russia all around the border, not even restricted to NATO territory (obviiously they're perfectly entitled to setting up bases on NATO ground with the consent of the state in question). Every major country including the USA has been waging cyberwarfare ever since the internet came about, which initially started out mainly as espionage but the responsibilities of secret services included strategic offensive action since WWII so it was never going to stay that way.

@Frederick You literally have been giving them some of "their own medicine" for decades. Have you heard of Stuxnet? The CIA waged cyberwars before cyberwarfare became a common word.

@Frederick The US have been caught lying so often that they can't be trusted when they claim Russia is behind that. Not that this in itself would prove that Russia didn't do it - absence of evidence is not evidence of absence.

Next, does Russia really let everything go? In January, the Russian FSB arrested come Revil members based on information provided by US authorities: https://bbc.com/news/...

Also, whom do you want to hack? Some unrelated Russian infrastructure? Based on what proofs? Secret ones? Oh, yeah, sure. Also, even if the attack can be traced to a Russian computer, that may already have been hacked itself.

@Frederick The military budget claim is incorrect. Russia doesn't even have 10% of the US budget. Russia is on place 4 behind the US, China, and India.

About on a par with the UK, and not that much more than the next-ranking Saudi-Arabia, Germany, and France. So, comparably to the UK and France, Russia is a considerable power, but not a super-power.

@Frederick I didn't take a stance on whether this is okay or whether the USA's cyber warfare is okay because I don't have enough information to decide whether this or others are necessary, though I lean to believe that Stuxnet was a good thing because the more nuclear weapons the less stable MAD gets and the closer we drift to nuclear war.

All I'm trying to say is that it's not news and certainly not a special reason for retaliation. If the USA decides to reveal their ongoing cyber war with Russia (because it's certainly not something they'd start today) that'd merely be to get citizens used to the thought that they're at war. In this regard it'd be scary, and in this regard it might also be considered an act of war.

Additionally try to portray states, governments and populi as separate things, and consider what the effects of each and every attack are.

- Attacking a government or a secret service (which is typically subordinated to the government) is attacking a small powerful group of people that happens to be managing a country by one means or another.

- Attacking a state is like damaging a machine that serves millions, sometimes billions. Even in a dictatorship, most efforts of the state or service providers are about keeping people alive and in relative safety. This is why attacks on American service providers by a small group of people are barbaric, but this is also why retaliation on Russian service providers wouldn't be justified even if it were proven that Russia is actually behind the attacks.

- Attacking the populus is the most barbaric act of all, extremely offensive and clearly antihumanitarian. It's a shame the CIA loves to do it with American people so much.