China has to buy US bonds. They mangage/manipulate their currency so that there is effectively a huge discount to all products and services in China. This discount on *everything* is what really drives relocating manufacturing to China not so much wages.
To force the exchange rate to a level that provides this effective discount they need to control the US dollars in their economy. So all the merchants/suppliers being paid is US dollars need to sell those dollars to the gov't and then the gov't needs to remove these dollars from the economy. Buying US bonds does this through the magic of international accounting.
Yes, this is an accounting trick but this is how the calculation of exchange rates work. At least that's how our macro econ professor explained things a few years ago. China can't stop buying US Bonds because then it would lose control of the exchange rate and lose its primary competitive advantage.
So the question that was asked wasn't whether it is Russian territory or not, but whether they were willing to send their children die to "return" it. I don't think you can reasonably make any conclusions from this.
One absolutely can given that Russians have historically endured great sacrifice to protect **Russian** soil. So either Russians have changed their attitudes and will no longer make such sacrifices for Russian soil, very very doubtful, or they don't consider the Ukraine to truly be Russian soil requiring such a sacrifice.
Especially given that a popular attitude in Russia today seems to be that Ukraine is a failed state in the making, and once it fails for good, Russia can just come in and pick up the pieces that it lays claim on...
That theory seems to fail given the level of active Russian interference in Ukrainian affairs. If it were truly on the path to failure such heavy handled Kremlin intervention would not be necessary. However a re-alignment of political and economic interest from Moscow and towards the west could motivate such intervention. In other words the real fear is a western oriented successful state not a failed state.
You misinterpret history. Russians will endure great sacrifice to defend *Russian* soil. They won't tolerate the same to take over a part of the Ukraine.
Thing is, a historical perspective on this that has always been present in Russia, and that has been enjoying a very strong resurgence lately, is that Ukraine is Russian soil.
Maybe Crimea but not Ukraine. According to a recent survey over 50% of Russians surveyed approve of Crimea being returned to Russia. However when the question turned to whether they thought it worth it to send theirs sons to fight in the Ukraine for the the pro-Moscow militants over 60% said no. The attitude towards Ukraine is overwhelmingly that it is a "brother country" not Russian territory.
more importantly Russia can't afford to lose many tank crews due to internal public opinion
With respect, if you knew anything about Russia you would know that their greatest historical heroes sacrificed large numbers of Russians to achieve their aims. That still applies in the modern day with things like the reaction to a school hostage situation a few years ago. They celebrate as a great victory the drowning of the Teutonic Knights by sinking them into a frozen river under the weight of Russian corpses FFS. They don't mind a few dead heroes.
You misinterpret history. Russians will endure great sacrifice to defend *Russian* soil. They won't tolerate the same to take over a part of the Ukraine. And if you had paid attention to news reports you would have heard about the protests by families of Russian paratroopers and news blackout the Kremlin imposed regarding paratroopers killed in action. The Kremlin is trying to minimize the perception of casualties for a very good reason, a very internal domestic reason.
It won't help them against the Russian military, the numbers speak against them.
Numbers can be a tricky thing. The Russians send in 100 tanks, the Ukraine receives 600 FGM-148 Javelin man-portable anti-tank missiles. It attacks from above to go for thinner armor and it can defeat reactive armor. Both sides have invested about the same amount of money, the tanks are highly vulnerable, and more importantly Russia can't afford to lose many tank crews due to internal public opinion.
But Steve chose, mentored and recommended an open gay as a successor. That is not how they do things in the Kremlin. Only the closeted gays are allowed to advanced to the leadership in the Kremlin.
You know without someone like Stalin at the helm, the USSR might not have survived WWII. Cold, brutal, but effective:( Clearly the man was a monster -- but I think people forget that the bulk of the fighting in Europe during WWII was on the eastern front, not the western; by the time D day happened, the Germans had mostly been defanged, by the Russians.
While it is true that the bulk of the fighting was on the eastern front this did not occur in isolation. Allied fighting in Africa caused armored forces to be diverted from the invasion of the Soviet Union to Africa. In particular this included the one German commander who would and could get away with openly defying Hitler's orders. Field Marshal Rommel. A commander of such stature and trust in the German military that when Rommel asked an SS general what he would do if his (Rommel's) order contradicted Hitler's the officer replied that he would follow Rommel's order. There were numerous examples where SS officers of various ranks in fact did follow knowingly contradictory orders of Rommel. Imagine such a commander on the eastern front where idiotic orders of Hitler were followed and hundred of thousands of German troops were killed or captured.
Now consider the Italian campaign where Italy surrendered and Germany was forced to commit and tie down elite units with brilliant commanders in order to slow the allied advance up the Italian peninsula. These German forces fought brilliantly and extracted a high cost for their retreats.
Now consider the forces tied down in France. Add to this the enormous and unknown reserves that were created and used with surprise at the Battle of the Bulge.
In short the allied actions in Africa, Italy and France/Holland/Belgium/etc greatly aided the eastern front by removing massive forces and perhaps key commanders.
Now consider the US aid supplied to the Soviet Union. Without early US aid the Red Army may have starved. Without US aid the Soviets would not have had the steel to build the magnificent T-34 tanks. Without US aid the Soviets would not have had the tank busting aircraft like the P-39 Air Cobra at key moments. The Soviets hid for many years just how critical this aircraft was. However since the Soviet collapse historian have learned from official Red Army documents just how effective, critical and beloved by its pilots (and the infantry below) these aircraft were.
So yes, the Soviets fought more Germans than the west. And the Soviets certainly suffered far greater casualties, although a bit of those military casualties of that had to do with Stalin's military incompetence. However this was not done in isolation. The west enabled the Soviet victories in many ways.
You know without someone like Stalin at the helm, the USSR might not have survived WWII. Cold, brutal, but effective:( Clearly the man was a monster -- but I think people forget that the bulk of the fighting in Europe during WWII was on the eastern front, not the western; by the time D day happened, the Germans had mostly been defanged, by the Russians.
Stalin did not save the Soviet Union. The Soviet privates, corporals, sergeants, farmers and workers saved the Soviet Union despite Stalin's stupidity.
Stalin was Hitler's secret ally at first. He actually helped start WW2. Stalin's non-aggression treaty with the Nazis had secret parts where Stalin and Hitler agreed to split Poland and other countries, it defined the respective Nazi and Soviet sphere's of influence of Eastern Europe. So Hitler's invasion of Poland, the event that triggered WW2 in Europe, was in fact done with Stalin's blessings. It was not until Hitler invaded the Soviet Union that Stalin fought against Nazism. If the Soviets had a leader that was a true ally of Britain and France and stood against the Nazi's and promised to defend Poland as Britain and France had done there may have been no WW2. Plus with a different leader the Soviets may have fought more effectively during the early parts of the war. Stalin and Hitler were very much alike in many ways. Besides brutal murderous dictators who killed millions of their own people, they erroneously thought themselves military geniuses and through their idiotic orders destroyed their own armies.
To be honest, Stalin expected that the Nazi's would invade, it just happened years before Stalin expected. He ignored one piece of evidence after another indicating an imminent invasion preferring to cling to his earlier personal expectations. His military incompetence was largely covered up, however since the Soviet collapse Red Army records have become available to western historians and his incompetence has been shown to be far greater than imagined. The west was aware of his various pre-war purges that decimated the leadership of the Red Army, officers being selected for loyalty to Stalin rather than military competence, and the previously mentioned self-denial regarding imminent invasion by the Nazis. Today the world knows, via official Red Army communications and unit records/diaries that some of Stalin's so called great military successes were pure propaganda fantasies. For example official Red Army documents show that Stalin did **not** order the Red Army to fall back to draw the Nazi's deeper into Soviet territory, with longer and more difficult to defend supply lines, and draw them into a trap. He actually ordered units to stand and fight at all costs, to not give any ground, much like Hitler did. Again, the two were so much alike. However the Red Army collapsed and retreated in a disorganized and somewhat panicked manner. The Nazi's going too deep and over extending their lines had more to do with Hitler's idiocy of pushing forward at all costs. Both Hitler and Stalin were incompetent military strategists whose idiotic orders destroyed their own armies. The Soviet Union was only saved because of huge reserves it could pull from Asia, including armies from Siberia that were well equipped for brutal winter warfare.
Because people who do not qualify cannot be ordered. You have to lower the criteria, and accept the previously unacceptable, before you can order then to undergo physical training until they are no longer obese.
Lowering the criteria to enter recruit training and maintaining the current criteria for completing recruit training would not change the capabilities of those entering the service. The only real change is higher costs for recruit training. The marginal would just spend more time in recruit training. In the past the services could reduce costs by weeding out the marginal rather than habilitating them. That strategy may not be their best option right now.
In some ways it is similar to the WW2 Women's Auxiliaries that the various services had. The idea back then was to free up a man from a "desk job" so he could be sent to "the front".
That said, if we need a cyber whatever it could be an entirely different branch of service. These specialists could be placed with the military as needed.
... "Buy it for 250% the cost of doing it in house from the contractor with the most congressmen" compromise...
While that is a factor it is exaggerated. The bigger factor, and the military's motivation, in turning to contractors is that fewer recruits have to be used for support and logistics, so more are available for combat specialties.
We are seeing the exact same thing here. Highly technical roles filled by those physically unfit for combat, freeing up those recruits who are physically fit for combat specialties.
In some ways it is a little bit parallel to the various WW2 Women's Auxiliaries for the various services. The idea at that time was to free a man from a desk job so he could go to the field.
Part of the backlash against these celebrities is due to their belief that our idiot politicians need to go write some new laws governing the internet. That is the real tragedy of these leaked photos.
Exactly. If this was close to working, the Republicans would have killed it already like they've killed every other form of clean energy.
Actually its Democrats that kill nuclear research. For example Clinton shutting down various research labs working on next generation reactors.
Democrats do this to appease their brand of science deniers, the far left environmentalists who oppose everything and anything nuclear. Note that not all environmentalists are of this type, some are even former deniers who decided to listen to what actual physicists say rather than what far left environmentalist leaders say on the topic of physics.
These people, the nuclear deniers, really are the left's version of the right's climate deniers. And they do control the Democratic party to a frightful degree.
But you still can't blame everybody else using the official client for sending TO that person just because THEY used a third party service.
Why not? They willingly transmitted data via at least one intermediate party (snapchat itself plus 3rd party clients). If there is anything well known and consistent about the internet it is that private data gets leaked in many unexpected ways. The sender knows the data is sitting on at least snapchat's servers for some indeterminate time frame.
In short the sender knowingly gave control of their private data to an outsider. There is no way to say that the sender does not share some portion of the blame.
"I don't feel sorry for those who thought banks were seriously secure, and two [where's "one?"], who the hell sends dollars to banks and actually thinks other people won't steal them? 1999 called and it wants it's noobs back."
Banks are regulated by the government. Bank deposits are insured by the government. When banks get robbed depositors do not lose money. If you want to refer to "noobish" days when depositors were vulnerable you have to go back long long before 1999.
The US says that hypocritical crap the chinese every other day of the week. Its nothing special.
It is quite special when the Presidents of the US and China are going to meet at a face-to-face summit and the President of the US is going to formally complain about cyber attacks at such a high publicity event.
As to leaks being done to drive a wedge between the US and germany... maybe... rather doubt it.
Whether highly effective or not isn't the important part, the timing itself that can be incriminating. If releases continue to appear strategically timed then coincidental seems less likely and the planned more likely.
As to paying rent, he doesn't need to pay more. Simply causing problems for the US intelligence services for any reason is payment in full.
For intelligence agencies payment in full has not been met until **every** piece of information you have has been shared.
At least the evidence so far implicates recipients as playing a pivotal role, rather than senders.
Wrong. As I speculated, a 3rd party app that sends the images of recipients to a 3rd party website may very well also send images of senders to a 3rd party website.
"SnapSaved was a Web-based client built for Snapchat that allowed users to access “snaps” from a Web browser. However, the service, which according to DNS records ran on a server at the hosting company HostGator, apparently kept all images received or sent by its users without their knowledge." http://arstechnica.com/securit...
I am prepared to forgive it to end this nonsense. Nothing is gained by keeping him out of the country. Bring him in, give him amnesty... and then tell him if he keeps going then he'll be back on the list. its the best option we have left.
The disclosures will most likely continue though. He seems not to be the lone holder of the data nor the keys.
Plus it is very likely Chinese and Russian security services have the info. As I said, he had to pay the rent somehow. The leaks will continue to strategically undermine US efforts. The US and Germany need to cooperate in order to address the crisis in Ukraine, coincidentally its leaked that the US conducted cyber operations against Germany?
It probably as coincidental as the mass surveillance being leaked just as Obama was about to criticize China for Chinese cyber attacks.
Except that the signs point to SnapSaved.com, which only let you receive and save images; sending was to come at a future time, either via webcam or file upload.
Go to Google Play and you will find numerous snapchat clients. It really is premature to say we know the full story.
If a 3rd party app sends a copy of an image to a 3rd party server it may very well do so when sending and receiving. Its premature to say that senders did not directly compromise their own data.
The traitors are all the apparatchiki who routinely violate their oath to the constitution by violating the fourth amendment on a routine basis. Snowden was the only man at the NSA who did his duty.
Your own logic proves you wrong. He did his duty by revealing mass surveillance targeting US civilians. However he **also** violated his oath and committed treason by disclosing cyber operations against China. A country that routinely conducts such operations against the US. So by your criteria, he is a traitor due to the China disclosure. He committed separate acts of disclosure, one commendable and one traitorous.
And we now know how Snowden pays for the rent in China and Russia.
Most of you have it wrong. Its not is he a whistleblower or is he a traitor? Is the situation white or black? The simple truth is that he is now beyond debate **both** a whistleblower and a traitor. The two are not mutually exclusive. The whistleblower actions do not negate the traitorous actions.
Revealing mass surveillance of US citizens is obviously whistleblowing.
However revealing clandestine cyber operations against China, a country that routinely conduct cyber espionage against US commercial, governmental and military computers, is traitorous.
Plus it makes it more difficult to blow off as a coincidence the fact that he revealed the mass surveillance just as President Obama was about to publicly criticize China for cyber espionage actions against the US; and he fled to China for sanctuary and protection - something that would come with a price tag given the diplomatic heat China would take. These facts are a bit less tin-foil-hat than there were previously.
We are now seeing how Snowden paid the rent in China and Russia.
The Quale joke doesn't work so well when you substitute someone quite well know, Kennedy, with someone who few (even among geeks) have heard of. Many readers recognized the joke but were thinking "who the f*** is Hans Reiser?"
As for those who knew who Hans Reiser was, they were thinking that the reformulated joke didn't make sense. The original joke was a put down, saying that Quail is no war hero, scholar and statesman. The reformulated joke is saying that Lennart is not someone who abuses and murders his wife. The reformulated joke was ill thought out.
So it's all about Obama? What about Bush. Talking about anything having to do with Iraq and not framing the situation with the Bush invasion is like talking about the sinking of the Titanic and never saying the word iceberg.
You are missing the point, not unlike Obama. It is irrelevant whether the 2003 invasions was right or wrong. It is irrelevant as to why the al qaeda types are in Iraq. The only relevant facts are that they are the true enemy as Obama admits and that they are now in Iraq. Ignoring Iraq now is pretty much similar to taking our focus off Afghanistan in 2003, which Obama considers a mistake.
Obama already admitted that there was a US intelligence failure in understanding the fast rise of ISIS.
Actually the failure was in his judgment. We sort of have a repeat of the "Bin Laden to attack US" memo circa 2001. Intelligence agencies were warning the Obama but Obama is dogmatically incapable of taking the actions required by the threat in Iraq.
From the liberal NY Times:
"By late last year, classified American intelligence reports painted an increasingly ominous picture of a growing threat from Sunni extremists in Syria, according to senior intelligence and military officials. Just as worrisome, they said, were reports of deteriorating readiness and morale among troops next door in Iraq.
But the reports, they said, generated little attention in a White House consumed with multiple brush fires and reluctant to be drawn back into Iraq. “Some of us were pushing the reporting, but the White House just didn’t pay attention to it,” said a senior American intelligence official. “They were preoccupied with other crises,” the official added. “This just wasn’t a big priority.”
"
Stalin and Hitler signed a a non-aggression pact, that's a far cry from being allies as you state.
Are you by chance reading from a pre-1989 Soviet history book with respect to the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact? If so you might want to find another history book.
"In addition to stipulations of non-aggression, the treaty included a secret protocol that divided territories of Romania, Poland, Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia and Finland into Nazi and Soviet "spheres of influence", anticipating potential "territorial and political rearrangements" of these countries. Thereafter, Germany invaded Poland on 1 September 1939. After the Soviet-Japanese ceasefire agreement took effect on 16 September, Stalin ordered his own invasion of Poland on 17 September. Part of southeastern (Karelia) and Salla region in Finland were annexed by the Soviet Union after the Winter War. This was followed by Soviet annexations of Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, and parts of Romania (Bessarabia, Northern Bukovina and the Hertza region). It was only in 1989 that the Soviet authorities admitted the existence of the secret protocol of the Nazi-Soviet Pact" http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M...–Ribbentrop_Pact
Slashdot Mirror
China has to buy US bonds. They mangage/manipulate their currency so that there is effectively a huge discount to all products and services in China. This discount on *everything* is what really drives relocating manufacturing to China not so much wages.
To force the exchange rate to a level that provides this effective discount they need to control the US dollars in their economy. So all the merchants/suppliers being paid is US dollars need to sell those dollars to the gov't and then the gov't needs to remove these dollars from the economy. Buying US bonds does this through the magic of international accounting.
Yes, this is an accounting trick but this is how the calculation of exchange rates work. At least that's how our macro econ professor explained things a few years ago. China can't stop buying US Bonds because then it would lose control of the exchange rate and lose its primary competitive advantage.
So the question that was asked wasn't whether it is Russian territory or not, but whether they were willing to send their children die to "return" it. I don't think you can reasonably make any conclusions from this.
One absolutely can given that Russians have historically endured great sacrifice to protect **Russian** soil. So either Russians have changed their attitudes and will no longer make such sacrifices for Russian soil, very very doubtful, or they don't consider the Ukraine to truly be Russian soil requiring such a sacrifice.
Especially given that a popular attitude in Russia today seems to be that Ukraine is a failed state in the making, and once it fails for good, Russia can just come in and pick up the pieces that it lays claim on ...
That theory seems to fail given the level of active Russian interference in Ukrainian affairs. If it were truly on the path to failure such heavy handled Kremlin intervention would not be necessary. However a re-alignment of political and economic interest from Moscow and towards the west could motivate such intervention. In other words the real fear is a western oriented successful state not a failed state.
You misinterpret history. Russians will endure great sacrifice to defend *Russian* soil. They won't tolerate the same to take over a part of the Ukraine.
Thing is, a historical perspective on this that has always been present in Russia, and that has been enjoying a very strong resurgence lately, is that Ukraine is Russian soil.
Maybe Crimea but not Ukraine. According to a recent survey over 50% of Russians surveyed approve of Crimea being returned to Russia. However when the question turned to whether they thought it worth it to send theirs sons to fight in the Ukraine for the the pro-Moscow militants over 60% said no. The attitude towards Ukraine is overwhelmingly that it is a "brother country" not Russian territory.
With respect, if you knew anything about Russia you would know that their greatest historical heroes sacrificed large numbers of Russians to achieve their aims. That still applies in the modern day with things like the reaction to a school hostage situation a few years ago. They celebrate as a great victory the drowning of the Teutonic Knights by sinking them into a frozen river under the weight of Russian corpses FFS. They don't mind a few dead heroes.
You misinterpret history. Russians will endure great sacrifice to defend *Russian* soil. They won't tolerate the same to take over a part of the Ukraine. And if you had paid attention to news reports you would have heard about the protests by families of Russian paratroopers and news blackout the Kremlin imposed regarding paratroopers killed in action. The Kremlin is trying to minimize the perception of casualties for a very good reason, a very internal domestic reason.
It won't help them against the Russian military, the numbers speak against them.
Numbers can be a tricky thing. The Russians send in 100 tanks, the Ukraine receives 600 FGM-148 Javelin man-portable anti-tank missiles. It attacks from above to go for thinner armor and it can defeat reactive armor. Both sides have invested about the same amount of money, the tanks are highly vulnerable, and more importantly Russia can't afford to lose many tank crews due to internal public opinion.
But Steve chose, mentored and recommended an open gay as a successor. That is not how they do things in the Kremlin. Only the closeted gays are allowed to advanced to the leadership in the Kremlin.
You know without someone like Stalin at the helm, the USSR might not have survived WWII. Cold, brutal, but effective :( Clearly the man was a monster -- but I think people forget that the bulk of the fighting in Europe during WWII was on the eastern front, not the western; by the time D day happened, the Germans had mostly been defanged, by the Russians.
While it is true that the bulk of the fighting was on the eastern front this did not occur in isolation. Allied fighting in Africa caused armored forces to be diverted from the invasion of the Soviet Union to Africa. In particular this included the one German commander who would and could get away with openly defying Hitler's orders. Field Marshal Rommel. A commander of such stature and trust in the German military that when Rommel asked an SS general what he would do if his (Rommel's) order contradicted Hitler's the officer replied that he would follow Rommel's order. There were numerous examples where SS officers of various ranks in fact did follow knowingly contradictory orders of Rommel. Imagine such a commander on the eastern front where idiotic orders of Hitler were followed and hundred of thousands of German troops were killed or captured.
Now consider the Italian campaign where Italy surrendered and Germany was forced to commit and tie down elite units with brilliant commanders in order to slow the allied advance up the Italian peninsula. These German forces fought brilliantly and extracted a high cost for their retreats.
Now consider the forces tied down in France. Add to this the enormous and unknown reserves that were created and used with surprise at the Battle of the Bulge.
In short the allied actions in Africa, Italy and France/Holland/Belgium/etc greatly aided the eastern front by removing massive forces and perhaps key commanders.
Now consider the US aid supplied to the Soviet Union. Without early US aid the Red Army may have starved. Without US aid the Soviets would not have had the steel to build the magnificent T-34 tanks. Without US aid the Soviets would not have had the tank busting aircraft like the P-39 Air Cobra at key moments. The Soviets hid for many years just how critical this aircraft was. However since the Soviet collapse historian have learned from official Red Army documents just how effective, critical and beloved by its pilots (and the infantry below) these aircraft were.
So yes, the Soviets fought more Germans than the west. And the Soviets certainly suffered far greater casualties, although a bit of those military casualties of that had to do with Stalin's military incompetence. However this was not done in isolation. The west enabled the Soviet victories in many ways.
You know without someone like Stalin at the helm, the USSR might not have survived WWII. Cold, brutal, but effective :( Clearly the man was a monster -- but I think people forget that the bulk of the fighting in Europe during WWII was on the eastern front, not the western; by the time D day happened, the Germans had mostly been defanged, by the Russians.
Stalin did not save the Soviet Union. The Soviet privates, corporals, sergeants, farmers and workers saved the Soviet Union despite Stalin's stupidity.
Stalin was Hitler's secret ally at first. He actually helped start WW2. Stalin's non-aggression treaty with the Nazis had secret parts where Stalin and Hitler agreed to split Poland and other countries, it defined the respective Nazi and Soviet sphere's of influence of Eastern Europe. So Hitler's invasion of Poland, the event that triggered WW2 in Europe, was in fact done with Stalin's blessings. It was not until Hitler invaded the Soviet Union that Stalin fought against Nazism. If the Soviets had a leader that was a true ally of Britain and France and stood against the Nazi's and promised to defend Poland as Britain and France had done there may have been no WW2. Plus with a different leader the Soviets may have fought more effectively during the early parts of the war. Stalin and Hitler were very much alike in many ways. Besides brutal murderous dictators who killed millions of their own people, they erroneously thought themselves military geniuses and through their idiotic orders destroyed their own armies.
To be honest, Stalin expected that the Nazi's would invade, it just happened years before Stalin expected. He ignored one piece of evidence after another indicating an imminent invasion preferring to cling to his earlier personal expectations. His military incompetence was largely covered up, however since the Soviet collapse Red Army records have become available to western historians and his incompetence has been shown to be far greater than imagined. The west was aware of his various pre-war purges that decimated the leadership of the Red Army, officers being selected for loyalty to Stalin rather than military competence, and the previously mentioned self-denial regarding imminent invasion by the Nazis. Today the world knows, via official Red Army communications and unit records/diaries that some of Stalin's so called great military successes were pure propaganda fantasies. For example official Red Army documents show that Stalin did **not** order the Red Army to fall back to draw the Nazi's deeper into Soviet territory, with longer and more difficult to defend supply lines, and draw them into a trap. He actually ordered units to stand and fight at all costs, to not give any ground, much like Hitler did. Again, the two were so much alike. However the Red Army collapsed and retreated in a disorganized and somewhat panicked manner. The Nazi's going too deep and over extending their lines had more to do with Hitler's idiocy of pushing forward at all costs. Both Hitler and Stalin were incompetent military strategists whose idiotic orders destroyed their own armies. The Soviet Union was only saved because of huge reserves it could pull from Asia, including armies from Siberia that were well equipped for brutal winter warfare.
Because people who do not qualify cannot be ordered. You have to lower the criteria, and accept the previously unacceptable, before you can order then to undergo physical training until they are no longer obese.
Lowering the criteria to enter recruit training and maintaining the current criteria for completing recruit training would not change the capabilities of those entering the service. The only real change is higher costs for recruit training. The marginal would just spend more time in recruit training. In the past the services could reduce costs by weeding out the marginal rather than habilitating them. That strategy may not be their best option right now.
In some ways it is similar to the WW2 Women's Auxiliaries that the various services had. The idea back then was to free up a man from a "desk job" so he could be sent to "the front".
That said, if we need a cyber whatever it could be an entirely different branch of service. These specialists could be placed with the military as needed.
... "Buy it for 250% the cost of doing it in house from the contractor with the most congressmen" compromise ...
While that is a factor it is exaggerated. The bigger factor, and the military's motivation, in turning to contractors is that fewer recruits have to be used for support and logistics, so more are available for combat specialties. We are seeing the exact same thing here. Highly technical roles filled by those physically unfit for combat, freeing up those recruits who are physically fit for combat specialties. In some ways it is a little bit parallel to the various WW2 Women's Auxiliaries for the various services. The idea at that time was to free a man from a desk job so he could go to the field.
Part of the backlash against these celebrities is due to their belief that our idiot politicians need to go write some new laws governing the internet. That is the real tragedy of these leaked photos.
Exactly. If this was close to working, the Republicans would have killed it already like they've killed every other form of clean energy.
Actually its Democrats that kill nuclear research. For example Clinton shutting down various research labs working on next generation reactors.
Democrats do this to appease their brand of science deniers, the far left environmentalists who oppose everything and anything nuclear. Note that not all environmentalists are of this type, some are even former deniers who decided to listen to what actual physicists say rather than what far left environmentalist leaders say on the topic of physics.
These people, the nuclear deniers, really are the left's version of the right's climate deniers. And they do control the Democratic party to a frightful degree.
But you still can't blame everybody else using the official client for sending TO that person just because THEY used a third party service.
Why not? They willingly transmitted data via at least one intermediate party (snapchat itself plus 3rd party clients). If there is anything well known and consistent about the internet it is that private data gets leaked in many unexpected ways. The sender knows the data is sitting on at least snapchat's servers for some indeterminate time frame.
In short the sender knowingly gave control of their private data to an outsider. There is no way to say that the sender does not share some portion of the blame.
"I don't feel sorry for those who thought banks were seriously secure, and two [where's "one?"], who the hell sends dollars to banks and actually thinks other people won't steal them? 1999 called and it wants it's noobs back."
Banks are regulated by the government. Bank deposits are insured by the government. When banks get robbed depositors do not lose money. If you want to refer to "noobish" days when depositors were vulnerable you have to go back long long before 1999.
The US says that hypocritical crap the chinese every other day of the week. Its nothing special.
It is quite special when the Presidents of the US and China are going to meet at a face-to-face summit and the President of the US is going to formally complain about cyber attacks at such a high publicity event.
As to leaks being done to drive a wedge between the US and germany... maybe... rather doubt it.
Whether highly effective or not isn't the important part, the timing itself that can be incriminating. If releases continue to appear strategically timed then coincidental seems less likely and the planned more likely.
As to paying rent, he doesn't need to pay more. Simply causing problems for the US intelligence services for any reason is payment in full.
For intelligence agencies payment in full has not been met until **every** piece of information you have has been shared.
At least the evidence so far implicates recipients as playing a pivotal role, rather than senders.
Wrong. As I speculated, a 3rd party app that sends the images of recipients to a 3rd party website may very well also send images of senders to a 3rd party website.
"SnapSaved was a Web-based client built for Snapchat that allowed users to access “snaps” from a Web browser. However, the service, which according to DNS records ran on a server at the hosting company HostGator, apparently kept all images received or sent by its users without their knowledge."
http://arstechnica.com/securit...
I am prepared to forgive it to end this nonsense. Nothing is gained by keeping him out of the country. Bring him in, give him amnesty... and then tell him if he keeps going then he'll be back on the list. its the best option we have left.
The disclosures will most likely continue though. He seems not to be the lone holder of the data nor the keys.
Plus it is very likely Chinese and Russian security services have the info. As I said, he had to pay the rent somehow. The leaks will continue to strategically undermine US efforts. The US and Germany need to cooperate in order to address the crisis in Ukraine, coincidentally its leaked that the US conducted cyber operations against Germany?
It probably as coincidental as the mass surveillance being leaked just as Obama was about to criticize China for Chinese cyber attacks.
Except that the signs point to SnapSaved.com, which only let you receive and save images; sending was to come at a future time, either via webcam or file upload.
Go to Google Play and you will find numerous snapchat clients. It really is premature to say we know the full story.
If a 3rd party app sends a copy of an image to a 3rd party server it may very well do so when sending and receiving. Its premature to say that senders did not directly compromise their own data.
The traitors are all the apparatchiki who routinely violate their oath to the constitution by violating the fourth amendment on a routine basis. Snowden was the only man at the NSA who did his duty.
Your own logic proves you wrong. He did his duty by revealing mass surveillance targeting US civilians. However he **also** violated his oath and committed treason by disclosing cyber operations against China. A country that routinely conducts such operations against the US. So by your criteria, he is a traitor due to the China disclosure. He committed separate acts of disclosure, one commendable and one traitorous.
And we now know how Snowden pays for the rent in China and Russia.
Most of you have it wrong. Its not is he a whistleblower or is he a traitor? Is the situation white or black? The simple truth is that he is now beyond debate **both** a whistleblower and a traitor. The two are not mutually exclusive. The whistleblower actions do not negate the traitorous actions.
Revealing mass surveillance of US citizens is obviously whistleblowing.
However revealing clandestine cyber operations against China, a country that routinely conduct cyber espionage against US commercial, governmental and military computers, is traitorous.
Plus it makes it more difficult to blow off as a coincidence the fact that he revealed the mass surveillance just as President Obama was about to publicly criticize China for cyber espionage actions against the US; and he fled to China for sanctuary and protection - something that would come with a price tag given the diplomatic heat China would take. These facts are a bit less tin-foil-hat than there were previously.
We are now seeing how Snowden paid the rent in China and Russia.
and here I thought you'd go for http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/S... (which might be unfamiliar to non-americans)
The Quale joke doesn't work so well when you substitute someone quite well know, Kennedy, with someone who few (even among geeks) have heard of. Many readers recognized the joke but were thinking "who the f*** is Hans Reiser?"
As for those who knew who Hans Reiser was, they were thinking that the reformulated joke didn't make sense. The original joke was a put down, saying that Quail is no war hero, scholar and statesman. The reformulated joke is saying that Lennart is not someone who abuses and murders his wife. The reformulated joke was ill thought out.
So it's all about Obama? What about Bush. Talking about anything having to do with Iraq and not framing the situation with the Bush invasion is like talking about the sinking of the Titanic and never saying the word iceberg.
You are missing the point, not unlike Obama. It is irrelevant whether the 2003 invasions was right or wrong. It is irrelevant as to why the al qaeda types are in Iraq. The only relevant facts are that they are the true enemy as Obama admits and that they are now in Iraq. Ignoring Iraq now is pretty much similar to taking our focus off Afghanistan in 2003, which Obama considers a mistake.
Obama already admitted that there was a US intelligence failure in understanding the fast rise of ISIS.
Actually the failure was in his judgment. We sort of have a repeat of the "Bin Laden to attack US" memo circa 2001. Intelligence agencies were warning the Obama but Obama is dogmatically incapable of taking the actions required by the threat in Iraq.
From the liberal NY Times:
"By late last year, classified American intelligence reports painted an increasingly ominous picture of a growing threat from Sunni extremists in Syria, according to senior intelligence and military officials. Just as worrisome, they said, were reports of deteriorating readiness and morale among troops next door in Iraq. But the reports, they said, generated little attention in a White House consumed with multiple brush fires and reluctant to be drawn back into Iraq. “Some of us were pushing the reporting, but the White House just didn’t pay attention to it,” said a senior American intelligence official. “They were preoccupied with other crises,” the official added. “This just wasn’t a big priority.” "
Stalin and Hitler signed a a non-aggression pact, that's a far cry from being allies as you state.
Are you by chance reading from a pre-1989 Soviet history book with respect to the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact? If so you might want to find another history book.
"In addition to stipulations of non-aggression, the treaty included a secret protocol that divided territories of Romania, Poland, Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia and Finland into Nazi and Soviet "spheres of influence", anticipating potential "territorial and political rearrangements" of these countries. Thereafter, Germany invaded Poland on 1 September 1939. After the Soviet-Japanese ceasefire agreement took effect on 16 September, Stalin ordered his own invasion of Poland on 17 September. Part of southeastern (Karelia) and Salla region in Finland were annexed by the Soviet Union after the Winter War. This was followed by Soviet annexations of Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, and parts of Romania (Bessarabia, Northern Bukovina and the Hertza region). It was only in 1989 that the Soviet authorities admitted the existence of the secret protocol of the Nazi-Soviet Pact"
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M...–Ribbentrop_Pact