The general opinions in this conversation boil down to two sentiments:
They aren't stopping attacks so they must not be doing their jobs!
and
If Anonymous is 'getting in their way' then they must be incompetent!
with a dash of
They must be allowing these attacks to happen to keep us scared, it's a conspiracy!
thrown in for good measure from the paranoid conspiracy theory crowd.
I've said it before on this subject and I'll say it again: Unless you're a current or past analyst for an intelligence agency, you don't know a gods-be-damned thing about being an intelligence analyst, and watching Jason Bourne and James Bond movies doesn't mean a gods-be-damned thing. Anything that any of you have to say on the subject is just your opinions, and as such isn't worth the price of a cup of coffee at Starbucks. You're doing the equivalent of your non-IT (or non-engineer, or non-coder, take your pick) relative criticizing you because you can't fix their borqed-up computer in five minutes or less.
Our right to privacy has been greatly infringed upon, but if you want to complain about that, put the blame in the right place: it's out elected officials who are behind allowing that to happen, along with sheep-like citizens who allowed it to happen, in spite of warnings from good people like you and I who warned them long and loud that once the mass-surveillance genie was out of the bottle, it would be hard if not impossible to put back in -- or are you one of those people who gave in to fear and allowed it to halt your higher cognitive processes, and let the bloody buggers start turning the whole country into one big prison state?
Ostensibly, not a single one of us in this discussion is an analyst or other operative for an intelligence organization, so as such all we're doing is 'armchair quarterbacking', and worse, 'Monday morning armchair quarterbacking' when it comes to this type of work. I'm not sticking up for these people, but I will say it's easy to criticize what they are (or are not) doing when you don't have any real-world idea what the work actually entails.
I'm thinking this might be an attempt to kill two birds with one stone and exercise gun control while also having another excuse to censor the Internet.
I'm with you on that. Most religion these days is just a way for a few charsimatic, influential people to gain power over large groups of people who are predisposed to be led.. and by definition, most religions don't encourage 'questioning' anything about the religion, especially it's leaders. I think it's especially true in the case of these Sunni extremists who laughingly call themselves the 'Islamic State'. I've heard more than one Muslim person say that these assholes are not in any way actual Muslims, because a real Muslim wouldn't do these things. It's just another excuse for a power-grab, under the false flag of 'Allah's Will'.
By that logic, every for-profit company is suspect, as are their products. That stance works equally well against electronics, clothing, cars, pocket knives, wine, and coffee, all produced by corporations
Yes, that's 100% accurate. Now, to be fair about it: Most all companies and corporations understand that providing a quality product with intrinsic value that performs as advertised, while still making a profit, is the best, most reliable path to success, and if there is a problem with something, they'll handle it. But you have to admit, even in the last month we've seen at least one large corporation getting caught lying to us (Volkswagen). Go back several more months and you'll find at least one more that's been covering up flaws in their products that actually got people killed (General Motors). Since I have a day job and don't have time to sit here for a couple hours doing research to provide more examples of companies who were caught being jerks at the expense of others, those are the two quick examples that come to mind, but if you're really looking for the truth of the matter I'm sure you'll find the time to go looking for them yourself, but other examples, every year, are out there. Please note again: I am saying here in this comment that reputable companies produce safe, effective products that provide value for the consumer of said products, and that are produced in good faith with the best of intentions, and the aforementioned 'good' companies will (more often than not) fix problems or provide remedies if things are otherwise. But for issues like food safety, it's difficult to be too careful, especially when the effects may not manifest for decades.
If you have an actual concern, voice it. Otherwise, you are just saying 'bad things might happen and you can't prove they won't' which describes most everything.
The problem with that is: most of us don't have the education to be employed as genetic engineers, so how are we supposed to know? Saying 'don't worry be happy' is just as bad as saying 'the sky is falling!', and like too many people I attempt to have conversations with on the Internet, you're assuming a binary choice in this matter: Either 'worry about everything' or 'worry about nothing', when there are infinite shades of grey between the two: I am advocating a reasonable degree of caution, especially where people's long-term health and lives are at stake. Now, that being said, I will repeat myself from the original comment: In the case of this GE salmon, it's probably going to be as safe as the FDA thinks it is, because they spent 25 years vetting the gods-be-damned fish before approving it for sale to the public and therefore had enough time to observe the effects of the tampering they did to the fishs' genes.
Finally, I'd like to point out something that applies to you, to me, and to most other people: Neither you or I are genetic engineers, or if you are, then please arrange to provide your real name, proof of your applicable degree(s), and (preferably) any published work(s) on the subject, as credentials qualifying you to comment as an expert on the subject; otherwise it's 'your opinon' and 'my opinon' and as such they are of equal value here.
..who laughingly refer to themselves as 'Islamic State', is revealed in all it's glory, here: They're idiots. Violent, animalistic, atavistic idiots, but idiots nevertheless. They believe in Fairy Tales, superstitions, and myths. They're not rational in the least. Sadly, they think they're fit to rule over a population, when in reality their 'caliphate' is a bad joke, and they don't posess even a fraction of the intelligence, experience, or restraint to actually create and rule over a productive, modern country. Makes one wonder if they even acknowledge that the world is round, and if they believe the sun revolves around the Earth.
I heard today an estimate that it might take 20 or 30 years to completely rid the Earth of this particular pestilence of radical 'Islamic' (in quotes because the term only applies to them in the loosest sense of the word imaginable) extremists; I just hope I survive long enough to see the day when the last of them are finally put down.
The problem is that the anti-GM people are not logical.
Quit building strawmen, please. Also, you're assuming that every company and corporation on the planet that creates GMO foods (and now food animals) has people's best interests first and foremost, and not profit, and you're also assuming that they're utterly flawless and nigh-unto-omniscent when it comes to testing and checking the end product for safety. In the case of this salmon it might be safe, the FDA took 25 years to approve it, and that might be long enough to see if there are any bad effects from the gene splice, but many GMO foods are not tested for anywhere near as long and are therefore rushed to market -- and crops get cross-pollinated into the non-GMO crops whether anyone wants it to happen or not, so the proverbial genie is already out of the bottle for that, at least. These salmon are allegedly sterile, so even if they got out into open water they probably won't crossbreed with the wild variety, but life is tenacious and inventive and some of them, if they got out, might be fertile.. we'll see, now won't we?
I try to live by the rule of "Don't do anything that you wouldn't want everyone to see on the front page of the New York Times."
Well, then, I hope that works out for you. There doesn't have to be any rational reason for some Internet nutjobs to decide that you shouldn't keep breathing any longer, or some Internet stalker to decide to fixate on you.
I'm more with Larry Niven on the subject of dolphins, as soon as we enhance them to the point where they can have real conversations with us, they'll be suing us (humans, in general) for a few decades over how they've been treated over the centuries.
When guns are outlawed, then only outlaws will have guns
You've all heard this countless times before, but the sentiment couldn't be any more true in this case.
When encryption is outlawed, only outlaws will use encryption
Outlawing end-to-end encryption will create more problems than you think it'll solve, and it won't solve the problem you intend it to solve! Please, politicians, would you go get some sort of rudimentary technical education, or at least get some technical advisors, or technical advisors that aren't incompetent? Thanks.
Aside from suggesting that you perhaps ought to make an effort to demonstrate your goal yourself
So pointing out what actually happened in this thread by way of defending myself is 'being ruled by my emotions'? Obvious troll, please bugger off, you're not worth my time.
That's your opinion, just like what I'm saying is just my opinion, because neither of us are trained intellgence analysts who work for the NSA or CIA or MIS or any other intelligence organization, we're random anonymous people on the Internet posting on a discussion forum. Neither one of us can definitively say whether or not what these Sunni extremists post on Twitter or Facebook has any intelligence value to the aforementioned trained individuals.
..OK, why is it that people on the Internet seem incapable of seeing anything other than the extremes, and not the infinite shades of grey between the two? I never said 'I wish people had no emotions; what I said was (in case you can't be bothered to read the quote you included in your own comment-to-my-comment) is: "..from evolving towards our intellect having more control over our actions than our emotions" In case you're having trouble understanding that statement, let me elaborate for you: That does not, and is not intended to imply, that I wish humans had NO emotions, nor did I say they should IGNORE their emotions. I merely would like people, in general, to stop being ruled by their emotions, as evidenced by how gods-be-damned stupid people can act. Are we clear now?
Letting them continue isn't going to be useful if you can't connect the fake account to a real person, and a real location
I don't necessarily agree with that. Being able to monitor what they're saying could potentially be useful. If they get too comfortable they might let something slip that they might not if they're completely vigilant.
It's disruptive to their Internet-based propaganda and radicalization/recruiting operations, and hopefully it's making them an embarassment to anyone who is witnessing them being outed and shut down.
Unfortunately in their enthusiasm to do as much damage as possible, they may be disrupting government intelligence operations, that might have been monitoring some of those accounts for intel on ISIL operations. That's something I didn't consider until someone else mentioned it to me.
All humans, not just women, are irrational and emotional.
The complacency implied in that statement is part of the problem, and that complacency may be holding back the human race from evolving towards our intellect having more control over our actions than our emotions.
Slashdot Mirror
The general opinions in this conversation boil down to two sentiments:
They aren't stopping attacks so they must not be doing their jobs!
and
If Anonymous is 'getting in their way' then they must be incompetent!
with a dash of
They must be allowing these attacks to happen to keep us scared, it's a conspiracy!
thrown in for good measure from the paranoid conspiracy theory crowd.
I've said it before on this subject and I'll say it again: Unless you're a current or past analyst for an intelligence agency, you don't know a gods-be-damned thing about being an intelligence analyst, and watching Jason Bourne and James Bond movies doesn't mean a gods-be-damned thing. Anything that any of you have to say on the subject is just your opinions, and as such isn't worth the price of a cup of coffee at Starbucks. You're doing the equivalent of your non-IT (or non-engineer, or non-coder, take your pick) relative criticizing you because you can't fix their borqed-up computer in five minutes or less.
Our right to privacy has been greatly infringed upon, but if you want to complain about that, put the blame in the right place: it's out elected officials who are behind allowing that to happen, along with sheep-like citizens who allowed it to happen, in spite of warnings from good people like you and I who warned them long and loud that once the mass-surveillance genie was out of the bottle, it would be hard if not impossible to put back in -- or are you one of those people who gave in to fear and allowed it to halt your higher cognitive processes, and let the bloody buggers start turning the whole country into one big prison state?
Ostensibly, not a single one of us in this discussion is an analyst or other operative for an intelligence organization, so as such all we're doing is 'armchair quarterbacking', and worse, 'Monday morning armchair quarterbacking' when it comes to this type of work. I'm not sticking up for these people, but I will say it's easy to criticize what they are (or are not) doing when you don't have any real-world idea what the work actually entails.
I'm thinking this might be an attempt to kill two birds with one stone and exercise gun control while also having another excuse to censor the Internet.
Has the rose in the palm of Windows' hand turned black now? Can we send it to Carousel and incinerate it? Please?
That's what this sounds like. Great way for certain Sunni extremists to shift money around.
I'm with you on that. Most religion these days is just a way for a few charsimatic, influential people to gain power over large groups of people who are predisposed to be led.. and by definition, most religions don't encourage 'questioning' anything about the religion, especially it's leaders. I think it's especially true in the case of these Sunni extremists who laughingly call themselves the 'Islamic State'. I've heard more than one Muslim person say that these assholes are not in any way actual Muslims, because a real Muslim wouldn't do these things. It's just another excuse for a power-grab, under the false flag of 'Allah's Will'.
By that logic, every for-profit company is suspect, as are their products. That stance works equally well against electronics, clothing, cars, pocket knives, wine, and coffee, all produced by corporations
Yes, that's 100% accurate. Now, to be fair about it: Most all companies and corporations understand that providing a quality product with intrinsic value that performs as advertised, while still making a profit, is the best, most reliable path to success, and if there is a problem with something, they'll handle it. But you have to admit, even in the last month we've seen at least one large corporation getting caught lying to us (Volkswagen). Go back several more months and you'll find at least one more that's been covering up flaws in their products that actually got people killed (General Motors). Since I have a day job and don't have time to sit here for a couple hours doing research to provide more examples of companies who were caught being jerks at the expense of others, those are the two quick examples that come to mind, but if you're really looking for the truth of the matter I'm sure you'll find the time to go looking for them yourself, but other examples, every year, are out there. Please note again: I am saying here in this comment that reputable companies produce safe, effective products that provide value for the consumer of said products, and that are produced in good faith with the best of intentions, and the aforementioned 'good' companies will (more often than not) fix problems or provide remedies if things are otherwise. But for issues like food safety, it's difficult to be too careful, especially when the effects may not manifest for decades.
If you have an actual concern, voice it. Otherwise, you are just saying 'bad things might happen and you can't prove they won't' which describes most everything.
The problem with that is: most of us don't have the education to be employed as genetic engineers, so how are we supposed to know? Saying 'don't worry be happy' is just as bad as saying 'the sky is falling!', and like too many people I attempt to have conversations with on the Internet, you're assuming a binary choice in this matter: Either 'worry about everything' or 'worry about nothing', when there are infinite shades of grey between the two: I am advocating a reasonable degree of caution, especially where people's long-term health and lives are at stake. Now, that being said, I will repeat myself from the original comment: In the case of this GE salmon, it's probably going to be as safe as the FDA thinks it is, because they spent 25 years vetting the gods-be-damned fish before approving it for sale to the public and therefore had enough time to observe the effects of the tampering they did to the fishs' genes.
Finally, I'd like to point out something that applies to you, to me, and to most other people: Neither you or I are genetic engineers, or if you are, then please arrange to provide your real name, proof of your applicable degree(s), and (preferably) any published work(s) on the subject, as credentials qualifying you to comment as an expert on the subject; otherwise it's 'your opinon' and 'my opinon' and as such they are of equal value here.
..who laughingly refer to themselves as 'Islamic State', is revealed in all it's glory, here: They're idiots. Violent, animalistic, atavistic idiots, but idiots nevertheless. They believe in Fairy Tales, superstitions, and myths. They're not rational in the least. Sadly, they think they're fit to rule over a population, when in reality their 'caliphate' is a bad joke, and they don't posess even a fraction of the intelligence, experience, or restraint to actually create and rule over a productive, modern country. Makes one wonder if they even acknowledge that the world is round, and if they believe the sun revolves around the Earth.
I heard today an estimate that it might take 20 or 30 years to completely rid the Earth of this particular pestilence of radical 'Islamic' (in quotes because the term only applies to them in the loosest sense of the word imaginable) extremists; I just hope I survive long enough to see the day when the last of them are finally put down.
The problem is that the anti-GM people are not logical.
Quit building strawmen, please. Also, you're assuming that every company and corporation on the planet that creates GMO foods (and now food animals) has people's best interests first and foremost, and not profit, and you're also assuming that they're utterly flawless and nigh-unto-omniscent when it comes to testing and checking the end product for safety. In the case of this salmon it might be safe, the FDA took 25 years to approve it, and that might be long enough to see if there are any bad effects from the gene splice, but many GMO foods are not tested for anywhere near as long and are therefore rushed to market -- and crops get cross-pollinated into the non-GMO crops whether anyone wants it to happen or not, so the proverbial genie is already out of the bottle for that, at least. These salmon are allegedly sterile, so even if they got out into open water they probably won't crossbreed with the wild variety, but life is tenacious and inventive and some of them, if they got out, might be fertile.. we'll see, now won't we?
Outsource their technical support line to Comcast. After that their entire operation will grind to a halt in a matter of days.
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..and if you can't manage to decode that in a few minutes or less, then you might have a bright future as a politician.
When guns (or encryption!) are outlawed, then only outlaws will have guns (or use encryption)!
Why can't you understand that!? FIND ANOTHER WAY!
I try to live by the rule of "Don't do anything that you wouldn't want everyone to see on the front page of the New York Times."
Well, then, I hope that works out for you. There doesn't have to be any rational reason for some Internet nutjobs to decide that you shouldn't keep breathing any longer, or some Internet stalker to decide to fixate on you.
I'm more with Larry Niven on the subject of dolphins, as soon as we enhance them to the point where they can have real conversations with us, they'll be suing us (humans, in general) for a few decades over how they've been treated over the centuries.
Can we send a ship into the sun's photosphere now?
When guns are outlawed, then only outlaws will have guns
You've all heard this countless times before, but the sentiment couldn't be any more true in this case.
When encryption is outlawed, only outlaws will use encryption
Outlawing end-to-end encryption will create more problems than you think it'll solve, and it won't solve the problem you intend it to solve! Please, politicians, would you go get some sort of rudimentary technical education, or at least get some technical advisors, or technical advisors that aren't incompetent? Thanks.
Aside from suggesting that you perhaps ought to make an effort to demonstrate your goal yourself
So pointing out what actually happened in this thread by way of defending myself is 'being ruled by my emotions'? Obvious troll, please bugger off, you're not worth my time.
That's your opinion, just like what I'm saying is just my opinion, because neither of us are trained intellgence analysts who work for the NSA or CIA or MIS or any other intelligence organization, we're random anonymous people on the Internet posting on a discussion forum. Neither one of us can definitively say whether or not what these Sunni extremists post on Twitter or Facebook has any intelligence value to the aforementioned trained individuals.
..OK, why is it that people on the Internet seem incapable of seeing anything other than the extremes, and not the infinite shades of grey between the two? I never said 'I wish people had no emotions; what I said was (in case you can't be bothered to read the quote you included in your own comment-to-my-comment) is: "..from evolving towards our intellect having more control over our actions than our emotions" In case you're having trouble understanding that statement, let me elaborate for you: That does not, and is not intended to imply, that I wish humans had NO emotions, nor did I say they should IGNORE their emotions. I merely would like people, in general, to stop being ruled by their emotions, as evidenced by how gods-be-damned stupid people can act. Are we clear now?
Um.. I'm really not sure what your purpose is in making that point? We're on the same side of this discussion, by the way.
Letting them continue isn't going to be useful if you can't connect the fake account to a real person, and a real location
I don't necessarily agree with that. Being able to monitor what they're saying could potentially be useful. If they get too comfortable they might let something slip that they might not if they're completely vigilant.
What good would this do ?
It's disruptive to their Internet-based propaganda and radicalization/recruiting operations, and hopefully it's making them an embarassment to anyone who is witnessing them being outed and shut down.
Unfortunately in their enthusiasm to do as much damage as possible, they may be disrupting government intelligence operations, that might have been monitoring some of those accounts for intel on ISIL operations. That's something I didn't consider until someone else mentioned it to me.
All humans, not just women, are irrational and emotional.
The complacency implied in that statement is part of the problem, and that complacency may be holding back the human race from evolving towards our intellect having more control over our actions than our emotions.
As a (female) senior developer my only response to the summary was a stunned 'WTH'.
I actually had a similar reaction to it; it came off as insulting to women, like they can't be appealed to intellectually, only emotionally.