Interesting. When did manufacturers start using biological processing units? And are they faster/more efficient than a generic electronic CPU or an FPGA?
With the amount of guidance those missiles have and the intel that goes into targeting them, coupled with them being smarter than the people who push their buttons, I'd say a very long time indeed...
Truth be told, the UN should have done this long ago, when the rebels controlled about three quarters of the country, just after the National Council was formed. At that moment, the Rebels were the legitimate government according to the foundation of international law, and were entitled to protection from Khaddaffi's forces, which were "threatening the territorial integrity of a state with a representative government", which is sacrosanct under the Helsinki Decalogue's fourth point (protection of the territorial integrity of the state).
As it stands now Khaddaffi might have a chance to win if he can crush the opposition fast enough with half the western world pounding his forces to dust, and claim "All Clear" as a basis for ending the intervention...
Subsonic rounds have lower penetration and range. Suppressors decrease this further. So the sniper has to get in closer, at which point s/he runs the risk of being spotted while en route. If I were the sniper, I'd rather go with "loud and clear, huh?", but usable from far, far away.
Just to educate you, Wi-Fi is not a protocol. TCP/IP is point to point, as in your IP is your point of origin, and the destination IP is fucking end-point. There are multicast protocols, but holy fuck are you expressing some serious ignorance of the The Way Things Work[TM].
I know Wi-Fi is not a protocol per se. What I wanted to get across was an analogy: if we take wired conversations as a point-to-point protocol, Wi-Fi would be the equivalent of a point-to-multipoint, mercilessly exploited by WLAN cards in promiscuous mode to capture everything in the air, not just traffic intended for them. To include #35512188's analogy, with you shouting to Bob, everyone hears it (point-to-multipoint), but Joe and Barack think "Oh, that's for Bob. I'm not interested then...". See my point?
Man, it's no fun when your opponent cannot be bothered to make a leap of thought/too much of an anal retentive to understand an analogy...
Also, GSM traffic is encrypted by default, at the protocol level. Granted, that encryption is not something you'd trust state secrets with, but it's encryption, therefore that conversation is obviously private, and protected. Show me the protocol-level encryption on TCP/IP, that's on regardless of your router's settings, and indicates that the conversation taking place is private!
You are quite right that GP would almost certainly object to a neighbor who collects this level of information about him. He'd find that disturbing, violating, and downright creepy, the kind of behavior in which a stalker would engage. But he thinks it's perfectly acceptable when Google collects that much information. And doesn't see the contradiction.
Well, one of the reasons I'm okay with Google collecting all that info about my online activity is that unlike my creepy stalker neighbor, Google won't be coming at me with sharp implements any time soon.
The other is that I really don't see how knowing what I look at one the web can harm me. I mean, it's irrelevant to my career that I read and post on Slashdot, that I read Hackaday, along with diplomacia.hu (university major's homepage), and the EU news site, or that I like to go on wiki walks to expand my knowledge. If anything, this is a plus to future employers, since it shows I'm a man of varied interests, who may be called upon to fulfill several roles (say, as the technician of an embassy and the ambassador himself, as it's one less person to pay and get the consent of the hosting state, while the secret service may employ me as a plausibly deniable source of information if I hack together a listening scope for them, since they honestly had nothing to do with that. "Electronics is simply a hobby for me, that can be turned to useful ends".).
What those people did amounts to criminal stupidity. Period.
Fixed the typo for you, no need to thank me.
First off, I'm from Hungary, so I don't need you flinging the "government shills" crap towards me, the US government can go rot in Hades for all I care.
I don't know much about US wiretapping laws either, not being even a paralegal, but consider this: it's called wiretapping for a reason. Wired conversations go between two discrete parties, so to eavesdrop, you need to break in at one point onto private property. Wi-Fi is a point-to-multipoint protocol, it's the equivalent of standing on your rooftop and screaming out your info for the world to hear, like grandparent said. I can walk by your house, and get it without breaking any laws, unless you suddenly want to control what I'm allowed to hear. If I went ahead, and installed a secret microphone to listen in on what you whisper to your friend in your living room, not that is wiretapping!
Learn to encrypt the network, otherwise people will just surf on it, "since it's there". You know, like why Hillary climbed Mount Everest.
And this is why we have the WTO (or as we used to joke, WTF). Although copyright is not exactly the WTO's cup of tea, as long as it's actually trade related, it will be enforced (See TRIP). You really don't understand the system if you think any country would go to war over piracy. War is insanely expensive, ruins international standing, and leaves the aggressor liable to backlash from the UN, possibly in the form of an authorized counterstrike. The international community, while not without its flaws, is prepared to handle any situation you can throw at it, including mass piracy.
From my side, this is the last point I will make, for I have long learned (and often forgot) the old saying: "Duel not with idiots: they will drag you down to their level, and beat you with their experience!" EOL
The ICC does not make ex post facto laws, only applies laws that are already part of the international legal system. The ICC also has no jurisdiction over countries not party to the Statute of Rome, unless a the country willingly subjects to it for the duration and scope of the case in question. This latter means that no unrelated accusations can be brought against the country in question or weaseled into the case. Also, it is solely additional to national systems: it can exercise its jurisdiction only when national courts are unwilling or unable to investigate or prosecute such crimes.
As for human rights, would you mind telling me exactly which ones does the ICC, a body established by the United Nations, the supreme body safeguarding human rights in the world, violates?
That's why all that mumbo-jumbo means nothing to me.
Agreed, if you can't understand the framework of the current system, there's no point in this debate, since you'll never see the whole picture, only your twisted interpretation of it.
I could break down Ius ad Bello (Right to War) to the treaties that established and evolved it to the point it is now, but that's way beyond the time I have for you, and probably way over your head too, if you can believe "somebody resisting an arrest (even for copyright infringement)" can start a war.
I did not make a case for or against war, merely gave you the actual reasons it happened. Legitimacy is another thing entirely, the American lawyers even proposed that the 2003 invasion was not actually a new war, but a continuation of the 1990-1 war, as Iraq was still in violation of UNSC 687, due to the break in disarmament. Naturally, this was rejected by the rest of the UN.
However, now that I cleared up why the war happened, would you mind telling us how copyright infringement figure into it or how the 2003 Iraqi War figures into copyright infringement?
Okay, I hoped it wouldn't come to this, but I have to break out the heavy artillery.
Last year, at university, in a course titled "International Conflicts in the Post-Bipolar Era", we investigated this incident in depth, so let me give you the reasons: There were both official and unofficial reasons for the invasion. Let's see the officially given reasons first: WMDs and terrorism. WMDs were a reason because there was a period between 1998 and 2002, during which the execution of UNSC 687, the resolution that ended the second Gulf War of 1990-1, was suspended. The resolution mandated the destruction of stockpiles of chemical and biological weapons, and all missiles with a range greater than 150 km. In 1998, Saddam had enough of the oversight, and expelled the weapons investigators, only allowing them to return in 2002 due to Russian persuasion. In January 2003, the investigation reported no signs of WMDs, but given that there were four years of unsupervised activity, more time was needed to assess the situation completely. Terrorism and its support, however, was an ideological pretext, driven by the fact that there were few countries not expressing sympathy with the US after 9/11, one of them being Iraq. Most of the evidence was tenuous, and ideologically, Saddam was rather distant from Ossama, but given its dealings with Iran and Syria, the chance that Iraq indeed supported various terrorist groups, even if indirectly, was rather high.
Moving on to the unofficial reasons, we find three of them: making an example of rogue states, setting off a democratic domino, and hydrocarbons. I don't think I need to waste my bit-breath on making an example. Let's just say it worked, and it was a major reason Libya returned into the international community (until recently, that is). Same goes for the democratic domino, it might have taken some time to get rolling, but we're seeing its effects now. As for hydrocarbons, the thing is, there's really no telling how much is there actually, but it might be more than Saudi Arabia. The problem here was that around the turn of the millennium, US corporations were forced out of Iraq, which necessitated a change of regime. The fact that this change of regime happened to coincide with the deposition of a dictator was just an added bonus. The reason for the necessity was that US oil import is expected to rise in the near future, and steady supplies are/will be needed. BUT! Only about a quarter of the oil imports come from the Middle East, the rest from Canada (a whopping 25.6%!), Mexico, Nigeria, Venezuela, with Saudi Arabia being only the fifth on the list, and Iraq being only 11th, with a measly 2.3% of the total oil import. However, that does nothing to change the fact that the relations with Saudi Arabia soured prior to the war, and stable relations were needed with its eventually possible replacement, therefore a change of regime was required in Iraq.
So there you have it, a comprehensive breakdown why the US invaded Iraq in 2003. Legitimacy is another question, which would require another post of similar length, and a crash course in international law to be effective, for which I sadly don't have the breath.
As for mercenaries, naturally, the US took advantage of them to augment its military, namely the Blackwater private military company (renamed Xe Services in the aftermath of a severe humanitarian law violation during the Iraq War). However, even US forces have to answer to a court, as well as any terrorists they apprehend, despite Bush's 'unsigning' of the Treaty of Rome, signing "The Hague Invasion Act" in its stead, as President Obama has stated his intent to again cooperate with the ICC. So no, no terrorists. And don't say "it's all business", without knowing the legal and historical backgrounds for the incident!
Granted, terrorism was only one of the reasons, but it doesn't change my underlying point: terrorism (and other international offenses) merits armed intervention, although solely with UNSC authorization (and let's not get into a debate on whether the Iraqi War was legitimate or not, US legals would say legitimate, everyone else would say no), copyright infringement doesn't, and the US can't bring up any excuses or pretexts against Hungary (or any EU-country), the way it could against Iraq.
Isn't that a bit different? If the US wants to bring its military to bear on Hungary for copyright infringement, I think the UN, NATO (yes, even NATO), and the EU will have a few words to say about that...
Let's not mix up terrorism and copyright law, even if they do appear to blur together as concepts in the mind of politicians.
Sooo... by this argument, anyone linking or embedding youtube videos they did not produce is committing copyright infringement? Better go after ~80%+ of the net then, DHS! Maybe Youtube too, for aiding infringement by providing the means to embed videos not of your own upload.
Or has there been a precedent that uploading a video to Youtube is 'publishing', therefore exempt from copyright?
Oh yeah, I forgot about scratches: drop the flash chip and co. in a cheap aluminium/steel cassette (think CF cards), and it'll be nearly indestructible by domestic means, while still usable easily. You can't do that with a CD.
I have, however, had trouble with disc degradation, even though I kept them in a mostly-constant temperature room (~21C ±4C), and had a few go bad and unreadable after about ten years, without scratches. They did make nice light shows in the microwave afterwards, though...
CDs are more costly, and they won't last longer than say, flash memory, except for special circumstances. For example, some CDs will degrade in as little as 18 months in humid conditions, or there's a fungus that will colonize and eat your discs. Flash memory is practically unaffected by storage conditions, as long as you don't throw it into the oven and switch it on: it can take basically any value for humidity, even a straight-up dump into water, survive freezing and tropical heat, fungi, etc.
So really, instead of CDs, music publishers should just migrate to read-only memory chips for storing music: more can be shipped in a single shipment, cheaper, and more durable.
Nothing extra, nothing hidden? How about the tons of unnecessary shit Windows comes equipped with and you can't remove? Or the recent scandal about WP7 phones generating traffic apart from user-created stuff?
Data mining? Meh. If someone's interested in my research into nootropics, or the schedule for the Association of Diplomacy in Practice, let them be, all of it is public anyway, nothing to hide there. I only put stuff into the cloud that I wouldn't be embarrassed to put my name onto, for example in case of hacking.
Ads? I ignore them, whether they're targeted at me or not. It simply bounces off my brain.
If someone needs an antitrust probe it's the kind like Microsoft and Apple. Especially Apple needs to be investigated, even if it's not really antitrust, but for the insane amount of control they wield over their users' devices. I wouldn't be surprised if those iPhones could actually be commanded to eavesdrop...
Slashdot Mirror
Interesting. When did manufacturers start using biological processing units? And are they faster/more efficient than a generic electronic CPU or an FPGA?
With the amount of guidance those missiles have and the intel that goes into targeting them, coupled with them being smarter than the people who push their buttons, I'd say a very long time indeed...
Para Bellum!
Truth be told, the UN should have done this long ago, when the rebels controlled about three quarters of the country, just after the National Council was formed. At that moment, the Rebels were the legitimate government according to the foundation of international law, and were entitled to protection from Khaddaffi's forces, which were "threatening the territorial integrity of a state with a representative government", which is sacrosanct under the Helsinki Decalogue's fourth point (protection of the territorial integrity of the state).
As it stands now Khaddaffi might have a chance to win if he can crush the opposition fast enough with half the western world pounding his forces to dust, and claim "All Clear" as a basis for ending the intervention...
Are we going to be treated to a live feed of the greatest disaster movie of all time? Come on, Big Media, it'll be worth it!
Hollywood? ... Um, okay, you got that right.
JPL? Google?
Subsonic rounds have lower penetration and range. Suppressors decrease this further. So the sniper has to get in closer, at which point s/he runs the risk of being spotted while en route. If I were the sniper, I'd rather go with "loud and clear, huh?", but usable from far, far away.
Just to educate you, Wi-Fi is not a protocol. TCP/IP is point to point, as in your IP is your point of origin, and the destination IP is fucking end-point. There are multicast protocols, but holy fuck are you expressing some serious ignorance of the The Way Things Work[TM].
I know Wi-Fi is not a protocol per se. What I wanted to get across was an analogy: if we take wired conversations as a point-to-point protocol, Wi-Fi would be the equivalent of a point-to-multipoint, mercilessly exploited by WLAN cards in promiscuous mode to capture everything in the air, not just traffic intended for them. To include #35512188's analogy, with you shouting to Bob, everyone hears it (point-to-multipoint), but Joe and Barack think "Oh, that's for Bob. I'm not interested then...". See my point?
Man, it's no fun when your opponent cannot be bothered to make a leap of thought/too much of an anal retentive to understand an analogy...
Also, GSM traffic is encrypted by default, at the protocol level. Granted, that encryption is not something you'd trust state secrets with, but it's encryption, therefore that conversation is obviously private, and protected. Show me the protocol-level encryption on TCP/IP, that's on regardless of your router's settings, and indicates that the conversation taking place is private!
Yeah: camping sniper-bots. Even more infuriating, since they have infinite patience.
Repeat after me: colloquialism. I'm sure they already have a proper, legal name for it, it's just much easier to call it this.
You are quite right that GP would almost certainly object to a neighbor who collects this level of information about him. He'd find that disturbing, violating, and downright creepy, the kind of behavior in which a stalker would engage. But he thinks it's perfectly acceptable when Google collects that much information. And doesn't see the contradiction.
Well, one of the reasons I'm okay with Google collecting all that info about my online activity is that unlike my creepy stalker neighbor, Google won't be coming at me with sharp implements any time soon.
The other is that I really don't see how knowing what I look at one the web can harm me. I mean, it's irrelevant to my career that I read and post on Slashdot, that I read Hackaday, along with diplomacia.hu (university major's homepage), and the EU news site, or that I like to go on wiki walks to expand my knowledge. If anything, this is a plus to future employers, since it shows I'm a man of varied interests, who may be called upon to fulfill several roles (say, as the technician of an embassy and the ambassador himself, as it's one less person to pay and get the consent of the hosting state, while the secret service may employ me as a plausibly deniable source of information if I hack together a listening scope for them, since they honestly had nothing to do with that. "Electronics is simply a hobby for me, that can be turned to useful ends".).
What those people did amounts to criminal stupidity. Period.
Fixed the typo for you, no need to thank me.
First off, I'm from Hungary, so I don't need you flinging the "government shills" crap towards me, the US government can go rot in Hades for all I care.
I don't know much about US wiretapping laws either, not being even a paralegal, but consider this: it's called wiretapping for a reason. Wired conversations go between two discrete parties, so to eavesdrop, you need to break in at one point onto private property. Wi-Fi is a point-to-multipoint protocol, it's the equivalent of standing on your rooftop and screaming out your info for the world to hear, like grandparent said. I can walk by your house, and get it without breaking any laws, unless you suddenly want to control what I'm allowed to hear. If I went ahead, and installed a secret microphone to listen in on what you whisper to your friend in your living room, not that is wiretapping!
Learn to encrypt the network, otherwise people will just surf on it, "since it's there". You know, like why Hillary climbed Mount Everest.
And this is why we have the WTO (or as we used to joke, WTF). Although copyright is not exactly the WTO's cup of tea, as long as it's actually trade related, it will be enforced (See TRIP). You really don't understand the system if you think any country would go to war over piracy. War is insanely expensive, ruins international standing, and leaves the aggressor liable to backlash from the UN, possibly in the form of an authorized counterstrike. The international community, while not without its flaws, is prepared to handle any situation you can throw at it, including mass piracy.
From my side, this is the last point I will make, for I have long learned (and often forgot) the old saying: "Duel not with idiots: they will drag you down to their level, and beat you with their experience!"
EOL
Rare enough that I never even saw one in use, this is the first time I've heard about them!
I'm still all for flash chips, though: more compact, durable, and faster (not sure about this, though).
The ICC does not make ex post facto laws, only applies laws that are already part of the international legal system. The ICC also has no jurisdiction over countries not party to the Statute of Rome, unless a the country willingly subjects to it for the duration and scope of the case in question. This latter means that no unrelated accusations can be brought against the country in question or weaseled into the case. Also, it is solely additional to national systems: it can exercise its jurisdiction only when national courts are unwilling or unable to investigate or prosecute such crimes.
As for human rights, would you mind telling me exactly which ones does the ICC, a body established by the United Nations, the supreme body safeguarding human rights in the world, violates?
That's why all that mumbo-jumbo means nothing to me.
Agreed, if you can't understand the framework of the current system, there's no point in this debate, since you'll never see the whole picture, only your twisted interpretation of it.
I could break down Ius ad Bello (Right to War) to the treaties that established and evolved it to the point it is now, but that's way beyond the time I have for you, and probably way over your head too, if you can believe "somebody resisting an arrest (even for copyright infringement)" can start a war.
I did not make a case for or against war, merely gave you the actual reasons it happened. Legitimacy is another thing entirely, the American lawyers even proposed that the 2003 invasion was not actually a new war, but a continuation of the 1990-1 war, as Iraq was still in violation of UNSC 687, due to the break in disarmament. Naturally, this was rejected by the rest of the UN.
However, now that I cleared up why the war happened, would you mind telling us how copyright infringement figure into it or how the 2003 Iraqi War figures into copyright infringement?
Okay, I hoped it wouldn't come to this, but I have to break out the heavy artillery.
Last year, at university, in a course titled "International Conflicts in the Post-Bipolar Era", we investigated this incident in depth, so let me give you the reasons:
There were both official and unofficial reasons for the invasion. Let's see the officially given reasons first: WMDs and terrorism.
WMDs were a reason because there was a period between 1998 and 2002, during which the execution of UNSC 687, the resolution that ended the second Gulf War of 1990-1, was suspended. The resolution mandated the destruction of stockpiles of chemical and biological weapons, and all missiles with a range greater than 150 km. In 1998, Saddam had enough of the oversight, and expelled the weapons investigators, only allowing them to return in 2002 due to Russian persuasion. In January 2003, the investigation reported no signs of WMDs, but given that there were four years of unsupervised activity, more time was needed to assess the situation completely.
Terrorism and its support, however, was an ideological pretext, driven by the fact that there were few countries not expressing sympathy with the US after 9/11, one of them being Iraq. Most of the evidence was tenuous, and ideologically, Saddam was rather distant from Ossama, but given its dealings with Iran and Syria, the chance that Iraq indeed supported various terrorist groups, even if indirectly, was rather high.
Moving on to the unofficial reasons, we find three of them: making an example of rogue states, setting off a democratic domino, and hydrocarbons.
I don't think I need to waste my bit-breath on making an example. Let's just say it worked, and it was a major reason Libya returned into the international community (until recently, that is).
Same goes for the democratic domino, it might have taken some time to get rolling, but we're seeing its effects now.
As for hydrocarbons, the thing is, there's really no telling how much is there actually, but it might be more than Saudi Arabia. The problem here was that around the turn of the millennium, US corporations were forced out of Iraq, which necessitated a change of regime. The fact that this change of regime happened to coincide with the deposition of a dictator was just an added bonus. The reason for the necessity was that US oil import is expected to rise in the near future, and steady supplies are/will be needed. BUT! Only about a quarter of the oil imports come from the Middle East, the rest from Canada (a whopping 25.6%!), Mexico, Nigeria, Venezuela, with Saudi Arabia being only the fifth on the list, and Iraq being only 11th, with a measly 2.3% of the total oil import. However, that does nothing to change the fact that the relations with Saudi Arabia soured prior to the war, and stable relations were needed with its eventually possible replacement, therefore a change of regime was required in Iraq.
So there you have it, a comprehensive breakdown why the US invaded Iraq in 2003. Legitimacy is another question, which would require another post of similar length, and a crash course in international law to be effective, for which I sadly don't have the breath.
As for mercenaries, naturally, the US took advantage of them to augment its military, namely the Blackwater private military company (renamed Xe Services in the aftermath of a severe humanitarian law violation during the Iraq War). However, even US forces have to answer to a court, as well as any terrorists they apprehend, despite Bush's 'unsigning' of the Treaty of Rome, signing "The Hague Invasion Act" in its stead, as President Obama has stated his intent to again cooperate with the ICC. So no, no terrorists.
And don't say "it's all business", without knowing the legal and historical backgrounds for the incident!
Granted, terrorism was only one of the reasons, but it doesn't change my underlying point: terrorism (and other international offenses) merits armed intervention, although solely with UNSC authorization (and let's not get into a debate on whether the Iraqi War was legitimate or not, US legals would say legitimate, everyone else would say no), copyright infringement doesn't, and the US can't bring up any excuses or pretexts against Hungary (or any EU-country), the way it could against Iraq.
Isn't that a bit different? If the US wants to bring its military to bear on Hungary for copyright infringement, I think the UN, NATO (yes, even NATO), and the EU will have a few words to say about that...
Let's not mix up terrorism and copyright law, even if they do appear to blur together as concepts in the mind of politicians.
Sooo ... by this argument, anyone linking or embedding youtube videos they did not produce is committing copyright infringement? Better go after ~80%+ of the net then, DHS! Maybe Youtube too, for aiding infringement by providing the means to embed videos not of your own upload.
Or has there been a precedent that uploading a video to Youtube is 'publishing', therefore exempt from copyright?
Let him. And let's see Uncle Sam exercise some of that (rather unconstitutional) muscle in Hungary, about half a globe away from his borders.
Oh yeah, I forgot about scratches: drop the flash chip and co. in a cheap aluminium/steel cassette (think CF cards), and it'll be nearly indestructible by domestic means, while still usable easily. You can't do that with a CD.
I have, however, had trouble with disc degradation, even though I kept them in a mostly-constant temperature room (~21C ±4C), and had a few go bad and unreadable after about ten years, without scratches. They did make nice light shows in the microwave afterwards, though...
CDs are more costly, and they won't last longer than say, flash memory, except for special circumstances. For example, some CDs will degrade in as little as 18 months in humid conditions, or there's a fungus that will colonize and eat your discs. Flash memory is practically unaffected by storage conditions, as long as you don't throw it into the oven and switch it on: it can take basically any value for humidity, even a straight-up dump into water, survive freezing and tropical heat, fungi, etc.
So really, instead of CDs, music publishers should just migrate to read-only memory chips for storing music: more can be shipped in a single shipment, cheaper, and more durable.
Nothing extra, nothing hidden? How about the tons of unnecessary shit Windows comes equipped with and you can't remove? Or the recent scandal about WP7 phones generating traffic apart from user-created stuff?
Data mining? Meh. If someone's interested in my research into nootropics, or the schedule for the Association of Diplomacy in Practice, let them be, all of it is public anyway, nothing to hide there. I only put stuff into the cloud that I wouldn't be embarrassed to put my name onto, for example in case of hacking.
Ads? I ignore them, whether they're targeted at me or not. It simply bounces off my brain.
If someone needs an antitrust probe it's the kind like Microsoft and Apple. Especially Apple needs to be investigated, even if it's not really antitrust, but for the insane amount of control they wield over their users' devices. I wouldn't be surprised if those iPhones could actually be commanded to eavesdrop...