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F-Secure's Hypponen: The Internet Is a 'US Colony'
nk497 writes "Web users are vulnerable to mass online spying because the U.S. has too much power online, according to a leading security researcher. Discussing revelations of U.S. spying at his LinuxCon keynote speech, F-Secure's chief research officer Mikko Hypponen argued that the internet had 'become a U.S. colony,' at the expense of democracy. 'We're back in the age of colonization,' he said. 'We should think about the Americans as our masters.' Hypponen argued that its dominance over the web gave the U.S. too much power over foreign countries, noting that while the majority of European politicians likely use U.S. services every day, most U.S. politicians and business leaders don't, for example, use Swedish-based cloud services. 'It's an imbalanced situation,' he said. 'All the major services are based in the U.S.'"
People act like the US is the only country to have ever spied, when really, in this case, they just got caught. How do you know that others wouldn't be doing the same sort of monitoring? How do you know that they're not already?
We built the original infrastructure. The original backbone was developed here, and nearly all the funding came from US sources. Everyuthing else is an extension of that, and built on that framework.
Don't like it? Build your own, like China or Iran, and see how well corporations and people flock to use your "Internet".
Israel has been colonizing the West Bank, Jerusalem, and the Golan Heights since 1967l. Turkey has been colonizing Cyprus since 1974, probably encouraged by the example set by Israel. China has been colonizing Tibet since the 50's.
There are probably other examples but these are three of the most notable that continue today.
The problem is, what can be done about the problem that would actually improve matters?
The most commonly suggested answer is to turn it over to the UN, and, frankly, I don't think that there can be much argument but that would make matters immeasureably *worse* for the average user.
Where are the non-US-based search engines, social media sites, video hosts, and email providers? Yes they exist, of course, but there are almost no notable standouts. For every Vimeo there's a dozen US-based YouTubes.
You only have yourself to blame for complacently letting US businesses dominate these fields. The internet is based on open protocols and open networks. The playing field is level other than the minor niggle of ICANN's control of domain names and DNS root servers (minor since the internet works without DNS and could be replaced with something else). Hell, most countries have an advantage over the US considering our antediluvian telecom infrastructure.
I am becoming gerund, destroyer of verbs.
I'd argue that "Colony" is sort of an unfair term: a "Colony" is something that I set up by getting some of my jackbooted thugs together, sailing to your country, and telling you that this is how it's going to be from now on, while drinking gin-and-tonics and exporting your resources to the home country.
On ye olde intertubes, it's sort of hard to 'colonize' somebody (especially since, unlike land, which hasn't been available in the "actually not populated by somebody you'll need to shove if you want to 'discover' it" flavor in centuries to millenia, the internet exists because it is built, and you can build more if you want more), except on the very limited scale of cracking their server and stashing stuff on it.
It seems that it might be fairer to say that the internet is more of an American shopping mall. It is true that, to a surprising degree (especially surprising in areas that have never liked us much, or for which we never bothered to do much localization), that lots of foreign traffic crosses into American-held internet infrastructure to work, play, and do business; but (unlike a 'colony') that isn't because that infrastructure used to belong to somebody else until we grabbed it, and the locals are still stuck there; but because once it was built, people came.
Anybody who doesn't fancy being watched by Uncle Sam, or a EULA-serf of a major American multinational(including US residents) should definitely give some strong consideration to how much of their activity is currently firmly within the grasp of the US government and a few cooperative (except on taxes) corporations; but if they want to get anywhere, the line of thought is going to have to be closer to "So, why does everybody go through $AMERICAN_COMPANY$ anyway, and why isn't there a homegrown equivalent elsewhere?" rather than following the misleading road of some sort of post-colonial process. There simply was no such colonization, so expecting to decolonize is going to fall into exciting category error fun time.
Perhaps the Japanese feel the same way about our domination of baseball.
Facebook and Google are US companies, but where is the Swedish made alternative?
This isn't a matter of US dominance, it's a matter of national boarders being meaningless on the internet. The security problem is that most of the hardware running the internet is located in the US, and rather rightly so given the internet was invented and built in the US.
Got a problem with that Sweden? Then build your own damn internet.
China seems to flip a switch on BGP and all the traffic gets routed through them. The US can't stop that. The problem is that the rest of world relies on US benevolence. Something they seem to be re-evaluating as we speak.
That is absolutely right. They are not bitching about spying. They are bitching about America has too much power to do spying and them (Finnish people ??) NOT! If the balance was tilted towards their side, do you think they would complain this much ? I think not...
Also, I'd prefer American's do the spying instead of Russians or god forbid Mujaheddin army from the garden variety of middle eastern kingdoms/banana republics. I am not a born American by the way, if you are going to try flaming me with phrases starting with "You, Americans always say it like that....blah-blah". It is common sense. Regardless how bad the freedoms are in this country, I'd rather not be anywhere else at this moment in time.
__________
The more I know people, the more I love animals
Somehow, I trust the US colony over the European one, while still trusting the global democracy over the US version (esp. the NSA). If I could learn pictograms and had the marketable skills, I'd probably just move to South Korea or Japan. All I ask is fiber+freedom.
The solution is to bring our own US government back in line with the Constitution, and recognize the spurious nature of arguments about mass and warrantless surveillance.
Making chunks amenable to foreign countries, with less protections (see arguments about Europe spying being literally 100x more intrusive) is just an insensate knee-jerk reaction: it is useful in practice only to bring pressure to bear against the US government to be more open and restricted.
(-1: Post disagrees with my already-settled worldview) is not a valid mod option.
The Crown funded most of the transport, infrastructure and civil service of the American Colonies ....
You Ingrates should have shown more respect to your Sovereign (and the Crown's treasury) and should
not have started that rable-rousing "revolution".
Quiz: The above statements are:
- Ironic
- Bloody right
- Probably made by a no-good, towel-headed communist liberal hippie hommo
Nobody is stopping other people from building their own services.
If you don't like the state of affairs whining about it isn't going to fix it.
Also, I'd prefer American's do the spying instead of Russians or god forbid Mujaheddin army from the garden variety of middle eastern kingdoms/banana republics.
You would really rather be spied on by a country that has the capability to summarily execute you anywhere on the planet via drone strike, than a bunch of radicalized extremists living in tents, who couldn't get close enough to harm you, even if they really really wanted to?
Pardon me for finding that an odd position to hold.
An enigma, wrapped in a riddle, shrouded in bacon and cheese
I think it also helps that English is the most commonly spoken second language in a good many countries. So if someone can't find a particular resource in their native language online, they're more likely to turn to an English based equivalent than they are, say, a Japanese or Danish based one.
Occasionally living proof of the Ballmer peak.
You folks who bring up Gore need a new schtick. Seriously, being the head of the committee that provided DARPA funding and saying so doesn't mean invention. Snark is good as long as it's not tired and routine.
Tell me what you believe...I'll tell you what you should see.
You don't need to ask permission or pay a western "king" before competing with google or facebook you just need to execute. Who did the Chinese ask or pay before starting Baidu?
Talk is cheap, whining even cheaper. As a US resident I certainly hope the rest of the world treats NSA as a wakeup call to diversify. The more distributed services are, the more choice there is in the market the more *EVERYONE* wins. Get off your asses and compete.
Under US control: Spying
Under "International" control: Censorship
You mad
They are, it's just that individual states of Europe has a intelligence budget so low, they couldn't even spy on their own citizens let alone foreigners abroad.
Why should I, as a citizen of Europe, have less rights online than US citizens? Especially when we are talking about companies (Google, Microsoft, etc.) that operates within EU, whom are also forced by US law to give away stuff to US government.
Europe should create laws where service providers (working directly or indirectly in Europe) can't give the user's data to third parties without (very least) informing the user in question. Purpose of these laws should be aimed at conflicting with US's FISA request-law which prevents me from knowing if my data is given away or not.
While some level of monitoring goes on in every Western country, most national intelligence bodies don't have the resources to tap at the same level as the NSA. Just look at the budget of the NSA compared to that of Finland or Poland's intelligence ministries. The NSA can tap fiber even outside the US, but even wealthier and more powerful European governments don't enjoy that same luxury.
True, but no other country on earth likes to boast about FREEEEEEEEEEEEDOM!!! as much as the US.
I don't think most people believe the US is the only country that does this, just the one with the most cognitive dissonance.
Linux, you magnificent bastard, I read the fucking manual!
Maybe it's just Europeans or westerners that are affected by or really notice this US dominance of the internet. Our most eastern asian relations don't seem concerned - but please anybody from an east asian culture feel free to chime in and enlighten me beyond my 30 seconds of googling.
And what does freedom, and the "boasting" about said freedom, have to do with spying or the lack thereof?
Nothing, unless it is done illegally against it's own citizens. Which it is, and we're not too happy about, sure enough. That aside, why would the American constitution give foreigners freedoms when they are in another country and are, instead, bound to that country's rules and regulations?
The Crown funded most of the transport, infrastructure and civil service of the American Colonies...
No, the colonies did becuase George III, a porphyric idiot, started upping the taxes to pay for England's little imperialistic chessmatch with France. The Crown bestowed no gifts. Or was the Boston Tea Party a little fraternity roughhousing?
Python: 'And then suddenly you have a language which says "we're all stuck with whatever the whiniest coder wants".'
I think the assumption is that if those governments had as much power, then the damage they could inflict would be proportional. If the US couldn't do anything with the knowledge, then no one would care.
IIRC that was a Swedish thing, and quite popular at one time.
Just becasue some contries are still doing these things doesn't mean we are still in the age of colonization. Colonization has always been going on. The Age of refers to a period of time where it was happing on a large scale. Such as all of Africa and all of East Asia. There are still kingdoms in Europe but we are no longer in the Age of Monarchy. North Korea is communist but we are not in the Age of Communism.
All bets are off when your hand is revealed, man.
Python: 'And then suddenly you have a language which says "we're all stuck with whatever the whiniest coder wants".'
2 legs, 2 arms, 2 hands and 2 feets...
Only one head...
We all sux dude.
I can't call that English
No, but the US sucks becuase it got caught. If you're gonna spy on your friends, you CAN NOT get caught. Period. Relying on the silence of underlings only shows off your real weakness.
Python: 'And then suddenly you have a language which says "we're all stuck with whatever the whiniest coder wants".'
That's quite a reasonable comment, actually. (Somebody mod the AC up?)
Most consumer-level internet resources are in the US because the datacenters are. The datacenters are mostly in the US because it's still a nice place to start a company, and most of the companies have their HQ here. I'm not sure whether the key is where the corporate HQ is located, or where the datacenter is located, but I'm thinking either makes you vulnerable. Many countries' governments are seeing a problem with this.
That being the case, it presents a real risk for fragmentation of the internet. Countries won't want their people all going to a foreign company and datacenter just to escape spying (better to be spied on by a foreign power that doesn't share with your government), and breaking the internet along government boundaries would be tragic.
Maybe a better answer is to just fix the US. What if we just defunded the NSA, fired everyone, scrapped all the datacenters, demolished the buildings, and salted the earth? OK, we'd be at somewhat higher risk of terrorism because of the loss of SIGINT, and we wouldn't want to lose that forever, plus we'd need SIGINT again before some major power goes to war again (sure to happen inevitably), but I think the cost might be worth the value of the object lesson about government overreach.
Socialism: a lie told by totalitarians and believed by fools.
Well IPv6 could change this, if it's true. US is not the world leader on this internet. So many US network admins don't want to get on, they like their /8 10.x.y.z. So we slide further and further back while others charge ahead.
You would really rather be spied on by a country that has the capability to summarily execute you anywhere on the planet via drone strike, than a bunch of radicalized extremists living in tents, who couldn't get close enough to harm you, even if they really really wanted to?
I find it rather amusing that you consider England, Russia, and China to be a bunch of "radicalized extremists living in tents".
What this article is bitching about is essentially "Everybody goes to the US to setup companies, data centers, hire tech people, and that's not fair". Bullshit, there's nothing the US does to force people to setup their stuff in the US. There's nothing the US does to penalize anybody in other places.
There are a wide variety of reasons why the internet is "US-centric" for most services, but US having some kind of vague, undefined Authoritarian Control is not one of them.
A lot of people avoid the EU because of Net filters and (in their mind) excessive privacy regulations. People avoid China and Russia because they have little or no confidence those governments are not going to simply take their assets. And more to the point in the case of Russia and China, most people assume they'll have all their data and intellectual property straight ripped off... of course no mention of that recently because right now the NSA is the bogeyman people are hiding from.
If you don't want the internet to be US-centric then it's easy to solve it- make your own country a more appealing place to setup shop. The US offers relative stability in terms of economy, infrastructure, and laws, and if you look at the planet and where communications lines run it's "centralized". You could try setting up in a country in the Middle East, but political instability, poor infrastructure, and lack of a wealth of advanced educational services make it a pretty piss-poor region to consider right now. So if you're going to try and offer Internationally available services the US is currently the logical place to be.
And what are you going to gain by moving elsewhere? Technically the NSA's job IS to spy on other nations, the controversy is that they got caught doing it to US citizens. You still have to worry about the NSA everywhere else, in addition to the local governments. Sure, setup shop in Saudi Arabia, that sounds great until the local Dictator decides you're violating some religious requirement and shuts you down. China? Get ready to see your products show up on the black market with a minimally altered logo affixed. South America somewhere? Nope, there's crap for infrastructure and political stability is a major issue. Asia? Sure, some countries are appealing, but again you're looking at connections to the rest of the world having to go either through the US, or politically unstable regions.
Pardon me for finding that an odd position to hold.
Hold whatever position you desire, but please at least try to base it in some type of semblance of reality.
Perhaps it's about time we overthrow the evil overlords and take the wild west for ourselves?
Good luck getting 2/3 of the states to agree on anything, even something as fundamental as "we don't want our own government spying on us." If one side is for it, the other side must be against it (even if it's a good idea), and if someone is neither for nor against it they're probably unable to fully understand it.
Occasionally living proof of the Ballmer peak.
The web is not a US colony it is a meritocracy. In this case the US has most of the services which are essential for NOW. But this may not always be the case. So, Sweden and other countries that are upset should start working on the technological things that might give them the edge in the future.
In this world it is now all about the information and the technology. There is no fair and balanced here. Whoever knows the most... wins.
GC
Gregory Casamento
## Chief Maintainer for GNUstep
A false sense of WHAT? I cherry picked WHAT??? I'm sitting here in CALIFOIRNIA just sort of shooting off repsonses to idiots, I'm not writing a peer-reviewed article, just an opinion, AS AN AMERICAN, understanding however that the US GOV is OFF ITS ROCKER as a democratic institution, and I'm a european shill now? So much for land of the free... OUR government is out of control. Scrape the shit out of your eyes, brother. This govnernment set out a plate of delicacies called the "Internet", implicitlly said "I will govern this gift with a benevolant hand", and then whosale helped itself to whatever secrets it wanted. That's morally wrong, I don't care what you say. This government is under the illusion that it knows what's right. The last 10 years show it really isn't. To believe otherwise is to be blind, or complicate.
Python: 'And then suddenly you have a language which says "we're all stuck with whatever the whiniest coder wants".'
"People act like the US is the only country to have ever spied, when really, in this case, they just got caught. How do you know that others wouldn't be doing the same sort of monitoring? How do you know that they're not already?"
Really? Name for me a country that isn't totalitarian and has the same breadth, depth, and unimpeded access to global information. If this was China, nobody would be surprised, because that's what China does: spy on people, their own citizens no less.
The big deal isn't that the NSA is spying, it's how much they are, how far they can go, and how powerless the world is to stop them (who is going to sanction America that the US can't just ignore?). The potential for abuse is staggering, and the only way to keep out the NSA is to cut off access to America (which would make global business suffer horribly), and even then that's not a sure bet (thanks Stuxnet).
Nobody's stopping other countries from doing whatever they want with their portion of the internet. It's as simple as that. Stop bitching and do something about it. Look at China.
They were able to do this partially because of the huge amounts of vehicles and fuel we provided them.
More importantly, and this gets lost all the time in a discussion of the contribution of the Russians...EVEN IF the Russians had lost and the krauts had manged to take Moscow, Kiev, Stalingrad etc and march all the way to Mongolia, and EVEN IF D-Day had not been successful and the krauts had driven us back into the channel...
The US Still would have developed the bomb. And you can be damn sure that Hitler would have had a taste of what The Japanese experienced, and that would have altered his opinion quickly about continuing to fight.
The turning point of the War was not the US entry into it. Nor was it the Russians defeating the Germans. It was the decision to develop the atomic bomb.
I think the assumption is that if those governments had as much power, then the damage they could inflict would be proportional.
But they don't, which makes it a terribly inaccurate comparison.
If the US couldn't do anything with the knowledge, then no one would care.
Which is why I find OP's position odd, since the US very much can do stuff with the knowledge. Bad, unpleasant stuff.
Considering probability, it's a lot more reasonable to fear the US government's panopticon than one that Osama bin Deadtowel might have built in some remote Turkaturkastani cavern.
An enigma, wrapped in a riddle, shrouded in bacon and cheese
Meh . . . those are bad examples. Because if the US really had no conscious, they would have ended those wars on day 1 by just turning those countries into a toxic wasteland. Trying to win a war is different than trying to change the rules of the land you are battling in.
Since when does being a Socialist mean 'someone who has a different opinion than me'?
Would we really be at any higher a risk from terrorism? Personally I feel the antics carried out by the US Government (read my country) are all done under the guise of a war on terror. This war will never win and a whole new generation are being indoctrinated into not questioning the government because they are hunting terrorists to keep you safe.
If I had my way all those shitheads in Washington would be tossed on their fucking ears, and all their assets would be put into the US treasury. Too many politicians these days are in the hip pocket of corporate America.
I am Bennett Haselton! I am Bennett Haselton!
I also am in California, and I can attest to the fact that there are lots of lunatics here. Not as many is Florida per-capita-wise, but it's still pretty bad.
Ummm Einstein was Jewish...what other fate awaited him if he stayed?
If weren't for the Russians fucking Hitlers army, you americans would have your nasty asses handed to you.
But I give you... I mean, Einsteins kudos. The Atomic Bomb saved you against the Janapese, btw the son of a bitch was german... hah, crazy shit huh.
Not sure if trolling or if really doesn't know history
Read about the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact, and learn how the war started. Hint: the Russians helped start it, and were aggressors in it, long before they were fighting the Nazis.
By the by, the US armed forces acquitted themselves quite well fighting a two-front war. That's something you can't quite say about any other nation involved in that conflagration, particularly Germany.
The Crown funded most of the transport, infrastructure and civil service of the American Colonies...
No, the colonies did becuase George III, a porphyric idiot, started upping the taxes to pay for England's little imperialistic chessmatch with France. The Crown bestowed no gifts. Or was the Boston Tea Party a little fraternity roughhousing?
No, just bunch of traitors and terrorists.
Damn Hommos, getting homm all over the place and wrecking it for the rest of us.
They are not bitching about spying. They are bitching about America has too much power to do spying.
Personally what I finding hard to deal with is the amazing level of hypocrisy. The US tries to project a picture that it is a beacon of democracy, high moral values and an all round "good-guy"...and then spends its time going around behind all its friends and allies backs spying on them. It is probably correct to assume that other countries do this too and there may even be good arguments for it in some cases (although I have trouble understanding the motivation for bugging European leaders' phones) but nobody else tries to claim that their country is some amazing paragon of virtue that everyone else should follow.
So while I might agree that if I'm going to be spied on I'd rather it be by the US than by others the rest of the world would really appreciate it if you could lay off the hypocritical good-guy act. The US may come off looking very good compared to some of the more troubled nations on this planet but compared to some of the better ones they are beginning to look rather dodgy.
Would we really be at any higher a risk from terrorism?
Yes, we certainly would. We make it harder for terrorists to plan attacks, because they must resort to very low-tech approaches to escape surveillance. But still, the risk is so very low to start with! If it, say, tripled from "less than one attack per year" to "less than one attack per year", it would be well worth the benefit, IMO.
Socialism: a lie told by totalitarians and believed by fools.
the us invented it, did most of the work developing and deploying it, and funds most of the upkeep.
the rest of the world waited for it to be done, walked in, and started bitching.
Of course you're posting as anonymous cowards, since having your name attached to something like this would really hurt.
One of the claimed benefits of a Constitutionally limited government was that each State had the power to experiment, and try different paths. This was supposed to allow States to govern based on the local desires, rather than force everyone to agree on everything on a Federal level. Sadly, Federal scope creep has made States mere administrative units.
1) There is a reason why tech VC is concentrated in the US - our laws don't punish the greedy 0.1% who put cash in high-risk startups. The rest of the Western world is way behind us due to tons of crazy legal restrictions on VC.
2) Companies like Google may be founded and headquartered in the US, but they are really global companies with workers, offices, servers, and taxable incomes everywhere around the world.
Been on /. a long time, lunacy is in the eye of the beholder. If the king of lunatics as big as the US Gov, who among the peons can say any particular person is a lunatic with any credibility?
I've been a life-long cinservative. Now, the way I see it, the US Government is the lunatic. If your livelyhood depends on that entiity, who are you to question it, right? Of course everyone else is a lunatic.
Python: 'And then suddenly you have a language which says "we're all stuck with whatever the whiniest coder wants".'
Slow down and try to understand what people are saying. Their points are that the US is trampling on a bunch of liberties, but most other places in the world would be doing worse with the same amount of power. The best place to have your data center is in the US because, well look at the clashes between big tech companies and governments like Italy's, China's, Russia's, Australia's, etc. It would be much, much worse if the Syrian governement were in the US's position, for instance.
No, the colonies did becuase George III, a porphyric idiot, started upping the taxes to pay for England's little imperialistic chessmatch with France.
psst Kings don't levy taxes, Parliament does. Lord North was the Prime Minister at the time of the American War of Independence. How much of an idiot George III may or may not have been isn't really relevant...
"Convictions are more dangerous enemies of truth than lies."
To a mad tyrant.
This was the common propaganda of the time, despite being a bit ridiculous when applied to a parliamentary democracy like Great Britain.
"Convictions are more dangerous enemies of truth than lies."
Those laws would do nothing. In fact, it's very likely that anyone supporting those laws would lose major monitary support for having that stance, but also you can't really make laws that regulates a company's actions in another country.
The most you can do is to not do business with any company that complies with those US laws, in which case you're telling companies to choose to operate in your country or in the US. And good luck convincing people your country is a bigger market than the US. Most international companies cannot afford that loss.
Japan surrendered when the Russians started marching through Manchuria on their way to Japan. The nukes just added another incentive and it was decided that surrendering to the US was more palatable then surrendering or fighting the Russians. It's a pity the allies did not march into Russia after Germany fell. It would have saved the people in eastern Europe from living in communist squalor for 40 years.
Not just a two-front war, a two-theatre, multi-front war. The US was simultaneously engaged in ground operations in France, Italy, North Africa, and in islands in the Pacific, was engaged in naval maneuvers in the North Sea, the central Atlantic, the Mediterranean Sea, and the Pacific, and had air/bombing operations over Europe and Asia.
The US was lucky in that vital production infrastructure wasn't located close to the war, and was far enough away that even raid-type attacks were impractical. Contrast to France where they were taken within months, and Russia, that ceded territory like mad until the Germans failed to build out enough to make up for the distance and lack of scavengable resources in Russian territory. The United Kingdom enjoyed at least a modicum of this kind of isolation, insofar as they couldn't be ground-invaded quickly, but their infrastructure was still vulnerable to both bombing and to small-teams insertion, so they had to be particularly vigilant, committing resources that the US simply didn't need to spend defensively.
Do not look into laser with remaining eye.
If you don't want the internet to be US-centric then it's easy to solve it- make your own country a more appealing place to setup shop. The US offers relative stability in terms of economy, infrastructure, and laws, and if you look at the planet and where communications lines run it's "centralized".
What is your point, actually? Are you suggesting that having stability and thereby attracting service providers justifies using those service providers to spy on people? And if you don't live in a country with an economy comparable to the US, you deserve to be spied upon, because it's your own fault for not "solving it"? It's "easy to solve", after all.
I'm not really a fan of those FTFY kind of comments, but for the sake of your own education:
[T]he controversy in the US is that they got caught doing it to US citizens.
I can assure you, that is not what is the controversy elsewhere.
Slow down and try to understand what people are saying. Their points are that the US is trampling on a bunch of liberties, but most other places in the world would be doing worse with the same amount of power. The best place to have your data center is in the US because, well look at the clashes between big tech companies and governments like Italy's, China's, Russia's, Australia's, etc. It would be much, much worse if the Syrian governement were in the US's position, for instance.
If that's the point OP was trying to make, they should have actually said it.
Intent is pretty damn hard to infer from an anonymous online posting.
An enigma, wrapped in a riddle, shrouded in bacon and cheese
Because your real name is "X.25"? LOL @ one person using a pseudonym whining about others using one as well. Tell us all your real name or shut the fuck up.
if it wasn't [us], it would be someone else
isnt that the exact excuse that China used for selling arms to Darfur?
Anons need not reply. Questions end with a question mark.
But more importantly, for example Finland - where F-Secure is based - couldn't host Slashdot, because by law forums must record their users' real names and must actively moderate offensive posts. So Hypponen could do more to change this with the ballot box than soap box, since it's less about the US and more about Finland - and, presumably, other European countries.
Forget magic. Any technology distinguishable from divine power is insufficiently advanced.
and I really like it. However, I found it more by luck than it finding me (cubieboard).
If the folks in the EU want Americans to use their services:
1- Advertise in the US. I haven't seen many ads for VPN, secure email, cloud services, etc, on the media I read in the US.
2- Be cost effective. No, $15-$20USD for an email account isn't cost effective. I run my own VPS with SSL for about the same cost in the US, and I could probably do that more cheaply. There are other services based out of the EU that I've looked at, and they have all been more costly than I could justify to myself or my boss.
3- Most Americans wanting that extra warm feeling of security away from snooping need to have the limitations of the local regulations clearly spelled out to them. I have no idea what jurisdictional differences there are between Norway, Switzerland, and Monaco. I know what they are in the US, and am familiar with some of the limitations of our neighbor states. Likewise, I wouldn't expect anyone coming from outside the US to know what our limitations are, but typically US businesses have a very clear Terms of Service that lays all of that out. Most EU based service providers I've looked at do not spell things out very clearly in terms of jurisdictional limitations, etc.
4- Unfortunately, because of US geographical limits, we 'Muricans also don't speak many more languages than just US English, which makes it even more difficult.
We can't nuke the whole world into submission NOW, because others have nukes, and they would use them against us.
But at the TIME, we COULD nuke the world into submission. It's true that the two we dropepd were the only ones we had, but we were in the process of developing more because Truman believed it was possible japan wouldn't surrender even after a few cities were bombed. he fully planned on LITERALLY bombing Japan so that no stone rested atop another, to end the threat to the US and to the rest of Asia.
It would have worked against the Japanese regardless of if Hitler was around or not. There's literally nothing you can do in that situation, except either A) Surrender or B) see all your cities get turned into glass. The Japanese chose A.
Would Hitler have chosen the same? Who knows. He might have decided that the German people weren't saving if they couldn't protect themselves from capitalist aggressor atom bombs. But whatever; we would have happily bombed the German armies with a few of those things so that they were no longer a threat to Russia or Western Europe.
I have, and I question those studies, as do most modern tenured historians. It's pretty much revisionism to suggest the Japanese were willing to give up under any circumstances; of the demands they wanted to surrender, they wanted to keep their troops in China. They refused unconditional surrender, and that is what we (wisely) demanded.
In addition, no other nation was far along on creating the Bomb. ONLY the US took it seriously; the British provided nothing to the Manhattan project, even when asked repeatedly by Roosevelt, and once they determined we were dead serious about it, they then, towards early '45, started contributing money and materials and wanted to take credit. Hitler basically blew off the bomb, and was much more focused on conventinal warfare.
Remember, the Manhattan project was gigantic...take a look at all the spots in the US that contributed manpower and research into it...it's staggering what we did in that short timeframe.
No they didn't. There is no evidence Stalin was ever in any way, shape, or form serious about invading japan. This gets lost all the time in this discussion...what you are saying is that a crazy dictator who had just lost 20 million folks against the Germans, was now SERIOUSLY considering turning around, sending millions of troops the other way, and invading a country that had not really done him much harm up to that point, only to help the Chinese and Americans. That is ridiculous.
Furthermore, and this is something else that always gets lost...the Japanese knew about the dropping of the first atom bomb. And yet they refused to surrender. And in fact, even after the second one was dropped and the emperor made clear his determination to then surrender, he was under serious threat of an immediate coup attempt by his officers. The Japanese were NOT going to surrender, under any circumstances, to a bunch of Russians.
Yes, I quite agree with this. I wonder if a more appropriate name for the current era in terms of politics and demographics would be the Age of Migration?
For example, on my father's side, he and his three siblings were born and raised in Maine, US. His parents lived their entire life in Maine except near the end of their lives when they moved to a nursing home near Boston to be near one of their children. None of the children stayed in the state after college. And their kids in turn moved around even more than the parents did.
Now, we're seeing similar effects on the global scale with people moving easily between states (the obstacles being by far more political than physical). I think one very big effect will be the decline of nationalism. If you hop between nations relatively frequently, then you're less likely to be tied to any of them.
Everyone's doing it, and if they aren't, that just means they've not been caught yet, and if they really aren't, they might. They're only treating you like a paranoid lunatic because they're all hypocrites.
Still, congratulations for resisting the urge to suggest that everyone but you is secretly a terrorist.
Forget magic. Any technology distinguishable from divine power is insufficiently advanced.
Somehow I believe there is substance to the idea that a document written before the automobile, automatic weapons, missiles, mass communication, computers, vaccines, etc. may not be the same document to form the best basis for a government in a country existing after the discovery of all of that, and the great many technological wonders to soon follow.
You have to show relevance first. Just because there have been technology wonders doesn't mean that anything politically fundamental has to change.
Who is to blame for the fact that no nation other than the US has come up with a paradigm or service that the whole world has decided they need?
I'm as much against US domination of global politics and economic issues as anyone, but I don't blame the US for the fact that they have a lot of successful internet businesses. No one is forcing anyone to use their services. There are competitors in other nations (e.g. Baidu) that haven't spread outside their local markets. There are forums and services which cater to local markets.
It's not like you can claim that it's so outrageously expensive to register a .com that no one from another nation can compete -- far from it.
If you want someone to blame, look to your own citizens who'd rather pony up the cash for an American service rather than buying locally. Take a look at your local services and ask yourself why they aren't achieving greater market share.
I think you'll find they all have one problem in comparison to their American counterparts: they suck donkey balls.
I do not fail; I succeed at finding out what does not work.
That the US outfitted a submarine (the USS Jimmy Carter) some years back to tap undersea fiber has been widely reported. I am unaware that any continental European nation has developed the same capability. Perhaps you can enlighten me by linking to some report?
Now you may disagree with these examples, but that doesn't mean that at 226 years the document doesn't need some heavy revision. If you were to select any 226 years in human history, none would be as drastic in change as the last.
End of the Second World War in 1945 definitely was the big year for change.
But having that, I do disagree with these examples. You're not actually showing anything significant. Contrary to your assertion, the killing of human beings at the civilian level isn't significantly different now than it was more than two hundred years ago. Similarly, there are less homeless people now than then. Vaccines aren't a big difference since we can address whatever issues with laws.
I would add the speed and nature of voting as well. There is no need for the electoral college. We have many new, modern ideas for voting that allow for greater representation [and I don't just mean third parties].
There's the only thing you've indicated so far which would be worth addressing at the constitutional level. And it can be addressed with a constitutional amendment.
If the politicos want to fight terrorism, let them. Any volunteers get a full USMC rifleman loadout and a paradrop to the location of their choice, out of: Afghanistan, Yemen, Somalia, Libya, Syria. Godspeed.
You forget that this was the time before effective delivery vehicles were available - all you have is bombers. The reason why it was so easy to nuke Japan is because their air force was already decimated. I don't think that a bomber carrying a nuke to, say, Berlin would have a good chance of getting there if you take the hypothetical "Great German Reich from Atlantic to the Urals" scenario, with all the industrial base and resources of Europe and USSR at its disposal. You'd need to send several to get any reasonable chance of getting one through, which is very costly, and even then would probably only work for the first attack, since afterwards they'd just start going after bombers disregarding any losses.
No, the nukes were as much a wunderwaffe toy as German V-2. What won the war was the determination and courage of soldiers on the ground, and the sheer manufacturing capacity that Allies had - US and USSR both. The turning point was really in 1941, when blitzkrieg in Russia failed before taking over Moscow, and Soviets succeeded in fully relocating their industry to the Urals and getting it up and running on full capacity. Germans were good at blitzkrieg, but they simply didn't have the resources for a prolonged meat grinder kind of warfare, and that's what they got into in the USSR.
As far as who contributed most to victory, I think it's a fair assessment that USSR bore the brunt of the war in Europe, and US did the same in the Pacific. Everyone else was kinda tagging along - yes, even Brits. It's all really obvious when you look at losses and inflicted casualties. 5 out of 6 Axis soldiers killed in Europe died on the Eastern front, and this also represents about 2/3 of total Axis casualties everywhere. Most of the remaining 1/3 are Japanese soldiers dead from American action.
As far as lend lease goes, it was certainly a noticeable aid to the USSR, esp, in 1941-42, but it is unlikely to have been decisive - it didn't play much role in stopping the Germans at Moscow in 1941. Without it, it would probably have taken an extra year or so for Soviets to build up enough to be ready to go on the offensive, so Kursk (or equivalent) would have been somewhere in mid-to-late 1944, with the corresponding cost increase in human lives. So I think that USSR is by all rights entitled to a claim of being the country that defeated Germany in WW2 even with lend lease in the picture, much as US can claim victory over Japan.
American politics was pretty partisan during Prohibition, and yet they managed to pass two Constitutional amendments about it.
That is absolutely right. They are not bitching about spying.
Yes they are are.
They are bitching about America has too much power to do spying and them (Finnish people ??) NOT!
They are complaining about that as well.
If the balance was tilted towards their side, do you think they would complain this much ? I think not...
You're an American trying to rationalize their own bad behavior. What they're doing, spying on friends, is completely unethical. What others are doing is completely irrelevant. That's children's logic ("he did it first!"). The only context where spying is okay is war. In other words declared enemies. And definitely not the phony "war" they're currently waging. Which in any case is irrelevant to the vast majority of the population apart from the wasted resources.
Also, I'd prefer American's do the spying instead of Russians or god forbid Mujaheddin army from the garden variety of middle eastern kingdoms/banana republics.
Your logic is broken. Two wrongs don't make a right.
I am not a born American by the way, if you are going to try flaming me with phrases starting with "You, Americans always say it like that....blah-blah".
A religious convert is often the most fanatical.
It is common sense.
No it is not - it is dishonest and hugely harmful behavior. They have proven they are not friends and not to be trusted. I will deal with them when I have to but will avoid them when I can. Millions, may be billions, feel the same. That's going to have a measure-able effect on the US economy. US people living in their own bubble tend to forget their population is <5% of the the world's population. They're a tiny minority.
Regardless how bad the freedoms are in this country, I'd rather not be anywhere else at this moment in time.
Irrelevant. Unfortunately, like many people who support the spying etc. your logic is pretty dubious. Please, lift your game and start thinking about it more deeply.
Or was the Boston Tea Party a little fraternity roughhousing?
The Boston Tea Party was about taxes, but it was about the Crown lowering taxes on commercial tea so much that it became cheaper then the tax free black market tea.
The Boston Tea Party was only about keeping the profit margins of the smugglers, who perpetrated it. The fact that Americans still think it's about the Crown's taxes onto the colonies being too much to bare, shows how much Americans don't even know their own history.
No they didn't. There is no evidence Stalin was ever in any way, shape, or form serious about invading japan.
Stalin agreed to help the Americans defeat the Japanese within 3 months of Germany's surrender/occupation at the Yalta Conference.
No instead, Russia had started to amass a large force of over 1.5 million men, over 5,500 tanks, and over 5,000 aircraft at it's borders, and in seven days, managed to push well into the Northern part of the Korean Peninsula, taking most of Japanese controlled Manchuria in the process before the surrender of Japan just a short week later.
No, the delay between the bombings of Hiroshima on August 6th and Nagasaki on August 9th, and the Emperor's surrender on August 15th, had little to do with the bombs, and more to do with the fact that other then the Mainland, they had nothing left to fight over.
A little knowledge of history would help before you keep posting useless information.
I notice you didn't include an actual parachute in that loadout. Probably for the best.
Socialism: a lie told by totalitarians and believed by fools.
Perhaps you can enlighten me by linking to some report?
You catch a student cheating. The student puts on a smirk and says: "What's the big deal? Everyone else is doing it -- prove me wrong."
And of course you can't prove a negative.
Don't quote me on this.
if the USA government were to suddenly renounce the use of the word freedom, you would deem it as a kind of progress
Yes it is. It means they would have the moral ground to look at what they did and fix things, instead of having to pretend they can't do wrong.
Don't quote me on this.
Deng Xiao-ping would be rolling in his grave to know that Hong Kong, where English is still one of the official languages, is still part of the British Empire.
In other news, it may be a surprise to you that not everyone in Britain speaks English as a first language. Her Majesty the Queen Elizabeth II would probably object strongly to alienating their status as British subjects.
Don't quote me on this.
Your *government* is a master. (Well, unless you're Obama with a funny slashdot nickname).
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mount_Rushmore
Don't quote me on this.
While that's a nice two line summary, JimCanuck, there's more to the story...
The British Parliament (led at the time by Lord North) taxed tea imports to the British Empire, including the American colonies. The Indemnity Act of 1767 was the North Government's attempt to combat the black market trade in tea, which was leading to great financial difficulties for the East India Company, by eliminating these taxes in Britain. Parliament made up the revenue shortfall via the Townshend Acts, which were the first direct taxation on the Colonies imposed by Parliament. Demand plummeted, as the Colonists were incensed at the idea of taxation without representation. It didn't help that the tax made British tea much more expensive then black-market tea. Demand plummeted in Britain as well, when the Indemnity Act was allowed to expire in 1772. This combination nearly led to the collapse of the EIC.
Lord North's government, eager to extricate the EIC from their financial woes, yet unwilling to concede the claim of authority to tax the Colonies, passed the Tea Act in 1773. The EIC was grant authority (for the first time) to import tea directly to the Colonies. The EIC profitably undercut black market tea, even with the Townshend Act taxes still in effect. Unfortunately, the continued existence of the Townshend tax was not effectively concealed, exacerbating the previous, principled objections.
In the late 18th century, the EIC was a massive enterprise that controlled most of the overseas trade throughout the British Empire, and acted as the de facto government of the Indian sub-continent. While I would certainly concede the merchants and smugglers who helped instigate the Boston Tea Party were self-serving, they would not have been able to stand up to the EIC without a broad base of public support in the Colonies. It hopefully goes without saying that that ground-swell wasn't the product of people objecting to legal British tea being cheaper then black market tea. Of course one could argue that the North government's response, embodied in the Coercive and Intolerable Acts, didn't help either.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boston_Tea_Party
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/East_India_Company
There's a big [citation needed] on that. I don't know about Finland but half of the websites in the UK would be offline by now if that were law, and the German constitutional court would've struck any such law down in a heartbeat just like they did with the data retention laws: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/8545772.stm.
Pre-canned Evolution Links for all those Slashdot holy wars.
Legislation for parliamentary members from the American colonies had already been passed before the American Revolution. Britain's parliament was supposed to offer parliamentary representation to anyone that was being taxed. Taxing the American colonists without representing them violated the guaranteed 'Rights of Englishmen'. Parliament had been trying to fix this since the puritan days of 1640. The governor of Massachusetts had reported in his journal ("Journal of John Winthrop") that he had been asked by Parliament to send representatives to England as either lobbyists or members but he had refused for he didn't want Massachusetts to become tax-liable.
This went on till just before the revolutionary war. People like John Grenville, Ben Franklin, Thomas Crowley, John Adams, and others all debated and wrote papers discussing parliamentary seats in London or federal representation with the empire that would have legal rights to tax the American colonies. However, there was no assembly or request sent to Westminster by the colonial powers.
During the debate for the Stamp Act, (which stated published written paper such as legal documents, and commercial paper like magazines and newspapers, had to be printed on specified stamped paper from England), several delegates from the colonies attended the sessions in New York, but not as members of Parliament. William Knox reported that these delegates were offered membership, but did not do so for they did not want to give England legal jurisdiction to tax them.
From wikipedia: William Knox submitted that,
whilst [the radical colonists] exclaim against Parliament for taxing them when they are not represented, they candidly declare they will not have representatives [in Parliament] lest they should be taxed...The truth...is that they are determined to get rid of the jurisdiction of Parliament...and they therefore refuse to send members to that assembly lest they should preclude themselves of [the] plea [that Parliament's] legislative acts...are done without their consent; which, it must be confessed, holds equally good against all laws, as against taxes...The colony advocates...tell us, that by refusing to accept our offer of representatives they...mean to avoid giving Parliament a pretence for taxing them.[40]"
The "Conciliatory Resolution" was dated on Feb 27. "The Conciliatory Resolution declared that any colony that contributed to the common defense and provided support for the civil government and the administration of justice (ostensibly against any anti-Crown rebellion) would be relieved of paying taxes or duties except those necessary for the regulation of commerce." (wikipedia)
Posting to ruin my mod rights for this story because I meant to mod you up but my wrist slipped.
Seriously. I believe the US is guilty of many things, but this story is just brain dead hogwash.
Hey Europe: If you have better alternatives to US-based Internet tools, uh, fucking use them? Are you seriously enduring cross-Atlantic lag and sending money for subscriptions, services, and ad exposures/clicks to another country, and then bitching that we accept that money you voluntarily dished our way?
You... you want us to apologize for how awesome our ONE and ONLY area of ...not even dominance, just competitive viability... is?
Dude, as a Linux user speaking to a region which is so very FOSS-friendly as Europe... nobody's forcing you to use US websites. Ehrmegerd.
I guess even Europe grows village idiots who become politicians... lest we Yanks think we had a monopoly on that.
Every trollism an AC posts is prefixed, in my mind, with "A. Coward whined, in a weak and cowardly voice:"
What makes you think Stalin gave a single solitary shit about how many of his people died? When Germany first invaded Russia Stalin threw every single peasant into the path of the advancing Germans to give him time to round up all the top military leaders and scientists he had sentenced to the Gulags. Stalin's early military strategy hinged on having more people than the Germans had bullets and it basically worked. The Russians were as bad as the Germans both in ideology and actions. The Germans created a system that could kill and dispose of people in the most efficient way. The Russians just dumped all their victims out of sight in Siberia and let them fend for themselves.
Website operators are responsible for moderating user content as you say. If someone posts libelous comments the owner must remove it.
There's no requirement to use real names or for operators to record them, however, which means there are plenty of nasty Slashdot-like cesspools. The trash talk is just between forum names, not real ones.
I'm sorry if I haven't offended anyone
The NSA is just doing its job. Slipped up on a few corner cases, watching yanks.
So is this the TSA's job?
http://yro.slashdot.org/story/13/10/25/1939214/feds-confiscate-investigative-reporters-confidential-files-during-raid
Now THAT is EVIL. And probably LEGAL, for current values of law.
--
Let's outsource our government.
Any type of hegemony will have awkward repercussions and collateral damage.
Casteism