Slashdot Mirror
Richard Stallman Accosted For Tinfoil Hat
ndansmith writes "Bruce Perens posts in his blog about an amusing encounter between Richard Stallman and United Nations security at the World Summit on the Information Society in Tunis. It seems that RFID technology, which Stallman opposes for privacy reasons, was used in the identification badges for the conference. From the blog: 'You can't give Richard a visible RF ID strip without expecting him to protest. Richard acquired an entire roll of aluminum foil and wore his foil-shielded pass prominently.' During a keynote speech, Stallman also passed around the tinfoil for other to use as well. It seems that UN security was not amused, however, as they would not let him leave the room for some time." What makes this even funnier, of course, is that tin foil hats won't stop them.
They really had no idea who they were dealing with.
The higher the technology, the sharper that two-edged sword.
Wasn't the whole point of the MIT article that aluminum amplifies and tin degrades signals?
I'm confused... who am I supposed to root for? Stallman or the UN?
;)
Excuse me while I go curl into the fetal position in a corner until I resolve this dilemma.
I am an Army of 1 in 10
Curses, foiled again - darn it! i m #1
But I think this was just a message he was trying to get accross. Now what I wonder is why the security didn't let him leave? OH NOES HE HAS TIN FOIL OVER BADGES!!1 Unless they had something to hide...?
If the holeys in a mesh are half the size of the average wavelength of the radiation, practically none will get through, assuming it is made of the right material. The proper size mesh for RFID technology is left as an excerise for the reader.
Even those who arrange and design shrubberies are under considerable economic stress at this period in history.
"What makes this even funnier, of course, is that tin foil hats won't stop them."
:P
what are you talking about? Tin foil hats stop everything
Viable Slashdot alternatives: https://pipedot.org/ and http://soylentnews.org/
You deserve what you get if you use aluminum foil. Any conspiracy theorist worth his salary won't accept anything less than genuine tin.
nice, he makes a big ostentatious show of covering up his RFID strip with foil so "they" can't get at him, and of course all that happens is "they" make a big show of harassing him.
Fucking hilarious.
I take exception to many things that RMS says and does, but I'm with him 100% on this one. Way to go, Richard!
-jcr
The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."
Richard Stallman Accosted For Tinfoil Hat
Best. Slashdot Heading. Ever.
Returned Peace Corps IT Volunteer
For months as this RFID contraversy has progressed, people on the 'dot have said, "well, you can always block it with a piece of foil if you don't want to be tracked".
Well, guess what? As predicted by a quick examination of human nature, they WON'T let you block your tracking devices. You will not have a choice as to when and where you will be tracked. This is just the very beginning, the closing of the gate, of our World Prison.
Tell me why again we have to have tracking devices embedded on our persons? I seem to have missed the reasoning. Terrorism?
Exactly. The story does NOT say "Richard Stallman Accosted For Tinfoil Hat". It says he wrapped his RFID card in aluminum foil, which is 100% effective in preventing reading the card without the card carrier's knowledge. The story also says that Mr. Stallman willingly took off the foil at checkpoints.
The guy has balls and he'll make a stand against what he believes in no matter how it looks. Sure, the tinfoil hat doesn't actually work, but it's a visible symbol that cannot be ignored. Without people like him making a visible protest on a forum that so many high-level people will notice, protests against tracking technologies are just pissing into the wind.
Rock on Richard.
Yes, because BitTorrent can not be used for human trafficking or for keeping track of citizens' movements in a totalitarian state, such as one that considers copyright infringement to be more important than these things.
I think he would have made a better statement if he simply refused to attend the summit upon finding out that the tags had RFID.
Having a covered up badge could be a breach of security, since not only did he cover the RFID (and not even that) but he covered the "visual part" of the badge.
Of course, being a famous personality, that wouldn't be much of an issue, but what about the "crashers" that got a wad of aluminum and simply say that they were following RMS' advice?
I admire RMS in this aspect. I wish I could do more to preserve our right to privacy. Nowadays, all I do is refuse the services of people who insist in gathering all kind of information in exchange of unrelated good/services (I just want to rent a movie, you don't need to know my yearly income of wether I have life insurance). But it's a losing battle.
No sig
I'm going to be flamed for this so I'll post AC.
I respect RMS. He's contributed a lot to the FOSS movement (but no, sorry, what I run is Linux). Several of his writings are thought-provoking. But on the other hand, we all want to see Linux become mainstream. Is this the image we want corporations to have about FOSS? One of its leaders childishly and purposefully gets in trouble with UN security for shielding his pass in aluminium foil. A movement led by immature pranksters. Is that the image we want?
Not at all. The "major purpose" of Bit Torrent is to transfer large files efficiently. Bram Cohen intended that to be used for entirely legal purposes such as Linux distributions. The fact that, like most tools, it had wider application is completely irrelevant. You can break into someone's home with a screwdriver ... that doesn't make a screwdriver inherently evil.
Bit Torrent and similar technologies simply give individuals more power. Yes, more power to do things that some organizations would rather they didn't do, but also more power to make their lives better as well. A trade-off, in other words, and one that (for once) is on the side of the many, rather than the few.
Valid complaints about RFID are generally not "RFID rechnology is just inherently evil", but are oriented against governments and/or criminal organizations that would use it to hurt people. Yes, there are many legitimate benefits conferred by RFID tech, but those must be balanced against the potential for people to get hurt by them. Thoughtless dissemination of RFID technology (such as the U.S. State Department was all set to do with passports) will cause a lot more damage than it is worth.
The higher the technology, the sharper that two-edged sword.
Are you sure it was the tinfoil?
I mean, if I was a security guy and got confronted by thisthis, I would be pretty nervous too!
What's so hard to understand about that?
"[Regarding the 'cloud,'] ownership was what made America different than Russia." -- Woz
Richard will surely be using transparent aluminum in many creative ways. It is the best of both worlds, you can see the RFID tag, you just can't scan for it.
He who knows best knows how little he knows. - Thomas Jefferson
The real story for this conference is the sad irony of having an information summit in Tunis, which violently suppresses freedom of expression.
You can read lots more stories here. I'm pretty surprised the freedom-loving editors at slashdot didn't pick this up as a separate story, it's much more important than Stallman's RFID-tinfoil stunt.
- "When you want something with all your heart, the entire universe conspires to give it to you" -Paulo Coelho
"[Regarding the 'cloud,'] ownership was what made America different than Russia." -- Woz
By definition, it doesn't work if you play by their rules. If he'd just chosen not to show up, nobody would care. Doing this, however, caused enough of a commotion that we're now reading about it on Slashdot. This is exactly what RMS WANTED to happen!
"[Regarding the 'cloud,'] ownership was what made America different than Russia." -- Woz
Actually, beeing an electrical engineer, I can tell you that aluminum or tin would be an equally effective shield for RFID or any other frequency in which it is relativly large enough. (Relative to the wavelength used by the transmitting device..in the case of RFID it can use anything from 52 mm to 2398 m. No matter the frequency, encasing an entire object in metal foil will block its RF output as explained loosely below.)
If you wrap any RF transmitting device in tin OR aluminum foil, you are going to completely shield the device and no RF will get in or out because the foil would act as a farady cage.
This is because aluminum conducts electricity just fine, and as RF is composed of electro-magnetet waves, a solid conducting surface will act as a ground (short) and bounce the signal. If there is no way for the signal to escape, it wont.
Any electrically conductive material would have this property. You could (and it has been done many times) make a faraday cage out of aluminum just as easily as steel or tin. Aluminum of course only has about 60 percent of the electrical conductivity of copper so copper (actually silver but obviously too expensive) would be the ideal material, but for weak signals like RFID it is irrelivant and both would work fine.
It's easier to fight for one's principles than to live up to them.
lead is the only way to go
I used to use a anti-xray film bag for shoplifting, works a treat
There are places where the networks are not touching,and there are places where they are-Boeing's Lori Gunter
I always wonder what youin the West would do in the face of true evil. Soil your panties and faint, I imagine.
Perhaps you'll find that "true evil" can turn wusses into heroes. We sit on our fat asses, because we can.
Don't waste your vote! Vote for whoever you want, unless you live in a swing state it won't matter anyways
Although Stallman probably knew that tinfoil doesnt work, he was more likely trying to make a political point about RFID, which was a good thing IMHO.
Personally I would have suggested that people go to the snack room and throw it in a microwave oven, that way it makes it a pain in the ass and costs those who want to implement this crap. Money is the only thing people like this understand anyway.
It is extreamly common for people in authority to use other who have no say to deliver their messages. This is often done with the express purpose of pushing unreasonable requests on people, and creating exactly your feelings on anyone who complains. This is not just in government, but in jobs, and even in families.
How many people have had a review, that included a "wage review", at work where they are told that someone not involved in the meeting, and unaccessable to the employee, is the final decicion on their raise. This was the same thing.
So basically you are wrong. In most situations, being a jerk to the innocent guys just trying to do their job is the only way to get things changed. If your job is Henchman, expect to be treated like it.
Ladies and gents: Aluminum foil may not work for head-gear, but it will work just dandy for covering an RFID tag.
;~)
Tag == 100% wrapped.
Head != 100% wrapped (one would hope)
Aluminum foil is conductive. That and complete coverage is all you need for a faraday cage.
There are like 30 posts already that act like it won't work: it will. Want to test it? Wrap your walkman in foil and try to listen to FM. Freqs are different for RFID (probably), but it doesn't matter.
Take care not to touch the ant. of the radio to the foil though, or you may actually improve reception
--Mike--
``aluminum amplifies''
So now I know what they were doing with me in that incubator. They were installing an aluminum hat under my skin. Clever. I'll cut it out, though!
Please correct me if I got my facts wrong.
Stallman wanted to make a point, not actually stop the signal.
To him, the message was more important than what it actually did.
People more immediately understood the significance of wrapping it in tin foil than anything else.
// file: mice.h
#include "frickin_lasers.h"
Way to go, RMS! :P
Then Richard Stallman can run the world, of course.
my password really is 'stinkypants'
[...]
It's just another example of hypocrisy.
No, Alanis, it's not.
You can't take the sky from me...
Before you go flaming against patriots who care about the smallest freedoms, maybe you'd like to identify "we". You said "Westerners." Are you an Easterner? As in France? Greece? China? Maybe you're just trolling, Anonymous Coward. Or maybe you're actually that ignorant.
If "We" has been experiencing all the stuff that "We" said, how did "We" get onto Slashdot to complain about it? Why would "We" so passionately offer up "We"'s opinions into a public forum without showing respect to the soldiers' blood that bought the privilege?
Why not clear "We's" head from the cobwebs of all those anal probes and realize that every Free Person's freedom starts somewhere, and Stallman shows a highly idealized and ecclectic way of expressing it? Why is that not something worth celebrating, "We"?
All freedom is born of conflict, and Stallman's nonviolent middle-finger approach should be applauded. By the way, he's part of that "you in the West" group to which you so arrogantly refer. The removal of the smallest personal freedom leaves us all damaged, and free people have the responsibility of clinging to those freedoms. That's why "We in the west" don't have to go through all the vile crap that happened to your mom.
Stop being grumpy about your freedom. Go and enlist in the army. Fight against oppression. Or buy a roll of tin foil and wrap your brain in it. Or write a letter to the newspaper. Or join a democracy and vote. If "We" can post to an internet forum, "We" obviously has a measure of freedom, doesn't "We"?
Anyone can understand the outrage over the evils that "We" mentioned. But if "We" thinks that complaining about others' freedoms somehow rids the world of oppression, then "We" needs to spend some time worshipping on the shores of Normandy.
I oringally picked this up from Technocrat, a slash site where Perens is an editor/author (I added that fact in the post but it was scrubbed by CowboyNeal). His headline was as follows:
Richard Stallman gets in trouble with UN Security for wearing a tinfoil hat.
I wanted to preserve his concept while still getting the story out to the greater Slashdot community. Perens wrote the headline knowing full well it was aluminum over his name badge. Here is how I interpert his intention, and why I did it how I did it.
1. The difference between aluminum and tin foil is irrelevant. RMS was trying to make a point, and aluminum foil was all that was available.
2. "Tinfoil" hat was was indicative of its function, not position. Or perhaps this will help: he put a tinfoil hat on his badge. Anyway, the location of the foil is not the point of RMS's action nor Perens' post.
3. It's funny. Laugh.
I reckon RMS didn't actually care if the tin foil worked or not, it, to me, was an obviously symbolic thing.
(All quotes from Bruce Perens' blog, http://perens.sourcelabs.com/)
..So, this was no doubt an interesting problem for the security folks, who had no real idea who Richard was except that he was someone reasonably distinguished who was visibly violating their security measure.
You can't give Richard a visible RF ID strip without expecting him to protest. Richard acquired an entire roll of aluminum foil and wore his foil-shielded pass prominently. He willingly unwrapped it to go through any of the visible check-points, he simply objected to the potential that people might be reading the RF ID without his knowledge and tracking him around the grounds. This, again, is a legitimate gripe, handled with Richard's usual highly-visible, guile-less and absolutely un-subtle style of non-violent protest.
I'm not quite sure I understand why RMS felt that the RFID was a violation of his privacy. It's a SECURITY BADGE. It's whole PURPOSE is to identify the wearer. If he didn't want to wear it, then he shouldn't have attended the event.
I disagree that it's a "legitimate gripe." Remember, he wasn't out on a public road somewhere, but in a "what I suspect is) a secure facility. Furthermore, if somebody really DID want to track him, they would just have somebody watch him the entire time. Believing that somebody wants to track your every motion is either a sign of paranoia or an overinflated sense of self-importance.
All of this completely disrupted the panel that was supposed to follow ours in that room, and the folks operating that panel were rightly furious...
So he makes his point and disrupts the schedule of other panels. Great--this leaves the impression that "Others be damned, I'll make my point however I damn well please." That will earn you a lot of respect. And before you point out that it was the UNU security personnel who caused the ruckus and not Stallman, re-read the account. He was VIOLATING A SECURITY MEASURE. What do you expect them to do? He's violating a security measure that they are there to enforce.
I didn't see anyone further molesting Richard, but I'd imagine he was followed around by plainclothes agents for the rest of the day. This, however, may not be unusual. Perhaps Kramer even got his own protective detail.
See above.
I could just be ignorant of RFID, or misinterpreting Stallman's point of view, but he does seem to be a bit "over the top" in terms of making his opinion known to the public at large. He's 100% entitled to his opinion, but there is a point where making one's point and the cacophony that comes with it washes over the actual issue at hand. What will be remembered more, the RFID issue or that Stallman caused a commotion at a UN event?
Government's idea of a balanced budget: take money from the right pocket to balance...oh who am I kidding?
It's similar to people calling refrigerators "iceboxes". Back in the day, before aluminum was cheap, people used tinfoil. Aluminum foil became the standard, but people kept calling it tinfoil because that's what they'd called it all their life.
Kind of like how some people call any tissue "Kleenex" no matter who manufactured it. Or sheetrock, for that matter.
Those who can't do, teach. Those who can't teach either, do tech support.
Stallman did something completely appropriate. It made a point. It made a valid point. It made the point effectively by attracting attention and publicity. It did not hurt anybody. It caused the barest minimum of disruption and inconvenience.
It has probably brought the matter to the attention of U.N. officials who honestly didn't know or understand the problems with RFID, and regardless of their visible behavior I am sure that it educated the security people as well. I don't know whether this in itself will change policy, but I'd bet a nickel that behind the scenes there have been some discussions and briefings.
Now, the U.N. security people did as close to the right thing as you can imagine them doing. You can't expect them to make an instant technical analysis of the situation. The facts they were presented with were: a) the badges are being used for security, to make sure that only authorized people attend; b) Stallman was conspiciously doing something or other with the badges; c) they had no way of knowing whether it was any kind of security threat, but at least the possibility existed. Screwing around with a security pass is suspicious, even if you don't know what exactly to suspect, and even if in this case it was innocent.
They didn't arrest him. They didn't beat him up. They created the barest minimum of disruption and inconvenience to Stallman and to the meeting.
I say Stallman was effective, on a matter that has some real society importance. And I say the security guards' response was measured and sensible.
"How to Do Nothing," kids activities, back in print!
Or how they are trying to get the US to renovate the UN building in NYC and expecting to spend about a billion extra to do so (American Tax Dollars)
The USA is 1.3 billion dollars in arrears. How about you start paying what you owe before whining about it?
If the UN was so great, why the hell didn't they send in troops, kick the crap out of the warlords in Zimbabwe and Somalia (no official government to speak of) and then rebuild the crumbled societies?
Yeah, that's it. An organisation whose primary purpose is to stop war should invade countries! You must be American.
That was in 1997. STFU until you pay your debts, deadbeat.
mentioning the child rapes
Seriously, STFU.
Most infamous of which is the gang rape of a japanese schoolgirl in the 90's, which so outraged the population that the base is being relocated.
You can't take the sky from me...
People.... this can be a good thing. The rich, powerful or corrupt have always had the power to invade our privacy because it's just an illusion and will alway be so. Privacy laws just protect the powerful from being watched by the masses.
Instead of fighting a lossing battle to stop this technology we need to ensure that it will be available to everyone and that the information will be open to the public. Put cameras on the streets, in the police stations and in government buildings. Build cheap RFID readers that everyone can own. I don't mind being watched as long as I can watch everyone else. Imagine a world where everyone is equipped with their own personal cameras and recording devices... with so many eyes spreading their light everywhere the world might become a more peaceful and happy place.
Of course, one might want to make the argument that it didn't have the leverage to prevent it because the US never joined.. But let's not have facts get in the way of a good UN bash, right?
How often did Trump go bankrupt? That makes him an expert on projection cost and project planning how?
And that makes it the UN's fault how?
Look, the UN is not perfect, but it's better than any other option. Sort of like democracy.
Actually, beeing an electrical engineer,
Okay, maybe you can explain something I've been trying to figure out for a while.
If you wrap any RF transmitting device in tin OR aluminum foil, you are going to completely shield the device and no RF will get in or out because the foil would act as a farady cage.
This doesn't fit with what I learned in college physics, yet I hear it all the time. From what I learned, a Faraday cage should prevent RF energy from entering the cage, but not from leaving it.
As I recall, a Faraday cage works because of Gauss' law, which tells us the net flux through any closed, conducting surface is dependent only upon charges inside the surface. Charges/fields outside of a closed conducting surface have no effect inside the surface. So if you place a conductive wrapper in an EM field (like, say, the field that powers a passive RFID or contactless smart card), what essentially happens is that the field induces a current in the wrapper, flowing around the enclosed volume, rather than passing through. That makes sense to me.
But, according to Gauss' law, a charge inside a closed surface *does* produce a net flux out through the surface. So a transmitter *inside* the foil wrapper will be able to pass a signal through the wrapper with no problem. I think the shape of the conductor will alter the shape of the field somewhat... I'm not sure.
So, is there something other than Gauss' law at work in a Faraday cage? Why is it that a conductive surface will block interior fields? Or will it?
In this particular case, preventing exterior fields from reaching the RFID is sufficient because the RFID has no power source of its own. What if it did, though? Would the aluminum foil actually do any good? Also, I know from practical experience that placing a conductive layer just on one side of a contactless smart card will render it inoperative. It doesn't even matter if the tinfoil is between the card and reader. Anyone know why that might be? Does the conductor just "smear" the signal enough that communication is no longer possible? Or is there something else going on?
Note to ACs: I usually delete AC replies without reading them. If you want to talk to me, log in.
Why exactly should we be carrying 25% of the total cost of the UN?
I'll bet that there is no reason we should pay 25%. We are one of 185 countries. We are one of I believe 7 on the permanent security council. The US I doubt has 25% of world economic output either, so I can't determine any other reason other than "the US should pay". Nice logic.
I don't get the sense of entitlement people have. What's your country paying?
It saddens me that so many here don't seem to understand a simple but very important concept behind Stallmans protest. It was a catch-phrase in the '60s. I was born in the '70s, but I guess I'm lucky that it was effectively taught to me.
I wish I could make this huge:
QUESTION AUTHORITY!
That is all RMS was doing. And when he did put the question to them we saw their reaction. It scares me, the number of people who think the UN's reaction was appropriate.
"It's because they're stupid, that's why. That's why everybody does everything." -Homer Simpson
Hmh, quite odd considering that all RFID-type ID badges I have used require usually going real near the reader. You can just require to keep photo IDs visible at all times and have them "scanned" without your knowledge too.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
I am not sure how it works relative to Gauss's law, it has been a long while since school and working in RF is sometimes a lot of guesswork to go with the theory, but I will try to explain it this way...
In the RF world if you have a perfect short circuit between the transmitting element and ground, or a perfect open circuit, you will have a perfect 100% reflection. Free space has a certain resistance to RF, and to avoid reflections, antennas match resistances between your system and free space (and back again).
If you have a grounded metal surface, this acts like a (near) perfect short to ground. So in RF it will act like a mirror, reflecting any RF that hits it. This is the reason something like a satellite dish works. It is an antenna with a grounded reflector behind it reflecting all the energy in one direction.
In the case of the faraday cage, the whole thing is grounded. If you transmit RF inside of it, the energy will just keep bouncing off the walls untill free-space loss and other losses reduce the signal to nothing. Outside of the cage you will not see any energy. Basically it creates the worst possible translation from the transmitter to free space and is therefore the worst antenna you could build.
In practice I've seen numerous uses of faraday cages built inside buildings to keep tests involving high powered RF from damaging or interfering with property in other parts of the building. So theory aside, I can attest that they do work to isolate equipment in both directions.
Also, there is a faraday cage inside every microwave oven keeping the 2.4 GHz RF from getting out. And every piece of waveguide transmission line is also the same thing. The signal bounces around untill it reaches the other end.
It's easier to fight for one's principles than to live up to them.
I hadn't read any details about the renovation project, so I checked it out. That billion "American Tax Dollars" you talked about? It's a loan, with 5.54 per cent interest!
You can't take the sky from me...
Countries pay according to their BNP and since US has a large BNP compared to many other countries US pay more than any other nation. Second largest are Japan with 19 % compared with US 24%.
BTW Germany UK France and Italy together pays more then the US so EU totally pays more than than the US.
Just saying it like it are.
What if you're doing something morally right, but illegal, or socially unpopular?
I mod down anyone who says "I will be modded down for this", regardless of the rest of their comment
Too bad the point you're trying to make doesn't make any sense. Why would anyone cover a non-RFID badge with tinfoil? There aren't any radio waves to block.
I have no doubt that if his driver's license used RFID, RMS would cover that too. The reason is that RFID is fundamentally different than a normal ID, because when a normal ID is in your pocket other people can't read it. When a RFID is in your pocket, other people still can. If you can't understand that difference, perhaps someone other than RMS is the moron, eh?
"[Regarding the 'cloud,'] ownership was what made America different than Russia." -- Woz
Well, yeah.
The human mind is meant to handle a tribe. We can keep track of a small group of people, knowing who can be trusted and who to be wary of.
Now we have cities with millions of people and transportation that takes us everywhere. Every day, we are faced with people we don't know.
We're struggling. Our tribal brains can't keep track of all the people we meet.
Every other rich country pays a little bit more than its fair share to compensate for countries in civil war or deep economic crisis. Japan for instance is paying 19% of the budget for less than 10% of the global GDP, Gernany 8% of the budget for less than 5% of the global GDP and so on. So with 24% of the budget for 21.17% of the global GDP, the U.S. contribution seen as a share of its GDP is already the lowest of all developped countries: in raw dollars, the U.S. assessments of $440,000,000 is 0.0037% of its GDP when Japan for instance pays $346,000,000 i.e. 0.0092% of its GDP. So you personally are contributing almost 3 time less of your annual incomes to the U.N. than a japanese or me in Europe. What about "everyone except the US has already paid its (proportionaly larger) share"?
If the U.S. was at least paying 21.17% of the budget instead of 24%, the complaints would not be so loud. The problem is that the U.S. has not even paid half its commitments for 2004, and not even 15% of its due for 2005 (that is less than 4% of the U.N. budget). In contrast, every other major contributor has already fully paid 2004 and 2005.
If you aggregate the effective payements made on the last 12 months, the U.S. is only the 6th contributor to the U.N. budget, behind Italy (2.89% of the world GDP)!
Here are the hard and daunting data (remember you asked for it):
http://www.globalpolicy.org/finance/tables/reg-bu
Why do you think U.S. officials always speak of the assessments (never the payments)?
Money owed by U.S. to U.N.: $1bn
9 p3.htm
Money owed by U.N. to U.S.: $4.7bn
http://usgovinfo.about.com/library/weekly/aa10319
Slay a dragon... over lunch!
"The UN has a huge positive effect on the world."
... ignorant people could claim that the UN is not worth supporting. "
And you sir are naive or haven't had much first hand experience with the other half of the UN, its military wing. I have now worked and lived in 3 war zones for the last 10 years. I have dealt first hand with the UN police keeping operations in all 3 (Kosovo, Bosnia, Iraq). You will NEVER see anybody more corrupt or corrupting than the UN. Take UNMUC for example. You take police from corrupt 3rd world UN members and send them to even more corrupt war torn countries where they both:
a) Teach the local cops how to be even more corrupt and extort the locals even more.
b) Directly extort the locals themselves.
In addition many of the UNMIC police have direct access to organized crime back home and often setup trade links in the war torn country they are supposedly helping (often coordinating human, weapon, and drug channels between the domestic and foreign crime rings).
Or shall we talk about the peace keepers themselves? The peace keepers who are used to getting their own way back home and rape and extort the locals who they are suppose to be peacekeeping. Or take bribes to rough up one side or the other. Google away, you will find numerous references to this from all over the world.
Or shall we talk about the UN staff in charge of rebuilding the countries? 1st world doe eyed dogooders who spent their nights getting high, drunk, and partying in local sex clubs. Or the old jaded former dogooder managers who just fuck children on a regular basis while embezzling UN funds to fund their illicit activities and retirements. Or do you mean the 3rd world members who join so they can compete with the jaded 1st worlders who can be more corrupt.
"It strikes me that, of the people who are wholly negative of the UN, the vastly majority are from the USA
I personally find the only people that support the UN are people who have never first hand had to deal with them down range (not their nice 1st world NY and Geneva offices) on a daily basis, never seen how they have this annoying habit of causing more damage than not, prolonging the amount of time the locals suffer and citizens of 3rd world countries who are just embittered they belong to a failed nation and look for the UN to balance / counteract their betters.
Let me guess, you are a western european living in one of your Ivory Towers like so many of your peers. Try getting out and seeing the world for what it is, dirty, nasty, and corrupt. Just like the UN.
De Oppresso Liber
You know I have seen the UN "go in" and "do stuff" in former Yugoslavia. There is no oil or anything else ther. There were just people dying. It was scary as I lived in Hungary (Norht border from there) and we were happy about the UN going in and to provide peace keeping efforts.
You might question if they were late or whatever, but they went there and without political or monetary interest. The US was there (in fact they used HU airfields for their runs).
My point: the UN does stuff, they help where they can, they feed the hungry.
My father worked for years on industry development for the U.N. (as an electrical engineer and economist with aluminium industry) in places like Mozambique and other places that you probably do not see in your average passport. Many places where there were armored vehicles parked on the corner with angry uneducated people shooting at anyone at sight.
I know for a fact that the UN does a lot and there are supporters who go where they can and die if they have to for a cause.
What do you want? More uncontrolled power so anyone can jsut run-down a country for oil? Or the UN should run into Zimbabwe and have a UN version of black hawk dawn (I know it was Somalia), without support for other big countries because they only want more oil or only want nuclear power for themselves?
Stallman COMPLIED with the security, you maroon.
Did you RTFA?
He willingly unwrapped it to go through any of the visible check-points, he simply objected to the potential that people might be reading the RF ID without his knowledge and tracking him around the grounds.
He made an important point, to a bunch of people who probably need to know it. Maybe the VIPs at the UN didn't know that their ID could be compromised by a 'terrist' with a RFID scanner.
As Schneier said in his latest Cryptogram "Security always gets better, it never gets worse".
You will probably be able to read RFID from hundreds of metres away soon. Far enough away to make selective targeting a reality.
Get with the program.
Of the 191 UN member states, 94 contribute 39,329 troops to 13 different missions.
The five permanent members of the security council, who effectively ordered all those blue helmets dispatched, provide 1,030 troops in total.
The US has deployed a quarter of a million troops in Iraq and several thousand in Afghanistan. To serve the UN in 2003, it sent two soldiers. The UK does slightly better: 415 British troops currently wear blue helmets.
Pakistan, Bangladesh, Nigeria, India and Ghana are the five main contributors, providing 18,745 troops.
Note: those figures dates back to february 2004.
One more point : since 1990, in missions in Sierra Leone and Liberia alone, more than 1,200 peacekeepers died. One of them was Canadian, the others were all Nigerians.