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Comment by titzer | Hacker News Reader

Attacking a hospital is a war crime, so how is it not terrorism?

Isn't terrorism trying to achieve a political goal through violence? Getting ransom money is just garden variety greed imo.

Terrorists often kidnap people and demand ransom, so I don't think the two are mutually exclusive.

Sure, that's a valid argument.

But I'm cynical, so I also think that terrorism is often just masqueraded greed, a money grab under the guise of doing something political.

One involves the violent deaths of hundreds or thousands of innocent civilians.

The other involves financial loss and probably a temporary shut-down of one or more hospitals.

Frankly, a cyberattack is the kind of thing a hospital can and should be hardened against. This is an administrative and regulatory failure being dressed up as "terrorism."

Criminals that use ransomware should be prosecuted and sent to prison, not disappeared to Guantanamo Bay and tortured.

While I agree hospitals should have protocols to handle these situations, it's just not that straight forward. These IT systems are big and complex, and not standardized.

I worked on critical systems in the energy sector and while we were buried in federal compliance paperwork, the systems and software were always a target that was evolving and hard to keep up with. The energy management system was a huge bureaucratic battle between IT and engineering and there were compromises made (that I didn't always agree with) for the sake of support and maintainability within the IT tech landscape. For compliance reasons, and because the system is "offline", upgrades and patches were really challenging and honestly kind of terrifying. The risk of taking something down and impacting grid operations was harrowing. It really made our small team reticent to touch anything. I don't envy these hospitals, it's a really tough battle to ensure your systems are always up to date, locked down, and operational.

Also, a hospital going down is not a small problem. My wife is an ICU doctor for a large hospital and her patients' are sometimes hanging on by a thread. If they lost their EHR and patient history, I imagine that would present a really scary challenge. It's not just financial.

> Attacking a hospital is a war crime,

Strictly speaking, if people we don't like attack a hospital it's a war crime; if we do it, it's an accident.

> so how is it not terrorism?

Murdering civilians during a war is a war crime; that doesn't mean murder automatically equals terrorism outside of war.

This is the accident the commenter is referring to: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kunduz_hospital_airstrike

Note that Doctors Without Borders believes it was deliberate.

Come on. Blowing up a hospital is a crime, and arguably terrorism. Disabling the hospital and systematically preventing it from treating patients is a lesser thing. But still arguably terrorism if done intentionally.

And yes, it matters if an enemy or friend does it. That's so obvious to not merit discussion.

How is it "arguably terrorism" and not extortion?

Because of the confusion, death and fear it creates. It's a hospital, remember?

Perhaps you should remember your own argument, or at least decide what it is, before continuing with the condescending attitude.

First it was terrorism because it's deliberate; now it's terrorism because it creates confusion, death and fear.

Here's just one example that checks all those boxes and is, of course, not terrorism:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mercy_Hospital_shooting

Is this just pedantry? I'm making room for an interpretation, that's all. Hospitals are a special case. No reason to read any attitude into it. And no reason for a deliberately argumentative response.

Come on. I already posted a link showing that hospitals are not a special case, remember? That's so obvious to not merit discussion.

...showing one emotionally distraught person is not a planned attack on an entire hospital. Please.

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