What are Cyber Privateers and should you be afraid of them? Cyber privateers and cyber bounty hunters are criminals that are not covered under international law as government agents. In reality, this almost nullifies the chance for war to start over any particular hacking or compromised data event.
The problems hired or volunteer contractors create include a projectable legal attribution. You don't have to be able to prove a country was behind a cyber attack or hack as long as you meet certain conditions. You can literally project the blame entirely to a different entity. The legal aspects will be covered in the next article.
This also nullifies the myth cyber privateers/ bounty hunters can use government tools on civilian or otherwise protected classes of people and infrastructure at will. International law doesn't give people hired or volunteering to commit crimes under any auspices a free pass.
This represents a new class of terrorism which separates the cowardly criminal from the victim in the same sense a remotely detonated explosive would when used at a shopping mall. While this is criminal activity is spreading at a rate that raises alarm bells especially with the projection of 3 million untrained new hires over the next few years.
In the last article, I introduced you to Jimmy and Gary. After three difficult months of online Youtube training, both of our heroes were ready to take on careers as international men of mystery.
The absolute risk this presents to international peace and security should be obvious regardless of what accepted policy is. Everybody gets to spy or nobody gets to spy is the mantra this generation of Intel managers was brought along with. Most of the tools in the NSA arsenal have their start or at the very least a counterpart that is freeware.
This means disgruntled people have access to software that can literally trigger a heart attack for someone with a pacemaker, cause a seizure, or even take control of your car.
More than 70 percent of the Pentagon's Counterintelligence Field Activity (CIFA) is staffed by green badge contractors. The majority of personnel at the DIA, the CIA National Clandestine Service, the National Counter Terrorism Center, and more than 80% of the NSA budget goes to private contractors.
All of the agencies are filled with what amounts to day labor. How many of them already have the keys to the barn that potentially starts the 4 Horsemen of the Apocalypse on their way?
State sized tools give emotionally inadequate and politically repulsive people the ability to illegally mimic or ply actions that are inherently governmental in nature. These same disgruntled overpaid groups fill out the do not fly lists. They are putting people on domestic terrorist watch lists. They are deplatforming journalists and people expressing opinions contrary to their employers and taking over social media and opinion for their employers.
They are hacking websites and stealing financial account information. They gain access to bank accounts through phishing exploits and siphon your account dry. One that I am writing about did this to a family member of mine because of the exposure I'm giving. I'll get back to that later in the series.
Over the last five years, I've not only described the role cyber privateers are playing in world affairs, but have been documenting the players and the damage they are causing.
This article will describe the now accepted US cyber policies that were written by cybercriminals to give themselves cover so they can use the American people and people of the world as their own personal cash cow or reservoir. If they don't like you, no need to wonder who gets to pay for that.
The inherent problem with cyber privateers is covered in the job description as well as their rather fanciful notion they are anything but criminals.
Privateers operate as sanctioned pirates. These throwbacks pretend to operate like their 18th inspirations did. Back in the day, the sponsor country allowed them to make money attacking merchant and military vessels they didn't like but didn't necessarily want a war with. When mistakes were made, privateers supposedly made reparations to the groups they victimized. They had to identify themselves and offer a remedy for damages.
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