What? Have you ever heard of the broken Netscape SSL implementation, or WEP (RC4 was an adequate algorithm), or any other broken crypto implementation? It's almost always the implementation of a provided algortihm that falters, not the algorithm itself!
People implementing and verifying provided algorithms need more math doctorates.
Or perhaps the algorithm was incompletely defined and left details to the reader? The algorithm as defined for implementation would not be as concise as the algorithm provided in a mathematical journal.
99.99% of code can be cleaned by talented enough audit freaks. Crypto code is in the other 0.01%. Proper cryptography development requires doctorate level mathematics skills.
Such math skills are needed to develop the algorithms but not to implement a provided algorithm or to verify the coded implementation.
The draft may have ended in 1973 but draft registration did not. Registration may still be the law, I think I noticed the registration cards in the post office recently.
That said, the GP's story is silly. The gov't already has your SSN, school records, etc.
In other words someone realized that nature is full of heuristic based problem solving and that perhaps a heuristic that is the result of millions of years of evolution could be pretty good. Not exactly a new idea but the more people who consider this the better.
This is also a variation of the number one lesson of graduate school: go to the "library" and start reading, someone smarter than you has probably thought about your problem already. The "library" is not just academic journals and such but it is also nature.
Every single place in the world has had major floods, at different times. Is it suprising that every single culture has a flood myth? I'm not dismissing the theory out of hand, but claiming a flood myth applies to an actual single event needs extraordinary evidence.
Slowly rising sea levels, overflowing rivers and even tsunamis are one thing, however having 100,000 square miles flood **very rapidly** and become a permanent sea is something quite different and extraordinary. Events such as these seem to have happened in the Persian Gulf and Black Sea and are far more likely to have inspired these *great* flood myths than the more typical flooding we still see today.
Every human living near a coast line 8-12000 BCE would have a flood event.
Even here in North America, the coast lines were 50-200 miles further out than they are now.
Transient coastal and river flooding is one thing, slow rising sea levels is another thing, however having a hundred thousand or so square miles become a permanent sea **extremely rapidly** is something quite different.
Citation please. Seriously. This would be very useful these days.
"Monsignor Georges Henri Joseph Édouard Lemaître ( lemaitre.ogg (helpinfo) July 17, 1894 – June 20, 1966) was a Belgian Roman Catholic priest, honorary prelate, professor of physics and astronomer at the Catholic University of Louvain. He sometimes used the title Abbé or Monseigneur.
Lemaître was the first scientist to propose what became known as the Big Bang theory of the origin of the Universe, which he called his 'hypothesis of the primeval atom'." http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Georges_Lemaitre
"The Big Bang is a scientific theory, and as such is dependent on its agreement with observations. But as a theory which addresses the origins of reality, it has always carried theological and philosophical implications. In the 1920s and 1930s almost every major cosmologist preferred an eternal steady state Universe, and several complained that the beginning of time implied by the Big Bang imported religious concepts into physics; this objection was later repeated by supporters of the steady state theory." http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Big_bang
Correct as in a people's ancestors once lived in a region where five major rivers flowed but they had to leave?
... then they would need to see a big wall of flame.
A "big wall of flame" sounds like a phrase we use today when describing a forest fire? Like a flood, a big forest fire could inspire people to leave an area.
Also, I can compare text in Moby dick and find correlations to the bible. BFD
Moby Dick was not a collection of ancestral observations and rules for survival in a given region, the old testament may be so to some degree. Consider a pre-literate pre-scientific society passing along historical observations from one generation to the next, especially after reading up on the telephone game. Look at rules for wilderness survival and ecological management in some societies today, they are often dressed up in religious terms. If you are sure that the bible contains no correct information then go to the red sea and start to eat types of seafood that are prohibited.;-) Seriously, the preceding was a joke, do not attempt this.
>Until I hear about a few geologists supporting this, I read this as Yet Another attempt at trying to legitimize the Abrahamic religion flood myth.
That the man behind this was educated at the Southern Methodist University makes it, in my opinion, more likely that there's a bias here.
You realize you are engaging in the same bias practiced by those who dismissed the big bang theory because it was formulated by a roman catholic priest and seemed too close to the story of genesis? I am not vouching for this guy from SMU, just offering something for you to consider when you learn that a scientist has faith. Newton comes to mind too.
Also what is wrong with myth? They are sometimes a pre-literate pre-scientific civilization's attempt to pass along observations from one generation to the next. A real scientist would try to interpret the myth, not dismiss it.
Or another attempt at lending credence to the myth, by people of a faith where it's central?
It is unscientific to dismiss a theory because it lends credence to religious beliefs. Do you realize that the current cosmological theory for the origin of the universe, the "big bang" theory, was initially dismissed by the "leading scientists" of the day because (1) it was developed by a roman catholic priest and (2) it seemed too close to the "creation myth of genesis". The term "big bang" was coined by these "leading scientists" to mock the theory.
Secondly, many myths and legends have a bit of truth behind them. Sometimes based on a multigenerational telling of historical events and sometimes as an attempt to explain things beyond a culture's scientific understanding. A real scientist tries to interpret myths and legends, not ignore or dismiss them.
The folks who once lived in what is now the Black Sea would probably want to share the credit for that one. They seem to have had a similar flood event.
FWIW some geologists who compared the old testament to satellite images found some evidence suggesting that the rivers identifying the location of eden are consistent with rivers (current and ancient) converging on a location now in the Persian Gulf.
Survival kits have signal mirrors with a sighting mechanism and no moving parts that allows the user to shine the sun's reflection directly onto the target (even a distant moving airplane)
Not really. The sighting mechanism is not a "sight" in the sense of one found on rifles, etc. Its not accurate enough to hold on a target, at best it can help you get into the general area so you can sweep around this area and accidentally hit the aircraft from time to time. You may look through the sight but you still often need to hold out your free hand and form a V with your fingers. You put the target inside this V and sweep the mirror back and forth. You look for the reflections on your two fingers to make sure the line formed by these points crosses the target.
Signal mirrors are cheap. Get two, one for your backpack, boat, aircraft, etc and a second one to peal off the protective tape and play with. They are simple devices but they take a little practice, try it out with a friend in a neighborhood park, football field, etc.
Then again, perhaps I missed some great breakthrough in signal mirror technology since I was in the scouts.:-)
That's strange. Red Hat does all via Open Source and is about to pass the $1 Billion mark. Sounds like to me McNeally was a very poor CEO and it had nothing to do with the things they Open Sourced.
If you are going to use dollars as a benchmark then Sun was far more successful than Red Hat even at Sun's lowest point; Sun was sold to Oracle for over $7 billion. Don't mistake this for a criticism of Red Hat. I'm only challenging using dollars as a benchmark.
This will probably mean the end of Microsoft as well.
Likely the beginning of the Year of Linux on the desktop as well.
I realize you are being humorous due to the year of the desktop reference but some readers should consider the following.
With respect to desktop and laptop personal computers mobile devices are complementary products not replacement products. Now tablets, they may be replacement products for netbooks.
At least for regions of the world where people tend to own computers. In other regions the mobile devices are establishing a new market. Today's internet capable smartphone with downloadable apps is tomorrows free-with-your-service low end phone.
Although in theory low level languages can always be faster, the real-world situation is that a high level language with good optimisation is likely to be faster than the low level language because tweaking of the low-level code is limited by cost and timescale constraints.
No. In the real world c/c++ is usually faster than assembly because most programmer are poor assembly language programmers. However good assembly language programmers routinely beat the compiler. I've added a couple of fps to a game by identifying a couple of key points in the code via profiling and replacing c/c++ code with about 100 lines of assembly. Its not simply a matter of optimizing the scheduling of instructions and memory access, its also the fact that the programmer has more information about what is going on than the compiler and can leverage that.
For games that need more performance than a Java-like environment can offer...
iOS has two advantages. A single native binary can target all iPhone, iPod touch and iPad devices. There is a single digital distribution channel, the App Store.
With Android handset/tablet manufacturers are free to use different CPUs, GPU, etc. They may also be using different versions of Android. Different versions of the game may be necessary for the different permutations. This complicates the coding and testing. Having to deal with manufacturer specific stores might add to the overhead. These sort of problems are the "cost" of having an open platform like Android and there is not really anything Google can do about it.
I whole heartedly agree. I only mentioned the robots to pose the question in a more neutral context. I just wanted folks to consider the academic question of how much removal could cost under the best of circumstances.
The house still has value, if the contents would be removed. Instead of removing them and leaving the house standing, the government CHOSE to burn down the structure.
Perhaps it is cheaper to burn and rebuild the house than repeat the process of remove, transport and deal with each piece a robot can carry out?
... the structure buried under a heap of dirt to protect the neighbours and the contents extracted by robot, slowly, with the explosive bits being neutralized a small bit at a time...
Articles have quoted the bomb squad folks as saying their robots can not navigate the house due to debris, clutter, etc. Nor can they deal with the stacks of material.
I read the cable, actually disappointed, I could create such a list after a few hours of googling.
The associated press reported that many things on the list were not surprising but that some of the medical supplier were not widely known at all. Are you confident that having seen the answer already your googling went a bit easier than it would have otherwise been?
More importantly, isn't it wrong to give such answers to the bad guys regardless of how available the information is? Again, this information seems to serve no good purpose, but possibly evil ones. What is the point of publicizing the source of a rare vaccine?
Its also amusing to see your argument being made on slashdot. Normally when someone ask how to solve a homework problem or how to do their job they get flamed.:-)
"Some snake venoms can be weaponized. Archers had dipped their arrows in venom in past centuries. Today one might dip the shrapnel of a bomb in it."
Do you have any idea how many fucking snakes there are here in Oz? What's to stop Dr. Evil's henchmen from catching and milking their own, the protected species act?
The medical suppliers are a source of anti-venom, not venom.
This is aside from the fact it would make fuck all difference to the outcome if the shrapnel passing thu your skull was dipped in poision or not.
Non-fatal wounds are far more common than fatal wounds. The point in lacing arrows/shrapnel with a toxin is to convert a minor wound into a potentially fatal wound.
"Identifying the specific sites that produce the vaccines serves no good purpose.
Nor does it do any harm.
Vaccines and other medicines are often highly specific to a particular strain of virus or bacteria. The medicines produced by multiple suppliers around the world tend to be for the common virus and bacteria. For the more exotic stuff, which is also the stuff more likely to be weaponized, the suppliers of vaccines are far more limited. Disrupting their production is far easier. Also, merely discovering what specific strains they are providing vaccines for can guide "bad guys" to selecting a strain where the vaccines would be ineffective.
There are similar problems with anti-venom. Anti-venom is highly specific to a species of snake. Anti-venom supplies are often limited and region specific. By disrupting supply you can limit possible treatments for bombs laced with venom. By knowing what anti-venoms are being produced in large numbers you can select venom from a different species and render that inventory ineffective.
Your comic book senarios have nothing in common with the real world. Terrorist terrorise by blowing up people in soft targets such as tousits spots,...
Actually they attack soft and hard targets, and whether you are a civilian at a pizza parlor or soldier on a battlefield the idea of shrapnel laced with toxins generates terror. As for the "real world", toxin laden shrapnel has been used against civilian crowds on more than one occasion. Also, the historical reference to archers using venom tipped arrows is from the region of the world in question.
... not by temporarily hampering the production of next years flu shot.
Flu shots were only mentioned as a commonly understood example of this years inventory of vaccines being ineffective next year. The concept of medicines being specific to particular strains of a virus or bacteria applies to things far more dangerous than the flu and this was the point being made.
"Was that really necessary?"
That's the wrong question since it implies supression should be the default action.
Not at all. A default action implies that there is a different action that may be more appropriate at times. When dealing with suppliers of medical goods that a hostile party may want to render ineffective or unavailable then the default response of "expose" may be the wrong action.
Yes, it was unknown that the US considered small-pox vaccines and snake anti-venom critical. Especially because the US already has enough doses of small-pox vaccine to immunize the entire country, why do they need more?
Vaccines are not universally effective for a given "disease", for example we need different flu vaccines every year. A vaccine is only effective on targeted strains. If a hostile party knows what strains a vaccine works on they can make sure their weapon uses something else.
More importantly vaccines often have a short shelf life. This years inventory of doses may not work next year.
Identifying the specific sites that produce the vaccines serves no good purpose.
And what is up with the snakes thing?? Is the US state department really worried about snakes on planes?
Some snake venoms can be weaponized. Archers had dipped their arrows in venom in past centuries. Today one might dip the shrapnel of a bomb in it.
You should note that Wikileaks redacts their releases and gets advice from more mainstream sources on what to redact. If that's as fringe as crashing planes into buildings, I really don't want to hear your opinions on any news source. Most of these docs are innocuous in any case. "Tell us about President so-and-so" is what most of them end up being.
Well it seems they are doing a poor job of redaction and/or not getting advice from reputable mainstream sources, for example the release of sites supply critical medicines. Was that really necessary?
The Associated Press reports:
In the message, marked "secret," Clinton asked U.S. diplomatic posts to help update a list of sites around the world "which, if destroyed, disrupted or exploited, would likely have an immediate and deleterious effect on the United States."
The list was considered so confidential, the posts were advised to come up with it on their own: "Posts are not/not being asked to consult with host governments in respect to this request," Clinton wrote.
The locations cited in the diplomatic cable from U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton range from undersea communications lines to suppliers of food, medicine and manufacturing materials.
Slashdot Mirror
What? Have you ever heard of the broken Netscape SSL implementation, or WEP (RC4 was an adequate algorithm), or any other broken crypto implementation? It's almost always the implementation of a provided algortihm that falters, not the algorithm itself!
People implementing and verifying provided algorithms need more math doctorates.
Or perhaps the algorithm was incompletely defined and left details to the reader? The algorithm as defined for implementation would not be as concise as the algorithm provided in a mathematical journal.
99.99% of code can be cleaned by talented enough audit freaks. Crypto code is in the other 0.01%. Proper cryptography development requires doctorate level mathematics skills.
Such math skills are needed to develop the algorithms but not to implement a provided algorithm or to verify the coded implementation.
The draft may have ended in 1973 but draft registration did not. Registration may still be the law, I think I noticed the registration cards in the post office recently.
That said, the GP's story is silly. The gov't already has your SSN, school records, etc.
In other words someone realized that nature is full of heuristic based problem solving and that perhaps a heuristic that is the result of millions of years of evolution could be pretty good. Not exactly a new idea but the more people who consider this the better.
This is also a variation of the number one lesson of graduate school: go to the "library" and start reading, someone smarter than you has probably thought about your problem already. The "library" is not just academic journals and such but it is also nature.
Every single place in the world has had major floods, at different times. Is it suprising that every single culture has a flood myth? I'm not dismissing the theory out of hand, but claiming a flood myth applies to an actual single event needs extraordinary evidence.
Slowly rising sea levels, overflowing rivers and even tsunamis are one thing, however having 100,000 square miles flood **very rapidly** and become a permanent sea is something quite different and extraordinary. Events such as these seem to have happened in the Persian Gulf and Black Sea and are far more likely to have inspired these *great* flood myths than the more typical flooding we still see today.
Every human living near a coast line 8-12000 BCE would have a flood event.
Even here in North America, the coast lines were 50-200 miles further out than they are now.
Transient coastal and river flooding is one thing, slow rising sea levels is another thing, however having a hundred thousand or so square miles become a permanent sea **extremely rapidly** is something quite different.
Citation please. Seriously. This would be very useful these days.
"Monsignor Georges Henri Joseph Édouard Lemaître ( lemaitre.ogg (helpinfo) July 17, 1894 – June 20, 1966) was a Belgian Roman Catholic priest, honorary prelate, professor of physics and astronomer at the Catholic University of Louvain. He sometimes used the title Abbé or Monseigneur. Lemaître was the first scientist to propose what became known as the Big Bang theory of the origin of the Universe, which he called his 'hypothesis of the primeval atom'."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Georges_Lemaitre
"The Big Bang is a scientific theory, and as such is dependent on its agreement with observations. But as a theory which addresses the origins of reality, it has always carried theological and philosophical implications. In the 1920s and 1930s almost every major cosmologist preferred an eternal steady state Universe, and several complained that the beginning of time implied by the Big Bang imported religious concepts into physics; this objection was later repeated by supporters of the steady state theory."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Big_bang
IF the bible was correct ...
Correct as in a people's ancestors once lived in a region where five major rivers flowed but they had to leave?
A "big wall of flame" sounds like a phrase we use today when describing a forest fire? Like a flood, a big forest fire could inspire people to leave an area.
Also, I can compare text in Moby dick and find correlations to the bible. BFD
Moby Dick was not a collection of ancestral observations and rules for survival in a given region, the old testament may be so to some degree. Consider a pre-literate pre-scientific society passing along historical observations from one generation to the next, especially after reading up on the telephone game. Look at rules for wilderness survival and ecological management in some societies today, they are often dressed up in religious terms. If you are sure that the bible contains no correct information then go to the red sea and start to eat types of seafood that are prohibited. ;-) Seriously, the preceding was a joke, do not attempt this.
>Until I hear about a few geologists supporting this, I read this as Yet Another attempt at trying to legitimize the Abrahamic religion flood myth. That the man behind this was educated at the Southern Methodist University makes it, in my opinion, more likely that there's a bias here.
You realize you are engaging in the same bias practiced by those who dismissed the big bang theory because it was formulated by a roman catholic priest and seemed too close to the story of genesis? I am not vouching for this guy from SMU, just offering something for you to consider when you learn that a scientist has faith. Newton comes to mind too.
Also what is wrong with myth? They are sometimes a pre-literate pre-scientific civilization's attempt to pass along observations from one generation to the next. A real scientist would try to interpret the myth, not dismiss it.
So is this the origin of the flood myth?
Or another attempt at lending credence to the myth, by people of a faith where it's central?
It is unscientific to dismiss a theory because it lends credence to religious beliefs. Do you realize that the current cosmological theory for the origin of the universe, the "big bang" theory, was initially dismissed by the "leading scientists" of the day because (1) it was developed by a roman catholic priest and (2) it seemed too close to the "creation myth of genesis". The term "big bang" was coined by these "leading scientists" to mock the theory.
Secondly, many myths and legends have a bit of truth behind them. Sometimes based on a multigenerational telling of historical events and sometimes as an attempt to explain things beyond a culture's scientific understanding. A real scientist tries to interpret myths and legends, not ignore or dismiss them.
So is this the origin of the flood myth?
The folks who once lived in what is now the Black Sea would probably want to share the credit for that one. They seem to have had a similar flood event.
FWIW some geologists who compared the old testament to satellite images found some evidence suggesting that the rivers identifying the location of eden are consistent with rivers (current and ancient) converging on a location now in the Persian Gulf.
Survival kits have signal mirrors with a sighting mechanism and no moving parts that allows the user to shine the sun's reflection directly onto the target (even a distant moving airplane)
Not really. The sighting mechanism is not a "sight" in the sense of one found on rifles, etc. Its not accurate enough to hold on a target, at best it can help you get into the general area so you can sweep around this area and accidentally hit the aircraft from time to time. You may look through the sight but you still often need to hold out your free hand and form a V with your fingers. You put the target inside this V and sweep the mirror back and forth. You look for the reflections on your two fingers to make sure the line formed by these points crosses the target.
:-)
Signal mirrors are cheap. Get two, one for your backpack, boat, aircraft, etc and a second one to peal off the protective tape and play with. They are simple devices but they take a little practice, try it out with a friend in a neighborhood park, football field, etc.
Then again, perhaps I missed some great breakthrough in signal mirror technology since I was in the scouts.
That's strange. Red Hat does all via Open Source and is about to pass the $1 Billion mark. Sounds like to me McNeally was a very poor CEO and it had nothing to do with the things they Open Sourced.
If you are going to use dollars as a benchmark then Sun was far more successful than Red Hat even at Sun's lowest point; Sun was sold to Oracle for over $7 billion. Don't mistake this for a criticism of Red Hat. I'm only challenging using dollars as a benchmark.
This will probably mean the end of Microsoft as well. Likely the beginning of the Year of Linux on the desktop as well.
I realize you are being humorous due to the year of the desktop reference but some readers should consider the following.
With respect to desktop and laptop personal computers mobile devices are complementary products not replacement products. Now tablets, they may be replacement products for netbooks.
At least for regions of the world where people tend to own computers. In other regions the mobile devices are establishing a new market. Today's internet capable smartphone with downloadable apps is tomorrows free-with-your-service low end phone.
Although in theory low level languages can always be faster, the real-world situation is that a high level language with good optimisation is likely to be faster than the low level language because tweaking of the low-level code is limited by cost and timescale constraints.
No. In the real world c/c++ is usually faster than assembly because most programmer are poor assembly language programmers. However good assembly language programmers routinely beat the compiler. I've added a couple of fps to a game by identifying a couple of key points in the code via profiling and replacing c/c++ code with about 100 lines of assembly. Its not simply a matter of optimizing the scheduling of instructions and memory access, its also the fact that the programmer has more information about what is going on than the compiler and can leverage that.
For games that need more performance than a Java-like environment can offer ...
iOS has two advantages. A single native binary can target all iPhone, iPod touch and iPad devices. There is a single digital distribution channel, the App Store.
With Android handset/tablet manufacturers are free to use different CPUs, GPU, etc. They may also be using different versions of Android. Different versions of the game may be necessary for the different permutations. This complicates the coding and testing. Having to deal with manufacturer specific stores might add to the overhead. These sort of problems are the "cost" of having an open platform like Android and there is not really anything Google can do about it.
I whole heartedly agree. I only mentioned the robots to pose the question in a more neutral context. I just wanted folks to consider the academic question of how much removal could cost under the best of circumstances.
The house still has value, if the contents would be removed. Instead of removing them and leaving the house standing, the government CHOSE to burn down the structure.
Perhaps it is cheaper to burn and rebuild the house than repeat the process of remove, transport and deal with each piece a robot can carry out?
... the structure buried under a heap of dirt to protect the neighbours and the contents extracted by robot, slowly, with the explosive bits being neutralized a small bit at a time ...
Articles have quoted the bomb squad folks as saying their robots can not navigate the house due to debris, clutter, etc. Nor can they deal with the stacks of material.
I read the cable, actually disappointed, I could create such a list after a few hours of googling.
The associated press reported that many things on the list were not surprising but that some of the medical supplier were not widely known at all. Are you confident that having seen the answer already your googling went a bit easier than it would have otherwise been?
:-)
More importantly, isn't it wrong to give such answers to the bad guys regardless of how available the information is? Again, this information seems to serve no good purpose, but possibly evil ones. What is the point of publicizing the source of a rare vaccine?
Its also amusing to see your argument being made on slashdot. Normally when someone ask how to solve a homework problem or how to do their job they get flamed.
"Some snake venoms can be weaponized. Archers had dipped their arrows in venom in past centuries. Today one might dip the shrapnel of a bomb in it."
Do you have any idea how many fucking snakes there are here in Oz? What's to stop Dr. Evil's henchmen from catching and milking their own, the protected species act?
The medical suppliers are a source of anti-venom, not venom.
This is aside from the fact it would make fuck all difference to the outcome if the shrapnel passing thu your skull was dipped in poision or not.
Non-fatal wounds are far more common than fatal wounds. The point in lacing arrows/shrapnel with a toxin is to convert a minor wound into a potentially fatal wound.
"Identifying the specific sites that produce the vaccines serves no good purpose.
Nor does it do any harm.
Vaccines and other medicines are often highly specific to a particular strain of virus or bacteria. The medicines produced by multiple suppliers around the world tend to be for the common virus and bacteria. For the more exotic stuff, which is also the stuff more likely to be weaponized, the suppliers of vaccines are far more limited. Disrupting their production is far easier. Also, merely discovering what specific strains they are providing vaccines for can guide "bad guys" to selecting a strain where the vaccines would be ineffective.
There are similar problems with anti-venom. Anti-venom is highly specific to a species of snake. Anti-venom supplies are often limited and region specific. By disrupting supply you can limit possible treatments for bombs laced with venom. By knowing what anti-venoms are being produced in large numbers you can select venom from a different species and render that inventory ineffective.
Your comic book senarios have nothing in common with the real world. Terrorist terrorise by blowing up people in soft targets such as tousits spots, ...
Actually they attack soft and hard targets, and whether you are a civilian at a pizza parlor or soldier on a battlefield the idea of shrapnel laced with toxins generates terror. As for the "real world", toxin laden shrapnel has been used against civilian crowds on more than one occasion. Also, the historical reference to archers using venom tipped arrows is from the region of the world in question.
... not by temporarily hampering the production of next years flu shot.
Flu shots were only mentioned as a commonly understood example of this years inventory of vaccines being ineffective next year. The concept of medicines being specific to particular strains of a virus or bacteria applies to things far more dangerous than the flu and this was the point being made.
"Was that really necessary?" That's the wrong question since it implies supression should be the default action.
Not at all. A default action implies that there is a different action that may be more appropriate at times. When dealing with suppliers of medical goods that a hostile party may want to render ineffective or unavailable then the default response of "expose" may be the wrong action.
Yes, it was unknown that the US considered small-pox vaccines and snake anti-venom critical. Especially because the US already has enough doses of small-pox vaccine to immunize the entire country, why do they need more?
Vaccines are not universally effective for a given "disease", for example we need different flu vaccines every year. A vaccine is only effective on targeted strains. If a hostile party knows what strains a vaccine works on they can make sure their weapon uses something else.
More importantly vaccines often have a short shelf life. This years inventory of doses may not work next year.
Identifying the specific sites that produce the vaccines serves no good purpose.
And what is up with the snakes thing?? Is the US state department really worried about snakes on planes?
Some snake venoms can be weaponized. Archers had dipped their arrows in venom in past centuries. Today one might dip the shrapnel of a bomb in it.
Nothing in this list in unknown or surprising ...
The associated press article says otherwise. It specifically states that some medical suppliers (ex. vaccines, anti-venom, etc) were not widely know.
You should note that Wikileaks redacts their releases and gets advice from more mainstream sources on what to redact. If that's as fringe as crashing planes into buildings, I really don't want to hear your opinions on any news source. Most of these docs are innocuous in any case. "Tell us about President so-and-so" is what most of them end up being.
Well it seems they are doing a poor job of redaction and/or not getting advice from reputable mainstream sources, for example the release of sites supply critical medicines. Was that really necessary?
The Associated Press reports:
In the message, marked "secret," Clinton asked U.S. diplomatic posts to help update a list of sites around the world "which, if destroyed, disrupted or exploited, would likely have an immediate and deleterious effect on the United States."
The list was considered so confidential, the posts were advised to come up with it on their own: "Posts are not/not being asked to consult with host governments in respect to this request," Clinton wrote.
The locations cited in the diplomatic cable from U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton range from undersea communications lines to suppliers of food, medicine and manufacturing materials.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/us_wikileaks_secret_sites