* Who is the enemy?
* Who is friendly (or are there really any friends out there)?
* Who is a danger and how?
* Why are they a danger?
* What is their motivation?
* What steps will the US need to take to stop them, turn them in a different direction, or make peace with them?
One attempt to legalize this activity is called the Morgan Doctrine.
You're aware that the U.S. Secretary of State is actually dumb enough to host her own email server. Even if you're a third-world country without the infrastructure to create serious cyber attacks yourself, a few thousand dollars in Bitcoins to Hackers-R-US will get you zero-day exploits to crack just about any individual server. Either way, you're going to OWN that server before the next national holiday (pick your country, pick your holiday).
The Morgan Doctrine states simply that if you attack my computers (or my banking assets held in US-based computers), then under a certain set of well-defined conditions, a licensed and bonded "cyber privateer" may attack you in your home country and split the proceeds with the U.S. government"You raid our bank accounts, we raid yours. You make money from off-shore child pornography, we're going to loot your bank accounts and, with some REALLY creative black hat operations, you will be taken off the grid worldwide to the extent that you'll not even complete a cell phone conversation for the remainder of your miserable depraved life.- The Morgan Doctrine
Who decides what is right, legal, or legally binding? Is it right when someone who gets paid to find you and accuse you also makes his money from destroying your life and reputation, or directly by stealing from you?
According to the Morgan doctrine blogger who does this kind of work for Oracle, Salesforce.com, BIGFIX, and other technology companies, the answer is a big yes.
The USA followed by Ukraine makes up the highest percentage of over 50,000 readers which reflects the numbers the Ukrainian Diaspora hired to create the illusion of Russian aggression in Ukraine and the 2016 election interference meme. This is a serious attempt to push legislators for legal cover for what is accepted at the policy level.
Let's spell this out. If a cyber bounty hunter or cyber privateer say you work for Russia while they work against Russia, according to this, you picked your side in the war they get paid to fight. It doesn't matter if you don't know you're in one.
When they work for NGOs, foreign governments, political parties, and companies, they are given cover. They found out along the way they are entitled to your bank account as part of their payment as well as the joy of ruining your life every way they can.
In the private sector they now illegally, harass, stalk, and locate people with no legal justification. They are trying to facilitate renditions and executions. Let's be clear, these are your neighbors who are doing this to your neighbors.
Aric Toler and Bellingcat helped set up the functionality of Ukraine's hit for hire website Myrotvorets (peacemaker). The only goal of the site is to publish personal and contact information of anyone they consider standing against Ukrainian nationalism.
(Note: You can view every article as one long page if you sign up as an Advocate Member, or higher).