When you say "expanding its influence" are you referring to anything specific? I'd be interested in hearing your take.
I read this interesting article recently about growing tensions between the Saudis and Iran which states : "Afghanistan, Iraq and Yemen - three different theaters have appeared where the Saudis have moved in to challenge Iran's growing regional influence." The most interesting part is about growing tensions on the border in Yemen unnervingly close to the oil fields that supposedly has the Saudis very worried.
I think you're right in pointing out no one is worried about territorial expansion, but rather about Iran becoming the regional power broker. That would make Iran what we call "incontournable" ("inevitable") in french on Middle East issues. Being held over a barrel (of oil, get it) by the Saudis from time to time is bad enough but the Iranians taking their place would take things to a whole new level ('73 all over again and worse.)
Setting off a working nuke would be purely a symbolic act I think, a way of underscoring Iran's ascendence in defiance of the west. Certainly it wouldn't immediately give them a strategic advantage and personally I don't think they're crazy enough to lob a nuclear missile at Israel despite the rhetoric. As the afore mentioned article says : "Iran is very radical on one hand, but on the other hand you can't say that it is an irrational country."
Wow, great post. I agree with much of it but would like to touch on some points.
It's news all of a sudden mostly because there's a crisis with Iran at the moment. Iran may or may not be working towards nuclear weapons.
Only that's neither new, nor is Iran the only country seeking a nuclear capability. It is however the only country actively seeking to build political capital and extend its influence in a region considered strategic by the US (in contrast to North Korea which is isolationist and inward looking.) The nuclear story is a side show in my opinion, useful because of the irrational fear it evokes in mist people.
I don't think a nuclear-capable Iran would attack Israel.
I agree. It's a question of realpolitik: Israel has been able to dominate the nations on its borders or has reached an understanding with them and it doesn't need a new regional superpower coming in and confusing things. Especially one that expands its influence at the expense of that other US ally, the UAE. Hence the saber rattling.
If there's a war between Israel and Iran, then the US would inevitably get pulled in.
I'd go further than that and say that if there'd be a war between Israel and Iran it would be a proxy war by the US against Iran and it would likely be perceived as such in the region. I'm not so sure Russia wouldn't intervene in that nightmare. They might be too proud to risk loosing credibility internationally and the Georgian incident shows they've become bolder in recent years.With the US overextended as it is I'm not sure Russia would blink first if it came to a confrontation, Russia might be willing to make that gamble (that's how stupid wars get started after all.)
I'm quite sure that the US doesn't want military action against Iran, but if we keep seeing an upsurge in "evil Iran" stories then it indicates they think it might happen and they're opening up their options
Completely agree. Plus, as I said in my earlier post, it conveniently provides something to talk about other than Afghanistan and the economy.
Meet the new boss, same as the old boss. This kind of thing has always gone on, makes you wonder why suddenly now it's "news" doesn't it ? Redirecting public attention from economic disaster, unpopular wars or just the beam in their own eye ?
Regardless of ethics they should not allow their platform to be used by people to intentionally spread (allegedly) false information or to allow information tainted by an obvious bias so it's in their best interest to allow investigation into its source.
It's great that there are those making people aware of what data might be accessed by malicious apps on any platform. The question is can this be avoided ? Restricting the data this app was able to access would also stop applications from doing some pretty useful things: accessing the address book, reading files on the filesystem, autocomplete (this is the keyboard cache mentioned), accessing pictures, etc. This is a balancing act between allowing enough freedom to produce good software and being too restrictive but safer. The alternatives here are complete sandboxing of applications or some Microsoft UAS style dialogs all over the place.
There's something vaguely satisfying in knowing the feds are forced to watch thousands of idiots' progress at Farmville. Job satisfaction must be at an all time low.
Except for the fact that JoikuBoost doesn't manage the power utilization like Cool-Tether does. Also, this is actually a follow on to their previous invention called "Combine" which was announced in 2007. JoikuBoost appears to be a very recent (October 1, 2009) product.
Multipath IO is hardly what I'd call an invention these days (or even in 2007) but yeah that certainly puts them ahead of Joiku. Still you know what they say, "Real artists ship.";-) The energy savings do sound pretty spectacular though.
Way to innovate MS! JoikuBoost: "JoikuBoost joins multiple 3G connections from mobile phones and operator networks into one larger unified and shared bit pipe, accessible over WiFi from e.g. laptops." Who wants to bet they'll get the patent anyway ?
Yep, if they are worried, just push it out to Cydia. Of course most (before someone comes whining, I did not say all!) of the users with jailbroken phones use pirated software, so there's no money in that.
Citation needed. Because that's some serious bull you're peddling there and certainly not borne out by my experience.
The fact that you can jailbreack the phone shows that it is vulnerable. The lock down imposed by Apple is what makes the iPhone less desirable. A jailbroken iPhone is only as vulnerable as the known exploits which may or may not be more than a regular iPhone. The problem right now is the ssh implementation and not that the iPhone has been jailbroken.
The sshd is NOT installed by default and jailbreaking currently involves flashing the phone with a custom generated image after manually putting it in DFU (firmware upgrade) mode. Not exactly something a virus could do.
Except that this scenario is next-to-impossible on stock iPhones, because of the aforementioned code-signing restrictions, sandboxed applications and other mechanisms which prevent this from being a general problem.
Add to that the fact that there are an incredible amount of very smart people actively looking for security flaws in the iphone in order to facilitate jailbreaking and unlocking, holes which are then diligently patched by Apple. The jailbreaking community is actually helping Apple to harden its device.
I hope if BT turns over the personal details of these 25000 customers they all quit their contract the same day along with any sympathizers. That ought to show them customer privacy is in their best interest too.
Maybe you need to look at something other than Bittorrent. Bittorrent was never really designed for what the RIAA / MPAA / BSA call "piracy" anyway.
Nothing's designed for piracy, it's just a side-effect of efficient data transfer. If you make it easy for people to share things they will. I've gone largely "legit" anyway but some things are still easier to track down on the "gray market" so it's nice to have the option.
Yep, they are selling inferior products at an elevated price and then are surprised people try to find ways around it ? The most ridiculous thing is that breaking the copy protection only gives users back the rights taken away by these companies when moving to DRM'ed digital media in the first place.
I don't know, quality of (public) torrent sites has been on the decline for a while. Now with demonoid still down, mininova dead and the piratebay in limbo what will replace them ? This feels like after Napster when the last of the replacements like audiogalaxy were running out of steam.
Slashdot Mirror
Apparently "God" hadn't moved the mouse for too long.
Wait a minute, I thought the mice were running this simulation ? Now I'm confused.
A nice illustration or well chosen photograph can add value to an article. It can set the tone or inform in a concise way.
..Also includes the T-Virus...
Sounds more like Room 101.
What happens when the system is compromised? How do I change my password?
Well, you look nervous. Is it the scars? You want to know how I got 'em?
When you say "expanding its influence" are you referring to anything specific? I'd be interested in hearing your take.
I read this interesting article recently about growing tensions between the Saudis and Iran which states : "Afghanistan, Iraq and Yemen - three different theaters have appeared where the Saudis have moved in to challenge Iran's growing regional influence." The most interesting part is about growing tensions on the border in Yemen unnervingly close to the oil fields that supposedly has the Saudis very worried.
I think you're right in pointing out no one is worried about territorial expansion, but rather about Iran becoming the regional power broker. That would make Iran what we call "incontournable" ("inevitable") in french on Middle East issues. Being held over a barrel (of oil, get it) by the Saudis from time to time is bad enough but the Iranians taking their place would take things to a whole new level ('73 all over again and worse.)
Setting off a working nuke would be purely a symbolic act I think, a way of underscoring Iran's ascendence in defiance of the west. Certainly it wouldn't immediately give them a strategic advantage and personally I don't think they're crazy enough to lob a nuclear missile at Israel despite the rhetoric. As the afore mentioned article says : "Iran is very radical on one hand, but on the other hand you can't say that it is an irrational country."
Wow, great post. I agree with much of it but would like to touch on some points.
It's news all of a sudden mostly because there's a crisis with Iran at the moment. Iran may or may not be working towards nuclear weapons.
Only that's neither new, nor is Iran the only country seeking a nuclear capability. It is however the only country actively seeking to build political capital and extend its influence in a region considered strategic by the US (in contrast to North Korea which is isolationist and inward looking.) The nuclear story is a side show in my opinion, useful because of the irrational fear it evokes in mist people.
I don't think a nuclear-capable Iran would attack Israel.
I agree. It's a question of realpolitik: Israel has been able to dominate the nations on its borders or has reached an understanding with them and it doesn't need a new regional superpower coming in and confusing things. Especially one that expands its influence at the expense of that other US ally, the UAE. Hence the saber rattling.
If there's a war between Israel and Iran, then the US would inevitably get pulled in.
I'd go further than that and say that if there'd be a war between Israel and Iran it would be a proxy war by the US against Iran and it would likely be perceived as such in the region. I'm not so sure Russia wouldn't intervene in that nightmare. They might be too proud to risk loosing credibility internationally and the Georgian incident shows they've become bolder in recent years.With the US overextended as it is I'm not sure Russia would blink first if it came to a confrontation, Russia might be willing to make that gamble (that's how stupid wars get started after all.)
I'm quite sure that the US doesn't want military action against Iran, but if we keep seeing an upsurge in "evil Iran" stories then it indicates they think it might happen and they're opening up their options
Completely agree. Plus, as I said in my earlier post, it conveniently provides something to talk about other than Afghanistan and the economy.
Linux: developing stuff that's like totally going to be better than everything else. No really, when it'll be done in date.getYear()+2 it'll rock.
Meet the new boss, same as the old boss. This kind of thing has always gone on, makes you wonder why suddenly now it's "news" doesn't it ? Redirecting public attention from economic disaster, unpopular wars or just the beam in their own eye ?
That's interesting, it's basically using RBAC ?
Regardless of ethics they should not allow their platform to be used by people to intentionally spread (allegedly) false information or to allow information tainted by an obvious bias so it's in their best interest to allow investigation into its source.
It's great that there are those making people aware of what data might be accessed by malicious apps on any platform. The question is can this be avoided ? Restricting the data this app was able to access would also stop applications from doing some pretty useful things: accessing the address book, reading files on the filesystem, autocomplete (this is the keyboard cache mentioned), accessing pictures, etc. This is a balancing act between allowing enough freedom to produce good software and being too restrictive but safer. The alternatives here are complete sandboxing of applications or some Microsoft UAS style dialogs all over the place.
In the hope of staving off further controversy the codename has now been changed to Pussygalore.
There's something vaguely satisfying in knowing the feds are forced to watch thousands of idiots' progress at Farmville. Job satisfaction must be at an all time low.
Yes, but the Mac is iconic by itself AND it had a special serial number. If it were a generic beige box PC would people have bid as much ?
Except for the fact that JoikuBoost doesn't manage the power utilization like Cool-Tether does. Also, this is actually a follow on to their previous invention called "Combine" which was announced in 2007. JoikuBoost appears to be a very recent (October 1, 2009) product.
Multipath IO is hardly what I'd call an invention these days (or even in 2007) but yeah that certainly puts them ahead of Joiku. Still you know what they say, "Real artists ship." ;-)
The energy savings do sound pretty spectacular though.
Way to innovate MS! JoikuBoost: "JoikuBoost joins multiple 3G connections from mobile phones and operator networks into one larger unified and shared bit pipe, accessible over WiFi from e.g. laptops."
Who wants to bet they'll get the patent anyway ?
Yep, if they are worried, just push it out to Cydia. Of course most (before someone comes whining, I did not say all!) of the users with jailbroken phones use pirated software, so there's no money in that.
Citation needed. Because that's some serious bull you're peddling there and certainly not borne out by my experience.
The fact that you can jailbreack the phone shows that it is vulnerable. The lock down imposed by Apple is what makes the iPhone less desirable. A jailbroken iPhone is only as vulnerable as the known exploits which may or may not be more than a regular iPhone. The problem right now is the ssh implementation and not that the iPhone has been jailbroken.
The sshd is NOT installed by default and jailbreaking currently involves flashing the phone with a custom generated image after manually putting it in DFU (firmware upgrade) mode. Not exactly something a virus could do.
Except that this scenario is next-to-impossible on stock iPhones, because of the aforementioned code-signing restrictions, sandboxed applications and other mechanisms which prevent this from being a general problem.
Add to that the fact that there are an incredible amount of very smart people actively looking for security flaws in the iphone in order to facilitate jailbreaking and unlocking, holes which are then diligently patched by Apple. The jailbreaking community is actually helping Apple to harden its device.
"I connected, but I didn't download."
I hope if BT turns over the personal details of these 25000 customers they all quit their contract the same day along with any sympathizers. That ought to show them customer privacy is in their best interest too.
Maybe you need to look at something other than Bittorrent. Bittorrent was never really designed for what the RIAA / MPAA / BSA call "piracy" anyway.
Nothing's designed for piracy, it's just a side-effect of efficient data transfer. If you make it easy for people to share things they will. I've gone largely "legit" anyway but some things are still easier to track down on the "gray market" so it's nice to have the option.
Yep, they are selling inferior products at an elevated price and then are surprised people try to find ways around it ? The most ridiculous thing is that breaking the copy protection only gives users back the rights taken away by these companies when moving to DRM'ed digital media in the first place.
I don't know, quality of (public) torrent sites has been on the decline for a while. Now with demonoid still down, mininova dead and the piratebay in limbo what will replace them ? This feels like after Napster when the last of the replacements like audiogalaxy were running out of steam.
We could make registering minimal brain activity a requirement to access the internet, that should cut net population by about 90%.