Yeah. The point being thousands of Americans killed in Vietnam. I guess just a couple hundred or so just doesn't constitute 'a point'. Everything else is pretty much the same.
No. The point was not thousands killed. Go back and re-read your history. The Pentagon Papers revealed that four administrations had mislead the public on their intentions and the expansion of the war. This leak has no such revelation. And, in fact, is simply a shotgun of information with no actual subject or point to make. The two are not "pretty much the same."
If a newspaper gets classified information through regular investigative journalism, they are now NOT allowed to print that information? (see: Pentagon Papers)
The thing is, this leak is not the Pentagon Papers. There is no distinct point to this leak; it is a shotgun of classified material with no distinct purpose. There is no major issue being reported on. The leaks are being covered because of the leaks themselves not because of some horrible revelation brought about by the information published.
And less I sound too anti-Wikileaks on this (of whom I am critical), I'd like to see the same attitude applied to the leaking of Valerie Plame's name as well. There was no justification for this and stiffer penalties (and more parties facing legal action) should have been involved.
Google wasn't trespassing "innocently" or "by mistake"; they were engaged in commercial activity and did what they did intentionally.
If I remember right, there wasn't much of anything to indicate that the road was private. And while Google was intentionally engaging in commercial activity, there would be little indication that they were trespassing to do it.
I notice that a lot of people seems to conveniently forget their "Morals" when it's their neck on the chopping block. Julian has not mass murdered anyone yet he appears to be more hated than Saddam, Hitler, or Chavez right now.
Don't let it fool you. We have a lot of turmoil in our political scene right now. Politicians like to grab that turmoil by the emotional horns and give it a good spin if they think they can get some mileage out of it. But at the end of the day, all the indignant "why haven't we done anything about this" questions are easily answered by the far less satisfying "because there is nothing for us to do." Well. That's not entirely true. There's a big review and push to clamp down on classified material access underway. That'll probably undo any attempts to increase data flow between intelligence agencies within the US after 9/11 put said agencies on the spot to answer "why didn't you know anything about this."
As for being "press", Wikileaks is hardly that. But they're no terrorists either.
the only way he is alive, and there is wikileaks still, because he had done everything to put himself on the spotlight and keep people remembering him and wikileaks, so that assassinating him would be hard.
get a clue. really. get a clue.
Because none of that could bea self-serving ego boost, could it. Get a clue, indeed.
Fair points on exceptionalism and resting on laurels; I tend to agree.
In this case, it's equating a relatively minor crime with mass murder, more because it mocks us than because of its costs.
I suspect I put more weight on the severity of this leak than you do. As I noted, I believe the US Government is right to be critical of the leak and I suspect the leak will feed intel and propaganda to militant organizations. But there are limits.
One could make an argument that those who would aid militants with intel are somewhere close on the scale as the militants themselves. But intel-providers have to be spies, not simply accidental informers. Claiming Wikipedia is a terrorist organization because they might be aiding militants in this way is akin to claiming CNN was a Saddam-regime Iraqi spy because Iraq had a feed of CNN's live news reports on the war (and were alert enough to realize when CNN screwed up and reveled sensitive information).
The thing is, people like Palin are to be expected. There are always loud voices making emotional appeals. And people are prone to irrational behavior especially when they don't understand a situation. The key to it isn't to simply mock the loud voice or despair over the nature of humanity. We need to interject rational criticism in to the conversation, explain the situation, and remind people that law doesn't always favor our personal views.
It's really easy to get all the issues jumbled up. There are many interconnected issues but they are still separate and should be considered individually.
My fellow/. patrons can check my posting history; I tend to be critical of Wikileaks and wary of Assange himself. But I find much of this talk of treating the organization as terrorists to be tragic and laughable. I believe the US Government has every right to be upset and critical of these releases. However, I suspect the Government already knows that there is very little they can do about it beyond voicing criticism. That won't stop people from over-reacting and grabbing attention. While they are linked, policy and politics aren't always the same thing.
Keep in mind that Palin is after publicity. She has a reputation to craft; "mother grizzly". It isn't surprising that she would make statements like this. And while it is disturbing that such statements will resound with a certain population, it is no more an indication that the US is lost than religious leaders announcing that 9/11 is a sign of God's displeasure.
If you're not an Apple customer why would you care what people's reaction is? Or are you just a hater?
I'll answer that one for you. Trends. I despise Facebook. Yet we have people being conditioned to accept invasion of privacy and exhibition (I don't mind exhibitionists as long as I'm not expected to become one) as normal behavior at least partly (if not largely) because of it. Then you have companies like Blizzard / Activision deciding they need to follow suit. Whether that's because because "social networking" is a Big Thing or simply to convert their user base in to the same kind of market data machine is up for debate. But the outcome is still the same following the same trend.
This has VERY interesting possibilities for digital forensics as well. I get the feeling that the bluecava guys aren't even aware of that possibility yet. This would allow web interactions to be more thoroughly traced to a particular machine. Given the ability of most companies to put a particular person behind that machine (whether surveillance or electronic controls), suddenly your machine AND your interactions are subject to investigation at any time.
I would be very surprised if it hasn't dawned on them yet. From an interview:
Businesses can also determine if devices have a history of committing fraud, so they can protect themselves.
Note in that interview, BlueCava CEO David Norris is very careful to portray the technology as linked solely to the device and not the user. And there is a lot of effort to portray BlueCava as providing control of information to the end user. But the reality is that linking user to device is trivial (as you noted) and end users tend to not grasp implications of data security. However, the initial money is unlikely to be in forensics and for the system to work, you have to convince people to not fight it.
Not to take away anything from your rather salient points, but surely you don't believe the rise of the US is solely because of exploitation? There is still something to be said for what was done with those resources, plundered or otherwise.
Want to bet? It may take a court order but they will hand it over all the same.
The big ballyhoo last year about Privacy and Google's CEO missed the point. It wasn't that that Eric Schmidt was telling us we shouldn't feel the need for privacy. He was warning us that Google gets served with PATRIOT Act requests.
...a lot of people recently said that Wikileaks has become an anti-US organization. We should probably wait and see what they actually release, but perhaps this news shows otherwise? Or is the fact that they are going to release data on US based corporations just going to be viewed as more evidence of an anti-US sentiment?
It really depends on what they release. I've been critical of Wikileaks in the past. I find their "Collateral Murder" video to be propaganda. And I find their later data dumps to be little more than apparently releasing secrets simply for the sake of doing so while taking a jab at the US in the process (and possibly gaining support from the anti-war movement). The problem that I see is the video was edited to make a point and the data dumps fail to make a point.
What they publish next may or may not have any baring on the perception of anti-US sentiment. But they could definitely improve their perception if this next round of publishing has a point.
Nevertheless, this cable is classified as SECRET/NOFORN. Why? It reveals nothing that anyone couldn't find out by watching CNN or Al Jazeera, or, indeed, listening to the public statements of the Egyptian government.
At one point in my life, I was working with classified electronics gear. The frequencies the gear handled was classified SECRET/NOFORN. One could likely puzzle out those frequencies by analyzing the purpose of the gear and doing some signal intelligence while the gear operated (and hoping on operator error whlie you were listening). But none the less, the technical documentation that I had access to would outline the details in no uncertain terms and therefore were classified.
Just because it's possible to figure out classified information doesn't mean the information shouldn't be classified (although the level of classification may be in question and SECRET isn't that high in the chain). I also like to point out that the US Military deals with a concept called EEFI (Essential Elements of Friendly Information) which is essentially operational security awareness that non-classified activity / information may reveal classified information.
Yes. Perspective. What you choose to share with Facebook may be very different than what Facebook gets to know about you due to the proliferation of their "Like this" widget. And as others point out, not everyone chooses to share anything with Facebook.
It's all about the right interface for the job. While a pad may provide more real-estate than a smartphone and more mobility than a laptop, it strikes me as being far too bulky to lug around everywhere I go like my smartphone and entirely the wrong platform for general computing tasks. What I want is platforms playing to their strengths and the ability to quickly move data between them. Of course, what I expect is the Industry to tout each platform as the next coming for IT that will completely eliminate all other platforms and our entire concept of how we interact with the world.
Back when Gates was in charge, Microsoft focused in on one thing: enterprise software. They were good at it. Hell, they were the best at it. They did nothing else except develop this enterprise software.
Microsoft took advantage of being a prime player on commodity hardware. They also ate Novel's lunch by providing a cheap end-run around Novel's licensing (and a rather easy migration path away from Netware). Microsoft solutions tended to be the cheap alternative. That advantage no longer exists.
Re:The best way to avoid all that anxiety ...
on
Anxiety and IT?
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· Score: 1
Pretty sure the patent office is accepting applications for examiners right now, lol. They like people with Master's degrees.
NASA requires science and math degrees in their civil servants to include IT positions. I met one person who's sole qualification for the system they were responsible for was that they had a math degree. They had no experience and very little understanding for the system they were responsible for, much less any general IT experience. They were great to work with; very smart. But bluntly put, they were unqualified for the role. The only reason they took the job was that they wanted an in at NASA and that was the only position they were offered. A couple years later, offered a position elsewhere that more closely matched their interest in manned space so they moved on. There are numerous individuals in that same IT organisation who's sole qualifications are the degree and a desire for a career change that involves "working with computers."
I don't have any insight with the Patent Office. However, having witnessed other US Federal bureaucracies at work, I wouldn't put a whole lot of weight in their requirement for Master's degrees.
It's security theater. It's obvious. The purpose is CYA (for various reasons). But most people in Homeland Security, in the media or the travelling public do not want to admit it. That's frustrating.
Let me preface my reply by noting that I completely agree with you. We're dealing with security theatre and a greater threat to our rights than the physical threat we're supposed to be countering. But what is obvious to you and I is not so obvious to others. And there's a good reason for that - there is no useful metric.
As Bruce Schneier notes, people are bad at identifying threats. There is a real threat from terrorists. We've seen it. But people are really bad at understanding and properly quantifying the threat. And part of that is we can't actually count how many terrorist plots are in play / being thwarted / being re-worked. If we had such a metric, we could definitively say what is working and what isn't. Ignoring that metric would be the willful ignorance you're talking about.
Seriously, is everyone who works for "Homeland Security" an idiot? Is there some maximum IQ you can have before you're unqualified?
I get the same feeling. But that's simply frustration with the current situation. The reality is that we're dealing with bureaucrats with a myopic view of the problem.
One of the failings of the security profession is tunnel vision. Security is one's job and motivation; it starts to become the only consideration. There always has to be a sanity check to ensure that other considerations aren't ignored and security doesn't become an irrational drive that takes precedence over all. That sanity checking seems to be sorely lacking in the current environment.
The second problem is bureaucracy. It is rare that you find an individual who is multi-talented in both bureaucracy and a technical field (and are willing to apply that talent for Government wages). So what you commonly end up is Government leaders who are exceptional bureaucrats but sub-standard in the given field that is served by that role.
There is little wonder we're now dealing with bureaucrats who have a mandate to "protect" us but lack the understanding to actually do a good job at it and the inability to realize the fact.
It's also an example of confirmation bias. I'm expecting opposition to be in a certain location. I'm expecting that opposition to be positioned in a certain way. I'm expecting the opposition to be aiming something. I'm under pressure to act on those expectations so I open fire. It's not until a few seconds later that I can start accepting additional information; the shooter is dressed differently (with a day-glow orange vest!), the camera doesn't look like a paintgun, etc.
That's any camera. I've shot at people on a paintball field before because the photographer was in an aiming stance pointing at my teammates in a location I was expecting to find opposing players.
Slashdot Mirror
Yeah. The point being thousands of Americans killed in Vietnam. I guess just a couple hundred or so just doesn't constitute 'a point'. Everything else is pretty much the same.
No. The point was not thousands killed. Go back and re-read your history. The Pentagon Papers revealed that four administrations had mislead the public on their intentions and the expansion of the war. This leak has no such revelation. And, in fact, is simply a shotgun of information with no actual subject or point to make. The two are not "pretty much the same."
If a newspaper gets classified information through regular investigative journalism, they are now NOT allowed to print that information? (see: Pentagon Papers)
The thing is, this leak is not the Pentagon Papers. There is no distinct point to this leak; it is a shotgun of classified material with no distinct purpose. There is no major issue being reported on. The leaks are being covered because of the leaks themselves not because of some horrible revelation brought about by the information published.
And less I sound too anti-Wikileaks on this (of whom I am critical), I'd like to see the same attitude applied to the leaking of Valerie Plame's name as well. There was no justification for this and stiffer penalties (and more parties facing legal action) should have been involved.
Google wasn't trespassing "innocently" or "by mistake"; they were engaged in commercial activity and did what they did intentionally.
If I remember right, there wasn't much of anything to indicate that the road was private. And while Google was intentionally engaging in commercial activity, there would be little indication that they were trespassing to do it.
I notice that a lot of people seems to conveniently forget their "Morals" when it's their neck on the chopping block. Julian has not mass murdered anyone yet he appears to be more hated than Saddam, Hitler, or Chavez right now.
Don't let it fool you. We have a lot of turmoil in our political scene right now. Politicians like to grab that turmoil by the emotional horns and give it a good spin if they think they can get some mileage out of it. But at the end of the day, all the indignant "why haven't we done anything about this" questions are easily answered by the far less satisfying "because there is nothing for us to do." Well. That's not entirely true. There's a big review and push to clamp down on classified material access underway. That'll probably undo any attempts to increase data flow between intelligence agencies within the US after 9/11 put said agencies on the spot to answer "why didn't you know anything about this."
As for being "press", Wikileaks is hardly that. But they're no terrorists either.
the only way he is alive, and there is wikileaks still, because he had done everything to put himself on the spotlight and keep people remembering him and wikileaks, so that assassinating him would be hard.
get a clue. really. get a clue.
Because none of that could bea self-serving ego boost, could it. Get a clue, indeed.
The Pentagon Papers had a point.
Assange is still alive and at large. For all the hand-wringing and political grand-standing, its unlikely the US will do anything about Wikileaks.
Fair points on exceptionalism and resting on laurels; I tend to agree.
In this case, it's equating a relatively minor crime with mass murder, more because it mocks us than because of its costs.
I suspect I put more weight on the severity of this leak than you do. As I noted, I believe the US Government is right to be critical of the leak and I suspect the leak will feed intel and propaganda to militant organizations. But there are limits.
One could make an argument that those who would aid militants with intel are somewhere close on the scale as the militants themselves. But intel-providers have to be spies, not simply accidental informers. Claiming Wikipedia is a terrorist organization because they might be aiding militants in this way is akin to claiming CNN was a Saddam-regime Iraqi spy because Iraq had a feed of CNN's live news reports on the war (and were alert enough to realize when CNN screwed up and reveled sensitive information).
The thing is, people like Palin are to be expected. There are always loud voices making emotional appeals. And people are prone to irrational behavior especially when they don't understand a situation. The key to it isn't to simply mock the loud voice or despair over the nature of humanity. We need to interject rational criticism in to the conversation, explain the situation, and remind people that law doesn't always favor our personal views.
It's really easy to get all the issues jumbled up. There are many interconnected issues but they are still separate and should be considered individually.
My fellow /. patrons can check my posting history; I tend to be critical of Wikileaks and wary of Assange himself. But I find much of this talk of treating the organization as terrorists to be tragic and laughable. I believe the US Government has every right to be upset and critical of these releases. However, I suspect the Government already knows that there is very little they can do about it beyond voicing criticism. That won't stop people from over-reacting and grabbing attention. While they are linked, policy and politics aren't always the same thing.
Keep in mind that Palin is after publicity. She has a reputation to craft; "mother grizzly". It isn't surprising that she would make statements like this. And while it is disturbing that such statements will resound with a certain population, it is no more an indication that the US is lost than religious leaders announcing that 9/11 is a sign of God's displeasure.
If you're not an Apple customer why would you care what people's reaction is? Or are you just a hater?
I'll answer that one for you. Trends. I despise Facebook. Yet we have people being conditioned to accept invasion of privacy and exhibition (I don't mind exhibitionists as long as I'm not expected to become one) as normal behavior at least partly (if not largely) because of it. Then you have companies like Blizzard / Activision deciding they need to follow suit. Whether that's because because "social networking" is a Big Thing or simply to convert their user base in to the same kind of market data machine is up for debate. But the outcome is still the same following the same trend.
This has VERY interesting possibilities for digital forensics as well. I get the feeling that the bluecava guys aren't even aware of that possibility yet. This would allow web interactions to be more thoroughly traced to a particular machine. Given the ability of most companies to put a particular person behind that machine (whether surveillance or electronic controls), suddenly your machine AND your interactions are subject to investigation at any time.
I would be very surprised if it hasn't dawned on them yet. From an interview:
Note in that interview, BlueCava CEO David Norris is very careful to portray the technology as linked solely to the device and not the user. And there is a lot of effort to portray BlueCava as providing control of information to the end user. But the reality is that linking user to device is trivial (as you noted) and end users tend to not grasp implications of data security. However, the initial money is unlikely to be in forensics and for the system to work, you have to convince people to not fight it.
Not to take away anything from your rather salient points, but surely you don't believe the rise of the US is solely because of exploitation? There is still something to be said for what was done with those resources, plundered or otherwise.
Want to bet? It may take a court order but they will hand it over all the same.
The big ballyhoo last year about Privacy and Google's CEO missed the point. It wasn't that that Eric Schmidt was telling us we shouldn't feel the need for privacy. He was warning us that Google gets served with PATRIOT Act requests.
...a lot of people recently said that Wikileaks has become an anti-US organization. We should probably wait and see what they actually release, but perhaps this news shows otherwise? Or is the fact that they are going to release data on US based corporations just going to be viewed as more evidence of an anti-US sentiment?
It really depends on what they release. I've been critical of Wikileaks in the past. I find their "Collateral Murder" video to be propaganda. And I find their later data dumps to be little more than apparently releasing secrets simply for the sake of doing so while taking a jab at the US in the process (and possibly gaining support from the anti-war movement). The problem that I see is the video was edited to make a point and the data dumps fail to make a point.
What they publish next may or may not have any baring on the perception of anti-US sentiment. But they could definitely improve their perception if this next round of publishing has a point.
Nevertheless, this cable is classified as SECRET/NOFORN. Why? It reveals nothing that anyone couldn't find out by watching CNN or Al Jazeera, or, indeed, listening to the public statements of the Egyptian government.
At one point in my life, I was working with classified electronics gear. The frequencies the gear handled was classified SECRET/NOFORN. One could likely puzzle out those frequencies by analyzing the purpose of the gear and doing some signal intelligence while the gear operated (and hoping on operator error whlie you were listening). But none the less, the technical documentation that I had access to would outline the details in no uncertain terms and therefore were classified.
Just because it's possible to figure out classified information doesn't mean the information shouldn't be classified (although the level of classification may be in question and SECRET isn't that high in the chain). I also like to point out that the US Military deals with a concept called EEFI (Essential Elements of Friendly Information) which is essentially operational security awareness that non-classified activity / information may reveal classified information.
Yes. Perspective. What you choose to share with Facebook may be very different than what Facebook gets to know about you due to the proliferation of their "Like this" widget. And as others point out, not everyone chooses to share anything with Facebook.
It's all about the right interface for the job. While a pad may provide more real-estate than a smartphone and more mobility than a laptop, it strikes me as being far too bulky to lug around everywhere I go like my smartphone and entirely the wrong platform for general computing tasks. What I want is platforms playing to their strengths and the ability to quickly move data between them. Of course, what I expect is the Industry to tout each platform as the next coming for IT that will completely eliminate all other platforms and our entire concept of how we interact with the world.
Back when Gates was in charge, Microsoft focused in on one thing: enterprise software. They were good at it. Hell, they were the best at it. They did nothing else except develop this enterprise software.
Microsoft took advantage of being a prime player on commodity hardware. They also ate Novel's lunch by providing a cheap end-run around Novel's licensing (and a rather easy migration path away from Netware). Microsoft solutions tended to be the cheap alternative. That advantage no longer exists.
Well that lost a paragraph somewhere...
What an opportune time for that.
Pretty sure the patent office is accepting applications for examiners right now, lol. They like people with Master's degrees.
NASA requires science and math degrees in their civil servants to include IT positions. I met one person who's sole qualification for the system they were responsible for was that they had a math degree. They had no experience and very little understanding for the system they were responsible for, much less any general IT experience. They were great to work with; very smart. But bluntly put, they were unqualified for the role. The only reason they took the job was that they wanted an in at NASA and that was the only position they were offered. A couple years later, offered a position elsewhere that more closely matched their interest in manned space so they moved on. There are numerous individuals in that same IT organisation who's sole qualifications are the degree and a desire for a career change that involves "working with computers."
I don't have any insight with the Patent Office. However, having witnessed other US Federal bureaucracies at work, I wouldn't put a whole lot of weight in their requirement for Master's degrees.
It's security theater. It's obvious. The purpose is CYA (for various reasons). But most people in Homeland Security, in the media or the travelling public do not want to admit it. That's frustrating.
Let me preface my reply by noting that I completely agree with you. We're dealing with security theatre and a greater threat to our rights than the physical threat we're supposed to be countering. But what is obvious to you and I is not so obvious to others. And there's a good reason for that - there is no useful metric.
As Bruce Schneier notes, people are bad at identifying threats. There is a real threat from terrorists. We've seen it. But people are really bad at understanding and properly quantifying the threat. And part of that is we can't actually count how many terrorist plots are in play / being thwarted / being re-worked. If we had such a metric, we could definitively say what is working and what isn't. Ignoring that metric would be the willful ignorance you're talking about.
Seriously, is everyone who works for "Homeland Security" an idiot? Is there some maximum IQ you can have before you're unqualified?
I get the same feeling. But that's simply frustration with the current situation. The reality is that we're dealing with bureaucrats with a myopic view of the problem.
One of the failings of the security profession is tunnel vision. Security is one's job and motivation; it starts to become the only consideration. There always has to be a sanity check to ensure that other considerations aren't ignored and security doesn't become an irrational drive that takes precedence over all. That sanity checking seems to be sorely lacking in the current environment.
The second problem is bureaucracy. It is rare that you find an individual who is multi-talented in both bureaucracy and a technical field (and are willing to apply that talent for Government wages). So what you commonly end up is Government leaders who are exceptional bureaucrats but sub-standard in the given field that is served by that role.
There is little wonder we're now dealing with bureaucrats who have a mandate to "protect" us but lack the understanding to actually do a good job at it and the inability to realize the fact.
It's also an example of confirmation bias. I'm expecting opposition to be in a certain location. I'm expecting that opposition to be positioned in a certain way. I'm expecting the opposition to be aiming something. I'm under pressure to act on those expectations so I open fire. It's not until a few seconds later that I can start accepting additional information; the shooter is dressed differently (with a day-glow orange vest!), the camera doesn't look like a paintgun, etc.
That's any camera. I've shot at people on a paintball field before because the photographer was in an aiming stance pointing at my teammates in a location I was expecting to find opposing players.
You're really trying to get the dust kicked up early, aren't you?
Alternatively... with my meager research (reading Slashdot and other sites), I can't figure out which is the superior text editor. Vi or Emacs?