My biggest issue here is that using the Internet as a battleground destroys its usefulness and its essence. Honestly, I don't think the USAF really cares about the various botnets out there in the wild. What they're preparing for is the option to launch a digital attack on a foreign power with the intent of causing a disruption concurrent with a physical attack, or else "beseige" a country by holding their information system hostage.
As soon as that becomes a reality, countries all across the globe are going to start putting up giant firewalls keeping international traffic out, or they're just going to cut their international data lines altogether. The Great Firewall of China is already bad enough, do we really want to sever the Internet into ChinaNet, RussiaNet, SwitzerlandNet, and so on?
The eventual implementation of digital warfare (even digital cold warfare) will kill the "World Wide" Web. Once our information infrastructure is a "national interest" that we defend militarily, the neutrality that makes the Internet globally useful will disintegrate.
They can integrate BotNet software into Windows all they want, just leave the Internet alone. It is neutral for a reason.
I replied earlier to your sardonic comment about leaping to conclusions, but this one bears separate discussion.
The point is to either comprehend the science behind it and be able to argue the subject on a scientific level, or leave it to the hundreds of scientists and governmental advisors (mostly outside the USA) to do it for you and trust what they say.
While your initial point (don't argue about what you don't understand) is very valid and valuable, you wind up making the gross error of encouraging the blind acceptance of "expert" opinions. I will be the first to admit that there are people out there who know more about climatology than I do, but by no means do I just "leave it to [them]... to do it for [me] and trust what they say." It is a fact that mainstream "science" is filled with lies and sensationalism, manufactured statistics, and the whole nine yards.
It is imperative that I do what I can to check in to matter that I care about and form my own opinion based on the data available to me. Anything less and I become what you propose: a lemming, ready to follow the sensationalist media wherever it cries wolf.
Hey, look at me! I've got a few years worth of data! Now I can make wide reaching conclusions about the behaviour of an eons-old ecology!
Note that I say this as a scientist myself. While I'm not going to directly contradict the theory of global warming, it's interesting to note that we have, at best, a few hundred years of accurate weather data. Who are we to say that extrapolating this data over the age is valid at all? Sure, it makes sense for a few hundred years, but over the history of the planet, or even humankind, I think that modern science is overstepping its bounds, and choosing sensationalism over solid science.
Slashdot Mirror
My biggest issue here is that using the Internet as a battleground destroys its usefulness and its essence. Honestly, I don't think the USAF really cares about the various botnets out there in the wild. What they're preparing for is the option to launch a digital attack on a foreign power with the intent of causing a disruption concurrent with a physical attack, or else "beseige" a country by holding their information system hostage. As soon as that becomes a reality, countries all across the globe are going to start putting up giant firewalls keeping international traffic out, or they're just going to cut their international data lines altogether. The Great Firewall of China is already bad enough, do we really want to sever the Internet into ChinaNet, RussiaNet, SwitzerlandNet, and so on? The eventual implementation of digital warfare (even digital cold warfare) will kill the "World Wide" Web. Once our information infrastructure is a "national interest" that we defend militarily, the neutrality that makes the Internet globally useful will disintegrate. They can integrate BotNet software into Windows all they want, just leave the Internet alone. It is neutral for a reason.
The point is to either comprehend the science behind it and be able to argue the subject on a scientific level, or leave it to the hundreds of scientists and governmental advisors (mostly outside the USA) to do it for you and trust what they say.
While your initial point (don't argue about what you don't understand) is very valid and valuable, you wind up making the gross error of encouraging the blind acceptance of "expert" opinions. I will be the first to admit that there are people out there who know more about climatology than I do, but by no means do I just "leave it to [them]... to do it for [me] and trust what they say." It is a fact that mainstream "science" is filled with lies and sensationalism, manufactured statistics, and the whole nine yards.
It is imperative that I do what I can to check in to matter that I care about and form my own opinion based on the data available to me. Anything less and I become what you propose: a lemming, ready to follow the sensationalist media wherever it cries wolf.
Hey, look at me! I've got a few years worth of data! Now I can make wide reaching conclusions about the behaviour of an eons-old ecology!
Note that I say this as a scientist myself. While I'm not going to directly contradict the theory of global warming, it's interesting to note that we have, at best, a few hundred years of accurate weather data. Who are we to say that extrapolating this data over the age is valid at all? Sure, it makes sense for a few hundred years, but over the history of the planet, or even humankind, I think that modern science is overstepping its bounds, and choosing sensationalism over solid science.