Others flaunted their derision by disregarding software design patterns sanctified by the Gang of Four, instead opting for inelegance of their own in attempts to solve problems whose solutions were already proven, well known, and time-honored.
Says someone posting via heretical Von Neumann Machine, long live Turing Machines!
Posted via Android on ARM hosted in Linux on x86-64 running in 32 bit mode!
Those knowledgeable of Cybernetics, Genetics, or Information Theory emit the most holy evil-grin when confronted with the term "Design Pattern".
Well, First there's Linux. Which is fine, except it's out of date, and thus can be compromised trivially. Then there's the device drivers which frequently have exploits due to the rapid progression of mobile platforms, being built by the lowest bidder, and the lack of consumer desire to pay a premium for security.
At this point we interact with the other small separate OS for the cellular radio -- It doesn't really validate inputs well and can be compromised trivially.
Moving on, we have an excellent application of user / group privileges which constrict application. Really would love actually a bit more than the level of control this has on desktops; Eg: Firefox runs as its own user on my desktop system and the Firefox user has access to its settings folder and is in the "Internet" group, so it can access the web. "sudo" is nice, but we need such a thing for granting user-level access to user-agents such as Firefox; It's one reason I'm developing an Agent Oriented OS and programming language... Anyhow, since the granularity is utterly shite it's basically pointless on mobile systems.
Then we have the Application. Note, this is not plural. We have the Davlik VM aka Java, but register based (faster, more memory use) instead of stack based (slower, less RAM use). There's some great stuff in the install process here whereby linkage occurs and the byte orders of values in the images are translated to machine order. Prior to running on Android the complied Java bytecode is translated into Davlik bytecode -- Unfortunately, there is no copy of this bytecode kept around in case you want to copy it to another device. I'm a firm believer of link on install, but they've done it horribly wrong: My OS links programs on install into MACHINE CODE... ugh. This is mobile so, yeah, let's use what little CPU we got to run a VM -- er, a just in time compiler for a VM.
Now, on desktop systems such as 80486, you'll have up to 4 different execution permission rings to leverage, but on the ARM and other systems you get 2: Kernel or Not. This really messes up the fact that you are running a VM atop a kernel. Well, Linux moronically doesn't reserve a ring level for applications to use against their plugins the same way the kernel isolates itself from user-land applications, so the hardware makers have adopted the monolithic kernel approach. Hey, guess what? We're running a monolithic VM atop a monolithic kernel! Yay! It's like Exploit HEAVEN! Remember how in 16 bit DOSs your program could access any other "TSR" program's memory, or even the OS / BIOS itself and wreak havok? Oh, man. It was great! Mobile has brought this back!
Then we have the app ecosystem, which is actually the strong point IMO. It at least gives you a chance to let other suckers become victims of an exploit and hope it gets pulled / blacklisted from the markets before you try it out. Also, 64GB micro SD's exist now... but a lot of new devices don't have SD card slots, so fuck 'em.
Finally we have the Carriers. They dig down deep into the nether regions of shit that shain't be shat around with, and do just that to create the UI's and app launchers high atop the software stack. Noticeably, desktop OSs have less overhead for doing things than the mobile methodology, but that's the sacrifice you make to have idiots develop you tech on the cheap.
It's a clear and unanimous sentiment.... So where is the problem?
The problem is you think the people's opinion has ever mattered in these issues. Omnivore, Carnivore, ECHELON, Five Eyes, etc. existed before PRISM. You wrongly think the people's opinion is the one that matters, I have reason to suspect you may not know what Gerrymandering is; If I'm wrong, then I apologize in advance. The problem is that you did not heed Eisenhower's warning on the last day of his office. Now, everything he cautioned us about has come to pass. The problem is that the war machine does not grind to a halt of its own volition, it runs amok until a larger army destroys it, or it leeches its host country dry. With the collapse of the USSR the cold war did not end, the enemy became We The People. That's where the problem is.
The president is at the end of the second term. Put yourself in his shoes and ask yourself: If you knew full well that the military industrial complex was not going to stand down no matter what you said, would you throw your people into a civil war by opposing them and proving your government wasn't legitimate? Or, would you do as your predecessors have done and trade a little more liberty for temporary safety -- let the next guy worry about the despotism after his family is "secured".
How did they beat you?... Do you believe that your stance being smarter or more popular has anything to do with secret government action or the election process in this place? Do you think that's freedom you're breathing now?
As an independent developer who is very security aware -- Unit tests + input fuzzing, zero memory access/free errors for release candidates, complete code coverage -- There are still bugs that can sneak in, especially when statically linking against libraries. I remember being bit by libpng -- code I did not write myself and could not hold to as high a standard. Do you charge every dev using libpng? Do I charge libpng devs? Does everyone charge libpng? How am I supposed to know who's fault it is if you don't let me see the bug first? Oh, would you look at that, my next patch will remove the exploit vector anyway, sorry, I don't have to pay your bounty. Do I just go out of business because I can't actually afford to pay black-market prices for a bug targeting a library simply because it's been customized to work against my product? You have the source code, you fucking fix it yourself. I'm not paying for a service I never asked for, just like you don't have to pay for my support service for the codebase.
Another name for bug is programming mistake. I'm making ends meat so that's the level of effort you get: What you pay for. Humans make mistakes and errors will happen since you will not pay what it does take for me to write 100% mathematically verifiability secure code -- I've done so in the past for a few drivers back in the day written in ASM: all possible inputs validated as producing the correct machine state, computers have finite state, and the price of my work reflects the extra development time and energy. You do not value security, so I can not spend the time to secure the code because you will buy a cheaper and less secure service. Compulsory bug bounty? Get ready for a price hike, meanwhile wherever the law doesn't apply will become the new software capital of the world.
Factoring in bug bounty to my expenses means I can't take the risk to release code, might as well close up shop. Look, I hate EULAs as much as the next guy, but I have to have one: You see that indemnity clause? The one that I have to include because even if my code is perfect, your hardware and other software may not be and I can't trust you, a judge or jurors to tell the difference? Yeah, that's what I'll use if there's a mandated compulsory bug bounty. You'll click right through the waiver that says you won't hold me liable for YOUR USE of my software, like you always do -- If you can't take on the responsibility and risk to operate the software, then you don't have permission to use my software. So, read the fine print and it'll say that I'll be billing you the cost of any bug you bill me for, plus my legal expenses. And if you try to sue me over it, well, in America the court will want you to prove damages -- which you can't, because it's YOUR USE of the software that causes risk, not my publishing of it. You don't have to use my code. Even if you manage to not agree to my license and discovered a bug, if you found the bug you can avoid the bug... no damage. Users could just sue crackers for exploiting them -- that'll work so well, eh?
Thank you for downloading from Bug Bounty Isolation Software Inc. -- The corporate shell you'll be trying to charge for software bug bounties, which will file bankruptcy immediately and Bounty Free Software Inc. will then assume the role of distributor. (Just like with patent infringement suits) Rest assured, this will be the 6th time I have rebuilt the BusinessMatrixAdapterFactorySingleton, and I have become exceedingly efficient at instantiating it.
I've got a better idea. Why don't you get everyone to care enough about security first, and run a Kickstarter to get them to fund your bug research efforts? While you're at it, solve the halting problem for me too; Then a mandatory bug bounty will make sense, because it could be provably the result of malice.
Mine likes chasing mice and bugs. Not killing them, mind you, just chasing them and certainly not eating them; Then looking at them menacingly while swishing its tail, daring them to make a run for it (again). My evidence shows that cats eat only Catnip, Chicken flavoured poultry & treats, and a special fowl flavoured cat-food formulated for urinary heath. Contrary to popular belief, cats do not enjoy bird chasing. Birds are for barking, silly human.
You can construct one yourself. Simply take a telephone wire and connect the red and green respectively to the black and white of an extension cord. Plug the phone in first, then the extension cord.
Though I for one welcome the innovation of lasers which are broad enough to simultaneously detonate a bunch of mortars spread out over several hundred feet in 3D space.
Binary - A Number (counting) System (way of doing) With Only Two (one more than one and one less than one more than one more than one) Digits (stick like things [above your waist] that are on your hands [digital things in your pants]).
Given that "better safe than sorry" is wise advice in protecting yourself (so long as the safety doesn't infringe liberty), we now can't allow any secrets. We default to the natural scientific skepticism: Prove you are not doing anything wrong, otherwise a person has no evidence to found their trust. Conversely, due to the cybernetic nature of a citizen's position within a larger construct, the governments and corporations must instead assume the inverse hypothesis: Prove they component is doing something wrong, otherwise they have no evidence to distrust or punish them -- their components themselves made of people who are subject to concern of other people more so than the construct which can be rebuilt without people suffering.
Since governments and corporations are potentially immortal organizations it's important that their members not become overly compartmentalized, otherwise the people can be made to do things in contrast to their will to protect and benefit all others. Any such disservice will be perpetrated to the benefit of a few people who seek power over others. It's thus not surprising how the GCHQ's and NSA's compartmentalization through extreme secrecy has created the effect cybernetics predicts. To think none would consider the outcome of a system so designed is folly.
Never forget that cybernetic principals have long been applied to business and government for the efficiency and benefit of all. Be mindful of the power that the mathematics of awareness yields. As with any technology with potential for great good, it can also be used for great evil. This is why corporate and governmental secrets can not exist in a free and equal society: Knowledge is power, so disparate knowledge is corruption by definition. Systems averse to examination and signal rectification are aligned with chaotic evil.
Yes, the public is dumb. However, the NSA had their secret rooms in telco-buildings slurping up the data for decades, Omnivore, Carnivore, ECHELON, Five-eyes, etc. Google it. the PATRIOT Act retroactively granted immunity to the ISPs for their assistance in breaking the 4th amendment prior to 9/11.... Ahem... prior to 9/11. So, they had decades of warrantless wiretapping and failed to prevent 9/11, then we gave them carte blanche spying capability and they failed to prevent the Boston Marathon bombing. Hell, the spying has failed to prevent every terrorist attack since it's been in place in the 60's. It's expensive and useless, and should be routed out. I mean, you're four times more likely to get hit by lightning. Four hundred times more folks die from accidents and heart disease than a 9/11 scale attack, every year. NSA budget should be 1/400th of what we spend on these threats. The terrorist threat is just the new bogieman now that we have cowed the large adversarial nations via mutually assured destruction.
Yes, the public is dumb as rocks for believing the exaggerated threats and scaremongering. We're wasting so much in maintaining and expanding the police state and military industrial complex, trillions on pointless wars on false pretenses, hundreds of thousands of civilians killed in retaliation for a few thousand, ugh. Atrocious. The media won't report on what's coming down the pike. Not like we haven't seen it play out before. The USSR over extended itself the same way. Now the cold war is against the very people themselves, it can never just end on its own. One day you'll wake up and the dollar will suddenly be utterly destroyed, taking "news" agencies by surprise. There will be economic chaos. The people have lost their power over Washington and the Corporations are next on the chopping block -- all according to plan. Anyone can see it coming a mile away; Like what happened to Chile in the 1970's. Eisenhower tried to warn us of everything that's come to pass. You'd have to be a fool to think it wasn't going down this way on purpose.
It's too bad the public are morons. We can't trust anything the NSA says now that they've lied to congress. Since we've allowed such secrecy and corruption we can't even prove whether a terrorist attack is real or not. I mean, it's not like military strategists who need a disaster to polarize the people wouldn't set up bait too good to ignore and sacrifice Americans by letting it happen -- Like in Perl Harbor, etc. You really believe strategists were inept enough to leave that many ships in that tight of a space... or that US air superiority couldn't handle protecting at least the Pentagon on 9/11? Not like we didn't have jets on notice 24/7 that we can scramble at a moment's notice...
Plausible deniability does not eliminate undeniable plausibility.
So he broke into a secure environment, serruptitiously obtained confidential and/or classified information, and used his take to successfully gain a competive advantage over his peers? And somehow this makes him unsuitable for employment at the NSA?
I guess it's a good thing he wasn't a state sponsored spy... I mean, just imagine what would happen if there were multiple powerful nations with "cyber armies" that wanted at that data and the gall to infiltrate and spy on the USA / NSA. Why, all that data would just be ripe for the taking, like a huge single point of failure. The NSA would be a huge threat to national security. I mean, wow, Snowden was a contractor; Just imagine if he had been a really bad guy trained in computer exploitation and given a big budget to buy any zero-day exploit on the black market he needed? Wow, scary stuff NSA. I guess they'll be shutting down now that the biggest threat to national security has been identified as the NSA itself... right?
I had hoped that 60 minutes would do an insightful - investigation into NSA. What I heard from so-called reporter John Miller was a PR fluff piece that one would expect as a former national spokesman for the FBI.
It's quite strange -- When I was younger I had assumed they were good; 60min was what grown-ups watched... right? It would be some kind of tin-foil-hatter conspiracy theory to think they weren't trustworthy news sources... right? Nope. Apparently Chomsky knew what he was talking about, and it applies now more than ever.
I think it's neat the ESA and China are working together to get the data back from their probes. It's another timid step towards international cooperation in space.
When you look back at our small blue fragile world hanging in the vastness of space, it's apparent we're all in this together. It's good to have friends. There are no borders in space.
Slashdot Mirror
I'll be playing a recording of my system decrypting data with my throw-away RSA key then.
Others flaunted their derision by disregarding software design patterns sanctified by the Gang of Four, instead opting for inelegance of their own in attempts to solve problems whose solutions were already proven, well known, and time-honored.
Says someone posting via heretical Von Neumann Machine, long live Turing Machines!
Posted via Android on ARM hosted in Linux on x86-64 running in 32 bit mode!
Those knowledgeable of Cybernetics, Genetics, or Information Theory emit the most holy evil-grin when confronted with the term "Design Pattern".
Imagine all the gestures you'll want to give when told to re-engineer your apps. That's the "physical language".
Well, First there's Linux. Which is fine, except it's out of date, and thus can be compromised trivially. Then there's the device drivers which frequently have exploits due to the rapid progression of mobile platforms, being built by the lowest bidder, and the lack of consumer desire to pay a premium for security.
At this point we interact with the other small separate OS for the cellular radio -- It doesn't really validate inputs well and can be compromised trivially.
Moving on, we have an excellent application of user / group privileges which constrict application. Really would love actually a bit more than the level of control this has on desktops; Eg: Firefox runs as its own user on my desktop system and the Firefox user has access to its settings folder and is in the "Internet" group, so it can access the web. "sudo" is nice, but we need such a thing for granting user-level access to user-agents such as Firefox; It's one reason I'm developing an Agent Oriented OS and programming language... Anyhow, since the granularity is utterly shite it's basically pointless on mobile systems.
Then we have the Application. Note, this is not plural. We have the Davlik VM aka Java, but register based (faster, more memory use) instead of stack based (slower, less RAM use). There's some great stuff in the install process here whereby linkage occurs and the byte orders of values in the images are translated to machine order. Prior to running on Android the complied Java bytecode is translated into Davlik bytecode -- Unfortunately, there is no copy of this bytecode kept around in case you want to copy it to another device. I'm a firm believer of link on install, but they've done it horribly wrong: My OS links programs on install into MACHINE CODE... ugh. This is mobile so, yeah, let's use what little CPU we got to run a VM -- er, a just in time compiler for a VM.
Now, on desktop systems such as 80486, you'll have up to 4 different execution permission rings to leverage, but on the ARM and other systems you get 2: Kernel or Not. This really messes up the fact that you are running a VM atop a kernel. Well, Linux moronically doesn't reserve a ring level for applications to use against their plugins the same way the kernel isolates itself from user-land applications, so the hardware makers have adopted the monolithic kernel approach. Hey, guess what? We're running a monolithic VM atop a monolithic kernel! Yay! It's like Exploit HEAVEN! Remember how in 16 bit DOSs your program could access any other "TSR" program's memory, or even the OS / BIOS itself and wreak havok? Oh, man. It was great! Mobile has brought this back!
Then we have the app ecosystem, which is actually the strong point IMO. It at least gives you a chance to let other suckers become victims of an exploit and hope it gets pulled / blacklisted from the markets before you try it out. Also, 64GB micro SD's exist now... but a lot of new devices don't have SD card slots, so fuck 'em.
Finally we have the Carriers. They dig down deep into the nether regions of shit that shain't be shat around with, and do just that to create the UI's and app launchers high atop the software stack. Noticeably, desktop OSs have less overhead for doing things than the mobile methodology, but that's the sacrifice you make to have idiots develop you tech on the cheap.
The same can be said for pre-made botnet command & control client software...
Back in my day we had to connect the networking wires by hand, and shout into tin cans.
It's a clear and unanimous sentiment. ... So where is the problem?
The problem is you think the people's opinion has ever mattered in these issues. Omnivore, Carnivore, ECHELON, Five Eyes, etc. existed before PRISM. You wrongly think the people's opinion is the one that matters, I have reason to suspect you may not know what Gerrymandering is; If I'm wrong, then I apologize in advance. The problem is that you did not heed Eisenhower's warning on the last day of his office. Now, everything he cautioned us about has come to pass. The problem is that the war machine does not grind to a halt of its own volition, it runs amok until a larger army destroys it, or it leeches its host country dry. With the collapse of the USSR the cold war did not end, the enemy became We The People. That's where the problem is.
The president is at the end of the second term. Put yourself in his shoes and ask yourself: If you knew full well that the military industrial complex was not going to stand down no matter what you said, would you throw your people into a civil war by opposing them and proving your government wasn't legitimate? Or, would you do as your predecessors have done and trade a little more liberty for temporary safety -- let the next guy worry about the despotism after his family is "secured".
How did they beat you? ...
Do you believe that your stance being smarter or more popular has anything to do with secret government action or the election process in this place?
Do you think that's freedom you're breathing now?
Are you going to claim you had no hand in putting him there?
Actually, no. Why would we need to make claims when it's a well known fact that we did not.
As an independent developer who is very security aware -- Unit tests + input fuzzing, zero memory access/free errors for release candidates, complete code coverage -- There are still bugs that can sneak in, especially when statically linking against libraries. I remember being bit by libpng -- code I did not write myself and could not hold to as high a standard. Do you charge every dev using libpng? Do I charge libpng devs? Does everyone charge libpng? How am I supposed to know who's fault it is if you don't let me see the bug first? Oh, would you look at that, my next patch will remove the exploit vector anyway, sorry, I don't have to pay your bounty. Do I just go out of business because I can't actually afford to pay black-market prices for a bug targeting a library simply because it's been customized to work against my product? You have the source code, you fucking fix it yourself. I'm not paying for a service I never asked for, just like you don't have to pay for my support service for the codebase.
Another name for bug is programming mistake. I'm making ends meat so that's the level of effort you get: What you pay for. Humans make mistakes and errors will happen since you will not pay what it does take for me to write 100% mathematically verifiability secure code -- I've done so in the past for a few drivers back in the day written in ASM: all possible inputs validated as producing the correct machine state, computers have finite state, and the price of my work reflects the extra development time and energy. You do not value security, so I can not spend the time to secure the code because you will buy a cheaper and less secure service. Compulsory bug bounty? Get ready for a price hike, meanwhile wherever the law doesn't apply will become the new software capital of the world.
Factoring in bug bounty to my expenses means I can't take the risk to release code, might as well close up shop. Look, I hate EULAs as much as the next guy, but I have to have one: You see that indemnity clause? The one that I have to include because even if my code is perfect, your hardware and other software may not be and I can't trust you, a judge or jurors to tell the difference? Yeah, that's what I'll use if there's a mandated compulsory bug bounty. You'll click right through the waiver that says you won't hold me liable for YOUR USE of my software, like you always do -- If you can't take on the responsibility and risk to operate the software, then you don't have permission to use my software. So, read the fine print and it'll say that I'll be billing you the cost of any bug you bill me for, plus my legal expenses. And if you try to sue me over it, well, in America the court will want you to prove damages -- which you can't, because it's YOUR USE of the software that causes risk, not my publishing of it. You don't have to use my code. Even if you manage to not agree to my license and discovered a bug, if you found the bug you can avoid the bug... no damage. Users could just sue crackers for exploiting them -- that'll work so well, eh?
Thank you for downloading from Bug Bounty Isolation Software Inc. -- The corporate shell you'll be trying to charge for software bug bounties, which will file bankruptcy immediately and Bounty Free Software Inc. will then assume the role of distributor. (Just like with patent infringement suits) Rest assured, this will be the 6th time I have rebuilt the BusinessMatrixAdapterFactorySingleton, and I have become exceedingly efficient at instantiating it.
I've got a better idea. Why don't you get everyone to care enough about security first, and run a Kickstarter to get them to fund your bug research efforts? While you're at it, solve the halting problem for me too; Then a mandatory bug bounty will make sense, because it could be provably the result of malice.
There is no proof we have actually been domesticating cats as petting animals for more than a few hundred years. Until the 19th century or so
Quick now, Jeeves, fetch the net! I've spotted a rare young-earth Egyptianist.
Cats do eat mice!
Mine likes chasing mice and bugs. Not killing them, mind you, just chasing them and certainly not eating them; Then looking at them menacingly while swishing its tail, daring them to make a run for it (again). My evidence shows that cats eat only Catnip, Chicken flavoured poultry & treats, and a special fowl flavoured cat-food formulated for urinary heath. Contrary to popular belief, cats do not enjoy bird chasing. Birds are for barking, silly human.
Victoria's.
You can construct one yourself. Simply take a telephone wire and connect the red and green respectively to the black and white of an extension cord. Plug the phone in first, then the extension cord.
Though I for one welcome the innovation of lasers which are broad enough to simultaneously detonate a bunch of mortars spread out over several hundred feet in 3D space.
Let me introduce you to my Sun.
Binary - A Number (counting) System (way of doing) With Only Two (one more than one and one less than one more than one more than one) Digits (stick like things [above your waist] that are on your hands [digital things in your pants]).
"Invented?"
Biscovered.
Actually, there are 10 types of people: Those who understand Arabic numerals and applied them to binary, and all the rest.
The poor.
That's because they don't know about disk resurfacing or digital ripping.
even if they are not doing anything wrong.
Given that "better safe than sorry" is wise advice in protecting yourself (so long as the safety doesn't infringe liberty), we now can't allow any secrets. We default to the natural scientific skepticism: Prove you are not doing anything wrong, otherwise a person has no evidence to found their trust. Conversely, due to the cybernetic nature of a citizen's position within a larger construct, the governments and corporations must instead assume the inverse hypothesis: Prove they component is doing something wrong, otherwise they have no evidence to distrust or punish them -- their components themselves made of people who are subject to concern of other people more so than the construct which can be rebuilt without people suffering.
Since governments and corporations are potentially immortal organizations it's important that their members not become overly compartmentalized, otherwise the people can be made to do things in contrast to their will to protect and benefit all others. Any such disservice will be perpetrated to the benefit of a few people who seek power over others. It's thus not surprising how the GCHQ's and NSA's compartmentalization through extreme secrecy has created the effect cybernetics predicts. To think none would consider the outcome of a system so designed is folly.
Never forget that cybernetic principals have long been applied to business and government for the efficiency and benefit of all. Be mindful of the power that the mathematics of awareness yields. As with any technology with potential for great good, it can also be used for great evil. This is why corporate and governmental secrets can not exist in a free and equal society: Knowledge is power, so disparate knowledge is corruption by definition. Systems averse to examination and signal rectification are aligned with chaotic evil.
Yes, the public is dumb. However, the NSA had their secret rooms in telco-buildings slurping up the data for decades, Omnivore, Carnivore, ECHELON, Five-eyes, etc. Google it. the PATRIOT Act retroactively granted immunity to the ISPs for their assistance in breaking the 4th amendment prior to 9/11.... Ahem... prior to 9/11. So, they had decades of warrantless wiretapping and failed to prevent 9/11, then we gave them carte blanche spying capability and they failed to prevent the Boston Marathon bombing. Hell, the spying has failed to prevent every terrorist attack since it's been in place in the 60's. It's expensive and useless, and should be routed out. I mean, you're four times more likely to get hit by lightning. Four hundred times more folks die from accidents and heart disease than a 9/11 scale attack, every year. NSA budget should be 1/400th of what we spend on these threats. The terrorist threat is just the new bogieman now that we have cowed the large adversarial nations via mutually assured destruction.
Yes, the public is dumb as rocks for believing the exaggerated threats and scaremongering. We're wasting so much in maintaining and expanding the police state and military industrial complex, trillions on pointless wars on false pretenses, hundreds of thousands of civilians killed in retaliation for a few thousand, ugh. Atrocious. The media won't report on what's coming down the pike. Not like we haven't seen it play out before. The USSR over extended itself the same way. Now the cold war is against the very people themselves, it can never just end on its own. One day you'll wake up and the dollar will suddenly be utterly destroyed, taking "news" agencies by surprise. There will be economic chaos. The people have lost their power over Washington and the Corporations are next on the chopping block -- all according to plan. Anyone can see it coming a mile away; Like what happened to Chile in the 1970's. Eisenhower tried to warn us of everything that's come to pass. You'd have to be a fool to think it wasn't going down this way on purpose.
It's too bad the public are morons. We can't trust anything the NSA says now that they've lied to congress. Since we've allowed such secrecy and corruption we can't even prove whether a terrorist attack is real or not. I mean, it's not like military strategists who need a disaster to polarize the people wouldn't set up bait too good to ignore and sacrifice Americans by letting it happen -- Like in Perl Harbor, etc. You really believe strategists were inept enough to leave that many ships in that tight of a space... or that US air superiority couldn't handle protecting at least the Pentagon on 9/11? Not like we didn't have jets on notice 24/7 that we can scramble at a moment's notice...
Plausible deniability does not eliminate undeniable plausibility.
So he broke into a secure environment, serruptitiously obtained confidential and/or classified information, and used his take to successfully gain a competive advantage over his peers? And somehow this makes him unsuitable for employment at the NSA?
I guess it's a good thing he wasn't a state sponsored spy... I mean, just imagine what would happen if there were multiple powerful nations with "cyber armies" that wanted at that data and the gall to infiltrate and spy on the USA / NSA. Why, all that data would just be ripe for the taking, like a huge single point of failure. The NSA would be a huge threat to national security. I mean, wow, Snowden was a contractor; Just imagine if he had been a really bad guy trained in computer exploitation and given a big budget to buy any zero-day exploit on the black market he needed? Wow, scary stuff NSA. I guess they'll be shutting down now that the biggest threat to national security has been identified as the NSA itself... right?
Yes, but even the meta-data is far too invasive; This is provable by simple application of matrix multiplication and a couple of graphs.
I had hoped that 60 minutes would do an insightful - investigation into NSA. What I heard from so-called reporter John Miller was a PR fluff piece that one would expect as a former national spokesman for the FBI.
It's perfectly in line with what famous linguist Noam Chomsky told us about the media decades ago. ABC and 60 minutes are some of the most blatantly bullshit of the mainstream media, rivaling Fox News. From airing things like "D is for Dad and Dumb" -- the weekend of father's day?, to writing hit-pieces about human rights websites claiming coordinated harassment of Anita Sarkeesian while ignoring her blatant confirmation bias and clear evidence of victim-farming con artistry, it's clear they do not present an objective or unbiased news source. It's also clear ABC are intentionally deceptive and seem to be harboring and furthering a sexist anti-male agenda.
It's quite strange -- When I was younger I had assumed they were good; 60min was what grown-ups watched... right? It would be some kind of tin-foil-hatter conspiracy theory to think they weren't trustworthy news sources... right? Nope. Apparently Chomsky knew what he was talking about, and it applies now more than ever.
I think it's neat the ESA and China are working together to get the data back from their probes. It's another timid step towards international cooperation in space.
When you look back at our small blue fragile world hanging in the vastness of space, it's apparent we're all in this together. It's good to have friends. There are no borders in space.