Not tea. Watermellon fruit cocktail. That and skittles are ingredients of lean. He was a proven drug user. The use and access to illegal guns? I doubt he was supposed to have a gun... and buying/selling them? Under those circumstances, it shows his criminal nature. Finally, the texts about being a fighter? EXTREMELY relevant evidence for the defense wouldn't you say?
If one person assaulted another person with a big rock, would you say that was armed or unarmed? Please be honest. And when the rock is a sidewalk? Does that make it less of a weapon?
YES! The Victim caused his own death. It's a key and important factor in all of this. The claim is self-defense. Without the ability to show that the victim was also an drug-using, assailant with a history of violence and other criminal behavior, how can anyone ever prove self-defense? What evidence could serve to prove self-defense? Well, I suppose there was the uninjured body of Trayvon Martin... uninjured except for that bullet wound. Then there's all the head and face wounds all over Zimmerman. There was that eye-witness too. None of those matter right?
Blaming the victim is an important and relevant part of ensuring a fair trial. Just because someone is a victim does not mean they were completely innocent.
So when it comes down to it, the case against Zimmerman hinges in no small way on intent. To show intent, they bring out character issues. Okay. I get that. So what about the defense's right to defend their case? The defense's case hinges in non small way on Zimmerman being attacked by a violent person. To prove that case, the character of the assailant is relevant evidence. At every turn, however, the evidence of character of the assailant has been blocked. It is EXTREMELY important and denies Zimmerman a fair trial when his defense case is self-defense. How can anyone prove it if they can't easily show that he was being attacked by a violent person? Lots of evidence shows that, but it wasn't allowed. Why?
Obligation to keep it confidential? When a miscarriage of justice is being perpetrated, it is a citizen's duty to report it. And suppression of evidence is a serious crime. The government is not "priviledged." If you think so, it's a problem. And there is no indication he gave evidence to anyone. It would seem he only reported that it exists.
Additionally, evidence of being a drug user was certainly important. 1. It was in his system. 2. He was not carrying "Iced Tea" he was carrying two ingredients for making "Lean." That's huge. Once again, proving the character of the assailant is key to the defense's case. It's the nation's legal responsibility that all charged receive a fair trial.
At the very least, it would offer up a mistrial. But Zimmerman will likely be acquitted. The prosecution just didn't make their case. But if for some reason he doesn't get acquitted, we'll see a mistrial motion get filed right away.
All that said, I think the previous comment about the US government was right on. Despite this being an apparent Florida state matter, the POTUS not only felt it important to make a comment, but to send people to help make the case against Zimmerman.
Despite all of that, it seems obvious the prosecution failed to make their case. "Who's screaming?!" Must have been the guy on top and beating the hell out of the guy on bottom because that's the way it always goes right? Who was on top though? Eye witnesses say it wasn't Zimmerman. But why was Zimmerman being attacked? Because he was stalking someone? When was that ever justification for attacking someone?
This case is a poorly selected one if they wanted to make a big show of it. They should have been smarter about it.
No one is believing "every" conspiracy. Even "conspiracy nuts" stick to a generally consistent line of belief.
But you know, if you ask the average person if they believed that the government injected unaware people with radioactive material as an experiment, they wouldn't believe it in a million years and yet it happened. And we know there are a lot more crazy things which are actually true as well.
We have an educational problem in that we don't teach people to think -- it's either an accidental development or a natural one for those people who do. It's ridiculously rare for people to take the information they have been given and then APPLY it. For example, people actually think eating "fatty foods" make people fat. Ridiculous. Anyway... rambling detected.
The connection to 9/11 is a huge leap, but then again, 9/11 was an inside job and loads of evidence and the laws of physics support that notion. It's not the "terrorist" attack itself -- that's just an excuse to make the DHS happen. It's a much greater push to create new programs and to justify existing ones the public didn't already know about. You may recall that the original FISA scandal revealed by another whistleblower long ago? It had been going on prior to 9/11.
We already know as a matter of documented fact that the US government created Al Qaeda and is STILL involved with supporting Al Qaeda in Syria. Why people aren't outraged at this given that they completely bought into the 9/11 narrative that Al Qaeda is the enemy, the public isn't screaming about the current support of Al Qaeda now. It's absolutely amazing. This is not "theory." There is documentation supporting all this.
While I agree the "source" of the trouble is the illegal and unethical behavior, the trouble wouldn't be realized until the world finds out about it which is arguably an "eventuality" but then someone else would have spilled the beans to make it happen... either that or after they finally took over the world, killed off the surplus population leaving only proper slaves and a LOT of resources.
"Conspiracy theorist" is no longer a negative. Turns out a lot of conspiracy theory has been right all along. And even if not all of it is right, it has been demonstrated that the public trust has been completely compromised and so EVERYTHING the government does requires suspicion and scrutiny. It's much more convenient to try to think about other things or to just turn on the TV to see what else is on, but if you think that way -- if you're intentionally "protecting your sanity" by avoiding knowing the truth or debunking lies, then you are, by all classic definitions, sheeple. "Don't want to think about it. Don't want to worry about it. Just want to live your day to day life." That's sheeple talking.
You're being dismissive without considering the whole of reality. "This doesn't necessarily prove that." Great. But why stop there and smugly turn away as if you've demonstrated some kind of superior wisdom?
It's only because I believe it will be among the only more peaceful ways we can get things to straighten out.
For hundreds or even thousands of years, business has sought to enjoy favor and support of government. With the help of government, they can more easily monopolize and therefore make more profit. Today is no different... well... maybe a little different.
The thing is, we rely much more heavily on information than ever before. Sure, buying food and other tangibles haven't exactly gone out of style, but informaiton and communications have become commodities in and of themselves. So it's kind of bigger than ever before. So when the stuff we use and buy compromise us so dramatically, we have a situation which is essentially without precedent. Our technology is being used against us in a very big way.
The large vendors of tech and communications and informaiton have all been touched [tainted] by governments all over. Our lives have been compromised, limited and subverted. If you are STILL using these technologies, there is either no option to do otherwise or you're a giant fool right now. In the case of "The Internet" there aren't other options -- the internet works best when there's only one that everyone uses -- same for the phone network. But devices? Well, we have open source OSes which are quite viable. We have open source applications which are setting standards for commercial applications. And even the suspect "Android" devices have the source code available and is actively being used to create custom installations. (READ: reviewed and stripped of code which may be unwanted.)
So if you're running a stock Android device put out by Google or other vendors, you're just as foolish as a Microsoft Windows user in many respects. (Slightly less foolish if you're sacrificing your security and privacy because you can't "play games" as well under F/OSS operating systems. Seriously. Games are not quite as important as your basic human rights. Please try argue otherwise.)
What we're looking at is something very interesting and as I ponder what it could mean and what it could lead to, one thing occurs to me, as it has occurred to others here, is that as these commercial products and services are recognized as compromised or even dangerous, people WILL begin to seek alternatives and it WILL result in cutting off the money supply to those who have been working with government. To survive, eventually the "we don't work with government" statement will represent a statement of trust not just for individuals and business, but of other governments as well. Let's face it -- it's almost ALL about US goods and services.
Snowden and those like him are "harming" the US and may result in a much more extremely depressed US economy. I'm a US Citizen and I don't look forward to anything like that happen as it affects my life quite directly. However, I also see something else -- something I find comforting in some ways. That if things begin to unravel as I hope they might, we may be able to restore government to a form and purpose which it was intended and not as a means for a few to rape and reap the resources of the planet which includes all of us.
I want a business model where I can make people completely dependent on on my services and my constantly changing and unreadable legalese which I will use as the basis for defending myself when you realize how badly I've screwed you over. See, because when my services are compromised by criminals, government or criminal government, I will not be at fault for complying with their requests.
All this because you're too lazy to handle your own technology... sacrificing security for convenience... I guess Franklyn or any of the other money-face people didn't think anyone would sacrifice security for convenience because they didn't think anyone could possibly be that stupid.
There is much known about the connection between smell and other aspects of the human experience. Photographs are more objective. Scents are more subjective. And a scent might remind someone of a personal experience that is important to them, but an objective 'viewer' would not experience the same when presented with even a 100% rendering of a scent.
And even for the original scentographer, the smell revisited may some across very differently that the one remembered as ambient smells are filtered out. You know, how people often cannot smell themselves? Imagine a guy with bad body odor taking scentographs and experiencing them even a few days later only to realize he had no idea how badly he smelled. (He was, after all, closest to the camera when the scentograph was taken.)
Over-all, this is something of a novelty like 3D movies.
Perhaps Microsoft would also be applauded if they didn't hold their fixes open for the NSA and FBI to exploit their customers with.
We used to wonder for the longest time why, when we told Microsoft about vilnerabilities they would refuse to acknowledge them and when they finally might acknowledge them, they would take months or even years to fix. Recent news clarifies this nicely.
Now we can't say if this is true of every instance of every bug reporting, but we have proof that the US government has tainted Microsoft and therefore gives good cause to be suspicious of pretty much everything they do now.
Might be hard to find, but a nice plastic form of punch tape might do the job of both having a hard copy (technically human readable) and being machine-readable. You'd have the added advantage of being able to encorporate encryption if you so desired.
I would have thought that by now, "new ideas" are great, but without long-term vision which is all but impossible with wisdom, we end up with... pretty much what we are seeing today. It's also a push for a lot of things people don't want. Of course they aren't seeing it because they have already lost long-term vision.
But this is all great for those who are "at the top"... for now.
But that's okay... the last remaining industries will be banking and legal and I'd say those two are prevailing at the moment.
No, your emails are completely captured. Metadata is a lie. If it's digital, it's ALL captured. And there's just not that many phones that aren't digital any longer.
They didn't care because they didn't think it would happen to them. Now it is out that it hasn't just happened to them, the state, the nation, but the whole damned world and that the government has gotten into all of their electronics and software too. More than that, the constitution free zone issue is about to start hitting people squarely in the face.
The word is out. All of their stuff has been compromised and people are caring. They are indeed caring.
This wasn't "the EU people" it was their legislative body. The US legislative bodies are complicit with what has been going on. While one side feigns outrage at the other party's activities, it can be demonstrated that both parties participated willingly in what's been going on. When Republicans ruled, the Democrats pretended to be outraged and even to "do away" with the constitutionlly illegal activites. But once in charge, the Democrats didn't do away with the illegal activities (and I just say CRIMES for brevity?) and then intensified them.
So to say the "EU people" did more than the "US people" is a bit misleading. But to say that the EU government is more responsive to the need to support their own laws would be extremely accurate to point out and a well deserved shaming.
Well. I'll take the silence on the issue as meaning you either aren't available for comment or have no response to counter what I have said. Either way, I have more to add.
The thing is, there are a lot of people who depend on a healthy and viable US business strategy. But when the US government has sold off all the trust the world may have had in US business and US technology, it affects us all regardless of the side of my question you might take. If you're pro-Microsoft and proprietary software, then you should be way more angry than I am. The trust in US tech has been replaced with suspicion. That trust will be impossible to restore when alternatives exist. And the US has a LOT of things it wants to sell which are to be shunned. Software, networking, GMOs, pharmaceuticals, automobiles, planes and lots, lots more. Once trust is lost the customers vanish. And losing trust of the world is a HUGE loss to everyone who depends on a viable US economy. There's only so much the Federal Reserve Bank will be able to do if no one trusts the US, its products or its dollar.
The depth and the rammifications of all of this are mind-blowingly devastating and huge. I'm not even sure massive resignations of leadership from the President down would be enough to restore the world's faith in US goods, services and its currency.
No, it's not a better question and your response attempts to dodge the issue entirely. So I will rephrase it.
Because a company is a US company and/or heavily influenced by the US government, can you still trust it?
I am not kidding myself that alternatives to Microsoft and Oracle and all that are viable. Oracle is a ridiculously overpriced brand name that can be replaced with alternatives and even if, for whatever reason something else may not be "good enough" on its own, with the reduced price additional servers and computing resources can be added with only a portion of the savings of dumping Oracle to make up any difference. The only problem remaining is that applications may be written to be Oracle specific. That would be just part of the pain of moving to something else -- it's not because Oracle is "better" but, like Microsoft, is entrenched.
Consider this. Business did pretty well without Windows PCs for quite some time. And as technology grew, it may have made some advances which took advantage of the advances, but much like modern household eletrical tools and appliances, housework still takes roughly the same amount of time to do. Business and government would fare no differently in the decision were made to transition over to something which could be trusted. And once a large economy like Europe starts using and especially developing F/OSS software, not only would it be more trusted (the software), but any "disparities" between contemporary commercial equivalents would likely be filled in with the improvements contributed by the EU developers. And yes, US patents would be completely ignored if any were to be infringed upon... software patents are already about to be a lost commodity in the US and have been very rejected in the EU.
Europe is a large population of people. They do not export much that isn't uniquely its own. Therefore, competitiveness isn't a huge issue. Europe is actually the most eligible of economies for making the transition away from US products. And they already do pretty well without our GM corn and other such crap.
So in summary, it can ALL be replaced. All of it. With something that can be trusted. And for a period of time, it can be done without because that's what people did before they had these wonderful things to begin with.
Overestimating one's own value as they are now is pure hubris.
I think it would be absolutely awesome if someone were to do something like this and have it send out emails making empty threats to political figures that would keep the secret service so ridiculously busy that they can't do their job.
But then again, that might be the cause they need to "increase the security budget and buy another billion bullets." Yeah, probably not a great idea but still. Having feds arrive at the doors of some of these people might be fun to watch.
The US government has tainted just about everything it touches. In situations like these, a wise person would be more interested in integrity than the pain of change.
Can US based technologies be trusted knowing the things we know? I'm not asking if there are "better alternatives." I'm asking if, knowing what we know today, you have 100% trust in US technology products.
As for better alternatives? There are. Free alternatives. The REAL problem is the pain of transition. And seriously. Pain of transition pales in comparison to the pain of other things to come while we use the tainted and compromised products like confused addicts.
Not like this. Only the US and its technology companies have the presense and ubiquity to pull something off at this level and scale.
These are reasons to dump Microsoft and Cisco ASAP. Additionally, to begin looking much more carefully at all US products including cars and aircraft. They should all be treated with suspicion at this point.
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Not tea. Watermellon fruit cocktail. That and skittles are ingredients of lean. He was a proven drug user. The use and access to illegal guns? I doubt he was supposed to have a gun... and buying/selling them? Under those circumstances, it shows his criminal nature. Finally, the texts about being a fighter? EXTREMELY relevant evidence for the defense wouldn't you say?
If one person assaulted another person with a big rock, would you say that was armed or unarmed? Please be honest. And when the rock is a sidewalk? Does that make it less of a weapon?
YES! The Victim caused his own death. It's a key and important factor in all of this. The claim is self-defense. Without the ability to show that the victim was also an drug-using, assailant with a history of violence and other criminal behavior, how can anyone ever prove self-defense? What evidence could serve to prove self-defense? Well, I suppose there was the uninjured body of Trayvon Martin... uninjured except for that bullet wound. Then there's all the head and face wounds all over Zimmerman. There was that eye-witness too. None of those matter right?
Blaming the victim is an important and relevant part of ensuring a fair trial. Just because someone is a victim does not mean they were completely innocent.
So when it comes down to it, the case against Zimmerman hinges in no small way on intent. To show intent, they bring out character issues. Okay. I get that. So what about the defense's right to defend their case? The defense's case hinges in non small way on Zimmerman being attacked by a violent person. To prove that case, the character of the assailant is relevant evidence. At every turn, however, the evidence of character of the assailant has been blocked. It is EXTREMELY important and denies Zimmerman a fair trial when his defense case is self-defense. How can anyone prove it if they can't easily show that he was being attacked by a violent person? Lots of evidence shows that, but it wasn't allowed. Why?
Obligation to keep it confidential? When a miscarriage of justice is being perpetrated, it is a citizen's duty to report it. And suppression of evidence is a serious crime. The government is not "priviledged." If you think so, it's a problem. And there is no indication he gave evidence to anyone. It would seem he only reported that it exists.
Additionally, evidence of being a drug user was certainly important. 1. It was in his system. 2. He was not carrying "Iced Tea" he was carrying two ingredients for making "Lean." That's huge. Once again, proving the character of the assailant is key to the defense's case. It's the nation's legal responsibility that all charged receive a fair trial.
At the very least, it would offer up a mistrial. But Zimmerman will likely be acquitted. The prosecution just didn't make their case. But if for some reason he doesn't get acquitted, we'll see a mistrial motion get filed right away.
All that said, I think the previous comment about the US government was right on. Despite this being an apparent Florida state matter, the POTUS not only felt it important to make a comment, but to send people to help make the case against Zimmerman.
Despite all of that, it seems obvious the prosecution failed to make their case. "Who's screaming?!" Must have been the guy on top and beating the hell out of the guy on bottom because that's the way it always goes right? Who was on top though? Eye witnesses say it wasn't Zimmerman. But why was Zimmerman being attacked? Because he was stalking someone? When was that ever justification for attacking someone?
This case is a poorly selected one if they wanted to make a big show of it. They should have been smarter about it.
No one is believing "every" conspiracy. Even "conspiracy nuts" stick to a generally consistent line of belief.
But you know, if you ask the average person if they believed that the government injected unaware people with radioactive material as an experiment, they wouldn't believe it in a million years and yet it happened. And we know there are a lot more crazy things which are actually true as well.
We have an educational problem in that we don't teach people to think -- it's either an accidental development or a natural one for those people who do. It's ridiculously rare for people to take the information they have been given and then APPLY it. For example, people actually think eating "fatty foods" make people fat. Ridiculous. Anyway... rambling detected.
The connection to 9/11 is a huge leap, but then again, 9/11 was an inside job and loads of evidence and the laws of physics support that notion. It's not the "terrorist" attack itself -- that's just an excuse to make the DHS happen. It's a much greater push to create new programs and to justify existing ones the public didn't already know about. You may recall that the original FISA scandal revealed by another whistleblower long ago? It had been going on prior to 9/11.
We already know as a matter of documented fact that the US government created Al Qaeda and is STILL involved with supporting Al Qaeda in Syria. Why people aren't outraged at this given that they completely bought into the 9/11 narrative that Al Qaeda is the enemy, the public isn't screaming about the current support of Al Qaeda now. It's absolutely amazing. This is not "theory." There is documentation supporting all this.
While I agree the "source" of the trouble is the illegal and unethical behavior, the trouble wouldn't be realized until the world finds out about it which is arguably an "eventuality" but then someone else would have spilled the beans to make it happen... either that or after they finally took over the world, killed off the surplus population leaving only proper slaves and a LOT of resources.
"Conspiracy theorist" is no longer a negative. Turns out a lot of conspiracy theory has been right all along. And even if not all of it is right, it has been demonstrated that the public trust has been completely compromised and so EVERYTHING the government does requires suspicion and scrutiny. It's much more convenient to try to think about other things or to just turn on the TV to see what else is on, but if you think that way -- if you're intentionally "protecting your sanity" by avoiding knowing the truth or debunking lies, then you are, by all classic definitions, sheeple. "Don't want to think about it. Don't want to worry about it. Just want to live your day to day life." That's sheeple talking.
You're being dismissive without considering the whole of reality. "This doesn't necessarily prove that." Great. But why stop there and smugly turn away as if you've demonstrated some kind of superior wisdom?
It's only because I believe it will be among the only more peaceful ways we can get things to straighten out.
For hundreds or even thousands of years, business has sought to enjoy favor and support of government. With the help of government, they can more easily monopolize and therefore make more profit. Today is no different... well... maybe a little different.
The thing is, we rely much more heavily on information than ever before. Sure, buying food and other tangibles haven't exactly gone out of style, but informaiton and communications have become commodities in and of themselves. So it's kind of bigger than ever before. So when the stuff we use and buy compromise us so dramatically, we have a situation which is essentially without precedent. Our technology is being used against us in a very big way.
The large vendors of tech and communications and informaiton have all been touched [tainted] by governments all over. Our lives have been compromised, limited and subverted. If you are STILL using these technologies, there is either no option to do otherwise or you're a giant fool right now. In the case of "The Internet" there aren't other options -- the internet works best when there's only one that everyone uses -- same for the phone network. But devices? Well, we have open source OSes which are quite viable. We have open source applications which are setting standards for commercial applications. And even the suspect "Android" devices have the source code available and is actively being used to create custom installations. (READ: reviewed and stripped of code which may be unwanted.)
So if you're running a stock Android device put out by Google or other vendors, you're just as foolish as a Microsoft Windows user in many respects. (Slightly less foolish if you're sacrificing your security and privacy because you can't "play games" as well under F/OSS operating systems. Seriously. Games are not quite as important as your basic human rights. Please try argue otherwise.)
What we're looking at is something very interesting and as I ponder what it could mean and what it could lead to, one thing occurs to me, as it has occurred to others here, is that as these commercial products and services are recognized as compromised or even dangerous, people WILL begin to seek alternatives and it WILL result in cutting off the money supply to those who have been working with government. To survive, eventually the "we don't work with government" statement will represent a statement of trust not just for individuals and business, but of other governments as well. Let's face it -- it's almost ALL about US goods and services.
Snowden and those like him are "harming" the US and may result in a much more extremely depressed US economy. I'm a US Citizen and I don't look forward to anything like that happen as it affects my life quite directly. However, I also see something else -- something I find comforting in some ways. That if things begin to unravel as I hope they might, we may be able to restore government to a form and purpose which it was intended and not as a means for a few to rape and reap the resources of the planet which includes all of us.
I want a business model where I can make people completely dependent on on my services and my constantly changing and unreadable legalese which I will use as the basis for defending myself when you realize how badly I've screwed you over. See, because when my services are compromised by criminals, government or criminal government, I will not be at fault for complying with their requests.
All this because you're too lazy to handle your own technology... sacrificing security for convenience... I guess Franklyn or any of the other money-face people didn't think anyone would sacrifice security for convenience because they didn't think anyone could possibly be that stupid.
I would have said it differently. "Stop breaking the fucking law!!"
There is much known about the connection between smell and other aspects of the human experience. Photographs are more objective. Scents are more subjective. And a scent might remind someone of a personal experience that is important to them, but an objective 'viewer' would not experience the same when presented with even a 100% rendering of a scent.
And even for the original scentographer, the smell revisited may some across very differently that the one remembered as ambient smells are filtered out. You know, how people often cannot smell themselves? Imagine a guy with bad body odor taking scentographs and experiencing them even a few days later only to realize he had no idea how badly he smelled. (He was, after all, closest to the camera when the scentograph was taken.)
Over-all, this is something of a novelty like 3D movies.
Perhaps Microsoft would also be applauded if they didn't hold their fixes open for the NSA and FBI to exploit their customers with.
We used to wonder for the longest time why, when we told Microsoft about vilnerabilities they would refuse to acknowledge them and when they finally might acknowledge them, they would take months or even years to fix. Recent news clarifies this nicely.
Now we can't say if this is true of every instance of every bug reporting, but we have proof that the US government has tainted Microsoft and therefore gives good cause to be suspicious of pretty much everything they do now.
Might be hard to find, but a nice plastic form of punch tape might do the job of both having a hard copy (technically human readable) and being machine-readable. You'd have the added advantage of being able to encorporate encryption if you so desired.
This kinda sounds like it to me.
old school
I would have thought that by now, "new ideas" are great, but without long-term vision which is all but impossible with wisdom, we end up with... pretty much what we are seeing today. It's also a push for a lot of things people don't want. Of course they aren't seeing it because they have already lost long-term vision.
But this is all great for those who are "at the top" ... for now.
But that's okay... the last remaining industries will be banking and legal and I'd say those two are prevailing at the moment.
No, your emails are completely captured. Metadata is a lie. If it's digital, it's ALL captured. And there's just not that many phones that aren't digital any longer.
They didn't care because they didn't think it would happen to them. Now it is out that it hasn't just happened to them, the state, the nation, but the whole damned world and that the government has gotten into all of their electronics and software too. More than that, the constitution free zone issue is about to start hitting people squarely in the face.
The word is out. All of their stuff has been compromised and people are caring. They are indeed caring.
Do we have a sarcasm sign?
This wasn't "the EU people" it was their legislative body. The US legislative bodies are complicit with what has been going on. While one side feigns outrage at the other party's activities, it can be demonstrated that both parties participated willingly in what's been going on. When Republicans ruled, the Democrats pretended to be outraged and even to "do away" with the constitutionlly illegal activites. But once in charge, the Democrats didn't do away with the illegal activities (and I just say CRIMES for brevity?) and then intensified them.
So to say the "EU people" did more than the "US people" is a bit misleading. But to say that the EU government is more responsive to the need to support their own laws would be extremely accurate to point out and a well deserved shaming.
Well. I'll take the silence on the issue as meaning you either aren't available for comment or have no response to counter what I have said. Either way, I have more to add.
The thing is, there are a lot of people who depend on a healthy and viable US business strategy. But when the US government has sold off all the trust the world may have had in US business and US technology, it affects us all regardless of the side of my question you might take. If you're pro-Microsoft and proprietary software, then you should be way more angry than I am. The trust in US tech has been replaced with suspicion. That trust will be impossible to restore when alternatives exist. And the US has a LOT of things it wants to sell which are to be shunned. Software, networking, GMOs, pharmaceuticals, automobiles, planes and lots, lots more. Once trust is lost the customers vanish. And losing trust of the world is a HUGE loss to everyone who depends on a viable US economy. There's only so much the Federal Reserve Bank will be able to do if no one trusts the US, its products or its dollar.
The depth and the rammifications of all of this are mind-blowingly devastating and huge. I'm not even sure massive resignations of leadership from the President down would be enough to restore the world's faith in US goods, services and its currency.
No, it's not a better question and your response attempts to dodge the issue entirely. So I will rephrase it.
Because a company is a US company and/or heavily influenced by the US government, can you still trust it?
I am not kidding myself that alternatives to Microsoft and Oracle and all that are viable. Oracle is a ridiculously overpriced brand name that can be replaced with alternatives and even if, for whatever reason something else may not be "good enough" on its own, with the reduced price additional servers and computing resources can be added with only a portion of the savings of dumping Oracle to make up any difference. The only problem remaining is that applications may be written to be Oracle specific. That would be just part of the pain of moving to something else -- it's not because Oracle is "better" but, like Microsoft, is entrenched.
Consider this. Business did pretty well without Windows PCs for quite some time. And as technology grew, it may have made some advances which took advantage of the advances, but much like modern household eletrical tools and appliances, housework still takes roughly the same amount of time to do. Business and government would fare no differently in the decision were made to transition over to something which could be trusted. And once a large economy like Europe starts using and especially developing F/OSS software, not only would it be more trusted (the software), but any "disparities" between contemporary commercial equivalents would likely be filled in with the improvements contributed by the EU developers. And yes, US patents would be completely ignored if any were to be infringed upon... software patents are already about to be a lost commodity in the US and have been very rejected in the EU.
Europe is a large population of people. They do not export much that isn't uniquely its own. Therefore, competitiveness isn't a huge issue. Europe is actually the most eligible of economies for making the transition away from US products. And they already do pretty well without our GM corn and other such crap.
So in summary, it can ALL be replaced. All of it. With something that can be trusted. And for a period of time, it can be done without because that's what people did before they had these wonderful things to begin with.
Overestimating one's own value as they are now is pure hubris.
I think it would be absolutely awesome if someone were to do something like this and have it send out emails making empty threats to political figures that would keep the secret service so ridiculously busy that they can't do their job.
But then again, that might be the cause they need to "increase the security budget and buy another billion bullets." Yeah, probably not a great idea but still. Having feds arrive at the doors of some of these people might be fun to watch.
The US government has tainted just about everything it touches. In situations like these, a wise person would be more interested in integrity than the pain of change.
Can US based technologies be trusted knowing the things we know? I'm not asking if there are "better alternatives." I'm asking if, knowing what we know today, you have 100% trust in US technology products.
As for better alternatives? There are. Free alternatives. The REAL problem is the pain of transition. And seriously. Pain of transition pales in comparison to the pain of other things to come while we use the tainted and compromised products like confused addicts.
Not like this. Only the US and its technology companies have the presense and ubiquity to pull something off at this level and scale.
These are reasons to dump Microsoft and Cisco ASAP. Additionally, to begin looking much more carefully at all US products including cars and aircraft. They should all be treated with suspicion at this point.