[jokabrink]

> feed the data to western governments

It is ironic that the very link [1] you provided proves you wrong. The top 5 countries of origin doing IP scanning in the last seven days are China (120k), India (67k), US (52), Iran (44k), and Russia (27k).

- [1] https://viz.greynoise.io/query/?gnql=last_seen%3A7d

[acdha]

That doesn’t mean they’re wrong: it just says that other people scan the internet, too, which nobody would argue.

[jokabrink]

I see your point. But then how is the accusation 'west scans internet' connected to 'see this map of countries of origin'? Because I thought he would back up this claim with this source/second paragraph.

If other people (and arguably other govt's) are scanning too, then saying 'west scans internet' seems somewhat superficial. Not that I deny western state actors scanning the internet, its just that everybody does it.

[_0ffh]

Right, also the source IP of a port scan doesn't say anything about who has initiated that scan. If I were a state actor, I'd do my port scanning from machines in a different jurisdiction for sure.

[fulafel]

It could well be easier to run such a scanning company from the mentioned countries than in many european ones where it's illegal or a gray area.

(But there are also other reasons your conclusion is wrong I think)

[jokabrink]

Yeah, could be. But still that does not support the argument of "feed the data to western governments".

When you say: "Look, the people from village A north are stealing apples from the city orchard. Here is a list of apple thieves and the direction (N,E,S,W) from which they came." And this list shows that it appears to be majorly the directions E,S,W (so not directly from village A). Then how is this an argument?

It just shows that everybody steals apples, making the accusation "villagers of A are to blame" superficial. That's the point it tried to make.

> But there are also other reasons your conclusion is wrong I think

I would be interested on why my conclusion is wrong. At best, one could draw nothing from the data as it does not show any relation to state actors. And if this conclusion is drawn, then why did `mike_d` blame the western state actors in the first place?

Think for a second about this: Did you think that the link `mike_d` provided supported the argument "... feed the data to western governments" with the emphasis on 'western'?