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Google Terror Threat
bogd wrote to mention a CNN article wherein Indian President Abdul Kalam stated his concerns that Google Maps could be used to aid terrorists. From the article: "The Google site contains clear aerial photos of India's parliament building, the president's house and surrounding government offices in New Delhi. There are also some clear shots of Indian defense establishments. Debbie Frost, spokewoman for Mountain View, California-based Google, noted that the software uses information already available from public sources and the images displayed are about one to two years old, not shown in real time."
Linux is *not* user friendly, and until it is linux will stay with >1% marketshare.
/tmp or the installer will dump core. After the installer is done, edit /etc/X11/XF86Config and add a section called "GL" and put "driver nv" in it. Make sure you have the latest version of X and Linux kernel 2.6 or else X will segfault when you start. OK, run the Quake 3 installer and make sure you set the proper group and setuid permissions on quake3.bin. If you want sound, look here [link to another obscure web site], which is a short HOWTO on how to get sound in Quake 3. That's all there is to it!"
Take installation. Linux zealots are now saying "oh installing is so easy, just do apt-get install package or emerge package": Yes, because typing in "apt-get" or "emerge" makes so much more sense to new users than double-clicking an icon that says "setup".
Linux zealots are far too forgiving when judging the difficultly of Linux configuration issues and far too harsh when judging the difficulty of Windows configuration issues. Example comments:
User: "How do I get Quake 3 to run in Linux?"
Zealot: "Oh that's easy! If you have Redhat, you have to download quake_3_rh_8_i686_010203_glibc.bin, then do chmod +x on the file. Then you have to su to root, make sure you type export LD_ASSUME_KERNEL=2.2.5 but ONLY if you have that latest libc6 installed. If you don't, don't set that environment variable or the installer will dump core. Before you run the installer, make sure you have the GL drivers for X installed. Get them at [some obscure web address], chmod +x the binary, then run it, but make sure you have at least 10MB free in
User: "How do I get Quake 3 to run in Windows?"
Zealot: "Oh God, I had to install Quake 3 in Windoze for some lamer friend of mine! God, what a fucking mess! I put in the CD and it took about 3 minutes to copy everything, and then I had to reboot the fucking computer! Jesus Christ! What a retarded operating system!"
So, I guess the point I'm trying to make is that what seems easy and natural to Linux geeks is definitely not what regular people consider easy and natural. Hence, the preference towards Windows.
Admittedly I'm not the biggest fan of google, but they have driven innovation that really impact society using the world wide web. The google maps/satellite functionality is a perfect example.
The "informative" response that the maps are already publicly available really exposes how ignorant the people in charge truly are. Yikes!
The only thing I'm surprised about is that the EU hasn't decided to create a "global" organization to control google, and informed us in the U.S. that google doesn't comply they will ban it and create their own search engine and tools.
Similar questions are for Sun Workstations. It is most likely a situation where while they have faith in their product and its stability. But they don't want to risk the liability of having it on a nuclear reactor, so if there is an error even from a hardware malfunction due to high radiation, they don't want to be responsible for it and they never tested it in that environment.
If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
Terrorism is about threat, and continously emphasising that threat is only helping the terrorists.
Do you have any idea of how much financial loss occurred on 9/11 and the days following it? Do you have any idea what the worst case economic outcome could have been after 9/11? America is currently the engine of the world economy. Do you have any idea how much worse my life (and yours) would have become if the American economy had been hurt considerably? (By the way, I don't live in the US.)
This isn't about 3000+ New Yorkers being murdered in cold blood, this isn't even about the possibility of a million more Americans (a small percentage of the total population) being murdered in a similar fashion; this is about something far more important.
Uttering logically derived and empirically supported truths to the disciples of the orthodox establishment.
GOOGLE Declines to Publish Other Publically-Available Information
Someone should tell Debbie Frost, spokewoman for Mountain View, California-based Google, that *HER* personal name and address information is *LIKEWISE* available via publically-available sources, and yet GOOGLE seems to be choosing to keep *THAT* information to themselves...
My own view is that governments, acting on the behalf of the people (I'm speaking hypothetically, seeing as how our own government comes to mind...) has a legitimate interest in protecting state property and military interests from undue scrutiny and harm.
While the information may very well be available publically, it doesn't have to be made *EASY* to find just by typing a query into GOOGLE.
SHOULD Information be Searchable Online Even if it IS Publically-Available?
I like GOOGLE as much as anybody and it has definitely become my second-brain half-the-time, but I think there is a realistic point that some information needs to remain more obscure, even if it is technically public, just for the safety of everyone involved.
That said, I also don't think that this should be a good reason for the wholesale obfuscation of information either-- I think it needs to be carefully weighed, preferably by an uninterested, neutral, third-party (like that's going to happen...) who can evaluate the various interests in these cases.
Open-Source Counter-Terrorism
On the other hand-- there is another point-of-view... If GOOGLE would *START* publishing *LIVE* data (as live as it can get) maybe the OPEN SOURCE COMMUNITY could do a BETTER JOB THAN THE !@*^%$# BUSH ADMINISTRATION in finding OSAMA BIN LADIN and the OTHER TERRORISTS.
After all, two can play the "Where do they live" game... and one might consider that 50 million amateur photo-analysts might just succeed where a few professionals working for an administration that doesn't _really_ have an interest in winning anything, can't.
As long as the Bush administration is fighting the "War on Terrorism", they have a ready-made and pat excuse to hand Haliburton and all of their @#$!@&* Buddies no-bid "sweetheart" contracts and otherwise RAPE THE AMERICAN PEOPLE.
Does anybody really KNOW that the Bush administration did not secretly PAY Bin Laden to step up the terrorism? Afterall, it sure is working-out very conveniently for some pretty well-placed companies and people! And I find the fact that we _haven't_ found him in almost four years to be patently absurd.
Why does Google hate America?