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Comment by bheadmaster | Hacker News Reader

There's no such thing as "lower" when it comes to scammers - to them, these are simply targets with more efficient success rate.

Morality is a luxury. When you're living in the slums of some godforsaken city and have a family to feed, empathy and morality kind of fall lower in the list of importance.

My point - every organization should assume worst actors possible. "No way anyone would scam sick people" is just projecting your own moral standards onto others who have no reason to share them, and that attitude may even make them more vulnerable as targets.

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Morality is not a luxury, morality is the bedrock of society. And the hacker group is (probably) from Romania, which, while not a super rich country, is a EU member state and “economic growth has been one of the highest in the EU since 2010“. The country does not have famine or is war torn. Unemployment is 6%.

The hackers don’t do it to feed their family, they do it because of greed.

Whatever helps you sleep at night.

You know what helps people sleep at night? Having morals and not screwing over vulnerable people. The ones who can hurt others all day long and still sleep soundly are psychopaths.

You know what also helps people sleep at night? Growing up in luxury and enjoying their software engineer salary while preaching to others about their moral superiority.

You seem pretty defensive... have you done some things that keep you up at night? I've been homeless and gone to bed hungry, and I know it's tough, but I never hurt others so I could eat better.

In my younger days I did spend a few uncomfortable weeks as a telemarketer (doing product surveys for market research) but even that bothered me, I can't imagine scamming the sick and elderly. You can have morals and dignity even in poverty. I'll concede that some countries provide more options for their people than others, but there are always other options.

I am not defensive, I just loathe rich kids who can't even comprehend how much of their values is dependent onto their safety nets and privilege they grew up in, going around telling others how it's "possible to have morals in poverty". Go live in true poverty for a couple of years, then we'll talk about how morally superior you are, when you have to choose between feeding your kid and being morally upstanding. Otherwise stop talking about life you know nothing about.

I'd agree that morality is a luxury, and I understand how most anyone would resort to immoral ways in order to put food in their mouth. _However_, it doesn't make sense to say that "anything goes" when you get into that category of desperation; that disrupting cancer treatment for thousands of people in order to make a quick buck is somehow the same as shoplifting a loaf of bread.

I'd also argue that anyone with enough sophistication to pull off a ransomware attack has enough marketable skills that they're probably not hungry or desperate, just psychopathic.

He didn't say "no way would anyone scam sick people", he said they're the bottom tier of people and disgusting. He was describing his opinion of them, not exclaiming surprise.

And I didn't say "you're wrong, they're great people", I said that they most likely don't care about being bottom tier of people, and made a different point.

What's your point, am I not allowed to share my thoughts unless they directly challange the comment I'm replying to?

You said

>My point - every organization should assume worst actors possible. "No way anyone would scam sick people" is just projecting your own moral standards onto others who have no reason to share them, and that attitude may even make them more vulnerable as targets.

Which is something he never said or suggested, and not any moral projecting he did at all.

I never said he said it or suggested it.

There's also psychopathy, sometimes is not about the environment.

Where I live bank employees usually target old people to sell them services for things they don't need.

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