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US Military Uses Spam, Internet Explorer
chundo writes "CNN reports that the United States government has been secretly encouraging the defection of senior Iraqi officials via email. Iraq is responding by shutting down some of their internet gateways to prevent these emails from getting through, forcing the US to find alternate means to deliver the message. Maybe they should have enlisted this guy - emails from him keep showing up in my inbox no matter what I do." This story about the growing military network bandwidth crunch shows the U.S. military trying hard to get every soldier online, all the time.
I don't know about your email servers, but don't you go under the assumption that your email is being read by your ISP, or your boss?
How does the US expect their defectors to reply to the offers? They can't very well send them by email for fear of being nabbed. Maybe they tell them to draw a big 'V' in the ground so the spy satellites can see that they want to vacate Iraq?
Saskboy's blog is good. 9 out of 10 dentists agree.
Try sharing 256K over an encrypted up and down link through microwave radios to satellite throughout your 100+ user network. Don't forget the Marine Corps only uses NT 4.0 servers and Internet Explorer. Then watch some idiots who claim they NEED their LAN drops install AIM and Kazaa and forward a money making scheme from "Bill Gates" to your whole network and kick your Exchange server's ass in the process.
Then fantasize about your Linux boxes at home as you try to salvage some idiot officer's "important files" from his Outlook virus infested brand new Dell laptop that he didn't deserve and no one loaded Norton on since he took it home every night and "was too busy" to let some enlisted IT guy fix w/ our standard program load.
Can you tell I'm not looking forward to deploying?
This guy is way out there
--
"we live in a post-ideological world..." - Billy Bragg.
RTFA!!!!
Of course, and I highly suspect it, I may be talking out of my ass. -oqti
But, if the US military is sending public key encryption to Iraqis, doesn't that violate the US Dept of Commerce's commercial encryption export laws?
Tuus crepidae innexilis sunt.
For example, nobody is quite sure what Mohammed looked like because the artists of the time weren't allowed to paint his face.
Yeah, and Christians today have a wonderful idea of what Christ looked like. Let's see... he was Jewish, lived in the middle east, in the desert... he must have been tall, blond, blue-eyed, and white!
www.clarke.ca
"Iraq has taken the attitude that it should be free to do whatever it wants. Unfortunately, personal freedom can only go so far before it begins to conflict with the freedoms of others."
Tell me this doesn't describe the U.S....
Oh come on, there are no weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. The USA has had a massive surveillance operation running for years, they have spy sattelites and planes, and they bugged the phone lines, and they gave their info to the UN inspectors, and the inspectors conducted 250 unannounced surprise raids on those places and still found nothing!
How much more proof do you need that Iraq does not have weapons of mass destruction?
Spamming them may be a good plan to waste enough of their time to delay their progress, but it sure isn't stopping them from using the ones they have now -- because they don't have any!
By the way: read this poll result in Portugal; more than 70% of the population think that the USA is the biggest threat to world peace today. 3% say it's Iraq, 1% say it's China. 12% say it's Israel.
All this warmongering will only make things worse. First of all, it gave North Korea a legitimate excuse to leave the nuclear proliferation treaty. After all, Bush said he will to preventive strikes against his enemies, and he said North Korea is part of the Axis of Evil, so he actually gave North Korea the only good excuse to build more weapons.
Bush should focus on rebuilding the economy he ruined so thoroughly, not on bombing Iraq and alienating Europe. Do you have any idea how frightened the South Koreans must be now, and all of that just because of a few dumb remarks from Mr. Bush?
Here, our country is on the brink of war with another nation. The press served the people by ensuring that they were not releasing information that compromised a military operation. They were free to print what they knew, but chose not to do so of their own volition. There was no oppression here.
Both situations involve responsible behavior on the part of the press.
I think you are sort of miss-placing the blame for that hypothetical innocent loss of life in the upcomming war. (Obviously there will be some non-combatant deaths, there always are.) Yes it will be tragic when they do die. But you confuse executing a war with resolve and not caring about the few that die that dont need to.
Entertain for a few minutes, the possability that maybe that Saddam and his cronies actually have the power to stop the lost innocent lives if maybe they do as the UN asks. Or mabye if he was not attempting to get nuclear weapons, or maybe had he not used mustard gas on his own populace...
Think for a little while that though the USA has had bad moments of unleashing destruction against civilians (Japanese and German) that maybe this time the intent is to not do so?
How about the fact that the USA is pushing the high technology smart and precision weapons, spending billions and billions dollars on them, weapons that allow strategic and tactical goals of war to go on with less loss of civilian life?
The USA could bomb the whole place flat with regular, nuclear or thermobaric bombs, twice or three times without the new techonogy. Yet that has not been done.
And, whatever you do, please do not forget the Muslem extremists specfic and intended goal is to destroy civilians, women, children and soldiers simply for what they are and where they are born, what their religion is an the fact they dont beat their daughters for going outside without full robes.
Yes, civilians will die. The most saintly person in Iraq could be killed by a cranked up air force pilot dropping bombs in the wrong place. But the air force, army, and whatever the Brits send are there because the alternative will be worse.
Blame the USA for a few dead civilians if you want. We'll still keep coming to rescue your pussy European ass anyway.
While Christ is generally portrayed with nordic
features in nordic cultures, he is also generally
portrayed with asian features in asian cultures,
and african features in african cultures as well,
quite appropriately to the universality of his
role. After all, the entire point of incarnation
is identification with individual humans. Any
barrier to identification is profoundly counter-
productive to his purpose.
-I like my women like I like my tea: green-
I agree with most of your post, with the exception of condemning the United States for killing civilians in Germany and Japan. That is the way it was done during WWII - it's not like we made the rules. Look at how Germany bombed London (and Paris and Stalingrad and ... and ... and ...). As far as Japan - look at what they did in China and the Philippines.
I don't like the fact that we dropped atomic bombs on Japan, but I do believe it was the correct decision in a horrible situation. Our other option was to try to take Japan with a beach landing. I think that we would have won that battle (especially since Germany had surrendered - we could have moved out troops from Europe to Japan). But that would still have meant that millions of Japanese would have died along with several thousand Americans.
I have great faith in fools - self confidence my friends call it. - Edgar Allan Poe
Here are a number of things that had at first confused me.
1) Ranking senators in the intelligence committees saying they had not been shown any further evidence that made them conclude that Iraq had WMD.
2) The Administration's insistance that the group it shares the information with from the UN be *larger* than the current group of inspectors. Larger? WTF? If you want something to be secret you tell as few people as possible. Even the IAEA has mentioned that it would be helpful to them if the US has such informatin that they turn it over to the UN.
3) Ok, so assuming that the Administration knows that their allegations are false, then what? Why pick on Saddam now? His army is far weaker, though better entrenched, than it was in 1991, and the real threats to US forces would likely be post-Saddam ethnic violence.
So why Iraq and why now?
15 of the 9-11 hijackers came from Saudi Arabia, and I believe that the Administration feels that probing too closely into any aspect of the Saudi nation or government fundamentally undermines US capability in the Middle East. First we have the fact that they are THE MAJOR source of foreign oil (not a big deal, we could always get it from Russia, or Iraq...), but the bigger issue is not about oil.
We are immensely dependent on two nations in the Middle East for basing rights-- Saudi Arabia and Turkey.
I suspect that the idea is that we can position US bases in a Post Saddam Iraq because, just as we are doing in Afghanistan today, we will continue to create a divisive system which needs some oversight by US troups.
But I think the focus on Iraq is that a
"liberated" (occupied) Iraq would make Saudi Arabia dispensible, and that we would no longer have to pull our punches regarding that regime-- expect it to replace Iraq in Bush's Axis of evil.
In the end, I grudgingly supported operations in Afghanistan because I felt that Al Qaeda was a direct result of US aid to and recruitment for the rebels against the Soviets. But I am deeply concerned that if the US continues to sponsor the various warlords, that the rule of law will not return to Afghanistan, and it will be a place that will end up being the further breeding ground of terrorism. If we turn the middle east into our playground for witch-hunts, we will be encouraging the very thing we claim to be fighting, just as we did in Vietnam.
I will disagree with you though-- the North Korea situation is complicated--
1) North Korea we think was probably restarting their nuclear program in 2000, but only admitted to it more recently. On the other hand, the 1994 framework was supposed to give North Korea fully normalized relations with the US and membership in the world bank. These parts were never implimented, so one could argue that we broke it first (what the hawks think in North Korea, I would bet).
2) The reactor was restarted when we suspended fuel shipment-- this gave them the excuse to restart the reactor because they do need the electricity. When the IAEA complained that the refusal to allow inspectors was a violation of the Nonproliveration Treaty, North Korea withdrew from the treaty.
The unfortunate likely result is that North Korea will go nuclear-- we cannot negotiate with then for fear of encouraging nations, maybe including Iran, Egypt, or Saudi Arabia from starting nuclear programs. And failure to respond diplomatically, will result in North Korea going nuclear. Does this scare me? No-- North Korea has been a very repressive regime, but their policy towards the US has been one of deterrence.
LedgerSMB: Open source Accounting/ERP
You sir, are showing your ignorance of the inspection process.
;)
Saying inspectors are unlikely to find anything driving arround is like saying that the FBI is unlikely to find bank robbers by driving arround, visiting banks and looking for them. Sure the statement is correct on the surface, but that is not how the inspectors operate.
The inspectors are detectives-- nuclear, biological, chemical. They are experts at putting information together and checking it out. this is easy with regard to a nuclear weapons program which requires extensive infrastructure components (U236 enrichment plants, breeder reactors, etc.), and much more difficult with chemical or biological (area denial similar in function to land mines rather than massively destructive weapons like nuclear ones). These agents don't require the massive infrastructure, but they lost their combat effectivenenss comparitively quickly. If the gas decomposes, it doesn't make a very good area denial agent.
If I were Saddam, I would have a lot of greenish-colred smoke bombs ready.
LedgerSMB: Open source Accounting/ERP
#1 I can understand the need for an intelligence edge, but your analogy is just stupid. There *are* ways of disclosing information to the UN without sacrifying one's sources.
Of course you could just claim country X is evil and reduce it to rubbles. That's just not nice, though.
#2 Let's take Iraq. People there live their lives the way they can - do you think the US is going to cause a lot of happiness when they start killing off drafted family fathers? That's the way it's going to be - someone more or less will force them to defend their country. Do you really think these people would agree with a war?
Have you ever lived in a country "on the brink of poverty"? My advice: Go there and ask.
So you were a member of the American lower class. I'm happy for you, you had less problems in your live than 95% of the planet. Take the time to read your paragraph again - or let me sum it up for you:
"I needed access to cheap oil when I was young so I could work in the McD on the beach. Otherwise I would have had to take on the lowly Burger King job next door. I buy child and slave labor products from all over the world, I exploit the resources of the rest of the world so the poor people in underdeveloped countries have something to eat. I am good. We need their markets to support our life style. So let's bomb them if they don't buy."
Goddamnit, your an OFFICER. Don't they teach ethics in your army? Do you put the US economy over human lives?
Btw, I pay about $1.10 for a liter of gas (that's about 4 bucks a gallon) and I'm still leading a happy life.
Please take this seriosly and consider answering me - I just cannot understand your point of view.
#1 Well, the girlfriend analogy/quoestion is difficault to answer as it would be a matter of trust between to people.
But if US have gathered information with some kind of secret weapon that they don't wan't to disclose, why don't they just tip of the UN inspectors instead of releasing the information themself?
#2 I do agree that trade matters alot and always had, and the Iraq "case" is directly or inderectly influencing millions of people.
But even if we discussed this for days, we prob. wouldn't agree with each other. You mean that trade (and some other Iraq actions) would justify and attack, I don't.
Also see that post that is replying to the same post as I am now. Evaen though he is posting as an AC, he actually has a point.
[sorry for my bad English]
Melius mori in libertate quam vivere in servitute.
War? That's what I'd call it. Typical, unfriendly, kill you before you kill me war. IIRC there are a few american citizens in Guantanamo as well. They are there because they seem to be terrorist shitheads, or were supporting said shitheads. They are enemy combatants, even if they are citizens. And, while I am not prejudiced against all muslims and know that there are terrorist of all religions, the muslim variety is causing the most trouble at this point. Terrorism is a violent occupation, and no one should be surprised or offended when a Predator launches a Hellfire up their ass. Shit happens. The terrorists and countries that support them seem to be breeding their own brand of crackers and kiddies as well (gforce pakistan for example). Whether or not they are supported by the pakistani government is debatable, but they are certainly tolerated. Jpost.com gets DOS attacks all the time as well. Are these script kiddies with an Islamic slant to justify their activities terrorists? Not exactly, in my opinion. Are they supportive of terrorists? They certainly would seem to be. And I can understand why Bush would classify such people as terrorists, even if I wouldn't. Of course, rumor has it that the US government DOSed alldas.de to prevent people from seeing those embarrasing .mil defacements. War and terrorism are about killing, death, dismemberment, and all kinds of horrible things. Is either justified? Sometimes neither, sometimes both. The world isn't black and white, there will always be wars, civilians will get killed, and that's that. All you can do is try to let your government know that you think that they should be certain that it's necessary before they start a war. War (especially with WMD out there) is a hell of a lot worse than a DOS attack, but harder to prevent.
Nukes aren't quite as bad in small quantities as people would have you think. Hiroshima today is hardly a dead zone, and modern airbursts aren't as messy as they used to be. Shit, firebombing Tokyo caused a lot more death and damage than both nukes used on Japan put together. They ARE the ultimate terrorist weapon, though. Some religious fanatic, sooner or later, will get their hands on one and set it off trying to trigger Armageddon or whatever. The technology is there, and sooner or later it will get used. Mutually assured destruction is still around, and will be as long as there are enough bombs and delivery systems available, but I don't see that happening. I think it's a lot more likely that we'll see nukes used in a regional conflict, with a lot of casualties, but no global exchange.