U.S., Britain and Canada say Russian cyberspies are trying to steal coronavirus vaccine research

[TU Curmudgeon]

From The Washington Post

U.S., Britain and Canada say Russian cyberspies are trying to steal coronavirus vaccine research
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Hackers linked to a Russian intelligence service are trying to steal information from researchers working to produce coronavirus vaccines in the United States, Britain and Canada, security officials in those countries said Thursday.

The hackers, who belong to a unit known variously as APT29, "the Dukes" or "Cozy Bear," are targeting vaccine research and development organizations in the three countries, the officials said in a joint statement. The unit is one of the two Russian spy groups that penetrated the Democratic Party's computers in the lead-up to the 2016 presidential election.


“It is completely unacceptable that the Russian intelligence *services are targeting those working to combat the coro*navirus pandemic,” British Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab said.

The announcement comes as reported coronavirus cases globally have topped 13.5 million, deaths have surpassed the half-million mark, and the stakes for being first to develop a vaccine are high.

COMMENT:-

If the COVID-19 is as severe as approximately 98% of the world's population (that's all the world's population except for "Claque Trump") thinks it is shouldn't that information be freely available to everyone?

Or is the most important thing to be the company/country that can make the most money out of having a monopoly on treating it?

I'm pretty sure that "Claque Trump" picks the second of the two options and would approach international trade negotiations on the basis of "Unless you do what we tell you to do, we won't give you any access to what you need to save the lives of your people.". This is what is known as "negotiating from a position of strength" to "Claque Trump" and what is known as "extortion" to the rest of the world.
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[swing_voter]

This is what happens when you have a GDP smaller than Brazil's.

 

[TU Curmudgeon]

This is what happens when you have a GDP smaller than Brazil's.

I guess that you didn't bother to read the article. If you had, you would have found out that China (which does NOT "have a GDP smaller than Brazil's" is doing the same thing.

Mind you, I am sure that you believe that there are 179 countries other than Russia which are doing exactly the same thing (because there are 179 countries, other than Russia) that have a GDP smaller than Brazil's).

 

[Roadvirus]

Too stupid to figure out the solution themselves, so they try to copy off the smart kid(s).

 

[TU Curmudgeon]

Too stupid to figure out the solution themselves, so they try to copy off the smart kid(s).

If you think that the US (and all of the other technologically advanced) countries (plus a whole plethora of independent operators who hope to make big bucks out of selling stolen results) aren't doing exactly the same thing, you are sadly mistaken.

Of course, the fact that you REALLY want to ignore the question

"If COVID-19 is such a global threat why is anyone more interested in keeping the research secret (so that they can have a monopoly on the results and gouge everyone else if they find an answer) rather than making the research results public (so that everyone has a better chance of coming up with a solution and thereby reducing the number of people who die from it)?"
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does shine through your response rather clearly.

 

[Ringo Stalin]

Why Russia would try to steal from U.S., Britain and Canada things they do not have?

 

[JMaximus]

They want to get there first as a way to vindicate their authoritarian governments. The problem is that authoritarian governments by their nature lack the intellectual freedom necessary for genuine scientific discovery. And so they have to resort to stealing it instead as they do with technology.

 

[Lord Tammerlain]

They want to get there first as a way to vindicate their authoritarian governments. The problem is that authoritarian governments by their nature lack the intellectual freedom necessary for genuine scientific discovery. And so they have to resort to stealing it instead as they do with technology.

That is not supported by facts. Nazi Germany certainly had a significant number of scientific discoveries and made plenty of advancements in technology. So much so the US and USSR rushed
to be able to capture them first

 

[TU Curmudgeon]

Why Russia would try to steal from U.S., Britain and Canada things they do not have?

If you get information that shows that a certain line of research is not profitable, then you can direct your own research efforts into areas that haven't been shown to be nonprofitable.

 

[MTAtech]

Let them steal it. It will shrink the time to get a vaccine to more people.

 

[TU Curmudgeon]

Let them steal it. It will shrink the time to get a vaccine to more people.

Hell, publish the results along with a "Woody Guthrie Copyright Notice".

"This song is Copyrighted in U.S., under Seal of Copyright # 154085, for a period of 28 years, and anybody caught singin it without our permission, will be mighty good friends of ourn, cause we don't give a dern. Publish it. Write it. Sing it. Swing to it. Yodel it. We wrote it, that's all we wanted to do."​