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- 3D chips are decades old and have never materialized.

24-layer flash chips are currently produced by Samsung. IBM works on 3D chip cooling. Just because it "never materialized" before, doesn't mean it won't happen now.

- Memristors do not enable any new approach to computing, as there are neither many problems that would benefit form this approach, nor tools. The whole idea is nonsense at this time. Maybe they will have some future as storage, but not anytime soon.

Memristors are great for neural network (NN) modelling. MoNETA is one of the first big neural modelling projects to use memristors for that. I do not consider NNs a magic solution to everything, but you must admit they have plenty of applications in computation-expensive tasks.

And while HP reconsidered its previous plans to offer memristor-based memory by 2014, they still want to ship it by 2018.

- Photonics is a dead-end. Copper is far too good and far too cheap in comparison.

Maybe fully photonic-based CPUs are way off, but at least for specialized use there are already photonic integrated circuits with hundreds of functions on a chip.

- Spintronics is old and has no real potential for ever working at this time.

MRAM uses electron spin to store data and is coming to market. Application of spintronics for general computing may be a bit further off in the future, but "no potential" is an overstatement.

- Quantum computing is basically a scam perpetrated by some part of the academic community to get funding. It is not even clear whether it is possible for any meaningful size of problem.

NASA, Google and NSA, among others, think otherwise.

So, no. There really is nothing here.

I respectfully disagree. We definitely have something.

...you hide the drugs in regular fruit shipments, dispense with the costly and annoying consumer distribution system and let the local discounter handle it. :-)

Recently Iceland recorded it's *FIRST* police shooting resulting in death, ever. An Icelander could say the same thing about Canada (or most other countries). And, in case you're interested, the rate of gun ownership in Iceland is HIGHER than in the U.S. Link to BBC if you don't believe me:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-25201471

Hint: guns and gun ownership aren't the problem.

Cheers,
Dave

Yes, it's quite categorically not something that the researchers concluded. Here's a non-bullshit version of the story from the BBC:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-25598050

Your argument is with the IPCC

The earth is getting lighter...

And Leon's getting laaaarger...

Ok, then explain the thugs who tried to destroy the GE wheat trial at Rothamsted, or the ones who did destroy the GE potatoes at the University of Leeds.

The anti-Monsanto is just a convenient attempt to justify anti-science bullshit (and even that card is factually weak). That's why there's opposition to Golden Rice, the Rainbow papaya, The Arctic apple, and every other non-Monsanto GMO. If it was just about Monsanto, that wouldn't happen, but it does.

So how do the conspiracy theories explain the dramatic improvement in survival rates in those cancers where research-guided improvements in treatment have been very successful?:

https://www.stjude.org/stjude/v/index.jsp?vgnextoid=5b25e64c5b470110VgnVCM1000001e0215acRCRD

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-15726810

Clearly there's a great deal to be done, and finding 'cures' is a very complex and difficult task. But we finally have the tools to do this in a systematic and rational way, and targeted therapies are already emerging.

Notice the word 'reputable'.

From the Wikipedia article:

"The Royal Society of Medicine declared that the study is flawed in many aspects of design, execution and analysisâ(TM) and that no conclusions should be drawn from it."

Here is the BBC report:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/464416.stm

WW2 bomb blast kills digger driver in Germany: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-25594000

Get with the program baby. Or is the BBC filtered from your connection?

It was heroin. Someone else could have injected it.

It was a drug cocktail.

Evidence of long-tern drug and alcohol abuse isn't likely to escape the notice of a competent pathologist.

The autopsy report has now been made available and says Mr Jack had shown "no visible or palpable evidence of trauma".
Instead, his physical symptoms indicated an accidental overdose of heroin, cocaine, and prescription drugs.
The report said Mr Jack's girlfriend had found him lying in bed unresponsive, with "multiple bottles of beer and champagne in the garbage can".

Elite Hacker Barnaby Jack 'overdosed on drugs'

You mean like this? Young people 'feel they have nothing to live for'

Banks pay for credit card breaches, not consumers

Like any other business, you, the consumer, eventually do pay for them - in higher (and newer, more devious) fees, lower savings/CD interest rates, and higher loan interest rates.

Don't fool yourself into thinking that you;re getting a free ride.

And don't believe that old fallacy that it's the banks that pick up the tab either- as pointed out here, it's the retailer that almost always has to pick up the tab in such cases.

The banks simply yank back any fraudulent transactions and leave the business out of pocket- not them. This is why banks- in the UK at least- do not give a fuck about individual instances of credit card theft and fraud. They're not the ones having to pay for it.

If you're a retailer who knows with near-certainty that a credit card has been stolen and is being used fraudulently, it's virtually impossible to get the information passed on to the legitimate owner of the card. Generally speaking, nothing will be done at this stage, and nothing will happen until the legitimate owner notices fraudulent transactions on their statement, and contacts the credit card company.

Of course, that is usually *long* after the attempted fraud has taken place, along with later (possibly successful) attempts that could have been stopped, but weren't. The fraudsters are long gone, and it's the businesses that are left out of pocket.

The banks will bleat that there are too many cases of credit card theft and fraud to keep track of all these reports, even if the information is handed to them on a plate. Of course, you can bet that they'd manage to do so very quickly (by employing more dedicated staff) if they were having to foot the bill for the fraud themselves- but of course, they're not.

It's also worth noting that (again, in the UK), it's *very* difficult to get the police to do anything about even bleeding obvious cases of mail order credit card fraud, i.e. ones where the fraudulent delivery address has to be openly given. Even when details including the exact address- typically in London- are passed on to the police, nothing well be done. Same excuse, and same outcome- by the time anything happens, the fraudsters are long gone and not worth chasing up. Makes it quite easy to commit fraud; simply rent an address for a relatively short period, have the goods openly and directly delivered there safe in the knowledge that, even though the police will likely be notified, they'll be long gone before anything is done.

The customers mostly still believe- as shown here- that the banks cover the cost, so probably aren't upset as (if they think about it at all) they believe that the banks are having to foot the bill for their own incompetence. Not the case.

Personally, I'm in favour of publicising cases like this one and pointing out that the banks' nonchalance regarding people's credit cards (and by extension, personal details and- to some extent- identity theft) could have serious repercussions for them beyond the money that customers will have refunded. And pointing out that- regardless of their hypocritical (and often nickel-and-diming) identity protection schemes, it's the banks- with their self-serving laziness and disregard for credit card misuse- who are to blame for putting them at risk like this.

I also agree there are likely some very dangerous people held at GITMO. And I completely agree with everything you wrote, so I'll just quote it along with this news story which hit just hours after my score 5 'release all the gitmo prisoners' post- (could be I subconsciously knew of the scheduled release, though the article mentions nothing of the procedural timeline or any events which triggerred this 'milestone')

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-25558891
"
31 December 2013 Last updated at 10:32 ET
  Guantanamo Bay: US hails 'milestone' release of Chinese Uighurs
"

(Parent comment from oobayly that I would self-mod higher than my score5 'free them all' comment. Though I believe that freeing them all is a net US security win compared to freeing/processing-out-of-gitmo none of them, or freeing/processing-out-of-gitmo them as slowly as the U.S. has been)

The charge them with the crimes they're accused of committing. If you're going to hold foreigners up to your principles and beliefs then it's insanely hypocritical to not afford them the protections that you believe people deserve.

I don't disagree that there are some very dangerous people held at Guantanamo Bay, but to detain them without trial for years on end means that the US government has lost every scrap of respect when it comes to "protecting peoples' rights""

Can't protect the system from a highly funded government entity? Shucks why bother protecting it at all! I would rather it be secure against any idiot with a bootable usb drive even if the NSA could get in.

Anyone with a usb stick can ruin your shit. There's no magic going on at the NSA. I merely point to them to illustrate the staggering enormity of software available which can defeat the simple "encrypt it" plan from an attacker with root and/or physical access to your box.

Security theater is security theater. Why waste developers' time implementing a feel good encryption scheme that is hardly better than no encryption at all? I can't imagine this would be a high priority task. Also... Open Source: If it matters so much to you, fix it yourself.

Yes, let us revisit history.

The U-boat peril

Winston Churchill once wrote that, '... the only thing that ever really frightened me during the war was the U-boat peril'. In saying this, he correctly identified the importance of the threat posed during World War Two by German submarines (the 'Unterseeboot') to the Atlantic lifeline. This lifeline was Britain's 'centre of gravity' - the loss of which would probably have led to wholesale defeat in the war. ... Britain might have been starved into submission,...

And what was a critical factor in keeping the shipping losses by German submarine threat from growing out of control? Signals intelligence, breaking the enemy codes, Ultra intelligence decoding the messages encoded on the German Enigma code machine. With that the Allies could read the orders and reports of the German U-boat fleet.

Enigma and Ultra - the Cypher War

From the second half of 1941 onwards, information from Enigma was one of the key factors enabling the Royal Navy to divert convoys away from waiting wolf packs. Decoded messages went initially to the Royal Navy section at Bletchley Park, then, if relevant, were passed on to Submarine Tracking Room in the Admiralty and later to the HQ Western Approaches, in Liverpool. ... The gist of the information contained in the signals, carefully edited to conceal its source, was passed on to operational commanders, only a very few of the most senior of whom were let even partially into the secret of Enigma .

The Enigma material, known as Ultra , was, of course, combined with intelligence from a wide variety of other sources, including HF/DF and wireless intercepts and reconnaissance reports, into a body of information known collectively as "SIGINT".

The effect of the improved flow of intelligence information was apparent during the second half of 1941. Increasing numbers of convoys were being diverted away from waiting U-boats. In July, for example, not a single convoy was sighted by the Germans over a period of three weeks, and during July and August monthly sinkings went below 100,000 tons, the lowest for over a year.

It would have been fairly trivial for the Germans to have rendered Enigma unreadable, possibly for the duration of the war, by a number of means they had readily at hand and could have implemented with simple commands. The result would have been at best a much longer and bloodier war. The result could very easily have been either a stalemate, or even a loss by the Allies.

The position of the Allies, their ability to sustain their war effort and avoid Britain being starved into submission, was all dependent upon the people with knowledge of the Ultra program keeping the ability of the Allies to read the German codes a secret. The Allies were able to do that. It was a shock to the Germans when they found out 30 years later that the Allies had broken the Enigma codes. At times they had suspected, but they passed it off as unlikely, and did relatively little compared to what they could have done had they known.

Mao Zedong, leader of the Chinese Communist Party in its guerilla war struggle to take control of China, said, "The guerrilla must move amongst the people as a fish swims in the sea." Adjusted for current conditions* we could say that, "The terrorist moves amongst the people as a submarine moves in the sea."

The Western world is at war with al Qaida and its allies. The terrorists swim among the populations like submarines at sea. What Snowden has done is equivalent to telling the Germans in 1941 that their submarine codes have been compromised. What will the consequences be? It will take years to see, but it seems quite likely that there will be much more of this:

Before celebrating you might want to let the feedback loop complete for a few cycles. There are plenty more where this lot came from, and the problem is barely under control as it is. Gambling casinos make an extraordinary amount of money based on a minor advantage in the odds, and the extremists have much better odds now with the Snowden leaks.

It's Hacker time!

Russian president asked to investigate alien claims

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Data_Protection_Directive

The data subject has the right to be informed when his personal data is being processed. The controller must provide his name and address, the purpose of processing, the recipients of the data and all other information required to ensure the processing is fair. (art. 10 and 11)

Data may be processed only under the following circumstances (art. 7):

        when the data subject has given his consent
        when the processing is necessary for the performance of or the entering into a contract
        when processing is necessary for compliance with a legal obligation
        when processing is necessary in order to protect the vital interests of the data subject
        processing is necessary for the performance of a task carried out in the public interest or in the exercise of official authority vested in the controller or in a third party to whom the data are disclosed
        processing is necessary for the purposes of the legitimate interests pursued by the controller or by the third party or parties to whom the data are disclosed, except where such interests are overridden by the interests for fundamental rights and freedoms of the data subject. The data subject has the right to access all data processed about him. The data subject even has the right to demand the rectification, deletion or blocking of data that is incomplete, inaccurate or isn't being processed in compliance with the data protection rules. (art. 12)

You can write a letter to any EU-based company requesting the deletion of your data and they are obliged to comply. Non-EU based companies are required to store person-related data in the EU, and thus are in the same situation. The data is not owned by the company.

But also see http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-23044809 (a court ruling) and http://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2011/02/in-europe-a-right-to-be-forgotten-trumps-the-memory-of-the-internet/70643/ (comparison US/Europe)

It was "peace with honor," honor that was discarded within a few years by Congress. If the US had continued to back South Vietnam in the face of North Vietnamese aggression as it did in 1973 it might have worked out and stabilized into a situation similar to North & South Korea. Unfortunately the Democrats in Congress threw that away in 1975.

As a practical matter there is a lot to what you state.

There is no major news agency in Europe reporting about this outside of Turkey.

Apparently reading newspapers is becoming a lost art.
France
Germany
Belgium
The Netherlands
Great Britain

I don't think he meant a 'big-government project'; just a 'big project for the government'. There have been some very embarrassing very big IT project failures for the UK government in recent years - the NHS records system for one, as well as a few DWP and CSA projects. These have resulted in £bn write-offs.

I don't know whether in each case the project goals were just too ambitious, or whether the projects were incompetently planned or managed (probably all of the above), but there seems to be systematic failure when it comes to large IT projects procured by government bodies in the UK and elsewhere.

I'd like to know if there are there any examples, worldwide, of large (say >$400m) government IT projects that are completed and have been widely judged a success. If so, what made them different?

Another brilliant summary made my copying and pasting a couple of paragraphs from the middle of the story.

At the very least, you could have linked to an article that a) gave context to the story and b) quoted the actual comment which caused all the fuss in the first place.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-25484537

Short version: dumb PR woman tweets "Going to Africa. Hope I don't get AIDS. Just kidding. I'm white." Hilarity (and a sacking) ensues.

see http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-18561092

This sort of application is like file shaing: it's just gonna happen, whether you like it or not. You can't legislate it away, and you can't make facial recognition technology disappear by punching people in the face. In both cases, someone will come up with smart contact lenses (or something else that's pretty much undetectable) even faster, and you'll be none the wiser.

Get ready to live in a panopticon world. It'll happen. It's already happened in fact...

These good enough?
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-25495315
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/history/world-war-two/10536246/Alan-Turing-granted-Royal-pardon-by-the-Queen.html

Look how the BBC fucked up the reporting of this: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-25492461 https://blogs.rsa.com/news-media-2/rsa-response/

Microsoft handed the NSA access to encrypted messages â Secret files show scale of Silicon Valley co-operation on Prism â Outlook.com encryption unlocked even before official launch â Skype worked to enable Prism collection of video calls â Company says it is legally compelled to comply http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/jul/11/microsoft-nsa-collaboration-user-data

"Collection directly from the servers of these U.S. Service Providers: Microsoft, Yahoo, Google, Facebook, PalTalk, AOL, Skype, YouTube, Apple" http://gizmodo.com/google-to-government-let-us-publish-national-security-512647113

And look at the chronology of this:
23 September 2013: BBC News - RSA warns over NSA link to encryption algorithm http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-24173977
21 December 2013: NSA Gave RSA $10 Million To Promote Crypto It Had Purposely Weakened https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20131220/14143625655/nsa-gave-rsa-10-million-to-promote-crypto-it-had-purposely-weakened.shtml How apt: Techdirt said the story was from the "from the say-bye-bye-to-credibility,-rsa dept"

Fuck you RSA. Fuck you NSA.

We're not very good at looking through solid substances yet. Not only don't we know what's under the Greenland ice, we don't even know what's under many of our cities. For example, construction of the Thessaloniki metro recently discovered an entire Roman city center buried beneath the modern-day city center. In limited cases you can find some of this kind of stuff with ground-penetrating radar, but in general mapping out stuff that's covered by solid dirt/ice/etc. is not easy, even in the 21st century.

The police still kill more than them.. lightning strikes on golf courses also.

Go back to your EDL rally.

Lets take the USA. 2,977 people killed in the 9/11 attacks. Each year 37 people are killed by lightning strikes. In the past it was as high as 70. Even if we assume that all of these occurred on golf courses you are way off. As for police killings - if you mean in all time the answer is "so far". Looking at Wiki lists they kill about 400 each year. The muzzy threat is growing.

In Britain (which does not have tropical storms) only 3 people a year are killed by lightning strikes and 15 people have been killed by police. Compare that with the 56 killed in the 7 July bombings. Again the muzzy threat is growing here too.

The police still kill more than them.. lightning strikes on golf courses also.

Go back to your EDL rally.

Lets take the USA. 2,977 people killed in the 9/11 attacks. Each year 37 people are killed by lightning strikes. In the past it was as high as 70. Even if we assume that all of these occurred on golf courses you are way off. As for police killings - if you mean in all time the answer is "so far". Looking at Wiki lists they kill about 400 each year. The muzzy threat is growing.

In Britain (which does not have tropical storms) only 3 people a year are killed by lightning strikes and 15 people have been killed by police. Compare that with the 56 killed in the 7 July bombings. Again the muzzy threat is growing here too.

As an extreme case, the BBC has reported on scrolls from Pompeii and Herculaneum that were 'destroyed' by Vesuvius are now starting to reveal their secrets using some pretty impressive techniques. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-25106956

Although there has long been a connection between math and physics, as people dig further into the math they are finding some unexpected things, and ways to better understand, simplify, or extend the equations.

Mathematicians Link Knot Theory to Physics
A Jewel at the Heart of Quantum Physics

There are a number of seemingly promising developments out there that are sharpening the investigative tools as well as providing interesting new lines of investigation, as well as new data to chew on.

Spooky Connection: Wormholes and the Quantum World
Physicists Create Quantum Link Between Photons That Don't Exist at the Same Time
Schrodinger’s ‘Kitten’? Large-Scale Quantum Entanglement Achieved By Two Physics Labs

String theorists squeeze nine dimensions into three
New work gives credence to theory of universe as a hologram

Now we are developing a growing understanding of the interplay between biology and physics.

Quantum biology: Do weird physics effects abound in nature?

Who knows where things may lead next? Of course people should be careful in performing experiments.

Collapse of the universe is closer than ever before

Paying with cash works pretty well now. Paying with banks (specially if was done via HSBC, but other banks could be in play too) works too with a bit of creativity. And other kind of payments (from information to several kinds of snake oil) will keep working too. Is like banning 3d printers because they can be used to print weapons, when even a stick can be used as one too.

Well I hope it's a *bit* faster than that, since it looks (haha) like I'm going to get MD later in life just like my Dad.

I have the same worry. So far I'm doing OK (and taking my vitamin A) but it's still a worry.

(I also worry that, with the increasing governmental takeover of medicine, research on and deployment of new treatments will grind to a halt as a cost-cutting measure.)

I really wish we could the body itself to grow these cells, since obviously it was able to do it once before.

If you follow this link from TFA, you'll find that (as of last January) they've also been able to inject "precursor" cells into blind mice and get them to grow a new, fully differentiated, and possibly fully functional, retina in about two weeks.

(I presume by "precursor cells" they mean "stem cells that have been partially differentiated into pluripotent cells along the developmental path to retina tissue" or perhaps "harvested pluripotent cells from the same developmental stage".)

The new retina tissue definitely connected well enough to produce behavioral evidence of light sensitivity, though more work was needed to determine whether/how well it hooked up to the brain's image processing.

You need an audio input then. Just listen for the sp[lash: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-25426263

No, but they don't seem to have qualms executing corrupt politicians / business people who have done great harm:
http://www.businessinsider.com/chinese-white-collar-criminals-death-sentence-2013-7
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-pacific-14197485
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/07/11/business/worldbusiness/11execute.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0

And to add on top of that the user is presented with two choices: Either install the app and grant all the requested permissions, or don't install the app.

Not even an obviously malicious permission request will stop most users from installing (cf: flashlight app, Why does this need data? I don't care. *click*). My guess is that this happens because at this point the user has already made the decision (I've just clicked on 'Install'!).

Google treats this as works as intended/wontfix, so don't expect any changes anytime soon.

The Android permission system is a joke. Windows UAC gives you more options.

I'll happily believe the NSA stopped the malware attack in question,

I wouldn't, actually. This whole story reminds me of the MI5 track record debacle. Those people live in a paranoid world of self-delusion to justify their existence and methods. They are prone to "find" plots in every corner. It's not that they are lying outright - they probably truly believe that they're fighting a real threat - but we should certainly question their judgment.

Not that I will necessarily agree with the AC, but you wouldn't deny that the Russians, Chinese, Iranians, Cubans, al Qaida, and others, have access to the same Top Secret American, British, Australian, and Canadian documents leaked by Snowden that have found their way either into print or onto the web, would you? So that means that they assuredly have at least some of those Top Secret documents. That is before we get to the question of the already many and growing number of businesses (many newspapers, web sites, etc.) that have those documents, and the question of have been able to provide adequate security to prevent them from falling into the hand of nation states with sophisticated intelligence agencies that don't have to follow the niceties of American or British law such as Russian or Chinese agents operating overseas. Maybe you've heard, but Russian agents have assassinated people in the UK before. A little breaking and entering or other more subtle intelligence gathering would be inconsequential to them. And that is probably all it would take for them to get the complete trove of documents. That is assuming that they would even have to do that, that they don't have moles in those papers now. I'm pretty sure that newspapers and TV stations don't conduct 10-20 year background checks of their employees similar to those for Top Secret clearances (even if they are sometimes "imperfectly" done as they were in Snowden's case).

Experts Doubt Snowden Could Keep His Leaked Documents Safe From Spies

There is reason to doubt Edward Snowden’s claim that Russian or Chinese spies have not seen the NSA files he leaked.
.
In an interview with the New York Times published yesterday, document-leaking NSA contractor Edward Snowden made a bold claim in response to allegations that other nations may have got hold of his classified haul:

“There’s a zero percent chance the Russians or Chinese have received any documents.”

Many security and surveillance experts publicly questioned that claim. Google security engineer Justin Schuh tweeted that the remark showed “Snowden is divorced from reality,”

Now we can also add to that the fact that the UK government assesses the secrets that Snowden stole to have fallen into the hands of foreign intelligence agencies. I seem to recall that NSA, or at least some of its leaders, have a similar assessment.

Snowden leaks 'worst ever loss to British intelligence'

Sir David, the former head of the UK's communications surveillance centre GCHQ, told the Times: "You have to distinguish between the original whistleblowing intent to get a debate going, which is a responsible thing to do, and the stealing of 58,000 top-secret British security documents and who knows how many American documents, which is seriously, seriously damaging.

"The assumption the experts are working on is that all that information or almost all of it will now be in the hands of Moscow and Beijing.

"It's the most catastrophic loss to British intelligence ever, much worse than Burgess and Maclean."

You can also see the Russian response.

Snowden Inspires Russia to Boost Internet Spying

Less than three months after granting asylum to National Security Agency leaker Edward Snowden, Russia is preparing to implement the kind of electronic surveillance that Snowden uncovered in the U.S.

And you must admit that Snowden is in contact with FSB officials. (The FSB was formerly the KGB.)

It's Now Clear That

Ironically Google stood alone in fighting China and refused to censor...

That is quite an interesting rewriting of history. Google was censoring the results on the mainland China page starting in 2006 up until to 2010. They only stopped censoring in Jan 2010 in response to the Chinese hack attack against them

My thoughts exactly, to that end it seems now the thing to do is to discredit Snowden who I consider a true patriot.

If Snowden is a patriot in your eyes then surely he is a unique patriot. What other "patriot" can you think of that left the country where he performed his "patriotic act" and now has a constant guard of KGB officers (FSB) to protect him? Ah, the key is you left out the word "American." So you don't regard him as an American patriot, but to use your words, as someone who worked to "expose what the NSA was up to to the world." So in your mind patriots steal American intelligence information and release it to the world. Based on your account name and post, British Leftist I presume?

The fact that he wasn't motivated by money isn't necessarily creditable to him. Many foul deeds have been done for ideological reasons. Snowden's acts resemble nothing so much as those of Kim Philby who betrayed Britain and fled to Russia where he was feted and revealed to be a KGB officer. Snowden is the Philby of our day, having not only harmed American intelligence, but also visiting the worst ever loss for British intelligence. (You can probably add Australia to that as well.) Nobody should be surprised if he meets a similar end to Philby.

Now here is something interesting, it may be that the ones to feel the eventual sting coming from this massive loss of intelligence information won't be Americans, but mainly people in other countries. The NSA revealed that it has had a hand in foiling 50 terrorist plots worldwide, and few of those were in the US. Terrorist groups have already started to exploit the information that Snowden leaked by changing tactics to avoid detection. Now they are in a better position to carry out their plans over the next several years - and that is the timeframe for many of their plans: years. The real party hasn't even started yet. That means more bombs exploding overseas. Will it be another London bombing, or Madrid, or one of thousands of other examples? Will the next plot in Germany or Sweden succeed and kill hundreds? Only time will tell. One thing seems likely - in the future various people are likely to look back at Snowden's leaks and think to themselves, "It seemed like something to cheer.... at the time." Of course now it is too late. Snowden's existing and future leaks will have committed us to a future he chose in an undemocratic, vigilante fashion. Who voted for Snowden to oversee this? Nobody. But you will get to live with the consequences none the less - he chose for you, not even consulting you or your representative in government/parliament/ legislature. Perhaps the most ironic thing is that Snowden is now living in Russia, and the Russians are using information he leaked to upgrade their internal surveillance apparatus to make it more effective. Snowden has been hoisted on his own petard.

Well, if someday you are in the tube on the way to a football match, or in a pub enjoying a game of darts with some friends, and an extremist with a suicide vest that slipped by busy MI5 agents comes in and detonates himself, you'll know who may have helped the Jihadi avoid detection.

Cheers.

My thoughts exactly, to that end it seems now the thing to do is to discredit Snowden who I consider a true patriot.

If Snowden is a patriot in your eyes then surely he is a unique patriot. What other "patriot" can you think of that left the country where he performed his "patriotic act" and now has a constant guard of KGB officers (FSB) to protect him? Ah, the key is you left out the word "American." So you don't regard him as an American patriot, but to use your words, as someone who worked to "expose what the NSA was up to to the world." So in your mind patriots steal American intelligence information and release it to the world. Based on your account name and post, British Leftist I presume?

The fact that he wasn't motivated by money isn't necessarily creditable to him. Many foul deeds have been done for ideological reasons. Snowden's acts resemble nothing so much as those of Kim Philby who betrayed Britain and fled to Russia where he was feted and revealed to be a KGB officer. Snowden is the Philby of our day, having not only harmed American intelligence, but also visiting the worst ever loss for British intelligence. (You can probably add Australia to that as well.) Nobody should be surprised if he meets a similar end to Philby.

Now here is something interesting, it may be that the ones to feel the eventual sting coming from this massive loss of intelligence information won't be Americans, but mainly people in other countries. The NSA revealed that it has had a hand in foiling 50 terrorist plots worldwide, and few of those were in the US. Terrorist groups have already started to exploit the information that Snowden leaked by changing tactics to avoid detection. Now they are in a better position to carry out their plans over the next several years - and that is the timeframe for many of their plans: years. The real party hasn't even started yet. That means more bombs exploding overseas. Will it be another London bombing, or Madrid, or one of thousands of other examples? Will the next plot in Germany or Sweden succeed and kill hundreds? Only time will tell. One thing seems likely - in the future various people are likely to look back at Snowden's leaks and think to themselves, "It seemed like something to cheer.... at the time." Of course now it is too late. Snowden's existing and future leaks will have committed us to a future he chose in an undemocratic, vigilante fashion. Who voted for Snowden to oversee this? Nobody. But you will get to live with the consequences none the less - he chose for you, not even consulting you or your representative in government/parliament/ legislature. Perhaps the most ironic thing is that Snowden is now living in Russia, and the Russians are using information he leaked to upgrade their internal surveillance apparatus to make it more effective. Snowden has been hoisted on his own petard.

Well, if someday you are in the tube on the way to a football match, or in a pub enjoying a game of darts with some friends, and an extremist with a suicide vest that slipped by busy MI5 agents comes in and detonates himself, you'll know who may have helped the Jihadi avoid detection.

Cheers.

My thoughts exactly, to that end it seems now the thing to do is to discredit Snowden who I consider a true patriot.

If Snowden is a patriot in your eyes then surely he is a unique patriot. What other "patriot" can you think of that left the country where he performed his "patriotic act" and now has a constant guard of KGB officers (FSB) to protect him? Ah, the key is you left out the word "American." So you don't regard him as an American patriot, but to use your words, as someone who worked to "expose what the NSA was up to to the world." So in your mind patriots steal American intelligence information and release it to the world. Based on your account name and post, British Leftist I presume?

The fact that he wasn't motivated by money isn't necessarily creditable to him. Many foul deeds have been done for ideological reasons. Snowden's acts resemble nothing so much as those of Kim Philby who betrayed Britain and fled to Russia where he was feted and revealed to be a KGB officer. Snowden is the Philby of our day, having not only harmed American intelligence, but also visiting the worst ever loss for British intelligence. (You can probably add Australia to that as well.) Nobody should be surprised if he meets a similar end to Philby.

Now here is something interesting, it may be that the ones to feel the eventual sting coming from this massive loss of intelligence information won't be Americans, but mainly people in other countries. The NSA revealed that it has had a hand in foiling 50 terrorist plots worldwide, and few of those were in the US. Terrorist groups have already started to exploit the information that Snowden leaked by changing tactics to avoid detection. Now they are in a better position to carry out their plans over the next several years - and that is the timeframe for many of their plans: years. The real party hasn't even started yet. That means more bombs exploding overseas. Will it be another London bombing, or Madrid, or one of thousands of other examples? Will the next plot in Germany or Sweden succeed and kill hundreds? Only time will tell. One thing seems likely - in the future various people are likely to look back at Snowden's leaks and think to themselves, "It seemed like something to cheer.... at the time." Of course now it is too late. Snowden's existing and future leaks will have committed us to a future he chose in an undemocratic, vigilante fashion. Who voted for Snowden to oversee this? Nobody. But you will get to live with the consequences none the less - he chose for you, not even consulting you or your representative in government/parliament/ legislature. Perhaps the most ironic thing is that Snowden is now living in Russia, and the Russians are using information he leaked to upgrade their internal surveillance apparatus to make it more effective. Snowden has been hoisted on his own petard.

Well, if someday you are in the tube on the way to a football match, or in a pub enjoying a game of darts with some friends, and an extremist with a suicide vest that slipped by busy MI5 agents comes in and detonates himself, you'll know who may have helped the Jihadi avoid detection.

Cheers.

Don't worry. Knowing the French, they will just use these expanded surveillance powers searching for and punishing users of forbidden "franglais" terms. Violators will be captured by SWAT teams wearing stylish berets and ascots, then locked in solitary confinement to read "The Little Prince" over and over again for as long as it takes until the next time the jailers go on strike.

And the province of Quebec, Canada will follow suite.

Don't worry. Knowing the French, they will just use these expanded surveillance powers searching for and punishing users of forbidden "franglais" terms. Violators will be captured by SWAT teams wearing stylish berets and ascots, then locked in solitary confinement to read "The Little Prince" over and over again for as long as it takes until the next time the jailers go on strike.

the collapse of building 7 was way too shady in my opinion. Add to that the fact that the news of its collapse were reported 20 minutes prior to it actually happening.

Didn't you know? The NWO/Illuminati/Bilderburg/whatever conspiracy goes back in time in order to cover up their activities! That's why there's no evidence! And the lack of evidence is proof that it happened!

With my level of insane paranoia, I easily qualify to work for the government intelligence services.

More like the systematic 5-crime-per-person cap that the BCS uses to arbitrarily limit the number of crimes that are counted.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/6239864.stm

Since the number of violent crimes has not jumped 84 percent since then, I can only conclude that the practice continues.

Fuck off.