Can Open Source Give Comfort To the Enemy?

zlite writes "We make open source Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (drones), mostly for geomapping and other amateur uses. One of our problems is that most people think of UAVs as Scary Things, and despite our efforts to prove otherwise there's always the risk of regulatory crackdowns. We have amateur UAV participants from around the world, but now they've been joined by an Iranian in Tehran, who has made a UAV in the colors of the Iranian flag. My instinct is that we should welcome everyone, everywhere, but I'm sure some in Washington worry that this looks like helping an 'Axis of Evil' country make advanced weapons. They could shut us down with the stroke of a pen. My question: is there ever a case for letting national security issues dictate the limits of an open source project?"

Comments

Give the

[WillRobinson]

Kid a break, he's 17. And while we are on it, how many billions of $$$ can the "security industry" suck off the American people.

Re:Give the

[Jeremiah Cornelius]

Enemy of whom? Iran has not been in a war of aggression against any nation, since the 19th century.

Don't bite the propaganda of AIPAC or Dick Cheney! Israel is the nuclear armed agressor in the Middle East.

Persian culture, by way of contrast, produced the world's first assertion and declaration of Human Rights, and is responsible for the foundation of modern mathematics.

You want ethical and humane living? Read the Avesta of Zoroaster. Unlike the rabid Old Testament, it pleads that humanity have good thought, good speech and good deeds, not casting it's neighbors as "abominations" and wishing them plagues.

Re:Give the

[Anonymous Coward]

Suicide bombers are often under 20.

Re:Give the

[jamstar7]

I would have modded you up, but then I wouldnt've been able to comment. And I prefer to comment.

Technology is not inherently wrong/evil/whatever. Technology is just technology. And if an Iranian kid finds some peaceful apps for technology, good for him, hope he inspires the hell out of his friends to do the same.

Let's face it, you can use a baseball bat to play baseball. Or, you can use it to beat somebody to a pulp. Going to make baseball illegal cause somebody might pick up a bat and hit somebody? Same principle.

Re:Give the

[Anonymous Coward]

Accomplishments of hundreds of generations ago aren't really relevant to the discussion, are they? It's nice to found modern mathematics, but really has nothing to do with the security of a nation that'll come into being centuries later.

Re:Give the

[jimbug]

What if performance-enhancing drugs are involved in said baseball?

Re:Give the

[WhiplashII]

While I do personally agree with your sentiments, that is not really the question being asked. The question being asked is "Is it legal?".

That question is more complex. I am working on a rocket - similar issue arise. ITAR is the governing regulation, and the state department decides what ITAR means. And they are not logical about it.

I want to develop human rocket transports - but anything that goes into space is automatically a weapon, according to the state department. That means that if I talk to a non-US citizen about my improvements to rockets, I go to jail - let alone hiring or working with a non-US citizen.

UAVs seem very likely to fall under ITAR, because the state department will almost certainly say so. Ignorance of the law does not free you from the consequences of it, so I would tread carefully. One of the biggest problems with ITAR is that it is difficult to know exactly what it makes illegal - and so you end up having to consult lawyers every time you want to do anything involving foriengers. Very annoying, and very expensive! But it does lock in big profits for government contractors, of course... (You did know that they get reimbursed for all legal expenses, right?)

My dream is that knowing this will so enrage the Slashdot community that everyone will call their senator and tell them to force the state department to make the ITAR list less inclusive, and only include things that have weaponry as a primary purpose - and get congress to force state to change.

I'd also like a pony...

Re:Give the

[WhiplashII]

My recommendation is to try to avoid the issue. UAV will almost certainly be seen as a military device. (Very) Remote controlled airplane will not...

Re:Give the

[Reality Master 101]

Don't bite the propaganda of AIPAC or Dick Cheney! Israel is the nuclear armed agressor in the Middle East.

Huh? Aggressor? Last I checked, it wasn't Israel who was swearing to wipe out other countries, nor do they send suicide bombers to blow up buses of children. Israel is certainly not squeaky clean, but having enemies around you screaming for your destruction tends to make a country trigger happy. The ledger of atrocities is about 10 (if not 100) to 1 in favor of Israel.

Persian culture, by way of contrast, produced the world's first assertion and declaration of Human Rights, and is responsible for the foundation of modern mathematics.

Those civilizations are long dead -- unfortunately for the people of the middle east.

Re:Give the

[modecx]

Persian culture, by way of contrast, produced the world's first assertion and declaration of Human Rights, and is responsible for the foundation of modern mathematics.

While I somewhat agree with that sentiment, we need to recognize that Iran isn't exactly the same Persia that we know and love. A lot has changed over the years. Persia finally succumbed to Islam; around 90% of Iranians follow the various Islamic faiths, and there are very few Zoroastrians hanging around. Sure, ethnically, the people are mostly the same as they were during the Empire years, but to say that culture is still pervasive? I don't know about that. Also, you can't berate people who follow the other Abrahamic religions, and then praise a modern country filled with people who also follow an (in my eye) equally stupid, but somewhat different Abrahamic religion. What sense does that make?

I've no doubt that the Iranian people are generally, and individually, great people; still, they're under the influence of assholes. It's no different than the US. Their government lies, our government lies, their leader has a screw loose, our leader has to have a screw loose-and unfortunately he has control over the bombs. Israel is the same way. It would be nice, however, if Ahmadinejad didn't periodically call for the elimination of Israel. Instead of defusing the situation, all they do is throw another stick of dynamite on the pile, and it doesn't further their cause in the international arena.

Re:Give the

[belmolis]

You're confused. Israel has never fought an aggressive war. As for Zoroastrianism, however fine a religion it may be, it is of no relevance in determining one's view of modern Iran. Iran has been overwhelmingly Muslim for over 1,000 years. Zoroastrians are a tiny, persecuted, minority.

Re:Give the

[PunkOfLinux]

You ever read failed states or hegemony or survival by noam chomsky?

Re:Give the

[jamstar7]

I could care less about baseball. Doesn't bother me in the least if they wanna do 'better ballplay through chemistry'.

Re:Give the

[SwedishPenguin]

No they don't send suicide bombers, they do however send missiles and bomber planes with little regard for the palestinian civilian population, tell me how that's any better. Face it, Israel is as much to blame as Palestine in the conflict.
I think this conflict is an excellent example of why religion should be completely abolished worldwide, it's the most idiotic concept the human mind has ever invented and only serves to create conflict and restrict peoples rights.

Re:Give the

[Anonymous Coward]

And now that you're older and wiser, re-read it and fix your mistakes.

Re:Give the

[Reality Master 101]

You ever read failed states or hegemony or survival by noam chomsky?

Not to get into a debate on Chomsky, but he suffers from two major logic flaws: Proof by selective evidence, and he presupposes his conclusions (e.g., Given problem A, the conclusion will be that the U.S. holds the vast majority of blame).

No doubt he's a bright guy, but he has some huge blinders when it comes to politics. Unfortunately, his anger overwhelms his rationality.

Re:Give the

[Amouth]

by your comment a gun can be used for shooting people.. or it could be used for shooting people.... wait that wasn't going where i wanted it..

(joking i don't care if people cary guns..)

Re:Give the

[Hal_Porter]

It's sad to see Americans who see themselves as liberals parroting propaganda from extreme anti democratic nationalists, just because those nationalists happen to be Iranian and anti bush. The fact that they are also anti women, anti gay and anti semitic to the point that they deny the holocaust and talk of wiping Israel off the face of the map is conveniently overlooked.

Re:Give the

[einhverfr]

What about publishing original research in peer-reviewed journals?

If you analyze designs of NASA, ESA, and Russian cargo and human transport rockets, and offer ideas for the designs of the future, all based on publically available information?

How about we get better? Lets only look at foreign rocket designs :-) Leave the US ones out of it, and then offer published advice to NASA (and anyone else who can read)....

Re:Give the

[SpaceLifeForm]

It's all approved under regulation 756.

Re:Give the

[ScrappyLaptop]

Believe it or not, there was a time in American history when lots of people carried guns. Used them to catch dinner, too. Shooting a person was considered bad form.

Re:Give the

[hazem]

You're confused. Israel has never fought an aggressive war.

Right - like the war in 1948 where Arabs were massacred or ethnic-cleansed out of their villages... that wasn't aggressive. And nor was the unilateral "preemptive" strike on the Iraqi nuclear facility. Oh, and lets not forget the unprovoked attack on the USS Liberty (how many Americans were killed in the "accidental" attack that lasted several hours?). Oh, and the invasions into Lebanon... how many times now? Nope, no aggression there.

Re:Give the

[SL Baur]

My dream is that knowing this will so enrage the Slashdot community that everyone will call their senator and tell them to force the state department to make the ITAR list less inclusive, and only include things that have weaponry as a primary purpose - and get congress to force state to change. You must be new here. Most of /. is either too young to vote or not a USian who can legally vote in a US election (and many others who don't get out of the basement much), or just jaded like me. My Senators are so corrupt that I just want nothing to do with them at all.

I'm registering Republican just for a chance of voting for Ron Paul in the primary, but I doubt I'll be allowed to. The reasonable candidates are always gone by the time California gets to vote and not that my vote has ever counted. California elections are always stolen, at least in the last 30 years when I've been able to vote.

If I had a brood mare, I'd offer you a pony.

(I must be new here too. I use the term "USian" to distance myself from the Americans running the government in Washington DC and hell bent on killing everyone in the world who has something they want. Am I a meme short of a full deck?).

Re:Give the

[sirsnork]

I'm fairly sure it still is considered bad form ;)

Re:Give the

[Truekaiser]

not to mention the fact they dumped thousands of mini-bombs from cluster bombs over wide areas of land and towns. just as powerful if not more so then land mines but much more easy to set off.

Re:Give the

[monoqlith]

You can name just as many atrocities that Muslim Arabs have committed against Israel. Over the years the suicide bombings, the kidnappings, and the rockets add up, you know. This debate is tired and it doesn't go anywhere. Both sides are convinced they are waging a defensive war, and anything can be justified if one thinks one is defending oneself.

You never hear anyone who speaks loudly condemn both sides for their ethical failures over the years. Why does everyone have to declare one side or the other innocent of all crimes?

Why don't we just look at the facts: Israel exists in a sea of Arab countries, some of whom consistently announce their intention to wipe them from the face of the Earth. This tense climate has made both sides afraid, and people who are afraid make bad decisions. Because of these bad decisions, the Muslims in Palestine have become more marginalized and more radicalized. The Israelis have become more aggressive.

This does not exempt either side from culpability, and it also does not make either side the clear moral victor.

The only way peace will be accomplished in the Middle East is if both sides learn to move past their grievances and realize that the past has no rational relationship to how they should proceed in the future. The past is all sunken cost. Both sides need to say to themselves: How do we prevent further death?

Re:Give the

[Anonymous Coward]

> I think this conflict is an excellent example of why religion should be completely abolished worldwide, ...

May you never be in a position of power.

Re:Give the

[WhiplashII]

If you take a russian rocket engine into the US, it then becomes illegal to send it back to Russia or to tell anything technical about it to Russians. The only exception is anything "published", which you can quote (but not embellish - even saying "this looks good" could be construed as an ITAR violation).

I've heard that the best way around it is to patent it. A Patent counts as publishing it, which means that you can then talk about it. If you had published it yourself, they would consider that an ITAR violation - but if the PTO publishes it, you are off the hook.

The most annoying and inane rules anywhere. Seriously, call your senator!

Re:Give the

[someone1234]

Heh? Didn't Iran attack Iraq in the '80s

Re:Give the

[Runefox]

Well, the Soviets tried that several decades ago, and, well... Yeah.

Re:Give the

[the_womble]

He does not actually ask if it is legal. He asks if "there is a case", which sounds like he wants to know what the right ting to do is.

If he wants to know the law, he should take proper advice.

I doubt if people care. Most people probably agree with the implicit view of the authorities (not just in the US) that there is no need for people to have hobbies like this, and they should spend their spare time watching TV like everyone else. A few geeks and civil liberties types care, but since when did that make any difference?

Re:Give the

[Anonymous Coward]

it doesn't really matter whever it should as it already is there.

Re:Give the

[Anonymous Coward]

Currently, human rights are so important in former Persia that they stone lesbians and whip people who drink alcohol. Don't give us all this crap.

Re:Give the

[killjoe]

>Both sides are convinced they are waging a defensive war, and anything can be justified if one thinks one is defending oneself.

But only one side is carrying on a 40 year illegal occupation.

>This does not exempt either side from culpability, and it also does not make either side the clear moral victor.

Moral victors are those trying to gain their independence from an occupying force.

>How do we prevent further death?

Start by ending the occupation. Pull back to the 64 borders, build a wall around yourself, let the UN patrol the other side of the war. Never ever deal with any muslim country again.

Re:Give the

[Runefox]

You don't see Native Americans strapping explosives to their chests and screaming that, in the name of their god, they shall take back their homeland from the filthy paleskins that conquered them, do you? Israel was created generations ago, after World War II came to a close - It seems as though a fair amount of time has passed since then, over half a century. Have the Arab people (or at least their leaders) of those lands surrounding Israel been breeding nothing but unbridled hatred and fury over the past nearly sixty years? Do survivors of World War II teach hatred and distrust of Germans and Japanese, and vice versa? Why must the fighting continue as it is? Why is Israel's mere existence considered such a stain on the face of the Middle East?

Re:Give the

[Omeger]

You should try telling this to the current regime over there in Iran.

Re:Give the

[mr100percent]

False comparison. The Native Americans suffered the worst of their indignities centuries ago. Palestinians who are in their 70's and 80's still have their house keys from their homes that they were forcibly removed from.
The Native Americans are allowed to become full American citizens. Palestinians are denied citizenship by Israel. Native Americans are offered economic autonomy, ie casinos and tax-free shopping, while Palestinians are suffering while Israel closes the borders and blocks commerce and electricity.

Re:Give the

[Anonymous Coward]

You are such an asshole.

      I've been to Iran very recently. You can dig up all of the past history of "great deeds" done by any group or peoples, but what counts is NOW. The Iranian government is too cowardly to declare war against anyone, but I can assure you that they are an armed camp supplying terrorists with weapons, money, and fanatics for "not-so-smart bombs", as well as oppressing their own people ruthlessly, in the name of their god, supposedly for their benefit.

      Every neighborhood has at least one house that is used as a headquarters for armed thugs that are used to "quiet" any signs of opposition by the people to the actions of their government. The "response teams" have assault rifles, pistols, clubs, etc., and Suzuki DR-Z250 type offroad racing bikes (the largest / fastest bike a civilian can own is a 125 street bike) so that they can respond quickly to any "situations" reported by the very large, well-paid group of informants. (they need the bikes, traffic in Tehran is a bitch, worse than Mexico City) They make the Gestapo in WWII look civilized by comparison.

      Also, you can't buy a damned thing in Tehran without someone looking over your shoulder. The idea that this "kid" put together an "Unmanned Aerial Vehicle" without the knowledge and cooperation of the Iranian government is so much unmitigated bullshit it is a joke. And as far as "open internet connectivity", ALL of the "web surfing" done from that country is monitored and "inspected", packet by packet, by their government. Leads to fantastically long ping times, getting through their system! If he "put it together himself" using information "from the web", you can be assured that he has the backing of their government, for their own purposes, which may be just to train the next generation of weapons designers.

      The "spontaneous demonstrations by the people" against Israel or other democratic countries are carefully staged, with the paid participants bussed to the location in a fleet of special buses (like school buses, but painted gray). It is pretty easy to find enough people - a BS will get you the equivalent of about $137.00USD per month there (the wages are set by the government). I have seen it, I've been there, no bullshit, that's how it works.

  The people of Iran are not the problem, it is the government of Iran (and others like them) that the world needs to defend itself against. And knee-jerk liberal assholes like you need to get a clue, before the shit starts raining on YOUR head, in YOUR country. Just ask the people who work at the World Trade Center in NYC about state sponsored terrorism...

Re:Give the

[Antique Geekmeister]

Really? What do you call the Iran-Iraq war of the 1980's? The one where Iranian children were carrying suicide bombs up to Iraqis? Where do you think the Iranians learned how to fight a guerrilla war against a technologically superior enemy, a craft they're now funding and teaching to occupied Iraq?

Israel is dangerous, but Iran and nuclear weapons scares me more because they have no aim. The Israelis at least hit what they're aiming at. (As they've demonstrated against Iranian nuclear power plants.)

Re:Give the

[Antique Geekmeister]

His blinders on linguistics are even worse (it was his original field). The idea that all humans speak the same fundamental language, programmed into their neurology, matches his political beliefs. And it's as unnessary as a theory, and as demonstrably wrong.

Re:Give the

[coaxial]

Persian culture, by way of contrast, produced the world's first assertion and declaration of Human Rights, and is responsible for the foundation of modern mathematics. To which I say, "So what?" To cherry pick anecdotes from distant history adds nothing to this discussion, or really any discussion of a current modern regime. Are we supposed to pretend that since Persia, which is now Iran, came up with a human rights declaration a few thousand years ago, that means everything in hunkie dorie today? Of course not! It's completely irrelevant. It's like saying that since the Romans, which are now the Italians, popularized killing for entertainment, that the Italians suck. But wait! The Romans were also extremely influential on modern democracies, so therefore the Italians are cool. Or that since the Catholic Church is based in Rome, and it jailed Galileo that the Italians hate science! But wait! The Italians also brought us the reinessance and the enlightment, so they love science!

Oh noez!! I haz a pair of ducks![*]

The only thing that's relevant to any discussion of any contemporary political regime is how they act today and the recent past. Pining over long dead civilizations and trying to impart a few choice characteristics some idealized version of them on to their contemporary decendents while ignoring all intervening history is extremely sophmoric.

----
[*] Thank you. Thank you. I'll be here all week. Two shows on Friday and Saturday: 7 and 10. No kids at the 10. It gets a little blue.

Re:Give the

[mean pun]

Well, the Soviets tried that several decades ago, and, well... Yeah.

Their Marx worship was just as much a religion as christianity, islam, mormonism, hinduism, etc. are. If it quacks like a duck and all that. Of course their propaganda denied that, but that was just their way of saying that there is only One True religion.

Your argument does nothing to disprove the original premise.

Re:Give the

[Gordonjcp]

it wasn't Israel who was swearing to wipe out other countries

They're doing a good job of it on Palestine though

nor do they send suicide bombers to blow up buses of children

They don't need suicide bombers. They have tanks with bulldozer blades and helicopter gunships that they use instead.

Israel is certainly not squeaky clean

You can say that again.

having enemies around you screaming for your destruction

Maybe there's a reason for that.

Re:Give the

[mastermemorex]

After a century of war and hatred, Native Americans were just exterminated and the last survivors finally just surrender in 1832.
The difference with Canada is in some point of their history someone made a wrong turn.
But unlike Palestinians there were no political powers that used its cause for political claims.
The Palestinian cause was feed with hatred to influence the people and claim political power in the same way as Hitler uses the hatred against judies to gain political power.

Re:Give the

[TeXMaster]

You never hear anyone who speaks loudly condemn both sides for their ethical failures over the years.

Wrong. Lots of people do. But those who do are despised by BOTH the sides (instead of just one of the sides) so they get much less media coverage. SO it ends up that anybody that talks against Israel's landgrabbing is labelled antisemitic (which is ridiculous if not else because the Palestinians are as much semitic as the Israeli, and actually often more semitic because most of Israeli are Jew but with lots of caucasic blood in their veins, so even from a purely racist point of view the label doesn't even make sense), and anybody that talks against the Palestinians terrorism acts is labeled as 'sold-out to the Israelf-US capitalistic landgrabbing agenda' or whatever.

Also, the main problem is that people keep talking about culpability instead of thinkin in terms of find a solution. This is exactly the same reason why most vendettas go on for centuries. (Plus, if we have to talk about culpability in the Palestine case I would go for the UN, which almost literely threw the Jew colonists to the lions, by supporting the creation of the State of Israel despite the clear and loud voices against it from the neighbouring nations. And please nobody mention the Belford declaration, that was before WWII and the promise to wipe Israel out of the face of Earth if it got founded was declared right after WWII, and before the foundation of the State. As for the right of a nation to have a State, that goes for lots of persecuted nations around the world, but nobody gives a shit about them so that's quite obviously not enough of a reason.)

So the solution has to rely on a current analysis of the situation, and the current analysis is that Israel is still landgrabbing, using the settlers (or squatters, depending on the point of view) outside of its borders as an excuse to extend its control over Palestine. Until they dismantle those settlements (that serve no purpose but landgrabbing) and fully retreat within the UN-declared borders they simply have no right to complain about the Palestinian terrorism. Likewise, Palestine should officially and once for all acknolwedge the State of Israel (within the UN-declared borders) and cease all hostile activity against Israel.

Of course, it's not something that I foresee happening anytime soon.

Re:Give the

[Anonymous Coward]

"Enemy of whom? Iran has not been in a war of aggression against any nation, since the 19th century."

Ahem! Since the Iranian hostage crisis of the late 70's, the rulers of Iran have:

1. repeatedly called for the destruction of Israel and the great satan (America).
2. defiantly developed nuclear power.
3. supported terrorists in Lebanon and Iraq.
4. provided EFP's that kill Americans and Iraqis.
5. and have even paid families of neighboring countries $10,000 to convert to Islam.

Aggression is an adjective that only begins to describe Iran's influence over the region.

Re:Give the

[TamCaP]

It's nice to see a voice of a reason from time to time. However, we have to remember, there is not one type of Israelis and one type of Palestinians. There are Israelis that think that the land was given to them by the God, not by the UN, and God decides how large it is (through the downstream messengers) and they are also reasonable Israelis. There are Palestinians, who would gladly sign in for a one-way ticket to Israel with too much explosive stuff in their backpack and there are Palestinians who would gladly put those backpackers into prison for long years. Unfortunately, the problem is that radical elements on both sides have simply more power / shout louder :-( Because I don't think that blowing yourself on a bus is a solution for one side, the same way I do not think that concrete fencing off (accidentally pushing the border in the only correct direction) others is a good idea either...

Re:Give the

[yoprst]

How can that be moderated insightful? Iran is a heavily islamic state. Zoroastrians have either converted or migrated to India 1000 years ago. All their achievements are in distant past. Just because Iranians are clearly brighter than their neighbours doesn't mean that we can ignore that islamic loonies are running their country.

Re:Give the

[WitfulThinking]

Yes, I can see where you are coming from on this, and yes his conclusions are almost always resultant against US foreign policy. But can you say that the US (or any other country for that matter) mass media does not wear the same blinders of a different sort? His view are no more or less distorted than that of the average popular opinion piece. Yet, somehow his view never gets any airplay. Why is that? Anyone can bitch about the state of things but Noam actually proposes some ideas to change it, which is much more than I could say for any politician that I have ever heard. Quite frankly, whether you agree with him or not, atleast he has some ideas. Unfortunatley it seems that ideas seem to get you trouble now.

In fact, in regards to your criticism, I would like for you to present any politician who has not used selective evidence or presupposes his conclusions because I would like to vote for him/her. I really can't think of anyone in the modern era who fits that mould.

He doesn't necessarilly place blame on the US he just states the obvious that no one, it seems, can accept. The US is after total world domination and nothing else will do.

Re:Give the

[Anonymous Coward]

Iran has not been in a war of aggression against any nation, since the 19th century.

Read your history books again, pal. Ever heard of the Iran-Iraq war?

Also, Israel never declared it wishes to wipe our another nation. Israel is tolerant to ~20% of Arabs in its population (Muslims and Christians); and a large portion of the popularity (including Jews) is non-religious. Iran, on the other hand, suppresses non-Muslims (even secular Persians) with an iron hand.

It's funny you mention the writing of Zoroaster as a pro-Iranian point, seeing that Zoroastrians are hardly enjoying life in modern Iran. Their number decreased by 50% since the Iranian revolution of '79.

From Wikipedia (Zoroastrians in Iran):

In November 2005 Niknam [a Zoroastrian leader in Iran] was summoned before the Revolutionary Tribunal for objecting to derogatory comments made by an ultraconservative cleric, Ayatollah Ahmad Jannati, and accused of spreading false news and disrespecting authority figures. Jannati, who is a close aide to the current Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, had stated that non-Muslims "cannot be called human beings but are animals who roam the earth and engage in corruption." Niknam condemned the comments as "an unprecedented slur against religious minorities." (Mary Boyce "Zoroastrians, Their Religious Beliefs and Practices" pp. 1).

Re:Give the

[Anonymous Coward]

Iran has not been in a war of aggression since the 19th century? Better fix up this bogus wikipedia link http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iran-Iraq_War I really don't know where you come up with the claims that Iran produced the first assertion and declaration of human rights, as well as modern mathematics (which was based upon Egyptian and Greek work as well). And even if it did, Iran of today is casting it's neighbors as abomination and wishing their destruction. Iran's support of terror and its president's latest declarations against the western world and Israel rightfully earn it a membership at the Axis of Evil.

Re:Give the

[emilper]

You cannot use a baseball bat to put a 500 Kg steel ball in orbit, which would make a weapon as good as a nuke, and a cleaner one. Aiming it would be only slightly difficult, but for a large city it would not matter.

As for UAV, it depends: if the project is about building model planes with a camera on them, I would not worry. If the project is about building a flying platform that can fly for hours and can carry 2-3 kg of gears, I would worry about it, and would not make it open source.

Re:Give the

[Anonymous Coward]

Being a Israeli, I know the claims you raise about massacre during the war in 1948. That has been a research work at the Haifa University, which was debunked in court by soldiers who were members of the fighting squads at the said battle. Eventually the university had to pull this research off due to the many incorrect claims in that work.

As for the invasion to Lebanon - I think last august proved that it was (and still) needed, as it's still a hostile country that attacks and provokes when the opportunity arises.

Re:Give the

[Pecisk]

Let's correct it, carrying occupation only because of hostility of territories around it.

Personally I am at no one side, but I clearly understand Jews more than Palestinians and Arabs. And let's not talk about media vacuum or one side reporting here. I have read so many docs on these topic so I can clearly claim that I am fairly objective.

What causes my angriness and why I don't understand believers in Islam, is that that they are gaming this situation at every step they go. And usually their motives are confusing, radical and very violent ones (blowing up civilians in big numbers doesn't count as fight for something right in my book). It is like there are no almost situation where honest people (those who want to live in peace, not to kill or shout very radical slogans) are given chance.

Don't want to sound like troll, flamer or something, but I have to say - actions of Islam believers in this conflict frequently bears feel of obscurantism and illiteracy. And that worries me most. It is clear that they don't know what are good for them. They simply refuse to live in this life without conflict and seeks very antagonistic attitude.

Re:Give the

[foobsr]

The question being asked is "Is it legal?".

My impression is that US authorities do not care much about law if national security issues are conjured up to be involved.

CC.

Re:Give the

[Stephan Schulz]

Iran has not been in a war of aggression since the 19th century? Better fix up this bogus wikipedia link [to Iran-Iraq war].

In this context, it's only called a "war of aggression" for the nation who attacked the other. Memory may be short, but it was Iraq, under the benign dictatorship of Sadam Hussein (you remember him?) that attacked Iran in that war. And this is well-documented in the Wikipedia article.

Re:Give the

[rts008]

So what if they are?

It's only baseball, and if the players want to take those personal risks..let them-it's their health/career.

You should stick to bad car analogies until it's time to get rid of your training wheels, kiddo.

Re:Give the

[Cassius Corodes]

A little of topic but I think you misunderstood what he was trying to say. We don't all speak the same 'language' but all languages use similar constructs which are pre-wired into the human brain allowing us to acquire language (something that only humans can do). The theory is not unnecessary - it is vital to understanding the development of language, and it is demonstratively true. He is very well respected within linguistics - but his writings on politics are rather one sided.

Re:Give the

[krou]

The ledger of atrocities is about 10 (if not 100) to 1 in favor of Israel.

It's this type of thinking that truly galls me (as well as helps what's going on in the Middle East to continue). There's no "scorecard" to look at, and there's no such thing as, well, these atrocities are not as bad as those ones, therefore we should side with these guys. In case you haven't noticed, both sides are equally guilty of atrocities; both are just as bad as the other based on the measurement that they are atrocities. For every atrocity someone picks out about one side, there's certainly something equal to find from the other.

So, let's look at your claim: "10 (if not 100) to 1 in favor of Israel". Let's assume, like you do, that there is some sort of scorecard you can use to support this. How do you measure this?

Number of civilians killed? Israel has certainly killed more.

Number of times innocent civilians are targeted intentionally? Israeli Chief of Staff Mordechai Gur admitted in 1978 that Israel intentionally targeted civilian populations. Israeli military analyst Deev Schiff remarked on the comments at the time saying: "In South Lebanon we struck the civilian population consciously, because they deserved it ... [T]he importance of Gur's remarks is the admission that the Israeli army has always struck civilian populations, purposely and consciously ... the army, he said, has never distinguished civilian [from military] targets...[but] purposely attacked civilian targets even when Israeli settlements had not been struck." The same pattern was again repeated in the most recent Lebanon invasion, echoing the comments of Abba Eban's "rational prospect ... that afflicted populations would exert pressure for the cessation of hostilities", terrorism in ever sense of the word.

Number of civilian targets and infrastructure destroyed? Just counting the recent war with Lebanon would put Israel in a clear lead.

What about terrorism, or genocide, or ethnic cleansing, or other human rights measurements such as torture etc.? Is that a measure of how bad an atrocity is? Do some reading about what Israel actually did to the civilian population during the first Lebanon war. For example, most men between 16 and 60 in Southern Lebanon were rounded up and imprisoned without any reason. Countless numbers were tortured, beaten, starved, and killed, quite intentionally, with the laughter and racist insults of their captors ringing in their ears. Or perhaps go further back and look at what Ilan Pappe (Israeli historian) calls "The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine", detailing quite accurately how the plan to forcibly transfer the Arab population from their land "was a clear-cut case of an ethnic cleansing operation, regarded under international law today as a crime against humanity."

And what about being an aggressor? You imply they've always been on the defence, which is untrue. The 1956 Israeli-French-British attack on Egypt was not defensive. The 1978 invasion of Lebanon was not defensive. The 1973 Arab attack was an Israeli defensive war in that they were defending territory that they occupied. Even the 1967 war is not conclusively one of Israeli defence: Menachem Begin remarked that "In June 1967, we again had a choice. The Egyptian Army concentrations in the Sinai approaches do not prove that Nasser was really about to attack us. We must be honest with ourselves. We decided to attack him."

The point I'm trying to make here is that blame is not a zero sum game. Until there is some sort of even handedness against both parties - in other words, until there is an embargo against Israel on a par with what has been put in place against the Palestinians - there is simply not going to be peace in that region until one side is exterminated, and at the moment that is likely to be the Palestinians.

Re:Give the

[fireweaver]

Muslims game everything for their benefit. It is written down in their scriptures. It is also written in their scriptures "not to take christians and jews as friends", "to fight them until they submit" ("islam" means "submission" BTW), "to terrorise them wherever they are", and so forth and so on. All of islam is an endless litany of hate incomprehensible to someone who is not muslim or who has not had extensive dealings with muslims. If you go here, http://www.faithfreedom.org/ you will learn more than you ever wanted to know about islam.

Re:Give the

[TheRaven64]

No. From Wikipedia:

The war began when Iraq invaded Iran on 22 September 1980 following a long history of border disputes and demands for the overthrow of Saddam Hussein's regime. Although the Iraqis attacked without formal warning, they failed to make progress and were soon repelled by the Iranians. Were you not paying attention during the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait when the media was drawing all of the parallels with the Iran-Iraq conflict?

Re:Give the

[fireweaver]

In islam, 100% of everything is about the religion. This leads to some very weird, distorted, and downright pathological thinking and actions. Although Iran is heavily muslim, most of those "muslims" are muslim in name only, very much the way a lot of christians in the USA are christians in name only.

The country seethes with hatred and discontent, mainly directed at the ruling clergy and not necessarily towards the USA and Isreal. Most Iranians couldn't give two shits about Isreal or the USA, they have too many problems of their own, like massive (>30%) unemployment, drug abuse, the mullahs pimping out Iranian women to the rest of the middle east, and so on and so on.

Re:Give the

[Anonymous Coward]

Iraq started that war.

Re:Give the

[killjoe]

>Let's correct it, carrying occupation only because of hostility of territories around it.

That's the lousiest excuse I have ever heard for apartheid.

>blowing up civilians in big numbers doesn't count as fight for something right in my book

Sounds to me like you are perfectly fine with it when israel does it.

>Don't want to sound like troll, flamer or something,

And yet you sound exactly like a troll and a flamer.

>And that worries me most. It is clear that they don't know what are good for them. They simply refuse to live in this life without conflict and seeks very antagonistic attitude.

This sentence applies to the israeli side more then it applies to the palestenian side.

But I know what you will never admit that. You have already made an excuse for 40 years of brutal occupation of 3.5 million people.

Re:Give the

[Anonymous Coward]

I'd be strapped bombs to things as well.

It's not too wise to make yourself out to be a suicide bomber like that, unless you prefer to be an idiot.

Re:Give the

[Anonymous Coward]

Nice pack of lies and exaggerations you got there.

Re:Give the

[iceco2]

Some facts about Iran.
Iran supports global terrorism. It openly supports Hizballah and other terroist organizations.
Support is through money transfers, training personnal and supplying weapons.
When we ask who attacked Israel, kidnapping soldiers and firing rockets at israeli towns(puerly civilian targets)? The simple answer is Hizballah, but the more accurate answer is The southern branch of the Iranian Army known as Hizballah.
The time of the latest war was also not random, It was selected bt Iran, to remove the focus from the Iranian nuclear plans.

  Me.

Re:Give the

[Anonymous Coward]

You're trying to convince rabid slashdotters that Israel is anything but a model democracy surrounded by unwashed barbarians.

You must be new here.

Re:Give the

[Attila Dimedici]

You want ethical and humane living? Read the Avesta of Zoroaster. Unlike the rabid Old Testament, it pleads that humanity have good thought, good speech and good deeds, not casting it's neighbors as "abominations" and wishing them plagues. Unfortunately your comparison is not apt. The Avesta is a "prayer book", so the valid comparison would be to Psalms (and possibly Song of Solomon and Ecclesiastes) not the entire Old Testament. Any Zoroastrian writings equivalent to the rest of the Old Testament have been lost to history.
More importantly the current culture in Iran bears little to no resemblance or connection to the culture that spawned Zoroastrianism. Drawing conclusions about modern Iran based on the culture of ancient Persia is even less valid than drawing conclusions about modern Mexico based on the culture of the ancient Mayans.

Re:Give the

[vertinox]

Palestinians are denied citizenship by Israel.

Whoa there!

Is the West Bank and Gaza occupied territory or is it a part of Israel?

If the Palestinians become Israeli citizens you have to make the assumption that they are a part of Israel which is completely wrong.

I'm all for Israeli withdrawal from Gaza and the West bank and letting the Palestinians have their own state and be rightful citizens of their own nations.

But if you are to confer them Israeli citizenship you no longer admit them to have their own free country and that those occupied territories are just an extension of Israel proper (which most Palestinians would say they are not). It would be like telling the Bosnians that there are going to get full citizen rights as Serbians.

So lets talk about given the Palestinians sovereignty rather than a foreign country's citizenship shall we? I'm sure they feel the same way.

Re:Give the

[someone1234]

I see, i just recall that most of the war was on Iraq soil.
And that Saddam sucked greatly until he used chemical weapons.

Re:Give the

[yoprst]

It seems that I failed to emphasize distinction between Iranians in general ("clearly brighter than their neighbours") and their rulers ("islamic loonies"). The guy in question is just a guy who's interested in UAV. But when mullahs want to build some recon/combat UAVs they'll grab him by his balls and he'll do it. Not because he's bad, but because he's within their reach. His view on the government won't matter at all.

Re:Give the

[Zemran]

I thought that the US had signed the international agreement that anything that goes into space must not be a weapon???

Re:Give the

[mh1997]

What if performance-enhancing drugs are involved in said baseball?

Performance-enhancing drugs, or the lack, in any sport would probably not change the end results of the game/contest because the drugs do not make you a better athlete, they only enhance what is already there. If you can routinely hit a baseball out of the park without the drugs and then you start taking the drugs can routinely hit a baseball out of the park by an extra 20 feet, nothing has changed, it is still an out of the park home run.

How about the guy that could only hit the ball to the wall, now with drugs, he can hit it out of the park? His run will be countered by the other other team that probably has someone else at the same batting skill level. Or it may be countered by the faster outfielder, the faster pitch, etc., but the outcome is still the same.

Also, I don't remember hearing much complaining when some of the parks brought their walls closer to the plate to increase the number of home runs.

Re:Give the

[Anonymous Coward]

The only axis of evil I know is located in Washington.

Re:Give the

[Temkin]

Enemy of whom? Iran has not been in a war of aggression against any nation, since the 19th century.

So that little decade long stalemate with Iraq back in the 80's doesn't count?

Re:Give the

[Anonymous Coward]

This kid needs to read the ITAR requirements. Otherwise he will go to jail.
Iran is on the bad list, anything considered "deemed exports" to that country is considered unlawful. Check the "deemed export" definition, it includes among other things talking to an iranian citizen on U.S. grounds on the subject matters that are part of the ITAR list.

Re:Give the

[jon_anderson_ca]

they get much less media coverage

Hence what the GP said about speaking loudly... they may try to shout, but that's no louder than 98% of the folks who have something invested in the situation. "Talking loudly" today really means "talking in a manner that's likely to get picked up by the media"; unfortunately, that goal can conflict with the original goal (rational discourse). It's not altogether different from "talking loudly without shouting in a room of shouting, opinionated people".

Re:Give the

[Antique Geekmeister]

And the claim is fundamentally mistaken. There's a basic claim in his writings (which I read back in college), that there is a fundamental linguistic structure that is inherent in all languages: an underlying structure, a universal language referred o as the "q-language".

*THAT* is where Chomsky went overboard. He reasoned from this as a fundamental basis for human language, that it was inherent in human physiology and that all language understanding was based in translation to this underlying q-language. But it's not there: like the music of the spheres or the idea that there are only earth, air, fire, and water as elements, it's a mis-representation of the observable facts and leads to serious error if taken too seriously.

But hey, his politics are also founded on wishful thinking stated with strong argument but not borne out by reality, so it remains popular among people who aren't suspicious and don't compare the claims he makes to history or to the actual events around htem.

Re:Give the

[libkarl2]

Depends on who is getting shot. :(

Re:Give the

[Monoliath]

(I apologize for this being a little off-topic)

I agree with you wholeheartedly, it's just funny that our special interests governed government of the USA doesn't understand this when it comes to:

Some plants that grow in the dirt.

Re:Give the

[thegnu]

You never hear anyone who speaks loudly condemn both sides for their ethical failures over the years. Why does everyone have to declare one side or the other innocent of all crimes?

In this case, the reason is that we have been revving up for war against Iran for the past year, at least. The war propaganda is ratcheting up. We are saying that they have ties to Al Qaeda, that there will be another 9/11 if we don't do something, that they obviously have WMDs. This sounds familiar, doesn't it? Regardless of how evil Israel is, we're not going to bomb the Israelis. We're ARE planning on bombing Iran. So the poster was drawing a comparison against this aggressive, possessive, cruel nation that is our ally, and this other nation that we want to kill. Because comparisons help with critical thinking.

The funny thing to me about the connections to Al Qaeda debate is that as far as I know, we gave them all their money and weapons originally, didn't we? But that's not a connection, that's history.

Re:Give the

[ChrisMaple]

California allows write-ins. Vote for yourself if you want to.

Re:Give the

[Anonymous Coward]

"Enemy of whom? Iran has not been in a war of aggression against any nation, since the 19th century."

The persecution of Bsha'is is still happening in Iran. Wars are not just between nations.

Re:Give the

[ArwynH]

That is a load of bullshit. I'm not a Muslim (well technically I am, but only by the definition used in the Quran, not by the definition used in this conversation), but I have read the Quran and the quotes you provide are taken woefully out of context. The Quran is a philosophical and enlightening book and if you pay careful attention to the context, not violent either.

The fanatical lunatics who terrorise civilians and who drag the Prophet's Name, Peace be upon Him (although he probably ends up rolling in his grave every time they defile His name with their acts), through mud at every chance they get are no more faithful Muslims than the Spanish Inquisition were loving Christians.

Feel free not to take my word for it, but rather than visiting some anti-<insert religion here> site, go to the source and read their holy scriptures with an open mind. Also do not forget to bear in mind the time and place they were revealed, that help explain some of the more interesting laws.

As far as translations of the Quran go, I've been given to understand that George Sale's translation is very good.

Re:Give the

[ChrisMaple]

make the ITAR list less inclusive, and only include things that have weaponry as a primary purpose

OK, let's assume that someone is developing a Santa Claus delivery system. This system is specifically designed to deliver multiple independently targeted 5 ton fuzzy teddy bears from the factory in China to little children in Washington, D.C.. No problem, right?

Re:Give the

[Anonymous Coward]

Technology is not inherently wrong/evil/whatever. Technology is just technology.

Marshall McLuhan would disagree with you. Technology is not passive, it is active (though we're not talking about the moral or immoral sense here).

Take everyone's favourite hot-button issue for example: hand guns. Many people say it's not guns that kill people, it's people that kill people. While technically true, the pervasiveness of them changes the nature of what can be done by individuals in society. If you only have your bare hands (or a knife) to kill someone it's generally much more difficult as you have to get up close to do anything. It's also much more 'personal', as you have to be right beside the person. With guns it's possible to be quite some distance away, and with machine guns you can spray an area indescriminately. That change in what is possible to do is more profound than anything that is actually done.

Another example is electronic communications. This is where McLuhan's term "global village" comes in. In a 'real' village you can know what's going on each and every day just listening to gossip. Before the telegraph, telephone, computers, etc. knowing what's happening far away would be very difficult. Nowadays we know what's happening everywhere, we can talk we people anywhere like they're across the room.

Technology is active in that it changes our psyche about what is and is not possible, and we change our behaviour according to that expectation.

Re:Give the

[WhiplashII]

Honestly, yes.

It isn't a weapon. It may be idiotic, and it may be converted into a weapon, but making a law that says you can't be evil doesn't effect those that are bent on being evil - it only effects those of us that are not evil. Evil people can get around the law now!

Obvious abuses can be tried in a court anyway.

Re:Give the

[Reality Master 101]

But can you say that the US (or any other country for that matter) mass media does not wear the same blinders of a different sort? His view are no more or less distorted than that of the average popular opinion piece.

Everyone has their own blinders. But it's a question of degree. His views ARE far, far, FAR more distorted than the average opinion piece. Just because everyone has bias doesn't mean everyone's opinions are equivalently valid.

And secondly, he doesn't argue from honesty. I don't know if it's deliberate, but he's infamous for quoting out of context and oversimplifying to the point of absurdity. I tend to think that he's not dishonest, but he does have some psychological problems.

Re:Give the

[Anonymous Coward]

The sad part is that we shouldn't have to nag our government and raise a big stink every time we want to change something. It would be nice if we could just vote on the issues instead of voting for people that we hope won't screw us over or just simply ignore us.

Re:Give the

[GPL Apostate]

Anybody who 'excels' at any sport is by definition a genetic abberation. The people who are 'best' at all the Olympic events start out as being physically ideal in some way and then train further in the given activity. So since they're already genetic freaks, what's the difference if they're chemically augmented genetic freaks?

Big brutish football players, and freakish tall basketball players would deserve our sympathy if there wasn't an entertainment industry eager to draw our attention to them (and to the advertising played in parallel with their performances)

There. The nerd interpretation of sports.

Re:Give the

[GPL Apostate]

The US is after total world domination and nothing else will do.

If by the term 'the US' you mean certain ideas of democracy and freedom, yes, proponents of those ideas are hoping to spread them far and wide across the whole world.

This disturbs many local and parochial despots in other parts of the world. Some of said despots confuse 'indigenous culture' with their right to stomp on and oppress the other people living near them.

A third group, of course, is corrupt interests within the US who use 'spreading the ideals of the US experiment further in the world' as an explanation for their bald rampant imperialist aims.

Unfortunately, there is a complicated big mix of people out there and it's sometimes difficult to determine which people are which.

Re:Give the

[Anonymous Coward]

No, no, you misunderstand me. I'm not a liberal in the sense that you think of the word, and I don't agree with the Iranians. I also don't think open-source UAV software is a threat to national security. I was merely pointing out the nonsense of Jeremiah Cornelius's argument.

Re:Give the

[Anonymous Coward]

You want ethical and humane living? Read the Avesta of Zoroaster.

But don't read it in Teheran, since doing so my subject you to the death penalty for the crime of 'resistance' to Islam, which is the state religion of the Islamic Republic of Iran, in case you weren't aware of it.

Or weren't you aware that the overwhelming majority of surviving Zoroastrians have to live OUTSIDE of Iran?

Actually, I'm sure you were. Your comments are bullshit, just like the comments of many of the other America-hating pro-Iranian trolls that infest this topic. Iran is a formal theocracy, with religious police running the streets inflicting punishments for 'Un-Islamic' behavior without contraint, an active secret police that keeps the prisons full of political prisoners, and an agenda of supporting foreign terrorists like Hezbollah and Islamic Jihad. They even have a Holocaust-denier for President

I have nothing but contempt for people like you.

Re:Give the

[GPL Apostate]

Have the Arab people (or at least their leaders) of those lands surrounding Israel been breeding nothing but unbridled hatred and fury over the past nearly sixty years?

Actually, the Arab 'nations' (whose borders, of course, were established by European colonialists) surrounding the territory of Israel have aggressively refused to assimilate the populations of people who were displaced by the Israelis. The 'Palestinians' are fenced into compounds, essentially concentration camps, and not allowed to move on and become citizens of another country. The 'helpful, friend of the Palestianian struggle' countries surrounding Israel keep these people contained as hostages, captive in camps where their hatred can be brewed and cultivated, so they can be released against Israel from time to time.

It's really a sick situation, and one created by all sides in the conflict.

Re:Give the

[Anonymous Coward]

Iran is at war with Iraq right now. It's common knowledge that they are creating explosives to kill American servicemen and women on Iraqi soil, presumably as a gesture of neighborly love. I take it that kidnapping British servicemen wasn't an act of aggression. They are also at war with Israel and have said repeatedly been wishing abominations on that country for quite a while. Is Iran in Lebanon and the Golan heights? No, of course not! When Iran overran the American embassy and tortured the occupants (all embassies are considered the territory of the country of the embassy, btw), do you think that was act of pacifists? And who among us believe that Iran hasn't sponsored acts of terrorism all over the world over the past 20 years?

While we're on the subject of modern mathematics, I must protest. Wasn't it Iraq that was responsible for mathematics? I guess that means Saddam Hussein was a kindly old mathematician who didn't mean any harm. Forgive me for ever doubting the intentions of those nice old Persians. They may occasionally stone their women to death, but I'm sure they love their children.

Re:Give the

[GPL Apostate]

You are a hardened cynical person who subscribes to the arguements of one side in a bitter dispute with complex origins and only complex possible solutions.

Further, you sound like a pamphlet reader from a disinterested third party country. That makes you an opportunist troll creature who feeds and thrives on the energy of the conflict.

That makes you a far sicker individual than the zealots on either side in the original conflict.

Seek help.

Oh, shit. Never mind. Just go to Sundays Rally and wave your fucking banner if it helps you feel more in power of your destiny.

Re:Give the

[Anonymous Coward]

Is the West Bank and Gaza occupied territory or is it a part of Israel?

Who said anything about the West Bank or Gaza?

There are many Palestinians who were born in parts of modern day Israel. The founder of Hamas is one example.

You really might want to read this: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palestinian_right_of_ return

Re:Give the

[Dun Malg]

The most annoying and inane rules anywhere. Seriously, call your senator! It wouldn't do any good. The problem isn't so much vague language in the regulations, but the people interpreting that vague language. My father worked for one defense contractor for his entire career--- nearly 40 years. Upon retirement, he chose to travel to Europe and basically live there half the year (he was born in Austria). A couple years after retirement, his former employer asked him to come back as a contractor to help on a project (B-2 stealth bomber related) which he essentially created and ran for the last ten years of his career. He filled out the paperwork to have his security clearance renewed and it was refused. The reason given was that he had too much contact with foreign nationals and spent too much time out of the country, so giving him access to this top secret information would be a security risk. Completely ignored was the fact that he himself originally wrote or reviewed every bit of that top secret information when he worked there. He says the problem can be traced to one thing: Big-Haired Women from Mississippi.

OK, so they're not all literally Big-Haired, from Mississippi, or Women; but that archetype typifies the kind of person who ends up implementing security policy in the DoD. They're minimally educated low to mid level administrators. They're hard working, but solidly average intelligence folks. Watch a little prime time TV and imagine the sort of person who enjoys it. It's people like that that are actually turning the crank that makes the bureaucracy machine go. When you hear about the government moving to classify a bunch of formerly unclassified information, the temptation is to think that the decision to do so originated from Cheney or Scooter...err..Bush, but the reality is that the notion that it ought to be done at all originated from below, from the BHWfM, and the "terrorists are everywhere" paranoids just signed off on it. Even outside those single wholesale orders to classify info, the BHWfM are responsible for a continuous and irrational "classification creep" that you don't even see unless you work in the system. It works like this: XYZ Corp designs a rocket (call it the X-123) for the DoD. The X-123 rocket design is reviewed by the DoD project managers, who tell their BHWfM to stamp it "top secret". A couple years pass, and XYZ Corp submits some design modifications to the LOX pump of the X-123. It's a bog-standard pump design, straight out of an engineering 101 textbook, but it's part of the top secret X-123 rocket, it too is stamped top secret by the BHWfM. A year later, XYZ Corp designs an improved life support module for the ISS and they re-use the same pump. Whoops! DoD says no go, because it uses a top secret LOX pump design! Since once something is classified it's nearly impossible to get it declassified, they have to create a new pump design.

Now imagine that happening every day, and not just with big, tangible things like LOX pumps, but with mundane crap like a table of performance characteristics of mild steel that was included in some report. It's totally asinine, but apparently unstoppable.

Re:Give the

[knewter]

The original premise being the One True religion in your mind?

Re:Give the

[RockoTDF]

Actually, the Iranians are more anti-zionist than anything else. There are Jews living in Iran who can travel easily to Israel, and are not persecuted. They are typically left alone by the "morality police" and are even mandated to automatically get a seat in parliament. There are a few Kosher delis there even.

Re:Give the

[cbraescu1]

"Palestinians are denied citizenship by Israel."

Palestinians are also denied citizenship by all Arab states, due to an Arab League decision of NOT allowing Palestinians to be absorbed by any Arab country (thus keeping the pressure against Israel).

Re:Give the

[Sri Ramkrishna]

You can name just as many atrocities that Muslim Arabs have committed against Israel. Over the years the suicide bombings, the

But we're talking about Persians here not Arabs. A completely different set of people and with a completely different history. If Iran is a hostile country one should consider that it became that way because of constant interference by the U.S. government and it's oil influenced foreign policy. Shooting down a democratic representative of the people and replacing it with a tyrant is probably a pretty good reason to be pissed off.

In addition to mathemtics, persian cooking is the precursor to the monglai cooking that most people commonly refer to as Indian food.

Re:Give the

[sumdumass]

It doesn't matter what you think of Iran. What matter is what they do and how our leaders see that. Supporting hezbohla and some other terrorist organizations with money and weapons doesn't exactly make the clean and innocent like you try to insinuate.

Yes, what matters is what the leaders think. And to that point even more so when the question was involving the government thinking they were helping Iran and sending him away. You can convince him all you want that Iraq isn't bad and everyone has them misunderstood. But in the end, if our leaders aren't as dumb as you, it does nothing to help this guy.

Re:Give the

[Anonymous Coward]

Imagine Native Americans living in refugee camps in Canada and Mexico. Should those governments absorb them in order to release pressure from the US? Or should the US just do the right thing and allow the Native Americans to return to the US and give them full citizenship and even try to compensate them for screwing them over?

Re:Give the

[Anonymous Coward]

40 year illegal occupation???

Who the hell started the war that caused them to take that land? I'm not jewish, nor do I support everything that Israel does, but I do support any country that gets attacked and then kicks some major ass in defending themselves. So what if they gained some land in the process.

Their enemy's goal is nothing short of annihilation. Tell me something, if the muslim world is so concerned about the displaced peoples from the 7 day war, why don't their original countries take them back? Because nobody wants them. Truth be told, most of the Palestinians are probably Jordanian or Egyptian anyway, but you don't see Jordan or Egypt saying, 'hey, come live here...'

One more thing, as you said, it's been nearly 40 years... get over it already. Jeez... it probably happened before you were even born anyway.

Re:Give the

[Dun Malg]

it doesn't really matter whever it should as it already is there. To paraphrase the classic anti-Israel argument to the above, "It doesn't matter whether the Nazis should have been in France or not back in 1944, as they were already there." Many Palestinians view Israel pretty much exactly like that, and view their efforts to push them out as akin to the allied forces driving Hitler out of France. The question of whether some 2000 year old religious mythology gives a bunch of diaspora Jews from Europe or America a legitimate claim to a "homeland" that has been a literal home to a bunch of Palestinians is, in fact, largely irrelevant now that there are millions of them there, but it does go a long way to explaining why they hate their guts. The big problem we have in the west in understanding the Palestinian position is that while Israel is factually a religious state imposed by recent immigrants to the area to the detriment of the indigenous population, it is a fairly modern liberal democracy that displaced a bunch of cantankerous, unruly Muslim folks. We are inclined to side with the "more civilized" side, regardless. I you are right, though, that it really doesn't matter whether they should be there or not, as they're not leaving. I personally think that we ought to pull out of the whole region and let them fight it out. I'm something of an isolationist, though. Having participated in two wars in the region during my Army career, I am probably a bit biased against all that crap.

Re:Give the

[tfiedler]

Israel, the aggressor?

Hardly. Sounds like you've bought the propoganda of the other side. When the Palestinians decide they really want to live in peace, they'll stop indoctrinating their kids to be suicide bombers, stop praising the actions of Nazi Germany, and start building parks, hospitals, and schools instead of pipe bombs and mosques.

I wouldn't trust Iran, Saudi Arabia, or any other rabidly islamic country bent upon forcing sharia law upon the world.

If a project were mine, and it had national security stakes, you bet your ass I'd lock out participants from those nations.

Re:Give the

[tfiedler]

Palestinians are not denied the ability to become citizens..... except by other Arab nations who forceably keep the refuge camps in place for propoganda purposes.

Re:Give the

[popeye44]

Would you like the pony with or without armament?

Re:Give the

[dircha]

"But only one side is carrying on a 40 year illegal occupation."

Yes, and we're carrying on a 230+ year illegal occupation of British land.

And we're carrying on a 500 year illegal occupation of Native American land.

Are you ready to turn your home back over to Joe Cherokee? Do you think you have an ethical obligation to? I didn't think so.

If you're not, I suggest you show yourself the door.

And not living in North America doesn't get you anywhere I'm afraid. It's just a matter of how far back you want to go.

Re:Give the

[bidule]

Call me cynical, but "The only way peace will be accomplished in the Middle East is if" Jerusalem was turned into a pile of molten slag. That would piss off all local religions and deny comfort to the enemy, nevermind allies. And then again, people would still be looking for blame rather than solutions. Even with a 5 year preemptive warning, a modern day Solomon would find lots of babies cut in two.

Now, to get back on topic, I thought "enemy" here refered to Microsoft... reading the summary dashed my hopes of yet-another anti-M$ paranoid rant.

Re:Give the

[Obyron]

I'm not one to drink the neocon Kool-Aid, but your post is kind of ridiculous. Modern Iran is not the Persia of Cyrus the Great, emancipating Jews, building roads, and encouraging humanitarianism. American culture heralded the ideal that government should fear its citizens and that all men are created equal. Look at us now, and that's only been 200 years! The Persia you're talking about was 2500 years ago!

Yes, the Avesta says exactly what you say that it says. Do you know how many Zoroastrians are left in Iran? A little over 20,000-- half the number that were there before the Islamic Revolution. Why? Because they're being persecuted by the government, since, in the words of one of Khomeini's aides: "[Non-Muslims] cannot be called human beings but are animals who roam the earth and engage in corruption." (Source: "Zoroastrian Lawmaker Faces Slander Charges" http://www.jihadwatch.org/dhimmiwatch/archives/009 215.php)

Finally, Iran does not need to fight an overt war of aggression, because we (the US) are a bunch of idiots who are accomplishing their goals in the region for them. By completely destabilizing Iraq and Afghanistan we've created a power vacuum that will give Iran's radical beliefs a place to spread, whereas before Saddam (Sunni) and The Taliban (Sunni) provided a natural foil for Iranian hegemony. They don't need a declaration of war when they can just train insurgents and send them into Iraq with supplies for their friends. They don't need a declaration of war when they can use their puppet Hezbollah to murder Iranian civilians.

It's a wonder to me how your post is modded +5 Insightful when it says nothing at all about Iran as it exists now, which is under a dictatorial regime who like saber-rattling at every opportunity about how Israel must be destroyed to pave the way for the 12th Imam. It's nothing personal, but I don't see how your post can be anything other than grossly misinformed, or a troll.

All of that said, I don't think we need to do anything. If wrecking two middle eastern countries didn't do us any good, wrecking a third one won't either. The PEOPLE of Iran are basically good, and want to be free as much as anyone else does. These aren't ignorant yak herders. Iran has several modern, cosmopolitan cities, as well as their fair share of intellectuals, artists, and dreamers. They are simply set upon by their own government, and that's a situation that can't last forever. I figure if we give it time the people of Iran will do just fine for themselves, and maybe this time the US and Britain will stay the hell out of it.

Re:Give the

[dircha]

"Moral victors are those trying to gain their independence from an occupying force."

Don't go anywhere. I'll go round up my Native American buddies. We'll swing by your place first thing Monday.

We'd like our land back, thank you. It's time to end the illegal occupation.

Re:Give the

[Obyron]

"Iranian civilians" should read "Israeli civilians."

Re:Give the

[Anonymous Coward]

It's sad, but a religion's holy book rarely has much to do with the religion itself. Pointing to the Quran and saying "this is Islam" is out of touch with reality. Islam is which ever group is practicing it says it is, generally based on some interpretation of the Quran. It's like pointing to the Bible and saying "this it Catholicism" and ignoring the fact that there's nearly 2000 years of traditiond and interpretations wrapped up in it, not to mention interpretations to deal with modern issues.

The same goes for any religion. Reading their holy book will not give you an accurate depiction of what they really do. Not to fan any flames, but "Non-Demoninational" Christians are probably the closest to their holy book given they take it as their only rule of fatih. And even then different groups interpret pieces of it completely differently.

Re:Give the

[jamstar7]

Would you like the pony with or without armament?

Do they offer an optional shark DNA upgrade option for that pony?

Re:Give the

[MrSteveSD]

Right - like the war in 1948 where Arabs were massacred or ethnic-cleansed out of their villages... that wasn't aggressive.

Also some were just terrified of what the Israeli military might do and fled. However, when it looked safe to go back to their homes, they discovered that they were not allowed to return. Israel has always had a problem which is that it wants to be both a Jewish state, but also a democracy. The only way you can really do that is by ensuring that the majority of people in that state are Jewish. This is why the Palestinians were not allowed to return. It also explains why so many of the Holocaust Jews ended up in Israel. Many of them didn't want to go an live in some Middle Eastern desert. They were Europeans and would much have preferred to go to the US, Canada or perhaps some other European country. They were being deliberately channelled into Palestine to build up the numbers.

Re:Give the

[jamstar7]

Technology is not inherently wrong/evil/whatever. Technology is just technology.

Marshall McLuhan would disagree with you. Technology is not passive, it is active (though we're not talking about the moral or immoral sense here).

Actually, no he wouldn't. McLuhan talked about the uses of technology. He'd be looking at how people would use this technology.

Re:Give the

[iminplaya]

The ledger of atrocities is about 10 (if not 100) to 1 in favor of Israel.

That's quite debatable. And maybe if the "other side" had all that fancy American technology, they wouldn't feel the need to use suicide bombers. It's the only weapons delivery system they can afford right now. Don't think for a second that Israel wouldn't do the same thing under similar circumstances. As far as targeting civilians is concerned, there are no innocents. Make no mistake, the rules are economically motivated.

Re:Give the

[Stanistani]

>500 Kg steel ball in orbit, which would make a weapon as good as a nuke

Tell ya what. De-orbit that into San Diego Bay. I'll stand on the beach and watch.

And then I'll go have a fish dinner. Nukes have a wee bit more power.

Re:Give the

[Jeremiah Cornelius]

It's not nonsense. These are the fruits of the Persian culture, and the real nature of the people. Not the arab-flavoured bullshit of a clerical super-minority.

I don't support IRI, nor their methods of political control - but I'll guarantee you that Israel tortures many more people than Iran does, and has turned Gaza into an open-air prison with millions under illegal, collective punishment.

But they're the "good guys" - who get 30 Billion of your American dollars, while your bridges collapse and cities flood at home...

Re:Give the

[Anonymous Coward]

Good one, Schlomo.

Re:Give the

[Jeremiah Cornelius]

Yeah. If I kept drinking the Jizz that spurts from the end of Cheney's Dick, my brain would have rotted to the point of believing all that propaganda, too.

Re:Give the

[Jeremiah Cornelius]

Hezbollah is no more a terrorist organization than the US Marines.

Re:Give the

[iminplaya]

If the project is about building a flying platform that can fly for hours and can carry 2-3 kg of gears, I would worry about it, and would not make it open source.

But would you try to prohibit others from doing so? And what would your methodology be? Shut down the internet?

Re:Give the

[Jeremiah Cornelius]

In your example, you'll find out a lot more about the residents of Chiapas and Oaxaca, that if you study the Catholic church, or reference Spain or the US.

Re:Give the

[Anonymous Coward]

"philosophical and enlightening"? Oh really.

In my book, philosophical and enlightened people accept ALL religions, even those critical of theirs.

There are religions on the face of this earth which believe that the very notion of a prophet is a blasphemous thought which is antithetical to God. To those religions, the "defiling" of the visage of Mohmmed in Denmark was a good, enlightened, saintly act, a religious sacrament.

Show me all of those philosophical and enlightened Muslims who praise that action in Denmark as a free exercise of religion, who stand up for the religious right of others to criticize Islam. Go ahead, I'm waiting...

Nah. Didn't think so.

Re:Give the

[budgenator]

First I'm not sure that your religious example holds water because Iranians are now predominately Shia Muslims, and Judaism, Islam and Christianity are all Abrahamic religions so the rabid Old Testament of one is the rabid Old Testament for all. Maybe the world would be better off if everybody was a Buddhist.

Re:Give the

[budgenator]

I helped provide security at the Atlanta Olympics at the Boxing venue, I saw the boxers behind the scenes practicing for their upcoming events and for many of them I was truly frighted at the thought of them competing; what you see on TV isn't representative of the vast majority of the contestants, but the result of the TV pool cherry picking the best matches for ratings.

Re:Give the

[sumdumass]

Lol.. He wasn't talking about the power of a nuke. He was talking about the weight of one. As in the 500kg of steel would be about the weight of a warhead. So anyone who could do that with a 500k steel ball could likely do it with a nuclear capable warhead also. And this idea of dual use is why and what needs to be looked at respectively.

Re:Give the

[Dun Malg]

The funny thing to me about the connections to Al Qaeda debate is that as far as I know, we gave them all their money and weapons originally, didn't we? But that's not a connection, that's history. No, that's neither a connection nor history, but a gross oversimplification. We supported the afghan mujahideen in Afghanistan in a proxy war against the Soviets after the invasion of '79. At the time, bin Laden was also funding mujahideen in Afghanistan, but mostly foreign ones. When the Soviets pulled out in '89, the CIA dropped its support of the muj, and many of them joined up with a newly-created organization called "al Qaeda". Many of them also did not join al Qaeda, and in fact actively resisted the new Taliban government (see "Northern Alliance). Al Qaeda was formed to fight non-muslim influences (i.e. western nations) in the muslim world, and to work towards a world wide islamic caliphate. The CIA did not fund this organization. Really, the notion that the US funded bin Laden is ridiculous on the face of it, as bin Laden is fucking loaded. Seriously, the man's a billionaire. He didn't need CIA money or guns. The idea that "we gave them all their money and weapons" is at best a gross mischaracterization .

Re:Give the

[iminplaya]

You never hear anyone who speaks loudly condemn both sides for their ethical failures over the years.

That's right. You never hear... Not because it's not being said, it's that you(editorial) choose not to listen. But those voices condemning both sides is quite loud. You all just need to take out your earplugs.

Re:Give the

[sumdumass]

Wow. You have some severe problems with your world view. God never came into the situation. And you do realize that they worship the same god right?

The houses were bulldozed because the area were being used for mortar and rocket attacks and the gunmen were hiding in the houses. This is not a completely innocent act. Hiding people who prey on innocent civilians is inviting trouble. And that is why the rest of the world didn't care. It had nothing to do with god. It had everything to do with bad people doing bad things.

Re:Give the

[Jeremiah Cornelius]

You will find, if you scratch beneath the "Islamic" surface of the Persian, that there is a much older culture, ethic and metier present - something you don't find elsewhere in the moslem world - except in the Iranized parts of central Asia.

12er Shi'ism in Iran has morphed into a vehicle where some popular expression of this culture can manifest itself under the veil of Islam. The repressive arab-semitic aspects still dominate, but they are softened by the Indo-Iranian element.

The mission of Zartosht and that of Gautama Buddha are so close. They are different expressions of the deep, unitary mysticism rooted in the Indo-Iranian consciousness. This is continued by the Persian Sufism of Love, as revealed through Byazid and Ruzbehan Baqli - a continuous perfection of the kernel that is found in Hinayana schools.

It was eastern, Indo-Iranian cultured people who introduced Buddhism to China and the Turko-Mongolians - from the realms of their Gobi oasis kingdoms of Shanshan and Kashgar.

I suggest reading In Search of Zarathustra for an entertaining exploration of the very real and modern presence of Zoroastrian elements in the life of nominally moslem Iranians and Tajiks - although the author lingers overly on the Mithraic cults of later Zoroastrianism.

Re:Give the

[sumdumass]

I'm not sure I would place too much stock in Wiki articles. For all you know, they are slanted and authored by a tenured professor living in moms basement in kentucky who does such a good job that no one at his university has ever heard of him including human resources who issues the pay checks. The link you mention about Ahmed Yassin says he was born in the Palestine territory Not Israel. Of course in the creation of Israel, everyone was welcome to come. Read about the Balfour proclamation and the British mandate of Palestine. And read about it from some independed sources then wikki.

But anyways, history shows us that the Palestinians were the first aggressors. And this aggression dates back before the 1300's. The ottoman empire sold the jews the land around Israel, there have been squawks between them for ages. After WW1 this flared up again and now Israel is an independent state and Palestine is still a territory making bad decisions. Israel was originally intended to be open to all without regard to their religion. Under the Balfour proclamation, this was supposed to be the way. With Israel getting attack and successfully defending herself, that is gone.

Palestine started a war they couldn't win and they lost land in the process. Every time Israel intends to give the land back, and they have made more then enough concessions, the Palestinians attacked Israel again. They make it clear they only want th land to launch ranged attacks at innocent civilians. I don't see why that is acceptable to some. But if Israel really had issues fermenting from religion, they could easily just wipe all the palastine people out and be done with it.

Re:Give the

[thegnu]

Really, the notion that the US funded bin Laden is ridiculous on the face of it, as bin Laden is fucking loaded. Seriously, the man's a billionaire. He didn't need CIA money or guns. The idea that "we gave them all their money and weapons" is at best a gross mischaracterization
I stand corrected, however, I was talking about the US Restistance Fighter Starter Kit that we give violent groups when we need to use them for something. Not that we've funded them since we got them rolling.

Good info, though. I'm just saying that we've of late been starting wars based on logical fallacies, and I have a hard time believing that it's not on purpose. And unnecessary.

Re:Give the

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes, you are historical correct about the writings of Zoroaster (Zarathustra). But I fail to see the connection between those writings and contemporary Iran. Same region? Yes. Same culture? No, Iran is an Islamic state with little or no Zoroastrian influences (perhaps architecturally).

Last time I checked, the majority of Zoroastrians (followers of Zarathustra) were 1) butchered by successive waves of invading Arabs, 2) forcefully converted to Islam (by the Sword), or 3) fled Persia. In regards to ethics and civil rights, contemporary Iran shares little with Ancient, Zoroastrian Persia.

Several tens of thousands of Zoroastrians still live in Iran and face economic persecution and second-class status in crimes committed against them. Abductions and forced weddings of Zoroastrian girls occur with disturbing frequency. Assaults and murders of Zoroastrian men are rarely investigated or prosecuted.

For those interested, the largest pockets of Zoroastrians are 1) Bombay India, 2) Karachi Pakistan, and 3) North America. By the way, Canada and the US has granted large numbers of refugee visas for Zoroastrians fleeing Iran.

Re:Give the

[Stanistani]

Yeah. I was being a nit-picker. There's also the weight of a shipping container, which we bring through our ports daily in the hundreds of thousands.

Re:Give the

[Ornedan]

Thing is, the time does make a difference. A lot of the people who were driven away are still alive. So are those who drove them away. It is not yet fully a matter of punishing the N:th generation descendants of the violators for the crimes of their ancestors. As such, having the Israeli settlers move back in to Israel's proper territory is merely forcing the very people who illegitimately took the land from Palestinians to relinquish it.

Incidentally, this part of the reason for the settlements - if they can remain in place for several generations, it will become an injustice against the descendants of the initial Israeli settlers then living there (who could possibly be innocent of any offense committed against the Palestinians) to force them to move away.

Re:Give the

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm not arguing with you about Israel, so turn your attention away from your poor, belabored strawman. I maintain that the founding of modern mathematics and a millennia-old declaration of rights are irrelevant to the current discussion. You couldn't even show the people who did those things even have direct descendants alive today, much less claim some sort of cultural consistency for the past 2500 years.

Re:Give the

[megaditto]

Make children pay for the sins comitted by their ancestors 700 years ago... That's the essence of a Muslime or Jew worldview right there.

There is one true way to fix this mess: their countries should be invaded, their leaders shot, their priests jailed and reeducated, and their populace converted to Christianity.

Re:Give the

[Ornedan]

Well, there's the little thing that Israel started the whole mess by driving the Palestinians from their homes. Not all of them directly, of course. Just making examples of a few villages works wonders in convincing people to leave. Examples like killing everyone and then bulldozing the place to ground.
So if Israel wanted peace, they might start by apologizing for that. Another good step would be to stop using settlers to grab more land from outside their official borders and force the current settlers to move back into Israel's proper territory.

Of course, the Palestinians are not exactly innocent anymore, having gone over certain ethical boundaries while resisting Israeli aggression. But yes, Israel is the aggressor there.

Re:Give the

[Jonas the Bold]

I disagree, I think the only way to judge a religion is by judging the actions of its members. What thier holy book says is irrelevant if they don't follow it.

Re:Give the

[Jeremiah Cornelius]

My wife is a direct descendant. There is an extensive genealogy - one of the meticulous disciplines maintained by both Zoroastrianism and Shi'ism.

Re:Give the

[Alioth]

A Persian culture of the past may have cared about human rights. The current Iran, though, executes teenagers just for being gay.

The current Iranian regime, from a human rights point of view, is repulsive.

Re:Give the

[Lars T.]

Lol.. He wasn't talking about the power of a nuke. He was talking about the weight of one. As in the 500kg of steel would be about the weight of a warhead. So anyone who could do that with a 500k steel ball could likely do it with a nuclear capable warhead also. And this idea of dual use is why and what needs to be looked at respectively. Too bad for your argument that what he said was "a 500 Kg steel ball in orbit, which would make a weapon as good as a nuke, and a cleaner one." He was clearly not talking about how someone "could likely do it with a nuclear capable warhead also", but about the steel ball itself.

Not to mention that a a warhead in space alone is pretty useless (unless if you want to create an EMP).

Re:Give the

[Rakarra]

There is one true way to fix this mess: their countries should be invaded, their leaders shot, their priests jailed and reeducated, and their populace converted to Christianity.

Ah, the good old days...

Re:Give the

[JAlexoi]

I second the statements of parent.

I would like to add that:
Christianity may be viewed as a faith of lost morality
Judaism is a faith of the "chosen" one's
Islam my be viewed as a faith of hate

CNN just had this special "God's Warriors" (http://www.cnn.com/SPECIALS/2007/gods.warriors/).
Just read though the site it's really good.
I personally have lived with people of many religions.
My family is a religious MIX.
Grandfather was a muslim, went twice to Mecca for Hajj.
Grandmother on the other side was a religious jew.
My parents are Orthodox Christians and I have a very nice mix of those 3 religions.
Oh and for the people that are against islam, I would like to remind you that in Russia Islam Christianity and Judaism live side by side for over 5 centuries.

Re:Give the

[Attila Dimedici]

In your example, you'll find out a lot more about the residents of Chiapas and Oaxaca, that if you study the Catholic church, or reference Spain or the US. What part of the Catholic Church are you studying? The part in Chiapas, or the part in Rome? If you study the part of the Catholic Church in Chiapas, it will tell you a lot more about the residents of Chiapas than if you study the Mayan civilization that built the Mayan ruins. And why would you study the US to try and understand the culture of any part of Mexico (except possibly some of the border areas)? As to studying Spain, Spain when? I suspect that if you study the culture of Spain of 300 years ago it tell you more about modern Chiapas or Oaxaca than studying the culture of the Mayans who built the ruins.

Re:Give the

[Anonymous Coward]

Well..... dammit. Second point still stands, though.

Re:Give the

[Enlil]

...and is responsible for the foundation of modern mathematics. and Chess!

Re:Give the

[lordSaurontheGreat]

You never hear anyone who speaks loudly condemn both sides for their ethical failures over the years.

I shut up 'cause I got so hoarse, then I noticed no one was listening. We all want to side with the underdog, and in our fervor to help the weak we're forgetting they're both at fault.

Re:Give the

[mr100percent]

The original point still stands, what about the Palestinians who were in modern-day Israel?


Palestine started a war they couldn't win and they lost land in the process.

No, the Palestinians didn't start anything. Maybe you're confusing them with the Egyptians, Syrians, and Jordanians? They attacked in 1948 and 1967. Why punish the Palestinians for the aggression of other countries?

Re:Give the

[mr100percent]

Your username makes it clear you're a Rush Limbaugh fan.

Tell me, are there no Christian terrorists? Isn't freedom of religion guaranteed in the US Constitution, as well as the UN Universal Declaration of Human Rights?

Ann Coulter's idea was rebutted so many times since 9/11 that it's not worth rehashing. You failed.

Re:Give the

[mr100percent]

So, Israel's defense is that the Arab countries do it too? Palestinians lived on land that is now known as Israel. They came from places like Haifa, Jerusalem, etc. They have a legitimate claim to be a citizen of that land, not faraway Amman. It's like deporting Native Americans to Mexico.

Re:Give the

[10101001 10101001]

The Native Americans suffered the worst of their indignities centuries ago. Palestinians who are in their 70's and 80's still have their house keys from their homes that they were forcibly removed from.

Yeah; good thing there was no genocide of Native Americans...oh wait. But, I guess if we just wait a few centuries, we can ignore how Palestinians were forcebly moved from their land?

The Native Americans are allowed to become full American citizens. Palestinians are denied citizenship by Israel.

"To illustrate this point further, note that after occupying the West Bank and Gaza in 1967, Israel could have annexed and integrated those territories into Israel by providing the Palestinians with Israeli citizenship. However, Israel did not do this and instead chose to treat the West Bank and Gaza as if they were part of Israel physically without providing the Palestinians in those territories with citizenship, political rights or civilian rule. Among the reasons Israel did not integrate the Palestinians of the West Bank and Gaza into Israel is because Israelis were afraid of a demographic problem. The Israelis feared that if they gave the Palestinians equality, political and civil rights that the Palestinians may one day out number the Israelis and vote Israel out of existence." -- Solving the Palestinian/Israeli Conflict. You know, that sounds virtually identical to Native American history. In any case, Native Americans weren't instantly granted American citizenship. I am interested, though. Is it that Palestinians can't get Israeli citizenship or "suspect terrorist" Palestinians can't? Because I'm pretty sure "suspect terrorist" Native Americans couldn't either.

Native Americans are offered economic autonomy, ie casinos and tax-free shopping, while Palestinians are suffering while Israel closes the borders and blocks commerce and electricity.

You mean like how Native Americans have the economic autonomy to grow hemp. Oh, right, they can't do that. It's funny how much lack of autonomy Native American "nations" really have.

But you are right, to an extent. The analogy is false because, unlike the Palestinian/Israeli conflict, the Native American conflict is "resolved"--ie, there is no more serious fighting going on. No matter how oppressive or unworkable Israeli's approach is to ending the conflict, I think one can give it 200 years to solve itself. At least, that's the case so long as the conflict is truly about land and isn't some sort of religious war; religious wars can last for eons.

Re:Give the

[Jeremiah Cornelius]

Both were north-Indian (Indus) discoveries - with tremendous refinement and extrapolation at the hands of the Persians.

The current vogue is to hold up an enlightened "western" civilization against a decadent and benighted "eastern" one. This is ahistorical.

I propose that there were two "cradles" of the civilizations we know. A Mesopotamian one and an Indus one. The Indus civilization gave us inner vision, personal relations with the divine, and a humanistic philosophy. The Mesopotamian one tended to blood sacrifice, and authoritarian polytheism.

The Greeks - coming on a northern migration from central asia and in close communication with teh Indo-Iranian word is an expression of the Indus culture - not the Egyptian/Judeo/Babylonian axis. The religion and culture of these second peoples becomes somewhat humanized and oriented towards compassion only in contact with the Zoroastrian and Buddhic peoples of Indo-Iranic revelation.

The birth of Jesus is greeted by three Magi of the Indo-Iranian world, not three Pharisees or Shamen of the barbarians.

Re:Give the

[sumdumass]

How can you be clear on what he said when you don't quote everything. He said You cannot use a baseball bat to put a 500 Kg steel ball in orbit,which would make a weapon as good as a nuke, and a cleaner one. It is the Bat as the launch vehicle.

I don't know why this is an issue. It is in plain black and white or what ever colors you have you browser render. He is clearly talking about the "baseball bat". You see, when I read "You cannot use a baseball bat", I take it to be the subject of the sentence. You should too.

Re:Give the

[megaditto]

There are terrorists that call themselves Christian, yes. There are sick people in every religion I guess, but that's not the point. On average, however, a non-Christian (particularly a young Mouslime man) is a much more likely terror perpetrator.

And since when did the US Constitution apply to terror foreigners in a foreign country?

Ann Coulter is an entertainer, whatever was done to her butt does not affect me in the least.

Re:Give the

[Lars T.]

Muslims game everything for their benefit. It is written down in their scriptures. It is also written in their scriptures "not to take christians and jews as friends", "to fight them until they submit" ("islam" means "submission" BTW), "to terrorise them wherever they are", and so forth and so on. All of islam is an endless litany of hate incomprehensible to someone who is not muslim or who has not had extensive dealings with muslims. If you go here, http://www.faithfreedom.org/ you will learn more than you ever wanted to know about islam.

Wow, that sounds almost as bad as things like:

10And the congregation sent thither twelve thousand men of the valiantest, and commanded them, saying, Go and smite the inhabitants of Jabeshgilead with the edge of the sword, with the women and the children.

11And this is the thing that ye shall do, Ye shall utterly destroy every male, and every woman that hath lain by man.

12And they found among the inhabitants of Jabeshgilead four hundred young virgins, that had known no man by lying with any male: and they brought them unto the camp to Shiloh, which is in the land of Canaan.

Or

19But all the silver, and gold, and vessels of brass and iron, are consecrated unto the LORD: they shall come into the treasury of the LORD.

...

21And they utterly destroyed all that was in the city, both man and woman, young and old, and ox, and sheep, and ass, with the edge of the sword.

Or how about this little story of a raid

17That the LORD spake unto me, saying,

...

24Rise ye up, take your journey, and pass over the river Arnon: behold, I have given into thine hand Sihon the Amorite, king of Heshbon, and his land: begin to possess it, and contend with him in battle.

32Then Sihon came out against us, he and all his people, to fight at Jahaz.

33And the LORD our God delivered him before us; and we smote him, and his sons, and all his people.

34And we took all his cities at that time, and utterly destroyed the men, and the women, and the little ones, of every city, we left none to remain:

35Only the cattle we took for a prey unto ourselves, and the spoil of the cities which we took.

3So the LORD our God delivered into our hands Og also, the king of Bashan, and all his people: and we smote him until none was left to him remaining.

4And we took all his cities at that time, there was not a city which we took not from them, threescore cities, all the region of Argob, the kingdom of Og in Bashan.

5All these cities were fenced with high walls, gates, and bars; beside unwalled towns a great many.

6And we utterly destroyed them, as we did unto Sihon king of Heshbon, utterly destroying the men, women, and children, of every city.

7But all the cattle, and the spoil of the cities, we took for a prey to ourselves.

And on and on. Now here's a good one:

They entered into a covenant to seek the Lord, the God of their fathers, with all their heart and soul; and everyone who would not seek the Lord, the God of Israel, was to be put to death, whether small or great, whether man or woman. (2 Chronicles 15:12-13 NAB)

Not enough?

Suppose you hear in one of the towns the LORD your God is giving you that some worthless rabble among you have led their fellow citizens astray by encouraging them to worship foreign gods. In such cases, you must examine the facts carefully. If you find it is true and can prove that such a detestable act has occurred among you, you must attack that town and completely destroy all its inhabitants, as well as all the livestock. Then you must pile all the plunder in the middle of the street and burn it. Put the entire town to the torch as a burnt offering to the LORD your God. That town must remain a ruin forever; it may never be rebuilt. Keep none of the plunder

Re:Give the

[ChatHuant]

>>500 Kg steel ball in orbit, which would make a weapon as good as a nuke

>Tell ya what. De-orbit that into San Diego Bay. I'll stand on the beach and watch.

>And then I'll go have a fish dinner. Nukes have a wee bit more power.

Let's see, an object falling from LEO yields about say 35 MJ/kg; for 500 kg, that's 1.75e+10 J, the equivalent of about 4 tons of TNT. That's about one percent of the yield of the smallest nuke available. Still, a pretty big bang.

Re:Give the

[Lars T.]

It also explains why so many of the Holocaust Jews ended up in Israel. Many of them didn't want to go an live in some Middle Eastern desert. They were Europeans and would much have preferred to go to the US, Canada or perhaps some other European country. They were being deliberately channelled into Palestine to build up the numbers. And then there are the Jews from countries like Iraq and Egypt (to name just two). In the early 1950s Israel did everything to gow tension between them and their Mulim neighbors, they even staged attacks on them to drive them to Israel. Look for the "Lavon Affair". Also http://www.bintjbeil.com/E/occupation/ameu_iraqjew s.html

Re:Give the

[w3woody]

Imagine Native Americans living in refugee camps in Canada and Mexico.

You mean like reservations or something? 'Cause I was getting a little confused on this whole 'well, all the indignities of the Indians was over a hundred years ago, so they shouldn't be angry' crap.

Re:Give the

[w3woody]

Uh, never drove through New Mexico and saw the slums of the reservations that many Indians are still trapped on, have you? Don't know that in California atrocities continued until the 50's in many areas--including relatives of mine (Salinan Indians) who were murdered for the crime of having red skin by deputies who were a little drunk and trigger happy. Were you aware that in my lifetime (and I'm 41) that it has been illegal for "my kind" to drink alcohol in some southwestern counties?

If you think the indignities of the Native Americans ended "centuries ago", you're either an ignorant fool or you are putting on historic blinders just so you can make a point.

And if you think Native Americans all won the lottery of life by getting to universally open casinos and shop tax free, I have a newsflash: for each politically connected tribe which was able to persuade the government to allow them to open a casino and got rich, you have a dozen tribes who are either too remote to open a casino that raises any effective cash, and the dozens more who are not affiliated with a Bureau Of Indian Affairs recognized tribal family--cut out of the cash flow because Indians like everyone else suffer the same human weaknesses of greed and power hunger and are more than happy to cut their tribal competitors off at the knees.

And that sets aside the racist assumption that the only way us "injuns" are ever going to get off the rez is by scalping the white man of his hard earned cash.

So please, STFU about shit you don't know a damned thing about.

Re:Give the

[sumdumass]

AS far as i know, there aren't Palestinians born in israel. They would be Israeli instead. And yes, they are citizens. Israel doesn't discriminate based on religion. They are more liberal to including citizenship for jews but they don't deny others.

No, the Palestinians didn't start anything. Maybe you're confusing them with the Egyptians, Syrians, and Jordanians? They attacked in 1948 and 1967. Why punish the Palestinians for the aggression of other countries?

Actually, The palestinians started the wars in 1947 just before in thier revolt that started the road wars. They started attacking convoys of kewish immegrants and people. This allowed the Zionist to take control and declare statehood according after the British bailed out in 1948. It was also the start of the 1948 wars. The 1949 Armistice as the result of ending the wars had the five neighboring states delegate the land Israel became a recognized state on. The westbank and many of the currently disputed territories were controlled by Jordan, Syria, and Egypt. Israel offered a rejected olive branch to the Palestinians. Israel offered to allow families that had been separated during the war to return, to release refugee accounts frozen in Israeli banks (these were eventually released in 1953), to pay compensation for abandoned lands, and to repatriate 100,000 refugees (about 15% of those who had fled). But they claims acceptance would mean recognizing Israel existed and refused to take the offer.

In 1964 the Palestinians started the PLO and during the lead up to the six day war, Egypt was arming the PLO in the Gaza strip and encouraging them to launch insurgent attacks. During the six day war in 1967, Israel took back the lands that are in question today and now control that same amount of land that was divided to them from the UN mandate in 1947 that triggered the who uprising.

Israel isn't clean in this, But they aren't near as dirty as the Palestinians are. Now, it can be argued about the jews right to exist in the arab land. The fact that the ottoman empire sold them lands and right to minerals and such goes a long way to making the case that they should be there. That started around the 1300's and that is pretty much when the idea of going back to the homeland started. Now, I can empathize with the Palestinians to some degree. Jewish bignesses would only hire jews to work and jewish farms would only hire jews to farm their lands. This left a lot of unrest to the Arabs in the areas. However, Israel has offered on more then one occasion to attempt to make things right and it has been rejected each and every time by the Palestinians. Each offer has been responded to with violence and hate. Even when they were giving the lands back, they started using them as rocket and mortar bases with the homes around them giving off protection and hiding the attackers.

Re:Give the

[Lars T.]

How can you be clear on what he said when you don't quote everything. Says the guy who quoted less than me. Face it, you are wrong. Changing your argument that instead of the ball he suddenly meant the bat- which is an even dumber argument - won't save you.

Re:Give the

[sumdumass]

If you think I quoted less then you, I think you either need to reread the thread or get you glasses checked. And no, it isn't changing the argument at all.

I'll give you a hint. The GP I was refering to said "You cannot use a baseball bat to put a 500 Kg steel ball in orbit, which would make a weapon as good as a nuke, and a cleaner one". When responding to the comment "Let's face it, you can use a baseball bat to play baseball. Or, you can use it to beat somebody to a pulp. Going to make baseball illegal cause somebody might pick up a bat and hit somebody? Same principle".

It is clearly about the baseball bat. As for it being "he suddenly meant the bat- which is an even dumber argument". I have to ask, dumber then what? Surely not your misconception of the argument being presented. I mean arguing something outside the face of facts is pretty dumb. At least I relied on the facts of the conversation to make my statement. I think there is a saying somewhere about opening your mouth when you don't know what is going on? I can't remember it maybe you can and remind me.

Re:Give the

[mr100percent]

I think you misunderstood me. I said "The Native Americans suffered the worst of their indignities centuries ago," in comparison to today. I was thinking trail of tears when I wrote it, and of course Native Americans are still suffering. I hope you don't think I implied they're prospering, because I don't think that to be the case for everyone. I was using their example to make a point, not show their successes. I'm actually quite good friends with a few native americans, and I know they don't have it all roses.

Re:Give the

[Anonymous Coward]

The discussion is over Palestinian people born and residing in cities before 1948, like Lydda (now known as Lod), Nazareth and Haifa. They have a right to citizenship, but Israel forcibly removed them and actively worked to prevent the return of war refugees "at any price" according to Ben-Gurion. You're trying to hide behind semantics, everyone's talking about Palestinians born in those cities for example who lived on the land, owned it, and were blocked from it by Israel.

Yitzhak Rabin, the Noble Prize winner, has written in his diary soon after Lydda's and Ramla's occupation:
"After attacking Lydda [later called Lod] Ben-Gurion would repeat the question: What is to be done with the population?, waving his hand in a gesture which said: Drive them out!. 'Driving out' is a term with a harsh ring, .... Psychologically, this was on of the most difficult actions we undertook." (Soldier Of Peace, p. 140-141)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palestinian_Right_of_ Return

Re:Give the

[Hal_Porter]

That's pretty one sided and based entirely on what the Iranian regime claims. There are strong signs that Iranian Jews are discriminated against in a way that would be inconceivable for a religious minority in the West -

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Persian_Jews#Discrimi nation

Like other religious minorities in Iran, Jews suffer from officially sanctioned discrimination, particularly in the areas of employment, education, and housing. According to the U.S. Department of State, Jews may not occupy senior positions in the government or the military and are prevented from serving in the judiciary and security services and from becoming public school heads.

The antiIsrael policies of the Iranian government, along with a perception among radical Muslims that all Jewish citizens support the State of Israel, create a hostile atmosphere for the Jewish community. In 2004, many Iranian newspapers noted the one-hundredth anniversary of the publishing of the anti-Semitic forgery The Protocols of the Elders of Zion. Jews often are the target of degrading caricatures in the Iranian press. Jewish leaders reportedly are reluctant to draw attention to official mistreatment of their community due to fear of government reprisal.

This is what I was alluding to with the cartoon I posted about American liberals. If Muslims in the West were treated in the way that Jews are treated in Iran, there would be an outcry. And yet the same people will happily believe the Ahmadinejad goverment is treating its Jewish minority well, based purely on government controlled media. All the positive stuff like the Jewish seat in parliament and the Kosher delis comes straight from propaganda from the Iranian government, and remember that even the Nazis claimed to be treating Jews well in their propaganda - until the regime goes we have no idea how Iranian Jews have been treated.

Looking at the article, it seems like the more Islamic the government in Iran, the worse the treatment of Jews. And there is plenty of evidence that Iranian people have a long tradition of viceral anti semitism that pre dates Islam. E.g.

Another European traveller reported a degrading ritual to which Jews were subjected for public amusement:

At every public festival even at the royal salaam [salute], before the Kings face the Jews are collected, and a number of them are flung into the hauz or tank, that King and mob may be amused by seeing them crawl out half-drowned and covered with mud. The same kindly ceremony is witnessed whenever a provincial governor holds high festival: there are fireworks and Jews.

So it's hard to believe that Jews are considered to be equal to Muslims there. In fact as Bernard Lewis pointed out

Re:Give the

[killjoe]

>You are a hardened cynical person who subscribes to the arguements of one side in a bitter dispute with complex origins and only complex possible solutions.

Nah. I just believe apartheid is wrong. South africa gave it up and israel will too. It's just a matter of time.

>Further, you sound like a pamphlet reader from a disinterested third party country. That makes you an opportunist troll creature who feeds and thrives on the energy of the conflict.

At least I am not an apologist for apartheid and mass murder.

Re:Give the

[killjoe]

We made the native americans citizens and gave them full rights.

That makes us better then the israelis.

Re:Give the

[Anonymous Coward]

Last I checked, it wasn't Israel who was swearing to wipe out other countries

Neither did Iran. This is a commonly perceived mistranslation. It makes you wonder why our media and press have not picked up on this more...

(BTW - Farsi speaking friends and acquaintances have verified that this link is a better transation.

Re:Give the

[blutfink]

Sorry for nitpicking: The term "antisemitism" does not (anymore) derive its meaning from "anti-" and "semite". Since the 19th century (or so) it is established as the term for _racially_ motivated adverseness against jews (in particular) -- as opposed to anti-judaism, which is the term for religiously motivated adverseness against jews. It's an unfortunate diction, but that's the way it is.

Re:Give the

[KudyardRipling]

How about Bruce Simpson's '$5000 Cruise Missile' project http://aardvark.co.nz/

Re:Give the

[Anonymous Coward]

You're an idiot

Re:Give the

[lukas84]

You might be interested in moving to Switzerland. We have More or less direct democracy.

In some regions you can even vote if you want to give some people a swiss passport or not.

Re:Give the

[Eunuchswear]

nor do they send suicide bombers to blow up buses of children.

well, not suicide bombers, no.

Re:Give the

[Eunuchswear]

Israel doesn't discriminate based on religion.

I'm sorry, but you seem to have wandered in from an alternate reality. In this one things are not quite like that.

Re:Give the

[darkwhite]

Party worship in the USSR was fundamentally very different from any form of Christianity and most other religions. One cannot deny its powerful brainwashing effect, but the pivotal difference was that discourse of party policy was at least framed, if not conducted, in an intellectual and scientific/rational manner, not based almost exclusively on faith and spirituality as religions are. (The reason this discourse led to insidious results was that it was conducted based on false information.)

(Specific "Marx worship", on the other hand, never existed. If you think Marx himself was some kind of all-encompassing deity for the Soviets on the order of the Christian God or Allah, you're either misinformed or delusional. Lenin was the only person deified like that, and even he was far less central to the brainwashed Soviet psyche than a Christian God is to a brainwashed Christian.)

Re:Give the

[iamacat]

While I am sure you are correct in most cases, some athletes are just ordinary people who acquired extraordinary skills through hard work since elementary school age. Those are the most unhappy about a competitor getting the same muscles in a few months by taking hormones.

Re:Give the

[w3woody]

I think you misunderstood me. I said "The Native Americans suffered the worst of their indignities centuries ago," in comparison to today.

And you compared that to the Palestinians who you claimed still remember the indignities they suffered, given there were some in their 70's and 80's who still have keys to the houses they were evicted from--implying that the memories of indignities of the Indians were not relevant because they weren't suffered in recent times.

As I said, either you are ignorant--assuming the indignities of the Palestinians were worse than the Indians and thus worthy of terrorism (as opposed to the Indians, whose indignities are not)--or you are deliberately ignoring reality in order to score rhetorical points.

Either way, again, please STFU about shit you know nothing about--especially the part about how somehow the indignities of Native Americans are somehow not all that significant or so far in the past that it doesn't somehow count.

I'm actually quite good friends with a few native americans,...

And I'm sure some of your best friends are black, too.

Re:Give the

[UserGoogol]

I agree, but I do think that one plausibly good argument is that anabolic steroids have a bunch of unhealthy side effects, and thus if they are legal, players will be "forced" to accept these side effects in order to keep their jobs, and that's not probably not fair. Of course, that same argument could be applied to things that are presently relatively acceptable in some sports (such as playing and training to the point that after a few years your body is a profoundly worn out piece of shit) and thus it becomes an argument more for "fair treatment for athletes" as a general rather than an argument specifically against steroids.

But yes, I do think that the "drugs are unsportsmanlike" argument is retarded.

Re:Give the

[dbrutus]

Uninventing guns worked out real well for the samurai of Japan, NOT. They ended up having the US in their harbors whether they liked it or not.
Banning guns is working out very well for the people of the UK, NOT. Gun crime is rising significantly post ban.

Re:Give the

[Pecisk]

Don't feed the troll they say. Well, I can try only this time, because I feel you are not more trolling as just misunderstood me.

See, I have nothing to argue you against, because you have already answers - so, in fact, you don't want to even listen or even understand me. That's fine, everyone does it time after time. But I want to do simple explanation again.

I NEVER said that Israelis didn't blow people up, that they don't do wrong. BOTH sides have done very wrong in this conflict. And biggest wrong is to wanting to *continue* to do that, whatever reasons are.

HOWEVER - and listen carefully this time, because it could be very new concept for you - I UNDERSTAND Jews more easily than OTHER side. UNDERSTANDING in my book doesn't mean that I AGREE with them. Got it?

Yes, Jews has done terrible things with Palestinians. However, it is frequently very isolated layer and we can pinpoint actually which radical wing in Israel it is. Most of Israelis wants peace (shocking) as, I believe, most Palestinians. However, there are radical jerks with righteous attitude in both sides.

I can connect with logic of Jews radical side - to fight for protecting of existence of Israel state (because it is their only home country in the world). Palestinian radicals and Muslim radicals (which usually games support for former as platform for their violence) rarerly can give any *real* reason for their actions - usually it is just emotional answer to something unjust (they killed our children, ohh, let's kill their people too). You know, two wrongs doesn't make one of them right. It gives a feeling that Palestinians actually doesn't want country with borders, they want to destroy Israel and restore like it was before World War II.

Re:Give the

[killjoe]

>Palestinian radicals and Muslim radicals (which usually games support for former as platform for their violence) rarerly can give any *real* reason for their actions -

You mean other then trying to throw off an occupying army and gain their freedom?

>It gives a feeling that Palestinians actually doesn't want country with borders, they want to destroy Israel and restore like it was before World War II.

You get that feeling because as you admitted you know nothing about the palestenians. Here let me help you by quoting some americans.

"give me liberty or give me death".
"Don't tread on me".
"I have but one life to give for my country".
"It's wrong to steal peoples land and build houses on it".
"Apartheid is wrong".
"We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness."

See if any of those phrases help you understand what's going on over there.

Re:Give the

[emilper]

there are strategic nukes, and there are tactical nukes ... a big steel ball, or even a chunk of rock, would perform good enough; my point is that there are technologies that should not be shared.

Re:Give the

[Stanistani]

We have an atmosphere. A goodly percentage of that energy would be shed in re-entry before impact. However, you'll note I said, 'on the beach' - not 'in a yacht.'

Technology should be monitored, but the present ITAR regime isn't working well.

Re:Give the

[plague3106]

Wonderful, mob rule, the only way to go!

Re:Give the

[AmericanInKiev]

ok maybe ease up a bit.

Native Americans appear to have preferred the flight instinct while those who preferred to fight remained in europe and develeped technology by competition and the pains of war. It turns out that migration to avoid conflict is a less successful survival strategy in the end game, than is stay and fight. It could have turned out differently, but it didn't and you seem to be expressing angst toward the descendants of "fighters" because they don't fully appreciate the "flighters".

This is unreasonable because neither you nor he are personally responsible for the long string of experimental choices which prcedes each of us. Yeah, the past is unjust, but justice is a fleeting whimsical fantasy defined by the victors of war for the purpose of aggregating cooperation. The process of natural selection on the other hand doesn't moralize conflict or its outcome, and we must all admit that we benefit from the resolution of these competitive conflicts, - without which we would be grunting monosyllables while pounding nuts with stones, or worse.

Maybe consider dropping te chip on your shoulder, and ask yourself, what have you done lately for the cause of tolerance and diversity? So often minority groups march for diversity while the actions suggest they really just crave the advancement of their own.

AIK

Re:Give the

[Random832]

debunked in court by soldiers who were members of the fighting squads at the said battle. Right, and the idea that there are drive-by shootings (hey - a car analogy!) has been debunked time and time again in court by gang members who were involved in the said incidents.

Re:Give the

[w3woody]

Indian Wars

Re:Give the

[AmericanInKiev]

Indian Wars, like the Indian Plagues, are examples of re-introducing two divergent cultural/genetic lineages.
The Europeans had suffered the costs of both plagues and wars, and had developed war technology, large-scale cooperative behaviors, and disease immunity. The A-Indians were further behind in this development track, and they appear to have paid the price of catching up in one major balloon payment.

Today, we cringe at the loss of an interesting people, society, and maybe some gene trait which would be useful today, but at the moment of re-introduction, the composite characteristics were less developed.

Morality is but a fleeting temporal Nomic intended to aid in the aggregation and maintenance of large cohesive cooperative groups. Appeals to morality in the preset tense, based on wrongs outside the temperal scope of the nomic are generally unpersuasive, and bear a disporportionate cost to benefit ratio for the complaint as they are likely to waste time energy and the opportunity to participate in the current society by trying to tar them with the sins of their forefathers.

So while the outcome of the Pilgrim/Indian conflict is in part regrettable all around, it might be more usefully viewed as a chapter in human evolution - an amoral process by which we all benefit from the early demise of the lesser fit.

AIK

Flag?!

[scott_karana]

OH GOD THE IRANIAN FLAG!
As if Americans don't festoon their flag everywere.
Patiotic? "Nationalistic"? God.

Re:Flag?!

[Swampash]

"Comfort to the enemy"? Did you guncrazy oil-addicted religious wack-jobs declare war on Iran already?

Re:Flag?!

[WhiplashII]

This would never work in Canada - there is no way you would fit a Canadian flag on a small aircraft...

Re:Flag?!

[alxbtk]

Nope, still at the "preparing the masses" phase...

Re:Flag?!

[bug1]

Yea, some people just go too far...

I would have supported them it had just been the case of the (apparently) evil people building evil weapons, but once i saw the color scheme i was so out of there.

j/k

Re:Flag?!

[Anonymous Coward]

Did you guncrazy oil-addicted religious wack-jobs declare war on Iran already?

Why would the Iranians declare war on themselves?

Or did you have some other oil-addicted religious wack-jobs in mind?

Re:Flag?!

[GPL Apostate]

How would the guncrazy oil-revenue-addicted religious whack-jobs in Iran declare war on themselves?

Re:Flag?!

[surprise_audit]

So maybe an Iranian flag would be OK, then, as long as the other aircraft are decorated with bigger US flags and fly higher...

Re:Flag?!

[DigiShaman]

"Comfort to the enemy"? Did you guncrazy oil-addicted religious wack-jobs declare war on Iran already?

No, we haven't. But, *if* the rumors are true (and backed with substantial evidence) about Iran sending troops over to Iraq, that can be construed as an act of war. As such, it would be the duty of Iraq and not the US to delcare war on Iran.

Also worth noting: guess which super power is based in Iraq at the moment? Should war be declaired, guess which country will be asked to help them out.

One would think Iran is smarter than that. Do they really want to tango with us? The US military would utterly CRUSH their forces in 72 hours!

Re:Flag?!

[Swampash]

if* the rumors are true (and backed with substantial evidence) about Iran sending troops over to Iraq, that can be construed as an act of war That bunch of gutless pussies -- oops, I mean "Congress" -- has already given BushCo a blank cheque to do anything it wants to restore order in Iraq. Thus, all BushCo needs to do to justify war with Iran is to invent -- oops, I mean "find" -- evidence that Iran is HINDERING the restoration of order in Iraq. An act, or declaration, of war is totally unnecessary. The gutless pussies have already given BushCo the authority to do whatever it wants.

Re:Flag?!

[DigiShaman]

First of all, you need to understand the role of the President. The President resides in the Executive branch while Congress resides in the Legislative branch. He's called the Commander-in-Chief for reason per the Constitution. Also, he can LEGALLY authorize the use of military force overseas *without* declaring war. However, for an official declaration, he must get approval from Congress.

I'm not questioning and/or debating your feelings about Congress or Bush. However, your criticism of the system is null-and-void because your statements don't adhere to the understanding of the Constitution.

Doing the government's work for them

[QCompson]

My question: is there ever a case for letting national security issues dictate the limits of an open source project?

If you want to do the government's work for them, sure.

If you are shutting down a project based solely on the fear that your government may shut you down in the future (and not for a valid reason), you are only saving them the trouble, and making it that much worse for the next controversial open-source project that comes along.

Re:Doing the government's work for them

[rahvin112]

Actions of supplying Iran, Cuba, Syria, North Korea and the other countries on the weapon export list with the technology or know how to build weapons can result in jail time. Being cavalier and saying he shouldn't worry about it till they shut him down is encouraging him to gamble with his freedom.

This isn't the situation where they send you a DCMA notice and turn your website off. This is where they show up with a warrant, search your house and incarcerate you with a million dollar bail because they are charging you with violation of the arms export laws of this country. This isn't the kind of thing you fool around with, if you think there is a possibility that the UAV project you are working on is being copied by a foreign military or anyone within a country on the export list you could be in serious trouble for continuing. Regardless of how you feel about the politics, if you don't want to go to jail, you implement controls on the information you are providing (to prevent access by countries on the weapons export list) or you get someone outside the US to head the project and control the website. That is, if you care about spending the next 25 years in federal prison.

Re:Doing the government's work for them

[1u3hr]

implement controls on the information you are providing (to prevent access by countries on the weapons export list)

Ah yes, all those "If you are a terrorist, please do not download this file" warnings we see on stites with encryption software and such. I'm sure that is extremely effective. And terrroists don't know how to use proxy servers to hide their IP location either.

Re:Doing the government's work for them

[Chandon Seldon]

Being cavalier and saying he shouldn't worry about it till they shut him down is encouraging him to gamble with his freedom.

Gamble his freedom? If he can't talk to whoever he wants on the internet without fear of government agents kicking in his door while he sleeps, his freedom is already gone.

Re:Doing the government's work for them

[bmgoau]

Im all for the community knowlege on a whole range of subjects. But although i believe your comment and other comments to be correct, if i was this guy, and was worried about being shut down over issues of national security i would see a lawyer.

Really, slashdot is not the place to be seeking legal advice, a lawyer, no matter how cliche, is whats needed here, someone who knows the laws down to the letter.

Imo though, it should be within any citizens right to pursue happiness so long as what they do does not impact directly or indirectly upon the wealthfare of others.

Re:Doing the government's work for them

[PhoenixOne]

As somebody who has had to use that "do not download this if you are a 'bad person'" warning, I hope that it is effective. Not that it stops anybody from downloading, but that it will prevent me from doing jail time.

Re:Doing the government's work for them

[Anonymous Coward]

Unless your company name is Haliburton.

This whole axis-of-evil is purely a US centric mantra. Outside of the US the country is clearly an aggressor and probably one of the sole causes for all the suffering in the middle east. Just recently you gave billions to Israel and Saudi Arabia in weapons. Then you wonder why people attack each other?

Re:Doing the government's work for them

[1u3hr]

it will prevent me from doing jail time.

Really? Why would a court, should it come to that, accept an honour system as a security measure? If you have a duty to prevent "enemies" from accessing something, leaving it in the open, unguarded, with a "please do not take" sign on it is evidence of criminal negligence, not of fulfilling your duty. Judges are notoriously technically ignorant, but even they understand that this is useless. Why do you think this figleaf will protect you? Has anyone ever tested this defence in court? Or is it just everyone else does it, so you do it too?

Re:Doing the government's work for them

[Anonymous Coward]

Why would it work in court? Because it is part of the law. The law was dumb, but it's still the law.

Re:Doing the government's work for them

[Elemenope]

Dare I ask whether you've ever spent time in a jail cell? There is political freedom, and then there is literal Freedom to carry on your life, live in your home, tuck your kids in at night, etc.. It is this second type of freedom, which you trivialize, that is being discussed by GP.

While I will not dispute that political and social freedoms are of extreme importance, their importance is at best on parity with practical freedom, esp. the freedom to live physically freely. Anyone engaging in an activity which might deprive them of that freedom should not be so cavalier.

Re:Doing the government's work for them

[ChrisMaple]

If he can't talk to whoever he wants on the internet without fear of government agents kicking in his door while he sleeps, his freedom is already gone.

Nope, Mr. Arnold, no problem with distributing these plans of West Point. OK Mr. Rosenberg, we're fine with you publishing these atomic bomb plans.

There's a good reason that conspiring to commit murder is a crime.

Re:Doing the government's work for them

[cfulmer]

Under that logic, if he can't tell somebody how to bypass the security at the bank he works at without fear of government agents kicking in his door while he sleeps, his freedom is already gone.

There is a huge difference between talking to somebody in Iran and showing that person how to build a weapon.

Re:Doing the government's work for them

[gpowers]

I don't think a UAV would make a big enough splash to be considered a "weapon." Besides, a weather balloon is a much simpler and more reliable weapon delivery platform.

Re:Doing the government's work for them

[Anonymous Coward]

Is that federal "pound me in the ass" prison?

Re:Doing the government's work for them

[zolaar]

While you're right, I only can imagine he was implying the "from-Bubba" form of freedom.

Re:Doing the government's work for them

[bwt]

I think he posted the article because he's questioning whether he wants to talk to these people. He's essentially questioning whether some kind of political correctness requires it. The answer is no. If these people because live in a nation that supports terrorism, and the project itself might be used by them to support terrorism, then there's no moral, legal, or any other reason why he needs to support their efforts when he suspects (quite reasonably) they might support hostile interests. How would he feel if these folks are supporting insurgents who kill Americans in Iraq and use his technology for that purpose?

This political correctness crap has to end.

Re:Doing the government's work for them

[megaditto]

And yet Rosenbergs are probably up in heaven right now, sitting at the right hand of God with his saints, for saving billions of lives.

Re:Doing the government's work for them

[readin]

If you want to do the government's work for them, sure.

Being concerned about national security is only the government's job? So, if you heard some guys talking about blowing up a large America building, you wouldn't bother to report it, because catching terrorists is "the government's work"?

This case is less clear. How much does it benefit a potential enemy of the U.S. to have this information available in open source? Does it outweigh the risk that we fall behind technologically because we refuse to participate in open source projects when the rest of the world is participating? They're not easy questions, but the original poster is right to be asking them and it's not just a matter of doing "the government's work".

If you are shutting down a project based solely on the fear that your government may shut you down in the future (and not for a valid reason), you are only saving them the trouble, and making it that much worse for the next controversial open-source project that comes along.

It didn't sound like he was worried about being shut down. He was just worried about not harming his fellow countrymen, not putting the soldiers who protect him in greater danger.

Re:Doing the government's work for them

[Yvanhoe]

I don't think the organizer can really be arrested for that. To be arrested, you have to disobey some laws. No, the main concern I see is that this could bring organizations like DHS to try to regulate amateur UAV competitions and make some international participation illegal in the future.

I would say, take the risk. Science is about international cooperation and when you have to bother about the nationality of participants, something is beginning to be fucked up. Try to maintain this as an international manifestation, be ready to make a lot of media noise if DHS has some xenophobic reactions, but I don't think there could be any trouble with the police institutions. Of course, if you are worried, take advice from a lawyer (I don't live in the USA, it is hard to take an exact measurement of the paranoia level in the Home of the Brave) but I can only see positive things coming from showing Iranian geeks in the medias.

Re:Doing the government's work for them

[PhoenixOne]

Why do I think it will work? Because our lawyer told us it would. I thought it sounded crazy but, doing a little research of my own, it checks out (at least in our case, but we're not selling guidance systems, encryption methods, or anything else obviously dangerous so YMMV).

We all know that it is a "figleaf", totally useless as a security measure, but it isn't designed to stop downloads but to protect businesses.

Re:Doing the government's work for them

[1u3hr]

So everyone knows it's futile. It would be interesting to see the actual legislation or regulations this is supposed to be justified by.

Re:Doing the government's work for them

[PhoenixOne]

Look for one of the free legal help websites (don't remember names right now). The good ones will have the information in English (not just "legalize" :)).

Note, I doubt the "do not download" will work in all cases. Certain items obviously need to be keep off the web in all cases.

Blah

[Anonymous Coward]

God Damn you George W. Bush!! Even if the evil White House(George Bush, President) were to be watching your little Iranian friend - can you blame them for seeing what a nation of Jihadists are going to do with nasty technology?

Open to all

[CalSolt]

Just like scientific advancements and knowledge in general are available to anyone, anywhere, so should be open source software. It's a principles thing.

In any case, something tells me no open source UAV software will ever be capable of running a weapons platform without significant contributions. If a country can build a UAV capable of military grade recon or even able to field weapons, they won't have any problem writing the software.

Re:Open to all

[modecx]

I echo that, but I would like to add that if some military outfit is modifying GPL code to make open source UAVs deliver death from above, I sure hope they redistribute the changes because I want some of that shit.

Re:Open to all

[j0ebaker]

Maybe it could be equipped with a gatlin-gun style rubber band shooter. Or cold water squirt gun. Fly it over the beach and squirt the sunbathers! Liberty is paramount. Go ahead with it, maybe in a few years we will need it to protect us from our own government here in the US. I'm voting for Ron Paul. It's time we remove our military presence from the Middle East and other places abroad. It is our meddeling in middle eastern affairs that is the cause of the 9/11 attacks. It is our continued presence that is doing little more than grow the recruiting rosters of Alcaida. Of course that's good for military companies like Haliburten (spellingn?). http://www.ronpaul2008.com/ And if you're impatient for the next election like I am, visit http://www.impeachbush.org/ to bring an end to George's Un-Constitutional behavior. My little Ron Paul Page is here: http://www.dcresearch.com/ronpaul Join the Revolution!

Re:Open to all

[ScrappyLaptop]

Ah, but the GPL allows that the distribution of source only has to take place when you distribute; ie, you can charge for a product but must make the source available to your customers. My guess is that unfortunately, including the source mods in vehicle's file structure or in the bombs themselves, could be taken as "making the source available" to your "customers"...

Re:Open to all

[QuantumG]

Nah, it means that if North Korea makes some UAVs to deliver, say, nerve toxins and sells em to terrorists the terrorists can call up these guys at the open source project and ask nicely for them to sue North Korea if they don't provide source code to their modifications of the GPL software. .... and that has got to be the most absurd thing I've ever written.

Re:Open to all

[bmajik]

Just like scientific advancements and knowledge in general are available to anyone, anywhere, so should be open source software. It's a principles thing.

Idealistically, I agree with you. However, in reality, principles can be expensive. If this weren't code for a UAV, and was instead design documents for some sort of easy-to-make breifcase sized nuke... I don't think I'd be singing the "there are no borders, just hugs" song.

The current government of Iran might make living some of the principles you hold dear extremely difficult. Want to be openly homosexual? What about the right to a fair trial if you are raped? Want to have some protections against being murdered by your male family members? What about the freedom to wear jeans in public?

The US has its own difficulties, but if you are talking about being principled and not getting stoned for it (or whatever barbaric shit they're doing), the US is probably a better bet than Iran.

I'm not asking you to buy the rhetoric of Bush or anybody else, but I am asking you to be realistic. There are a lot of foreign governments that wouldn't mind ousting the current presidency, legislature, and constitution, and replacing it with something you and I would find a whole lot less agreeable.

I'm glad the West got ahold of some of the top talent of Germany and _didn't_ openly share the scientific knowledge with Hitler. The result of idealistic openness and knowledge sharing in that situation would have been devastating to the course of human history.

Re:Open to all

[nospam007]

Maybe it could be equipped with a gatlin-gun style rubber band shooter. Or cold water squirt gun. Fly it over the beach and squirt the sunbathers! Liberty is paramount.
--
You could spray diluted foot and mouth disease snot over texan cattle noses. Big fun.

Re:Open to all

[surprise_audit]

no open source UAV software will ever be capable of running a weapons platform without significant contributions

So, you're discounting the possibility that the fuselage could be stuffed with explosives and glass/nails/ballbearings/etc, then flown into a crowd?? Sure, it may not stand off at a distance and shoot people, but neither does your average suicide bomber.

Re:Open to all

[bbn]

Many UAVs do not carry weapons at all.

All they need is the ability to observe the enemy and transmit the position to the artillery canons.

A video link and a GPS receiver is sufficient for the UAV to be used as a weapon system.

..eh

[HoodCrowd]

..eh....eh..ehmm. I can't remember.

Simple

[Propaganda13]

Attempt to turn him into a double agent for the US. Keep notes of all your attempts. You'll either be rewarded for your patriotism, locked up, or "disappear".

Tradecraft?

[HangingChad]

One would think someone infiltrating a group to aid a hostile government would be able to cover their tracks a little better. Maybe use a cutout in Germany, South America or Canada. It would be pretty foolish for the Iranian Air Force to use an IP that traces back to Tehran. Just because they talk with an accent doesn't mean they think with one.

Besides, if the Iranians want advanced UAV's, the Russians will sell them whatever is in their inventory. The Chinese, who probably make a lot of the circuit boards and sub systems for our military, would happily sell them their 100% original design...that just happens to look amazingly like ours. Heeeey.

If they struck out there then they're down to the French, Taiwanese, North Koreans and a half-dozen other countries happy to sell them weapons systems under the table.

Of course, this is the Bush administration we're talking about here. Logic and common sense hold no sway in American government and people get appointed to high office because they're skilled fund raisers. So, yeah, I could see them shaking down you guys just because it makes them feel like they're doing something and they can understand you when you talk...if you limit yourself to simple words. Plus you're convenient driving distance from their offices.

Re:Tradecraft?

[Jeff DeMaagd]

The Chinese, who probably make a lot of the circuit boards and sub systems for our military, would happily sell them their 100% original design...that just happens to look amazingly like ours. Heeeey.

I'll have to ask around, but I don't think this is true. Just because consumer electronics is generally made in China doesn't mean that the avionics are. A lot of avionics are designed in the US, using domestic manufacturing. Because of national security concerns, I don't think that much military-specific work is let out of the country, they don't even let non-citizens work on the projects, even if they are here legally. One local company will only hire US citizens as a result of these policies, period, no green cards, no visas or whatnot.

Re:Tradecraft?

[einhverfr]

My understanding is that you are partly right as is the GP.

The US Military has, according to some articles I have read, been increasingly concerned about being too dependant on Chinese electronics.

At the same time, I believe that most of these concerns were on the chip level, not that of the PCB.

Re:Tradecraft?

[compro01]

in which case an interested party can merely find a less-than-satisfied American citizen and wave a stack of green paper in his general direction.

Re:Tradecraft?

[denobug]

If they struck out there then they're down to the French, Taiwanese, North Koreans and a half-dozen other countries happy to sell them weapons systems under the table. Fact check: Taiwan is a democratic country whose primary weapon provider happends to be companies like Lockeed Martin. They have to get the permission before they can even buy a single model of aircraft from US (because they are not recognized as a nation seperate from China, which is beside the point of this argument).

Taiwan does not produce any weapon other than maybe small arms locally. Any advance weapons they own came from US, France, or Isreal. They will not sell weapons to Iran because it is not in their best interest to piss off US government. We don't have to remind you the fact that they are not technically capaple, do we?

Re:Tradecraft?

[sonamchauhan]

That's what background checks and security clearances are for.

Re:Tradecraft?

[HangingChad]

I don't think that much military-specific work is let out of the country

I actually hope you're right and that's certainly the way it used to be. But we are talking about for profit companies building the systems, many of whom have a sub-contractor supply chain of their own. You sure no supporting system boards are slipping in from foreign suppliers? Maybe being relabeled somewhere along the line? All carefully tested of course. Or maybe some of those boards come from a Japanese or Taiwanese supplier...who may also be rebranding components they're buying elsewhere. What about components from Israel or European suppliers?

I do hope you're right that none of our military circuitry is coming from overseas suppliers. But having worked for a couple government contractors, I wouldn't bet the farm on it. I've also seen lately the military outsourcing....everything...ass over tea kettle. I've seen some of the RFP's, they're not spec'ing component source. My impression is they're more concerned with moving the service off the books than maintaining the integrity of the supply chain.

I hope you're right but I'm also a little concerned about what I see with my own eyes.

Re:Tradecraft?

[surprise_audit]

Anyone remember what happened to that NZ guy who was building a cruise missile in his garage, using bent tin and electronics purchased on eBay?? Last I heard the NZ gov't told him to stop, I think.

Re:Tradecraft?

[Anonymous Coward]

So the Russians, Chinese, French, Koreans and the rest are the cause of our 38 billion trade deficit? Is that what you were getting at?

Re:Tradecraft?

[gad_zuki!]

>the Russians will sell them whatever is in their inventory. The Chinese, who probably make a lot of the circuit boards and sub systems for our military, would happily sell them their 100% original design

Exactly. That blog post is extremely xenophobic. Some geek sees an iranian kid making a little drone and suddenly thinks his little basic stamp code is military-grade Predator hellfire launching missile code. What sets off Sherlock Holmes here is that the teenager who doesnt even hide his origins paints the iranian national color onto his plane.

WTF.

This article is terrible. Someone owes that Iranian teenager a huge apology. The kid tries something new and different now his name is plastered all over the internet as "IRANIAN TEENAGER BUILDS WMD!!!!" I think the blogger needs to stop watching so much Fox News.

Does it really matter?

[proudfoot]

It seems to me that the Iranians have this type of basic technology - keep in mind, keeping something in the air is no big challenge, nor is waypoint navigation. Also - picking up any field robotics journal will have papers on this sort of autonomous stuff - should be ban those too?

Is it that simple?

[Arathon]

I hate to complicate matters, but...I'm not sure it's so cut-and-dried. The Nazi example above may seem a little silly to some, but it's not totally off-the-wall. It seems to me that the question that needs to be asked is "Who says it's a national security issue?" If it seems like a knee-jerk "He's a Muslim!"-type thing, then we're not really talking national security. But if we're dealing with someone who has a reasonable likelihood of wanting to harm the U.S., and the project itself actually lends itself to that, then...yeah, I suppose you'd need to seriously consider not allowing the guy to participate.

In other words: believe it or not, there are somethings that are more important than "freedom"...as far as SOFTWARE goes. =P

Re:Is it that simple?

[Nazlfrag]

Discussing Iranian peaceful nuclear ambitions is one thing, but if the response to their peaceful model aircraft intentions is comparing them to the inventors of the blitzkreig, yes you're squarely in the knee-jerk reactionary 'OMG Muslims!' camp.

Re:Is it that simple?

[Mr. Slippery]

In other words: believe it or not, there are somethings that are more important than "freedom"...as far as SOFTWARE goes.

Software is speech, and freedom of speech is an essential liberty.

It ain't rocket science

[FlyByPC]

Yes, making a UAV is not trivial, but neither is it incredibly difficult. There are plenty of cheap parts out there that, with a little programming, could tie together a small GPS module and aircraft control servos. It wouldn't be too terribly difficult for any country to make a UAV; I would say with a parts budget of $1K US, I could probably get a simple one (that could fly to a given waypoint) working within a few weeks/months. With $10K, you could make a very capable one -- probably with a range of several hundred km -- which could carry a small payload (a few grams of radioactives go a long way, ya know.)

Bottom line -- trying to restrict such technology is laughable these days. Microchip literally gives away microcontrollers capable of handling a small aircraft, given the right software and interface electronics. These "evil terr-a-rists" will always be able to get their hands on technology. What we need is to find a way to make it politically difficult for them to continue as terrorists. (I.E. find a diplomatic solution.)

Re:It ain't rocket science

[Anonymous Coward]

Diplomatic solution!? You sir are an islamic commie terrorist M$ apologist! We must crush the enemy ruthlessly until their children hate us even more than they did! Then our children will crush their children and breed even more hate! IT'S THE ONLY WAY TO WIN THE WAR! KILL! KILL!

Re:It ain't rocket science

[jamstar7]

I would say with a parts budget of $1K US, I could probably get a simple one (that could fly to a given waypoint) working within a few weeks/months. With $10K, you could make a very capable one -- probably with a range of several hundred km -- which could carry a small payload (a few grams of radioactives go a long way, ya know.)

Considering that a classic 'dirty bomb' (conventional explosives dispersing radioactives) only does surface contamination, they're relatively easy to clean up. http://blog.wired.com/biotech/2007/02/wash_that_di rty.html is one method being developed. From what I've read, they're pretty much a non-issue boogeyman designed to boost the funding of our heroes at Homeland Security.

A few grams of active biologicals, say, some reworked viri, would be a LOT more dangerous than a few grams of random radioactives. Course, they'd be a lot harder to brew up in the bathtub at this time...

Re:It ain't rocket science

[Anonymous Coward]

I totally agree. Political diplomacy is the best way to stop terrorists. For example if someone said surrender your freedom or die I would respond "die" and shoot them square in the face. Gosh, I really wouldn't want to have to kill people to have freedom but if they threaten my life well it's obvious they are suicidal and I believe that too is their choice. They can totally choose to confront me, truly threaten me and die by my hand. That sort of negotiation would lead to huge shifts in the political landscape.

Re:It ain't rocket science

[Anonymous Coward]

damn, where are my mod points when I need them. haha!

Re:It ain't rocket science

[einhverfr]

As with my point before, I think that a group of hobbiests collaborating across international boundaries for this sort of thing would almost certainly attract the attention of a lot of governments. I would expect a lot of spies in a project like this eventually.

At the same time, you are right. Rockets (which are restricted) and UAVs are both relatively easy to build. Rockets are somewhat problematic because they are far more weapons-ready than UAVs.

BTW, I don;t think that we need a "diplomatic solution" to the War on Terror. I think we need a "Diplomatic base for a solution" as a good first step. Unfortunately the Bush Administration seems intent on doing the right things (getting the US Troops out of Saudi Arabia) in the wrong ways (invading Iraq) and thus complicating matters.

We should be strong enough to stop worrying about what happens when we leave Iraq and put that in the hands of Iraqis by:
1) Issuing a statement stating that we are guests assisting the Iraqi democratically elected government and that if asked by them to leave, we will do so.
2) Issuing a statement that says that one condition for our cooperation is the expulsion of armed militias other than the Iraqi Army and the Iraqi Police from any official or unofficial government capacity. The Badr Brigades continue to be associated with the government? We leave on the grounds that the Iraqi government did not live up to their obligations.

We should begin high-level negotiations with Iran and Syria. We should negotiate from a position of strength, knowing that they want security guarantees. We can give them such guarantees provided that certain conditions are met.
1) No funding groups that attack civilians inside the Israeli Green Line (we should not support the occupation of Golan, Gaza, or the West Bank nor should we protect Israeli targets there).
2) Guarantees and additional controls preventing the development of nuclear weapons.
3) Pressure would be put on Israel to disarm their nuclear arsenal or face restrictions on military aid.
4) Outstanding ICJ judgements would need to be settled as soon as possible.
5) The conditional security guarantee lasts as long as 1-2 are in force. If they are broken, we no longer extend such a guarantee.

We should immediately look to accellerate the reunification of the Korean peninsula. This means declaring the Korean War officially over, dismantling the DMZ to the extent necessary to up in a rail link, ensuring air passenger service between the two countries, and moving towards reunification. Right-wing think-tanks dont like this because they are afraid a unified Korea would become closely aligned with China.

We should double the bounty on the capture or arrest of any Al Qaeda leader.

How is that for a start?

Re:It ain't rocket science

[aaarrrgggh]

Refreshingly well put.

Re:It ain't rocket science

[BeaverCleaver]

Wasn't that guy in NZ doing exactly that? I don't remember the exact link but he runs www.aardvark.co.nz

He made a lot of noise about a pulsejet powered microcontroller-brained cruise missile a few years back...

Re:It ain't rocket science

[legirons]

Yes, making a UAV is not trivial, but neither is it incredibly difficult. There are plenty of cheap parts out there that, with a little programming, could tie together a small GPS module and aircraft control servos.

More info at http://diydrones.com/

Re:It ain't rocket science

[Agripa]

A few grams of active biologicals, say, some reworked viri, would be a LOT more dangerous than a few grams of random radioactives.

Or the attack could be insidious: Use UAVs to spread agricultural pests. By the time someone notices widespread crop failure, it will be too late to remedy.

Re:It ain't rocket science

[RAMMS EIN]

Hahahahaha! That sounds so sensible I'm sure it's not going to happen.

Besides, by all appearances, it seems that the Bush administration actually wants to be at war. And they have good reasons for it, too. After all, war provides excuses for many things, including funneling money into your favored companies (Haliburton, anyone?), grabbing more power (Bush is now Commander in Chief, also see signing statements), and cutting funding for programs that don't benefit your friends (after all, war is _expensive_). "Mission accomplished", indeed.

Re:It ain't rocket science

[Cheesey]

You could carry 5kg on board a UAV.

I think a really good application for these things might be international drug trafficking. They could fly long distances at night, staying below the radar and using GPS to find their way to the target zone. One group of smugglers would supervise takeoff in South America, another group would be waiting over in the States to land the aircraft by remote control when it arrived. This could shift millions of $s of pure product on every trip. UAVs have crossed the Atlantic, so this idea is not far fetched.

But I wouldn't recommend anyone suggest this to their local drug lord, even if you have a ready-made UAV that runs free software and has a cargo hold. Imagine having to explain to Mr Big that the plane disappeared en route, but you don't know exactly where or why, and imagine how pleased he won't be. Perhaps bribing customs is easier for now.

Re:It ain't rocket science

[FlyByPC]

How is that for a start?
Not half bad!

Of course, with a sensible platform like that, you'd never get elected... 8-(

Re:It ain't rocket science

[FlyByPC]

He made a lot of noise about a pulsejet powered microcontroller-brained cruise missile a few years back...
I was thinking more along the lines of electric.

Pulsejets are cheap, but they're slightly less subtle than a stick of Dynamite.

Re:It ain't rocket science

[ari_j]

Do you have a proposed diplomatic solution?

Re:It ain't rocket science

[Anonymous Coward]

It's hard to express sarcasm over the internet, but let me try:

If only we had more heroes like you in the 1940s Germany, 6 million jews would not die in camps.

Re:It ain't rocket science

[Anonymous Coward]

Disclaimer, My relative worked on a UAV low-observable military project.

The hard part is real-time flight control. This is seriously not easy to get right, and the likelyhood of an open-source project getting military-grade accuracy is low, especially on the first few revisions. As a project progresses and gets lots of real-world feedback, then maybe. As the parent mentions, the rest is relatively trivial to provision. The hard part is simply getting the real-time components to 'fly' the way you want them to with all sorts of unassumed feedback and counter-input.

What's the testing methodology look like when conducted from under cover?

Re:The Answer is Yes

[Aranykai]

Who the hell modded this insightful?
Its the same ignorant bullshit that people use to validate racism. Someone needs to pay attention to how they spend their mod points.

Technology doesn't matter in the long run...

[NotQuiteReal]

If you have an "enemy" that doesn't play by your rules, and out breeds you, you will lose in the long run. Eventually they will simply out number you, and maybe even just "vote you out", without a shot fired.

Then you will laugh when the next Ice Age comes.

And cry when the next asteroid hits...

The only "hope", if there is a point, is to get geographically diversified. And by geographically, I mean light-years.

Re:Technology doesn't matter in the long run...

[Kaenneth]

Astrographically?

Re:Technology doesn't matter in the long run...

[Hugonz]

If you have an "enemy" that doesn't play by your rules, and out breeds you, you will lose in the long run. Eventually they will simply out number you, and maybe even just "vote you out", without a shot fired.

Greetings to London, there!

Anyone Still Listening?

[RAMMS EIN]

``My instinct is that we should welcome everyone, everywhere, but I'm sure some in Washington worry that this looks like helping an 'Axis of Evil' country make advanced weapons.''

Is anyone still taking these guys seriously? I mean, the "Axis of Evil" was coined at the time when the whole cast was performing a play where they convinced the USAmerican public that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction and posed a great threat to the USA. Now that has been exposed for the load of bollocks many of us already saw it for at the time. The whole "Axis of Evil" concept was invented to scare the American public into thinking there was a conspiracy against them, but, in all the time since then, none of the countries on this supposed axis have actually attacked the USA. The only aggressor in this whole stage play has been the USA itself, with the demagogues leading the violence somehow escaping scrutiny. Sure, Iraqis are killing US soldiers _now_, but, well, can you blame them, after said soldiers plunged their country into an anarchy where it's news if there is a day _without_ bombings? And the same guys who came up with the "Axis of Evil" told you that the US soldiers would be received as heroes and bring peace and stability to Iraq.

And now you are saying that X is a good idea, but we'd better not do it because the "Axis of Evil" guys may not like it? I'm not saying the idea is good and you should do it, but _not_ doing it because of those demagogues seems about as bad an idea as they get. They've done enough damage already!

Re:Anyone Still Listening?

[ChrisMaple]

The whole concept of guerilla warfare is plausible deniability, which you have consumed hook, line, and sinker. "Oh no, we don't know about those military training camps, and we're not funding them." "We never sent those suicide bombers. They just happened to live here a few years ago. We don't know how they got those explosives."

Islam is by its nature violently opposed to non-Islamic civilization. Until Koran-based religion is wiped off the face of the earth we will continue having these problems. Christianity isn't much better.

Re:Anyone Still Listening?

[Phroggy]

North Korea developed a nuclear weapons program and tested a missile. I'd say they qualify as being an "aggressor", although they didn't directly attack anyone. Surprisingly, this issue was resolved diplomatically (we paid them a boatload of cash, in exchange for their promise to stop).

Re:Anyone Still Listening?

[RAMMS EIN]

It does not surprise me at all. In fact, I think the situation with North Korea was resolved diplomatically exactly _because_ there was real, legitimate concern they might actually be able to do serious damage.

Yes

[TubeSteak]

My question: is there ever a case for letting national security issues dictate the limits of an open source project?" Yes.
Imagine if someone decided to design an open source cruise missile.

The U.S.A. already leaned on the New Zealand gov't to shut down a guy making a (non-open source) DIY cruise missile just to prove that he could do it. The NZ version of the IRS hound him into bankruptcy.

Not to mention that his gov't even said it'd be perfectly fine if he sold the technology to Iran. BTW - He didn't.

Re:Yes

[ChrisMaple]

FWIW, about 40 years ago a very intelligent (and probably financially well off) US citizen bought all the parts for an ICBM (an Atlas, as I recall) from surplus dealers. This received coverage in major national papers and included a picture of him with the engine. He claimed it would take about 100 man-years to assemble the rocket from the parts he had. He was quoted as saying that the radioactives for a bomb were available from certain sources, which he was not willing to reveal.

I hope the US has tightened down this sort of thing; anecdotes such as New Zealand are encouraging. Nevertheless, technology marches onward, and the creation of weapons-ready transportation is becoming easier. An active imagination and a pile of money can help someone with evil intent do a whole lot of damage.

Re:The Answer is Yes

[Jeremiah Cornelius]

TROLL ALERT

It is unbelievable propaganda to equate Iran to Nazi Germany. Israeli disinfo and psyops (MEMRI) deliberately mis-translate stories, and the lapdog media in the US and UK eat it up.

Here is the country, and the people, that you smear as "enemy".

Re:The Answer is Yes

[darkhitman]

Because all Iranians agree with their government and UAVs, despite lacking weaponry of any sort, are dangerous weapons that Iran doesn't already have the technology to build, right?

Whoever modded you insightful is even stupider than you, and that's a feat.

Teach a man to kill....

[headkase]

It's as simple as this: "they" do not think like "us". Our goals and interpretations of the world in general may not be compatible with each other. So pragmatically, don't give someone you don't fully trust the means to hurt you.
Oooooh, here come the liberals :)

Re:The Answer is Yes

[Anonymous Coward]

Dear Anonymous Coward. You are clearly one of the sick americans that makes me never want to visit your country again. I hope you ignorant and stupid fucks go away some time soon. Have a nice day.

" Can Open Source Give Comfort To the Enemy?"

[rolfwind]

Open Source can be used by anybody, that's part of the point.

Phil Zimmerman says yes

[Weaselmancer]

My question: is there ever a case for letting national security issues dictate the limits of an open source project?

"Yesterday morning, I received word from Assistant U.S. Attorney William Keane in San Jose, California, that the government's three-year investigation of Philip Zimmermann is over."

Article here. More info here.

Re:The Answer is Yes

[Anonymous Coward]

Someone needs to pay attention to how they spend their mod points.

That reminds me: I must meta-moderate more often.

Iranian flag?

[SamP2]

...made a UAV in the colors of the Iranian flag

If you are going to fly it in the US, just paint it sideways. The worst problem you'll then encounter is border patrol thinking its those illegal Mexican immigrants crossing by air.

Re:Iranian flag?

[Anonymous Coward]

Lol! Are Mexicans so small?

Since when did Iran become your enemy?

[siyavash]

Might be a bit offtopic but Wait a minute... there is no war going on between USA and Iran, Since when did Iran become your enemy? Just because your president sais something stupid you see a whole country as "your" enemy?

Call me crazy, but that is just wrong.

I'm from Iran myself and I know that most people in Iran do not see USA as the "enemy" at all. People should not judge a country by the small minority which rules it.

I might be a dreamer, but I'm not the only one.

Re:Since when did Iran become your enemy?

[WhiplashII]

People should not judge a country by the small minority which rules it.

The problem with that statement is that the rulers of Iran:

1) Have said that they want nuclear weapons, and are actively pursuing nuclear technology
2) Have said that they want to wipe Isreal from the map
3) Seem to be spreading fear through their military and covert actions

While that does not make me hate Iranians or anything, that may lead to the US being forced to intervene no matter how we judge the rest of them - which would certainly make most Iranians hate us...

It is a very difficult problem. What do you do when a country is stable, but dangerously aggressive? Is it better to leave it alone, and sometimes get a Pearl Harbor, or kick over the hornets nest and get Iraq? No matter what you do, you have a bad outcome. And of course, the Iranians are not going to rebel against their government - they have the guns.

As technology increases, this problem will get worse - for two reasons. First, the power goverments have over people will increase - think of the progression of knives, guns, tanks, ???. Second, the Pearl Harbor or first strike outcome gets far worse - what if Bin Laden had waited until after they aquired thermonukes? In the next century, a terrorist could conceivably kill every american in the opening shot...

I so want off this planet!

Re:Since when did Iran become your enemy?

[Anonymous Coward]

You've been watching too much Fox News, get some Bill Hicks instead and remember: it's funny because it's true. :)

Re:Since when did Iran become your enemy?

[WhiplashII]

Interestingly enough, I watch no TV at all...

I found that clip distateful. Everyone that disagrees with him is a murderer? How quaint.

Re:Since when did Iran become your enemy?

[Hal_Porter]

http://img250.imageshack.us/img250/310/liveb2crapi f7.jpg

Re:Since when did Iran become your enemy?

[TummyX]

Are you ignorant or just a fool?

When people say "Iran" in this context they're talking about the Government, not the people. Up until the revolution in 1979, Iran was a friend and, as you might have noticed, many Iranians have attained high levels of respect and power in America.

Anyway, I'd say the US government has considered the Iranian government an enemy in one way or another since this happened.

Re:Since when did Iran become your enemy?

[siyavash]

I'm not ignorant nor fool but by judging your reply, you seem to be the fool on the hill. Read a couple of more book and you will see that your reply is way off. I'm not even going to bother explaining the reason to you since I have no interest in educating you. Sadly, most slashdotters are as ignorant as you ( as the majority of the rest of mass panicing sheeples [read: people] ) hence your reply gets to be "Insightful".

Re:Since when did Iran become your enemy?

[Guy Harris]

Anyway, I'd say the US government has considered the Iranian government an enemy in one way or another since this happened.

And a lot of Iranians have probably thought of us (and Britain) as an enemy in one way or another since this happened.

Re:Since when did Iran become your enemy?

[Anonymous Coward]

When people say "Iran" in this context they're talking about the Government, not the people.

When people eventually say "bomb Iran" in this context, though, they're talking about bombing the people, not the government.

Re:Since when did Iran become your enemy?

[chrb]

The problem with that statement is that the rulers of Iran: 1) Have said that they want nuclear weapons

No they haven't.From Wikipedia:

"we expect to soon join the club of the countries that have a nuclear industry, with all its branches, except the military one, in which we are not interested." - former president and Islamic cleric Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani

Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has publicly stated Iran is not developing nuclear weapons. On August 9, 2005 Iran's Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, issued a fatwa that the production, stockpiling and use of nuclear weapons are forbidden under Islam and that Iran shall never acquire these weapons.

Gharavian - "We do not seek nuclear weapons and the Islamic religion encourages coexistence along with peace and friendship"

Re:Since when did Iran become your enemy?

[chrb]

2) Have said that they want to wipe Isreal from the map

False. Read Lost in translation: Experts confirm that Iran's president did not call for Israel to be 'wiped off the map'."

3) Seem to be spreading fear through their military and covert actions

False. Again, from Wikipedia: Abbas Araghchi, Iran's deputy foreign minister, said "For the sake of peace and stability in Iraq we need a timetable for the withdrawal of foreign forces. Violence in Iraq is good for no country in the region. Security of Iraq is our security and stability in Iraq is a necessity for peace and security in the region." Iran has strong ties with Iraq Shia political groups, and would rather see the Shia dominated government remain in power than have Iraq splinter. Iraqi prime minister Nouri Maliki has praised Iran for its positive and constructive stance on Iraq, including providing security and fighting terrorism.

Afghan president Karzai has also praised Iran for its help, and pubically stated that he believes the US position is intended to divide the nations rather than bring them together.

Re:Since when did Iran become your enemy?

[m2943]

The problem with that statement is that the rulers of [country X]:

1) Have said that they want nuclear weapons, and are actively pursuing nuclear technology
2) Have said that they want to wipe [the government of country Y] from [history]
3) Seem to be spreading fear through their military and covert actions

And how is this different from US actions and the statements of US politicians?

(Point (3) is particularly ironic since it is US covert actions that toppled the democratically elected government of Iran in the first place.)

Re:Since when did Iran become your enemy?

[m2943]

Up until the revolution in 1979, Iran was a friend

Between 1953 and 1979, Iran was a nation that run by a US-backed regime that remained in power through repression and torture; that is not "friendship".

The mess Iran has become today is principally due to bad decisions by Eisenhower and Carter, motivated by short-sighted economic and strategic interests, instead of supporting democracy and economic development.

Re:Since when did Iran become your enemy?

[Anonymous Coward]

Some call it magic. We so need the grail.

Re:Since when did Iran become your enemy?

[Anonymous Coward]

Well that and Iran Air Flight 655
Shooting down a civilian airliner, refusing to apologize and giving medals to the crew that shot it down would create a wee bit of animosity even if it was an accident.

couldn't somebody just...

[Anonymous Coward]

...buy a remote control airplane? What's the "edge" that this UAV gives to the enemy?

However, since you ask the questioned on slashdot, you'll probably get a little "visit". It was probably smarter to just lay low, idiot.

WTF will the Iranians or associates do with UAVs?

[bersl2]

Fly recon against Israel or against American interests in Iraq? Deploy weapons?

It may give a small advantage to terrorists or insurgents for a few times, but in the long run, air defense will adapt to them if they have any perceivable effect.

Doubt it

[ArcherB]

"My question: is there ever a case for letting national security issues dictate the limits of an open source project?"

I doubt it. Once the genie is out of the bottle, there is no way to get it back in. Shutting down a project because the enemy is using will not stop the enemy, just ourselves!

No

[poptones]

See, this is the difference you're overlooking... it's in your own words.

This guy working on a non open platform was shut down...

Of course he was. It was a single point of failure in the chain. He didnt share his work with others, so he became an easy target. Had he opened that platform right off the mark then there would have been no point in the IRS targeting him. He likely would have saved himself considerable financial loss by not being so secretive.

How is the US gov't going to "shut down" open discussion hosted on multiple servers around the world? No matter any declared or undeclared "war" they can't even keep child porn off usenet, they're damn sure going to be powerless shutting down talk about model airplanes and electronic servo controllers.

Re:No

[WhiplashII]

How is the US gov't going to "shut down" open discussion

The same way they do it to people building rockets. They use ITAR, and throw you in jail if you don't comply.

We really need to reduce the ITAR regulations - call your congressman!

Re:The Answer is Yes

[Anonymous Coward]

And we all know the Muslim world, on the other hand, is perfectly objective and fair in THEIR depictions and news stories regarding Israel and Jews.

Respect Mah Authoritay

[hardburn]

My question: is there ever a case for letting national security issues dictate the limits of an open source project?"

Crypto was kept out of the Linux kernel for a long time, since the US had regulation on exporting crypto systems. These were mostly lifted under Clinton, though there's still a list of countries that it's illegal to export to (Cuba, Iran, Iraq, Libya, North Korea, Sudan, and Syria, according to: http://www.epic.org/crypto/export_controls/regs_1_ 00.html).

RMS has stated that if copyright laws in the vein of the DMCA continue to be passed, Free Software development could no longer take place in US borders.

Germany was recently hit with a law that outlawed "hacking software", apparently including nmap or packet sniffers.

It's nice to say that you want to do things for the good of humanity, but beaurocrats have other ideas.

One word.

[Spy der Mann]

PGP.

Any civ = fine; Any mil = scary

[Anonymous Coward]

I'd go with a different axis: a military/civilian one. Any civilian project (from any nation) like this seems fine to me - it's playing around. Any military project like this (regardless of country) seems a bit scary to me - it's introducing robotic drones to do a war-maker's bidding.

Re:Any civ = fine; Any mil = scary

[Lord Kano]

Any military project like this (regardless of country) seems a bit scary to me - it's introducing robotic drones to do a war-maker's bidding.

For quite a while, military training has had the goal of dehumanizing a recruit. A recruit has to be conditioned to kill on command. For most people it's abnormal to kill someone who isn't an immediate threat to themselves or to a loved one, but soldiers have to kill.

You want to see robotic drones? Look for the guys that they call "Private".

LK

It's happened before.

[Short Circuit]

Bruce Simpson got in trouble ages ago for building a rocket that adaptively kept a cart level. After someone in the US government was quoted as describing his activities as "unhelpful", the New Zealand government stepped in with some financial crap to close down his hobby.

Re:It's happened before.

[Anonymous Coward]

After someone in the US government was quoted as describing his activities as "unhelpful", the New Zealand government stepped in with some financial crap to close down his hobby.

The IRD got interested when he boasted about not paying taxes. They investigated, found that to be true, and rectified the situation. It was hardly something trivial.

Reality Check Required

[arthurpaliden]

The Iranian Government currently has the technology to produce:

• anti-ship cruse missiles
• medium and short range ballistic missiles
• weapons grade plutonium

And you think that stopping a not for profit, model aircraft UAV building group is going to limit their ability to produce a military UAV.

So how many other open source projects may have secret Iranian participants, shall we shut them all down.

How about shutting down Linux because it can be used by the Iranians to build super computers like they do in the west to test bomb designs.?

Lets ban all knowledge because the terrorists may get at it.

Re:Reality Check Required

[gujo-odori]

Well, they bought all that technology. They don't have the ability to produce that stuff on their own, or they wouldn't have bought it.

That said, I'm sure that if they need a military-grade UAV, the Chinese would be happy to provide one, just like they did with the anti-ship missiles may well have already done so. If on some off chance they took a pass, Russia would probably step in to fill the need, and if by some chance they didn't do it either, Iran could surely count on France to help them come up with a military-grade UAV.

So, no, in this particular case, I doubt that it's likely this software is going to contribute to support of the Iranian regime.

To answer the original question, yes, there is absolutely a case for letting national security in time of war dictate the limits of project. The thing is, with an open-source project, just how would you go about doing that? Let's assume for the moment that this software is actually military-grade, or close enough to it that it wouldn't be that hard to get it there and would save many months of development. Let's further assume for the sake of argument that the guy in Iran who made a UAV in the colors of the Iranian flag is an engineer and a member of the Qudz Brigades and was specifically tasked with finding a way to make a UAV good enough to use in further terrorist attacks in Iraq.

Even if you should now decide "Hey, bad guys could use my software to do bad things and probably are trying to" and you shut down your FTP site, the fact of the matter is that they guy in Iran already has the software. So does anybody else interested in trying to use it against us. Shutting down the FTP site doesn't put that horse back in the barn. It only stops them from getting any future releases you make, but as far as what's already out there goes, the bad guys are going to share it with each other. Restricting downloads to only US IP space wouldn't help, either. It's not like there aren't Iranian spies and Al Qaeda cells in the United States.

Therefore, shutting down the FTP site would not harm the bad guys at all; it would only hurt legitimate users of the software, so there's nothing to be gained at this point.

Circling back once again to the original question, yes, there is certainly a case for limiting an open source (or even closed source) project for national security interests. However, the time to make that judgment is before you've distributed any code, especially in the case of open source. Once you've started distributing, it's too late for that. You may remember the case of PGP being placed under export controls. That didn't stop anyone from using it. Code released prior to export controls was out there, and code released later was scanned, put into books (which made it protected speech) and sent to Europe, where it was OCRed and turned back into code and freely distributed.

Re:Reality Check Required

[Anonymous Coward]

It occurs to me that "in a time of war" begins to lose it's meaning if we're always at war. Wouldn't it be cool if we could have freedom all the time, not just during peace?

Re:Reality Check Required

[gujo-odori]

Yes, it could. But back here in reality...

Some wars last a long time. The American Revolution was far longer than this war. So was our involvement in Viet Nam, although I expect the war with radical Islam to last a lot longer in the end. I don't expect it to be over in my lifetime, although my children may see the end of it. And wartime tends to necessitate the suspension of certain freedoms. Lincoln suspended Habeus Corpus in much of the Union during the Civil War, and he's regarded as a hero. Bush suspends it for some people, and he gets vilified for it. Go figure. Of course, more than a few people vilified Lincoln at the time, too. I wonder if those who are on Bush so much over this issue realize that Clinton was actually the one who started the restriction of Habeus Corpus when he signed the Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act, in 1996?

We *could* make this war over in my lifetime, but there doesn't seem to be much political or popular will to do what that would take (a much larger military, maybe even a draft, war bonds to finance it, etc.). I think we would have been better off with a nuclear response on 9/12/2001, but that window of opportunity is closed now, for both tactical and political reasons (it's likely that we couldn't get bin Ladin et al with nukes now, and the political capital that would have allowed us to do it in 2001 has now all been squandered in Iraq, and no one would sit still for us nuking part of Pakistan's sovereign territory in an attempt to get him, anyway).

Re:Reality Check Required

[Anonymous Coward]

First, I am as conservative as one can get. I am retired military and a Viet Nam War vet. Having said that not only do I agree with this post, I agree with the general line of thought here. I will add the Second Amendment,

The 18th Century context of the Second Amendment is that it is the duty and responsibility of every American Citizen to, at his own expense, equip and maintain himself as a reasonably competent soldier. I think that home built UAVs could be included. Now America's stated goal is to spread democracy world wide. While, as proved in Iraq, an armed citizenry is no guarantee of a democratic state, a disarmed citizenry is helpful in overturning a bad enough government.

I vote to spread the knowledge to the citizens of the world.

Re:Reality Check Required

[lixee]

weapons grade plutonium

Bollocks. They are years away from that kind of purity.

Re:Reality Check Required

[Anonymous Coward]

weapons grade plutonium

Not even slightly. They have just enough centrifuges to create fuel-grade uranium: but not enough to fuel a single reactor, yet. Iran has no known breeder reactors to create Pu.

You carry on believing whatever you're told, though.

Re:Reality Check Required

[chrb]

Good point. Since the embargoes on Iran they have developed the capability to domestically manufacture helicopter gunships and fighter aircraft. The wikipedia page on the Iranian Airforce has some nice photos of some Iranian-made fighters.

Re:Reality Check Required

[chrb]

Well, they bought all that technology. They don't have the ability to produce that stuff on their own, or they wouldn't have bought it.

False. Iran manufactures its own fighters and helicopter gunships. Read more.

pfft...

[djupedal]

"is there ever a case for letting national security issues dictate the limits of an open source project?"

Yes, and I could tell you, but then I'd have to hunt you down and kill you, so....no.

Report suspicious muslims to terrorism hotline

[Anonymous Coward]

Report suspicious muslims to your terrorism hotline. Remember, muslims are the enemy of all freedom loving peoples. They are even more dangerous than nazis and communists. Photograph suspicious muslims and report them to your terrorism hotline.

Keep these phone numbers handy:

• In Australia: call the National Security Hotline on 1800 123 400.
• In the UK: call 0800 789 321 to report any suspicious activity.
• In the USA: call the FBI Hotline: 1-866-483-5137

Do your duty and protect YOUR country from the muslims plotting to destroy it!

Re:The Answer is Yes

[The One and Only]

I'm not sure what those pictures are supposed to prove--Nazi Germany had cars and trees and apartment buildings and highways too. It is not quite accurate to compare the two, however. Iran is more like pre-Reformation Europe--a civilization whose people are growing more advanced, leading to tensions with a medieval theocratic regime.

look into itar

[blackcoot]

before you go much farther, i would strongly encourage you to become familiar with itar (international trade in arms) restrictions. there are extremely stiff penalties for any unauthorized export, which includes even discussions of the technical details. (at least that's the way my company's itar representative spins it). as always, your mileage will vary: i am neither a lawyer, d.o.d. or d.o.t. auditor, nor do i play any of those on tv.

If Iran can build a nuclear reactor

[codepunk]

What, do you think people in the middle east are somehow stupid or not educated and incapable of
creating a UAV without assistance? Having spent a fair amount of time in the middle east I can tell you that their population in many cases has better access to technology than we do here in the states.

I think if they have the smarts and capability to build a reactor that a UAV would not be real difficult for them.

Re:If Iran can build a nuclear reactor

[rahvin112]

The Russians are building the nuclear reactor. The Iranians are enriching the Uranium, using technology and the same skill set the Russians and the US had in 1950.

Re:If Iran can build a nuclear reactor

[vranash]

Keep in mind thought that's probably due to infrastructure limitations rather than technological ones.

Buying a whole bunch of electronics from china or malysia or whatnot is probably a lot easier than getting modern grade nuclear reactor components transported and placed in Iran.

Besides which is that there's plenty of Iranians trained in computer science, electrical engineering, etc, and I'd assume more flags raised if not outright blocked (in the us at east) in regards to studying nuclear engineering.

That's just my take on it, being some uneducated git, it could be completely off-base.

Re:If Iran can build a nuclear reactor

[Anonymous Coward]

Islamic countries have produced hardly any patents in the last 60 years. The middle eastern countries build stuff because western countries showed them how or do it for them. They are 'crafty" sorts but hardly scientific marvels. Even Pervez Musharraf said the Muslim Ummah, or the Islamic world, was presently living in "darkness". "Today we are the poorest, the most illiterate, the most backward, the most unhealthy, the most un-enlightened, the most deprived, and the weakest of all the human race," He said one of the main reasons for this disparity was that none of the Muslim countries had ever paid any attention to educational and scientific development.

Re:If Iran can build a nuclear reactor

[ducomputergeek]

Last time I checked, it was the Russians and French that was selling the reactors to Iran. So while they maybe putting it together, it's not a home grown design.

Who is the enemy?

[mr_tenor]

And who is aiding and comforting him?

http://www.crooksandliars.com/2007/08/23/daily-sho w-three-generations-of-america-to-the-rescue/

National security BS

[Anonymous Coward]

My question: is there ever a case for letting national security issues dictate the limits of an open source project?

National security issues can put the kibosh on nearly anything. Just ask the amateur rocketry hobbyists about the hoops they have to jump through due to the PATRIOT Act. In a few more years you'll probably be lucky to be able to find chemistry sets with experiments more interesting than mixing vinegar and baking soda.

Re:National security BS

[jamstar7]

National security issues can put the kibosh on nearly anything. Just ask the amateur rocketry hobbyists about the hoops they have to jump through due to the PATRIOT Act. In a few more years you'll probably be lucky to be able to find chemistry sets with experiments more interesting than mixing vinegar and baking soda.

And when they do start putting out these chemistry sets, so much for the next generation of mad scientists.

Re:The Answer is Yes

[Anonymous Coward]

An evil exists that threatens every man, woman and child of this great nation. We must take steps to ensure our domestic security and protect our homeland.

-- Adolf Hitler: when announcing the Gestapo.

Sound similar to anyone you know? In fact George W. Bush's grandfather laundered money for the Nazis, so if you're going to go into comparisons George W. Bush is a lot closer than anyone in Iran.

Fear.

[chris_sawtell]

My question: is there ever a case for letting national security issues dictate the limits of an open source project?

No, because if you do it means that the Ter-ra-ra-rists have won the war.

If that's the message you want to give your readers, go right ahead and behave as if you are living in fear under the control of a neo-Fascist regime.

The world wide stupidity epidemic is spreading

[Anonymous Coward]

That's what it looks like. Not that I would be suprised a bit.

The U.S. government is very corrupt.

[Futurepower(R)]

People in the U.S. are, generally, very ignorant about the corruption in the U.S. government.

The U.S. does not have a problem with Iran, except for the problems the U.S. government makes. The U.S. government is manipulated by Cheney and others to use taxpayer's money to get control of oil, so that oil prices will rise. Saddam Hussein was not cooperating with that, and Iran isn't either.

The U.S. government makes very violent threats, and, when Iran reacts and replies, tells U.S. citizens that Iran is a threat.

It is necessary to have a government with enough social sophistication that it can live in the world without killing other people, and the U.S. does not have that government. The U.S. government has invaded at least 24 countries since the second world war, and is responsible for the deaths of perhaps 11 million people. All of that violence was done for profit for people who were already rich. People who have been born in wealthy families often feel that it is their right to kill other people.

For a few details about U.S. government corruption, see George W. Bush comedy and tragedy.

See also Unprecedented Corruption: A guide to conflict of interest in the U.S. government.

I'm very much in love with the U.S., and want to see better government.

Re:The U.S. government is very corrupt.

[mastermemorex]

People in the U.S. are, generally, very ignorant about the corruption in the U.S. government.

You are wrong. Most American citizens are fully aware about government corruption.

The U.S. do not have a problem with Iran, except for the problems the U.S. government makes.

The only problem with Iran is that they swore the destruction of the US and Israel and now they want an atomic bomb. Great!

The U.S. government is manipulated by Cheney and others to use taxpayer's money to get control of oil, so that oil prices will rise.

Do you ever believe that Iraq is invaded just for spreading the liberty and the democracy? Don't be so naïve. We are a capitalism country!
If I expend billions in an Army I want something in return! I will be disappointed if after expending billions of taxpayer's money and peoples live the US Army is not used to defend the American industry and economy around the globe.

The U.S. government has invaded at least 24 countries since the Second World War, and is responsible for the deaths of perhaps 11 million people. All of that violence was done for profit for people who were already rich. People who have been born in wealthy families often feel that it is their right to kill other people.

And don't forget all the countries before WWII! Well in none of those countries I still see a waving American flag if it is not in the US embassy.

I'm very much in love with the U.S., and want to see better government.

Me too, but I have been in Saudi Arabia and when I came back I kissed the US floor. Nevertheless I prefer most of European countries for living. We must learn from good examples to improve our way of live. Don't look to the Middle East. These are full of bad examples.

One country becoming like Germany in Pre WWII

[Dan Ferguson]

It's not Iran either. It's right here in good old USA. It's changing quickly and moving towards a fascist police state IMO. Our government has built "detention centers" (Gitmo style) all over the USA. Some of them are designed to hold over 500,000 people. Now if they want to give amnesty to the immigrant Mexicans that are coming here then who do you suppose those detention centers are for?? Think and research - The answers are out there. Here is the NYTIMES story: http://www.nytimes.com/2006/02/04/national/04halli burton.html?ex=1296709200&en=01728da2eba059e4&ei=5 088&partner=rssn Search Youtube.com for videos

Re:Modded as troll - nice

[WhiplashII]

That has to have been the most non-troll way of putting that.

Sorry that your facts are unpopular here...

Oh, sorry...

[The Rizz]

I forgot that two wrongs actually do make a right (-wing politic).

Men like you

[michaelmalak]

How are you supposed to know? Fucking men like you built the hydrogen bomb. Men like you thought it up. You think you're so creative. You don't know what it's like to really create something; to create a life; to feel it growing inside you. All you know how to create is death and destruction.

Re:Men like you

[Anonymous Coward]

I'll take "Missed Movie References" for $500, Alex.

Re:Men like you

[allthingscode]

Are you Sarah Conner?

Re:Men like you

[Glytch]

You don't know what it's like to really create something; to create a life; to feel it growing inside you.

I knew a guy with a tapeworm once. Does that count?

Re:The Answer is Yes

[iminplaya]

It is unbelievable propaganda to equate Iran to Nazi Germany.

While looking at the pictures of the orchestra, all I could hear was Die Walküre...

Kill the waaabbit...

Get over yourself

[SuperKendall]

The research you are doing, while interesting is not so important that it's national security material. No-one in the government is probably giving your efforts a second thought.

Think of all the interactions you've ever had with the government, in any form. Now do you feel like being frightened of them as some large omnipresent and omniscient force? I think not!!

National Security? Maybe not. Privacy? Maybe.

[einhverfr]

I would make a counterargument here.

If it is an open and public community and is not overtly seeking the development of weapons (just multi-use components), I would say that there is not. At worst, the government should see this as a possibility for intelligence for any real terrorist link.

I suppose that if this was an "open source uranium enrichment centrifuge and bomb design project" there would be a case. But even there, I tend to think that the enemy we do no know is more dangerous than the enemy we do. Such an open source project might indeed be a source of a great amount of information for the CIA.

In the end, I think the question is likely to be about the privacy of participants, not national security. If there are national security concerns, you can expect various governments to send appropriate spy agencies to your project. If this is not desirable, you may wish to reconsider.

All in all, I tend to act as if a lot of this doesn't really matter. I would not close down such a project myself, but I would probably open up a discussion on the issues, explicitly saying that there was no direspect intended for your Iranian friend.

A revamped V1 as the AK-47 of aerial warfare

[Animats]

Imagine if someone decided to design an open source cruise missile. ... DIY cruise missile

That guy was developing something that some strategic intel people have been expecting for years - a simple V1-like UAV, but with modern guidance.

The V1 of WWII was a very simple device, built cheaply out of sheet metal with a crude engine. Range of several hundred miles. Moderately reliable airframe. But the guidance systems of that era had trouble finding London, and hitting a specific military target was hopeless. The same airframe with modern guidance could hit specific buildings. It could become the Third World's answer to US bombing strikes - the AK-47 of air warfare. So far, no one has bothered.

Re:A revamped V1 as the AK-47 of aerial warfare

[TheRaven64]

I'd imagine part of the reason no one has bothered is that the RAF found V1s rather easy to shoot down with 1940s technology. They were slow, RADAR or spotters picked them up a long way out, and the thin airframe made them easy to destroy. A modern variant with some evasive ability would be slightly harder, but they aren't really manoeuvrable enough to dodge much. You could build something that could shoot down a modern V1 for a lot less than the upgraded V1 itself, which defeats the point of modern guerilla warfare; to make your enemy spend enough to make continuing the war unfeasible economically.

Re:A revamped V1 as the AK-47 of aerial warfare

[Animats]

The V1 was so dumb that defenses only had to be placed on the direct line between the fixed launching ramps and the regular targets. It won't be that easy next time around.

Re:A revamped V1 as the AK-47 of aerial warfare

[jetxee]

I'd imagine part of the reason no one has bothered is that the RAF found V1s rather easy to shoot down with 1940s technology. They were slow, RADAR or spotters picked them up a long way out, and the thin airframe made them easy to destroy.

I suppose, that if a modern `V1' flies low, and this is possible with modern guidance, it is no longer so easy (cheap) to spot it and to destroy it. Even if it is slow.

Eh, then who do we judge it by?

[SmallFurryCreature]

This excuse has been used before, countless times. The simple fact is that if you are not actively working against your goverment, you are supporting them. This goes for any country.

The US population supports the bush administrations war on terror by not acting against it, I support the dutch goverments actions in afghanistan and irag, by not acting against it, and you support your countries hatred of every non-muslim country, by not acting against it.

All the evil needs to flourish is the in-action of some good men.

It don't matter of most people from Iran do not see the USA as the enemy, it matters wether they will pay their taxes to fund the anti-western anti-democracy anti-freedom goverment and will serve its military.

IF Iran launched a war against say Israel, how many of the people you know would refuse military duty, would outcast family members that went to war?

Note that this is NOT just against you, it goes for the entire human race. It sadly is just too easy to just sit back, say "I am against", and then let it happen. From slavery, to the holocaust, to animal cruelty, to child labor. "Good" men have sat back, said they disapproved and then do nothing.

The problem with dreamers is that the world is ruled by those who ACT on their dreams. You and I might share a dream, but it will never happen, unless we act.

Re:Eh, then who do we judge it by?

[unity100]

oh great then. are you doing anything that your government is doing wrong ? please ? i guess not. maybe just talking.

it is not easy to "work against" some government that has gone awol. you should remember that, it is government after all. it has power over you. and if you have loved ones, those who you are responsible for in the picture, you cant go haywire and try to arm wrestle a government.

get real, lad.

Re:Eh, then who do we judge it by?

[Anonymous Coward]

and you support your countries hatred of every non-muslim country, by not acting against it.

Did you read the GP? The hate you speak of is not from Iran. It is a pure fabrication cooked up by our propaganda machines, the instigators and perpetrators of the Afghanistan and Iraq wars.

Re:Eh, then who do we judge it by?

[m2943]

The simple fact is that if you are not actively working against your goverment, you are supporting them. This goes for any country.

I think this holds true mainly for democracies, like the US and Europe. The responsibility of people living in non-democratic regimes, on the other hand, depends on a lot of factors, like how repressive the regime is, how significant the abuses by the regime are, how difficult it is to leave the country, how willing other nations are to accept refugees, etc.

(However, in the US, support for Bush is, in the end, overwhelming: with about half the people not voting, and about half of the rest voting for Bush in his re-election, we can say that 3/4 of the US population accept his policies.)

Liberal tinfoil

[Anonymous Coward]

This site has nothing to do with tech... its all about the liberal fear and tinfoil...

Nomenclature

[DaveAtFraud]

You are not exporting plans for a UAV! You and your friends are simply comparing notes on how to build autonomus flying model airplanes. UAVs are weapons. Model airplanes are toys.

Radio controlled flying models have been around for a long time and no one considers them to be weapons. Functionally identical radio controlled drones and especially the larger ones are (e.g., Predator, Global Hawk, etc.). Adding a level of automonmy to a radio controlled "toy" shouldn't make it into a weapon. Making it big enough to carry some sort of ordnance probably does.

Cheers,
Dave

P.S. IANAL, YMMV. They make the rules. If a rule doesn't work the way they want it to, they change the rule.

Re:Nomenclature

[Anonymous Coward]

The poster shows some lack of knowledge of export control laws (not only ITAR, but the commerce department's rules too). "comparing notes" *is* an export under the law. If someone decides that it is "militarily significant", you're in a heap o' trouble. That comparing notes thing requires what's called a Technical Assistance Agreement (TAA), which is a form of export license, with all that nifty stuff like "end user certificates" and so forth, beloved of thriller writers.

Re:Nomenclature

[MikeBabcock]

UAVs are not weapons. In fact, many UAVs are simply reconnaissance vehicles. A UAV could be used to deliver the mail for that matter. Some UAVs are weapons, just like some people are soldiers, but it doesn't make them all weapons like say 'guns' or 'tanks'.

Re:Nomenclature

[DaveAtFraud]

You missed the point. The idea is that they are "comparing notes" about autonomous model airplanes; not UAVs. The two terms actually mean the same thing but UAV has taken on a military use connotation. Model airplanes are still considered toys. There are quite a few instances of people all over the world "comparing notes" regarding various hobbies without running up against weapon export laws, prohibitions on contact, etc. The idea is to re-cast the subject of the discussion as something nonthreatening, not a weapon, etc.

Cheers,
Dave

Duh

[poptones]

Uh huh. You mean like how the laws against kiddie porn keep that out of the newsgroups? And how the DMCA keeps people from getting access to DeCSS?

You're not paying attention, are you?

I can see it now: proxy up, folks... we're talking about model airplanes!

Re:Duh

[WhiplashII]

Some quick Googles:

ITT Corporation Announces Plea Agreement in its Night Vision Business
Company agrees to pay $50 million fine and invest $50 million in night vision technology

Some background and a list of companies that have paid millions

More info

The money line:

Criminal Sanctions: Individual - A fine of up to $1,000,000 or up to ten years in prison, or both, for each violation.

They get to decide who they go after. A quick google does not reveal any individual that appears honest that was hammered (though a few companies got hammered for honest mistakes, in my opinion) - but I know of many people that are harrased by them. ITAR is a very bad thing, and it makes the US less secure because it forces others to catch up technologically.

Can you afford a lawsuit?

Re:The Answer is Yes

[MagusSlurpy]

Whether it is unbelievable propaganda is not the point. The point is that some people in the U.S. government believe the unbelievable propaganda. . .

Re:National Security? Maybe not. Privacy? Maybe.

[tsa]

You use common sense in your arguments. I don't think common sense has anything to do with any gouvernment, so I would be extremely careful and seek legal advice from a lawyer, instead of asking a bunch of geeks on /. what to do. No offence meant.

Coca-Cola Co. is a traitor then too!

[goldspider]

On a hot, tiring day of Jihad, some holy RPG-wielding Islamic terrorist might pick up a tasty Coca-Cola product and indulge in good old-fashioned American refreshment!

So does that mean that Coca-Cola Co. is lending aid and comfort to the enemy??

I think it is a great idea

[Original Cynic]

In reality this is a great idea. Having developed software destined for UAV's I am more than happy to use Open Source applications rather than proprietary solutions. The biggest advantage is the "many eyes" approach to software development. When you develop any flight software you spend many hours pouring through code looking for the hidden bug. Economics say that you can't put the same number of eyes looking at a proprietary solution. Besides, who do you think is less reputable a manager of a private contractor who gets the bonus for delivering early and under budget or a government civil servant who is asked to work overtime to oversee the development effort. Personally, I'd trust the Open Source community because they have a natural distain of poorly written applications.

What? An axis of evil...?

[bogaboga]

The US amazes me. The government in that great land sees Iran as an axis of evil, just because the present ruling "Mullahs" and clerics overthrew the dictator that the US was supporting! Question is...What about Saudi Arabia?

The majority of Bin Laden's lieutenants came from that very oppressive country. The US looks the other way. Once their oil dries up, I am sure the US will pounce on them like a vulture.

Re:What? An axis of evil...?

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually, after the oil dries up there will be no reason to pay attention to them whatsoever.

Yes and no

[Anonymous Coward]

Your government can prevent you from working at the project, but they can't prevent people of others countries to keep developing the software. Once the software is out anybody can pick it up so your efforts won't be wasted. The project won't shut down unless nobody finds it useful. Finally, if you really think that your software can be used against you or your nation, you might want to stop working at it even before the US gov tells you so.

An UAV

[Z00L00K]

can be bought in just about any hobby shop - and it's often a replica of a well-known aircraft. So all R/C enthusiasts are actually operating UAV:s - just with the tweak that the intelligent part remains on the ground...

A smarter device isn't that hard to create today - a GPS, gyro and a small one-chip computer will make things easy. Failure rate may be higher than for the military spec UAV:s but what's missing in precision can be made up by larger numbers.

So all R/C equipment around may also be a security risk.

I'm sure that this is causing dandruff for some security people. Just accept that the worms are out of the can.

And anyway - there are better ways to streak terror in people than with UAV:s. - They are too visible, rather slow and can be spotted before they are about to cause any big trouble.

What about...

[Anonymous Coward]

``My question: is there ever a case for letting national security issues dictate the limits of an open source project?''

One wonders whether the fact that the NSA -- probably the most paranoid of all government entities (except perhaps the Office of the Vice President) -- and their creation of SELinux can be seen as a precedent. I'm betting that SELinux is available outside the U.S. Think of it: I mean, my god, if them furriners were to have rock-solid security in their operating systems, there's no telling what they can do. (Of course, with the NSA being a government entity, they're probably not worried about the government coming after them anyway.)

I definitely recall there being UAV contests held back in the the late '80s/early '90s that were open to most anyone. (Anyone with a lot of money, that is.) I don't recall seeing anything about them being restricted to U.S. citizens. On the other hand, it was a less weird time back then. If they haven't already, it wouldn't surprise me to find that Aviation Week and Space Technology and many IEEE Transactions publications are listed as munitions so the government can prevent those wily evil-doers from figuring out how to wiggle the ailerons of a UAV.

Re:What about...

[Anonymous Coward]

FLASK is NSAs great frame work for secure systems. They introduced LSA to the kernel and SELinux. NSA saw growth in Linux and it's likely they wanted to extend FLASK into it so they may safely use Linux. I wouldn't have any evidence but I am sure they have many degrees of implementation of FLASK on many platforms. The world just gets a damn through implementation on Linux and some stuff on *BSD.

The whole UAV thing is kinda silly. UAVs are almost as old as putting a person in the "AV". If the Iranian was of threat then he would and should be removed but I would put a 50/50 on that one. This is an open event you are probably not doing anything top secret. If there was some potential dangerous exposure going on then say it to someone who can do something about it.

playing by the book

[Cyko_01]

They may be poor but they aren't stupid! They don't play by our rules, it's not as simple as who has the most/best weapons. If they can't afford it then they will steal from the people who do! They can easily recover the remains of a shot down UAV, and turn it against the USA, or steal rocket launchers to shoot down aircraft W.O.M.D. should NOT be open source!

Re:playing by the book

[megaditto]

The greatest weapon of mass destruction is human brain.

OPEN source right?

[Lord Kano]

Isn't that the beauty of open source? Even if the government does shut you down, the source is open and then this Iranian student can fork the project and have it hosted in Iran.

LK

Re:National Security? Maybe not. Privacy? Maybe.

[timmarhy]

So you'd bet 25 years in a pound me in the ass federal prison on that? your mistake is assuming anyone in government will approch the subject with any kind of logic. trust me, all they will see is the words "UAV" and "Iran"

No advantages for either side

[mrjb]

By allowing everyone the same rights, neither side has an advantage over the other- it can be used both for good and evil by either side. Rather than contemplating if said open source does anything for "the enemy", it would make more sense to restrict the use of said open source in war situations. This will help make sure the open source in question is not used for evil by your own people as well.

Of course

[neuromancer23]

The enemies of the American people have been using open source software for years. Here are a few examples:

http://www.netc.org/openoptions/examples/what.html
http://www.computerworld.com/printthis/2005/0,4814 ,100648,00.html

"Give the" a break...

[Jane Q. Public]

Come on! This is the same State Department and ITAR that banned exportation of strong encryption as being "dangerous to National Security". As a result, the US could not compete in the international marketing of effective encryption, while everybody else could.

They really thought that "security through obscurity" was a viable option.

What a crock.

Eventually they were FORCED to see the light... but the problem is, everybody else saw the light right away... not after many years of argument and litigation.

Rather than getting rid of UAVs, we should lobby to get rid of ITAR. Just about everybody would be happier as a result.

Re:"Give the" a break...

[sumdumass]

I wouldn't think that getting rid of ITAR would be a good thing. We had some great programs like MAD (mutually assured destruction) and the cold war because of the lack of ITAR after the second world war.

That right, a lot of the nuclear technology Russia has to get their designs working came from the US. And quit a bit of their missile tech has done the same. Now, this isn't to say that Russia wouldn't have come up with it on their own, but it might taken enough time that as a world we would have been more socially mature and things like the cold war and nuclear proliferation might not be a worry as it is now. Of course I could be wrong, it could just be the same thing 40 years later. But look at where the world was 40 years after WW2.

Re:"Give the" a break...

[jamstar7]

Come on! This is the same State Department and ITAR that banned exportation of strong encryption as being "dangerous to National Security". As a result, the US could not compete in the international marketing of effective encryption, while everybody else could.

Which is why I made it a point to download & compile the International version for my own personal use. I didn't care if the US government thought I was a criminal, I just wanted good strong encryption.

Re:"Give the" a break...

[Mathinker]

> I didn't care if the US government thought I was a criminal

Reality check! Reality check! ITAR regulates exportation only. Importing strong encryption has never been a federal crime.

Not so in all other countries, YMMV, check local regulations....

Re:"Give the" a break...

[mabhatter654]

but say you download a project from a young Finnish lad. Under the ITAR, you can't discuss or upload patches to that SAME writer as it would be "exporting weapons".

Re:"Give the" a break...

[meringuoid]

This is the same State Department and ITAR that banned exportation of strong encryption as being "dangerous to National Security". As a result, the US could not compete in the international marketing of effective encryption, while everybody else could.

Interestingly enough, that kind of behaviour was a common symptom of the decline of the previous world superpower. Who invented computers, the jet engine, public-key encryption? Not Americans. But who made a fortune mass-marketing them, and who sat on them as vital defence secrets?

Re:"Give the" a break...

[Eunuchswear]

I wouldn't think that getting rid of ITAR would be a good thing. We had some great programs like MAD (mutually assured destruction) and the cold war because of the lack of ITAR after the second world war.

What was wrong with MAD? Speaking as a European (aka "target") I thought it worked quite well.

That right, a lot of the nuclear technology Russia has to get their designs working came from the US.

But this is a-historical bullshit - the US wouldn't even share nuke technology with it's allies, never mind the russkies. The froggies & the brits had to develop their own bombs.

Re:"Give the" a break...

[sumdumass]

Well, I was a big fan of MAD. I just used it because a lot of these beading heart liberals despise it. I figured the necessity of it being hinged on the idea of just putting the information out there.

But this is a-historical bullshit - the US wouldn't even share nuke technology with it's allies, never mind the russkies. The froggies & the brits had to develop their own bombs.

We have had a few information leaks form people who thought that giving the technology out was better then having a supreme power. Much of the same arguments that are being made here was the reasoning behind it. Nuclear secretes were being passed to the Russians in other technology which lead up to the cold war. You could argue that the cold war wouldn't have happened to the extent it did if Russia never got nuclear capabilities.

The entire idea is an what if to show that the "no harm done" approach can actually be more harmful then you think. This is why things like ITAR are somewhat of a necessity. Sure they make fucked up decisions but it is to err on the side of not creating another issue like the cold war.

Re:"Give the" a break...

[plague3106]

Um, the cold war started before the war even ended. Using the cold war as a justification for itar is a bit silly in that context.

We have things like the cold war because of human nature, not the techonlogy level we're at.

Re:"Give the" a break...

[sumdumass]

The cold war never would have been like it was if both sides didn't have nukes and the ability to use them. There is/was a lot of things that would have been different leading upto todays times. Most likely Europe living for some time in fear of an attack from the Russians would be one thing that would be different.

It doesn't matter, Russia has used the Tech they got from Americans indirectly and because of some rogue scientist to supply other nations with the tech. The entire middle east would be a different landscape, Vietnam probably wouldn't have happened and so on. There are a lot of things that came out of the cold war that directly influence stuff we are seeing today. If you cannot see that, You probably not looking. ITAR was born out of necessity even if some have used it for profit.

Re:"Give the" a break...

[Jane Q. Public]

Actually Rivest, Shamir, and Adelman came up with "practical" public-key encryption while at MIT, which is an American university. And because they did it largely with public funds, I do not believe they should have been allowed to market it via their own corporation afterward. It should have been made Public Domain.

Re:"Give the" a break...

[meringuoid]

Actually Rivest, Shamir, and Adelman came up with "practical" public-key encryption while at MIT, which is an American university.

They did indeed, but they weren't the first. Public-key encryption was invented at GCHQ, and then kept secret until 1997.

Steve Kurtz

[Laser Lou]

The U.S. federal government does prosecute people for technology that, while harmless, may seem threatening. Please see this about Steve Kurtz, and artist who was charged with bioterrorism for art using "containing harmless forms of bacteria, and scientific equipment for testing genetically altered food." The charges have since been downgraded to mail fraud, but he has been indicted by a grand jury, and faces trial next year.

Wow...

[poptones]

Do you know any other tunes?

You're still not paying attention, are you?

I'm Iranian. Or French. Or Japanese. Or Indian. Or Russian.

Now, let's see you fine me for posting information about my model airplane to a newsgroup.

Re:Wow...

[WhiplashII]

That's why it is such a stupid law. It doesn't prevent the problem, it just prevents the US from being part of the solution.

If you aren't from the US, you should love ITAR - it cripples the US from competing with you.

Can Open Source Give Comfort To the Enemy?

[Anonymous Coward]

Can love bloom in the source code?

Knowledge and the wisdom to use it.

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm an Iranian that migrated to Australia, when I was growing up there to help make ends meet,
I built model aircraft for people wanting to have them but lacking the patience to build them.
Knowing how to build such things doesn't mean you're going to use that knowledge in a negative
way it just means you possess that ability but not necessarily the intent.

I'm sure a lot of you here possess the ability to do a great deal of destruction upon others,
but how many of you really have the intent to do so?

Meanwhile, in Washington

[Anonymous Coward]

"That's the smoking gun we're waiting for! Hurry! Let's give this photo of a weapon of mass destruction with the Iranian flag to our well paid friends at Fox News, then when the public gets fooled enough we declare war to Iran and make piles of cash through stealing resources and reconstruction contracts. Terrists can't win. America will prevail. Gott mit uns.. er.. oops, that was my grandfather, God is with us. etc. etc. ..Karl, where are you when I need a damn speech?"

Only in America...

[Simon Brooke]

I don't suppose you see the irony of this.

If an American kid built a drone, and painted it in the colours of the American flag, you wouldn't think there was anything wrong with that, would you?

And what is all this talk of 'enemies'? Iran is not your enemy. Yes, the republican party try to whip up hysteria about supposed foreign enemies to distract voters from their failures at home - it's something that right wing governments the world over have done since the time of the Romans at least. Iran not only does not threaten America, Iran could not threaten America even if it wanted to.

Even the 'War on Terr'r' is a nonsense. Face it: car drivers in America kill fourteen times as many Americans every year as Al Quaeda have ever killed. Do you have a 'War on Cars'?

This guy has built some cool technology, and he's sharing it with you. He's not taking your technology, he's freely offering you his. Can you use it? Would it be 'unpatriotic' to use it?

Re:Only in America...

[TheRaven64]

Face it: car drivers in America kill fourteen times as many Americans every year as Al Quaeda have ever killed. Do you have a 'War on Cars'?

Well, the Iraq war is driving up petrol prices in the US, so maybe...

Re:Only in America...

[LaughingCoder]

Even the 'War on Terr'r' is a nonsense. Face it: car drivers in America kill fourteen times as many Americans [driveandstayalive.com] every year as Al Quaeda have ever killed. Do you have a 'War on Cars'?

I have heard this one many times here on /. Let me suggest that you return to high school math and study derivatives (you know, trends). In the 70s terrorism killed small numbers of people (think Munich). In the 80s terrorism killed hundreds (think Lockerbie). In 2001 terrorism killed thousands. This is called exponential growth. Car accidents, on the other hand, are killing fewer per capita now than they did 40 years ago because cars are now safer. Somewhere around 45,000 people die in car accidents in the US last year - and that number is not changing much year to year. Based on the geometric increase in terrorism deaths one can easily and comfortably project a crossover where terrorism kills more than cars in 10 years. Heck all it will take is one small nuke or chemical attack in a large city to kill hundreds of thousands. No, we are correct to declare war on terrorism. I have an idea ... maybe we should give terrorists cars hoping they will die in an auto accident.

Re:Only in America...

[ChrisMaple]

"Yes, the republican party try to whip up hysteria about supposed foreign enemies to distract voters from their failures at home - it's something that right wing governments the world over have done since the time of the Romans at least." (Emphasis added)

Nice way to expose your bias. Obviously, no left wing government has ever acted in such a despicable manner.

Re:Only in America...

[ChrisMaple]

Do you have a 'War on Cars'?

Yes: http://www.amazon.com/War-against-Automobiles-B-Br uce-Biggs/dp/0525230084/ref=sr_1_1/103-8730258-391 2622?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1188052340&sr=1-1

Re:Only in America...

[KudyardRipling]

'War on Cars'? Have ye not heard of the California Air Resources Board (CARB)? Clean Air New Jersey? GLOBAL FSCKING WARMING HYSTERIA? Don't tell me that there is no 'War on Cars'!

Meet my Shotgun

[Anonymous Coward]

Should I ever see a UAV over my property it will be introduced to my shotgun. Fucking spying assholes with no sense of privacy.

open source licenses dont exist in the real world

[talledega500]

The fact you you make this an "open source" issue shows that you really have no standing or credibility to even talk about what your posting. Open source licenses dont exist. Posession is 9/10s of the law as it always has been and if you give you stuff away... You have no further right. Anyway nice try at getting attention for yourself by saying OH were open source. Whatever. Its called free, and noone cares about your plight after the download. Grow up loser.

What's "UAV" and what's not?

[Anonymous Coward]

Can somebody briefly explain the definition (as State bodies understand it)?

I mean, I've had a frisbee, and a RC airplane, but I'm not sure those count as Unmanned Aerial Vehicles in this context. Does the flyer need to be self-powered (not a glider)? Remote-controlled (radio/wire/laser)? Self-controlled (Gyro/GPS/AI)?

IOW, if you build your own, at which complexity/functionality do you need to start finding about regulations? And did my RC airplane count after all?

Re:The Answer is Yes

[oergiR]

Iran is more like pre-Reformation Europe--a civilization whose people are growing more advanced, leading to tensions with a medieval theocratic regime.

That summary is over-concise. The 1979 Islamic Revolution was a result of growing unease with the US-backed monarch, installed through the 1953 coup when the elected prime minister didn't want to share the country's oil with the West. Say what you will, but under the Islamic government education improved, with female literacy improving tremendously.

The issues that the Iranian government is known for abroad are not necessarily interesting to normal Iranians. My Iranian friend happened to be there during the British hostage thing. The Iranians saw their government stance merely as a silly show-off. The Iranians I know are unhappy with the low economic growth and high unemployment rates rather than theological tensions.

names

[celle]

Funny how they used to call these clubs and competitions. Now it's open source, get a grip america. Wake up slashdot.

Prior OSS as koff "national security threat"?

[Loligo]

PGP, anyone?

  -l

Iran UAV today IRAN terror weapon tomorrow aftern

[Anonymous Coward]

Iran UAV today IRAN terror weapon tomorrow - tomorrow afternoon

Regulatory Bodies

[mosb1000]

"ITAR is the governing regulation, and the state department decides what ITAR means. And they are not logical about it."

I think you misunderstand the problem. In the US we have multiple branches of government. The laws are written by one branch, and enforced by another. Of course, every person in the government has their own political agenda. This means that when an agency is looking at enforcing a law, they don't ask "what did the writers of this law intend" instead they ask "how can this law be used to further my agenda". I am not being cynical, I don't think there's necessarily anything wrong with things working this way. Indeed, if enforcement agencies always set about enforcing the spirit of the law, it would give legislators far too much power.

I think you'll find that regulatory agencies' interpretation of the law makes a lot more sense when you consider the agencies' basic goals.

Re:Regulatory Bodies

[Antique Geekmeister]

You do realize that ITAR is not a law, it's a regulation? It was not written by Congress, but rather set by the State Department itself, and that therefore both its purpose and its implementation are thus set by the executive branch? This helps keep the legislature out of it, since they didn't write it. It also means that the judiciary would need to stop it, and when they've interfered with such regulations in the past, the regulation has been simply transferred to another executive department andn it starts all over. (Look up the history of regulations in exporting encryption technologies: the executive department *does not want* and does all in its power to subvert any widespread encryption technologies that they cannot tap at whim.)

Iranian, the modern Nazism?

[zukinux]

Well.. I guess I will have to be clear on that one, Iranian mustn't have any nuke or long way rockets
Israel doesn't even declare they got/don't got any nukes and they don't intend to use what they got (or not), because Israel doesn't look to use their nukes unlike Iran, which currently doesn't got any Nukes and actually their president said that They will use their nuke A.S.A.P to wipe Israel out of the map
Also, in-favor of Israel, Israel doesn't support terrorism unlike Iran, which actually want to do what the Nazi's had tried to do in WW2.
So if you ask me, which country out of both should hold a nuke, that would be Israel for sure, they actually keep the whole middle east calmed with the thought they might have nukes, keep it that way Israel.

Re:Iranian, the modern Nazism?

[Anonymous Coward]

Oh please. It's easy to say you wont use any nukes when you are the only person in the neighbourhood that has them, AND you are backed by the last remaining world military superpower.

I think it's only fair that there should be a balance of power in the middle-east, and the idea that iran would just start nuking israel as soon as it had the capability is nonsense. Anyone in power saying otherwise is just posturing.

Remember everyone said that Pakistan and India were going to blow each other to hell when they both developed nukes. Afterall, they realy hate each other too! But whoops, both are still around; Just a bunch of fear-mongering. Imagine that.

Don't Ask Slashdot, ask ICE

[pcaylor]

Instead of asking a bunch of Slashdotters what they think the government might say, why not ask the Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency themselves. ICE and the Department of State have joint jurisdiction over ITAR. I've never been able to figure out who handles what, but I'd recommend starting with ICE. You can call them at 1-866-DHS-2-ICE. (Yes, this may be the first time in Slashdot history that someone has recommended calling DHS not as a joke.)

ICE has a program called Project Shield America that is designed for exactly this type of thing. Their goal is to try to educate industry about what can and can't be exported.
http://www.ice.gov/pi/news/factsheets/shield071204 .htm

Lastly, IANAIA (I am not an ICE agent) but I suspect their answer is probably going to be that exporting UAV technology to Iran is a no-no. I'm sure it depends on exactly what you are doing, but from a quick googling, it looks like a lot of UAV related technology is restricted.

Why is it that I feel like I'm about to get modded back into the Stone Age?

Govt Employees Are Lizards Too!

[Anonymous Coward]

It isn't about national security - it's about the opportunity you're presenting to a certain type of government employee. The US DEA is currently kicking its way into legitimate pain management clinics run by qualified MDs for terminally ill patients. They go in guns drawn, toss the 90 year old terminal cancer victims out of their wheelchairs and onto the floor (complete with drips), and handcuff their hands behind them. This is because they apply some language intended for the criminal context in the medical one, and so have a really good way of getting their quotas without meeting any criminals. It just requires a total self-centredness and disregard for the truth or common decency - and an Executive that plays the same game. Since you can be stripped of all rights at whim, I wouldn't even have made the Slashdot posting in your shoes.

25 years?

[commodoresloat]

That is, if you care about spending the next 25 years in federal prison. But these prisons you speak of, they allow conjugal visits there, right?

Re:25 years?

[Anonymous Coward]

"But these prisons you speak of, they allow conjugal visits there, right?"

Sure, you can have sex every night, as long as you don't mind having it with big, hairy guys without proper lube (kind of like boyscouts really).

Insightful?

[commodoresloat]

Let me get this straight ... your point is, whitey is gonna lose to the terrorists no matter what, so his best bet is to jump on a fucking space ship and colonize some distant galaxy?

How about giving comfort to humanity?

[CopaceticOpus]

The Iranian who is making his own UAV is a 17 year old blogger / tech geek. If we openly share with him and help him, we're building bridges. If we cut him out just because of his nationality we're going to have one pissed off guy with a good reason for ill will towards the US.

When people across national borders can grow up knowing each other and interacting over the internet, there's a good chance that they'll have more common sense and open minds to apply towards international politics down the road. It's not the final solution to world peace but it's certainly a good step in the right direction.

national security vs open source

[Anonymous Coward]

"is there ever a case for letting national security issues dictate the limits of an open source project?"

Look into the history of open source cryptography.

When did Israel use its nukes?

[bstarrfield]

Israel is the nuclear armed agressor in the Middle East. Israel's had nuclear weapons for 50 years, and has never used them against its neighbors, even when those neighbors were actively attacking the country. What were the Iraqi's in the early 1980's planning to do with their reactor? What is the point of the Iranian facility built under a mountain? Research? How incredibly naive you must be. If you're an Israeli civilian, what would you make of the Iranian government's support of Hezbollah? What of their leadership's pronouncements that Israel would be "wiped off the map"? It's all evil Zionist propaganda, isn't it?

Re:When did Israel use its nukes?

[Lars T.]

Israel's had nuclear weapons for 50 years Whoa, slowly, that could get you thrown into an Israeli jail, saying that.

Patent is No Protection

[Anna Merikin]

against the government; all patent applications are screened to see if there is a national secutrity interest involoved. If the gov. decides there is, there is no application published, and the idea/device becomes property of the governent for as long as they deem appropriate.

They seem to have all the bases covered.

Open Source is international

[b4upoo]

America can only control Americans.Open Source is world wide and will continue without regard to anything Washington can dream up. And as far as messing with Americans most people in the Linux community know how to shield their transmissions from would be intruders anyway. And the underside of the issue is that we might actually receive better code than we write from foreign sources. Who is to say where the next remote control genius pops up. The best code may not always be written in Kansas. It might come from Austria, Poland or even a hut in Iran.

The U.S. government interferes with Arab politics.

[Futurepower(R)]

"Most American citizens are fully aware about government corruption."

Probably all your friends and family are educated. But most people in the U.S. aren't like you. For most people in the U.S., TV is their only education about how the world works.

"I have been in Saudi Arabia and when I came back I kissed the US floor."

That is EXACTLY the reason for the problem. Even some Saudis from rich families believe that there needs to be political change in Saudi Arabia.

Oil company investors like Cheney and Bush and their associates use taxpayer money to assure profits for their investments. In exchange for using U.S. military money to assure the dictatorship of the family of al Saud, the Saudi government cooperates with Cheney and Bush corruption goals. When George W. Bush holds hands with people like "Prince" Bandar and other Saudis, people like Osama bin Laden believe that is evidence of a loss of sovereignty and, effectively, a declaration war.

In no way do I accept any kind of violence. However, some people are drawn into the way the U.S. government does things, and believe that, if the U.S. government kills Arabs, then Arabs should kill people in the United States. In my view, that is exactly as stupid as the interference of the U.S. government with Arab countries, and the violence of the U.S. government towards Arabs. I don't see one as better than the other; they are both destructive.

war of terror

[Anonymous Coward]

...I congratulate Preyziedent Boush on his "War of Terror".

I'd want regulation if these existed...

[FingerSoup]

Open source Nuclear Reactor Open Source assault Rifle (No it doesn't have software, but if you open the spec/blueprints....) Open Source Assault Vehicle Open source Wiretapping software for phones Open source spamming/junk mail circumvention software (Nobody LIKES spam) Basically6 anything that might pose a danger to society by the nature of the project itself. Anything the general public should not have based off of other laws, Should, not be allowed to be made. Most of these devices have serious regulatory concerns outside their open sourced-ness, and thus should be regulated. However, depending on the nature of the unmanned aircraft, I think it should be safe to leave an open spec. Just as long as it's not designed to takeover manned aircraft (disable them, whatever), or have them packed with explosives to drive them into buildings..... if the bad part is in the SPEC, then the project should be axed out of existence by EXISTING regulations... Of course regular autonomous planes for aerial photos are OK. Provided distance laws are upkept (must fly above XXXX ft) are kept when flying - Also helps keep things private. These planes obviously shouldn't be for spying through my bedroom window. :)

Yeah, I tend to agree

[WindBourne]

I think that as we approach closer to the election, we will see more incidents with Iran. Sadly, once the election passes is when a major incident will occur that will "require" our sending rockets, bombs, etc.

They didn't threaten to wipe out Israel.

[Colin Smith]

Huh? Aggressor? Last I checked, it wasn't Israel who was swearing to wipe out other countries, Um. That would be a (deliberate?) mistranslation of what the bloke said.

http://commentisfree.guardian.co.uk/jonathan_steel e/2006/06/post_155.html.printer.friendly

Sounds like regime change to me. Sounds like Bush in fact.

He didn't call for the elimination of israel...

[Colin Smith]

It would be nice, however, if Ahmadinejad didn't periodically call for the elimination of Israel. He called for regime change...

http://commentisfree.guardian.co.uk/jonathan_steel e/2006/06/post_155.html.printer.friendly

Of course it's handy to paint the guy as more insane than he really is. It makes invasion much more supportable.

Re:He didn't call for the elimination of israel...

[modecx]

Our dear Imam (referring to Ayatollah Khomeini) said that the occupying regime must be wiped off the map and this was a very wise statement. We cannot compromise over the issue of Palestine. Is it possible to create a new front in the heart of an old front. This would be a defeat and whoever accepts the legitimacy of this regime has in fact, signed the defeat of the Islamic world. Our dear Imam targeted the heart of the world oppressor in his struggle, meaning the occupying regime. I have no doubt that the new wave that has started in Palestine, and we witness it in the Islamic world too, will eliminate this disgraceful stain from the Islamic world. But we must be aware of tricks.

Now, I realize that "wiped off the map" could have possibly been misinterpreted (like he and the Iranian government says, maybe he meant he wished the leadership would go away or something) as it was translated into English, but I don't believe it, especially because of the fact that he also thinks the holocaust is a myth invented by the Jews so everyone else would feel bad for them, and then steal territory from the Arabs to give to the Jews, so they could make a country out of it., as well as his other anti-Israel one liners and full blown rants.

Now, do I think he's insane? Not really. I think he's crazy--like a fox. He's an expert manipulator, rhetorically and otherwise. That is also my opinion of Senior Bush, but I think dubya is much a better actor; it really does take a reasonably intelligent person to act like a fool, and pull it off--he's dumb, like a fox in other words. Anyway, have you ever watched Ahmadinejad's speeches and interviews? My knowledge of Farsi is pretty weak, but it's very clear that he picks and choses his words very carefully, and very deliberately. He's one of those guys who can say one thing very precisely, and yet have it mean something else entirely.

Do I think he's likely to engage any country, if and when they get their nuclear program running? No. Ahmadinejad is too smart for that. He knows he has a snowball's chance of hell in any conflict with a Western coalition, and that's exactly what a first party action against Israel would turn into, and quickly. Nukes, however, are a great bargaining chip. If anything, I see North Korea as a greater threat to world wide stability.

Linguist who speaks on everything

[bstarrfield]

Chomsky is a capable linguist, and obviously a passionate man. But why do we qualify him as an expert on the Middle East? What unique insights does he have?

Re:Linguist who speaks on everything

[GPL Apostate]

Chomsky backed the Pol Pot regime earlier, and for a longer period of time, than just about any other Western intellectual. That alone makes him a brilliant thinker.

Re:Linguist who speaks on everything

[Lars T.]

Chomsky backed the Pol Pot regime earlier, and for a longer period of time, than just about any other Western intellectual. That alone makes him a brilliant thinker.
And US government did it even longer. They must be smarter than him.

Re:Linguist who speaks on everything

[GPL Apostate]

It's amusing to see somebody like you acknowledge the equivalence of a Chomskyite position with a US Government position. You can turn in your secret Chomskyite decoder ring at the door as you leave.

Them were confusing times. All the 'Support the NLF' loonies splintered into a whole bunch of factions when China invaded Vietnam after Vietnam invaded Cambodia. Maoists and various weird factions scattered all over the spectrum, trying to figure out what 'the line' was.

Re:Linguist who speaks on everything

[Lars T.]

It's amusing to see somebody like you acknowledge the equivalence of a Chomskyite position with a US Government position. You can turn in your secret Chomskyite decoder ring at the door as you leave.

Them were confusing times. All the 'Support the NLF' loonies splintered into a whole bunch of factions when China invaded Vietnam after Vietnam invaded Cambodia. Maoists and various weird factions scattered all over the spectrum, trying to figure out what 'the line' was.
And again another [bleep] doesn't understand what I am saying. The American Government supported Pol Pot before he came to power, while he was in power, and after he was kicked out of power, because he was anti-VC. The "support" Chomsky gave was saying the Pol Pot probably didn't kill as many people as others claimed, because (among other things) those numbers counted the victims of American bombings of Cambodia as victims of the Khmer Rouge. You can stuff your "Conservative America never does wrong" attitude where the sun doesn't shine.

You Americans will be the death of Americans

[theolein]

You know what completely utterlyblows my mind? It is that you Americans seem so utterly incapable of learning from your own history and mistakes. Even Bush, who has spent the past 4 years denying that Iraq was another Vietnam finally admitted it last week, in a fit of desperation to try avoiding what has become pretty obvious to every one else: Iraq is lost. The only way of preventing total genocide in Iraq is divinding the country into 3 and trying to pacify the Turks into not invading Kurdistan. The lesson form Vietnam: You cannot win a guerilla war if the population does not support you. You can of course just kill everyone, but it'll be hard pissing on the Russians, Chinese and Indians about their human rights when you're busy doing a little genocide yourself.

What does this have to do with Iran? Your CIA and the British MI6 engineered a coup in 1955 overthrowing the elected Iranian government with the Shah, who was widley hated and despised. In 1978 the Iranians revolted and threw him out and let Khomeini back in. Then, in 1979 a bunch of Iranian students held a bunch of Americans hostage at the US embasssy in Teheran for some 400 days. The US messed up a rescue attempt and has been trying to topple the Iranian governemnt ever since, firstly by funding Saddam's WMD programmes and then by encouraging him to invade Iran in 1980. In that bloody mess of a war, some 600,000 Iranians died fighting, literaly, for their country (unlike the invasion and following war in Iraq which was no threat to the US). Saddam used US sponsored and condoned nerve gas on Iranian soliders (and his own people). The US covertly sold F-14 parts to the Iranians in order to fund the murderous Contra counterrevolutionaries in Nicaragua, thereby making Yet Another Unneeded Enemy(TM).

During the Iran-Iraq war the US Navy shot down an Iranian civillian airliner. The US refused to apologise for the deaths of some 290 civillians and has never done so. Most Iranians, even the liberal student types that your own right wing conservatives would be calling traitors if they were American, think that the US is responsible for most of the bloodshed that has befallen Iran in the last 50 years or so.

Now, Iran, after decades of verbal abuse (and its own batshit crazy governments, but I'll get to that soonish) and sanctions saw the invasion of Iraq and assumed that Bush and his cabal of lunatics would be crazy enough to do that to Iran too. So they started developing nuclear weapons, because the US despite its constant posturing, is really shit scared of anyone with the same weapons that it has (see North Korea for an example). The US has been screaming about the threat to Israel^America, etc etc etc ever since and making claims about starting a war, making attacks etc. The Iranian government is batshit crazy and unpopular inside Iran, and young people long for more freedom. Your governments constant provocation has pretty successfully suffocated any possibility of that happening.

Congratulations, you've made Yet Another Unneeded Enemy(TM). You have successfully provoked the Iranians into hating the very breaths you take, so that you, you dumbass fucking moron article author, can make claims about aiding the enemy. Fantastic.

P.S. Remember the Nicaraguans, the other Unneeded Enemy. Recently they had an election and one of the people running was a Guy called Ortega, who ran the country while the US tried with a very dirty and bloody war to topple him in the 80s. The US sent a number of threats down there openly telling the Nicaraguans not to vote for Ortega. The Nicraguans told you to get fucked and voted for him anyway. See the pattern? The US has done this with Russia (the bonehead Orange revolution in the Ukraine which has since turned out to be an utter farce, putting missiles up against the Russian border), China (economic threats, currency threats, warnings about the Chinese military ad nauseam) and others. You managed to piss the Russians off so badly, that they have recently restarted long range bomber patrols to test th

Re:You Americans will be the death of Americans

[MLease]

Just one thing. Please don't assume we Americans are a monolithic block of people who all think the same way. This country is deeply divided politically, and there are many millions of us who strenuously disagree with what our government has done and is doing in other countries. Unfortunately, there are way too many of us who vote for people based on image rather than substance; I've read that many Bush supporters actually disagree with him on major issues (one person in Wisconsin was quoted as saying that she voted for Bush because he was in favor of stem-cell research, though he has actually thrown up many roadblocks against it).

-Mike

Do what your lawyer says and nothing more

[davidwr]

Ask your lawyer what the minimum you have to do in order to keep yourself, your project, and contributors out of trouble.

Then follow his advice.

commoditization

[Anonymous Coward]

Welcome to the commoditization of technology.

First off, what makes you think they can't build one of these themselves? How many years have R/C airplanes and helicopters been around? Just because you prevent them from buying your kit doesn't stop them from building their own in the Iranian (or whomever's) equivalent of a garage.

Second, what makes UAVs any different than radios, computers (and networks), cell phones, GPS, nuclear weapons, cryptography, spy satellites, etc.?

Just because the (US) military technology has a lock on a particular doesn't mean it will remain so forever. Things change and everyone has to learn to adapt.

Todays Friends

[nurb432]

Are tomorrows enemies. And vice-versa.

And sure, open-source can be used by the enemy. Much as stolen closed source ( be it software, or weapons manufacturing technology ) can be.

WRONG

[Anonymous Coward]

My instinct is that we should welcome everyone, everywhere....

Your instinct is wrong. Open Source isn't a way of life any more than Microsoft Excel is, but free people are free to choose who they hang with. If your fellow hobbyists are people who would like to see your government collapse in favor of a caliphate to run your life and your neighbors get blown up, it reflects upon you. If they harbor these intentions, and yet make appeals to egalitarianism, that's called deceit. It is what it is, even if the deceiver believes what he is doing is right. The think about deceit is that the victims of it are the people who are good at deceiving themselves. You might even be slightly familiar with that concept if you've thought up until now that Bill Gates is the devil incarnate and that everyone else in the world is pretty much hunky dory, but life isn't quite like that. You wouldn't be so trusting if you didn't live in a free country, but sometimes even free men have to watch their backs.
P.S. Can you read the little inscription on the left wing tip? I can't.

Re:The Answer is Yes

[gregorio]

Here is the country, and the people, that you smear as "enemy".

OMG! Roads and cars! That sure proves the country leadership and political powers are well intentioned!

It has nothing to do with race

[Anonymous Coward]

Why would you assume it is about race?

It is about cultures.

No one said anything about terrorists either.

You have been properly modded as a Troll.

Re:It has nothing to do with race

[megaditto]

Why would you assume[...]

No one said anything about

Perhaps GP can use his brain and see GGP post for what it is?

hmmm

[Vexorian]

When I read the title I really thought this was about MS submitting licenses to OSI, turns out it was a pseudo-patriotic, crazy FUD. Heck, OS gives confort to your military anyways, why shouldn't other countries do that?

Thanks for the talking points, Eisenhower

[rhizome]

And wartime tends to necessitate the suspension of certain freedoms.

Those are the freedoms the military is fighting to protect, right?

Re:Thanks for the talking points, Eisenhower

[gujo-odori]

Yes, they are, but there's no real conflict there. You're more likely to fail in that goal by allowing everything during war time that you allow during peace time, thus the best way to protect those freedoms in the long term is to limit them in the short term.

The fact that we seem to have a tax on practically everything, and a standing law against everything that isn't taxed, is a far greater threat to our freedom than things such as temporary suspension of habeas corpus during time of war, yet I see far less outcry against that from either the left (who is all about big government and big taxation) or the right (who more and more resembles the left on this issue). The only ones who seem to have it straight are the Libertarians. There are a raft of issues on which I might disagree with them, but they certainly have their heads on straight regarding taxation and economic issues.

Re:The Answer is Yes

[ChrisMaple]

Iran's financial and political problems are inseparable from its "theological tensions". A rational government, if it could be free of Islamist intimidation, would do Iran immense good.

Flashback: "Iraqi Drones May Target U.S. Cities"

[dircha]

I have only one thing to say to all you naysayers and administration fanbois: Oh how easily we forget.

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,79450,00.html

Fox News
February 24th, 2003
Iraqi Drones May Target U.S. Cities

WASHINGTON -- Iraq could be planning a chemical or biological attack on American cities through the use of remote-controlled "drone" planes equipped with GPS tracking maps, according to U.S. intelligence.

The information about Iraq's unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) program has caused a "real concern" among defense personnel, senior U.S. officials tell Fox News. They're worried that these vehicles have already been, or could be, transported inside the United States to be used in an attack, although there is no proof that this has happened.

Secretary of State Colin Powell showed a picture of a small drone plane during his presentation to the U.N. Security Council earlier this month.

"UAVs outfitted with spray tanks constitute an ideal method for launching a terrorist attack using biological weapons," Powell said during his speech. "Iraq could use these small UAVs, which have a wingspan of only a few meters, to deliver biological agents to its neighbors or, if transported, to other countries, including the United States.

[...]

Fool me once once, shame on me, fool me twice, sham... WILL NOT BE FOOLED AGAIN.

Overgrown RC Airplane

[apfistler]

Excuse my ignornce, but isn't a UAV essentally a slighty oversized RC airplane that's controlled by a computer and has a camera. Sure sounds scary to me. Ban RC planes and helicopters (these helicopters are too damn hard to control).

Re:Flashback: "Iraqi Drones May Target U.S. Cities

[dircha]

"They're worried that these vehicles have already been, or could be, transported inside the United States to be used in an attack, although there is no proof that this has happened."

And note how the Fox News article concedes in the first full paragraph that there is no proof whatsoever that this is happening, but then goes on for another eighteen paragraphs quoting administration sources telling us how deadly afraid we should be of this impending attack.

Stories about the unmanned drones were all over; this wasn't just Fox News.

And I'll remind you, when we got over there we found what we should have known all along: there was no weaponization of unmanned drones whatsoever, certainly not WMDs, they were primitive short range, essentially big model airplanes.

And we also found out in the aftermath that the Air Force analysts had been telling us all long that these unmanned vehicles posed no threat to us or Iraq's neighbors.

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2003/08/28/iraq/mai n570588.shtml

NEVER AGAIN

The only way you can be sure is to register and vote in the primaries NOW for a candidate who has stood up against the war from the start, and rejects warmongering and militarism in all its forms. That isn't Hillary. That isn't Giuliani. That isn't Obama. That isn't Romney or McCain or Thompson. But if you don't act now, two of those will be your only choices.

Oh, that's easy to fix.

[edunbar93]

All you have to do is what the people at OpenBSD, OpenSSH, and a number of other encryption-based OSS projects have done. Just put a disclaimer at the top of the license agreement that says "You are not allowed to download, or export this product to $CountriesTheUSHates."

That will please the government and cover your ass. It will also ensure that noone in $CountriesTheUSHates will download the software. Really. It will.

Beware The Enemy Within

[presidenteloco]

George Bush and Dick Cheney are your enemies.

Not some 17 year old kid from Tehran.

Aren't George and Dick the ones turning you (at least some of your compatriots)
into paranoid, belligerent, might I say racist, morons.

Just know that if the U.S. declares unilateral war on Iran, the US will have
officially jumped the shark, and deserves whatever it gets, whether merely
merciless mockery, or more.

And no, I have no affiliation with Iranians except that they are people,
like I am, and you are. Shake yourselves out of your propaganda sleepwalk,
American zombies.

UAVs ARE scary things

[tm2b]

Here's the thing: if you're a pilot, UAVs are scary things.

We're already trained to look for birds, which are bad enough bad at least have the courtesy to move in a way that attracts the eye naturally. But UAVs are very hard to see and do not talk on the radio to let other aircraft know where they are ("I see you about 2 miles off my wing"). They can't even look around to see what other VFR aircraft (who are not required to carry anything more complex than eyeballs to avoid collisions) they might be nearing and steer clear.

Outside of controlled airspaces, these things are deathtraps waiting to happen unless very clear rules govern their deployment, just as there are rules for other moving hazards like sykdivers ("sykdivers in the air from x-thousand feet in the area imediately south of mumblefrotz airfield, traffic steer clear"). Too many, and they're be the only things in the sky. Too few, and there won't be enough general awareness of their use in VFR airspaces.

Re:Iran UAV today IRAN terror weapon tomorrow afte

[Original Replica]

Normally I wouldn't want to feed a troll, but you have replied with the exact same answer I would expect from the Pentagon. Part of standard terrorism tactics is turning everyday things like airplanes or remote control cars or little old ladies, into weapons. The denial of technologies to the whole culture will only fuel terrorist sympathies. What needs to be confronted is the source of the tension, fanaticism combined with polygamy. Large portions of your terrorist producing cultures are young men that have no hope of ever having a wife because they are not rich/powerful/status enough, and so cannot negotiate with the bride's parents. Combine this with religious leaders who promise an afterlife with a whole harem if you manage to martyr yourself and you get people who will do any and everything to achieve the task assigned to you by the fanatical religious leader.
Technology isn't going to change the problem, culture is. If through international projects/interaction/communication we can take the edge off a culture with some dangerous imbalances then we are helping to solve the problem.

Move the project offshore

[PPH]

If the DoD tries to restrict the technology, it will just move offshore in order to maintain access to (legitimate) foreign markets. Practically every defense contractor has an exemption from domestic content regulations. They can resell the (inexpensive Chinese?) equipment to Pentagon customers with the requisite price markup as domestic product.

If the current manufacturer won't move offshore, competing products will be developed overseas. With access to larger global markets, they will drive out the domestic product. Then you're back to the first scenario, with defense contractors reselling relabeled foreign technology.

Yah, I'd say there is but you're missing the point

[eeyoredragon]

It's not about averting disaster. No one really cares about that after a point. What they want is a human to blame it on so everyone can feel better afterwards.

no more so than Radio Shack

[Fujisawa Sensei]

Its no more of a threat than Radio Shack or Home Depot.

Re:no more so than Radio Shack

[DigitalSorceress]

Don't forget Agway (farm supplies), Digikey (far better electronics and gadgets than Radio shack), MCM Electronics (Ditto), RC Warehouse (Radio Control stuff), etc...

All sorts of places to get off-the-shelf technology and/or parts to build your own. Just about any tool or technology can be used for good or evil. I'd be concerned if someone was asking questions about weapons delivery or other issues where the intent was fairly clear, but even then, do you respond by clamming up, thus indirectly telling them of your suspicions, (and greatly increasing the chances that they will work to avoid attention), or do you maybe notify the authorities so they can use the situation to their advantage?

Re:no more so than Radio Shack

[Fujisawa Sensei]

Actually after I posted the previous comment I realized: OSS is actually less useful that above stores. Software doesn't do anything, it just sits there on a disk waiting for compatible hardware.

All sorts of places to get off-the-shelf technology and/or parts to build your own. Just about any tool or technology can be used for good or evil. I'd be concerned if someone was asking questions about weapons delivery or other issues where the intent was fairly clear, but even then, do you respond by clamming up, thus indirectly telling them of your suspicions, (and greatly increasing the chances that they will work to avoid attention), or do you maybe notify the authorities so they can use the situation to their advantage?

In general I would assume the person asking questions about weapons is somewhere between the ages of 12 and 16 and just ignore them. But there are a few things that would tip me off that the person is trouble and those would get them reported pretty quickly.

Re:no more so than Radio Shack

[DigitalSorceress]

Of course, trying to keep information secret is a loosing battle. Look at how quickly DRM gets cracked; how no matter what protections get put in place, pirate copies of software and movies are on the streets sometimes before official releases; how strong, open-source encryption went 'round the world despite the US's attempts to stop it; how anyone with the least bit of curiosity knows the very high-level theory of how to make a Uranium gun-type nuke (thankfully, refining enough U235 is rather beyond most country's skills, let alone individuals).

You can never get the djin back in the bottle.

Take a page from business

[Anonymous Coward]

From the perspective of the open source community, the bottom line is the project's goals.
Therefore rather than embark on a political campaign on behalf of the young Iranian, keep your priority on the project.
Do as a business would and cover your asse(t)s by requesting a proper course of action from an appropriate government agency or consult a lawyer and simply allow his participation until you are told that you are breaking the law.

If something comes up and you begin to suspect that the person is attempting to acquire technology on behalf of a shadow figure, then document it and submit the information to the appropriate government agency.

At this point it seems like you're stuck without the crucial information required to make that kind of judgement call, so don't attempt to render judgement pro or contra. Simply continue to allow the person to contribute as just another member of your community.

It is best to keep your project out of the political crosshairs if you would like it to continue existing by taking a passive stance on the issue until a course of action has been officially mandated by a government agency.

While we're on the topic, it's not business(es) that are the problem (read lefties); it's political partisanship in business (read righties). Lobbying is looking out for a business' needs, partisanship is doing the bidding of a political group which has nothing to do with or despite a business' needs.

Wisdom comes to those who listen, not those who hear.

ASA

The predicted Open Source == Terrism Attack

[twitter]

Actions of supplying Iran, Cuba, Syria, North Korea and the other countries on the weapon export list with the technology or know how to build weapons can result in jail time.

You forgot China because it undermines the premise.

There is nothing on a UAV list the "bad guys" don't already have. Violations come when big dumb companies like Boeing provide countries with technology that improves the accuracy of ICBMs in a real way. Something that can be thought up by a few people in their garages is something you should assume the enemy already has.

This kind of bullshit was predicted three years ago:

I also expect a serious effort, backed by several billion dollars in bribe money (oops, excuse me, campaign contributions), to get open-source software outlawed on some kind of theory that it aids terrorists.

First note that this is not an Open Source problem. Lists that work with commercial software and hardware have the same set of concerns.

Nor is it a problem of lists. There's no reason to keep a person off a list. If this were true, it would be easy to DoS every list in existence by creating "Iranian" or "North Korean" sock puppets. It's what you put on the list that you have to be careful with and you should really expect information you share to go where you don't want it to. Each individual contributor has to be careful with what they put up.

Being cavalier and saying he shouldn't worry about it till they shut him down is encouraging him to gamble with his freedom.

A country where people can't get together and talk about their toys is a country that has abandoned its freedom.

To answer your question: Yes

[HiThere]

Linus, e.g., allows people to enter patches into his tree only if he feels like it. There's no stated rationale. He uses his judgment.

So, as stated, projects can limit their membership for whim, reasons of convenience, or any other reason they feel like.

What's sensitive is closing the code. That's dependent upon the license...AND upon the copyright ownership.

Without investigating your project or license I'd propose this:
1) He can't be a member of your project, but he can submit code patches
2) You recommend that he start his own local project, and you have a license that allows code to be shared. Between the two. (GPL3?)
3) Have a friendly mailing list that has an open subscription policy...but only subscribers can post. (And subscriptions can be revoked ... though cause should be stated. E.g., "No spamming policy violated.")

Seriously consider having shared copyright ownership and a "version 3 or later" clause in the license. Possibly something to allow a 2/3 majority of the copyright holders to vote for a license change? That gets tricky, though. Legal morass. KISS.

Possibly have multiple projects as the copyright owners. May make it easier to track down who needs to approve license changes. License changes should be possible, but quite difficult. The question is "Just how difficult?"

Just for an example: Suppose that the project develops a flying autonomous vehicle. Autonomous means that it makes it's own decisions as to how to act. I.e., intelligent. (Well, not this year, probably.) Clearly is should own itself, unless you think that slavery is proper. Shouldn't it? If not, why not? To what extent? Current licenses don't cover this situation at all, but it could become quite important. It could make the difference between robots working with us and a robot rebellion. (Yes, I know it all depends on the code. I can't show you the code because it hasn't been written. Yet.)

Re:Iran UAV today IRAN terror weapon tomorrow afte

[Anonymous Coward]

Iran UAV today IRAN terror weapon tomorrow - tomorrow afternoon ...exact same answer I would expect from the Pentagon. I think someone from the Pentagon would have been able to express a more complete thought... if only slightly;-)

The denial of technologies to the whole culture will only fuel terrorist sympathies. Yes, we should be afraid not to hand over all the technology we can! If we hold anything back we _deserve_ to be attacked.[/sarcasm]

While I agree it is best for society as a whole to be open with all information that's not realistic right now and may never be.
Your observations on youth and religion are good but not likely the only cause of problems in that area. You can't always help those who don't want it.

Bahais in Israel and in Iran

[kotku]

The Bahai religion is a relative newcomer on the world scene which originated in Iran / Persia within the last two hundred years. As religions go it is one of the most sensible around. They don't pick fights with others, they don't don't go around converting people, threatening them with fire and brimstone. They are are fairly ecumenical and respectful of other faiths and some of their core tenets favor reason over dogma. ( I am not Bahai but have had the pleasure of meeting some of them )

Anyway you would have to ask yourself why the world centre of Bahai is not in Iran with it's aforementioned 'Declaration of Human Rights' but in Israel. The Bahai's were in Israel/Palestine long before the founding of Israel. The founder was driven away there by the Sultan of Turkey in a bit of ethnic cleansing. A pure interpretation if Islam states that all forbearing religions are sacred. However that is not considered true about new ones which are considered heretical. This belief is not really unique to Islam but the Iranians pursue it with great zeal and so being in a Bahai in Iran is risky business.

http://www.bahai.com/thebahais/pg59.htm

Throughout the past century, the Bahá'ís of Iran have been persecuted. With the triumph of the Islamic revolution in 1979, this persecution has been systematized. More than 200 Bahá'ís have been executed or killed, hundreds more have been imprisoned, and tens of thousands have been deprived of jobs, pensions, businesses, and educational opportunities. All national Bahá'í administrative structures have been banned by the Government, and holy places, shrines and cemeteries have been confiscated, vandalized, or destroyed.

The 350,000-member Bahá'í community comprises the largest religious minority in that country, and Bahá'ís have been oppressed solely because of religious hatred. Islamic fundamentalists in Iran and elsewhere have long viewed the Bahá'í Faith as a threat to Islam and have branded the Bahá'ís as heretics. The progressive stands of the Faith on women's rights, independent investigation of truth, and education have particularly rankled Muslim clerics.

The Iranians don't really care about human rights and the misery of the Palestinians and they don't have any real moral position to argue against the behavior of the Israelis. Ahmadinajad cannot stand up and cry for the rights of Palestinians whilst Bahais in Iran exist much as Jews did in Germany before 1935. http://news.bahai.org/story/570. No jobs, No university education. Forced faith conversion. Risk of violence, imprisonment and death just for practicing their religion.

Also as an aside: from my speaking to Bahai's they do not seem to have reported any persecution in Israel at the Hands of the Jews. Just to check I tried Googling for this topic but didn't come up with anything. An interesting point for thought and contrast.

K

Re:Bahais in Israel and in Iran

[Jeremiah Cornelius]

I don't defend the position of moslems in their persecution of Baha'i - who they regard as a deviant sect. This is a poor perception.

Of course Israel has no argument with the Baha'i! Baha'uddin selected Haifa in Palestine as his holy site, and the location of his shrine, after being rejected elsewhere. This legitimises "holy land" claims for the region. Baha'is have brought with them hundreds of millions of dollars. If they were penniless, you'd see them as summarily rejected as are the christian and jewish refugees from Ethiopia and Darfur.

Re:Bahais in Israel and in Iran

[kotku]

JC : It is unbelievable propaganda to equate Iran to Nazi Germany.

and then

JC : I don't defend the position of moslems in their persecution of Baha'i - who they regard as a deviant sect. This is a poor perception.

It seems here that the propoganda is believable.

But you suggest that Israel should abandon itself to an Islamic majority which would involve the certain persecution and extinction of two minority religions in the middle east. It is unlikely to happen. My only point is really that I don't take too seriously anybody who takes a one sided view of the Middle east problems. All peoples there have legitimate grievances however most of the loud voices from both sides are complete hypocrites and it is easy to show that. Most people I have come across who stake an opinion in the Israeli / Arab conflict take up the cause as an image accessory, much like those who wear Che Guevera tee shirts without knowing the man. This goes for pro/anti Israelis Try and take a middle of the road approach and deal with the complexities of the history place and nobody is interested.

Re:Bahais in Israel and in Iran

[Jeremiah Cornelius]

Look, my basic proposition is that there is no better, friendlier and actually pro-western people in all of the Middle East and Central Asia, than the Iranian people.

This is absolutely true. The Iranian in the street is more pro-US that the average Israeli in the street. When you take into the consideration that the US imposes 30 years of sanctions on Iran while Israel gets USD 30 Billion this year - that is remarkable!

The US hasn't been able to spoil the goodwill of the Iranian people - not even as they foment a potentially nuclear war.

Bullshit about Ahmadinejad and the holocaust red-herrings are aside from the point. David Duke and Dick Cheney have little bearing on the values and real interest of the American people.

Calling Iran an "enemy" in the headline of a front-page article is inflammatory, and demonstrates an uncritical and un-knowledgeable consumption of foreign-policy propaganda.

Axis of evil is a US only idea.

[iplayfast]

Free Software/Open source is a global idea. So yes, the US could cut off open source projects with "a stroke of the pen" however I think they would find that first, the projects would be carried on anyways, just not in their backyard, and second the education that Free Software/Open source gives would be lost to the American public, and third, the ideal of free speech would make this "stroke of the pen" very hard to do.

Ask the EFF

[quantaman]

I think there are three important things to consider here:

1) Chances are by working with Amir he'd be doing absolutely nothing to harm national, or aid terrorists, or anything that could be considered harmful. In fact he'd be more likely to help national security by improving relations with Iran (though this would be on a pretty small scale).

2) If this ever does enter the political arena, and start getting into talk shows and pundits (1) is completely irrelevant. Most likely Amir will be branded as a potential terrorist and this fellow as either irresponsible or naive.

3) Homeland security is more concerned about 2 than 1.

That being said I'd ask someone like the EFF or ACLU for guidance if for no other reason than to make sure that he won't get into too much trouble if 2 or 3 come into play.

Re:The Answer is Yes

[The One and Only]

I've also gathered that there was dissatisfaction with the gasoline rationing, that many people want a more democratic system. Is this accurate? I wouldn't expect the Iranian people to have the same complaints about their government that we do, mainly because they're affected by different policies than we are.

Iran is the most progressive Muslim country

[thinkahead]

Not sure if I agree or disagree with parent, but just last week I had a chat with an Iranian (now US citizen) who explained that Iran is actually the most progressive Muslim country in the world. The reason, as I understand it, is mostly that Iranians are not Arabs, but Persians, and only "adopted" Islam after they were invaded and conquered by Muslim Arabs. So Iran, part of the Axis of Evil, actually has values that are most closely aligned with "western" values - women can get university degrees and occupy political offices. Meanwhile, in Saudi Arabia, given billions of $$$ by the Bush government and preceding presidents, women are second-class citizens. Wahabite Islam, the form prevalent in Saudia Arabia, is the spiritual home of Osama Bin Laden, while Iran is Shia, and supports the Shiites which were on the whole the greatest victimes of Saddam Hussein, along with the Kurds. Which country and society do you, the US, really want to support??? But on the point of the post: it doesn't matter whether or not Iranians can build their own UAV by themselves, what matters is whether US law allows US citizens to tell them about something that counts as weapons technology according to the three branches of US government. You can lobby to have the laws overturned, but until them, you are bound by them as US citizen and resident. That's just the principle of "rule of law".

Re:Iran is the most progressive Muslim country

[The One and Only]

I'm sure the Iranians are a progressive people, but the government is another story. Keep in mind that Iran is most known in America for taking our embassy workers hostage. I've long had the feeling that Iran's government was out of step with its people, and that the Iranian people haven't supported things like hostage-taking and terrorism for years, despite their government's use and support of those tactics. Of course, as in all politics, no one really cares about things that don't affect them, so the government gets away with it.

I don' know the Particular Law however

[daviskw]

If you are having a compitition for creating the best word processor and some kid from Iran pipes up and says: "Hey look at mine." Great.

If you are talking about an open source evolution for UAVs where the inovation can be a new algorithm designed to double the flight time, conserve fuel some manner not ever thought of before, or maybe the inovation is some way to double the resolution of current on board cameras, then you will have a substantially large problem.

The problem isn't if the Iranian kid is the one who figures out the algorithm. The problem is if you or some other American figures out the algorithm and then gives it to the Iranian kid to incorporate into his design.

Maybe he isn't an Iranian kid though. Maybe he is an Iranian Intelligence officer working with an Iranian programmer, designing a new type of UAV to be better than anything in the curent U.S. arsenal. Maybe the inovation is resolution doubling for some on board camera and six weeks or six months down the road that algorithm is used on an Iranian UAV to pinpoint something in Iraq that the Iranians shouldn't know about. Maybe then some Iranian intelligence officer transmits that data to the Iraqi freedom fighters inhabiting that area and the next day six U.S. soldiers were killed, and you read about it in the newspaper or see it on the web. Maybe one of those that dies is the brother of some girl you really like and she is now so distraught that she has to quit school, at least for the semester, and she goes home and in a depressed state she takes her own life.

Let's review, in the spirit of cooperation, you have a UAV open source project that allows the Iranians to build a better camera for the one UAV they have devoloped, U.S. soldiers die and the girl you were destined to spend the rest of your life with is now dead from an overdose of NoDoz sleeping pills.

Never mind that what have committed is probably treason. There are laws, and IANAL and I don't know which ones, but there are laws that you may already have broken in your effort to bring Open Source to software governing matters of National Interest and Self Defense.

While the scenario I have presented is pattently absurd, please take the warning to heart. The U.S. government will prosecute you if anything that looks like it might be or might need to be a national secret is transmitted out of the United States. Anything concerning UAVs would fall under that catagory.

Scottish baseball

[Pseudonymus Bosch]

I was told that the number of bats sold in Scotland has no relation with the small number of baseball players.

Revolution

[Pseudonymus Bosch]

a medieval theocratic regime.

Actually, from what I understood, the idea of a country run by clerics not by caliphs or secular leaders was revolutionary (as in "Islamic Revolution"). Maybe Iran is more like Calvinist Geneva.

Scope

[cdrguru]

In reading many of the postings it is clear that people do not understand the concept of a false flag operation.

What if the Iranian teenager is simply a photograph and the people contributing and benefiting from the project are really the Iranian government, blocked by sanctions and other means from otherwise acquiring other UAV equipment.

We see this in the US all the time with people posing as sexually curious teens to entrap adults. Why wouldn't a government do this if there was some benefit to it?

Yes, there is a great deal of similarity between a RC model airplane and a UAV. An Iranian living in the US buying a RC airplane is not a cause for concern. Modifying the airplane to carry a payload starts to be a cause for concern. But that isn't the point. The point is there are governments that will use any and all available tools for oppressing the people that reside within their borders. And beyond oppressing, there are other tactics such as those being used in Sudan.

How would you feel if there was an article in an Arabic newspaper about the use of a new device to further the goals of the Sudanese government in clearing out the Christian vermin that infest parts of their country? And it was made clear that this device was only possible because of some Americans that clearly must want to further the gains of the Islamic forces in Sudan.

Sure, it is all nice and fun to believe that we are all working towards the same goals and that happiness and prosperity are things that we can all agree on and strive towards. Helping people to achieve their goals is fine when you understand that the goals are the same as yours. Helping people to achieve their goals when you do not understand their goals or know their goals are quite different from yours is very, very different.

People are not the same the world over. All people do not have the same goals and aspirations. Not understanding this is where some of the biggest mistakes in human history have come from.

First Cooperate, then "tit for tat"

[kgskgs]

Just recently I read about the best successful strategy being "Co-operate at first step, then Tit from there on.

http://brembs.net/ipd/tft.html

So I guess it is best to co-operate first and if it misused ,then take restrictive action next.

Who knows, that Iranian kid could have some brilliant idea.

K

What needs to be confronted is the source of the

[falconwolf]

tension, fanaticism combined with polygamy.

While fanaticism shares responsibility polygamy has nothing to do with it, you're thinking of polygyny. Polygamy is where a person, whether a male or female, can have more than one spouse. It is Polygyny, where a male can have more than one wife, that is mostly practiced. Besides these two, there's also polyandry in which females can have more than one husband.

Falcon

Ron Paul

[falconwolf]

I'm registering Republican just for a chance of voting for Ron Paul in the primary, but I doubt I'll be allowed to.

I'm registered no party preference but when the primary comes around I'll switch my registration to Republican just so I can vote for Ron Paul in the primary. Of course afterwards I'll switch back to no party preference.

Falcon

He hasn't used anything from the website

[asad]

I hope people realize the whole question is a hypthetical one.

"But what should I do if Amir or someone like him from a country associated with Bad Stuff posts on our own forums looking for technical advice?"

The whole thing is a what if, Amir designed and built the plane on his own without any help from the blogger. The blogger is simply afraid of what happens "if" Amir happens to ask a technical question and oh god help him he might give him an answer.

Iran certainly doesn't have any universities or access to technical books so this forum would be the only source they would have for such advanced knowledge.

I would suggest Chris stay far far away from anyone whose country might do "Bad Stuff" like invade other countries or I dunno torture people in secret prisons.

firearms

[falconwolf]

by your comment a gun can be used for shooting people.. or it could be used for shooting people....

Or it can be used to prevent someone else from shooting you. Or it may make a tyrannical government give another thought to an action it's about to take. I don't know about you but I fear government more than I do criminals and terrorists combined. Government is the real terrorist!

Falcon

Re:firearms

[iamacat]

Fine. Just don't go pulling out your gun first if someone tries to rob your house. If you threaten their life, surely they can be justified in protecting themselves and killing you with their own firearm. They should still be charged with robbery, but not murder since, like everyone else, they were just carrying a gun for self-protection and not planning to even threaten you with it.

Re:firearms

[falconwolf]

Fine. Just don't go pulling out your gun first if someone tries to rob your house. If you threaten their life, surely they can be justified in protecting themselves and killing you with their own firearm. They should still be charged with robbery, but not murder since, like everyone else, they were just carrying a gun for self-protection and not planning to even threaten you with it.

Breaking in, a robber has already declared they are a danger. "Oh wait please Mr robber while I call the police." Gang you're dead. Growing up my best friend's dad had a sign in the front window beside the door with a smoking gun, the caption read "Anyone found here at night will be found here in the morning." And he meant it. Like my dad he served in the US Air Force, though he was discharged when he suffered an injury causing a disability whereas my father retired from the Air Force. He was an expert shot too, he'd take the two of us out in the middle of nowhere for target practice, and he'd have one of us toss something small up then he'd shoot it drawing from the hip. Before I was a teenager my dad gave me a .22 long rifle and I'd use it for practice myself. I believe it's important for a person to grow up being able to handle firearms and being taught to respect them.

I believe that's a root problem with firearms in the US today, too many people are afraid of firearms so when they have children they don't teacher them to respect firearms. Then like when a young adult reaches legal age to drink they go off on a drinking bing. They never learned to respect alcohol, or firearms. It used to be that parents in the US were able to give their teens a drink and not get in trouble, my parents did as well as most other parents I knew growing up. They just made sure the child only had a little bit to drink and not a lot. A sip or two to start with, then a little more. By the tyme I was 18 I'd open a longneck bottle of beer and nurse it throughout the evening. When I was stationed in Germany, I enlisted in the US Army, I saw how casually German parents would order a glass of wine for their child to drink while eating out. Try that now in the US and that parent will have their child taken away, have a good chance of being criminally prosecuted, and be labeled a child abuser.

Falcon

firearmshe

[falconwolf]

Believe it or not, there was a time in American history when lots of people carried guns. Used them to catch dinner, too. Shooting a person was considered bad form.

What many don't even know is that even slaves owned firearms through and after the USA Revolutionary war. Slaves even fought in the war, on both sides.

Falcon

weight of gearb

[falconwolf]

As for UAV, it depends: if the project is about building model planes with a camera on them, I would not worry. If the project is about building a flying platform that can fly for hours and can carry 2-3 kg of gears, I would worry about it, and would not make it open source.

Why would you worry? That 2-3 kg of gear being carried for hours could be movie camera equipment, or anything else. Unless you're harmed what does it matter? When I started high school I was in a model rocketry club on campus, at least once a week we'd launch rockets in a field on campus. However now I'd be concerned about any child I had being in such a club now. I'd support them but be concerned about a government label being applied to the child as a "person of interest".

Falcon

Chaos

[Thomas Shaddack]

Or perhaps the same information causes a raid operation to be aborted, preventing a few dozens collateral damages. Few years later he meets a doe-eyed emigrant from that area, who in the alternate timeline would be dead, and they spend the rest of their lives together.

Chaotic systems work both ways.

Israel

[falconwolf]

The ledger of atrocities is about 10 (if not 100) to 1 in favor of Israel.

You're absolutely right, for every Israeli killed many more Palestinians are killed. Not only does Israel kill more Palestinians but more Palestinians are forced off their land. Israel even has refuseniks who refuse to participate in some government actions, such as serving in the occupied territories.

Falcon

Re:Modded as troll - nice

[DigiShaman]

You must be new here. We have quite a few spineless PC (Politically Correct) viewers on Slashdot.

For all you PC modders: grow some cojones!

Go ahead, mod me as a troll. But remember, I will always be a Martyr for the truth. Karma be damned!

Noam Chomsky

[falconwolf]

No doubt he's a bright guy, but he has some huge blinders when it comes to politics. Unfortunately, his anger overwhelms his rationality.

A blinder many other Americans wear. For instance did you know the US is partially responsible for the massacre of some 200,000 East Timorese, 1/3 the population of East Timor? Then president Ford and Henry Kissinger supported Suharto's Indonesian invasion of East Timor after Portugal granted them their independence in 1975-76 which led to the death of these East Timorese. Ford and Kissinger also supported Gen Pinochet's overthrow of the democraticaly elected government in Chile. There tens of thousands simply "dissappeared" while many thousands more were tortured and or killed. Again all with the support of the US admin. And there are other examples of US support for the overthrow of governments and massacres of people.

Oh, lest you think I'm not American, not only am I one but I also served in the US Army. I'm not anti-American either, I oppose some of the actions the government has taken in the name of the USA.

Falcon

Re:Noam Chomsky

[Reality Master 101]

Without getting into your specific cases, I've noticed that when you analyze these things in detail, the real story is that the choices that are faced at the time are "Evil #1" and "Evil #2", and Evil #2 is a lot worse that #1. So the government has to choose the lesser of the evils. Now, that allows people like Chomsky to come along after the fact and scream that "The U.S. chose eeeeeevil!! Look at the consequences of their actions!!" And it's true, in a sense -- the U.S. *did* choose the evil. But it makes more sense when you put it in the context of all the larger evils that could have happened -- but didn't through the actions of the U.S.

To use one example, the dropping of the atomic bombs. The Chomsky screaming version is, "The U.S. dropped the only two atomic bombs ever used in war!!! And they worry about the Soviets??????" (I don't know if Chomsky has actually taken this position, it's just his normal style.) The historical context is that the U.S. reluctantly dropped the two bombs to make sure a very, very long bloody war, finally, ended without an invasion of Japan.

The one thing that I think is normally true about the U.S. (not always, but normally) is that our leaders try and do the moral thing in the world.

Re:Noam Chomsky

[Jon Kay]

> the government has to choose the lesser of the evils.

Why? Time was sure to provide real democratic alternatives. In fact, in Chile, there were democratic parties we could've made deals with instead. Why didn't we? No excuses there. Patience would surely have brought violent pro-democratic revolutionaries in Indonesia, E Timor, Chile, and Vietnam. And there WAS a democratic govt in Iran, before we toppled it. All WRONG choices.

Note: I have yet to read anything by Chomsky that seemed to to me to have persuasive evidence behind it; that includes two AI papers by him that I read.

Native American Indians

[falconwolf]

You don't see Native Americans strapping explosives to their chests and screaming that, in the name of their god, they shall take back their homeland from the filthy paleskins that conquered them, do you?

They didn't have the technology then but some Indian tribes did fight, and were almost exterminated. Others didn't mind too much having settlers living near or around them but did mind that European settlers then claimed the land as their own. Even now the US has Leonard Peltier in prison as a political prisoner for standing up for NDN rights.

Israel was created generations ago, after World War II came to a close - It seems as though a fair amount of time has passed since then, over half a century.

Yes, NDNs have had far longer to assimilate. However before and after WWII the British considered Jews as the terrorists. Heck, Hitler and the NAZIs even trained European Jews to fight against the British in Palestine. Members of the Stern Gang, Lehi, were some of those so trained.

Have the Arab people (or at least their leaders) of those lands surrounding Israel been breeding nothing but unbridled hatred and fury over the past nearly sixty years?

Unfortunately this is all too true. They've felt the land was theirs to begin with, though there were Jews as well as Christians living on the land too. After independence some Christians and Muslim stayed and became Israeli citizens. There are even Arab members of the Israeli government.

Do survivors of World War II teach hatred and distrust of Germans and Japanese, and vice versa? Why must the fighting continue as it is? Why is Israel's mere existence considered such a stain on the face of the Middle East?

The allies, victorers, didn't split up and create new nations out of Germany or Japan, but the Middle East was carved up, and after Jewish terrorists drove out the British from Palestine they created their own Jewish nation. This despite the fact most people living there weren't Jews. What were they supposed to do, roll over and die?

Falcon

Israeli citizens

[falconwolf]

The Native Americans are allowed to become full American citizens. Palestinians are denied citizenship by Israel.

Why much of what you say is true, those Arabs or Palestinians who stayed where they lived, are Arab citizens of Israel. There are even Arabs in the Israeli government. Of course Arab Israelis are treated like second class citizens.

Falcon

Re:Israeli citizens

[Anonymous Coward]

you mean the people who didn't evacuate during the war. Yes, that's true, but Israel actively blocked anyone from returning unless they were Jewish. It's ongoing discrimination, codified by Israel and made into law by the Knesset's absentee property law to authorize rampant theft of land. Many Israelis like to say the Arabs fled, but in many instances they were actively thrown out by Jewish militias, making it culpable.

On December 19, 1947, Ben-Gurion advised the Haganah on rules of engagement with the Palestinian population:

"we adopt the system of aggressive defense ; with every Arab attack we must respond with a decisive blow: the destruction of the place or the expulsion of the residents along with the seizure of the place." (Expulsion Of The Palestinians, p. 176-177 and Israel: A History, p. 156)

How is this discussion about open-source?

[cowwoc2001]

I love it how you guys turn this from a discussion about open-source to blaming the Jews for propaganda and "nuclear armed aggression" in the middle-east. Let's just be honest, shall we? This isn't about open-source, this is about bigots such as yourself looking for excuses to scapegoat people you don't like.

You don't need to bring Israel into the picture when discussing why Iran's recent behavior is problematic. They openly support the use of terrorism against civilians (just read their newspapers), they oppress their women and they openly call for the destruction of their neighbors. One the one hand they deny that they are developing nuclear weapons while on the other hand they declare no one has the right to deny them those same weapons. There is decade-long evidence that they are developing these weapons on top of other weapons they already openly admit to having (and wanting to use) such as chemical and biological weapons. Having them is one thing, declaring they will use it is another. Just look at what they did during the Iraq-Iran war! They don't even value their own people, having sent children into mine-fields during that war. What kind of corrupt leadership does this? Contrary to what people say, there is a world of a difference between a democracy having access to WMDs and a xenophobic expansionist dictatorship having those same capabilities.

I also take issue with people trying to compare Palestinians to Native Americans. The last I checked, Jews of the middle-east were in fact the original Native Americans to be wiped out of the middle-east by one wave of invasion after another. Although only a minority of Jews remained in Israel during the past thousands of years it does not invalidate their position as a native to the land. I find it amusing how some of you are labeling Palestinians are being native to the region while simultaneously invalidating the Jews' own claim as natives to the region. If one is true then the other must certainly be true too. You can't have it both ways :)

It is ironic that no one mentions the fact that the majority of land was purchased legally from Arabs in the early 1900s by immigrating Jews. Everyone was getting along just swell until the blood riots of 1929 (when Arabs massacred the Jews of Hebron) and again in 1947-1948 when local Palestinians started attacking their Jewish neighbors followed by a en-mass invasion by surrounding Arab countries.

It is no coincidence that the UN voted to partition Palestine in 1947. Land was divided based on the population in each area; whomever had a majority population in any given area was given that land. Again the vast majority of land the Jews inhabited was purchased legally from Palestinians prior to the war. It is only after the war that the situation shifted somewhat, but we must keep in mind that in times of war one cannot purchase land from one's enemy. Furthermore, no one seems to mentioned that more Jewish refugees were forcibly removed from Arab countries in the 1948 war than Palestinian refugees, and this in in spite of the fact that the Palestinians were stirring up violence against their neighbors whereas the Jews in Arab countries were not.

Israelis and Palestinians

[falconwolf]

Israel has offered on more then one occasion to attempt to make things right and it has been rejected each and every time by the Palestinians.

There's one tyme you've missed. After Camp David failed negotiations started in Taba, Egypt in 2001. An agreement was almost reached when Israel not Palestinians pulled out.

Falcon

"God's Warriors"

[falconwolf]

Yea, I watched Christiane Amanpour's "God's Warriors" earlier. Christiane does pretty good at cover extremists, whether Jew, Christian, or Muslim.

I would like to add that:
Christianity may be viewed as a faith of lost morality
Judaism is a faith of the "chosen" one's
Islam my be viewed as a faith of hate

I liked how a professor I had for Understanding Religious Man put it:
Judaism is the law
Christianity is a translation of the law,
and Islam is the law in practice.

Falcon

Iran and Al Qaeda

[falconwolf]

The funny thing to me about the connections to Al Qaeda debate is that as far as I know, we gave them all their money and weapons originally, didn't we? But that's not a connection, that's history.

Not only did the US arm and support the Mujahadeen which gave rise to Al Qaeda and the Taliban but shortly after taking office pres Bush gave the Taliban $43,000,000 of US taxpayer money.

Falcon

US financing

[falconwolf]

Really, the notion that the US funded bin Laden is ridiculous on the face of it, as bin Laden is fucking loaded. Seriously, the man's a billionaire.

Here, you're wrong. The bin Laden family may be worth more than a billion dollars, barely if at all, but Osama isn't worth that much. When he left Saudi Arabia Osama bin Laden was worth $250 million. As for the Taliban, shortly after taking office pres Bush in 2001 gave the Taliban $43 million of taxpayer money, ostensibly for fighting opium. However while the Taliban did fight some farmers and others dealing with opium the Taliban also militarily supported others who then paid the Taliban. As it is now the Taliban is benefiting from a Record-breaking opium crop .

Falcon

Re:US financing

[iminplaya]

As it is now the Taliban is benefiting from a Record-breaking opium crop .

Good to see others spreading the word. I'm seeing the Afganistan thing as just another opium war. The "eradication" efforts are nothing more than an attempt to manipulate the price. There's definitely some "Iran/Contra" deja-vu here.

Iran, Israel and terrorism

[falconwolf]

Iran supports global terrorism. It openly supports Hizballah and other terroist organizations.

Maybe you didn't know it but not only has Israel supported terrorists, Muslim terrorists at that, but Israel was founded by terrorists. Ask the British what they thought of the Stern Gang, Lehi.

Falcon

Irani, Iraqi war

[falconwolf]

Enemy of whom? Iran has not been in a war of aggression against any nation, since the 19th century.

So that little decade long stalemate with Iraq back in the 80's doesn't count?

It was Saddam and Iraq that attacked Iran not the other way, Iran didn't start the war Iraq did. The aggressor wasn't Iran.

Falcon

NAZIs and Jews

[falconwolf]

even the Nazis claimed to be treating Jews well in their propaganda

For a short tyme NAZIs did treat Jews well. They even trained Jews as terrorists to fight against the British in Palestine. Some of the members of the Stern Gang, Lehi were some of those trained by the NAZIs. The Stern Gang even proposed a colaboration with NAZIs during WWII.

Falcon

Re:NAZIs and Jews

[sg_oneill]

Well. So may it be.

But it all seems insignificant compared to what the evil bastards did next. (The holocaust)

I hope the parallell with Iran is not there. But considering Iran hosting the holocaust denial conference. Man.. Its not a pretty picture.

Re:NAZIs and Jews

[falconwolf]

Well. So may it be.

But it all seems insignificant compared to what the evil bastards did next. (The holocaust)

True enough, what the NAZIs did was evil. They didn't just do it to European Jews though, they also targeted crippled people though they honored those wounded in combat. They also tried to exterminate the Romani or Roma and the Sinti both otherwise known as Gypies. Actually the Sinti are a subgroup of Romani. NAZIs also considered Arabs and Africans inferior. However bad, evil, the NAZIs were at first they tried to get Jews to immigrate. They negotiated deals with Jewish leaders under two agreements. One was the Haavara Agreement. It was an agreement for European Jews to move to Palestine. NAZIs would buy property owned by Jews then the money would be deposited in a bank with a branch in Palestine. Once there Jews could then withdraw money. The other agreement was the Rublee-Wohlthat-Abkommen Agreement, where European Jews could move out of Europe to anywhere else.

No one is "against Islam"

[Anonymous Coward]

We're against jihad, and prosyletezation, and shoving your religion in other people's faces.

Who cares what the book YOU like to read or the prophet YOU like to follow or the rules that YOU like to adhere to are all about?

Keep it to yourself. Trying to convert other people is engaging in a sinful act, against God.

There are other people in the world besides you, who think differently than you do.

Deal with it. Or be dealt with.

Did Johnny Mnemonic teach us nothing?!

[cephal0p0d]

As with anything else, broadly distributing the information renders it impossible to censor;
Broadband the information now, so that if the jackboot comes down the information is already pervasive.

evils

[falconwolf]

it makes more sense when you put it in the context of all the larger evils that could have happened -- but didn't through the actions of the U.S.

And what evil was there in letting East Timorese elect their own government? Or the Chileans elect their's? What threat did the Mayans massacred in Guatemala pose?

To use one example, the dropping of the atomic bombs. The Chomsky screaming version is, "The U.S. dropped the only two atomic bombs ever used in war!!!

I don't know what Chomsky thinks or says of the bombing of Nagasaki and Hiroshima, but I will say though I know it was necessary to end the war I still hate that it was needed. Without the bombing Japan would of had to be invaded which would have caused many deaths, both Japanese and American. However World War II never would of been needed to be fought if France, Great Britain, and the US had not allowed Hitler to rearm Germany in the 1930s. And without fighting in Europe Japan would of been crazy to declare war in the Pacific.

Falcon

That's only true for certain values of war

[dbrutus]

Iran, in 1979, committed an act of aggressive war by not observing its obligation to protect the US embassy.
Iran has waged several proxy wars using Hezbollah against the US and Israel and Lebanon.
Iran is today waging a perfidious aggressive campaign of arming, training and leading mostly Shia secterian militias in attempted genocide in Iraq.

That wonderful persian zoroastrian culture is being actively and significantly repressed by 12er Shia bigots who run the government there. Iran is currently on a slow simmer of internal revolt with active resistance to the central government with arab bombing campaigns in the SW, Balochi rebellion in the east, kurdish violent resistance in the NW and periodic outbursts of protest and even violence by the large Azeri minority.

All ethical and humane living? I don't think so

Tah-mato Toe-mato

[angus_rg]

Ignoring the politics, this question is kind of similar to a debate of who is better, Van Gogh or Michelangelo.

For every negative/positive you can say about open source/closed source software you can argue something positive/negative in the other direction.

Considering most bugs now adays are found through fuzzing, not code review, it probablly doesn't make a huge difference either way, regardless of whether you are talking commercial or gov defense.

Not to mention, 90% of the software out there is based off of open source technologies or RFCs that are available.

Looks at Microsft's SQLServer. The only way you could get a perl DBI module to work with it was if you used the Sybase module(may be a new MS module, haven't checked in a while), but it wasn't coincident it works, nor is it coincident that half of the commercial SSL/VPN device finger prints smell of Linux and OpenSSL.

Just because it comes with a service contract doesn't mean it is closed source and or secure.

Free english translation of the Quran

[Loosifur]

No, seriously. I had an econ class with a marine who was learning Arabic and was minoring in Middle Eastern Studies. He wrote the Saudi Arabian embassy and they sent him a copy of the Quran in both Arabic and English. Might be worth checking out so as to get it straight from the horse's mouth, so to speak.

In a word, maybe.

[Loosifur]

"Is there ever a case for letting national security issues dictate the limits of an open source project?" There are a lot of factors here, not the least of which is your level of dedication to the principles of open source weighed against the possibility of jail time, but I suppose the main question is this: Are you an American scientist, or a scientist living in the US? Given that almost any technology can be used destructively or to benefit the enemies of a particular country you have to decide how likely the technology you develop is to be to used to harm an American soldier or citizen, and then decide if that risk is worth it in the interests of international scientific cooperation. And neither of those are easy questions, so good luck.

The enemy

[jandersen]

I don't think so - it hasn't given Microsoft much joy.