Gawd, I cannot express how wrong that statement is. Don't misunderstand me, Greasemonkey is a very cool toy, but words like "revolutionary" and "future" are even more correct when you speak of equally "revolutionary" technologies like PointCast or WAP.
Hey, at least is not ilovevampirethemasquerade.com:-)
Seriously, a good email address says a lot from you. Yahoo or hotmail accounts are good for filling registration forms, but can't be counted as a reliable way to contact you. To me it's like writing "phone: 555-5555 (ask for Me, they know me there)" in your resume... only worse, as email addresses are far cheaper than a phone line.
I agree that usually users/consumers are on the wrong side of the Bell curve. However, is too simplistic to label a customer who want good products at a reasonable price as "cheap." Big companies that sells cheap stuff would benefit from good customer support, but in our world, post sale is still considered a liability.
Also, your USA quote is somewhat insulting to people who (like me) lives in other countries.
Date: Tue, 21 May 2002 20:35:27 +0200 (CEST)
From: Bo Elkjaer <bo.elkjaer@eb.dk>
To: jya@pipeline.com
Subject: Interview w. Bruce McIndoe, lead architect, Echelon II
I thought you might find this interesting. As a follow up, the issue will
be debated - once again - in the Danish parliament and one of the Danish
members of the EU parliaments temporary Echelon committee, Torben Lund, has
stated that he will discuss the new information from Bruce McIndoe with the
leader of the temporary committee, Gerhard Schmid (DE).
Bo Elkjaer, Denmark
ECHELON'S ARCHITECT
Echelon now has a big brother. Meet Bruce McIndoe, lead architect for
Echelon II, the 'most productive intelligence program' in history
By Bo Elkjaer and Kenan Seeberg
Meet Bruce McIndoe. He has information that the Danish government and several
others around the globe, continuously pretends isn't there. McIndoe knows
that Echelon is real. Because he helped to build it. "Yes, that's right",
McIndoe confirms to the Danish paper
Ekstra Bladet today Bruce
McIndoe dedicated more than ten years of his life to Echelon. He helped to
finalize the original Echelon system starting in 1987. After that, he started
to design Echelon II, an enlargement of the original system.
Bruce McIndoe left the inner circle of the enormous espionage network in
1998, a network run by the National Security Agency, the world's most powerful
intelligence agency, in cooperation with other Western intelligence services.
Ekstra Bladet tracked down Bruce McIndoe to
IJet Travel Intelligence, a private espionage
agency where he is currently second in command.
IJet Travel Intelligence is an exceedingly effective, specialized company
that employs former staff members of the NSA, CIA, KGB and South African
intelligence services.
The company's task is to furnish reports for top executives from US business
and industry that reveal everything about the destination to which they are
travelling for their multinational company. All the information they need
to make the trip as safe as possible. The company resembles a miniature version
of his previous employer, the world's most powerful intelligence agency,
the NSA.
And they are almost neighbours.
Bruce McIndoe's new company is headquartered in the state of Maryland, near
the NSA's gigantic Fort Meade headquarters.
CURIOUS SPY
We phone IJet Travel Intelligence and a secretary asks us to spell our names.
Bruce McIndoe calls back one hour later, at the very minute we had agreed
on. He starts by asking the first questions. "It appears you have written
a lot about spies, intelligence and Echelon before."
"Well, you might say that."
"You have especially written a lot about Echelon, haven't you?"
"Yes, we have, some two hundred articles."
Bruce McIndoe is more than just casually inquisitive when he calls. He hasn't
wasted any time and obviously ran a background check on the two curious reporters
from Denmark, and it all took less than an hour. Now that he has broached
the subject of top-secret Echelon himself, we decide to get right to the
point.
"You were one of the architects for Echelon II. When did you work on that
program for the NSA?"
"When I was at CSSI. We worked for the NSA most of the time that CSSI existed.
Mainly from 1987 until four years ago. At that time, my company was bought
out by a company known as the Computer Science Corporation. Although CSSI
was involved in many large-scale projects for the NSA, Echelon was probably
the biggest."
"Is Echelon II some sort of superstructure to Echelon?"
"Yes. Echelon has existed for a long time, as you know, and they needed to
update the system."
SILLY POLITICIANS
"Have you kept up with the European Echelon discussion and the report
issued by the European Parliament?"
"Yes, I have followed it quite closely, actually. At least I know that some
countries are uncertain about the entire program, and I'm familiar with their
considerations on whether they shall continue to support it. The US government
and its allies have already run into somewhat of a challenge."
"What do you mean by that?"
"Well, they can't avoid the glare of publicity anymore. If I perform a search
on the word 'Echelon' right now, I can find maybe one thousand articles dealing
with Echelon, so it is a pretty well-known system by now. And as you know,
many people mildly disapprove of Echelon. So accepting the use of it poses
a challenge to many countries."
"The European Parliament is airing the possibility that the EU should
make its own Echelon system?"
"Well, there are three possible options. They can openly join Echelon and
demand more control, they can make their own system or they can refrain from
having one. But in my opinion, pretending it doesn't exist just isn't an
option. Especially not after September eleventh."
"Were you ever involved in the first Echelon system?"
"Only at the end of it. It was already operational when I entered the picture."
"The report of the European Parliament firmly establishes that Echelon
is a global surveillance system which intercepts private and commercial
communication and that it is led by the US in concert with Great Britain,
Canada, Australia and New Zealand as second partners. But the Parliament
is not totally sure the system is named Echelon."
Bruce McIndoe laughs dryly and somewhat indulgently about the thought of
our silly European politicians. IJet Travel Intelligence's website proudly,
and with surprising candour, mentions McIndoe's contribution to making Echelon
II. The website states that: 'Bruce was one of the lead architects for the
National Security Agency's Echelon II program, identified as one of the most
productive intelligence programs in the agency's history.'
LISTENING IN ON EVERYTHING
"On the whole, it doesn't take long to verify the existence of Echelon if
you look at the US Defence Department's budgets. And besides, code names
are usually not classified as top secret. This practice enables people in
the right circles to refer to the program, yet without revealing its capacity
or how it operates."
"So you are the person who can document that you have made Echelon II?"
"Yes, that's for sure. I can even do so without revealing any secrets. Echelon
II is the successor, so to speak, of the original Echelon system."
"Can you tell us whether it is used to monitor all types of
communication?"
"No system of such enormous magnitude would only be used for a single purpose.
They use it for everything they can, if they feel it's necessary. Whenever
they need to exploit its potential, they do it."
Bruce takes a little breather while he considers whether he has said too
much:
"But it doesn't mean they're a bunch of wild cowboys. There are rules, you
know, that stipulate what they are allowed to monitor, and they definitely
don't ignore the laws of any individual countries. Not American laws either.
This poses somewhat of a challenge, of course, but after they get a court
order, they can do just about anything they please," explains McIndoe, who
emphasizes that he is no expert in these matters.
In 1998, Computer Science Corporation took over Bruce McIndoe's company -
and with that the Echelon contract with the National Security Agency. Shortly
afterwards, Bruce McIndoe co-founded the company he now works for. A company
where he makes great use of his experience from working with the largest
espionage system in the world.
AUTOMATIC TRANSLATION
"Tell us something about the company you work for now."
"Okay. In short, we have transferred everything I did for the NSA and other
services to a private company that then sells intelligence to businesspersons.
We get information on everything from local diseases, outbreaks of malaria
epidemics and local unrest to strikes, the weather and traffic conditions.
Our customers are large multinational companies like Prudential and Texas
Instruments. We also work for institutions like the World Bank and the IMF."
"Your offices resemble a command post at the NSA's Fort Meade
headquarters?"
"Yes, exactly. Our staff are also former intelligent agents who have either
developed or run espionage operations for US intelligence agencies or people
from the UK, South Africa and Russia."
"How does the NSA feel about the fact you're applying the same technology
in the private sector?"
"A lot of the technology developed at the NSA will sooner or later find its
way into civilian life. Things like word spotting, automatic translation,
language recognition and so on. But since we don't try to hide our work and
primarily use open sources, the NSA doesn't complain."
Yet the architect for Echelon II indirectly reveals some secrets to us. One
of the ways Echelon works is by using words and voice recognition, as well
as automatic translation.
I am chilean, and I'm kind of pissed by the comments of some guy who says he had drive in every country of Latinoamerica. In Chile, we respect every traffic light and traffic sign. The only signal that aren't very respected are the "no parking" signs, but nobody is perfect.
We have only two police forces: Carabineros de Chile, in charge of crime control, traffic, and order in general, and Investigaciones de Chile, our detectives. Carabineros are very competent in their jobs. A useful tip: if you come to Chile, NEVER try to bribe a police, except if you want to know some third world jail. Investigaciones is another story.
Oh, I was stucked in the traffic that day. Omigod.
Watcom always beated every other C/C++ compiler out there. I remember being a big fan of their _lovely_ compiler; I used it to do some real time automatic control and it rocked.
If they manage to release a modern, up to date version of their IDE, I will be glad.
(btw, I remember in the IDE having a "Pentium" optimization flag... when the Pentium wasn't even released! Now that's efficiency:-))
I agree. This is a sad day for the technical industry (outside of a few direct Microsoft competitors). Just because California is such a politically important state, and the Silicon Valley a big industry there, doesn't give them the right to send a Government lynch mob after one of America's best companies.
You're so funny. You should get published on User Friendly. Perhaps you are a corporal piece of the crude puppy:-)
Slashdot Mirror
So, they are ramping up their prices before a sale? Geez, never expected that.
C# is no longer proprietary. Get your biases updated, people!
Gawd, I cannot express how wrong that statement is. Don't misunderstand me, Greasemonkey is a very cool toy, but words like "revolutionary" and "future" are even more correct when you speak of equally "revolutionary" technologies like PointCast or WAP.
Didn't you know? That's the new Yellow Screen of Death.
Hey, at least is not ilovevampirethemasquerade.com :-)
Seriously, a good email address says a lot from you. Yahoo or hotmail accounts are good for filling registration forms, but can't be counted as a reliable way to contact you. To me it's like writing "phone: 555-5555 (ask for Me, they know me there)" in your resume... only worse, as email addresses are far cheaper than a phone line.
Please remove this sh*t, I'm at work here!!!
Go visit their page. They are paying everything from their income, no VC or anything like that.
Uh, I don't get it...
I agree that usually users/consumers are on the wrong side of the Bell curve. However, is too simplistic to label a customer who want good products at a reasonable price as "cheap." Big companies that sells cheap stuff would benefit from good customer support, but in our world, post sale is still considered a liability.
Also, your USA quote is somewhat insulting to people who (like me) lives in other countries.
Pardon my english.
the quality of
the posts on slashdot started
to get lower
surely they
already knew haiku
it's not chinese
surely they
knew that challange
it is not a word
yet they managed
to screw in front of millions
one more time
ah, please stop me now.
Don't think this guy was trolling, I firmly agree with what he is saying. That's all.
Namespaces, just a rehash of SGML? I think is enough to say "XML, a derivative of SGML".
Yawn.
Uh... seems like everybody feels helpful today *sigh*
21 May 2002
Date: Tue, 21 May 2002 20:35:27 +0200 (CEST)
From: Bo Elkjaer <bo.elkjaer@eb.dk>
To: jya@pipeline.com
Subject: Interview w. Bruce McIndoe, lead architect, Echelon II
I thought you might find this interesting. As a follow up, the issue will be debated - once again - in the Danish parliament and one of the Danish members of the EU parliaments temporary Echelon committee, Torben Lund, has stated that he will discuss the new information from Bruce McIndoe with the leader of the temporary committee, Gerhard Schmid (DE).
Bo Elkjaer, Denmark
ECHELON'S ARCHITECT
Echelon now has a big brother. Meet Bruce McIndoe, lead architect for Echelon II, the 'most productive intelligence program' in history
By Bo Elkjaer and Kenan Seeberg
Meet Bruce McIndoe. He has information that the Danish government and several others around the globe, continuously pretends isn't there. McIndoe knows that Echelon is real. Because he helped to build it. "Yes, that's right", McIndoe confirms to the Danish paper Ekstra Bladet today Bruce McIndoe dedicated more than ten years of his life to Echelon. He helped to finalize the original Echelon system starting in 1987. After that, he started to design Echelon II, an enlargement of the original system.
Bruce McIndoe left the inner circle of the enormous espionage network in 1998, a network run by the National Security Agency, the world's most powerful intelligence agency, in cooperation with other Western intelligence services. Ekstra Bladet tracked down Bruce McIndoe to IJet Travel Intelligence, a private espionage agency where he is currently second in command.
IJet Travel Intelligence is an exceedingly effective, specialized company that employs former staff members of the NSA, CIA, KGB and South African intelligence services.
The company's task is to furnish reports for top executives from US business and industry that reveal everything about the destination to which they are travelling for their multinational company. All the information they need to make the trip as safe as possible. The company resembles a miniature version of his previous employer, the world's most powerful intelligence agency, the NSA.
And they are almost neighbours.
Bruce McIndoe's new company is headquartered in the state of Maryland, near the NSA's gigantic Fort Meade headquarters.
CURIOUS SPY
We phone IJet Travel Intelligence and a secretary asks us to spell our names. Bruce McIndoe calls back one hour later, at the very minute we had agreed on. He starts by asking the first questions. "It appears you have written a lot about spies, intelligence and Echelon before."
"Well, you might say that."
"You have especially written a lot about Echelon, haven't you?"
"Yes, we have, some two hundred articles."
Bruce McIndoe is more than just casually inquisitive when he calls. He hasn't wasted any time and obviously ran a background check on the two curious reporters from Denmark, and it all took less than an hour. Now that he has broached the subject of top-secret Echelon himself, we decide to get right to the point.
"You were one of the architects for Echelon II. When did you work on that program for the NSA?"
"When I was at CSSI. We worked for the NSA most of the time that CSSI existed. Mainly from 1987 until four years ago. At that time, my company was bought out by a company known as the Computer Science Corporation. Although CSSI was involved in many large-scale projects for the NSA, Echelon was probably the biggest."
"Is Echelon II some sort of superstructure to Echelon?"
"Yes. Echelon has existed for a long time, as you know, and they needed to update the system."
SILLY POLITICIANS
"Have you kept up with the European Echelon discussion and the report issued by the European Parliament?"
"Yes, I have followed it quite closely, actually. At least I know that some countries are uncertain about the entire program, and I'm familiar with their considerations on whether they shall continue to support it. The US government and its allies have already run into somewhat of a challenge."
"What do you mean by that?"
"Well, they can't avoid the glare of publicity anymore. If I perform a search on the word 'Echelon' right now, I can find maybe one thousand articles dealing with Echelon, so it is a pretty well-known system by now. And as you know, many people mildly disapprove of Echelon. So accepting the use of it poses a challenge to many countries."
"The European Parliament is airing the possibility that the EU should make its own Echelon system?"
"Well, there are three possible options. They can openly join Echelon and demand more control, they can make their own system or they can refrain from having one. But in my opinion, pretending it doesn't exist just isn't an option. Especially not after September eleventh."
"Were you ever involved in the first Echelon system?"
"Only at the end of it. It was already operational when I entered the picture."
"The report of the European Parliament firmly establishes that Echelon is a global surveillance system which intercepts private and commercial communication and that it is led by the US in concert with Great Britain, Canada, Australia and New Zealand as second partners. But the Parliament is not totally sure the system is named Echelon."
Bruce McIndoe laughs dryly and somewhat indulgently about the thought of our silly European politicians. IJet Travel Intelligence's website proudly, and with surprising candour, mentions McIndoe's contribution to making Echelon II. The website states that: 'Bruce was one of the lead architects for the National Security Agency's Echelon II program, identified as one of the most productive intelligence programs in the agency's history.'
LISTENING IN ON EVERYTHING
"On the whole, it doesn't take long to verify the existence of Echelon if you look at the US Defence Department's budgets. And besides, code names are usually not classified as top secret. This practice enables people in the right circles to refer to the program, yet without revealing its capacity or how it operates."
"So you are the person who can document that you have made Echelon II?"
"Yes, that's for sure. I can even do so without revealing any secrets. Echelon II is the successor, so to speak, of the original Echelon system."
"Can you tell us whether it is used to monitor all types of communication?"
"No system of such enormous magnitude would only be used for a single purpose. They use it for everything they can, if they feel it's necessary. Whenever they need to exploit its potential, they do it."
Bruce takes a little breather while he considers whether he has said too much:
"But it doesn't mean they're a bunch of wild cowboys. There are rules, you know, that stipulate what they are allowed to monitor, and they definitely don't ignore the laws of any individual countries. Not American laws either. This poses somewhat of a challenge, of course, but after they get a court order, they can do just about anything they please," explains McIndoe, who emphasizes that he is no expert in these matters.
In 1998, Computer Science Corporation took over Bruce McIndoe's company - and with that the Echelon contract with the National Security Agency. Shortly afterwards, Bruce McIndoe co-founded the company he now works for. A company where he makes great use of his experience from working with the largest espionage system in the world.
AUTOMATIC TRANSLATION
"Tell us something about the company you work for now."
"Okay. In short, we have transferred everything I did for the NSA and other services to a private company that then sells intelligence to businesspersons. We get information on everything from local diseases, outbreaks of malaria epidemics and local unrest to strikes, the weather and traffic conditions. Our customers are large multinational companies like Prudential and Texas Instruments. We also work for institutions like the World Bank and the IMF."
"Your offices resemble a command post at the NSA's Fort Meade headquarters?"
"Yes, exactly. Our staff are also former intelligent agents who have either developed or run espionage operations for US intelligence agencies or people from the UK, South Africa and Russia."
"How does the NSA feel about the fact you're applying the same technology in the private sector?"
"A lot of the technology developed at the NSA will sooner or later find its way into civilian life. Things like word spotting, automatic translation, language recognition and so on. But since we don't try to hide our work and primarily use open sources, the NSA doesn't complain."
Yet the architect for Echelon II indirectly reveals some secrets to us. One of the ways Echelon works is by using words and voice recognition, as well as automatic translation.
Yup, agree.
The day before, a Puma (chilean lion) from the Zoo wandered in a neighbourhood. And the next day, the traffic goes nuts.
It was the Army of the Twelve Monkeys. Beware.
I am chilean, and I'm kind of pissed by the comments of some guy who says he had drive in every country of Latinoamerica. In Chile, we respect every traffic light and traffic sign. The only signal that aren't very respected are the "no parking" signs, but nobody is perfect.
We have only two police forces: Carabineros de Chile, in charge of crime control, traffic, and order in general, and Investigaciones de Chile, our detectives. Carabineros are very competent in their jobs. A useful tip: if you come to Chile, NEVER try to bribe a police, except if you want to know some third world jail. Investigaciones is another story.
Oh, I was stucked in the traffic that day. Omigod.
Watcom always beated every other C/C++ compiler out there. I remember being a big fan of their _lovely_ compiler; I used it to do some real time automatic control and it rocked.
If they manage to release a modern, up to date version of their IDE, I will be glad.
(btw, I remember in the IDE having a "Pentium" optimization flag... when the Pentium wasn't even released! Now that's efficiency
Another distributed effort to do the same crack game? I think that the primenet effort is more fun and probably more "pure".
Oh, well. At least is not meaningless like the SETI@home joke.
You're so funny. You should get published on User Friendly. Perhaps you are a corporal piece of the crude puppy :-)
Okay, I'm pretty sure that you are joking.
Perl is useful. Plain and simple. Easy to program simple tasks, easier than any other language to manipulate text.
Don't compare apples with oranges.