I have a Leatherman with a knife on it. Should the police arrest for that? After all, I could kill someone with it. I can beat someone to death with my bare hands. Should the police arrest me for possession of bare hands? Mere possession of something that could be used to commit a crime is usually not considered a crime because of the problem of limiting that logic. You can use it as an excuse to arrest anyone. After all, that computer of yours can be used to copy data...maybe they should run you in before you use it to get a copy of software the RIAA dislikes
I was amused to see this item. The original BBS, up and running since 1978 (on one machine or another), is still going strong. The sysop hosted a gibathon last Saturday. Check it out at www.chinet.com.
Pardon me if I find this thing laughable. It has to be within 20 ft of the target (although the inventor claims he can make one that works from 100 ft away for less money-which makes me wonder why he didn't bring that model to demonstrate...), and the computer is just fine after a reboot.
His comments are even better-if you were in a tank or a hospital, you might be dead if you wait for your computer to reboot. True enough-but there are plenty of smaller ways to kill someone from a distance far greater than 20 (or even 100) feet.
And, of course, he's testing this under optimal conditions-nothing between his device and the target.
For those talking about coming within 20 ft of a router and wiping it out, you could do the same with a bomb. Let me get within 20 ft. of a target with some C4, plant said C4, and get out, and I'll do a lot more than make you reboot your computer. (And if you can move this monstrosity within 20 ft. of a target without getting noticed, you can easily plant a bomb there.)
I have no doubt the technology has potential as a weapon-but for now it is all potential, and not much else. (That and an interesting plot device in Cyrptonomicon.)
As for the claims of a nuclear bomb using a similar effect being able to wipe out all the Electronics on the East Coast, that's probably true-but a nuke designed for that purpose is a big leap from this device. It doesn't even have much to do with this contraption, except that they work on similar principles, and it allowed the inventor to get a nice sound bite for the media morons to chew on.)
Valid point...what should be done is that, for each bug found, the programmers are gathered into a bunch, and every tenth programmer eats a bug. Adds the roman legion touch to things....otherwise, I'd consider it a bonus for writing bad code.
"You mean, for every bug I write, Joe, the guy who promised the customers that my program would cure syphilis, has to eat a hissing Madagascar cockroach? Hello, buffer overflow!"
PuTTY is nice-just started using it, and it is pretty neat. Univ. of Chicago is using a java applet for web based ssh-I'm not sure exactly how it works, but it is a neat idea, and I believe it is available on the web. It's the mindbright SSH Java applet, http://www.mindbright.se/english/ has more details. It's worked pretty well for us, although you do have to have the latest flavor of Java for it to work.
I think it highly unlikely that Russia will intervene in the Balkans. They'll probably show the flag, have their fleet float around, and supply intel and other support to the Serbs, but a direct intervention is unlikely.
That having been said, taking on the Serbs by themselves will be no picnic, given all the other committments the US military has-Iraq, North Korea, anti-drug ops, etc-things which the politicians insist we have to do, no matter what. Frederick the Great's remark that "He who defends everything defends nothing" is not something that any of our current politicos seem to understand. (And that is true of Republicans and Democrats.)
In addition to the road problem with Kossovo, there are other factors to consider. How would you supply those troops? Albania's ports are almost certainly not up to that task, and Greece is unlikely to allow us to supply troops through Salonika. (The route for supply in that case would be from Salonika through Macedonia-another headache.) We could probably get the us of Bulgaria's ports-but they would almost certainly ask for a large chunk of Macedonia. (And we'd still be shipping supplies through Macedonia.)
All this is before you think about another issue-if we send in ground troops into Kossovo alone, to defend that province against the Serbs in the rest of Serbia, while maintaining an air campaign against Serbia, many people should start having flashbacks to the Vietnam war, where we followed a similar strategy against North Vietnam. If we're talking about sending in ground troops, we're really talking about going to war against Yugoslavia proper. This will be far less of a challenge, from a logistic point of view, than holding Kossovo, as we almost certainly have help from the Croats and Bosnians. Casualty wise, I'd expect that US forces would have in excess of 20,000 deaths (to say nothing of wounded), and that the Serbs would suffer a much larger number-probably close to the million mark. There would also be massive property destruction-not just in Serbia, but probably also in Albania,Croatia, Bosnia, Macedonia, Greece, and Bulgaria.(It would be very hard for those countries to stay out of such a conflict.) And this would not be a short campaign-it would take years.
I feel for the Kossovars, and what is being done to them is wrong, but the measures we'd have to take to correct it would cause worse suffering than the current crisis, and over a much broader area of Europe. What we should be doing is helping to settle as many of them as possible in Albania, and letting more of them into the United Staes-if we only admit Kossovars for the next year or so, we'll do more to help them than this ill concieved intervention ever will do.
Like it or not, humanitarian concerns should not motivate out foreign policy. Every time we've let them do so, it's led us into disaster.
Slashdot Mirror
I have a Leatherman with a knife on it. Should the police arrest for that? After all, I could kill someone with it. I can beat someone to death with my bare hands. Should the police arrest me for possession of bare hands? Mere possession of something that could be used to commit a crime is usually not considered a crime because of the problem of limiting that logic. You can use it as an excuse to arrest anyone. After all, that computer of yours can be used to copy data...maybe they should run you in before you use it to get a copy of software the RIAA dislikes
I was amused to see this item. The original BBS, up and running since 1978 (on one machine or another), is still going strong. The sysop hosted a gibathon last Saturday. Check it out at www.chinet.com.
Pardon me if I find this thing laughable. It
has to be within 20 ft of the target (although
the inventor claims he can make one that works
from 100 ft away for less money-which makes me
wonder why he didn't bring that model to
demonstrate...), and the computer is just fine
after a reboot.
His comments are even better-if you were in a tank
or a hospital, you might be dead if you wait for your computer to reboot. True enough-but there
are plenty of smaller ways to kill someone
from a distance far greater than 20 (or even 100)
feet.
And, of course, he's testing this under optimal
conditions-nothing between his device and the
target.
For those talking about coming within 20 ft of
a router and wiping it out, you could do the same with a bomb. Let me get within 20 ft. of a
target with some C4, plant said C4, and get
out, and I'll do a lot more than make you reboot
your computer. (And if you can move this monstrosity within 20 ft. of a target without
getting noticed, you can easily plant a bomb
there.)
I have no doubt the technology has potential as a weapon-but for now it is all potential, and not much else. (That and an interesting plot device
in Cyrptonomicon.)
As for the claims of a nuclear bomb using a
similar effect being able to wipe out all the
Electronics on the East Coast, that's probably
true-but a nuke designed for that purpose is
a big leap from this device. It doesn't even
have much to do with this contraption, except that
they work on similar principles, and it allowed
the inventor to get a nice sound bite for the
media morons to chew on.)
Valid point...what should be done is that,
for each bug found, the programmers are gathered into a bunch, and every tenth programmer eats a
bug. Adds the roman legion touch to
things....otherwise, I'd consider it a bonus
for writing bad code.
"You mean, for every bug I write, Joe, the guy who promised the customers that my program would cure syphilis, has to eat a hissing Madagascar
cockroach? Hello, buffer overflow!"
PuTTY is nice-just started using it, and it is pretty neat. Univ. of Chicago is using a java applet for web based ssh-I'm not sure exactly how it works, but it is a neat idea, and I believe it is available on the web. It's the mindbright SSH Java applet, http://www.mindbright.se/english/ has more details. It's worked pretty well for us, although you do have to have the latest flavor of Java for it to work.
I think it highly unlikely that Russia will
intervene in the Balkans. They'll probably show the flag, have their fleet float around, and supply intel and other support to the Serbs, but a
direct intervention is unlikely.
That having been said, taking on the Serbs by
themselves will be no picnic, given all the other committments the US military has-Iraq, North
Korea, anti-drug ops, etc-things which the politicians insist we have to do, no matter what.
Frederick the Great's remark that "He who defends
everything defends nothing" is not something
that any of our current politicos seem to understand. (And that is true of Republicans and
Democrats.)
In addition to the road problem with Kossovo, there are other factors to consider. How would
you supply those troops? Albania's ports
are almost certainly not up to that task, and
Greece is unlikely to allow us to supply troops
through Salonika. (The route for supply in
that case would be from Salonika through
Macedonia-another headache.) We could probably
get the us of Bulgaria's ports-but they would
almost certainly ask for a large chunk of Macedonia. (And we'd still be shipping supplies
through Macedonia.)
All this is before you think about another issue-if we send in ground troops into Kossovo
alone, to defend that province against the Serbs in the rest of Serbia, while maintaining an air
campaign against Serbia, many people should start
having flashbacks to the Vietnam war, where we
followed a similar strategy against North Vietnam.
If we're talking about sending in ground troops,
we're really talking about going to war against
Yugoslavia proper. This will be far less of a
challenge, from a logistic point of view, than holding Kossovo, as we almost certainly have
help from the Croats and Bosnians. Casualty
wise, I'd expect that US forces would have in excess of 20,000 deaths (to say nothing of wounded), and that the Serbs would suffer a much larger number-probably close to the million mark. There would also be massive property destruction-not just in Serbia, but probably also in Albania,Croatia, Bosnia, Macedonia, Greece, and Bulgaria.(It would be very hard for those countries to stay out of such a conflict.) And this would not be a short campaign-it would take years.
I feel for the Kossovars, and what is being done to them is wrong, but the measures we'd have to
take to correct it would cause worse suffering
than the current crisis, and over a much broader
area of Europe. What we should be doing is
helping to settle as many of them as possible in
Albania, and letting more of them into the United
Staes-if we only admit Kossovars for the next year
or so, we'll do more to help them than this ill
concieved intervention ever will do.
Like it or not, humanitarian concerns should not
motivate out foreign policy. Every time
we've let them do so, it's led us into disaster.