This story needs to be put in context with recent developments and crowing about Windows being chosen over Linux. The biggest story out of this surprising admission is that analysts and large organizations are starting to recognize the value proposition of Linux and Open Source, as described in the rejected post below. The most telling comment is in the quotation in boldface, which lends support to Mitch Kapor's predictions.
... courtesy of the rejected post machine. The government sector news sites are always good - and usually better - for details about contracts of this sort:
Microsoft/Dell Gets $90-$120 Million Homeland Security Contract
The subject says it. I have to applaud such an excellent troll.
That said, I find the level of hostility and even outright hatred directed at me for a casual comment - that was not even the substance of my post - astonishing. My initial post was intended to point out that Cuba has long been used as a major base of operations for electronic signals intercepts and espionage by both the USA and the USSR/Russia. Nothing more, nothing less. If you choose to read it in a paranoiac manner that you believe implies malice where none exists, that is your issue, not mine.
Some of you have gone so far as to make attempts to learn details of my identity (you know who you are and now so do I - don't worry, I won't publish your identities or other personal information even though it would be an excellent object lesson). If you have something you want to know, just ask - I just might answer. There's really no need for your kind of subterfuge.
Now, despite my better judgement, on to the rest of your response because the record needs to be set straight.
Pro-Shah U.S. satellite stations and CNN's reliability: The report I referred to was broadcast from Los Angeles without any restrictions by government censors. Your comment that "CNN are the people who admitted to censoring various news broadcasts out of Iraq" is supposed to cast doubt on the reliablilty of the L.A. report. What you fail to mention is that every major news organization in the world has to submit to government censors of one kind or another when reporting from a war zone. If you were inside Iraq like CNN, BBC, CBC, AFP, AP and others, you had to submit your reports for vetting by Iraqi government censors. If you were an embedded reporter with U.S. forces, you had to sign a (leaked) contract and agree to restrictions before you were even allowed to be embedded. Reporters are still forbidden to disclose the terms of the contract or the penalities for doing so. Journalists were then required to get the authorization of the company commander to send their reports. At CENTCOM headquarters, information was tightly controlled and heavily censored before it was ever presented to reporters so that they never got anything less than the rosiest possible picture. This was preceded by blanket U.S. government censorship in the first Gulf War and subsequent conflicts. Intelligence Onine, a respected global intelligence community newsletter, documented that the airmobile Fourth Psychological Operations Group, from Fort Bragg, North Carolina were active employees of CNN who participated in news production. In the U.K. and Northern Ireland during the worst days of the fighting, it was illegal to broadcast even the voice of an IRA or Sinn Fein member. If you're a reporter in Israel/Occupied Territories, you must sign an agreement to submit to Israeli military censorship as a condition of working there. The list goes on and on. It goes with the territory if you're reporting from a conflict zone, not from a studio in suburban Los Angeles.
Ad hominem attacks: Read very carefully. I made no accusations against anyone. In fact, it was you, Phil, who attempted to equate me with "our enemies" and wrote of my supposed "sympathies towards the Cuban government." You're hardly without sin, so you certainly shouldn't be casting stones, or aspersions for that matter.
Student protests: Iranian students were protesting against plans by their government to privatize its university system - the system is currently government-subsidized - which would result in massive tuition increases and deny access to a post-secondary education to all but the wealthiest Iranians. That is the context in which the protests were taking place and that is
The fact that you decided to resort to a personal attack and innuendoes says far more about you than anything else you had to say. Instead of behaving like a reactionary, McCarthyist zealot and making claims about all sorts of conclusions that I supposedly reached, try reading a little closer.
I said it seems more likely that a signal would have come from Guantanamo. Considering the massive signals operation there, that's perfectly reasonable.
Someone else mentioned in the thread that it's possible that it was an accidental jam if it was the USA because mistakes like that have been known to happen. A more cynical view would be that it was intentionally done to manufacture an incident like the Gulf of Tonkin hoax that was eventually used to justify the Johnson administration's massive expansion of the war in Vietnam. The final possibility that is mentioned in the article is the Russian-built Cuban station. It seems strange that the Russians would have two stations that were only seven miles apart (before the closure of Lourdes), but that is also entirely possible.
The fact is that neither you nor I have any concrete proof of who was responsible for the jamming. Everything else is speculation.
The CNN Los Angeles bureau reported in June that the backers of the U.S.-based Iranian dissident satellite television stations are Shah-ists, showing the portraits of the Shah plastered all over the studios. We now know that a 1953 coup orchestrated by the CIA, helped overthrow the short-lived, democratically elected Mossadegh government and snuffed out budding democracy in Iran. The U.S. then installed the Shah and trained his notoriously brutal SAVAK internal security forces. The Shah went on to become one of the most savage dictators of the 20th century until the Iranian revolution in 1979.
To get back in bed with the Shah's supporters today is directly counter to the stated goal of fostering a democratic, free society in Iran which might have thrived if not for the U.S.-backed coup 50 years ago.
To Phil-14: The last time I checked I have the right to free speech. It seems you would prefer that we live in a Stalinist, Communist regime that would put an end to anyone who didn't agree with your narrow point of view.
The MSNBC report may be 100% correct. An open mind will at least acknowledge that there are other possibilities.
The work I did was looking into quantifying losses in a mineral extraction and purification process.
and
I can't honestly see why the information was confidential, although I could see that it might have stock market influences
It probably has something to do with the costs associated with uranium enrichment projects, if I were to hazard a guess. Maybe it's valuable to someone who wants to figure out how much a program would cost?
I'm not going to repeat my comments from yesterday's topic here, but instead invite you to read my thoughts on Defending disserations and visionaries and Part 2 of the same. Please read both links since they are part of the same post (split due to a mis-clicked Submit instead of Preview button).
I had my thesis classified (1972) - to this day I still can't distribute the damn thing.
The question I have for you is are you cleared to read your own disseration? You wrote it, but have you received government clearance to access your thesis. I'm also curious which department determined it should be classified. The NRO?
The other issue in Sean Gorman's case that is slightly different from yours is that your thesis was (presumably) classified after it was published since you haven't mentioned anything about not receiving your degree. Sean Gorman is faced with being denied his degree because his work has been classified before he can complete his disseration.
I see where you are going, but that's not where this is going. The title and subject matter are not being classified.
Yet. Classifying the title and subject matter of sensitive information has been done in the past. Obviously with the publicity surrounding Gorman's work, it would be difficult to classify in this manner at this point.
How do you know what Sean Gorman wants?
Beause Sean Gorman himself says he wants to graduate with his degree, publish and continue academic research in the article:
Invariably, he said, they suggest his work be classified. "
Classify my dissertation? Crap. Does this mean I have to redo my PhD?" he said. "They're worried about national security. I'm worried about getting my degree."
Along the way he talked about his dilemma: not wanting to hurt national security; not wanting to ruin his career as an academic.
"Is this going to completely squash me?" he said, biting his fingernail. GMU has determined that he will publish only the most general aspects of his work. "Academics make their name as an expert in something. . . . If I can't talk about it, it's hard to get hired. It's hard to put 'classified' on your list of publications on your résumé."
You're right. But do you have any reason to believe that this is the case?
See my further comments about his prof's statements as a red herring. I'm in no position to judge the academic value of the work because I haven't seen it, and it looks like I will never see it if the work is classified, so we'll just have to leave it there.
I accidentally pressed Submit instead of Preview before I finished my comment.
What I was going to say about this quote...
From the article:
"The government uses research funding as a carrot to induce people to refrain from speech they would otherwise engage in," said Kathleen Sullivan, dean of Stanford Law School. "If it were a command, it would be unconstitutional."
... was that I think that this is a blanket statement and gross generalization even though it has been true in specific cases through history. Is it true in this case? I have no idea. Is it possible? Yes. But the university itself is pursuing the government funding, not the other way around.
He's worked hard on his research and doesn't want it to get seen by him, his professor, and a few miscellaneous others. He wants to be proud and publish his results...
Why does he have to publish to be proud? I'd be pretty damn proud to have my work classified.
You are making his work seem trivial and it's not.
His own professor called the work "tedious and unimportant." Do you have more knowledge about this work than this guy's professor?
Good for you. When you come up with something that the government thinks should be classified, you be as proud as you like and keep it all to yourself. The title and subject matter of what is classified will also probably be classified because letting people know about what was classified is likely to be deemed sensitive information that should be classified. See where this is going?
Sean Gorman wants to graduate with his degree, publish and continue academic research. It's not unreasonable that he would want others to see the product of what he's been on working for years. Part of completing a PhD is to do a defense of your research, which usually is before a panel of peers and professors who have some knowledge of the area you are studying. Dissertation defenses are usually open to the public (read "other students and academics" because few people tend to be interested in specific disserations) which means that potentially anyone can sit in and learn about the subject matter. If his research is classified then none of that can take place because it would be illegal for anyone to read the paper or hear about its contents without first getting clearance from the government.
Just because his professor lacks imagination, vision and insight (not uncommon in academic circles I assure you) it doesn't mean this prof is right. Maybe his prof is tedious and unimportant. There are lots of people who said the same sort of thing about the Internet. Even "visionary" Bill Gates is on record as saying the the Internet is a fad, though he quickly changed his tune. History is full of brilliant people whose work went unrecognized because it was considered fringe, tedious and unimportant. In this case, based on the attention this research is getting, there are obviously many people who think otherwise.
His professor, John McCarthy, thought that the research was important enough to introduce Gorman to national security contacts, so the "tedious and unimportant" line smells like a red herring. The article also talks about how the university is trying to get government funding beacuse it wants to develop a ''relationship'' with the Department of Homeland Security.
From the article:
"The government uses research funding as a carrot to induce people to refrain from speech they would otherwise engage in," said Kathleen Sullivan, dean of Stanford Law School. "If it were a command, it would be unconstitutional."
"Some people still think of Internet access as a luxury," explains Kuut, whose company, Vemis, works extensively in rural areas. "But 10 years ago, most people in Estonia looked at hot, running water as a luxury, and nobody would think that today."
"Some people still think of Internet access as a luxury," explains Kuut, whose company, Vemis, works extensively in rural areas. "But 10 years ago, most people in Estonia looked at hot, running water as a luxury, and nobody would think that today."
And that didn't tell me the before and after picture, did it smartass? That statistic by itself doesn't allow me to draw conclusions on weather the county as a whole is seeing better income or if a small minority is become super wealthy while everyone else remains poor.
But thank you to everyone else who did answer my question.
---
OK, I tried to be nice and I tried to be helpful by pointing you in the right direction, even quoting one of the statistics mentioned in the article that you were looking for, which you you apparently missed. Instead you decided to attack me, so it's time for me to return the favor.
[Flame on]
The only smartass around here is you - or more accurately, dumbass. Do you understand the meaning of the word "infer"? I said you can INFER some of the information you're looking for from the content of the article.
Hmmmm, 10 years ago less than half of the population had a telephone, and now over 60% of the population has a mobile phone. What does that tell you, besides the fact that you're a complete moron who can't make a logical leap and figure out that incomes could have risen to the point where some type of phone service is now affordable for a majority of the population. Or maybe the cost of telecom service has fallen. Or maybe a combination of both. Wow, that was difficult to figure out, wasn't it, dumbass?
YOU'RE the one who ASKED for the per capita income, which I pointed out WAS MENTIONED in the article. Are you ignorant or just illiterate and innumerate?
Do your own damn research. Get off your lazy ass and go check the CIA World Factbook yourself (which is ALSO mentioned in the article) if you want more info about the demographics and basic statistics about Estonia. Don't know where to find it? I guess you're too stupid to go to Google and look it up, too, right? Duh, maybe it's at the CIA site? Stop waiting for everything to be pre-digested and spoon-fed to you. Use your brain, as feeble as it is. Quit whining about the fact that I (and others in this thread) didn't get you the information you wanted. Go find it yourself you dumbass
inbred ingrate.
[Flame off]
Apologies to everyone else who had to watch that virtual bitch-slapping.
Misleading summary of the article - another view
on
Addicted to Information?
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· Score: 2, Informative
The summary presented here is misleading - it seizes upon one small aspect of the article and makes it out to be the focus of the entire thing. It completely ignores the social aspects of the subculture surrounding technology. Here's my capsule summary of the article:
Always On: Is Multi-tasking Addictive?
The NY Times has a long and detailed article about multi-tasking in a communications technology-infused lifestyle. The fundamental questions it is trying to address is whether or not these technologies are addictive, do they tap into an underlying pathology or personality type, or are they causing shorter attention spans and reduced productivity? Ubiquitous and wireless technology have created an ''Always On'' subculture that may have given rise to pseudo-attention deficit disorder or online compulsive disorder, according to doctors and psychchiatrists referenced in the article, but technology executives and some users argue that conclusion is dead wrong. It's a thought-provoking read and it may spur some Slashdotters to examine how reliant you have become on mobile phones, pagers, instant messaging, wireless networks, powerful computing and broadband Internet, or how entrenched these communications technologies are in your own lives.
Re:Everything enjoyable is addictive - Wrong
on
Addicted to Information?
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· Score: 4, Informative
Uh, no.
Addiction is more complex than what you outline here. Because something is enjoyable or pleasurable, that does not make it addictive, per se or not.
Addiction is the compulsive use of a substance or activity resulting in physical, psychological, or social harm to the user; the user continues in this pattern of behavior despite the harms that result. Addiction is differentiated from psychological dependence and physical dependence. Psychological dependence is the feeling that someone has when they think that drugs or activities are necessary to achieve a feeling of well-being. Physical dependence is marked by the development of tolerance to a drug or activity's effects so that increased amounts of a drug or activity are needed to obtain the desired effect. Tolerance also reveals its presence by the development of withdrawal symptoms when the drug or activity is stopped for a sufficient time. These matters are more complex than often thought.
Drug dependence (addiction) is compulsive use of a substance despite negative consequences which can be severe; drug abuse is simply excessive use of a drug or use of a drug for purposes for which it was not medically intended.
Physical dependence on a substance (needing a drug to function) is not necessary or sufficient to define addiction. There are some substances which don't cause addiction but do cause physical dependence (for example, some blood pressure medications) and substances which cause addiction but not classic physical dependence (cocaine withdrawal, for example, doesn't have symptoms like vomiting and chills; it is mainly characterized by depression).
What you described is a voluntary lack of self-control. I think that's called gluttony.
Understandably people are taking a closer look at the provisions under the Uniting and Strengthening America by Providing Appropriate
Tools Required to Intercept and Obstruct Terrorism (USA PATRIOT) Act now that the initial shock of 9/11 has worn off. The reaction to "do something" is not being governed by the climate of fear and the urgent feeling for a rapid response that followed the attacks, which also meant that many legislators didn't read or understand the entire bill. The fear of political opponents using a vote against a bill with the name "PATRIOT" didn't help.
Obviously many of those who are taking a sober second thought about the provisions don't like what they see, and this may be the start of a movement to let the sunset clause on the act take effect. It is set to expire at midnight (0h00) January 1, 2006.
New Jupiter-like Planet Discovered in Sol-like system
A new Jupiter-like planet has been discovered in a circular orbit around a Sun-like star 90 light-years away in the constellation Pupis. What is remarkable about the discovery is that this system is the most like our own solar system discovered to-date. This development lends credence to the theory that systems with small, rocky Earth-like planets are out there. ''This is the closest we have yet got to a real Solar System-like planet and advances our search for systems that are even more like our own,'' said UK team leader Hugh Jones of Liverpool John Moores University. Jones went on to say that, ''Jupiter's position is probably crucial to the distribution of other planets in the Solar System.'' Current thinking on planet-formation indicates a large, Jupiter-like planet in a circular orbit would allow the relatively undisturbed formation of an inner system of smaller Earth-like planets. The newly discovered planet is about twice the mass of Jupiter with an orbit equivalent to the asteroid belt in our own solar system.
Real point: Friedman's fear and loathing
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Does Google = God?
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· Score: 5, Interesting
And that brings me to the point of this column: While we may be emotionally distancing ourselves from the world, the world is getting more integrated. That means that what people think of us, as Americans, will matter more, not less. Because people outside America will be able to build alliances more efficiently in the world we are entering and they will be able to reach out and touch us -- whether with computer viruses or anthrax recipes downloaded from the Internet -- more than ever.
The point is more fear and paranoiac fantasies as only Thomas Friedman can spin, with an evil-doer under every rock, a terrorist behind every tree and, now, a rabid, sweaty-toothed madman coming to get us behind every keyboard.
From his lofty perch high atop the NY Times, Friedman has seen a career revival thanks to 9/11, winning a Pulitzer for his turgid writing about the event and its effects. When Friedman gets basic facts just plain wrong, it makes you wonder how much else he gets wrong, or otherwise intentionally distorts or misrepresents just so he can make everyone see the world through his lens where terrorists will get all of us.
Examples?
VeriSign, which operates much of the Internet's infrastructure...
and
A domain request is anytime anyone types in.com or.net
Really? The last time I checked VeriSign was only responsible for maintaining the.com and.net registries, as well as most SSL certificate services. There are 243 country code top-level domains, plus the.org TLD, not just.com and.net. The way Friedman makes it sound it's as if there's nothing else out there, and I'm not sure which is worse: that he was too lazy or too apathetic to talk to anyone other than VeriSign to get a basic understanding of the Internet to accurately write about it for his many non-technical readers.
These are basic facts and are simple to check. Any journalism student can do this so why doesn't Friedman?
Given his penchant for hyperbole in overstating the negative consequences of everything and minimizing the positives, it's no surprise that Friedman has completely missed the fact that the same technologies he fears are just as capable of opening up communications. He says that while the world is growing more integrated and what the world thinks about the USA will matter more, the USA is becoming ideologically isolationist and it doesn't need to heed what the rest of the world tells it. Proliferation of the Internet facilitates the free exchange of ideas that can result in better understanding and relations with the rest of the world, which Friedman apparently believes is full of nothing but some sort of irrational monolithic hatred.
When Friedman takes such a reductionist view of the world that amounts to Us vs. Them, is it any wonder that all Friedman can see are terrorists, terrorists everywhere and not a refuge in sight.
When the only tool you have is a hammer the whole world looks like a nail.
''Microsoft's volume-licensing programme is notoriously opaque. However, SuSE's prices seem reasonable, and the structure is straightforward.
SuSE sells SLD only in combination with a maintenance programme that covers a minimum of five desktops. The five-desktop, one-year maintenance contract, along with an installation kit, runs at $598, with $99.80 for each additional desktop. A 10-client, one-year contract costs $998 with the installation kit and further discounts kick in for higher-volume customers.''
I'm sure that many IT admins will appreciate a clear and straight-forward licensing structure, but the question I have for anyone in the know is what would the cost be for a comparable WinXP setup?
It would have driven home the relative value of this distro if the reviewer had made an attempt at showing how much Microsoft charges for a similar package, espcially because that's the key issue for corporate decision-makers: ROI
Slashdot Mirror
This story needs to be put in context with recent developments and crowing about Windows being chosen over Linux. The biggest story out of this surprising admission is that analysts and large organizations are starting to recognize the value proposition of Linux and Open Source, as described in the rejected post below. The most telling comment is in the quotation in boldface, which lends support to Mitch Kapor's predictions.
Microsoft Ranks Linux its Number Two Threat
While most media are focusing on Microsoft's growing sales and Microsoft Windows Server 2003 replacing Linux servers based on the June 2003 Netcraft survey, (also at SMH, but disputed by the Register) there's a more interesting story to Microsoft's latest earnings report and conference call. Speaking about the top five risks for Microsoft, CFO John Connors said, ''The general economic environment is risk and driver number one. Linux and non-commercial software is risk number two.'' The recent Munich win for Linux is partly credited for making Microsoft take Linux and OS software seriously. Said one analyst about future threats, ''People are underestimating Linux on the desktop. They're going to be surprised at how quickly Linux's threat will be an issue on the desktop.''
Uh... did you want to post to the Clie topic?
... courtesy of the rejected post machine. The government sector news sites are always good - and usually better - for details about contracts of this sort:
Microsoft/Dell Gets $90-$120 Million Homeland Security Contract
Microsoft has been awarded the five-year, $90 million Department of Homeland Security contract for desktop and server software. The contract will be managed by Dell and will provide the DHS with 140,000 desktops running Windows XP and Microsoft Office Professional. When consolidated with current agreements, the contract amounts to a six-year agreement covering 144,000 desktops, worth between $110 million and $120 million. This follows the $478 million, six-year deal with the Army announced last month. More at the Seattle Post-Intelligencer, Washington Post, InformationWeek, the Register , eWEEK, and Reuters.
The subject says it. I have to applaud such an excellent troll.
That said, I find the level of hostility and even outright hatred directed at me for a casual comment - that was not even the substance of my post - astonishing. My initial post was intended to point out that Cuba has long been used as a major base of operations for electronic signals intercepts and espionage by both the USA and the USSR/Russia. Nothing more, nothing less. If you choose to read it in a paranoiac manner that you believe implies malice where none exists, that is your issue, not mine.
Some of you have gone so far as to make attempts to learn details of my identity (you know who you are and now so do I - don't worry, I won't publish your identities or other personal information even though it would be an excellent object lesson). If you have something you want to know, just ask - I just might answer. There's really no need for your kind of subterfuge.
Now, despite my better judgement, on to the rest of your response because the record needs to be set straight.
Pro-Shah U.S. satellite stations and CNN's reliability: The report I referred to was broadcast from Los Angeles without any restrictions by government censors. Your comment that "CNN are the people who admitted to censoring various news broadcasts out of Iraq" is supposed to cast doubt on the reliablilty of the L.A. report. What you fail to mention is that every major news organization in the world has to submit to government censors of one kind or another when reporting from a war zone. If you were inside Iraq like CNN, BBC, CBC, AFP, AP and others, you had to submit your reports for vetting by Iraqi government censors. If you were an embedded reporter with U.S. forces, you had to sign a (leaked) contract and agree to restrictions before you were even allowed to be embedded. Reporters are still forbidden to disclose the terms of the contract or the penalities for doing so. Journalists were then required to get the authorization of the company commander to send their reports. At CENTCOM headquarters, information was tightly controlled and heavily censored before it was ever presented to reporters so that they never got anything less than the rosiest possible picture. This was preceded by blanket U.S. government censorship in the first Gulf War and subsequent conflicts. Intelligence Onine, a respected global intelligence community newsletter, documented that the airmobile Fourth Psychological Operations Group, from Fort Bragg, North Carolina were active employees of CNN who participated in news production. In the U.K. and Northern Ireland during the worst days of the fighting, it was illegal to broadcast even the voice of an IRA or Sinn Fein member. If you're a reporter in Israel/Occupied Territories, you must sign an agreement to submit to Israeli military censorship as a condition of working there. The list goes on and on. It goes with the territory if you're reporting from a conflict zone, not from a studio in suburban Los Angeles.
Ad hominem attacks: Read very carefully. I made no accusations against anyone. In fact, it was you, Phil, who attempted to equate me with "our enemies" and wrote of my supposed "sympathies towards the Cuban government." You're hardly without sin, so you certainly shouldn't be casting stones, or aspersions for that matter.
Student protests: Iranian students were protesting against plans by their government to privatize its university system - the system is currently government-subsidized - which would result in massive tuition increases and deny access to a post-secondary education to all but the wealthiest Iranians. That is the context in which the protests were taking place and that is
Overture used to be paid search portal GoTo.com which recently bought AltaVista for $140 million and then bought Fast Search / Alltheweb.com for $100 million. It was one of the IdeaLab properties. Interesting AP article about Overture's history and challenges over the last six years mirrored here.
Overture press release and the Yahoo Media Relations press release center.
Some more details about AOL Journals from:
Blogs: AOL Journals Coming This Fall
AOL has discovered blogs. AOL Journals (so named because AOLers were confused by the term ''blog'') will make its debut this fall. The new service will let subscribers use AOL Instant Messenger to post to their blogs/journals with RSS/XML. AOL by Phone users will be able to leave voice mail that will be posted to their blogs as MP3s. More thoughts on the AOL Journals beta from Clay Shirky and Shelley "burningbird" Powers
The fact that you decided to resort to a personal attack and innuendoes says far more about you than anything else you had to say. Instead of behaving like a reactionary, McCarthyist zealot and making claims about all sorts of conclusions that I supposedly reached, try reading a little closer.
I said it seems more likely that a signal would have come from Guantanamo. Considering the massive signals operation there, that's perfectly reasonable.
Someone else mentioned in the thread that it's possible that it was an accidental jam if it was the USA because mistakes like that have been known to happen. A more cynical view would be that it was intentionally done to manufacture an incident like the Gulf of Tonkin hoax that was eventually used to justify the Johnson administration's massive expansion of the war in Vietnam. The final possibility that is mentioned in the article is the Russian-built Cuban station. It seems strange that the Russians would have two stations that were only seven miles apart (before the closure of Lourdes), but that is also entirely possible.
The fact is that neither you nor I have any concrete proof of who was responsible for the jamming. Everything else is speculation.
The CNN Los Angeles bureau reported in June that the backers of the U.S.-based Iranian dissident satellite television stations are Shah-ists, showing the portraits of the Shah plastered all over the studios. We now know that a 1953 coup orchestrated by the CIA, helped overthrow the short-lived, democratically elected Mossadegh government and snuffed out budding democracy in Iran. The U.S. then installed the Shah and trained his notoriously brutal SAVAK internal security forces. The Shah went on to become one of the most savage dictators of the 20th century until the Iranian revolution in 1979.
To get back in bed with the Shah's supporters today is directly counter to the stated goal of fostering a democratic, free society in Iran which might have thrived if not for the U.S.-backed coup 50 years ago.
To Phil-14: The last time I checked I have the right to free speech. It seems you would prefer that we live in a Stalinist, Communist regime that would put an end to anyone who didn't agree with your narrow point of view.
The MSNBC report may be 100% correct. An open mind will at least acknowledge that there are other possibilities.
In addition to the U.S. military base and Camp X-Ray at Guantanamo Bay in Cuba, I seem to recall that there is an NSA/CIA/DIA electronic signals intercept and listening station at Guantanamo.
From the book ''The U.S. Intelligence Community''
At Guantanamo Bay, Cuba are more than 100 members of the Guantanamo Naval Security Group Activity. Employing an AN/FRD-10 antenna system, the unit intercepts Cuban and Soviet military communications in and around Cuba and the Caribbean Basin.
It seems more likely that jamming an Iranian satellite signal would come from the American dishes at the Guantanamo installation than from Cubans.
The Soviets/Russians also had a major electronic signals listening station at Lourdes, Cuba (its largest foreign military base) that was aimed at intercepting American telephone calls and computer communications, but the Russians shut it down in 2002 after pressure and inducements from the USA. The base was set up after the Cuban Missile Crisis.
It probably has something to do with the costs associated with uranium enrichment projects, if I were to hazard a guess. Maybe it's valuable to someone who wants to figure out how much a program would cost?
I'm not going to repeat my comments from yesterday's topic here, but instead invite you to read my thoughts on Defending disserations and visionaries and Part 2 of the same. Please read both links since they are part of the same post (split due to a mis-clicked Submit instead of Preview button).
The question I have for you is are you cleared to read your own disseration? You wrote it, but have you received government clearance to access your thesis. I'm also curious which department determined it should be classified. The NRO?
The other issue in Sean Gorman's case that is slightly different from yours is that your thesis was (presumably) classified after it was published since you haven't mentioned anything about not receiving your degree. Sean Gorman is faced with being denied his degree because his work has been classified before he can complete his disseration.
I see where you are going, but that's not where this is going. The title and subject matter are not being classified.
Yet. Classifying the title and subject matter of sensitive information has been done in the past. Obviously with the publicity surrounding Gorman's work, it would be difficult to classify in this manner at this point.
How do you know what Sean Gorman wants?
Beause Sean Gorman himself says he wants to graduate with his degree, publish and continue academic research in the article:
You're right. But do you have any reason to believe that this is the case?
See my further comments about his prof's statements as a red herring. I'm in no position to judge the academic value of the work because I haven't seen it, and it looks like I will never see it if the work is classified, so we'll just have to leave it there.
I accidentally pressed Submit instead of Preview before I finished my comment.
What I was going to say about this quote...
From the article:
"The government uses research funding as a carrot to induce people to refrain from speech they would otherwise engage in," said Kathleen Sullivan, dean of Stanford Law School. "If it were a command, it would be unconstitutional."
... was that I think that this is a blanket statement and gross generalization even though it has been true in specific cases through history. Is it true in this case? I have no idea. Is it possible? Yes. But the university itself is pursuing the government funding, not the other way around.
He's worked hard on his research and doesn't want it to get seen by him, his professor, and a few miscellaneous others. He wants to be proud and publish his results...
Why does he have to publish to be proud? I'd be pretty damn proud to have my work classified.
You are making his work seem trivial and it's not.
His own professor called the work "tedious and unimportant." Do you have more knowledge about this work than this guy's professor?
Good for you. When you come up with something that the government thinks should be classified, you be as proud as you like and keep it all to yourself. The title and subject matter of what is classified will also probably be classified because letting people know about what was classified is likely to be deemed sensitive information that should be classified. See where this is going?
Sean Gorman wants to graduate with his degree, publish and continue academic research. It's not unreasonable that he would want others to see the product of what he's been on working for years. Part of completing a PhD is to do a defense of your research, which usually is before a panel of peers and professors who have some knowledge of the area you are studying. Dissertation defenses are usually open to the public (read "other students and academics" because few people tend to be interested in specific disserations) which means that potentially anyone can sit in and learn about the subject matter. If his research is classified then none of that can take place because it would be illegal for anyone to read the paper or hear about its contents without first getting clearance from the government.
Just because his professor lacks imagination, vision and insight (not uncommon in academic circles I assure you) it doesn't mean this prof is right. Maybe his prof is tedious and unimportant. There are lots of people who said the same sort of thing about the Internet. Even "visionary" Bill Gates is on record as saying the the Internet is a fad, though he quickly changed his tune. History is full of brilliant people whose work went unrecognized because it was considered fringe, tedious and unimportant. In this case, based on the attention this research is getting, there are obviously many people who think otherwise.
His professor, John McCarthy, thought that the research was important enough to introduce Gorman to national security contacts, so the "tedious and unimportant" line smells like a red herring. The article also talks about how the university is trying to get government funding beacuse it wants to develop a ''relationship'' with the Department of Homeland Security.
From the article:
"The government uses research funding as a carrot to induce people to refrain from speech they would otherwise engage in," said Kathleen Sullivan, dean of Stanford Law School. "If it were a command, it would be unconstitutional."
Where did you get this crap?
From the article:
"Some people still think of Internet access as a luxury," explains Kuut, whose company, Vemis, works extensively in rural areas. "But 10 years ago, most people in Estonia looked at hot, running water as a luxury, and nobody would think that today."
Don't shoot the messenger!
a) hot water was NOT a luxury 10 years ago.
Hey, don't shoot the messenger! :)
From the article:
"Some people still think of Internet access as a luxury," explains Kuut, whose company, Vemis, works extensively in rural areas. "But 10 years ago, most people in Estonia looked at hot, running water as a luxury, and nobody would think that today."
banzai51 wrote:
And that didn't tell me the before and after picture, did it smartass? That statistic by itself doesn't allow me to draw conclusions on weather the county as a whole is seeing better income or if a small minority is become super wealthy while everyone else remains poor.
But thank you to everyone else who did answer my question.
---
OK, I tried to be nice and I tried to be helpful by pointing you in the right direction, even quoting one of the statistics mentioned in the article that you were looking for, which you you apparently missed. Instead you decided to attack me, so it's time for me to return the favor.
[Flame on]
The only smartass around here is you - or more accurately, dumbass. Do you understand the meaning of the word "infer"? I said you can INFER some of the information you're looking for from the content of the article.
Hmmmm, 10 years ago less than half of the population had a telephone, and now over 60% of the population has a mobile phone. What does that tell you, besides the fact that you're a complete moron who can't make a logical leap and figure out that incomes could have risen to the point where some type of phone service is now affordable for a majority of the population. Or maybe the cost of telecom service has fallen. Or maybe a combination of both. Wow, that was difficult to figure out, wasn't it, dumbass?
YOU'RE the one who ASKED for the per capita income, which I pointed out WAS MENTIONED in the article. Are you ignorant or just illiterate and innumerate?
Do your own damn research. Get off your lazy ass and go check the CIA World Factbook yourself (which is ALSO mentioned in the article) if you want more info about the demographics and basic statistics about Estonia. Don't know where to find it? I guess you're too stupid to go to Google and look it up, too, right? Duh, maybe it's at the CIA site? Stop waiting for everything to be pre-digested and spoon-fed to you. Use your brain, as feeble as it is. Quit whining about the fact that I (and others in this thread) didn't get you the information you wanted. Go find it yourself you dumbass inbred ingrate.
[Flame off]
Apologies to everyone else who had to watch that virtual bitch-slapping.
The summary presented here is misleading - it seizes upon one small aspect of the article and makes it out to be the focus of the entire thing. It completely ignores the social aspects of the subculture surrounding technology. Here's my capsule summary of the article:
Always On: Is Multi-tasking Addictive?
The NY Times has a long and detailed article about multi-tasking in a communications technology-infused lifestyle. The fundamental questions it is trying to address is whether or not these technologies are addictive, do they tap into an underlying pathology or personality type, or are they causing shorter attention spans and reduced productivity? Ubiquitous and wireless technology have created an ''Always On'' subculture that may have given rise to pseudo-attention deficit disorder or online compulsive disorder, according to doctors and psychchiatrists referenced in the article, but technology executives and some users argue that conclusion is dead wrong. It's a thought-provoking read and it may spur some Slashdotters to examine how reliant you have become on mobile phones, pagers, instant messaging, wireless networks, powerful computing and broadband Internet, or how entrenched these communications technologies are in your own lives.
Here's the definition from the Harvard Medical School Division on Addictions:
Addiction is the compulsive use of a substance or activity resulting in physical, psychological, or social harm to the user; the user continues in this pattern of behavior despite the harms that result. Addiction is differentiated from psychological dependence and physical dependence. Psychological dependence is the feeling that someone has when they think that drugs or activities are necessary to achieve a feeling of well-being. Physical dependence is marked by the development of tolerance to a drug or activity's effects so that increased amounts of a drug or activity are needed to obtain the desired effect. Tolerance also reveals its presence by the development of withdrawal symptoms when the drug or activity is stopped for a sufficient time. These matters are more complex than often thought.
And here's the definition of addiction from the National Institutes of Health's MedLine.
Drug dependence (addiction) is compulsive use of a substance despite negative consequences which can be severe; drug abuse is simply excessive use of a drug or use of a drug for purposes for which it was not medically intended. Physical dependence on a substance (needing a drug to function) is not necessary or sufficient to define addiction. There are some substances which don't cause addiction but do cause physical dependence (for example, some blood pressure medications) and substances which cause addiction but not classic physical dependence (cocaine withdrawal, for example, doesn't have symptoms like vomiting and chills; it is mainly characterized by depression).
What you described is a voluntary lack of self-control. I think that's called gluttony.
What are the employement levels, per capita income, etc
From the article: ''... a country with an average per capita income of $7,000.''
Try reading the article. While not explicitly stated in all cases, you can infer some of the information that you are looking for.
Understandably people are taking a closer look at the provisions under the Uniting and Strengthening America by Providing Appropriate Tools Required to Intercept and Obstruct Terrorism (USA PATRIOT) Act now that the initial shock of 9/11 has worn off. The reaction to "do something" is not being governed by the climate of fear and the urgent feeling for a rapid response that followed the attacks, which also meant that many legislators didn't read or understand the entire bill. The fear of political opponents using a vote against a bill with the name "PATRIOT" didn't help.
Obviously many of those who are taking a sober second thought about the provisions don't like what they see, and this may be the start of a movement to let the sunset clause on the act take effect. It is set to expire at midnight (0h00) January 1, 2006.
Librarians are at the forefront of the movement and the American Library Association's USA PATRIOT Act campaign is one of many legislative and privacy issues that they address.
The July 4th weekend may be a good time to think about the USA PATRIOT act, argues the SJMC. Declan McCullagh offers his thoughts on the Domestic Security Enhancement Act of 2003 AKA PATRIOT Act II. You can also read EPIC's view of the DSEA 2003 and the original USA PATRIOT Act. They also have links to the text of the legislation and other info.
A bit more info from a previously submitted post:
New Jupiter-like Planet Discovered in Sol-like system
A new Jupiter-like planet has been discovered in a circular orbit around a Sun-like star 90 light-years away in the constellation Pupis. What is remarkable about the discovery is that this system is the most like our own solar system discovered to-date. This development lends credence to the theory that systems with small, rocky Earth-like planets are out there. ''This is the closest we have yet got to a real Solar System-like planet and advances our search for systems that are even more like our own,'' said UK team leader Hugh Jones of Liverpool John Moores University. Jones went on to say that, ''Jupiter's position is probably crucial to the distribution of other planets in the Solar System.'' Current thinking on planet-formation indicates a large, Jupiter-like planet in a circular orbit would allow the relatively undisturbed formation of an inner system of smaller Earth-like planets. The newly discovered planet is about twice the mass of Jupiter with an orbit equivalent to the asteroid belt in our own solar system.
No sense in letting a rejected post go to waste.
Here's more background on the ideas and issues at stake, especially (surprisingly) the technology press links.
At the recent Wireless Internet Opportunity for Developing Nations conference, United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan said that 802.11b (AKA Wi-Fi) has "a key role to play everywhere, but especially in developing countries and countries with economies in transition," where there is little to no telecommunications infrastructure in place. Keynote speaker Intel CTO Pat Gelsinger was understandably thrilled saying, "We see millions of people with the potential to become Wi-Fi users," and that wireless Internet was particularly appropriate for developing nations because it was neither government-regulated nor licensed. With 40-50 million PCs in use already, developing nations (including China and India) now make up the fastest growing market segment. Intel's new Centrino 802.11b laptop chipset and 30-mile-range MANs now under development that are based on 802.16 make Gelsinger hope for a sales bonanza that will put Intel in the lead for wireless notebooks. Critics say that a technology focus is not the panacaea for the poor, but instead solutions should be matched to the needs of a population.
And that brings me to the point of this column: While we may be emotionally distancing ourselves from the world, the world is getting more integrated. That means that what people think of us, as Americans, will matter more, not less. Because people outside America will be able to build alliances more efficiently in the world we are entering and they will be able to reach out and touch us -- whether with computer viruses or anthrax recipes downloaded from the Internet -- more than ever.
The point is more fear and paranoiac fantasies as only Thomas Friedman can spin, with an evil-doer under every rock, a terrorist behind every tree and, now, a rabid, sweaty-toothed madman coming to get us behind every keyboard.
From his lofty perch high atop the NY Times, Friedman has seen a career revival thanks to 9/11, winning a Pulitzer for his turgid writing about the event and its effects. When Friedman gets basic facts just plain wrong, it makes you wonder how much else he gets wrong, or otherwise intentionally distorts or misrepresents just so he can make everyone see the world through his lens where terrorists will get all of us.
Examples?
VeriSign, which operates much of the Internet's infrastructure...
and
A domain request is anytime anyone types in .com or .net
Really? The last time I checked VeriSign was only responsible for maintaining the .com and .net registries, as well as most SSL certificate services. There are 243 country code top-level domains, plus the .org TLD, not just .com and .net. The way Friedman makes it sound it's as if there's nothing else out there, and I'm not sure which is worse: that he was too lazy or too apathetic to talk to anyone other than VeriSign to get a basic understanding of the Internet to accurately write about it for his many non-technical readers.
These are basic facts and are simple to check. Any journalism student can do this so why doesn't Friedman?
Given his penchant for hyperbole in overstating the negative consequences of everything and minimizing the positives, it's no surprise that Friedman has completely missed the fact that the same technologies he fears are just as capable of opening up communications. He says that while the world is growing more integrated and what the world thinks about the USA will matter more, the USA is becoming ideologically isolationist and it doesn't need to heed what the rest of the world tells it. Proliferation of the Internet facilitates the free exchange of ideas that can result in better understanding and relations with the rest of the world, which Friedman apparently believes is full of nothing but some sort of irrational monolithic hatred.
When Friedman takes such a reductionist view of the world that amounts to Us vs. Them, is it any wonder that all Friedman can see are terrorists, terrorists everywhere and not a refuge in sight.
When the only tool you have is a hammer the whole world looks like a nail.
''Microsoft's volume-licensing programme is notoriously opaque. However, SuSE's prices seem reasonable, and the structure is straightforward.
SuSE sells SLD only in combination with a maintenance programme that covers a minimum of five desktops. The five-desktop, one-year maintenance contract, along with an installation kit, runs at $598, with $99.80 for each additional desktop. A 10-client, one-year contract costs $998 with the installation kit and further discounts kick in for higher-volume customers.''
I'm sure that many IT admins will appreciate a clear and straight-forward licensing structure, but the question I have for anyone in the know is what would the cost be for a comparable WinXP setup?
It would have driven home the relative value of this distro if the reviewer had made an attempt at showing how much Microsoft charges for a similar package, espcially because that's the key issue for corporate decision-makers: ROI