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Comment by alemanek | Hacker News Reader

It’s not about morals. Russia and China are waging a hybrid war with the US/EU at the moment.

Any US or European company absolutely should not trust a Russian or Chinese company at the moment. Especially not for antivirus.

Just like any company based in Russia or China shouldn’t trust western companies.

But also you are comparing autocracies to democracies. Don’t pretend that the control the US is able to exert over their companies is in anyway comparable to what is common place in Russia/China. Remember the rash of murder/suicides of Russian oligarchs where they decided to kill their families and then off themselves. Or how about when Jack Ma was disappeared for a year.

Russia/China is in no way equivalent to western democracies on this issue. So please stop the whataboutism.

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> Russia and China are waging a hybrid war with the US/EU at the moment.

Russia is at war with Ukraine. The EU is at war with nobody. Who's at war with the US?

You seem to be using the world "war" very lightly in a context where actual war is also happening.

And that's the aspect that's hitting me the most: people get into a "we're at war" mindset without needing their government to actually make official steps nor actually engage their responsibility. Banning TikTok is ok because of that "war but not really" atmosphere, where China is not an actual diplomatic enemy with open proof and potential discussions of them, but companies can still be punished purely on the grounds of involvement with China.

> You seem to be using the world "war" very lightly in a context where actual war is also happening.

There is pretty good precedent for that usage.

e.g https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cold_War

Yes, and a ton of internal abuse was perpetrated in the name of that "war".

That's not something I'd be longing to repeat from a citizen perspective.

I said hybrid war.

The US/EU is definitely in a proxy fight with Russia in Ukraine. Russia is definitely running disinformation campaigns and funneling money across the US and EU to try and tilt elections to their far right allies. There have been several high profile breaches of US institutions recently traced back to Russia and Chinese hacker groups.

So that covers actual fighting, political attacks, and cyber attacks. This is literally the definition of hybrid warfare. Here is the Wikipedia page on this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hybrid_warfare

Nations throwing espionage and disinformation campaigns at each other happens all year long, the only nations not doing it are the ones who can't afford it.

The US also spies and runs disinformation campaigns in EU countries. Are we at hybrid war with the US ? Is the US at hybrid war with Japan since the actual war ended ? Or is the point to always be at hybrid war with somewhere ?

> Who's at war with the US?

We are not in a direct conflict with Russia. But Russia has invaded a neighbor in order to steal the land, people and property. And is currently bombing children hospitals in the process of achieving its goals.

We are at war with the idea that in this day and age, this is normal and OK.

Since WW-II, the world has lived in "relative" safety. No national boundaries have been changed by force. Russia is not on-board with this plan and wants to go back to the old way of expanding borders.

We are at war with this ideology.

"the control the US is able to exert over their companies"

You have that relationship inverted. The US gov't is a mere shell at this point, having outsourced all its core functions to private companies. There is no "medicare" budget or "defense" budget, there is only the capital allocated to and embezzled by the medical & military industrial complex.

And rest assured they do their own set of overt disappearances, notably the Boeing whistleblower and Epstein. There is an obvious playbook they follow in such cases, first they bribe, blackmail, or discredit - before being indiscreet.

I don't want to get into a whole thing, but just its maybe a bad moment to try to make the points your making!

The amount of "control over companies" one state has over another is not going to be a strong debate point when your good guys here are, as we speak, sustaining an extreme act of at this point inarguable mass murder. All while, it should probably go without saying, sustaining a complete harmony in the respective state and private institutions at play. What a lovely coincidence I guess!

This is not even get into maybe the not so fine details of USA democracy these days.

I know you really felt like you had a point and some ground to stand at one time, but you gotta remain vigilant. History can move fast, and it does not reward loyalists.

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