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Railroad Association Says TSA's Hacking Memo Was Wrong
McGruber writes "Wired reports that the American Association of Railroads is refuting the U.S. Transportation Security Administration memorandum that said hackers had disrupted railroad signals. In fact, 'There was no targeted computer-based attack on a railroad,' said AAR spokesman Holly Arthur. 'The memo on which the story was based has numerous inaccuracies.' The TSA memo was subject of an earlier Slashdot story in which Slashdot user currently_awake accurately commented on the true nature of the incident."
I'm not surprised... TSA is a cancer.
I think the railroads are the last form of transportation where TSA is not allowed and they want their grubby little hands in the pot. There is literally a conspiracy going on to track every citizen where they are. They can already track your car with all the camera's (to monitor traffic or give you tickets) and license plate detection in unmarked and regular police cars as well as pull you over, detain you indefinitely and search you without cause if you are 200mi from a US border or airport. Now they want in on the train stations too so all railways would be included in their 200 mile zones?
I say, kill the beast while you still can. The TSA needs to be shut down immediately.
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There's a difference. Putting them in charge of health care is a matter of ensuring our wellbeing. The others are about violating our rights.
For large sets, this will be our guide even unto death, for the LORD will work for each type of data it is applied to...
Heh, I wish I had mod points - but I am sure the point will be lost on most of the mods. +5 Funny!
I'm sure TSA is unhappy about this. They've long been talking about their intent to spread out into other modes of transportation. Since Amtrak's police have been throwing them out of train stations lately, they've no doubt been searching for any politically-convenient justification they can find to invade rail transit. Doubly so since Amtrak ridership is at an all-time high with people taking trains for the sole purpose of avoiding TSA.
For the politically-active among us, this is perhaps a good opportunity to write to U.S. congresspeople to alert them about TSA's misrepresentation of this report, as well as state congresspeople to encourage them to pass state-level legislation reining in TSA (Tenth Amendment Center has a pre-written Travel Freedom Act that works at the state level to criminalize invasive TSA screening procedures).
TSA isn't going to stop their reign of sexual assault and desecration of Constitutional rights until and unless the people stop it for them. Public opinion has been turning against TSA lately, especially with the three elderly travelers who were strip-searched late last year (about which TSA blatantly lied). Now is as good a time as ever to push your elected officials to stop TSA. The site in my sig is a good resource, as is Freedom To Travel USA. Please do anything and everything you can to help stop TSA.
Help protect civil rights from abuse by the TSA - visit TSA News Blog.
http://www.tsanewsblog.com
Oh yeah. Cause for-profit industry is doing a great job bringing affordable health care to the masses.
We're all better served by folks with pre-existing conditions being denied basic coverage, huh?
Thats what u.s. 'deep government' backed by private interests have used to keep suppressing freedoms and keep progress and plurality outside not only u.s. but all nato members :
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Gladio
Every nato member got one of these founded in their own country. these underground organizations then staged assassinations of non-u.s./nato aligned political figures, journalists, activists. in most cases, extra steps were taken to set up leftist (or whatever opposing faction) terrorist organizations which were actually under control of these gladio clones. these terrorist organizations then staged terror attacks while claiming to be doing these for the political views that gladio wanted to alienate public from. for most of the cold war, this was left ideas. and not surprisingly, in all countries these terrorist attacks were used to alienate public from those political views, marginalize their ideas, and also implement various 'security' measures and laws to limit freedoms.
i dont need to tell any american that after soviet union ended and there was no way that this scheme would work, suddenly the 'terror threat' from islamist groups replaced these - and you all know what happened after 2001. ...................
this is no different. in case you have noticed, we are having an extremely ridiculous amount of 'cyber threat' bullshit coming out of not only private interests, but also the government. they are basically just applying the same policies they used to control every aspect of life, to internet. internet was 'way too much' free for them.
i think we dont need to even dwell on the fact that tsa is just a cog in this machine. but, they are floppy at it.
Read radical news here
seeing how in 2012 railroad still use hole punch tickets taking seems a long way off and to have any thing like a TSA cheek point will need a BIG TIME rebuild of all the stations
Whoosh?
Ostensibly the TSA, PATRIOT ACT, etc are there to ensure public well being.
This is not the funny you're looking for.
So that's the second false "cyberattack" in so many months..
health care != health insurance
Go green: turn off your refrigerator.
Oh yeah. Cause for-profit industry is doing a great job bringing affordable health care to the masses.
The government isn't going to make health care more affordable, they're just going to make someone else pay for it.
You need them to keep the invaders at bay? What, you expect to breathe air, not soot? You mean you expect to not get shot for your boots when you go to work? Clearly you need a nanny.
For large sets, this will be our guide even unto death, for the LORD will work for each type of data it is applied to...
Which is effectively impossible given that so many stations are little more than a ticket booth and a platform. In rural areas, it's more like needing to BUILD a station in the first place than to rebuild or reconfigure existing structures.
Help protect civil rights from abuse by the TSA - visit TSA News Blog.
http://www.tsanewsblog.com
health care != health insurance
True, but in the United States, without health insurance, you cannot get adequate health care.
The government isn't going to make health care more affordable
I'm not so sure about that.
The original currently_awake comment wasn't informative, it was merely a correct guess, and an extremely fuzzy one at that.
Slashdot comment threads will always be more accurate than authoritative information, as long as you grade them relative to a stopped clock.
Don't blame me, I voted for Baltar.
I have relatives from out of the country staying with us. One of them had a medical issue. We took her to several doctors, got x-rays, and perscriptions. Everything was surprisingly cheap, unless we were purchasing brand name medication.
Of course, surgical procedures and chronis conditions may be another story, but we didn't pay all that much more than 200 bucks for 3 doctors visits, medication, and the x-rays. I figured it was going to be closer to 1,000 based off what I see insurance is billed for on my own visits.
Bring back the old version of slashdot.
Yep, TSA alright.
Some mornings it's hardly worth chewing through the restraints to get out of bed.
Actually, in most countries with socialized healthcare, the government DOES make healthcare more affordable. This is due to the fact that since they're footing the bill and are already in debt, they don't want to have to spend more on healthcare than they need to -- because unlike other budgets, it's hard to kick back some of the healthcare budget into perks for government employees without a huge backlash from the electorate.
So what you get is big pharm saying "here are these drugs for $X." and government saying "Not if you want to sell them in this country, they're not. You get our contract only if you sell them for $Y*."
*usually, YX.....
The government should be restrained from doing anything that not only the government can do.
The government is wasteful and slow. everything it does can be done better, faster and cheaper by private enterprise.
There are of course no exceptions to this rule. There is however a problem. There are certain things that ONLY a government can do.
Defense being just one. Only a federal government can be effective dealing with foreign governments. You need a federal government to dole out the radio spectrum. You need a federal government to make the state governments play nice. You need government to protect your rights. The government has to do these things.
It still does them at great expense and badly. Still it is government that needs to do them.
Health care.
Let me start by reminding people what "rights" are. "Rights" are things that the government should never be allowed to take from you and that the government should protect from being taken from you. They are not things that are given. I have a right to my spiritual beliefs. I have a right to speak my mind. I had a right to bear arms to protect myself, my neighbor, my community and my country if need be. I have a right to a fair hearing before my rights are taken from me. I have a right to not be compelled to incriminate myself. These and a few more are rights.
I do not have a "right" to your car. I do not have a right to your money. I do not have a right to health care. These things would be nice. I am not saying they are bad. They however are most certainly not rights.
That which is given to you can be taken from you. Protect your rights and stop giving them up for your wants. It feels good now but as all governments do. This government will continue grow and take your rights. They will offer you candy for your rights. You will give them up. When you finally see what they are doing it will be to late. You will have given up freedom of speech to protect suicidal teenagers from mean high school bullies. You will have given up your right to a gun in a vain attempt to take them away from evil people. You will have given up your right to a fair trial to protect yourself form scary terrorists. You will have given up your rights. They will not taken them from you. You will give them up. Then you will have no protection left.
Understand the difference between what you want and your rights. Then make sure you do not give up your rights for warm feelings inside.
Why is it so hard to only have politicians for a few years, then have them go away?
> How will we know the difference between an attack and normal operations?
We would know because each accident on the railroads is meticiously investigated.
See e.g. the web page of the Accident Investigation Office of the German Federal Railroad Agency [German knowledge required]:
http://www.eisenbahn-unfalluntersuchung.de/cln_031/nn_316888/EUB/DE/Publikationen/Untersuchungsberichte/__Function/untersuchungsberichte__tabelle.html
Includes a report on an air condition failure (admittedly that specific failure lead to 9 people having to be brought to a hospital).
At least in Germany we _would_ most probably know if a train had derailed due to a cyber attack.
There was one event a few years ago where some attack on a network resulted in a signal outage. That was because the long-haul links to wayside signal controllers went over an IP network.
But those aren't safety related. The safety logic is all local, in wayside boxes. That's where the train detection to signal control logic is. The long-haul connections are for dispatching - which train goes where, setting up routes, etc. Both the dispatching and safety information have to agree to produce a green light.
An outage of the links to the dispatcher turns signals red and stops trains. Such outages happen occasionally, and they're a huge headache, but not a safety issue. As a backup, trains can be given train orders by voice radio, but they're limited by slow-speed operation in that mode.
Yes, we should put private enterprise in charge of our roads and highways. Won't travel be more fun when every road is a toll road.
Any insufficiently advanced magic is indistinguishable from technology.
Reality seems to contradict you. The US healthcare system is neither cheap (most expensive on the planet) nor efficient/good (usually towards the bottom of the list when ranking 1st world countries). In contrast, many of the cheapest and best systems for healthcare are either national healthcare systems (e.g., Canada and UK) or hybridized systems (e.g., the Netherlands).
"They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety."
Have you noticed how far this thread has strayed from original subject of a railroad signal system being hacked?
You had a sign? Luxury! We had a message scrawled in the dirt! If it rained, you didn't know what to do until the guy with the stick came by and re-wrote the message!
And you try and tell the young people of today that. They won't believe you.
Oh yeah. Cause for-profit industry is doing a great job bringing affordable health care to the masses.
The government isn't going to make health care more affordable, they're just going to make someone else pay for it.
The facts dont agree with you. The average American with their god like private system pays over $13,000 for insurance. The average Australian pays around $4000 for top private health care with our evil government backed Medicare system. And yes, I included the Medicare levy in that figure. Based on a family of four, parents aged 35-45 avg income A$66,000 used for Medicare levy calculations.
The public system in Australia is good enough that a lot of people, especially young people dont have to get private. This alone puts the private insurance rate for basic cover at $500 for a single 25-35 yr old, top cover starts around $1000.
Calling someone a "hater" only means you can not rationally rebut their argument.
No, it won't. Not as long as you have the option of private insurance to supplement what the government will cover, or paying for things the government won't cover out-of-pocket.
What makes the TSA so insidious is that you don't have the option of flying through a no-bulls**t airport... unless you can afford to own your own private jet. It took over security, and did so in a draconian way, without allowing any other voices to participate in the discussion—any other players to participate in the day-to-day operations—any other alternatives short of choosing a radically different form of transit (which, incidentally, is probably the main reason Amtrak ridership has increased by almost 30% since September 11th after being nearly flat for the twenty years previous).
Besides, when the government health care does it, they are checking for disease.... :-D Turn your head and cough, please.
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