I just happened to stumble upon this article on the topic, which notes that in the United States, the legal implications of the particular alleged events vary, significantly, by state. (The legal implications, of course, may differ from the moral implications. Nonetheless the article seems interesting and relevant.)
Right. And having sex with animals is wong. And killing an abortionist is right. Or wrong. And indoctrinating the young (and intellectually defenseless) with ideas, presented as fact, which are demonstrably not correct is wrong. Or right. And sex between a sixteen year old girl and a nineteen year old boy should result in prison time for him. And killing the next Adolf Hitler before he commits a crime is wrong. Or right. And torturing someone who might know where to find Osama bin Laden is right. Or wrong.
You see, don't you, that particular circumstances might very well have a bearing on questions which, at first blush, seem to have obvious moral answers?
I have no interest in pursuing the actual moral philosophical debate with you, merely to point out that things are not always what they seem.
Yeah, it could be a serious question, but many people are unwilling to consider serious questions about topics which make them uncomfortable, emotionally. See the philosophers:
William Saletan of Slate, who has generated some amount of controversy by discussing the moral philosophy of subjects such as murder of abortionists, statutory rape and the age of consent, and other topics; and
Peter Singer who discusses bestiality (aka "zoophilia"),
and the intellectual at large, Christopher Hitches who openly asserts that religion, by its nature (indoctrinating the very young with factually incorrect beliefs), is immoral.
One might be deeply suspect of people who attempt to deflect the rational discourse of such charged topics, but for some reason the converse tends to be the general response.
At Slashdot, one gets "Troll" mods for saying you like your iPhone, or don't like the iPhone, or you think libertarians are demonstrations of education failure, or you like some random bit of Microsoft technology, or you don't like the GPL. It's certainly possible to get a Troll mod for other reasons, but those are the most common ones.
This batch of leaks is about as likely to wind up helping the United States more than hurting it, as it has exposed, for example, the deep hypocrisy of the Arab governments in the middle east. It does the United States very little good, so far as anyone can tell, from letting these governments publicly berate our every action in the region, while privately begging us to stop Iran from getting a nuclear bomb. A little sunshine on that single issue might do enough good to entirely negate any other random embarrassments which occur.
I don't have a sense for whether or not Mr. Assange "hates" the United States. It is quite clear that he thinks governments keep too many secrets, and that he thinks operational transparency might lead to governments whose actions are more closely aligned with the interests of their populations. He seems pretty focused on western democratic nations, and this looks like an indication that perhaps he doesn't hate them. More like "tough love".
Additional and perhaps even more serious damage would be done to the U.S. reputation should we conduct a DDoS attack on so petty a grounds, and get caught. This DDoS is likely the work of some random botmaster with a political axe to grind, and that axe may not be obvious. Perhaps they want people to *think* that the US attacked the WikiLeaks web site. It might merely be an internet joy ride for them, as most such DDoS attacks appear to be.
Well, the diplomatic reporting system and practice, itself, really wasn't a secret. If you tell a diplomat something "in confidence", you should reasonably expect that you're telling a giant government bureaucracy, with all that implies.
You appear to have directed a tirade against the wrong parent post, which appears to read (in full) as follows:
For such an embarrassment these leaks do go some way to promoting the US world view, or is that just editing from the media outlets. Examples such as many middle eastern counties (Saudi, Jordan and Egypt etc) urging US to bomb Iran, as well as the links below.
Obviously you're not reading the discussion in which you've elected to participate, let alone source materials and fine articles. If you had, you would know that the surprises are the support for the "U.S. world view" coming from surprising sources, like other countries in the middle east, who agree that Iran's pursuit of nuclear weapons is a very serious threat to world security.
Oh, it's unlikely that these leaks will much damage the U.S. Leaks of these types of mid level bureaucratic decision making processes were inevitable as soon as the federal government (and foreign governments) standardized on Microsoft Windows, and the accompanying plague of Windows-only viruses, trojans, botnets and worms. Frankly, I'm surprised it hasn't happened earlier.
The more interesting question is how the obsession with secrecy damages the national interests of the U.S. It's not at all clear that our current national obsession with secrecy is helping us. Notice that it has a certain "run amok" quality to it: Top Secret America
The Leaker might not be a U.S. government employee, or even citizen. It might be a fifteen year old kid with a botnet that happened to get a few lucky strikes and upload stuff from a bunch of Pentagon and State Department hard drives.
I suspect I might disagree with a more detailed explanation of your viewpoint, but I vehemently disagree with the anonymous use of mod points to beat you down with a Troll mod, simply because the moderator disagrees with you.
Well, western governments wouldn't reveal any DDoS capability they might happen to have with so trivial a project. Sure, these document leaks are somewhat embarrassing for the U.S. and potentially other governments, but they don't elevate the importance of wikileaks to that level. Western governments, at least, will pursue a variety of legal and other pressures, perhaps some unjustified, unjust, and even economically brutal. However, a DDoS capability would be considered a secret and important asset at this stage of the game, one worth protecting beyond the mid level bureaucratic machinations which are revealed in the State Department cables and emails.
I know. I was trying to be funny, but I forgot the last line of the post, which should have been:
*ducks*
The U.S. government is very unlikely to be behind a DDoS attack of the wikileaks web site. These types of attacks typically reveal the political leanings of some 15 year old botmaster who happens to p0wn fifty or a hundred thousand unsuspecting zombie home PCs with cable internet access.
Well, the differences between BSD and Linux flavors of UNIX are greater than you imagine. However, you illustrate interesting larger points through your error.
Abstraction is good.
Specialization is useful, because we can't all be experts in everything.
At certain levels of abstraction, lower level details appear to be largely irrelevant.
However, there's a curious thing about Apple's design philosophy: all of those lower level details are not considered to be irrelevant.
BSD is different from Linux in some important ways that make it a better foundation for a system like Mac OS X, the license, for example. The fine products which are built on top of this mountain of details illustrate -- by their marked contrast with the crap emitted by most other companies which consider those low level details to be largely irrelevant -- the importance of attention to multiple layers of abstraction, and not merely dismissing the lower layers.
FireWire was marginalized before Apple dropped it from iPods and tried to drop it from low-end Macs. Frankly, the first vendors to adopt LightPeak are likely to be the same vendors who use FireWire. They'll be eager to get onto a more modern standard with a better looking roadmap.
Well, you're assuming that Intel and Apple have negotiated some sort of exclusive arrangement. That may or may not be true. It also might be the case that other PC vendors have been dragging their feet, as they are wont to do.
Post to this thread, and be the first person on your block to receive a free GPS tracking device! (The device will be mounted under your car, hidden. Peel slowly, and see!)
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You've been shorting AAPL since it was what, something like $13 bucks a share? You must have a lot of money to waste, shorting AAPL.
I see your racks of x86 clusters, and raise you racks of SPARC clusters.
If we stopped the wars, and doubled the NSF budget, we'd be so much better off in a couple years.
I just happened to stumble upon this article on the topic, which notes that in the United States, the legal implications of the particular alleged events vary, significantly, by state. (The legal implications, of course, may differ from the moral implications. Nonetheless the article seems interesting and relevant.)
Is _sex by surprise_ illegal in the United States?
Right. And having sex with animals is wong. And killing an abortionist is right. Or wrong. And indoctrinating the young (and intellectually defenseless) with ideas, presented as fact, which are demonstrably not correct is wrong. Or right. And sex between a sixteen year old girl and a nineteen year old boy should result in prison time for him. And killing the next Adolf Hitler before he commits a crime is wrong. Or right. And torturing someone who might know where to find Osama bin Laden is right. Or wrong.
You see, don't you, that particular circumstances might very well have a bearing on questions which, at first blush, seem to have obvious moral answers?
I have no interest in pursuing the actual moral philosophical debate with you, merely to point out that things are not always what they seem.
One might be deeply suspect of people who attempt to deflect the rational discourse of such charged topics, but for some reason the converse tends to be the general response.
At Slashdot, one gets "Troll" mods for saying you like your iPhone, or don't like the iPhone, or you think libertarians are demonstrations of education failure, or you like some random bit of Microsoft technology, or you don't like the GPL. It's certainly possible to get a Troll mod for other reasons, but those are the most common ones.
This batch of leaks is about as likely to wind up helping the United States more than hurting it, as it has exposed, for example, the deep hypocrisy of the Arab governments in the middle east. It does the United States very little good, so far as anyone can tell, from letting these governments publicly berate our every action in the region, while privately begging us to stop Iran from getting a nuclear bomb. A little sunshine on that single issue might do enough good to entirely negate any other random embarrassments which occur.
I don't have a sense for whether or not Mr. Assange "hates" the United States. It is quite clear that he thinks governments keep too many secrets, and that he thinks operational transparency might lead to governments whose actions are more closely aligned with the interests of their populations. He seems pretty focused on western democratic nations, and this looks like an indication that perhaps he doesn't hate them. More like "tough love".
Additional and perhaps even more serious damage would be done to the U.S. reputation should we conduct a DDoS attack on so petty a grounds, and get caught. This DDoS is likely the work of some random botmaster with a political axe to grind, and that axe may not be obvious. Perhaps they want people to *think* that the US attacked the WikiLeaks web site. It might merely be an internet joy ride for them, as most such DDoS attacks appear to be.
Well, the diplomatic reporting system and practice, itself, really wasn't a secret. If you tell a diplomat something "in confidence", you should reasonably expect that you're telling a giant government bureaucracy, with all that implies.
Why suddenly does it appear that somebody is following jcr around with a bucket of "Troll" mods? "Score 3, Troll" just cracks me the frack up.
Your rant doesn't map (assuming the Slashdot system is showing me the parent post you actually replied to.)
Obviously you're not reading the discussion in which you've elected to participate, let alone source materials and fine articles. If you had, you would know that the surprises are the support for the "U.S. world view" coming from surprising sources, like other countries in the middle east, who agree that Iran's pursuit of nuclear weapons is a very serious threat to world security.
Oh, it's unlikely that these leaks will much damage the U.S. Leaks of these types of mid level bureaucratic decision making processes were inevitable as soon as the federal government (and foreign governments) standardized on Microsoft Windows, and the accompanying plague of Windows-only viruses, trojans, botnets and worms. Frankly, I'm surprised it hasn't happened earlier.
The more interesting question is how the obsession with secrecy damages the national interests of the U.S. It's not at all clear that our current national obsession with secrecy is helping us. Notice that it has a certain "run amok" quality to it: Top Secret America
The Leaker might not be a U.S. government employee, or even citizen. It might be a fifteen year old kid with a botnet that happened to get a few lucky strikes and upload stuff from a bunch of Pentagon and State Department hard drives.
I suspect I might disagree with a more detailed explanation of your viewpoint, but I vehemently disagree with the anonymous use of mod points to beat you down with a Troll mod, simply because the moderator disagrees with you.
Well, western governments wouldn't reveal any DDoS capability they might happen to have with so trivial a project. Sure, these document leaks are somewhat embarrassing for the U.S. and potentially other governments, but they don't elevate the importance of wikileaks to that level. Western governments, at least, will pursue a variety of legal and other pressures, perhaps some unjustified, unjust, and even economically brutal. However, a DDoS capability would be considered a secret and important asset at this stage of the game, one worth protecting beyond the mid level bureaucratic machinations which are revealed in the State Department cables and emails.
I know. I was trying to be funny, but I forgot the last line of the post, which should have been:
*ducks*
The U.S. government is very unlikely to be behind a DDoS attack of the wikileaks web site. These types of attacks typically reveal the political leanings of some 15 year old botmaster who happens to p0wn fifty or a hundred thousand unsuspecting zombie home PCs with cable internet access.
Assassination of Julian Assange wouldn't accomplish anything. He's just the messenger.
I forgot to *duck*.
Hrm... an alternate headline might be: "Is the United States behind the DDoS attack on WikiLeaks?"
However, there's a curious thing about Apple's design philosophy: all of those lower level details are not considered to be irrelevant.
BSD is different from Linux in some important ways that make it a better foundation for a system like Mac OS X, the license, for example. The fine products which are built on top of this mountain of details illustrate -- by their marked contrast with the crap emitted by most other companies which consider those low level details to be largely irrelevant -- the importance of attention to multiple layers of abstraction, and not merely dismissing the lower layers.
FireWire was marginalized before Apple dropped it from iPods and tried to drop it from low-end Macs. Frankly, the first vendors to adopt LightPeak are likely to be the same vendors who use FireWire. They'll be eager to get onto a more modern standard with a better looking roadmap.
Well, you're assuming that Intel and Apple have negotiated some sort of exclusive arrangement. That may or may not be true. It also might be the case that other PC vendors have been dragging their feet, as they are wont to do.
Post to this thread, and be the first person on your block to receive a free GPS tracking device! (The device will be mounted under your car, hidden. Peel slowly, and see!)