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United Nations vs SQL Injections
Giorgio Maone writes "The United Nations web site has been defaced by 3 crackers who replaced the speeches of the Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon with their own pacifist message.
This article briefly analyzes the exploited vulnerability and the technology used on the server, both quite surprising to find in such a high profile site."
Given that Israel is the most flagrant violator of UN resolutions, perhaps they'll listen to this. Oh crap, this isn't a political site, is it? *Runs away from the pitchfork weilding mods*
I hate printers.
The UN was ineffective due to half-assedly fucking up a security detail? That's un-possible!
You see? You see? Your stupid minds! Stupid! Stupid!
Apparently the UN website is down due to "scheduled maintenance"... A flagrant lie from the most important worldwide organization, a bit shocking really, but surprising?
It wasn't hacked! Their website clearly states it is down for scheduled maintenance. Honestly, some people need to stop spreading these fake stories!
both quite surprising to find in such a high profile site
Are we really that surprised? I thought it was pretty standard that most of the "high profile sites" out there are the ones least likely to understand the importance of keeping their software up to date. It seems like the larger the company/organization/multi-national quasi-governmental agency, the more likely they are to simply buy in to whatever is being promoted by (insert your favorite vendor here), and won't upgrade unless something breaks or they can afford to buy whatever (insert your favorite vendor here) is selling in the quantities and packages they are selling it.
Maybe it's not such a surprise, considering that
Why is this shocking or surprising? I've seen countless terrible implementations where some leet web hacker has made terrible security and general data integrity problems because they have no idea how a database should be set up or secured. They apparently don't teach databases well enough in school, and the folks who teach themselves rarely seem to bother trying to learn it right.
Sometimes they have very stupid policies and habits which lead to errors.
How hard is it, I mean really, to spell U.N.Constitutional? Why is it that people think that the U.N. is some kind of authority over American citizens?
When government fears the people, there is liberty. When the people fear the government, there is tyranny. - Jefferson
I personally would have sneaked in and invented a new UN agency with its own inscrutable and almost-pronounceable acronym, and then sat back and watched.
Just imagine if, halfway down this page, you get an entry like this:
UNCRP: Works in field missions to improve standards in accordance with self-determined metrics. Composed of members elected to permanent positions based on a variety of factors subservient to aforementioned goals, assuming goals have been determined prior to agency initiation. Primary work areas include inter-agency provision of UNCRP-related efforts, with the ultimate objective of improving standards, mainly in the field.
One quick email to follow up:
To: secgen@un.org
From: Agency Coordination and Initiation Subcommittee to the Secretariat
Subject: Need traction on UNCRP agency kickstart
Dear sir:
With respect to the newly established UNCRP agency, we respectfully request formal approval of resources. We expect to be operational within 5 years and will submit the initial statement of work within 3 years from approval.
Thank you for providing the momentum to this newly founded agency; we have dedicated much effort to the realization of the UNCRP, as it is conducive to the eradication of, several things in the UN charter.
Regards,
Rolf Wittigersen
And that should be it. Make yourself some popcorn, and watch the headless wonder of a new UN agency being created. At least with the UNCRP, it would be purposeless by design rather than through the diligent work of its employees.
The Banjo Players Must Die!
http://www.cgisecurity.com/questions/sql.shtmlm l
http://www.cgisecurity.com/questions/blindsql.sht
Many other papers on the subject
http://www.cgisecurity.com/development/sql.shtml
Believe me, if I started murdering people, there would be none of you left.
Since when was a UN resolution worth more than the paper it was written on?
And let me guess. You supported a coalition of over 30 countries banding together and overthrowing a corrupt despot who not just violated but utterly ignored almost 20 UN resolutions over a period of a decade or so.
Riiiight. Suuure you did.
So, the UN is only important to you when it comes to supporting the genocide of Israel?
Ignorant jackass.
http://www.un.org/apps/news/infocus/sgspeeches/sta tments_full.asp?statID=105'
-jim
This is not unlike an issue I discovered a little while back. An online application suite for schools designed for easy manipulation of databases containing student records was subject to SQL injection using the web interface. The web interface was designed for parents to get an up to date progress report for their child, or for students to select courses without resorting to paperwork.
Well, passing along the escape character (') to the login page returned the following message:
java.sql.SQLException: ORA-01756: quoted string not properly terminated
I played with this a little while, and eventually was able to mine my friend's student number. Figuring I should probably notify someone, I talked to my high school's technical department.
They put me on the line to the staff at the provincial team. I tell them about the problem and suggest that they contact the company that built the software to begin with.
They close the web interface, and contact the developer. Now, four months later, the issue STILL isn't patched on the thousands of other installs across North America. I tried directly contacting the developer, AAL Solutions. No reply. I finally dug up an email for the Independent School implementation of eSIS. It seems that the developer is still working on it. Slowly.
Unavailable due to scheduled maintenance. Heheheh. Also, why is lying always the first reaction? Scheduled my ass. I'm getting fed up of this. Lies everywhere.
Seven puppies were harmed during the making of this post.
Err... chill dude...
I hate printers.
Since when was a UN resolution worth more than the paper it was written on?
Since no one (cough America) listens to the UN anymore. This is hardly the UN's fault. Just like the league of nations, it has no power to enforce its mandates. Blame the countries that refused to empower the UN.
Seven puppies were harmed during the making of this post.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
At first reading, I thought that the UN was defaced by some white people, and the author was just being racist.
Then I imagined that the UN as a society of pimps. This is where I live now. In my mind.
As a nation, the US has made numerous commitments to the UN, and that includes agreements to follow things like the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. When we *agree* to follow International Law, we ought to, don't you think? Especially when we're heavily involved in creating that law in the first place?
...
The fact is that the UN, while it does have a lot of problems, is also far more effective and dare-I-say-it even important than most people in the US ever give it credit for. It's far from a perfect system, but it's still the best we have. We're one of the rich kids on the playground, and one of the strong kids on the playground, and we don't always enjoy what the student government wants to do--so we turn away from it sometimes. But that doesn't mean that it isn't important, or helpful, or that it doesn't, sometimes, do what's right. And that doesn't mean we shouldn't work with it, sometimes, and give it more credit for what it does and tries to do.
Instead, we tend to discount it. Because sometimes we don't like what it says about us or others in the playground, and because it's politically convenient (and salable) for our leaders to emphasize our strength and autonomy, all of our accomplishments and our not-inconsiderable military and economic muscle, and all of our pride. Some degree of Nationalism isn't a terrible thing, and we do have a lot to be proud of--but we also still have a lot to do, and to accomplish, as a nation and as members of larger world, and pretending the other children on the playground are irrelevant doesn't help us to do those things.
Also, don't you want the Universal Declaration of Human Rights to apply to US Citizens in a US Court or on the streets? The Bill of Rights is getting stretched more thinly every day, and the anti-terrorist effort (though directed in part by well-meaning people) is cutting swaths in our Constitution.
--Me
The subtlest change in New York is something that people don't speak much about but that is in everyone's mind. The city, for the first time in its history, is destructible. A single flight of planes no bigger than a wedge of geese can quickly end this island fantasy, burn the towers, crumble the bridges, turn the underground passages into lethal chambers, cremate the millions. The intimation of mortality is part of New York now: in the sound of jets overhead, in the black headlines of the latest edition.
All dwellers in cities must live with the stubborn fact of annihilation; in New York the fact is somewhat more concentrated because of the concentration of the city itself, and because, of all targets, New York has a certain clear priority. In the mind of whatever perverted dreamer who might loose the lightning, New York must hold a steady, irresistible charm.
It used to be that the Statue of Liberty was the signpost that proclaimed New York and translated it for all the world. Today Liberty shares the role with Death. Along the East River, from the razed slaughterhouses of Turtle Bay, as though in a race with the spectral flight of planes, men are carving out the permanent headquarters of the United Nations -- the greatest housing project of them all. In its stride, New York takes on one more interior city, to shelter, this time, all governments, and to clear the slum called war.
This race -- this race between the destroying planes and the struggling Parliament of Man -- it sticks in all our heads. The city at last perfectly illustrates both the universal dilemma and the general solution, this riddle in steel and stone is at once the perfect target and the perfect demonstration of nonviolence, of racial brotherhood, this lofty target scraping the skies and meeting the destroying planes halfway, home of all people and all nations, capital of everything, housing the deliberations by which the planes are to be stayed and their errand forestalled.
-- E.B. White, from "Here Is New York," 1948
Yeah! And koalas are little bitches!
Looking through your posting history and finding such gems as, "I say beat the shit out of the jerks, maybe they'll think twice before doing it again," I guess I'd be safe to classify you as a trollish, impotent, angry young man.
But you're right, let's get rid of the "opposition to war or violence as a means for resolving disputes" (American Heritage) that pacifism entails, close down our embassies, withdraw our diplomats, and resolve our differences - without exception - with a good old-fashioned wrestle. My wife volunteers; does yours?
Lest you be accused of being "too cowardly to take a stand", should you not be planning a military coup of the UN or something, rather than posting on Slashdot? Only the "soft headed moron" would use words when he has his almighty fists. Onward into battle, tfiddler, for the freedom of our glorious nation rests on your shoulders!
So it coincidence the site is down for scheduled maintenance right now? I suppose this maintenance was scheduled immediately following their defacement?
SQL injection in a high-profile site is not surprising or uncommon. When you work with back end databases, your protection from such an attack is only all the programmers that make up the DB interfaces on your website. This happens often due to laziness, lack of knowledge, or simple mistakes. It's pretty frequent when you have people collaborate on a project as well. One person might be the best security programmer in the world and do 95% of the website. That "other" guy that did 5% of it could eb the reason you just got hacked. Web attacks are becoming more and more common and will continue to rise with Web 2.0 features. Surprising? Not at all... we see this stuff all the time and on more popular sites than un.org (is that really saying much?).
the good ol' hot beef injection?
It's bad enough they are known as an ineffective organization. The idea of world government is a great idea but no one is ready for it. I guess it'll take an Extinction Level Event Asteroid Injection to get the nations to get them to cooperate.
In the world of developing high volume web sites in a secure fashion, it is very easy to say "proactive," but very hard to do.
.NET event-driven model for web page development, writing very insecure code because they really didn't have their heads around the timing of code execution or the mechanisms behind view state.
I have worked with many web developers who thought they knew a lot about making web sites secure, and who didn't even know what a SQL Injection vulnerability was. Why didn't they know? Because they had never run across it before. It had not been taught in their school, nor in any of the "how to use Microsoft Visual Studio" training they had.
The "well nobody told me" problem is hard to surmount, and it can have dire consequences. A friend of mine worked at a place where the senior architect explicitly forbade parameterizing SQL queries because he thought it was needless code complexity and a waste of time! I have also seen developers struggle with the
One thing that got me a while back was an exploit reported by Microsoft involving a means by which extra information about the web site could be teased out of the http header under some circumstances. Our client followed Microsoft's instructions for tweaking IIS to prevent the attack, and several of our pages started trying to redirect to invalid URLs. Problems like that bug me because of how difficult it is to be aware of them in advance. One has to invest a lot of time in keeping up with the latest news on a wide variety of web-related technologies (just to learn about the problems), and even more time in re-writing your code based on the new knowledge. What was secure yesterday isn't secure today, and designing sites that will remain secure tomorrow requires a very great deal of money, time, and effort to be spent in activities that don't always seem to have a measurable benefit at the time.
So...I can sympathize.
That's precious that they're asking USA and Israel "dont kill children and other people". Does it not count if you blow yourself up while doing it? Or do you just have to be muslim to be excluded?
Any organization which elects Libya to chair it's "Human Rights Council" automatically loses any right to be taken seriously.
..... it kinda reminds me of Slashdot, actually ;)
Seriously, is it possible any more to even pretend that the UN is anything but a forum for tinpot dictators and other nameless losers to bitch, complain, and blame the west for all of Earth's problems?
Come to think of it
You'll notice that webpages of governments, political parties and other highly bureaucratic systems are usually quite vulnerable. This is due to a few factors.
First of all, whatever they do, use or change needs about a truckload of paperwork and red tape to get done. They're not only vulnerable to 0day exploits, they're usually vulnerable to exploits that have been around for a year or two, simply because they cannot respond quickly to security threats and vulnerabilities.
Then there's that compatibility issue. Especially when dealing with multiple partners, you have to find some kind of way that makes it easy for every partner to incorporate their content into your system. You must not prefer any, you must not use a system that would block certain partners and participants out due to incompatibility. Now, compatibility usually boils down to the lowest common denominator. And that's usually not the most secure one.
And finally the good ol' fact that the people who work there are usually not the creme of the crop, the best of the best and the spearhead of excellence, or they'd be in free enterprise making more money.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
to check for SQL injection like this on a website is to do something like this:
a tments_full.asp?statID=105%20OR%201=1
a tments_full.asp?statID=105
http://www.un.org/apps/news/infocus/sgspeeches/st
If they're not using parameter binding and/or properly sanitizing user input, this should return a different record (article in this case) than the original URL. - http://www.un.org/apps/news/infocus/sgspeeches/st
Still vulnerable: SQL error
Wish I had mod points :(
+5 Funny
The article starts off:-
w s/news.html?in_article_id=474788&in_page_id=1770
"A major security alert has been sparked after the theft of a computer database containing thousands of top secret telephone records from police investigations into terrorism and organised crime."
So you think someone hacked the computer and nicked the database.
further down the article:-
"The raid at the high-security head office of Forensic Telecommunication Services Ltd (FTS) at Sevenoaks, Kent, raised fears that vital evidence from undercover investigations may have been lost or have fallen into the wrong hands."
"The stolen computer server - a metal box the size of a large DVD player - contained details of who made calls on mobiles, their exact location and precisely when the calls were made."
FTS said in a statement to The Mail on Sunday last night: "We can confirm that the company was recently the victim of a break-in at one of our premises in Kent.
"As a result, some IT equipment, including a server, were stolen".
"The server, which is security protected, contained administrative data and details of some case files in relation to FTS's forensic work."
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/live/articles/ne
You really need to lay off the theory and try living in the real world.
Now let's pretend for a minute that 'positive liberty' is all BS. Let's pretend that the libertarian ideology on liberty is the most moral one. Let's say UN implements your Libertarian Declaration of Human Rights.
Now how will that be a step in the right direction for the freedom and safety of mankind (pretty big words for statement devoid of any arguments)? Do realize that no one will even care about this document, let alone even paying lip service to it's requirements. The vast majority of the earth couldn't give a flying fuck about your rants on positive and negative liberty. Fuck, most of them are so poor that they can't really have a debate on this issue.
Try explaining the dangers of positive liberty to an illiterate African kid. Try telling him that the government should not be building school or hospitals because that means richer people will have to pay more taxes and it increases government involvement in the individual's life. Most people don't care about your Ivory tower rants. People want education and healthcare. People don't want to see their kids dying from something stupid like malaria. People want at least baseline prosperity.
Don't get me wrong, I am not really arguing against libertarian ideology. I am just pointing out that libertarian views on positive liberty issues is a extreme view than is not shared by the majority of the population of our planet. And it doesn't matter whether they are right or wrong.
Okay, forget positive liberty issues. Let's look at social liberalism, you would think there would be more consensus on this one, right? So how are you planning to force all nations on the planet to ratify a document that would essentially legalize the vast majority of illegal drugs (if not all, I guess it depends how hardcore you are about such things, I don't know, I don't really see the point in recreational use of heroin)? Hell, we have troubles legally enforcing the current declaration because many muslim nations like making exceptions (I am beating your wife is right, no? What kind of barbarian would want to ban something like that?), I am not even talking about practical implementation of the current declaration.
The UN isn't about world peace and prosperity and promoting rights. It's about comprising and trying to find a mutually acceptable solution while at the same time trying to advance freedom/prosperity.
I don't even know why I wrote this. You're just a naive little American, with no understanding of the world around him. Your one size fits all attitude is just laughable. It's because of people like you that I don't like libertarians. Libertarians are kind of like communists in a way, flip side of the same coin.
Ten to one, we hear next week that some large repository of Student papers is vulnerable too.
The UNO knows what to do. See my small cartoon: http://geekandpoke.typepad.com/geekandpoke/2007/08 /strong-uno.html
Bye,
Oliver
Beside the overly zealous use of commas, that would, with all due respect, convince the Secretary General, if he is the recipient, that the email was, in fact, sent by William Shatner, its a great idea!
The UN is really a complete affront to democracy. It's effectively a five country dictatorship. You have 5 countries which can veto the will of all the world's countries and they can never be removed from their position on the Security Council. They can also veto the appointment of a UN Secretary General, even if the rest of the world wants that person for the role. It's amazing really that the media do not direct their attention at the UN's completely undemocratic structure rather than just its operational failures (which often stem from that structure).
I mean, what's more outrageous. That some UN officials have been corrupt in the past or that the organisation is itself a dictatorship?
I'm not a libertarian and I'm not the GP but, I seriously think we should legalize most illegal drugs.
Why? Because the vast majority of the domestic harms ascribed to illegal drug use actually result from the illegality of drug use. But worse than that, the illegality creates far greater harms in the rest of the world. For example, sick people throughout the world are dying in terrible pain because the most effective, natural analgesic, morphine, is effectively prohibited by anti-drug treaties. (Yes, the richest six countries have adequate supplies; everyone else is fucked. It is ridiculous that we're spending billions to eradicate the poppy growing in Afghanistan when there's such a desperate shortage of morphine. And yes, other countries aren't required to accept the anti-drug treaties, but their trade depends on it.) Or look at the cocaine-related violence in South America. Again, entirely a result of the illegality of drugs and our demand for them. We have ineffective laws intended to protect a few foolish westerners from self-inflicted harm inflicting far greater harm on the rest of the world. I don't see any positive argument for these laws.
I do see the point of recreational heroin use although I've never tried it. But I don't see the point of fucking-over undeveloped countries.
No way! Our Constitution and Bill of Rights are designed to protect us and our rights! Somehow, I don't think the safety, security, and interests of Americans is high on the priority list of the UN. I would prefer that our courts stick with the Constitution and Bill of Rights that make America's interests top priority.
What are the things that you are claiming that the UN is effective at? As far as I can tell, there are only two things: (1) giving hand-outs to the desperately poor, and (2) keeping tinpot dictators in power. One could argue that these together are self-perpetuating.
Yea, because the third world is responsible for global warming, sweatshopped labour, "pre-emptive" wars and capitalistic plutocracy. Get over yourself, if you think the west's natural position is at the top of the human pecking order. If you had any perspective at all you'd know that history has shown again and again that any empire or civilization that seeks to place itself above others will eventually be pulled out of privilege, or die due to the inherent instabilities that arise when a whole order is based upon competitive self-serving narcissism.
I hate printers.
I've worked in both commercial and government organizations, and stupidity happens in both. If a commercial site messes up, it is just easier for them to hide it because the consequences are usually more localized and they can just pay off parties affected.
Almost all companies and organizations are cheap and want the most while paying the least. Governments are often not given much money for items outside of their core function, and websites often fall into that classification. Commercial entities do spend more on esthetics though. I've seen contractors make a commercial site super pretty and the head hancho's really liked it, but it ran like malassis on modems at a time when high-speed was not common (inside they had high-speed). They also used a lot of JavaScript to make it fancy, but it crashed on versions of browsers that they didn't test. They chose fancy over robust. Perhaps commercial and gov't make different flavors of mistakes and shortsighted decisions, but they both make mistakes.
Table-ized A.I.
'Basically, both Jews and Muslims claim the "holy land" as their own. So, who do we support, then, or do we just let them blow themselves to bits?'
At the heart of the problem is that Muslims and Christians both desperately want to be Jews. They, too, want the 'special deal' with 'god' that the Jews got.
But the Jews don't want someone not born a Jew (or who went thru a *very* special process of conversion) to share in Jewness. The Jews want neither Muslims nor Christians to be Jews.
This 'Holy land' is holy to Christians, Muslims *and* Jews for this very reason; that the Christians and Muslims want to be Jews.
And thats at the heart of most of the problems of the middle east and has leaked out into many other parts of the world.
In the free world the media isn't government run; the government is media run.
As a nation, the US has made numerous commitments to the UN, and that includes agreements to follow things like the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. When we *agree* to follow International Law, we ought to, don't you think?
r esnum=0&ct=result&cd=1&q=Reichstag&spell=1
ABSOLUTELY FUCKING NOT. I will NEVER allow someone outside my country tell me what I can, and cannot do unless they want to face my 2nd amendment rights in their face with my hand on the trigger. Thats why we have the 5th Amendment: "No person shall be denied life, liberty, or property without due process of law". We created the Constitution for a PURPOSE. If you don't know the constitution, then you need to learn it, and learn it NOW. The REASON that this country is so royally fucked is because world government favoring little imperialists have either forgotten, or either never LEARNED the constitution, what it means, how many people died for it, and what it means to be a patriot. A patriot's duty is to protect his country FROM his government. Ever watched the Patriot? Braveheart?
The Bill of Rights is getting stretched more thinly every day, and the anti-terrorist effort (though directed in part by well-meaning people) is cutting swaths in our Constitution.
Thats because little wimps sit on their butts and ALLOW it to happen. What ever happened to Thomas Jefferson, Martin Luther King, and Rosa Parks? Rosa Parks was a true hero because she KNEW that DEFIANCE was the ONLY option to push the sorry ass government we have in place into some common damn sense.
If you want to play the 'terrorist' card, I don't believe a damn word of it. Your damned president CREATED your 'terrorist' threat. He is not my president, I din't vote for him, and the election was rigged in the hands of Diebold machines, not the people. It is not who votes that counts... But who counts the votes.
If you are stupid enough to believe that 'jet fuel' bit, that supposedly brought down two of the largest towers in the world, then you need to go back to collage, and learn a few things about physics. And please explain to me the collapse of WTC7! Surely you aren't dumb enough to believe fire brought down an entire building when the building hardly had any fire in it at all.
The terrorist bit is simple bullshit. The only terrorists in this country are the ones sitting on their damn thrown in Washington DC, and NY at the CFR building. Government is not God. I listen to Alex Jones's show, I know what goes on in this world. I don't sit on my ass all day and watch Faux News, MSN-BC, and A-BC. Those media corps are controlled by 6 people. And you sit there, and honestly think that they are not government controlled? Look up Reichstag, and what Hitler did in WWII to play his own people into the demon of fear, and how he used it to enslave people into voting for him, THEN you look back to today, and look at what that sorry son of a bitch we have for president has done. You CAN NOT tell me they are different because you would be DEAD WRONG.
"Those who sacrifice liberty for security DESERVE NEITHER, and will LOOSE BOTH." - Benjamin Franklin
So you GO, and VOTE for the ONE YOU SERVE. You ARE going to get what you DESERVE.
http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&sa=X&oi=spell&
I for one will be voting for Ron Paul.
When government fears the people, there is liberty. When the people fear the government, there is tyranny. - Jefferson
...often sucks dead reptiles because they resent having to pay for the work they get. After all, the Cause motivates them, so everyone else should be just as motivated and satisfied by supporting the Cause! "The check will be mailed next week. Honest."
I doubt that very much. The UN couldn't pour sand of a boot even with instructions written on the heel.
How long has the genocide in Darfur been going on? Last I heard, the UN issued a proclamation that said basically, "stop or we'll say top again". How about those times the UN security forces allowed militants and war lords to drive right past them and kill the civilians they were supposed to be protecting? How about all those rape and child sex slave cases being hushed up by the UN?
The only time UN security forces are able to do a damn thing that is useful is when the United States or one of our trusted friends (UK, Canada, Australia, etc) is in charge of it.
The UN may be been created with noble intent, but it now only serves to keep tin-pot dictators in power. Look who's on the commission for human rights. The worse evil dictator bastards on the planet.
Look who the UN just put in charge of the commission on sustainability. The representative from Zimbabwe. Zimbabwe! OMFG! They have about 3000% inflation in that country! Once an exporter of food, now suffering mass famine. All because of the policies of the evil dictator Mugabe. But hey, Mugabe's policies just got the rubber stamp from the UN, so it must be desirable.
Any argument that the UN is useful and/or necessary is both morally and intellectually bankrupt given its past history and current (in)actions.
-- Will program for bandwidth
There is no stumbling block here. All the hacker had to do would be to escape their own apostrophe. That's the very vulnerability that makes this work.
'; update speeches set text = 'Don''t try to hack this site, I beat you to it.' where id = 1;'All the rest of it is just gravy.
at least i have the courage to post as someone and not as an anonymous coward. oh, i volunteered btw, right out of hs, i'm also far from a young man and i've probably seen and experience more of this world than you. in any case, your name calling is no different than mine, however i happen to be right.
Democrats and Republicans are like AIDS and Cancer, I want neither!
Representatives from the United States of; DROP TABLE; frown on such SQL Injections
"Hello 911? I just tried to toast some bread, and the toaster grew an arm and stabbed me in the face!"
Libya chaired the Commission on Human Rights, not the Human Rights Council. The Human Rights Council is in fact the successor to the now-defunct Commission on Human Rights; it was created to address the failures of the UNCHR, and Libya's tenure as chair was part of the impetus for the creation of the new body. Although the UNHRC has not fared much better, it is nonetheless wise not to ignore actual facts in favor of needless polemics.
English is easier said than done.
So it is OK to use Nazi methods against us that do not live in the "land of the free"?
You are invited to come and have a look at real freedom in Scandinavia.
I would like to mod SplatMan +1, Kind.
Consciousness is a myth. Trust me.
There is something that comes up everytime the UN is discussed. The "they" thing. The UN does not have much free will. Most of its Member States, the UN first and foremost, like it that way. The "UN" is usually the expression of the least common denominator of its Member States' will.
If the "UN" does not do something right, especially if you are american, shouldn't you hold your own government accountable?
I work at a major research institution, and I've been told flat-out by my supervisor that "we're not a target" for hackers. It's a shame, considering the millions which would be wasted if someone decides to mess up our data.
The value of the Constitution and the Bill of Rights outside the borders of the United States is substantially less than that of toilet paper.
And when you are outside the borders of the United States, you can be damn sure that your government supported by your courts, constitution and bill of rights will consider you substantially less valuable than its international trade agreements.
Genesis 1:32 And God typed
I agree with you that we should legalize most drugs and simply decriminalize the rest.
The way drugs are handled in the world should defiantly be reformed. This could have a lot of benefits. For instance, Afghanistan might be strengthened if its government was allowed to have monopoly on poppy exports. These exports could then be processed by richer nations. The Taliban would lose an important source of finance.
I am not too sure about the recreational use of heroin. At least in a completely legal context (heroin would be treated like say alcohol). I favor a more harm reduction approach where the government maintains safe-injecting rooms where users can have access to clean needles and a clean dose. Of course, getting access to these facilities would involve more than just wanting to get some heroin for free.
While putting heroin addicts into jail is a pretty stupid idea, I am not too sure that legalizing heroin is the right solution. In terms of its physical effect it has potential for doing a lot harm.
Any nation that seeks to put itself above others will eventually not be. What a fabulous non-statement. Every monarchy will eventually end! Every nation with an A in the title will end! All of those statements are just as true as yours, it doesn't take much. Up to this point we haven't seen anything that qualifies as forever but there have been plenty who made pretty good runs, and they were not the meek and complacent.
Good one, one of my favs is "Hello Super Nintendo Chalmers".
LOL!
"Happy families are all alike; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way." -- Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy
'Cause nothing says, "Pacifist" like vandalizing somebody else's stuff...
Can you be Even More Awesome?!
What the UN has actually turned into is the equivalent of raiding your town jail and local loony-bin to find members for your town council. While the concept of "equal representation" might seem noble, in these cases it fails horribly.
We (the "western" nations) have already recognized the fact that negotiating with terrorists, tyrants, and fascists is not only useless but counter-productive. Our foreign policies generally reflect that. Yet at the same time we allow such individuals to take part in UN discussions, and vote on matters with a voice equal to those of liberal democracies. I shouldn't need to point out the foolishness of such a hypocritical policy. The UN should have been scrapped years ago.
The fact is that the UN, while it does have a lot of problems, is also far more effective and dare-I-say-it even important than most people in the US ever give it credit for. It's far from a perfect system, but it's still the best we have.
The UN tends to keep the various powers, especially European and Russian, but also China and Japan, tied up in red tape so they are less inclined to engage in world wars. It also sets up a standard system whereby brutal third world dictators can demand and receive handouts while they butcher their people. This isn't far from its original intent: to get various nations to sit down and talk rather than invading each other, but it's nothing like the vision the one world government people have for it.
The usual critique of democracy is that it's far from perfect, but that it's the best we have. The UN is also the best we have, but it is absolutely awful. There is *nothing* in the UN's charter or design that would ever make them lift a finger to stop a genocide.
Also, don't you want the Universal Declaration of Human Rights to apply to US Citizens in a US Court or on the streets?
Not particularly. Have you actually read the thing? Well, I haven't, because it's ridiculously long, but I skimmed it pretty well. It's missing some key stuff, like an equivalent to the US Constitution's tenth ammendment. The framers realized one key point: many people will only tend to agree on a few fundamentals. So your key documents should be short and sweet (and, consequently, timeless!) and the more local bodies will go into more detail.
but we also still have a lot to do, and to accomplish, as a nation and as members of larger world
Nations don't have agendas, and, being sovereign, they are not members of anything larger. Your intentions may be laudable, but they require that the modern nation-state change into something fundamentally different from what it is. The liberal democratic nation state has served us poorly to decently for the last few hundred years and has been an order of magnitude better than anything that came before it. And most of the experiments of the last century have been tragedies orders of magnitude larger than anything humanity could conceive of.
It seems like most of the people talking about AJAX and Web2.0 don't even really know what it is. Ajax isn't any bigger of a security threat than is allowing the users of your website to use get or post on a URL, which nearly every site of any complexity already does.
Judges and senates have been bought for gold; Esteem and love were never to be sold.
He was right. You truly are an imperialist.