This is not what the proposed hot line is for. Not even close. Any priority bilateral communications between countries used to head off knee jerk or excessive actions due to perceived threats should be encouraged. Even if that communication channel does not solve the problem it is better than nothing. Or maybe you think we should rely on the UN to mediate these issues?
" based on research done at universities; including publicly funded ones" Universities receive large grants from the drug companies to fund this type of research. New drug development can cost millions of dollars even when there is no guarantee of eventual success. The companies doing this type of work deserve to be able to at least recover their expenses. Patents in the software industry can be ridiculous and harmful to innovation in the extreme but the drug manufacturers have a clear cut reason to take advantage of patents.
"the government can use military force to stop you, because they have greater numbers"
This is absolutely false for the US and every other civilized country on the planet. Sure the military could kill a lot of people but massive human wave attacks launched by those willing to die for their beliefs can over come the military. Guerilla style attacks are rarely successful in removing a government. In a lot of countries, especially the US, I doubt the soldiers would obey orders to kill their own civilians indiscriminately. This has happened recently in both Egypt and Syria and also happened in the old USSR. Members of those militaires refused orders to kill large numbers of civilians. Egypt's entire military supported the protesters against government orders and a lot of Syrian soldiers have also refused to obey orders to kill their own countrymen. If the Chinese civilians every realize this fact they could successfully take down their government if pushed into a corner. That's why the Chinese government tries to offer more freedoms than your classic communist or non-elected type governments. If the people in Iraq during the Saddam era were so oppressed they could have removed him from power. The Iranians could also do the same thing if they realized and accepted that meaningful change requires sacrifice and were truly determined to change their governments. If you are being oppressed and denied basic freedoms by your government it takes more than a protest march or Internet campaigns to make real changes. However, the most important thing you need to do before making the ultimate sacrifices to take down a government is to have a clear plan of action to put in place after the current government falls. Even if these plans are temporary to ensure the countries basic operations remain in tact.
If we ever intend to do any real orbital or space based manufacturing it will most likely depend on advances and confidence in robotic technologies. A project like the one in the article is just a small step towards that goal. We have already proven we can control robots as far away as Mars for simple exploration. To me the technology involved in actually deploying and directing the Mars rovers has always been more interesting than anything discovered so far.
If the US stops buying or goes bust it will take the rest of the world down with it. It will make the EU debacle look like a simple home mortgage re-finance. The US economy is not in recession and the government is no were close to defaulting on any loans like some of the EU countries currently going through bad times. There has been growth each quarter but that growth has been less than forecast.
China did not extend US credit. They purchased government bonds and securities for secure investments. US investments are still considered one of the safest places for foreign countries to park and grow their cash. Even with all of China's investments to date they amount to only 6% of outstanding bonds and securities. And while we are at it how about we interject a few more facts? The US is still the largest economy and the number #1 manufacturer in the world even after we have supposedly sent all our jobs overseas. China has narrowed the gap, and may one day become the largest but but they have started running into problems just like the US subsidizing the renewable energy market and they are facing more competition from the other southeast Asian countries who can pay slave wages to compete. China may one day reach #1 but they have population of 1.3 billion compared to the US population of 300 million. They should be able to produce more but for some reason they have not quite got the hang of it yet.
I don't believe I said the US won the war by themselves.. It was the weather and Hitlers refusal to provide additional resources that beat the Germans.
The US did provide large amounts of steel, oil, fuel, and food to assist Russia. Without a western front it would have taken Russia longer to win but it would have been a close thing. With out the western front Hitler could have used the resources from of all the countries they had conquered, There would never have been a western front without the US. None of the major European powers were capable of pushing the Germans out of their countries. England did not have the resources to attempt an invasion of mainland Europe. France had an active resistant movement but they were not strong enough to eject the Germans. US casualties were lower than those of Russia and all of the other countries involved but the US casualties were created by fighting on foreign soil. Had the battles taken place in the US the casualties would have been higher.
I think you are close to getting your wish. The upcoming Presidential elections have already shown that the candidates in both the Democrat and Republican parties are being forced to support policies that put America first. Everything from moving to a non-interventionist foreign policy to eliminating government monetary aid to any foreign countries or international organizations are very popular positions.
Russia started off as an allie of Germany. It wasn't until after Hitler invaded their country that Stalin had a change of heart. The US supplied them with the materials and support they needed to bring their military up to something capable of taking on Germany. Without that initial support Germany would have goosed stepped into Moscow waving the Nazi flag. The US also supplied England which kept them from being totally overrun in spite of very specific US laws prohibiting such efforts. FDR basically ignored the wishes of Congress and started initiating programs to make sure England survived and that the US would be able to create and mobilize the military for the fight he knew was coming. If the US had not emerged from WW2 victoriously and FDR had still been alive he would have been impeached. Hell, there were attempts to start the impeachment process even before the US officially entered the war. If the US had not entered the war Germany would not have been forced to divide their resources and fight on 2 fronts.
It was the western Europeans who created the conditions for WW2 by their idiotic demands and sanctions placed on Germany after WW1. It was England who negotiated away territory to Germany and ignored mutual defense treaties with European countries such as Poland and Belgium that allowed Germany to start invading it's neighboring countries. France lost control of their country not because they were cowards or unwilling to fight, they lost because of the fierce political infighting between the Socialists, Fascists, Progressives, Legislaturists, Democratic, and Monarchy political parties. They created a politically fragmented country unable to cooperate in the defense of their own country. France would have most likely lost to Germany even if their military was supported by a united government but I doubt Hitler would have been visiting the Eiffel Tower like a tourist.
Why should the US have taken on the brunt of actions caused by others? Why should US soldiers and civilian seaman merchants have died to defend countries who showed nothing but disdain for the US? If the Europeans were able to ignore the atrocities committed by Hitler why couldn't the US have did the same? The US did not win the war single handily but they did create the conditions which led to that victory and those efforts do not deserve to be considered inconsequential or meaningless.
No one person is responsible for the Internet however DARPA did do the initial legwork in getting the Internet started and US corporations picked up the ball and ran with it. The rest of the world just tapped into the existing Internet and contributed to the international growth of the Internet. Lets also recognize the fact the US is the home of IBM, Sun, MS, Apple, Intel, HP, Motorola, CISCO, Google, and a whole lot of other companies that are overwhelmingly responsible for today's computer technology. What the hell has Europe ponied up besides possibly SAP or Siemens? China contributes cheap labor to mass produce components designed elsewhere while at the same time "borrowing" the technology to create their own implementations without all of the pesky R&D headaches and expenses. Of course all of the US corporations are comprised of not only US citizens but also people from all over the world but the foreign imports came to a country where their skills were in demand.
If anyone has a problem with the US\ICANN control of the root servers they are free to create their own Internet anytime they want. It will be a cold day in hell before any of ICANN's responsibilities are handed over to that band of idiots collectively known as the UN.
Since when has the UN been relevant when a country decides to initiate military actions? If Iran does succeed in building a nuclear weapon it will increase the danger of them being attacked. Nuclear weapons in general are not that big of a deal however the distribution of such devices to non-state actors is dangerous in the extreme and Iran has a history of supporting and arming some of the worst militant movements in the world. Pakistan also falls into the same category but unfortunately they already have nukes and are busy building more.
I wasn't justifying the action I was just pointing out that not ever one interested in probing for weaknesses and exploits are criminals looking to cause damage or engage in theft.
I have been at this game for 26 years and it does not surprise me a bit when I hear of new security threats and exploits being used for fun or criminal purposes. The architecture and technology the entire Internet depends on changes and mutates at a furious rate. What was secure yesterday can be insecure today. How much time are you willing to invest in building and securing an OS or application? It seems like new exploits are being discovered every day on both Windows and Linux based platforms. If these systems were not released until they were certified 100% exploit free would the Internet even exist? OS and application releases would probably be a 5 year cycle. How do you coordinate OS, application, and hardware changes made by multiple vendors and developers to avoid accidently creating exploits when changes are made? Some say that Standards are the key but Standards can also take forever to create and end up adding more time to development and deployment time frames. Standards also have the habit of becoming obsolete as the underlying technology changes. The majority of script kiddie level attacks rely on poor system administration practices and negligent web application developers. The only really good thing about these sorts of problems is the job security it creates. The Un-employment rate may be floating around 9% overall but IT specific unemployment is sitting around 3% and those 3% are probably not even looking for a job.
A lot of guys are just attracted to the challenge. But in today's world it is becoming dangerous to take on new challenges even when no harm is intended. You also need to be good enough to recognize the potential damage you might inadvertently cause. The worm Morris unleashed back in the early 90's was not intended to do what it did. He missed a a pretty simple error in one of the loop events which caused unrestrained replication which eventually brought down a lot of systems.
Usually commercial corporations and most non-security related government agencies rely on simple but thorough background checks to fulfill their due diligence when it comes to security. But that doesn't mean a person with a squeaky clean background and high level security clearance won't change their mind for the right amount of money.
I still find internal corporate security measures weak and practically useless for a determined person. There are only a very small handful of corporations I have worked for that took internal security seriously and these corporations were mainly defense contractors.
"Google it"?
Are you one of the morons who claim "I read it on the Internet so it must be true?". Of course you only give credence to the sources that happen to support your preconceived notions. You most likely do not believe any information on any site that dares challenge the validity of your facts.
Why hasn't Bush been charged with any crime? Maybe because he didn't commit any worth bothering about when honestly compared to every other leader in the world. A US President is charged with protecting US interests first and if some country has a problem with that they are always free to do something about it. Maybe they can send the International Police to the US to arrest Bush. That would quite amusing. But alas that couldn't happen because the international community couldn't find a set of balls at a NBA all-start game to commit such an action. US Presidents have historically ignored parsing legalities when ordering acts they felt were needed to protect US Interests. Lincoln suspended habeas corpus during the Civil War and FDR gave Congress the finger during the fight over whether the US should aid Britain and preparing to get involved in WW2. He also brazenly ignored the wire tapping laws passed by Congress around the same time in order to gather information on potential foreign agents operating in the US. Today's "International Law" is nothing but pieces of paper that no one is capable of enforcing. The US could probably try but I doubt China and Russia would never even contemplate doing such a thing. And of course the European countries don't come close to having the capabilities or will needed to enforce these laws.
Well I did claim significant amounts of money was required for this project. And if any corporation was involved I doubt the plan was presented to the board of directors for a vote. It only takes one person to breech corporate internal security and gain access to any information they need. This is were the money can make the biggest difference.
I have no doubt there were nation state security agencies involved. Groups like ANonymos or Lulz don't even come close to having the capabilites to do something like this. To build and deploy Stuxnet required in-depth knowledge of the PLC systems and centrifuge technical data, 2 valid security certs that were stolen from 2 different companies located in Japan, physical access to get the memory stick into a very secure environment, 2 0-day exploits, and very sophisticated engineers and programmers. The facilities where the memory sticks were first deployed used a 3rd party Russian company who had the contract and access to the systems infected. Siemens, the PLC manufacturer, is a German corporation and would be in the best position to provide in-de[th technical information on their products, and to top it off a sizable amount of money would have been required to pull this off. There are numerous countries with the necessary engineering resources. There are also a lot of countries who have a motive to sabotage the Iranian nuclear program. Some of the Wiki-leaks documents revealed even a number of middle eastern countries had been asking for US help to stop the Iranian program for years. The US and/or Israel "could" have been the ones responsible but there is no definitive evidence that can prove this.
The "hard to dispute" was a mistake on my part. the statement claimed that it is hard to dispute that the US or Israel are the guilty parties which I interpreted as someone saying the US or Israel definitely did it but we can't actually prove it.
"hard to dispute"
Why? What magical insight do you possess that can support this opinion? By the time the phrase "hard to dispute" multiplies and mutates across the Internet millions of times people start thinking of it as a factual statement when it was only someones unsupported opinion. The Internet was supposed to be this great medium for spreading information but instead it's turned into the biggest bullshit spreader ever invented. There is no "true and false" or "right and wrong" anymore there is only "my side and your side" and that's what will end up destroying everything.
The US and Israel have been convicted of releasing that malware without any any proof but that has become SOP all over the world. The US and Israel get blamed for every thing that goes wrong in the world. Usually without a single piece of evidence to support the accusations. The "International Community" should not really be surprised when both the US and Israel give them the finger and recommend they fuck off and take care of their on problems for once.
His work has definitely exposed somes crimes but the question is which ones? I'm guessing Manning would have preferred a little less "crime" exposure.
As far as his actions go why does it require millions of dollars to support the release the purloined data when he could have dumped the entire cache across the Internet for the cost of an Internet connection? And please don't say he gave a damn about any consequences for people included in the data because he didn't and doesn't. His colleagues at Wiki-leaks who raised this issue were either fired or quit the organization. Wiki-leaks certainly didn't pay for the information so why should anyone else have to pony up for access. His shakedown of the global media services doesn't really seem compatible with the picture of someone who just wants to set the truth free. Of course if Wiki-leaks did pay for any of the information upfront I imagine there might be some uncomfortable legal questions raised since prior knowledge could have been considered espionage which would have really created a shit storm where things like extradition and warrants become options.
And 90% of country make up bullshit statistics to add relevancy to their point of view. As an experiment remove all boundary lines and names from a global map and see how many non-Americans can pinpoint the location of Arkansas. I am sure if Iceland ever did anything of consequence more people would take the time focus their attention on it.
Slashdot Mirror
This is not what the proposed hot line is for. Not even close. Any priority bilateral communications between countries used to head off knee jerk or excessive actions due to perceived threats should be encouraged. Even if that communication channel does not solve the problem it is better than nothing. Or maybe you think we should rely on the UN to mediate these issues?
" based on research done at universities; including publicly funded ones"
Universities receive large grants from the drug companies to fund this type of research. New drug development can cost millions of dollars even when there is no guarantee of eventual success. The companies doing this type of work deserve to be able to at least recover their expenses. Patents in the software industry can be ridiculous and harmful to innovation in the extreme but the drug manufacturers have a clear cut reason to take advantage of patents.
"the government can use military force to stop you, because they have greater numbers"
This is absolutely false for the US and every other civilized country on the planet. Sure the military could kill a lot of people but massive human wave attacks launched by those willing to die for their beliefs can over come the military. Guerilla style attacks are rarely successful in removing a government. In a lot of countries, especially the US, I doubt the soldiers would obey orders to kill their own civilians indiscriminately. This has happened recently in both Egypt and Syria and also happened in the old USSR. Members of those militaires refused orders to kill large numbers of civilians. Egypt's entire military supported the protesters against government orders and a lot of Syrian soldiers have also refused to obey orders to kill their own countrymen. If the Chinese civilians every realize this fact they could successfully take down their government if pushed into a corner. That's why the Chinese government tries to offer more freedoms than your classic communist or non-elected type governments. If the people in Iraq during the Saddam era were so oppressed they could have removed him from power. The Iranians could also do the same thing if they realized and accepted that meaningful change requires sacrifice and were truly determined to change their governments. If you are being oppressed and denied basic freedoms by your government it takes more than a protest march or Internet campaigns to make real changes. However, the most important thing you need to do before making the ultimate sacrifices to take down a government is to have a clear plan of action to put in place after the current government falls. Even if these plans are temporary to ensure the countries basic operations remain in tact.
If we ever intend to do any real orbital or space based manufacturing it will most likely depend on advances and confidence in robotic technologies. A project like the one in the article is just a small step towards that goal. We have already proven we can control robots as far away as Mars for simple exploration. To me the technology involved in actually deploying and directing the Mars rovers has always been more interesting than anything discovered so far.
If the US stops buying or goes bust it will take the rest of the world down with it. It will make the EU debacle look like a simple home mortgage re-finance. The US economy is not in recession and the government is no were close to defaulting on any loans like some of the EU countries currently going through bad times. There has been growth each quarter but that growth has been less than forecast.
China did not extend US credit. They purchased government bonds and securities for secure investments. US investments are still considered one of the safest places for foreign countries to park and grow their cash. Even with all of China's investments to date they amount to only 6% of outstanding bonds and securities. And while we are at it how about we interject a few more facts? The US is still the largest economy and the number #1 manufacturer in the world even after we have supposedly sent all our jobs overseas. China has narrowed the gap, and may one day become the largest but but they have started running into problems just like the US subsidizing the renewable energy market and they are facing more competition from the other southeast Asian countries who can pay slave wages to compete. China may one day reach #1 but they have population of 1.3 billion compared to the US population of 300 million. They should be able to produce more but for some reason they have not quite got the hang of it yet.
I don't believe I said the US won the war by themselves.. It was the weather and Hitlers refusal to provide additional resources that beat the Germans.
The US did provide large amounts of steel, oil, fuel, and food to assist Russia. Without a western front it would have taken Russia longer to win but it would have been a close thing. With out the western front Hitler could have used the resources from of all the countries they had conquered, There would never have been a western front without the US. None of the major European powers were capable of pushing the Germans out of their countries. England did not have the resources to attempt an invasion of mainland Europe. France had an active resistant movement but they were not strong enough to eject the Germans. US casualties were lower than those of Russia and all of the other countries involved but the US casualties were created by fighting on foreign soil. Had the battles taken place in the US the casualties would have been higher.
I think you are close to getting your wish. The upcoming Presidential elections have already shown that the candidates in both the Democrat and Republican parties are being forced to support policies that put America first. Everything from moving to a non-interventionist foreign policy to eliminating government monetary aid to any foreign countries or international organizations are very popular positions.
Russia started off as an allie of Germany. It wasn't until after Hitler invaded their country that Stalin had a change of heart. The US supplied them with the materials and support they needed to bring their military up to something capable of taking on Germany. Without that initial support Germany would have goosed stepped into Moscow waving the Nazi flag. The US also supplied England which kept them from being totally overrun in spite of very specific US laws prohibiting such efforts. FDR basically ignored the wishes of Congress and started initiating programs to make sure England survived and that the US would be able to create and mobilize the military for the fight he knew was coming. If the US had not emerged from WW2 victoriously and FDR had still been alive he would have been impeached. Hell, there were attempts to start the impeachment process even before the US officially entered the war. If the US had not entered the war Germany would not have been forced to divide their resources and fight on 2 fronts.
It was the western Europeans who created the conditions for WW2 by their idiotic demands and sanctions placed on Germany after WW1. It was England who negotiated away territory to Germany and ignored mutual defense treaties with European countries such as Poland and Belgium that allowed Germany to start invading it's neighboring countries. France lost control of their country not because they were cowards or unwilling to fight, they lost because of the fierce political infighting between the Socialists, Fascists, Progressives, Legislaturists, Democratic, and Monarchy political parties. They created a politically fragmented country unable to cooperate in the defense of their own country. France would have most likely lost to Germany even if their military was supported by a united government but I doubt Hitler would have been visiting the Eiffel Tower like a tourist.
Why should the US have taken on the brunt of actions caused by others? Why should US soldiers and civilian seaman merchants have died to defend countries who showed nothing but disdain for the US? If the Europeans were able to ignore the atrocities committed by Hitler why couldn't the US have did the same? The US did not win the war single handily but they did create the conditions which led to that victory and those efforts do not deserve to be considered inconsequential or meaningless.
No one person is responsible for the Internet however DARPA did do the initial legwork in getting the Internet started and US corporations picked up the ball and ran with it. The rest of the world just tapped into the existing Internet and contributed to the international growth of the Internet. Lets also recognize the fact the US is the home of IBM, Sun, MS, Apple, Intel, HP, Motorola, CISCO, Google, and a whole lot of other companies that are overwhelmingly responsible for today's computer technology. What the hell has Europe ponied up besides possibly SAP or Siemens? China contributes cheap labor to mass produce components designed elsewhere while at the same time "borrowing" the technology to create their own implementations without all of the pesky R&D headaches and expenses. Of course all of the US corporations are comprised of not only US citizens but also people from all over the world but the foreign imports came to a country where their skills were in demand.
If anyone has a problem with the US\ICANN control of the root servers they are free to create their own Internet anytime they want. It will be a cold day in hell before any of ICANN's responsibilities are handed over to that band of idiots collectively known as the UN.
Since when has the UN been relevant when a country decides to initiate military actions? If Iran does succeed in building a nuclear weapon it will increase the danger of them being attacked. Nuclear weapons in general are not that big of a deal however the distribution of such devices to non-state actors is dangerous in the extreme and Iran has a history of supporting and arming some of the worst militant movements in the world. Pakistan also falls into the same category but unfortunately they already have nukes and are busy building more.
I wasn't justifying the action I was just pointing out that not ever one interested in probing for weaknesses and exploits are criminals looking to cause damage or engage in theft.
I have been at this game for 26 years and it does not surprise me a bit when I hear of new security threats and exploits being used for fun or criminal purposes. The architecture and technology the entire Internet depends on changes and mutates at a furious rate. What was secure yesterday can be insecure today. How much time are you willing to invest in building and securing an OS or application? It seems like new exploits are being discovered every day on both Windows and Linux based platforms. If these systems were not released until they were certified 100% exploit free would the Internet even exist? OS and application releases would probably be a 5 year cycle. How do you coordinate OS, application, and hardware changes made by multiple vendors and developers to avoid accidently creating exploits when changes are made? Some say that Standards are the key but Standards can also take forever to create and end up adding more time to development and deployment time frames. Standards also have the habit of becoming obsolete as the underlying technology changes. The majority of script kiddie level attacks rely on poor system administration practices and negligent web application developers. The only really good thing about these sorts of problems is the job security it creates. The Un-employment rate may be floating around 9% overall but IT specific unemployment is sitting around 3% and those 3% are probably not even looking for a job.
A lot of guys are just attracted to the challenge. But in today's world it is becoming dangerous to take on new challenges even when no harm is intended. You also need to be good enough to recognize the potential damage you might inadvertently cause. The worm Morris unleashed back in the early 90's was not intended to do what it did. He missed a a pretty simple error in one of the loop events which caused unrestrained replication which eventually brought down a lot of systems.
Usually commercial corporations and most non-security related government agencies rely on simple but thorough background checks to fulfill their due diligence when it comes to security. But that doesn't mean a person with a squeaky clean background and high level security clearance won't change their mind for the right amount of money. I still find internal corporate security measures weak and practically useless for a determined person. There are only a very small handful of corporations I have worked for that took internal security seriously and these corporations were mainly defense contractors.
Just like the last 10% of a software development project usuallyrequires more time than the first 90%,
Bell Labs also used to set the standard in R&D,
"Google it"?
Are you one of the morons who claim "I read it on the Internet so it must be true?". Of course you only give credence to the sources that happen to support your preconceived notions. You most likely do not believe any information on any site that dares challenge the validity of your facts.
Why hasn't Bush been charged with any crime? Maybe because he didn't commit any worth bothering about when honestly compared to every other leader in the world. A US President is charged with protecting US interests first and if some country has a problem with that they are always free to do something about it. Maybe they can send the International Police to the US to arrest Bush. That would quite amusing. But alas that couldn't happen because the international community couldn't find a set of balls at a NBA all-start game to commit such an action. US Presidents have historically ignored parsing legalities when ordering acts they felt were needed to protect US Interests. Lincoln suspended habeas corpus during the Civil War and FDR gave Congress the finger during the fight over whether the US should aid Britain and preparing to get involved in WW2. He also brazenly ignored the wire tapping laws passed by Congress around the same time in order to gather information on potential foreign agents operating in the US. Today's "International Law" is nothing but pieces of paper that no one is capable of enforcing. The US could probably try but I doubt China and Russia would never even contemplate doing such a thing. And of course the European countries don't come close to having the capabilities or will needed to enforce these laws.
Well I did claim significant amounts of money was required for this project. And if any corporation was involved I doubt the plan was presented to the board of directors for a vote. It only takes one person to breech corporate internal security and gain access to any information they need. This is were the money can make the biggest difference.
I have no doubt there were nation state security agencies involved. Groups like ANonymos or Lulz don't even come close to having the capabilites to do something like this. To build and deploy Stuxnet required in-depth knowledge of the PLC systems and centrifuge technical data, 2 valid security certs that were stolen from 2 different companies located in Japan, physical access to get the memory stick into a very secure environment, 2 0-day exploits, and very sophisticated engineers and programmers. The facilities where the memory sticks were first deployed used a 3rd party Russian company who had the contract and access to the systems infected. Siemens, the PLC manufacturer, is a German corporation and would be in the best position to provide in-de[th technical information on their products, and to top it off a sizable amount of money would have been required to pull this off. There are numerous countries with the necessary engineering resources. There are also a lot of countries who have a motive to sabotage the Iranian nuclear program. Some of the Wiki-leaks documents revealed even a number of middle eastern countries had been asking for US help to stop the Iranian program for years. The US and/or Israel "could" have been the ones responsible but there is no definitive evidence that can prove this.
The "hard to dispute" was a mistake on my part. the statement claimed that it is hard to dispute that the US or Israel are the guilty parties which I interpreted as someone saying the US or Israel definitely did it but we can't actually prove it.
I can't wait for the day you get your wish. Seriously.
"hard to dispute"
Why? What magical insight do you possess that can support this opinion? By the time the phrase "hard to dispute" multiplies and mutates across the Internet millions of times people start thinking of it as a factual statement when it was only someones unsupported opinion. The Internet was supposed to be this great medium for spreading information but instead it's turned into the biggest bullshit spreader ever invented. There is no "true and false" or "right and wrong" anymore there is only "my side and your side" and that's what will end up destroying everything.
The US and Israel have been convicted of releasing that malware without any any proof but that has become SOP all over the world. The US and Israel get blamed for every thing that goes wrong in the world. Usually without a single piece of evidence to support the accusations. The "International Community" should not really be surprised when both the US and Israel give them the finger and recommend they fuck off and take care of their on problems for once.
His work has definitely exposed somes crimes but the question is which ones? I'm guessing Manning would have preferred a little less "crime" exposure. As far as his actions go why does it require millions of dollars to support the release the purloined data when he could have dumped the entire cache across the Internet for the cost of an Internet connection? And please don't say he gave a damn about any consequences for people included in the data because he didn't and doesn't. His colleagues at Wiki-leaks who raised this issue were either fired or quit the organization. Wiki-leaks certainly didn't pay for the information so why should anyone else have to pony up for access. His shakedown of the global media services doesn't really seem compatible with the picture of someone who just wants to set the truth free. Of course if Wiki-leaks did pay for any of the information upfront I imagine there might be some uncomfortable legal questions raised since prior knowledge could have been considered espionage which would have really created a shit storm where things like extradition and warrants become options.
And 90% of country make up bullshit statistics to add relevancy to their point of view. As an experiment remove all boundary lines and names from a global map and see how many non-Americans can pinpoint the location of Arkansas. I am sure if Iceland ever did anything of consequence more people would take the time focus their attention on it.