China invasion is a popular scarecrow in Russia, but it will not happen. Thinking anyone is envy of big Russian territories boosts the Russian self-esteem, but it is a lie. Rarely anyone thinks what will China actually do after it had sucessfully invaded Siberia.
The Siberian lands are hostile. Both Tsarist Russia and USSR managed to set up cities there only by propaganda and forced relocation. It's better to set up a puppet government and suck out all resources than to actually invade a country. Which is what is happening right now.
The only thing that might happen is that some China leaders will try to gain a small territory in order to earn political points at home. But that can happen only after Taiwan has been be conquered, which is still a big problem for them.
The future of Siberia is grim, it will probably continue to collapse into a No man's land, scarcely populated territory without any laws, ruled by local mafia leaders. Something like Libya is today. And no one will really care about it, other than buying oil from whoever sells it. Again, like Libya.
The greatest reward is an old porn magazine, locked in a heavily guarded room, in and underground bunker, with three rows of barbered wire around it. After a year of service a young hacker is rewarded with 15 minutes of solitude inside.
They want to decrypt the CIA/NSA/FBI traffic you're relaying around.
Incorrect. They want to be able to detect who is showing up some TOR activity and tag them as "suspicious citizens". Later on, they could try to infect target computers with their malware, the lot for which is posted somewhere nearby (it is nicknamed Chameleon-2).
Unfortunately for Ukraine, nobody really cares about them except their neighbors.
Unfortunately for any government in any country, nobody there really cares about its citizens. What I see is EU, US and China elites thinking how they can profit from the civil war in Ukraine, helping their domestic businesses expand and gain a share in the market. And Russian elites care only about not loosing their secret banking accounts.
"A plane was shot down with innocent people? Good. Now, let's see how we can turn that into profit.."
You can easily guess by the reactions of ruling elites in different countries what they have in mind. France wants to sell its troop ships to Russia? It keeps its mouth shut. The U.S. wants to thwart Russian weapon export? Scream at every corner that Russia supports terrorism (but the U.S. supporting insurgents in Syria is OK).
Russia has already planned for "cyber army" of its own. Except, the only task for poor dumb 18-year olds is astoturfing. You know, making posts about glorious Putin and throwing shit at his numerous enemies (practically anyone, who is not a brain-dead redneck or a criminal) at forums, blogs and news sites. It all started in China, and now more and more political "elites" try to enlist their propaganda soldiers in order to save and prolong their wealth, power and heritage.
The first reason behind this "reform" is to steal and sell Academy's real property, the only Soviet legacy which has not been stolen until now. The scheme is traditional to Putins' friends: 1. Pour state money into property, paying for its repair, landscape development and luxury buildings. All paid by simple Russian citizens. 2. Name the property as "unuseful" and sell it to the pocket company for a laughable sum. 3. Resell the property for its market value. Share millions of $$$ between government officials, who let that happen.
The second reason is political. The Academy and scientific society in Russia was a pain in the ass for Putin, with his neo-religious policy and his fraudulent friends. Several dozens (!) of government officials have been caught with fake scientific works full of plagiarism. The "miraculous" water filters, which were going to be forced by one of Putin's friends in power to be installed in every Russian city, were shown to be a hoax. There were many, many other collisions between scientific society and our fraudulent government. But it is over now.
Stay tuned for new "scientific" discoveries, about how Holy Water heals cancer and a prayer lessens rocket failure rate. Assuming we will still have rockets.
If Snowdon has been Russian and escaped with FSB documents, he wouldn't be alive right now.
You're wrong. Snowden chose publicity as his defence, so not NSA, nor FSB could have easily "disappeared" him without repercussions. However, the US has a long history of assassinations in foreign countries, which it doesn't even deny. And that's not even counting a fucking prison, where kidnapped people are being held and tortured without charges. Part of the "Because We Can" program.
Having said that, I'd recommend Americans, especially young ones to have second passport and be ready to leave this shithole when things go full retard (eg. your fucked up government starts some mega-war and will need as much cannon fodder as possible).
Pfffthahaha... And where would they go? Seriously, name a country which isn't a USA puppet state already or isn't run by tyrants?
Also, what World Wars have taught us, is that when the whole world burns you cannot run away.
We are ruled by criminals. Not just in the winking "crooks & liars" way, but geniune thugs no different than any other strongman government.
This is true to any country today. Hell, it feels like the humanity degraded beyond middle ages in terms of politics. At least in middle ages the power was determined by birthright (which left it to chance really), nowadays only the ugliest psychopaths get into power.
At least you have a trial. In Russia, for example, you would not get a trial. The so called judge would just copy the indictment from the cop word by word including all grammar errors and send you to prison. You would be denied in calling witnesses or questioning the cop's words, as "there is no reason not to trust a police officer".
The conviction rate in Russia is as high as about 97%, and 3% is reserved for letting free criminals from the police and KGB.
If you're a foreigner being spied on by the NSA, take it up with your own government. If YOUR government won't protect you from OUR government, consider getting a new government.
And that, girls and boys, is the reason why very small groups of people (aka governments) owns vast groups of people (aka citizens). Being selfish and ignorant makes you stupid, weak and easy to break into submission.
Even at the lowest point of Stalinist regime, under extreme censorship, and with a constant risk of being ratted out, Russians still managed to exchange politically-sensitive information via samizdat [wikipedia.org], by reprinting works on typewriters.
I don't want to ruin your optimism, but samizdat did not influence Soviet politics at all. None of those dissidents started a political career, even after the USSR has collapsed.
While we can linger in our little digital darknets, the general population will be brought back under the control of elites. This process is happening worldwide.
Slashdot Mirror
What if I like both having sex and watching porn? What if I like both video games and hanging out with friends?
China invasion is a popular scarecrow in Russia, but it will not happen. Thinking anyone is envy of big Russian territories boosts the Russian self-esteem, but it is a lie. Rarely anyone thinks what will China actually do after it had sucessfully invaded Siberia.
The Siberian lands are hostile. Both Tsarist Russia and USSR managed to set up cities there only by propaganda and forced relocation. It's better to set up a puppet government and suck out all resources than to actually invade a country. Which is what is happening right now.
The only thing that might happen is that some China leaders will try to gain a small territory in order to earn political points at home. But that can happen only after Taiwan has been be conquered, which is still a big problem for them.
The future of Siberia is grim, it will probably continue to collapse into a No man's land, scarcely populated territory without any laws, ruled by local mafia leaders. Something like Libya is today. And no one will really care about it, other than buying oil from whoever sells it. Again, like Libya.
The greatest reward is an old porn magazine, locked in a heavily guarded room, in and underground bunker, with three rows of barbered wire around it. After a year of service a young hacker is rewarded with 15 minutes of solitude inside.
Russia doesn't want to decrypt your packets.
Correct.
They want to decrypt the CIA/NSA/FBI traffic you're relaying around.
Incorrect. They want to be able to detect who is showing up some TOR activity and tag them as "suspicious citizens". Later on, they could try to infect target computers with their malware, the lot for which is posted somewhere nearby (it is nicknamed Chameleon-2).
Unfortunately for Ukraine, nobody really cares about them except their neighbors.
Unfortunately for any government in any country, nobody there really cares about its citizens. What I see is EU, US and China elites thinking how they can profit from the civil war in Ukraine, helping their domestic businesses expand and gain a share in the market. And Russian elites care only about not loosing their secret banking accounts.
"A plane was shot down with innocent people? Good. Now, let's see how we can turn that into profit.."
You can easily guess by the reactions of ruling elites in different countries what they have in mind. France wants to sell its troop ships to Russia? It keeps its mouth shut. The U.S. wants to thwart Russian weapon export? Scream at every corner that Russia supports terrorism (but the U.S. supporting insurgents in Syria is OK).
Lies and greed everywhere.
the US has actively become the enemies of human rights and liberties over the last bunch of years.
Every government is the enemy of human rights and liberties.
In some countries it will get you to jail. Other countries will follow the trend soon.
W7 was a mess, 8 is a nightmare. I don't want to imagine how bad 9 will be.
Imagine Clippy with Siri-like capabilities.
Really? And how did it work for you?
That is only possible if what those CEOs are doing is completely known by company owners. Otherwise, you can only do this trick once.
And if it's a country like Iceland, it could go a long way toward making them wealthy.
The US has shown that it can bend any "democratic" country to its will, even without arms. No place is safe in the world, today.
Good citizen! Fear and obey!
That's when you double the infinity!
Russia has already planned for "cyber army" of its own. Except, the only task for poor dumb 18-year olds is astoturfing. You know, making posts about glorious Putin and throwing shit at his numerous enemies (practically anyone, who is not a brain-dead redneck or a criminal) at forums, blogs and news sites. It all started in China, and now more and more political "elites" try to enlist their propaganda soldiers in order to save and prolong their wealth, power and heritage.
So, it's UK time now.
The first reason behind this "reform" is to steal and sell Academy's real property, the only Soviet legacy which has not been stolen until now. The scheme is traditional to Putins' friends:
1. Pour state money into property, paying for its repair, landscape development and luxury buildings. All paid by simple Russian citizens.
2. Name the property as "unuseful" and sell it to the pocket company for a laughable sum.
3. Resell the property for its market value. Share millions of $$$ between government officials, who let that happen.
The second reason is political. The Academy and scientific society in Russia was a pain in the ass for Putin, with his neo-religious policy and his fraudulent friends. Several dozens (!) of government officials have been caught with fake scientific works full of plagiarism. The "miraculous" water filters, which were going to be forced by one of Putin's friends in power to be installed in every Russian city, were shown to be a hoax. There were many, many other collisions between scientific society and our fraudulent government. But it is over now.
Stay tuned for new "scientific" discoveries, about how Holy Water heals cancer and a prayer lessens rocket failure rate. Assuming we will still have rockets.
there are all sorts of caveats and missing functionality
Technically, it is the next version of Gnome.
Man up, use VIM or Emacs :)
Programs should serve humans, not vice versa.
If Snowdon has been Russian and escaped with FSB documents, he wouldn't be alive right now.
You're wrong. Snowden chose publicity as his defence, so not NSA, nor FSB could have easily "disappeared" him without repercussions. However, the US has a long history of assassinations in foreign countries, which it doesn't even deny. And that's not even counting a fucking prison, where kidnapped people are being held and tortured without charges. Part of the "Because We Can" program.
Having said that, I'd recommend Americans, especially young ones to have second passport and be ready to leave this shithole when things go full retard (eg. your fucked up government starts some mega-war and will need as much cannon fodder as possible).
Pfffthahaha... And where would they go? Seriously, name a country which isn't a USA puppet state already or isn't run by tyrants?
Also, what World Wars have taught us, is that when the whole world burns you cannot run away.
We are ruled by criminals. Not just in the winking "crooks & liars" way, but geniune thugs no different than any other strongman government.
This is true to any country today. Hell, it feels like the humanity degraded beyond middle ages in terms of politics. At least in middle ages the power was determined by birthright (which left it to chance really), nowadays only the ugliest psychopaths get into power.
At least you have a trial. In Russia, for example, you would not get a trial. The so called judge would just copy the indictment from the cop word by word including all grammar errors and send you to prison. You would be denied in calling witnesses or questioning the cop's words, as "there is no reason not to trust a police officer".
The conviction rate in Russia is as high as about 97%, and 3% is reserved for letting free criminals from the police and KGB.
If you're a foreigner being spied on by the NSA, take it up with your own government. If YOUR government won't protect you from OUR government, consider getting a new government.
And that, girls and boys, is the reason why very small groups of people (aka governments) owns vast groups of people (aka citizens). Being selfish and ignorant makes you stupid, weak and easy to break into submission.
Do you speak the language of BigMoney? If not, I doubt he will understand you.
Even at the lowest point of Stalinist regime, under extreme censorship, and with a constant risk of being ratted out, Russians still managed to exchange politically-sensitive information via samizdat [wikipedia.org], by reprinting works on typewriters.
I don't want to ruin your optimism, but samizdat did not influence Soviet politics at all. None of those dissidents started a political career, even after the USSR has collapsed.
While we can linger in our little digital darknets, the general population will be brought back under the control of elites. This process is happening worldwide.
We're semi intelligent
Then fully intelligent being is?