Given that sensitive internal documents would also be authored via office suite products, who in their right mind would give MS their crown jewels? Ultimately any webservice entails the forwarding of the data to the provider for processing, which means that MS might have access to all sorts of sensitive data.
The alternative is to have dual-installs or local installs for people handling sensitive documents but why not just have local installs across the user base anyway then? There might be some benefits in terms of reduction of maintenance of local installs but you're really gambling if you expect people to use different tools for different types of documents
Part of the reason why fermented foods are so good for you is that bacteria have heavy involvement. These are different bacteria to those in the gut, but the bacterial processes involved in fermentation lead to additional benefits greater than what the ingredients alone probide. For example kimchi has been found to produce intermediate compounds that are then used by the body to produce anti-fungal and anti-microbial compounds
Kimchi, a traditional Korean food, is a well-known lactic acid-fermented vegetable product, and is a good source of industrially useful lactic acid bacteria (LAB). The microorganisms involved in the fermentation of kimchi include approximately 200 species of bacteria and several yeasts. The LAB involved in this fermentation continuously produce organic acids after an optimum ripening time, and cause changes in the composition of the product, referred to as the over-ripening or acid deterioration of kimchi.
The over-ripening of kimchi is the most serious concern when it is in storage. Since the over-ripening is mainly due to acid-forming LAB, the best way to overcome this issue is to control the growth of LAB without destroying the quality of the end product. The LAB play an important role in the taste of kimchi, and many LAB from kimchi have antimicrobial activity in addition to other useful properties.
Recently, scientists at Chosun University investigated LAB from kimchi as molecular sources for various end products, including antimicrobial compounds. Antimicrobial compounds are relatively abundant in traditionally fermented foods, in which they may play an important role as competitors with natural microflora during fermentation. Antimicrobial compound-producing LAB may be useful in preserving kimchi. This can be done by either directly applying the LAB to the culture or by adding LAB-produced antimicrobial compounds as natural bio-preservatives.
Japan's goal in WWII was basically a unification of Asia so it could be independent of Western "superiority". Also anecdotal evidence (mostly from my grandparents) says that the Japanese themselves weren't the ones raping and killing the captured population, just the Koreans who worked for them.
In regards to the "co-prosperity" sphere, suffice to say that the countries that were part of that during peacetime, namely korea and taiwan, came out of WW2 as some of the poorest in the world, even worse than african colonies and that's saying something.
In korea's case, as it's the best example of the loot and pillage methodology of japan, the per capita GDP was around $70. Comparatively Thailand was at about $210 GDP per capita and only India was lower than that at the time, but only because of the huge population difference. This despite the fact that the japanese exported an average of more than 100 million Yen in gold alone (official figures, but they're likely to be higher) from korea during the colonial era.
Given a japanese victory the only co-prosperity the philippines would've seen is the 'three-all' policies.. Loot all, kill all, destroy all. You and your grandparents should consider yourself lucky not to have experienced the tender mercies of the japanese for an extended period.
In regards to the smearing about the koreans being responsible for attrocious acts, the colonials (koreans, chinese, and taiwanese) were ordered to do the dirty deeds precisely so that naive and ignorant people would believe them when they claimed to be "innocent".
Even casual inspection shows that this is a load of steaming manure, I'll just quote two authors on the topic:
To the Japanese, Koreans
were only slightly better than the Allied prisoners. For their part, the
Koreans would have felt little loyalty towards Japan, which had invaded
and brutalised their country for decades. One Korean POW guard,
Kasayama Yoshikichi, said of his feelings toward the Japanese:
"After the first couple of years, we didn’t hide our feelings any longer ‘Do
you think we’re going to let you shit on us till we die?’ The Japanese
apologised and grovelled when they didn’t have their rifles."
One doctor witnessed three Korean guards attack a Japanese captain
in his sleep, and one of the guards repeatedly asked the doctor for poison
to kill this officer
from "More Complex than a Stereotype:
Australian POW Doctors and the
Japanese in Captivity, 1942–451", Rosalind Hearder
UTSUMI Aiko of Keisen University, Japan, conducted extensive research on Korean POW guards and found that more than 3,000 young Korean men were "recruited" (that is "press-ganged" or otherwise forced to "volunteer") for the prison guard corps. Many of [them] feared they would be shipped to Japan as indentured servants if they did not join the corps. Others were perhaps attracted by the high pay rates offered - 50 yen a month, a large amount at that time. [They] were classified as civilian employees rather than members of the military, and many hoped this status would prevent their transfer to the front line and... allow them to be demobilized after their two-year contract was concluded. However, on joining, the new recruits were issued with uniforms, and their basic training was very much military in character, including weapons training. Despite the difference between the promise and the reality of the guard corps, few deserted, possibly because deserters were threatened with court-martial.
...
The Koreans were trained in Japanese and forbidden to use their native tongue. They were also given Japanese names in place of their Korean names. They were instructed to treat POWs as animals as a way of ensuring their fear and respect. They were trained primarily in the Japanese Field Service Code, and they were frequently beaten
You're supposed to feel sympathy for the Japanese of 2010, who weren't in charge almost universally weren't even alive for World War II and are not acting particularly imperialist or aggressive.
No, just no.. japanese of 2010 may not have undertaken those acts themselves, but that's no excuse for the denialism of history that's taking place in present day japan. When Tojo's granddaughter goes around saying things like:
"Japan did not fight a war of aggression. It fought in self-defense," she said. "Our children have been wrongly taught that their ancestors did evil things, that their country is evil. We need to give these children back their pride and confidence."
without condemnation, that is the responsibility of the japanese of 2010 to correct. This they have not done, which is why the legacy of the years leading up to the end of WW2 continue to plague us. Forgiveness will come in time, but only once the appropriate measures have been taken to atone.
The japanese of 2010 also have to take responsibility for the ongoing apartheid-like racism within their society. Numerous authors have, many of them japanese, have done much work to document this ongoing state and suffice to say that the evidence is quite damning. When the likes of David Suzuki (the well-known naturalist) goes out of his way to co-author of a book on the topic ("The Japan we never knew") then you know things are bad.
The best author on the topic is Yasunori FUKUOKA of Saitama University and many of his papers are available at http://www.kyy.saitama-u.ac.jp/~fukuoka/index.html. His opinion is not particularly complementary when speaking of the widespread discrimination against those no considered "japanese"
The Japanese government did not respect their rights as foreigners, instead they continued to oppress Korean human rights even after 1952, declaring "post-war democracy" whilst hiding the truth. The Japanese should recognize that not only the Japanese government, but also Japanese individuals should take responsibility for the difficulties imposed on Koreans in Japan.
The largest victims are the Zainichi, but similar oppression was experienced by the likes of the Burakumin and other groups.
Japan, both government and society, really needs to clean up their act before they claim to be victimised.
Any type of game (and most types of complex activity more broadly speaking) is ultimately determined by the use of the brain's capabilities, be it the purely cerebral such as solving a puzzle or muscular coordination such as sport. Considering that children's games are ultimately training in areas such as team work, body-eye coordination, and strategic thinking for adult life it should come as no surprise that merely changing the playing field from a physical realm to a logical one doesn't necessarily change the gain. The type of game played does bias the type of brain activity triggered, for example turn-based strategic games heavily favour the logical thinking aspects but that's not different from a board game such as scrabble, merely the manner in which the stimulation is received changes. Even the seemingly useless video game arcade games are useful in training quick thinking, hand-eye coordination, and to a lesser extent strategic thinking.. can't say I've ever seen a 'dumb' person be good at any game.
The results aren't a surprise, that people would think games to be useless and of no benefit is more of a surprise.
There's a larger picture at play here rather than some sort of supposed victimisation of china.
In South Korea the real-name rule was instituted to stop people using their anonymity to harm others through defamataion. The worst case scenario is that the aggrieved party, ie. the defamees, can bring legal suits against malicious rumour mongering. In other words it serves to empower victims, and no more than that.
To contrast, what's the worst thing that can happen to someone in China? Unfortunately china is still a country where posting the 'wrong' opinion, particularly for political matters, can have some very real-life consequences. Even posting from a pseudo-anonymous location, eg. an internet cafe, can have the police showing up within minutes of making such a post. This specific article might only speak of real-id for online gaming, ostentibly to ensure defamation doesn't happen, but the issue is that it can far too easily be the thin end of the wedge of yet another measure to stifle political dissent through the threat of physical harm. To illustrate the possible consequences, the Ghostnet report into cyberespionage highlighted the case of a tibetan in china who was convicted through evidence 'gathered' via the botnet. Clearly the noose would tighten around freedom of speech when (not if) the measure was extended beyond game forums into the internet as a whole.
Whilst individuals like yourself might not care about such measures because perhaps it doesn't affect you directly, but there's a clear danger to people who happen to live in china and have a strong social conscience.. this is why articles about censorship in china garner attention, not because people like to 'pick on' china.
The most interesting aspect of this rootkit was the use of the Realtek private key to sign the drivers. According to Kapersky:
Microsoft malware researchers said on Friday that they had been working with VeriSign to revoke the Realtek certificate, a process that Realtek officials signed off on. The certificate in question actually expired in June. Microsoft oficials also said that they expect other attackers to begin using the techniques utilized by Stuxnet.
In hindsight the vendor certificate is a weakness in the entire process simply because access to the signing key bypasses the controls in place. Hardware vendors aren't likely to be as concious, at least until this incident, of the need to maintain proper security around their singing keys, nor are there requirements enforcing such security. In comparison keys used for financial transactions are generally held in HSMs with strong access controls around them to prevent the revealing of the private key. This particular rootkit was specifically confined to SCADA so the impact was always going to be small, but the malware could've easily been targetted to attack general windows installs.. who knows how much damage it could've caused then?
Luckily this specific certificate was going to expire soon so there was probably less resistance from the vendor in revoking it than there might've been, but if such revokation was going to invalidate significant numbers of drivers then that would've posed the problem of either leaving the certificate valid to be used for other types of malware or revoking it and invalidating however many drivers had already been signed by that key. Unfortunately it's not very likely that hardware manufacturers will ever submit to using HSM-type devices or the processes necessary to ensure key secrecy, so it looks like this will just have to be yet another potential attack vector that's caused by vendor negligence.
.. hopefully that will deter people from making new types of botnet.
But at the same time we're still talking about one instance of a botnet and one that's not very stealthy at that.. unfortunately we seem to be playing catch-up to the various new botnets constantly being released rather than getting ahead. The problem is getting worse now that criminals are starting to create malware kits that any script kiddy can use to create a new variant of a botnet type
Beyond the well-known botnets like Zeus and Cornficker there seems to be a growing prevalence of espionage botnets that most people won't hear about because they're narrowly targetted. For instance Wikileaks was started by eavesdropping on the channels used for the upload of stolen documents
Before launching the site, Assange needed to show potential contributors that it was viable. One of the WikiLeaks activists owned a server that was being used as a node for the Tor network. Millions of secret transmissions passed through it. The activist noticed that hackers from China were using the network to gather foreign governments’ information, and began to record this traffic. Only a small fraction has ever been posted on WikiLeaks, but the initial tranche served as the site’s foundation, and Assange was able to say, “We have received over one million documents from thirteen countries.”
China seems to be particularly prevalent in this type of espionage as the Ghostnet report found. State support for the reasearch of zero-days presents a significant risk that hasn't been seen up to now and could render traditional defences like anti-virus void.
Unfortunately it's not as easy as simple as saying that US intervention is an automatic positive.
To take a very good example from among those you mentioned, the Koreans would've been happy to live in peace without aggressive intent if it weren't for a decision from Dean Rusk and Charles Bonesteel to split the country along an arbitrary line. Similarly John Hodge was appointed to rule over the country despite saying that Korea "was an enemy of the United States" and endeavored to retain a
japanese government apparatus that can only be labelled as muderous, followed by the imposition of Rhee Syngman as president following a bloody set of political assassinations that took out the more capable alternatives with the eventual result being that the population basically rose up in revolt and forced him flee the country. People familiar with the history of south korea post-WW2 and pre-korean war wouldn't particularly say that US influence was positive at the time.
Perhaps without american intervention the result would've been the same, but at the same time it's quite disingenuous to claim that "By all means go ahead and try to convince the Chinese, the Russians, the Koreans, the Taliban etc. to all sing along and be friends with one another" because the Koreans at least would be quite happy to "sing along and be friends with one another". A reading of the declaration of independence in 1919 and the independence movement is quite striking in the way it mirrored the peaceful intent of the country and the simple desire for liberty
Obviously the US isn't responsible for all the faults in the world as some people would continue to engage in violent greed, but the experience in Korea does highlight that many actions that the US has taken in the past, either well intended or not intended to cause harm, do directly and indirectly cause such harm through ignorance and downright selfishness. For example, why would you appoint someone to run a country when he clearly has no intent to treat the locals with anything resembling fairness? You're asking for trouble and that's what clearly happened.
The experience in Afghanistan parallels the Korean experience to a disturbing degree in that the US went in and never had a coherent goal (getting bin laden? getting rid of the taliban? helping the afghans to build their country?) or a coherent plan of action in executing the occupation (or liberation if you will). The selection of Hamid Karzai is a clear example of their unpreparedness.. exactly who was he and what sort of unifying force was he going to be? After all his only qualification for being president was that he spoke english and he was known to the political elite in the US, which is exactly why Rhee was mis-chosen as well. Unfortunately the result is the same as well as we can see from the election rigging and abuse of power that Karzai engages in.. I'm sure that with some thought a more suitable candidate would've been avaialble.
Most americans would say that they stand for liberty and freedom, both laudable concepts, but their representatives have not always acted in a manner consistent with those ideals which is why some people will criticise those actions. As they say, great power comes with great responsibility, but unfortunately the US has not taken sufficient care to address the latter in their past and present actions.
You're correct when it comes to script in europe, however chinese characters don't influence any other written languages languages, they are incorporated as they are to specify a specific meaning of a term. This is how they are used in both korean and japanese. Sure there's loanwords or patterns of joining terms that might be borrowed into other languages, but that's a grammatical or loanword influence.
Chinese characters are pictograms (ie. little pictures that convey a meaning independent of the spoken language) and alphabets are renderings of pronounciation.. it'd be like saying that a caricature of the queen of england influences the way the term 'Queen' is written.
It could be worse.. it could arrive in a LEAKY BOAT *cue political armageddon*
For those outside Australia who don't get the above, the arrival of refugees via 'leaky boats' has been a political headache with lots of accusations flying back and forth.
Sitting there reading something called 'Rape Man', a manga about some dude that goes around raping girls, in a train on the way isn't what I'd call "your average dude"..
I imagine this could have serious consequences for Japanese and other Asian travelers were images of child porn (i.e. anime and manga) are perfectly legal.
Maybe in japan child porn anime is legal, I doubt it'd be the same elsewhere..
The criteria as it appears to stand is very loose and very open to abuse.
If it's the case that they'll be doing searches on suspected pedophiles only, then that'd be a search police can do already with search warrants issued after proper examination of the facts by a judge.
Such airport staff will more often than not lack the judgement or qualification. It's both open to abuse from people's prejudices and their lack of judgement and knowledge will lead to the real material being missed.
I appreciate that there's a voter buying scheme underway to pander to the family-first type parties, but the scenario begs many many questions.
How bored the rent-a-cops at airports are? I still remember the two idiots who deliberately attempted to make me miss my flight.. somehow I don't think that type of person is the most qualified to make judgement calls.
And what exactly is this hoping to achieve anyway? If someone wanted to smuggle illegal porn into Australia a laptop isn't exactly the most efficient means, just use public email systems and some basic encryption. Unless the government is going to demand that all home PCs have monitoring software enforced there's no way that stopping the 'smuggling' of software can even be considered.
Or maybe that's actually what they want.. welcome to 1984!
"I’m not sure how the [Home Affairs] minister pigeonholes them as an 'interest group' because gamers cover all facets of society. If consultations, by their nature, attract submissions from people who are passionate about an issue--and I assume passionate in both opposition and support--then why bother? Surely the government asked for submissions to gauge the feeling of the wider community, of which gamers make up 68 percent,"
It sounds like the submissions didn't agree with the minister's pre-determined outcome.. just keep trying until you get what you want to hear.
Incorrect, what LG sells as their own is the LCD monitor.. LG merely purchases a sub-component to use in their manufacturing processes.
To use a car analogy this is like claiming that Toyota is mislabelling their cars because they don't have the sub-manufacturer's brand on their car windows.
I was wondering how pilots would cope with eating and going to the bathroom but it seems that there's protocols in place for that:
On a recent flight I was sitting in first class when all the stewar...
er, flight attendants congregated at the front of the plane. They
turned off the lights in the front passageway and moved serving carts
to block the aisle at the head of first class and at the beginning of
the alcove leading to the flight deck. Then the flight deck door
opened and one of the flight officers emerged, went around the first
cart and into the front lavatory. Moments later, he exited and went
back to the cockpit. The blocking was undone, lights turned back on,
and the whole freakin' plane knew the co-pilot had taken a leak.
Am I the only one who finds this really disturbing? Does the fact that you uploaded the data onto their system give them ownership of it in perpetuity?
Surely a letter or email requesting deletion of your data should legally require them to delete it. No amount of terms and conditions should be able to override your exclusive ownership of data about you.
Slashdot Mirror
Given that sensitive internal documents would also be authored via office suite products, who in their right mind would give MS their crown jewels? Ultimately any webservice entails the forwarding of the data to the provider for processing, which means that MS might have access to all sorts of sensitive data.
The alternative is to have dual-installs or local installs for people handling sensitive documents but why not just have local installs across the user base anyway then? There might be some benefits in terms of reduction of maintenance of local installs but you're really gambling if you expect people to use different tools for different types of documents
Kimchi, a traditional Korean food, is a well-known lactic acid-fermented vegetable product, and is a good source of industrially useful lactic acid bacteria (LAB). The microorganisms involved in the fermentation of kimchi include approximately 200 species of bacteria and several yeasts. The LAB involved in this fermentation continuously produce organic acids after an optimum ripening time, and cause changes in the composition of the product, referred to as the over-ripening or acid deterioration of kimchi.
The over-ripening of kimchi is the most serious concern when it is in storage. Since the over-ripening is mainly due to acid-forming LAB, the best way to overcome this issue is to control the growth of LAB without destroying the quality of the end product. The LAB play an important role in the taste of kimchi, and many LAB from kimchi have antimicrobial activity in addition to other useful properties.
Recently, scientists at Chosun University investigated LAB from kimchi as molecular sources for various end products, including antimicrobial compounds. Antimicrobial compounds are relatively abundant in traditionally fermented foods, in which they may play an important role as competitors with natural microflora during fermentation. Antimicrobial compound-producing LAB may be useful in preserving kimchi. This can be done by either directly applying the LAB to the culture or by adding LAB-produced antimicrobial compounds as natural bio-preservatives.
http://www.entrepreneur.com/tradejournals/article/193478661.html
Kimchi's probably the best example of the benefits of fermented food, but more familiar foods like yoghurt and sauerkraut are also good to eat.
Japan's goal in WWII was basically a unification of Asia so it could be independent of Western "superiority". Also anecdotal evidence (mostly from my grandparents) says that the Japanese themselves weren't the ones raping and killing the captured population, just the Koreans who worked for them.
In regards to the "co-prosperity" sphere, suffice to say that the countries that were part of that during peacetime, namely korea and taiwan, came out of WW2 as some of the poorest in the world, even worse than african colonies and that's saying something.
.. Loot all, kill all, destroy all. You and your grandparents should consider yourself lucky not to have experienced the tender mercies of the japanese for an extended period.
In korea's case, as it's the best example of the loot and pillage methodology of japan, the per capita GDP was around $70. Comparatively Thailand was at about $210 GDP per capita and only India was lower than that at the time, but only because of the huge population difference. This despite the fact that the japanese exported an average of more than 100 million Yen in gold alone (official figures, but they're likely to be higher) from korea during the colonial era.
Given a japanese victory the only co-prosperity the philippines would've seen is the 'three-all' policies
In regards to the smearing about the koreans being responsible for attrocious acts, the colonials (koreans, chinese, and taiwanese) were ordered to do the dirty deeds precisely so that naive and ignorant people would believe them when they claimed to be "innocent".
Even casual inspection shows that this is a load of steaming manure, I'll just quote two authors on the topic:
To the Japanese, Koreans were only slightly better than the Allied prisoners. For their part, the Koreans would have felt little loyalty towards Japan, which had invaded and brutalised their country for decades. One Korean POW guard, Kasayama Yoshikichi, said of his feelings toward the Japanese:
"After the first couple of years, we didn’t hide our feelings any longer ‘Do you think we’re going to let you shit on us till we die?’ The Japanese apologised and grovelled when they didn’t have their rifles."
One doctor witnessed three Korean guards attack a Japanese captain in his sleep, and one of the guards repeatedly asked the doctor for poison to kill this officer
from "More Complex than a Stereotype: Australian POW Doctors and the Japanese in Captivity, 1942–451", Rosalind Hearder
UTSUMI Aiko of Keisen University, Japan, conducted extensive research on Korean POW guards and found that more than 3,000 young Korean men were "recruited" (that is "press-ganged" or otherwise forced to "volunteer") for the prison guard corps. Many of [them] feared they would be shipped to Japan as indentured servants if they did not join the corps. Others were perhaps attracted by the high pay rates offered - 50 yen a month, a large amount at that time. [They] were classified as civilian employees rather than members of the military, and many hoped this status would prevent their transfer to the front line and ... allow them to be demobilized after their two-year contract was concluded. However, on joining, the new recruits were issued with uniforms, and their basic training was very much military in character, including weapons training. Despite the difference between the promise and the reality of the guard corps, few deserted, possibly because deserters were threatened with court-martial.
...
The Koreans were trained in Japanese and forbidden to use their native tongue. They were also given Japanese names in place of their Korean names. They were instructed to treat POWs as animals as a way of ensuring their fear and respect. They were trained primarily in the Japanese Field Service Code, and they were frequently beaten
You're supposed to feel sympathy for the Japanese of 2010, who weren't in charge almost universally weren't even alive for World War II and are not acting particularly imperialist or aggressive.
No, just no .. japanese of 2010 may not have undertaken those acts themselves, but that's no excuse for the denialism of history that's taking place in present day japan. When Tojo's granddaughter goes around saying things like:
"Japan did not fight a war of aggression. It fought in self-defense," she said. "Our children have been wrongly taught that their ancestors did evil things, that their country is evil. We need to give these children back their pride and confidence."
without condemnation, that is the responsibility of the japanese of 2010 to correct. This they have not done, which is why the legacy of the years leading up to the end of WW2 continue to plague us. Forgiveness will come in time, but only once the appropriate measures have been taken to atone.
The japanese of 2010 also have to take responsibility for the ongoing apartheid-like racism within their society. Numerous authors have, many of them japanese, have done much work to document this ongoing state and suffice to say that the evidence is quite damning. When the likes of David Suzuki (the well-known naturalist) goes out of his way to co-author of a book on the topic ("The Japan we never knew") then you know things are bad.
The best author on the topic is Yasunori FUKUOKA of Saitama University and many of his papers are available at http://www.kyy.saitama-u.ac.jp/~fukuoka/index.html. His opinion is not particularly complementary when speaking of the widespread discrimination against those no considered "japanese"
The Japanese government did not respect their rights as foreigners, instead they continued to oppress Korean human rights even after 1952, declaring "post-war democracy" whilst hiding the truth. The Japanese should recognize that not only the Japanese government, but also Japanese individuals should take responsibility for the difficulties imposed on Koreans in Japan.
The largest victims are the Zainichi, but similar oppression was experienced by the likes of the Burakumin and other groups.
Japan, both government and society, really needs to clean up their act before they claim to be victimised.
Any type of game (and most types of complex activity more broadly speaking) is ultimately determined by the use of the brain's capabilities, be it the purely cerebral such as solving a puzzle or muscular coordination such as sport. Considering that children's games are ultimately training in areas such as team work, body-eye coordination, and strategic thinking for adult life it should come as no surprise that merely changing the playing field from a physical realm to a logical one doesn't necessarily change the gain. The type of game played does bias the type of brain activity triggered, for example turn-based strategic games heavily favour the logical thinking aspects but that's not different from a board game such as scrabble, merely the manner in which the stimulation is received changes. Even the seemingly useless video game arcade games are useful in training quick thinking, hand-eye coordination, and to a lesser extent strategic thinking .. can't say I've ever seen a 'dumb' person be good at any game.
The results aren't a surprise, that people would think games to be useless and of no benefit is more of a surprise.
There's a larger picture at play here rather than some sort of supposed victimisation of china.
.. this is why articles about censorship in china garner attention, not because people like to 'pick on' china.
In South Korea the real-name rule was instituted to stop people using their anonymity to harm others through defamataion. The worst case scenario is that the aggrieved party, ie. the defamees, can bring legal suits against malicious rumour mongering. In other words it serves to empower victims, and no more than that.
To contrast, what's the worst thing that can happen to someone in China? Unfortunately china is still a country where posting the 'wrong' opinion, particularly for political matters, can have some very real-life consequences. Even posting from a pseudo-anonymous location, eg. an internet cafe, can have the police showing up within minutes of making such a post. This specific article might only speak of real-id for online gaming, ostentibly to ensure defamation doesn't happen, but the issue is that it can far too easily be the thin end of the wedge of yet another measure to stifle political dissent through the threat of physical harm. To illustrate the possible consequences, the Ghostnet report into cyberespionage highlighted the case of a tibetan in china who was convicted through evidence 'gathered' via the botnet. Clearly the noose would tighten around freedom of speech when (not if) the measure was extended beyond game forums into the internet as a whole.
Whilst individuals like yourself might not care about such measures because perhaps it doesn't affect you directly, but there's a clear danger to people who happen to live in china and have a strong social conscience
Microsoft malware researchers said on Friday that they had been working with VeriSign to revoke the Realtek certificate, a process that Realtek officials signed off on. The certificate in question actually expired in June. Microsoft oficials also said that they expect other attackers to begin using the techniques utilized by Stuxnet.
In hindsight the vendor certificate is a weakness in the entire process simply because access to the signing key bypasses the controls in place. Hardware vendors aren't likely to be as concious, at least until this incident, of the need to maintain proper security around their singing keys, nor are there requirements enforcing such security. In comparison keys used for financial transactions are generally held in HSMs with strong access controls around them to prevent the revealing of the private key. This particular rootkit was specifically confined to SCADA so the impact was always going to be small, but the malware could've easily been targetted to attack general windows installs .. who knows how much damage it could've caused then?
Luckily this specific certificate was going to expire soon so there was probably less resistance from the vendor in revoking it than there might've been, but if such revokation was going to invalidate significant numbers of drivers then that would've posed the problem of either leaving the certificate valid to be used for other types of malware or revoking it and invalidating however many drivers had already been signed by that key. Unfortunately it's not very likely that hardware manufacturers will ever submit to using HSM-type devices or the processes necessary to ensure key secrecy, so it looks like this will just have to be yet another potential attack vector that's caused by vendor negligence.
But at the same time we're still talking about one instance of a botnet and one that's not very stealthy at that
Beyond the well-known botnets like Zeus and Cornficker there seems to be a growing prevalence of espionage botnets that most people won't hear about because they're narrowly targetted. For instance Wikileaks was started by eavesdropping on the channels used for the upload of stolen documents
Before launching the site, Assange needed to show potential contributors that it was viable. One of the WikiLeaks activists owned a server that was being used as a node for the Tor network. Millions of secret transmissions passed through it. The activist noticed that hackers from China were using the network to gather foreign governments’ information, and began to record this traffic. Only a small fraction has ever been posted on WikiLeaks, but the initial tranche served as the site’s foundation, and Assange was able to say, “We have received over one million documents from thirteen countries.”
http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2010/06/07/100607fa_fact_khatchadourian?currentPage=all#ixzz0pWdlAepe
China seems to be particularly prevalent in this type of espionage as the Ghostnet report found. State support for the reasearch of zero-days presents a significant risk that hasn't been seen up to now and could render traditional defences like anti-virus void.
Unfortunately it's not as easy as simple as saying that US intervention is an automatic positive.
.. exactly who was he and what sort of unifying force was he going to be? After all his only qualification for being president was that he spoke english and he was known to the political elite in the US, which is exactly why Rhee was mis-chosen as well. Unfortunately the result is the same as well as we can see from the election rigging and abuse of power that Karzai engages in .. I'm sure that with some thought a more suitable candidate would've been avaialble.
To take a very good example from among those you mentioned, the Koreans would've been happy to live in peace without aggressive intent if it weren't for a decision from Dean Rusk and Charles Bonesteel to split the country along an arbitrary line. Similarly John Hodge was appointed to rule over the country despite saying that Korea "was an enemy of the United States" and endeavored to retain a japanese government apparatus that can only be labelled as muderous, followed by the imposition of Rhee Syngman as president following a bloody set of political assassinations that took out the more capable alternatives with the eventual result being that the population basically rose up in revolt and forced him flee the country. People familiar with the history of south korea post-WW2 and pre-korean war wouldn't particularly say that US influence was positive at the time.
Perhaps without american intervention the result would've been the same, but at the same time it's quite disingenuous to claim that "By all means go ahead and try to convince the Chinese, the Russians, the Koreans, the Taliban etc. to all sing along and be friends with one another" because the Koreans at least would be quite happy to "sing along and be friends with one another". A reading of the declaration of independence in 1919 and the independence movement is quite striking in the way it mirrored the peaceful intent of the country and the simple desire for liberty
Obviously the US isn't responsible for all the faults in the world as some people would continue to engage in violent greed, but the experience in Korea does highlight that many actions that the US has taken in the past, either well intended or not intended to cause harm, do directly and indirectly cause such harm through ignorance and downright selfishness. For example, why would you appoint someone to run a country when he clearly has no intent to treat the locals with anything resembling fairness? You're asking for trouble and that's what clearly happened.
The experience in Afghanistan parallels the Korean experience to a disturbing degree in that the US went in and never had a coherent goal (getting bin laden? getting rid of the taliban? helping the afghans to build their country?) or a coherent plan of action in executing the occupation (or liberation if you will). The selection of Hamid Karzai is a clear example of their unpreparedness
Most americans would say that they stand for liberty and freedom, both laudable concepts, but their representatives have not always acted in a manner consistent with those ideals which is why some people will criticise those actions. As they say, great power comes with great responsibility, but unfortunately the US has not taken sufficient care to address the latter in their past and present actions.
You're correct when it comes to script in europe, however chinese characters don't influence any other written languages languages, they are incorporated as they are to specify a specific meaning of a term. This is how they are used in both korean and japanese. Sure there's loanwords or patterns of joining terms that might be borrowed into other languages, but that's a grammatical or loanword influence.
.. it'd be like saying that a caricature of the queen of england influences the way the term 'Queen' is written.
Chinese characters are pictograms (ie. little pictures that convey a meaning independent of the spoken language) and alphabets are renderings of pronounciation
That's precisely why the training regime of korean pro-gamers includes fitness and muscle building to improve both stamina and reaction time.
It could be worse .. it could arrive in a LEAKY BOAT *cue political armageddon*
For those outside Australia who don't get the above, the arrival of refugees via 'leaky boats' has been a political headache with lots of accusations flying back and forth.
Sitting there reading something called 'Rape Man', a manga about some dude that goes around raping girls, in a train on the way isn't what I'd call "your average dude" ..
I imagine this could have serious consequences for Japanese and other Asian travelers were images of child porn (i.e. anime and manga) are perfectly legal.
Maybe in japan child porn anime is legal, I doubt it'd be the same elsewhere ..
The criteria as it appears to stand is very loose and very open to abuse.
If it's the case that they'll be doing searches on suspected pedophiles only, then that'd be a search police can do already with search warrants issued after proper examination of the facts by a judge.
Such airport staff will more often than not lack the judgement or qualification. It's both open to abuse from people's prejudices and their lack of judgement and knowledge will lead to the real material being missed.
I appreciate that there's a voter buying scheme underway to pander to the family-first type parties, but the scenario begs many many questions.
How bored the rent-a-cops at airports are? I still remember the two idiots who deliberately attempted to make me miss my flight .. somehow I don't think that type of person is the most qualified to make judgement calls.
.. welcome to 1984!
And what exactly is this hoping to achieve anyway? If someone wanted to smuggle illegal porn into Australia a laptop isn't exactly the most efficient means, just use public email systems and some basic encryption. Unless the government is going to demand that all home PCs have monitoring software enforced there's no way that stopping the 'smuggling' of software can even be considered.
Or maybe that's actually what they want
The direct link for what's it worth: http://allthatiswrong.wordpress.com/2010/01/20/the-insecurity-of-openbsd/
"I’m not sure how the [Home Affairs] minister pigeonholes them as an 'interest group' because gamers cover all facets of society. If consultations, by their nature, attract submissions from people who are passionate about an issue--and I assume passionate in both opposition and support--then why bother? Surely the government asked for submissions to gauge the feeling of the wider community, of which gamers make up 68 percent,"
It sounds like the submissions didn't agree with the minister's pre-determined outcome .. just keep trying until you get what you want to hear.
..My principal in high school for showing me how to use the soap in the gym showers, the doctor for my first rectal exam..
I'm disturbed that your post was marked informative
because their names looked like someone mashed the keyboard and they would swear at you while declaring the superiority of Korea.
Breaking news: Teenagers found to lack lack maturity .. followed by the shocking discovery that water is wet
I'm sure I've seen plenty of l337 d00ds around the internet proclaiming their superiority or that of their group (eg. nationality).
Incorrect, what LG sells as their own is the LCD monitor .. LG merely purchases a sub-component to use in their manufacturing processes.
To use a car analogy this is like claiming that Toyota is mislabelling their cars because they don't have the sub-manufacturer's brand on their car windows.
Honestly we should bring back the Greek/Roman practise and try elected officials once they have left office.
Oddly enough I can't see politicians signing off on a law to investigate themselves.
Could I please have your password?
hunter2
On a recent flight I was sitting in first class when all the stewar... er, flight attendants congregated at the front of the plane. They turned off the lights in the front passageway and moved serving carts to block the aisle at the head of first class and at the beginning of the alcove leading to the flight deck. Then the flight deck door opened and one of the flight officers emerged, went around the first cart and into the front lavatory. Moments later, he exited and went back to the cockpit. The blocking was undone, lights turned back on, and the whole freakin' plane knew the co-pilot had taken a leak.
http://answers.google.com/answers/threadview?id=729832
Am I the only one who finds this really disturbing? Does the fact that you uploaded the data onto their system give them ownership of it in perpetuity?
Surely a letter or email requesting deletion of your data should legally require them to delete it. No amount of terms and conditions should be able to override your exclusive ownership of data about you.
Or maybe I'm just engaging in wishful thinking ..