G7 nations call out Russia for harbouring ransomware crims ahead of Biden-Putin powwow The G7 summit of western countries has called upon Russia to "identify, disrupt, and hold to account those within its borders who conduct ransomware attacks, abuse virtual currency to launder ransoms, and other cybercrimes." Coming after an 18-month period where ransomware gangs mostly operating out of Russia and Russian- …
I doubt Putin's particularly bothered. But I'm also sure he recognizes that the Biden administration has different foreign-policy goals than the Trump administration does, and that Biden will not be as easily distracted as the golfing megalomaniac (whatever his other faults). So Putin may be willing to spend a little political capital here – at negligible cost to Russia or himself – for a future quid pro quo.
Or he may feint in that direction and then refuse, which can also be a useful diplomatic maneuver.
Putin's in this for the long haul, and has had little difficulty in maintaining his position thus far. He understands the game very well and has no qualms about playing it. He'll throw the occasional bone to the G7 just to keep them sniffing at his hands.
That seems wildly unlikely. There's plenty of talent in this area in people temperamentally unsuited for employment by the KGB; I don't see why the Russian government would eschew that. And there's plenty of talent that would rather work in the criminal underground than for the government, and I don't see why the Russians would bother to try very hard to suppress that.
....... because, to name but one anomaly, a Bill Browder enjoys and/or abuses their collective protection? And then there is the other very clear cut case of admitted vehicular manslaughter where Anne Sacoolas escapes her days in a court of her peers to answer questions about her actions.
Both of those, and there are bound to be others, are legitimate stumbling blocks to remove and monumental hurdles to overcome to have anyone contemplating their doing anyone else's bidding in furtherance of disrupting activities by parties outside of convenient conventional and traditional state-like command and control which are designed either specifically or predominantly for mighty effective legitimately deniable state aided use/misuse/abuse against one's avowed active enemies?
Some right dodgy perps are novel SMARTR frenemies ....... Renegade Rogue Pioneers in the Virtual Genre of the Great Beyond ..... boldly going to where no EMPowered and EmPowering Humans have gone and returned from before, safe and sound and in full working order and with a quick and sane mind to boot.
Which is an interesting root for an Advanced IntelAIgent Resource or Almighty Immaculate Source ...... or of course, should one so wish to exercise it, Diabolical Evil.
That is what at least confronts you nowadays, in these days of the massively explosive and infinitely exploitable 0day, in such neogeopolitical wranglings.
Be aware. Beware and take care. IT's a crazy virgin forest jungle out there where nothing is tamed to follow orders or honour requests which are liable to be likely self-harming in either the short term or long run.
"....... because, to name but one anomaly, a Bill Browder enjoys and/or abuses their collective protection? And then there is the other very clear cut case of admitted vehicular manslaughter where Anne Sacoolas escapes her days in a court of her peers to answer questions about her actions."
Yes, I saw Biden asked about extradition treaties the other day. He said he was open to doing a deal with Russia. I find that highly implausible. US extradition treaties are heavily biased in the US' favour. There's no way they'll sign one with Russia because the US will never reciprocate, especially based on the poor reputation of the Russian judicial and penal systems.
After all, here in the UK and Europe, we don't like extraditing to the USA for the same reasons!
As well you should — §61.1 of the Russian constitution forbids the deportation of Russian citizens out of Russia and the extradition of Russian citizens from Russia to another state. (Note that §61.1 does not apply to citizens of other states who are in Russia.)
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