I have often wondered if it would be worth building a new distribution. The existing ones all seem to make weird design decisions, none have conquered the desktop (I blame OSDL), they're nowhere near as high performance as they could/should be, and Linux Base is not necessarily the most secure layout. It's certainly problematic for multi-versioning.
The US are only allowed access to the SWIFT criminal database in Europe because Europe got fed up with the US hacking into it.
The US stands accused of unlawfully accessing Airbus commercially sensitive documents and selling them to Boeing, during the Echelon affair.
So, yes, they do believe they can break into any server at any time, for law enforcement purposes or financial gain through unlawful activity. I see no evidence of any serious attempt to keep this within any sort of reason. Indeed, the Manning Files and Snowden Files, together with the John Poindexter/Oliver North scandal and strong implications of CIA drug smuggling, suggest industrial espionage and economic crime are a mainstay of government activity.
I have no objections to espionage for genuine security, but accusations of CIA drug running when combined with the takedown of Silk Road sounds to be much less about anyone's security and much more about protecting market prices. If that is the case, then this isn't law enforcement but white collar crime. Further, Silk Road - whilst certainly a criminal enterprise - was not a matter of national or world security. It was also not a legally recognized context for extra-jurisdictional action.
This was a situation that could have been resolved lawfully and with integrity. The authorities chose neither, which is suggestive of them being incompetent or corrupt. Now, one should never ascribe to malice that which is adequately explained by incompetence, but corruption isn't really malice, it's just a perversion and everyone has at least one of those.
I was unaware that the Fourth Amendment stipulated geographical boundaries. I was rather under the impression that the rules stating what the government and its agents shall not do were quite explicit about it being the actions that were prohibited, not where or to whom.
In fact, I see nothing in the Constitution that grants any exemptions for the government or its agents with regards to extraterritorial activities or the affairs of extranational citizens. Now, there are reasonable limits (well, there are supposed to be) on interpreting the Constitution. No rational person believes politicians should be free to say anything at all. But this isn't a claim of fair exception, but of inapplicability. Quite a different matter. The Constitution defines what the government may lawfully do. It does not say "except on weekends", it does not say "except on the Internet", it does not say "except when it's convenient". Reasonable situations are, by definition, reasonable. If you choose to argue reasonable situations do not exist, that is fine. Zero is still a number. But the government cannot simply argue (with any validity) that it can arbitrarily create entire classes of exemption with no reasonableness shown or claimed.
I'm purposefully ignoring the Silk Road aspect. If that isn't claimed as a legitimate exemption, then that is immaterial to the debate.
What will this project do for me? How do I get old, worn-out data files converted out of dead proprietary formats into something usable or useful? Or is this project only for certain types of researcher? (aka those with oodles of money)
A book isn't right merely by being published. It is always wise to be prudent about what you believe.
However, in this case, the Church Committee is known to have had strong views. It is also a matter of record that Echelon involved all of the Five Eyes members spying on electronic communications. Further, allegations at that time of other spying operations at that time (including telephonic and domestic wireless intercepts) are certainly mirrored by the Snowden Files.
These matters, and some horribly rudimentary inside information on the British army signals post in Cyprus in the 50s tells me the basics are accurate enough, regardless of the accuracy of the high adventure.
There have been past allegations about how Reagan won the election. If the claims are entirely legit, that might get revisited.
The birth certificate claim is troublesome. It means the President has no authority over the NSA. At all.
Agreed about anecdotes. However, I can say that I have to reboot my Windows 7 PC weekly because of serious degradation in performance. I have installed a fair bit of software (the PATH can no longer be extended) but there's only about three games (Freeciv, Kerbal Space Program, Elite: Dangerous) and no apps, toolbars or junk. The rest of the software on there? MariaDB, Ingres, GRASS, QGIS (OSGEO is basically Cygwin, so I've now three incompatible Cygwin distros on Windows), HOL 4, Active Python, Active Perl, Erlang, Rust, Blender, PoVRay, BMRT - the sort of stuff you'd expect to find on any PC, nothing fancy.
And Netscape. Which is a horrible resource hog and is honestly not usable in its current form. I have abandoned all efforts to get Chrome usable. I'll probably deinstall both and switch to Amaya. Which barely does anything, but it does it tolerably.
You mean to tell me that the US doesn't even trust the other Five Eyes nations' spy agencies to be able to do this?*
*Yes, I know, to get round legal restrictions, it was very normal for the US to spy on the citizens of the other four and to exchange that data for information collected on US citizens by other members of Five Eyes. However, we now know all the agencies DO spy on their own citizens, routinely. So the US can ask GCHQ to wiretap British citizens in Britain, it doesn't need to spy on Britain itself. This behaviour suggests wheels within wheels.
You mean to tell me that the US isn't all caught up in the US-UK "Special Relationship" stuff?**
**Most Americans were unaware there even was one and get horribly confused when the British talk about it.
There have been cases of Boeing 777s and modernized 737s developing unexplained system faults. Do not be so sure that RFI was not to blame. These have had much worse reliability than other Boeing models in recent years and as no other faults have been offered by Boeing as explanation, it is illogical to simply dismiss the one fault we know about as unrelated to the unusual number of abnormalities and crashes specific to these two models.
Obviously, Boeing has no interest in being honest about the problems they know about, be they software or hardware. Nor are they likely to Open Source anything, so there is no possibility of scrutiny by an independent party.
Simple logic (and self-preservation) says they have an unattributed defect capable of causing catastrophic failure, and a defect that can potentially cause catastrophic failure, therefore fixing the defect is essential.
The cost? The cost is insignificant. Boeing is hardly poor and is quite capable of covering the airlines' cost as this is a manufacturing defect. The airlines? They're making enough money that they can afford riots on board when seats are tilted. Besides, this is the cost of doing business. There's a price for bad decisions, all other sectors (except, apparently, banks) are expected to take the rough with the smooth. If several go bust because they chose unwisely, that's how life in business goes. You pay your money, you take your choice. Besides, they'd still be doing better than the German in Last Crusade.
If I went into business and made bad choices, would you be telling people to ignore my expenses? No? Good. If I'm not fit for purpose as a businessman, I've no business expecting support. So why should Ryanair, a notoriously incompetent company, deserve better? Because they're too big to fail? Not a good reason.
First, guns don't protect, never have, never will. That is not the function of a gun. So anyone on their high horse should look to see if they're suffering altitude sickness.
Second, the design of these specific rifles is a non-issue. The gun market is inherently grey, which means regulation is minimal to non-existent. There's no white hats in weaponry of any kind. And, yes, that includes the re-enactment stuff I work with. I know that, recognize that and accept it*. No shades, just a thick, pea-soup foggy grey.
*That is why I despise "goody two shoes" arguments from both extreme camps. This isn't black, this isn't white, this is murky grey. I own it for my part, I hold nobody to a higher standard than I hold myself, but I refuse to hold them to a lower one either. Own it.
Third, the design of any regular weapon is a non-issue, but nothing stops you from designing an irregular weapon. With modern cheap hardware, a 3D printer and suitable low-cost materials, a person is quite capable of designing a 3-5 mile range sniper rifle that can be controlled via telerobotics from the home. We already know that low-cost cruise missiles with ranges in excess of 100 miles can also be built at home. With 3D printing, the costs become lower. With advances in technology (remember, the $5000 100-mile cruise missile was designed over a decade ago and it wasn't even close to what budget efforts could do), you can expect far greater ranges, far greater precision and far greater payloads today.
This, again, goes back to this being grey hat technology. If a black hat wanted to use such devices, we'd know about. Or, rather, the survivors would. America still exists, so black hats either don't have the courage of their convictions or they don't have the skill. Either way, they're not worthy of consideration. Worthy of being dumped into a deep oceanic trench, bu not worthy of consideration.
White hats? If white hats were building actively guided systems capable of that sort of range, you'd be seeing miniature computer boards running Linux, Squid and Tor relays launched into stable orbits that crossed nations with restricted network access. We don't. We see "peace corps" infiltrators attempting to install such devices directly, along with who knows what malware, causing international incidents and seriously destabilizing international relations, as part of neocon stupidity. White hats putting in a passive alternative with no hostile software and no damage to other nations -- that's an OBVIOUS way to do good for everyone and to minimize harm. But, no, they either don't have the skill or the courage of their convictions.
So it's all grey. That's all there is. Thick, pea-soup fog.
Go back to Windows. If you can't cope with people wanting to choose how to run their system, you don't deserve software that's all about choice. If insults are the best reason you have for living, do everyone a favour.
Doesn't matter. It's not tested or validated for every possibility. Hell, given how easily I can break Debian, I wonder if it's tested at all these days. There is no point in using unvalidated setups with a distro, if you're at that point then you should roll your own.
Software that is designed correctly separates out what it does, how it does it, and how it interacts with the outside world.
Ergo, software that is correctly designed is user-agnostic. If the user thinks in a particular way, whatever that way happens to be, it is the job of the software to accommodate that. If it does not, it is not software for users, it is software that has users. Possession is everything.
Software that is correctly designed is configuration-agnostic. If the configuration file states something is enabled, then that is enabled. It is not the job of the software to say the file really means something else. If the configuration is broken, state how and why. Clearly. If the configuration is old, import and update. But don't tell me, or anyone else, what Joe Bloggs thinks would look better. I don't care. And the more other people's preferences get shoved in my face, the less I will care.
Theo clearly has the right idea - the only way to get past the morons is with an attitude of utter contempt. Bugger all else matters, apparently.
Linux-From-Scratch is easier to use, less user-hostile and less determined to tell me how to think.
ANY software that pretends to know better than me how I want things done is software that deserves to burn. And then sink into the swamp. It is that precise attitude that got me to kick the Windows habit and led me away from the early ix86 BSDs.
I not only think better than a mere machine, I think better than your average distro compiler. I can spec better, I can build better, I can test better. Debian had, up till now, been acceptable, the packages are convenient and it's no great pain to tune. Now, Debian ranks lower than Fedora. I'd recommend the MCC distribution before either and that was last updated during the Ice Age.
I've used the site longer and reserve the right to use Doctor Who references where I'm suspicious of technical details, especially as relate to timing vulnerabilities. This is allowed, as per The Hacker's Dictionary. Bonus points for finding the Doctor Who references included.
Slashdot Mirror
I have often wondered if it would be worth building a new distribution. The existing ones all seem to make weird design decisions, none have conquered the desktop (I blame OSDL), they're nowhere near as high performance as they could/should be, and Linux Base is not necessarily the most secure layout. It's certainly problematic for multi-versioning.
Think you mis-spelled NSA.
The US are only allowed access to the SWIFT criminal database in Europe because Europe got fed up with the US hacking into it.
The US stands accused of unlawfully accessing Airbus commercially sensitive documents and selling them to Boeing, during the Echelon affair.
So, yes, they do believe they can break into any server at any time, for law enforcement purposes or financial gain through unlawful activity. I see no evidence of any serious attempt to keep this within any sort of reason. Indeed, the Manning Files and Snowden Files, together with the John Poindexter/Oliver North scandal and strong implications of CIA drug smuggling, suggest industrial espionage and economic crime are a mainstay of government activity.
I have no objections to espionage for genuine security, but accusations of CIA drug running when combined with the takedown of Silk Road sounds to be much less about anyone's security and much more about protecting market prices. If that is the case, then this isn't law enforcement but white collar crime. Further, Silk Road - whilst certainly a criminal enterprise - was not a matter of national or world security. It was also not a legally recognized context for extra-jurisdictional action.
This was a situation that could have been resolved lawfully and with integrity. The authorities chose neither, which is suggestive of them being incompetent or corrupt. Now, one should never ascribe to malice that which is adequately explained by incompetence, but corruption isn't really malice, it's just a perversion and everyone has at least one of those.
CAN networks are generally not very useful for hacking web servers.
I was unaware that the Fourth Amendment stipulated geographical boundaries. I was rather under the impression that the rules stating what the government and its agents shall not do were quite explicit about it being the actions that were prohibited, not where or to whom.
In fact, I see nothing in the Constitution that grants any exemptions for the government or its agents with regards to extraterritorial activities or the affairs of extranational citizens. Now, there are reasonable limits (well, there are supposed to be) on interpreting the Constitution. No rational person believes politicians should be free to say anything at all. But this isn't a claim of fair exception, but of inapplicability. Quite a different matter. The Constitution defines what the government may lawfully do. It does not say "except on weekends", it does not say "except on the Internet", it does not say "except when it's convenient". Reasonable situations are, by definition, reasonable. If you choose to argue reasonable situations do not exist, that is fine. Zero is still a number. But the government cannot simply argue (with any validity) that it can arbitrarily create entire classes of exemption with no reasonableness shown or claimed.
I'm purposefully ignoring the Silk Road aspect. If that isn't claimed as a legitimate exemption, then that is immaterial to the debate.
What will this project do for me? How do I get old, worn-out data files converted out of dead proprietary formats into something usable or useful? Or is this project only for certain types of researcher? (aka those with oodles of money)
The memorial service was deeply moving.
Is porn with some swords and sorcery. Which means you can't focus on either.
Then clearly there are problems.
A book isn't right merely by being published. It is always wise to be prudent about what you believe.
However, in this case, the Church Committee is known to have had strong views. It is also a matter of record that Echelon involved all of the Five Eyes members spying on electronic communications. Further, allegations at that time of other spying operations at that time (including telephonic and domestic wireless intercepts) are certainly mirrored by the Snowden Files.
These matters, and some horribly rudimentary inside information on the British army signals post in Cyprus in the 50s tells me the basics are accurate enough, regardless of the accuracy of the high adventure.
There have been past allegations about how Reagan won the election. If the claims are entirely legit, that might get revisited.
The birth certificate claim is troublesome. It means the President has no authority over the NSA. At all.
The moon.
Firefox is Netscrape.
Agreed about anecdotes. However, I can say that I have to reboot my Windows 7 PC weekly because of serious degradation in performance. I have installed a fair bit of software (the PATH can no longer be extended) but there's only about three games (Freeciv, Kerbal Space Program, Elite: Dangerous) and no apps, toolbars or junk. The rest of the software on there? MariaDB, Ingres, GRASS, QGIS (OSGEO is basically Cygwin, so I've now three incompatible Cygwin distros on Windows), HOL 4, Active Python, Active Perl, Erlang, Rust, Blender, PoVRay, BMRT - the sort of stuff you'd expect to find on any PC, nothing fancy.
And Netscape. Which is a horrible resource hog and is honestly not usable in its current form. I have abandoned all efforts to get Chrome usable. I'll probably deinstall both and switch to Amaya. Which barely does anything, but it does it tolerably.
You mean to tell me that the US doesn't even trust the other Five Eyes nations' spy agencies to be able to do this?*
*Yes, I know, to get round legal restrictions, it was very normal for the US to spy on the citizens of the other four and to exchange that data for information collected on US citizens by other members of Five Eyes. However, we now know all the agencies DO spy on their own citizens, routinely. So the US can ask GCHQ to wiretap British citizens in Britain, it doesn't need to spy on Britain itself. This behaviour suggests wheels within wheels.
You mean to tell me that the US isn't all caught up in the US-UK "Special Relationship" stuff?**
**Most Americans were unaware there even was one and get horribly confused when the British talk about it.
There have been cases of Boeing 777s and modernized 737s developing unexplained system faults. Do not be so sure that RFI was not to blame. These have had much worse reliability than other Boeing models in recent years and as no other faults have been offered by Boeing as explanation, it is illogical to simply dismiss the one fault we know about as unrelated to the unusual number of abnormalities and crashes specific to these two models.
Obviously, Boeing has no interest in being honest about the problems they know about, be they software or hardware. Nor are they likely to Open Source anything, so there is no possibility of scrutiny by an independent party.
Simple logic (and self-preservation) says they have an unattributed defect capable of causing catastrophic failure, and a defect that can potentially cause catastrophic failure, therefore fixing the defect is essential.
The cost? The cost is insignificant. Boeing is hardly poor and is quite capable of covering the airlines' cost as this is a manufacturing defect. The airlines? They're making enough money that they can afford riots on board when seats are tilted. Besides, this is the cost of doing business. There's a price for bad decisions, all other sectors (except, apparently, banks) are expected to take the rough with the smooth. If several go bust because they chose unwisely, that's how life in business goes. You pay your money, you take your choice. Besides, they'd still be doing better than the German in Last Crusade.
If I went into business and made bad choices, would you be telling people to ignore my expenses? No? Good. If I'm not fit for purpose as a businessman, I've no business expecting support. So why should Ryanair, a notoriously incompetent company, deserve better? Because they're too big to fail? Not a good reason.
All you need are some windows that open in flight. Problem solved.
First, guns don't protect, never have, never will. That is not the function of a gun. So anyone on their high horse should look to see if they're suffering altitude sickness.
Second, the design of these specific rifles is a non-issue. The gun market is inherently grey, which means regulation is minimal to non-existent. There's no white hats in weaponry of any kind. And, yes, that includes the re-enactment stuff I work with. I know that, recognize that and accept it*. No shades, just a thick, pea-soup foggy grey.
*That is why I despise "goody two shoes" arguments from both extreme camps. This isn't black, this isn't white, this is murky grey. I own it for my part, I hold nobody to a higher standard than I hold myself, but I refuse to hold them to a lower one either. Own it.
Third, the design of any regular weapon is a non-issue, but nothing stops you from designing an irregular weapon. With modern cheap hardware, a 3D printer and suitable low-cost materials, a person is quite capable of designing a 3-5 mile range sniper rifle that can be controlled via telerobotics from the home. We already know that low-cost cruise missiles with ranges in excess of 100 miles can also be built at home. With 3D printing, the costs become lower. With advances in technology (remember, the $5000 100-mile cruise missile was designed over a decade ago and it wasn't even close to what budget efforts could do), you can expect far greater ranges, far greater precision and far greater payloads today.
This, again, goes back to this being grey hat technology. If a black hat wanted to use such devices, we'd know about. Or, rather, the survivors would. America still exists, so black hats either don't have the courage of their convictions or they don't have the skill. Either way, they're not worthy of consideration. Worthy of being dumped into a deep oceanic trench, bu not worthy of consideration.
White hats? If white hats were building actively guided systems capable of that sort of range, you'd be seeing miniature computer boards running Linux, Squid and Tor relays launched into stable orbits that crossed nations with restricted network access. We don't. We see "peace corps" infiltrators attempting to install such devices directly, along with who knows what malware, causing international incidents and seriously destabilizing international relations, as part of neocon stupidity. White hats putting in a passive alternative with no hostile software and no damage to other nations -- that's an OBVIOUS way to do good for everyone and to minimize harm. But, no, they either don't have the skill or the courage of their convictions.
So it's all grey. That's all there is. Thick, pea-soup fog.
That's the job of consultants.
Go back to Windows. If you can't cope with people wanting to choose how to run their system, you don't deserve software that's all about choice. If insults are the best reason you have for living, do everyone a favour.
Doesn't matter. It's not tested or validated for every possibility. Hell, given how easily I can break Debian, I wonder if it's tested at all these days. There is no point in using unvalidated setups with a distro, if you're at that point then you should roll your own.
Software that is designed correctly separates out what it does, how it does it, and how it interacts with the outside world.
Ergo, software that is correctly designed is user-agnostic. If the user thinks in a particular way, whatever that way happens to be, it is the job of the software to accommodate that. If it does not, it is not software for users, it is software that has users. Possession is everything.
Software that is correctly designed is configuration-agnostic. If the configuration file states something is enabled, then that is enabled. It is not the job of the software to say the file really means something else. If the configuration is broken, state how and why. Clearly. If the configuration is old, import and update. But don't tell me, or anyone else, what Joe Bloggs thinks would look better. I don't care. And the more other people's preferences get shoved in my face, the less I will care.
Theo clearly has the right idea - the only way to get past the morons is with an attitude of utter contempt. Bugger all else matters, apparently.
It's definitely one of the cleanest. It needs a rewrite, though.
Linux-From-Scratch is easier to use, less user-hostile and less determined to tell me how to think.
ANY software that pretends to know better than me how I want things done is software that deserves to burn. And then sink into the swamp. It is that precise attitude that got me to kick the Windows habit and led me away from the early ix86 BSDs.
I not only think better than a mere machine, I think better than your average distro compiler. I can spec better, I can build better, I can test better. Debian had, up till now, been acceptable, the packages are convenient and it's no great pain to tune. Now, Debian ranks lower than Fedora. I'd recommend the MCC distribution before either and that was last updated during the Ice Age.
Don't Blink.
I've used the site longer and reserve the right to use Doctor Who references where I'm suspicious of technical details, especially as relate to timing vulnerabilities. This is allowed, as per The Hacker's Dictionary. Bonus points for finding the Doctor Who references included.