Americans know quite a bit about the outside world. This wouldn't be a big issue if you ignored the people who use anecdotal evidence and conspiracy fantasies to bolster their pre-existing prejudices and bias when forming an opinion on the US.
They are not investigating Assange they are trying to investigate and understand all of the circumstances involved with the illegal distribution of stolen data. The only person being prosecuted in the US is Manning because he is accused of breaking very specific civil and military laws. Any competent investigator would try to uncover where and how the data was distributed. The government has followed the law in trying to obtain this information or it wouldn't have ended up in a public court. If the court had ruled against the request the government could appeal the decision but if their appeals were denied they could not have access to the data. If they ignored the court decision and seized the data it could never be used in court to prosecute anyone and it's most likely any government employees or agents involved in seizing the data would be investigated and most likely charged with a crime. This does not sound like the way a "police state" would operate.
If they are the lords of technology they claim to be why can't they avoid being identified online? If you go after violent people online you should probably lay off bragging about your exploits on Facebook. The government of Mexico can't deal with their drug lords because their officers are usually on the payroll of the drug lords or get killed the minute they are recognized. The US has spent billions on the "war against drugs" that has accomplished nothing but raise the prices which makes the drug dealers even richer. Just like Prohibition in the US created the criminal organizations to make money on illegal alcohol trafficking. Legalization would neutralize these organizations rather quickly. Tax the legal drug sales and we could probably pay off all the US debt in record time.
Who is denying you your Freedom of Speech? The real danger of free speech is when people use it to spread the total bullshit and paranoid delusions included in your post. Free Speech also does not absolve you of the consequences of your speech. If you really want to practice what you are ranting about please post your full name, home address, telephone number, SSN, and your bank account numbers along with the necessary passwords.
1. Business World - A lot of Corporations are totally dependent on the MS stack and the expense of migrating off that stack can be sizable. Try suggesting migrating off Windows and the first question you will be asked is "What will we be able to do that we can't do now?" Costs can include custom application migrations that often require both application and architecture changes even when you attempt to deploy them in a WINE or similar type of VM environment. Add developer and system admin retraining costs or personnel replacements.
2. Job Security - look at the number of MS stack developer positions versus any other OS stack opportunities. If you can't find a MS stack related position chances you are not even looking for a job. If Linux is your speciality and desire you are certainly free to go that route but it can take longer to find a Linux environment you would be happy with.
3. Professional Development - IDE and iffy developer support. I develop for both platforms and these are the 2 main issues that I find annoying.
4. Personal - the average computer user might have a few Linux alternatives when they go shopping for a new computer but most people wanting a Linux box are required to uninstall Windows and then install and configure Linux. Plus your average users are comfortable with their MS and Apple applications. For some people their time is worth the extra money if the need to purchase applications instead of going the open source route.
You can't demand the total ability to delete the stuff you post on Internet discussion threads without incurring some sort of cost. There are already plenty of discussion boards where monitors delete objectionable content in a post and leave it in the discussion thread.
Well if you are really lazy you can always just delete the content contained in the post and leave any keys in place to maintain your referential integrity.
So you think a country led by a total psychopath that used it's very formidable scientific, engineering, and manufacturing capabilities to build the most efficient killing factories in history would not have dropped a nuke if they had one?
And we could just come in a take if things got really bad. The middle eastern oil producers could threaten embargo's like they did back in the 70's but doing something like today is just like sending out engraved invitations for a visit from the US military. Canada is not overwhelmingly dependent on their oil exports. They did just fine before the oil sands were tapped but the middle east and countries like Venezuela are almost 100% dependent on their oil revenues. They couldn't afford the lose of the US market. If they cut off the US sales the price per barrel would go down to $20 a barrel. Mean while the US would expand drilling operations. The US knows where the oil depostis are located but the political pressure from environmentalists would disappear if the US found themselves with no imports. The US ceased aggressive domestic oil drilling operations because it was cheaper to import it.
"Why do Europeans always hold us up as the poster child for rampant xenophobia?" Because they actually believe everything they see in the movies and it makes them feel better about themselves. They also think the only news media outlet in the US is Fox. For some strange reason they think the Internet based news outlets are a state secret and the US citizens are being prevented from accessing them. In reality the US is comprised of the most ethnically, racially,diverse, and integrated population on the entire planet. Go to any medium to large size city and you will find areas that are voluntarily dominated by nationality and ethnicity. You have Chinese (China Town), Italians (Little Italy), Koreans, South Americans, Cubans, Mexicans (sub sect of South American), Russians, and any other ethnic groups who have made there way to the US. You will find every type of religion from paganism to Roman Catholic spread across the entire country. The US has more Mosque's than most of the middle east combined. When not killing westerners the Muslims in the middle east usually like to concentrate on killing each other over the Sunni and Shia doctrinal differences. Even England has had more than a few conflicts over Catholics versus Protestants. I can't really envision the Methodists going after the Baptists in the US killing each other over doctrinal differences. Europeans (and pretty much everyone else in the world) are fond of using anecdotal incidents to brand the entire country as bigots, morons, bible thumpers, and xenophobes. Sure there have been racial and ethnicity fueled demonstrations and violent incidents in US history but they are minuscule when compared across the entire history of the country. Europe likes to complain about Americans not learning foreign languages but take a close look at a world map and you will see there really has not been a reason for Americans to learn any foreign languages with the possible exception of Spanish. Ever damn country in Europe has a different language and if you expect to live in the area you need to learn at least some of them. It would be like each US state having it's own language and if that was the case learning a foreign language would be carry more weight on the to do list. All the criticism being directed at the US is starting to filter down to the general population and they are starting to reciprocate that disdain and hatred to the rest of the world. There is a reason the UN is despised by a majority of the US citizens and that percentage is growing daily. The politicians currently attacking the UN and anything related to the UN would not be taking that position if they believed it would cost them politically. The US. like every other country has the same problems and challenges but most of the criticism hurled at the US is based on pure propaganda and misinformation and this is pushing us down the path to conflict, hostility, and eventually violence. Hopefully I will be good and dead before smart phones have radiation level detection apps.
The Arabs are far better liars then Netanyahu could ever be. When is the last time any Arab leader told the truth about anything? They have been practicing the art of lying for centuries on their own populations so lying to outside world presents no problems at all. And when they are caught lying they can always fall back on their religious indoctrination which validates lying to the infidels.
You certainly can't find a bigger shakedown artist then the EU business regulation committees. An unelected body who are virtually immune to any graft and bribery investigations.
Yes, In the past pensions were much better than 401K plans but these types of plans are disappearing rapidly. The volatility in today''s economic system makes it harder for companies to adopt these types of financial instruments. 60+ years ago there were no derivatives, junk bonds, computerized stock trading that rewards the trading more than what is actually being traded, or any of the other dodgy and risky financial instruments causing havoc today. I would love to have the old style pension plans instead of a 401K but it is hard to see how old style pension plans can realistically survive when the financial landscape is so erratic and uncertain. Maybe corporations of a certain size should be required to provide these types of pension plans in return for providing tax breaks and access to the US market and economic system. Such a plan would be very popular and would show that the government can place the average worker above the corporations. Access to the US market is a big sledge hammer and using it as a club to force a change in corporate behavior should not be out of the question. There is not a single medium or large corporation today that can survive without access to the US market for their goods and services. It's time someone took advantage of this.
Re:Only "troubled" if you're not Lockheed Martin
on
The F-35 Story
·
· Score: 1
"I think most other countries would be glad if you kept the fuck out of their business" Great, then we are in total agreement! Of course to be totally fair this uninvolvement would have to include stopping US government monetary aid and ancillary support assets such as military transportation services for natural disasters, all trade agreements should be bilateral, close down all foreign military bases, abrogate any existing defense treaties unless those in need of help explicitly ask for help in writing and are willing to pay an invoice for services rendered including a suitable down payment of course, eliminate financial aid of ANY kind, and yes I am including Israel, they are more than capable of kicking the shit out of their adversaries whenever necessary and without being subject to any US moderation they can finally finish the job that they were forced to abandon in 67 and 73, and finally move the UN to some other country willing to put up with their constant bullshit and let them fund themselves without the US. If people need international humanitarian assistance private US citizens are free to pick up the slack whenever they want to. Of course there are bound to be problems in implementing these measures but in this case the ends would definitely justify the means.
Pension funds are vulnerable and closely tied to the companies fund management. Pension funds get looted and devalued when a company goes bankrupt because their Pension fund managers usually invest the funds in the companies own stock. 401K and Ira's at least allow the employee some control over how his retirement savings are being invested. You can chose from savings account return rates to more risky higher return options. A lot of companies also include some percentage of matching funds in their 401K's. 401K's also lower the taxes applied to your paycheck and if you do not try and use your 401k funds before retirement the amount of taxes you pay in the future are still less than the amount of taxes you would have paid in your paychecks. If you are a true paranoid you can set up multiple savings accounts that only contain the amount of money the government guarantees in case of bank failures. Your interest earned would be low but your funds will be relatively secure.
Re:Only "troubled" if you're not Lockheed Martin
on
The F-35 Story
·
· Score: 1
As I said above I mistakingly used Tornadoes instead of Harriers. And there is certainly nothing wrong with one country leaning in a situation such as this war. However, I am surprised any country would trust the French when buying any of their weapon systems knowing the French would stab them in the back at the first opportunity. But evidently Mitterrand was intimidated by Thatcher. That woman had more balls than most of the leaders during that era.
Re:Only "troubled" if you're not Lockheed Martin
on
The F-35 Story
·
· Score: 1
There wasn't any technology espionage. It was one country calling another to "negotiate" the situation. I am pretty sure the French president knew exactly who he was talking to and since this negotiation took place pretty much in the open it doesn't really qualify as "espionage". You say it was not easy for Argentina to inflict damage to British shipping and personnel then you turn around and state that they sunk one ship, hit and damaged a couple more which caused the British to scuttle one of the vessels and tow the damaged ship back to England for repairs. MI6 might have taken out any Exocet threat on the island but since 99% of the Exocet attacks were launched from aircraft based in Argentina proper I doubt they inflicted any significant damage. Only if the conflict had dragged on would the British have started targeting the military capability within Argentina itself and even then it would have taking Britain close to a year just to get the forces in place to attempt such an attack. Maybe Mi6 should have paid a little more attention before the war started instead of after it was over. The entire conflict was nothing more than a political distraction for a failing Argentinian government. Their politicians gambled that the British would not commit many resources for a war over an insignificant island. They also thought the US would intervene in the situation to prevent hostilities from escalating to open warfare. Obviously the politicians lost their bet. The US response to this particular conflict should serve as a blue print for today's global conflicts. Unless there is a direct and immediate threat to US interests they should just get out of the way and let the antagonists go at each other with a free hand. I am hard pressed to think of a single country that deserves even one US soldier's death in their defense.
Re:Only "troubled" if you're not Lockheed Martin
on
The F-35 Story
·
· Score: 1
Sorry I meant "Harriers". However, even the first generation of Tornadoes would have been no more effective in countering the Exocet threat at the time. The lack of a viable Exocet defense combined with the Brits half assed deployment efforts almost resulted in their defeat. In comparison to today that entire war would have lasted about 15 minutes. A couple B-2 sorties armed with JDAMS and area denial ordinance would have did the job and when they were done they could have immediately returned to their US bases.
Re:Only "troubled" if you're not Lockheed Martin
on
The F-35 Story
·
· Score: 4, Interesting
That's why the US isn't selling F-22's to anyone. No doubt the F-35 shares a great deal of tech with F-22 but the F-22 advanced and integrated computer capabilities are better than anything you will see in the F-35. The F-22 is most likely the last manned fighter the US will ever build as warfare as migrates towards the unmanned aircraft doctrine. Unless some type of inertial damping system is developed the F-22 has already surpassed the limits of what a human pilot can endure.
I have aways wondered if the US went to war with a country we have sold advanced fighter jets and missiles systems to how would the fight come out? I have a strong suspicion that the first time someone tried to lock on to a US fighter with an F-15 we sold them might end up seeing their missile loop back around and start targeting them or just plain misfire. The US black boxes most of the internal tech in their advanced weapon systems and requires all replacement parts and certain maintenance tasks to be overseen by US technicians. The sales contracts also include an inspection provision that allows the US to periodically inspect any of the weapon systems they have sold to the customer. After all what's the big deal since we are all good buddies and faithful allies. Why would anyone object to this requirement? The country manufacturing advanced weaponry for sale would be foolish in the extreme if they did not attempt to make sure the weapons couldn't be used on them. The French sold out Argentina against the British during the Falken Island war by giving England the flight control comm frequency and crypto keys to neutralize the Exocet missiles Argentina had purchased from France. It's not a very big secret that Thatcher contacted the French president at the time requesting the missile codes and making all kinds of subtle threats about what would happen if those codes were not immediately forthcoming. Argentina was sinking British ships with little effort and then suddenly they stopped using the Exocet's. And they didn't run out of them and the British certainly couldn't have stopped them with the equipment they had on hand. The British ships were very vulnerable to the Exocet attacks. The Tornadoes and ship defenses at that time were certainly not capable of shooting down an Exocet.
No they just took me off my intended project and made me the C++ developer for the application. I am not claiming I am some sort of C++ prodigy but I had enough knowledge to build this component. This happened around 8 months ago and to my knowledge they have not recruited or trained any programmers that can handle C++ work. The only other guy with C++ experience, and he was much more knowledgeable than me in C++ re-signed a few weeks after I started for reasons that did not involve this project.
Do you think a companies introduce functionality knowing before hand that it has exploits because they don't care? I would argue the exact opposite because of the time and money companies like MS, and many others as well, have had to expend to secure their systems. The only people quietly applauding security problems, besides those who exploit them for criminal purposes, are the companies who build the tools and sale the products to address security issues. Before the Melissa virus back in the dark ages there was no market for anti-virus products. After the virus was released it created a new and profitable industry overnight. I have always wondered if the person behind the Melissa virus had intended this to happen for the specific purpose of reaping the financial rewards. There have to be compromises and risk factors applied in any OS or application being developed. If no one released an OS because it *might* be exploitable there would not be a single OS in use. The font exploit vector in this thread requires manipulating the delivery method and getting specific user actions to activate the exploit. If you are talking about the overall security of the current state of all PC software architectures you could be correct. But how do you go about introducing a whole new paradigm and design architecture while still being able to support existing applications? At some point there will be a consumer OS that is designed from the ground up with no attempt to provide any backwards application compatibility but that won't be happening anytime soon. Even using a VM based approach which basically sandboxes the current operating systems and application processes require changes in the existing software systems. The heart of the matter is that a computers only purpose is to execute programs and malware falls into that category. The difficulty is trying to determine what operations are safe and what operations are not. When you get down to most basic OS level this determination becomes hard to identify.
I agree that they both contribute. I mentioned this specifically in my post. However wasn't C/C++ created before Java? If that is the case then the Java designers had something to compare their efforts against during the creation phase. I'm not claiming that the Java creators just copied certain aspects of the C/C++ language but they did have the opportunity to study any C/C++ weaknesses during their design efforts. On another note I just worked on a multiple tier application that required the creation of a C++ API and the company I did this for only had 2 developers in the whole company who could work were proficient that language. And this company has about 300 developers who worked on nothing except the.NET languages and Javascript. I was very surprised by this. One of the main requirements for the C++ layer was to create an easy to abstract and implement the API so C# developers could use it in their work without having to add or even really understand what the C++ functionality was actually doing.
Slashdot Mirror
Americans know quite a bit about the outside world. This wouldn't be a big issue if you ignored the people who use anecdotal evidence and conspiracy fantasies to bolster their pre-existing prejudices and bias when forming an opinion on the US.
They are not investigating Assange they are trying to investigate and understand all of the circumstances involved with the illegal distribution of stolen data. The only person being prosecuted in the US is Manning because he is accused of breaking very specific civil and military laws. Any competent investigator would try to uncover where and how the data was distributed. The government has followed the law in trying to obtain this information or it wouldn't have ended up in a public court. If the court had ruled against the request the government could appeal the decision but if their appeals were denied they could not have access to the data. If they ignored the court decision and seized the data it could never be used in court to prosecute anyone and it's most likely any government employees or agents involved in seizing the data would be investigated and most likely charged with a crime. This does not sound like the way a "police state" would operate.
Don't start confusing people with facts it only upsets them.
If they are the lords of technology they claim to be why can't they avoid being identified online? If you go after violent people online you should probably lay off bragging about your exploits on Facebook. The government of Mexico can't deal with their drug lords because their officers are usually on the payroll of the drug lords or get killed the minute they are recognized. The US has spent billions on the "war against drugs" that has accomplished nothing but raise the prices which makes the drug dealers even richer. Just like Prohibition in the US created the criminal organizations to make money on illegal alcohol trafficking. Legalization would neutralize these organizations rather quickly. Tax the legal drug sales and we could probably pay off all the US debt in record time.
Who is denying you your Freedom of Speech? The real danger of free speech is when people use it to spread the total bullshit and paranoid delusions included in your post. Free Speech also does not absolve you of the consequences of your speech. If you really want to practice what you are ranting about please post your full name, home address, telephone number, SSN, and your bank account numbers along with the necessary passwords.
1. Business World - A lot of Corporations are totally dependent on the MS stack and the expense of migrating off that stack can be sizable. Try suggesting migrating off Windows and the first question you will be asked is "What will we be able to do that we can't do now?" Costs can include custom application migrations that often require both application and architecture changes even when you attempt to deploy them in a WINE or similar type of VM environment. Add developer and system admin retraining costs or personnel replacements.
2. Job Security - look at the number of MS stack developer positions versus any other OS stack opportunities. If you can't find a MS stack related position chances you are not even looking for a job. If Linux is your speciality and desire you are certainly free to go that route but it can take longer to find a Linux environment you would be happy with.
3. Professional Development - IDE and iffy developer support. I develop for both platforms and these are the 2 main issues that I find annoying.
4. Personal - the average computer user might have a few Linux alternatives when they go shopping for a new computer but most people wanting a Linux box are required to uninstall Windows and then install and configure Linux. Plus your average users are comfortable with their MS and Apple applications. For some people their time is worth the extra money if the need to purchase applications instead of going the open source route.
You can't demand the total ability to delete the stuff you post on Internet discussion threads without incurring some sort of cost. There are already plenty of discussion boards where monitors delete objectionable content in a post and leave it in the discussion thread.
Well if you are really lazy you can always just delete the content contained in the post and leave any keys in place to maintain your referential integrity.
So you think a country led by a total psychopath that used it's very formidable scientific, engineering, and manufacturing capabilities to build the most efficient killing factories in history would not have dropped a nuke if they had one?
And we could just come in a take if things got really bad. The middle eastern oil producers could threaten embargo's like they did back in the 70's but doing something like today is just like sending out engraved invitations for a visit from the US military. Canada is not overwhelmingly dependent on their oil exports. They did just fine before the oil sands were tapped but the middle east and countries like Venezuela are almost 100% dependent on their oil revenues. They couldn't afford the lose of the US market. If they cut off the US sales the price per barrel would go down to $20 a barrel. Mean while the US would expand drilling operations. The US knows where the oil depostis are located but the political pressure from environmentalists would disappear if the US found themselves with no imports. The US ceased aggressive domestic oil drilling operations because it was cheaper to import it.
I have a hard enough time just typing this shit on my little phone keyboard.
"Why do Europeans always hold us up as the poster child for rampant xenophobia?" Because they actually believe everything they see in the movies and it makes them feel better about themselves. They also think the only news media outlet in the US is Fox. For some strange reason they think the Internet based news outlets are a state secret and the US citizens are being prevented from accessing them. In reality the US is comprised of the most ethnically, racially,diverse, and integrated population on the entire planet. Go to any medium to large size city and you will find areas that are voluntarily dominated by nationality and ethnicity. You have Chinese (China Town), Italians (Little Italy), Koreans, South Americans, Cubans, Mexicans (sub sect of South American), Russians, and any other ethnic groups who have made there way to the US. You will find every type of religion from paganism to Roman Catholic spread across the entire country. The US has more Mosque's than most of the middle east combined. When not killing westerners the Muslims in the middle east usually like to concentrate on killing each other over the Sunni and Shia doctrinal differences. Even England has had more than a few conflicts over Catholics versus Protestants. I can't really envision the Methodists going after the Baptists in the US killing each other over doctrinal differences. Europeans (and pretty much everyone else in the world) are fond of using anecdotal incidents to brand the entire country as bigots, morons, bible thumpers, and xenophobes. Sure there have been racial and ethnicity fueled demonstrations and violent incidents in US history but they are minuscule when compared across the entire history of the country. Europe likes to complain about Americans not learning foreign languages but take a close look at a world map and you will see there really has not been a reason for Americans to learn any foreign languages with the possible exception of Spanish. Ever damn country in Europe has a different language and if you expect to live in the area you need to learn at least some of them. It would be like each US state having it's own language and if that was the case learning a foreign language would be carry more weight on the to do list. All the criticism being directed at the US is starting to filter down to the general population and they are starting to reciprocate that disdain and hatred to the rest of the world. There is a reason the UN is despised by a majority of the US citizens and that percentage is growing daily. The politicians currently attacking the UN and anything related to the UN would not be taking that position if they believed it would cost them politically. The US. like every other country has the same problems and challenges but most of the criticism hurled at the US is based on pure propaganda and misinformation and this is pushing us down the path to conflict, hostility, and eventually violence. Hopefully I will be good and dead before smart phones have radiation level detection apps.
The Arabs are far better liars then Netanyahu could ever be. When is the last time any Arab leader told the truth about anything? They have been practicing the art of lying for centuries on their own populations so lying to outside world presents no problems at all. And when they are caught lying they can always fall back on their religious indoctrination which validates lying to the infidels.
This decision is low risk politically. The average citizen,voters, and legislators do not even understand what "net neutrality" means.
You certainly can't find a bigger shakedown artist then the EU business regulation committees. An unelected body who are virtually immune to any graft and bribery investigations.
Yes, In the past pensions were much better than 401K plans but these types of plans are disappearing rapidly. The volatility in today''s economic system makes it harder for companies to adopt these types of financial instruments. 60+ years ago there were no derivatives, junk bonds, computerized stock trading that rewards the trading more than what is actually being traded, or any of the other dodgy and risky financial instruments causing havoc today. I would love to have the old style pension plans instead of a 401K but it is hard to see how old style pension plans can realistically survive when the financial landscape is so erratic and uncertain. Maybe corporations of a certain size should be required to provide these types of pension plans in return for providing tax breaks and access to the US market and economic system. Such a plan would be very popular and would show that the government can place the average worker above the corporations. Access to the US market is a big sledge hammer and using it as a club to force a change in corporate behavior should not be out of the question. There is not a single medium or large corporation today that can survive without access to the US market for their goods and services. It's time someone took advantage of this.
"I think most other countries would be glad if you kept the fuck out of their business" Great, then we are in total agreement! Of course to be totally fair this uninvolvement would have to include stopping US government monetary aid and ancillary support assets such as military transportation services for natural disasters, all trade agreements should be bilateral, close down all foreign military bases, abrogate any existing defense treaties unless those in need of help explicitly ask for help in writing and are willing to pay an invoice for services rendered including a suitable down payment of course, eliminate financial aid of ANY kind, and yes I am including Israel, they are more than capable of kicking the shit out of their adversaries whenever necessary and without being subject to any US moderation they can finally finish the job that they were forced to abandon in 67 and 73, and finally move the UN to some other country willing to put up with their constant bullshit and let them fund themselves without the US. If people need international humanitarian assistance private US citizens are free to pick up the slack whenever they want to. Of course there are bound to be problems in implementing these measures but in this case the ends would definitely justify the means.
Pension funds are vulnerable and closely tied to the companies fund management. Pension funds get looted and devalued when a company goes bankrupt because their Pension fund managers usually invest the funds in the companies own stock. 401K and Ira's at least allow the employee some control over how his retirement savings are being invested. You can chose from savings account return rates to more risky higher return options. A lot of companies also include some percentage of matching funds in their 401K's. 401K's also lower the taxes applied to your paycheck and if you do not try and use your 401k funds before retirement the amount of taxes you pay in the future are still less than the amount of taxes you would have paid in your paychecks. If you are a true paranoid you can set up multiple savings accounts that only contain the amount of money the government guarantees in case of bank failures. Your interest earned would be low but your funds will be relatively secure.
As I said above I mistakingly used Tornadoes instead of Harriers. And there is certainly nothing wrong with one country leaning in a situation such as this war. However, I am surprised any country would trust the French when buying any of their weapon systems knowing the French would stab them in the back at the first opportunity. But evidently Mitterrand was intimidated by Thatcher. That woman had more balls than most of the leaders during that era.
There wasn't any technology espionage. It was one country calling another to "negotiate" the situation. I am pretty sure the French president knew exactly who he was talking to and since this negotiation took place pretty much in the open it doesn't really qualify as "espionage". You say it was not easy for Argentina to inflict damage to British shipping and personnel then you turn around and state that they sunk one ship, hit and damaged a couple more which caused the British to scuttle one of the vessels and tow the damaged ship back to England for repairs. MI6 might have taken out any Exocet threat on the island but since 99% of the Exocet attacks were launched from aircraft based in Argentina proper I doubt they inflicted any significant damage. Only if the conflict had dragged on would the British have started targeting the military capability within Argentina itself and even then it would have taking Britain close to a year just to get the forces in place to attempt such an attack. Maybe Mi6 should have paid a little more attention before the war started instead of after it was over. The entire conflict was nothing more than a political distraction for a failing Argentinian government. Their politicians gambled that the British would not commit many resources for a war over an insignificant island. They also thought the US would intervene in the situation to prevent hostilities from escalating to open warfare. Obviously the politicians lost their bet. The US response to this particular conflict should serve as a blue print for today's global conflicts. Unless there is a direct and immediate threat to US interests they should just get out of the way and let the antagonists go at each other with a free hand. I am hard pressed to think of a single country that deserves even one US soldier's death in their defense.
Sorry I meant "Harriers". However, even the first generation of Tornadoes would have been no more effective in countering the Exocet threat at the time. The lack of a viable Exocet defense combined with the Brits half assed deployment efforts almost resulted in their defeat. In comparison to today that entire war would have lasted about 15 minutes. A couple B-2 sorties armed with JDAMS and area denial ordinance would have did the job and when they were done they could have immediately returned to their US bases.
That's why the US isn't selling F-22's to anyone. No doubt the F-35 shares a great deal of tech with F-22 but the F-22 advanced and integrated computer capabilities are better than anything you will see in the F-35. The F-22 is most likely the last manned fighter the US will ever build as warfare as migrates towards the unmanned aircraft doctrine. Unless some type of inertial damping system is developed the F-22 has already surpassed the limits of what a human pilot can endure. I have aways wondered if the US went to war with a country we have sold advanced fighter jets and missiles systems to how would the fight come out? I have a strong suspicion that the first time someone tried to lock on to a US fighter with an F-15 we sold them might end up seeing their missile loop back around and start targeting them or just plain misfire. The US black boxes most of the internal tech in their advanced weapon systems and requires all replacement parts and certain maintenance tasks to be overseen by US technicians. The sales contracts also include an inspection provision that allows the US to periodically inspect any of the weapon systems they have sold to the customer. After all what's the big deal since we are all good buddies and faithful allies. Why would anyone object to this requirement? The country manufacturing advanced weaponry for sale would be foolish in the extreme if they did not attempt to make sure the weapons couldn't be used on them. The French sold out Argentina against the British during the Falken Island war by giving England the flight control comm frequency and crypto keys to neutralize the Exocet missiles Argentina had purchased from France. It's not a very big secret that Thatcher contacted the French president at the time requesting the missile codes and making all kinds of subtle threats about what would happen if those codes were not immediately forthcoming. Argentina was sinking British ships with little effort and then suddenly they stopped using the Exocet's. And they didn't run out of them and the British certainly couldn't have stopped them with the equipment they had on hand. The British ships were very vulnerable to the Exocet attacks. The Tornadoes and ship defenses at that time were certainly not capable of shooting down an Exocet.
No they just took me off my intended project and made me the C++ developer for the application. I am not claiming I am some sort of C++ prodigy but I had enough knowledge to build this component. This happened around 8 months ago and to my knowledge they have not recruited or trained any programmers that can handle C++ work. The only other guy with C++ experience, and he was much more knowledgeable than me in C++ re-signed a few weeks after I started for reasons that did not involve this project.
Do you think a companies introduce functionality knowing before hand that it has exploits because they don't care? I would argue the exact opposite because of the time and money companies like MS, and many others as well, have had to expend to secure their systems. The only people quietly applauding security problems, besides those who exploit them for criminal purposes, are the companies who build the tools and sale the products to address security issues. Before the Melissa virus back in the dark ages there was no market for anti-virus products. After the virus was released it created a new and profitable industry overnight. I have always wondered if the person behind the Melissa virus had intended this to happen for the specific purpose of reaping the financial rewards. There have to be compromises and risk factors applied in any OS or application being developed. If no one released an OS because it *might* be exploitable there would not be a single OS in use. The font exploit vector in this thread requires manipulating the delivery method and getting specific user actions to activate the exploit. If you are talking about the overall security of the current state of all PC software architectures you could be correct. But how do you go about introducing a whole new paradigm and design architecture while still being able to support existing applications? At some point there will be a consumer OS that is designed from the ground up with no attempt to provide any backwards application compatibility but that won't be happening anytime soon. Even using a VM based approach which basically sandboxes the current operating systems and application processes require changes in the existing software systems. The heart of the matter is that a computers only purpose is to execute programs and malware falls into that category. The difficulty is trying to determine what operations are safe and what operations are not. When you get down to most basic OS level this determination becomes hard to identify.
I agree that they both contribute. I mentioned this specifically in my post. However wasn't C/C++ created before Java? If that is the case then the Java designers had something to compare their efforts against during the creation phase. I'm not claiming that the Java creators just copied certain aspects of the C/C++ language but they did have the opportunity to study any C/C++ weaknesses during their design efforts. On another note I just worked on a multiple tier application that required the creation of a C++ API and the company I did this for only had 2 developers in the whole company who could work were proficient that language. And this company has about 300 developers who worked on nothing except the .NET languages and Javascript. I was very surprised by this. One of the main requirements for the C++ layer was to create an easy to abstract and implement the API so C# developers could use it in their work without having to add or even really understand what the C++ functionality was actually doing.