I suspect the people using BIS really aren't their real customers and RIM goes out of their way to discourage the whole "ZOMG MY PHONE IS FUN!!" vibe that defines the non-enterprise market, which is probably a good thing.
I have never seen a discussion in slashdot in which one of the participants gets modded to the top and another one stays at low score comments. Also I had never seen in slashdot so many people come to argue in favour of restricting information flow.
Why, thank you. I take it that I have managed to challenge your beliefs. I can only hope that at some point this will cause you to re-engage your critical thought process.
The way I see it, slashdot astroturfing is part of the US plot to discredit wikileaks. The tone of discussions changed completely once the US declared war on wikileaks.
I've always thought Wikileaks was an interesting project. But I honestly didn't dig too deeply in to it beyond the cursory stories that graced Slashdot. However, the "Collateral Murder" leak really got my attention. I view it as a modern propaganda piece (somewhat lower on the scale than Fahrenheit 911 and FOX News). Politics aside, propaganda is interesting stuff - in a disturbing way.
But what really got my attention was when criticisms started being attributed as a US Government conspiracy. That has echoes of propaganda. And it implies that Wikileaks (et al) is untouchable and beyond criticism. I find anything that can not stand criticism suspect.
So there you go, AC. Full disclosure. Probably not as interesting as me being part of a shadow conspiracy. But we'll always have The X-Files for that.
Matching politics? How quaint. Politics is darkness; wikileaks (and the thousands that will spring up, now that these people have departed to work on their own) is light.
It all depends how trustworthy you think the nytimes reporting is. I admit, that can be shaky at the best of times... but they claim to have interviewed a source that was only suspected of being a Wikileaks agent - who was "leaned on" by the Army’s criminal division to rat out on Wikileaks (where leaned on in this case meant “a considerable amount of money").
First - the NYT is not this leaked intel document that you referred to as a plan. Secondly, I'll trust your quote as the NYT article is beyond their gateway that I don't feel like jumping around at this point.:P
Having said all that - I'm sure the NYT is faithfully reporting what was told to them. The question is who this source is. And if the source is accurate - so what? Army intel wanted to hire themselves an informant. We already know that they intend to assess Wikileaks as a threat. That's not going to end with pointing a browser to the Wikileaks site.
If they do that with just a suspected wikileaks insider "agent" - it is not a far stretch to ask what are they trying to do with confirmed insiders like Domscheit-Berg. Especially when they know that his wife works as a Microsoft political lobbyist. Lots of pressure points to lean on there.
Recruiting an informer is hardly the kind of leaning on that the parent is talking about (or what you're implying). And it's a far cry from the kind of discrediting that's being theorized.
In the case of TLA agencies, their proven track record means they've got a reversed burden of proof. It doesn't matter whose politics it matches; such actions by these agencies would merely be a continuation of an established pattern of behaviour, and to assume any significant change without proof would be naive.
The problem with that line of thought is that all one has to do is frame oneself as being in opposition of said TLA agencies. Then anything that happens or any criticisms can be chalked up to the shadow workings of a TLA agency conspiracy.
What's further troubling about this line of thought is the demand to prove a negative.
And that's all a fine argument once we get to the point of the US Government attempting to prosecute. But they're not (at least not yet). And while investigation can lead to prosecution, they're not the same thing.
If the Government does attempt prosecution, then I'd be behind your argument in most cases. But the only one they've started prosecution on is Manning. And the Espionage Act of 1917 clearly applies there.
What fails to come to light in this thread is any evidence of a conspiracy to lean on Wikileaks agents. Yet you've invoked all this as proof. And that proof fails to deliver. Just as it fails to deliver when all the other conspiracy theorists invoke it to explain away criticisms of Wikileaks and anything else that touches Wikileaks or Assange in a negative light.
As an aside, the article described this supposed dedicated group as "nearly 120 intelligence analysts, FBI agents, and others" - not sure where you get "propaganda specialists" out of that although I think you're counting "spooks" twice naming the FBI. The problem I keep having in these threads is that there's supposed to be clear proof, yet every time a little digging is done, we discover that the bias of the individual has produced fictions and presented them as fact.
However, the scenario won't use a virtual network. Instead, the exercise will be controlled from the Secret Service headquarters, where organizers from various agencies will be sending out "exercise injects," information that a player will receive that indicates that a certain event has taken place as part of the narrative set up by the organizers. This goes a bit beyond a paper narrative, including fake log data, drives that may contain fake malware, and fake event history, and is dynamic, meaning that it can change dependent on the actions the players take.
They're getting an exercise scenario storyline but the big difference is that now someone is creating props to go with it. And they create new props and storyline as the game progresses. I don't see how you expect this would provide a way to "inject malicious payload[s]."
Let's see... once again, according to the material you've linked:
In his battle against Assange, officials say, Carr’s central assignment is to try to determine exactly what classified information might have been leaked to WikiLeaks, and then to predict whether its disclosure could endanger American troops in the battlefield, as well as what larger risk it might pose to American foreign policy.
The team has another distinct responsibility: to gather evidence about the workings of WikiLeaks that might someday be used by the Justice Department to prosecute Assange and others on espionage charges.
Carr’s team was given an important head start with the arrest in June of a 23-year-old Army intelligence specialist in Iraq, Bradley Manning of Potomac, Maryland, who is suspected of leaking the Afghan war logs to WikiLeaks and whose computers have been seized.
So his job is to analyze Wikileaks' activities and prepare a case for prosecution if the Government wants to go that direction? And that's the evidence of Government leaning on Wikileaks staff? Investigation.
Furthermore, the article does fall in line with what I've already pointed out. They were given a lead on an accused leak. And presumably have been involved in putting together a case against Manning. Which is exactly what that leaked document outlines; going after the leaks.
Once again - I have to ask if you even READ what you're linking to. You even quote a definition for conspiracy that hardly fits the material you're providing.
Pop quiz; what is the plan? Have you actually read that document? The most direct "plan" in the leaked document is as follows:
(S//NF) Web sites such as Wikileaks.org have trust as their most important center of gravity by protecting the anonymity and identity of the insider, leaker, or whistleblower. Successful identification, prosecution, termination of employment, and exposure of persons leaking the information by the governments and businesses affected by information posted to Wikileaks.org would damage and potentially destroy this center of gravity and deter others from taking similar actions.
In summery, go after whistle-blowers / leaks. That's it. No grand government conspiracy to lean on Wikileaks staff. No grand plan to get Assange personally. Yet every time anything remote touches on Wikileaks or Assange, we get post after post about how it is the latest evidence of powerful enemies pulling strings all in accordance with The Plan.
Seriously folks, where that skepticism that prevents you from swallowing everything fed to you by your government? Does it all go out the window because you're being fed by someone who matches your politics?
By federal law, any product of the Federal Government cannot be copyrighted (and thus, it's probably even less encumbered in that regard than FOSS). Of course, good luck getting them to disclose it.
First - you'll find Fed Gov't contributers to various OSS projects if you do a bit of digging. Having said that, it's not that simple.
While the Government might not be able to copyright works, individuals are free to patent inventions. One of the perks working at NASA is that they assist their employees with patent applications for whatever they're working on with the stipulation that the Government gets carte blanc to use the invention. But that's if you're a civil servant. NASA's strategy these days is to limit their Civil Service manpower to mostly oversight / management of programs. Meanwhile, much of the technical work is being shifted to contractors. Contractors hold all rights to whatever works they do under contract and are generally able to sell that work to other entities (law allowing). So not all Federal Government work goes in to the community pot with less and less doing so these days.
I should note that this off-loading strategy isn't absolute. There are still many Civil Servants at NASA doing technical work. NASA is less of a top-down directed organization than a collection of organizations within various groupings and sub-groupings with their own little fiefdoms and budgets that tend to work towards common goals. So while there may be a general trend, there will be plenty of small pockets of resistance that buck that trend if they have firm control over their own budget and the leeway with which to finance it (that and firing a Civil Servant is rather involved).
It all depends on price structure. I'm not really looking forward to how this is going to shake out; my confidence isn't really high for any telecom company. But the silver lining I could see is a low-priced small data plan.
I've got people in my household who would love to get an Android phone but can't justify the $30 data plan. Part of that is that they're rarely out-and-about and spend the vast majority of their time either at home, at school, or the office where wifi is already available. If we can get a shared data plan or several small data plans, they'd be shopping for an Android phone.
Granted - they're not really in the tethering market. But they are in the market for a decently open phone that hasn't been hamstrung by ring-tone and multimedia marketing plans.
Verizon has also shown time and time again that it will lock down phones to an extreme degree. If you think AT&T's reluctance to allow tethering is a problem, wait until Verizon gets to dictate terms.
I hate to find myself in the position of arguing for the Devil... but Verizon has made some tentative steps away from being the lock-down kings. Their Android offerings lack much of the normal Verizon crap. The latest 2.2 build includes USB tethering (you can do Wifi tethering on your own - though the Droid 1 will only do AdHoc - not all devices like that). We'll see how long this behavior continues. I should note that the tethering is likely to come with a future surcharge but everyone seems to be wanting to do this.
Heh, well theories always abound, though, I have trouble believing that anyone in power would want to diminish his own power with chaos, no matter what he "believed".
We can always debate on who's religious nuts are most crazy. But in the end, they're all batshit insane. And insane people don't do rational things.
The question is whether any individual in power is really batshit insane. Or are they just trying to identify as "one of us" so the batshit insane masses will follow their word without question. Ask the fundamentalist Christian groups in the US how well that's been working out for them in recent years.
The point is that the details aren't as important as the concept. That is - unless you're trying to claim that the fable is fact. Otherwise, it's about the concept and not about the facts per se. If it was about the facts, we'd have to conclude that a person behaves the same way as frog. Or that foxes really do like grapes.
That's the fundamental issue with analogies, anecdotes, fables, etc. There's a mis-match between the actual subject and the given story. They help frame a concept. Which might work when a discussion is entirely conceptual (assuming the story does actually frame the concept). But even the best car analogy becomes background noise to fact.
I hear the media's even doing Facebook and Twitter now. Such a trifecta of power; there's no stopping them. Well. Except for when there's celebrity news.
AFAIK Iran has never advocated the destruction of Israel with a "kill all jews" kind of vibe. What Iran has said is that they'd like to see the current government (of Israel), which from their point of view is based on aggressive nationalistic idealism and presents a threat to Iran and the world, become a thing of the past.
This is one of the interesting things about the situation. Ahmadinejad uses strong language and rhetoric. Then when questioned about it, it is always a mis-translation of a much less aggressive meaning. This has happened several times. It is either a very coy political move, a complete disregard for the world stage, or an example of an exceptionally difficult language. I'm inclined to believe that no matter how difficult the language may be to translate, someone speaking on the world stage would be able to enlist enough advisors to craft a speech that avoids massive "lost in translation" pitfalls.
Besides, Iran nuking Israel is one of the dumbest things they could do. It is not advocated by Iran, instead it is advocated by various US right-wing/neocon publications as their wet dream which supposedly hastens the "return of Jesus" (through the battle at Armageddon as told in the Bible). Yes, seriously.
Funny you should mention that. There's a belief that Ahmadinejad is attempting to bring the world to chaos so that the 12th Imam may appear to this world and save it. In doing so, heralding an unprecedented period of peace under Islam. Baby Jesus doesn't fit in to that very well.
Slashdot Mirror
Your own statement of saying "apple's walled garden" just proves his "but its open..." statement even more. But please continue.
Your statement implying meaning to his implying meaning to the parent's comment implies... wait a second. Where are we going with this?
I suspect the people using BIS really aren't their real customers and RIM goes out of their way to discourage the whole "ZOMG MY PHONE IS FUN!!" vibe that defines the non-enterprise market, which is probably a good thing.
Have you seen the commericals for the Torch?
THIS IS FUCKING BULLSHIT!
I have never seen a discussion in slashdot in which one of the participants gets modded to the top and another one stays at low score comments. Also I had never seen in slashdot so many people come to argue in favour of restricting information flow.
Why, thank you. I take it that I have managed to challenge your beliefs. I can only hope that at some point this will cause you to re-engage your critical thought process.
The way I see it, slashdot astroturfing is part of the US plot to discredit wikileaks. The tone of discussions changed completely once the US declared war on wikileaks.
I've always thought Wikileaks was an interesting project. But I honestly didn't dig too deeply in to it beyond the cursory stories that graced Slashdot. However, the "Collateral Murder" leak really got my attention. I view it as a modern propaganda piece (somewhat lower on the scale than Fahrenheit 911 and FOX News). Politics aside, propaganda is interesting stuff - in a disturbing way.
But what really got my attention was when criticisms started being attributed as a US Government conspiracy. That has echoes of propaganda. And it implies that Wikileaks (et al) is untouchable and beyond criticism. I find anything that can not stand criticism suspect.
So there you go, AC. Full disclosure. Probably not as interesting as me being part of a shadow conspiracy. But we'll always have The X-Files for that.
Matching politics? How quaint. Politics is darkness; wikileaks (and the thousands that will spring up, now that these people have departed to work on their own) is light.
I've heard those religious tones sung before.
It all depends how trustworthy you think the nytimes reporting is. I admit, that can be shaky at the best of times... but they claim to have interviewed a source that was only suspected of being a Wikileaks agent - who was "leaned on" by the Army’s criminal division to rat out on Wikileaks (where leaned on in this case meant “a considerable amount of money").
First - the NYT is not this leaked intel document that you referred to as a plan. Secondly, I'll trust your quote as the NYT article is beyond their gateway that I don't feel like jumping around at this point. :P
Having said all that - I'm sure the NYT is faithfully reporting what was told to them. The question is who this source is. And if the source is accurate - so what? Army intel wanted to hire themselves an informant. We already know that they intend to assess Wikileaks as a threat. That's not going to end with pointing a browser to the Wikileaks site.
If they do that with just a suspected wikileaks insider "agent" - it is not a far stretch to ask what are they trying to do with confirmed insiders like Domscheit-Berg. Especially when they know that his wife works as a Microsoft political lobbyist. Lots of pressure points to lean on there.
Recruiting an informer is hardly the kind of leaning on that the parent is talking about (or what you're implying). And it's a far cry from the kind of discrediting that's being theorized.
In the case of TLA agencies, their proven track record means they've got a reversed burden of proof. It doesn't matter whose politics it matches; such actions by these agencies would merely be a continuation of an established pattern of behaviour, and to assume any significant change without proof would be naive.
The problem with that line of thought is that all one has to do is frame oneself as being in opposition of said TLA agencies. Then anything that happens or any criticisms can be chalked up to the shadow workings of a TLA agency conspiracy.
What's further troubling about this line of thought is the demand to prove a negative.
And that's all a fine argument once we get to the point of the US Government attempting to prosecute. But they're not (at least not yet). And while investigation can lead to prosecution, they're not the same thing.
If the Government does attempt prosecution, then I'd be behind your argument in most cases. But the only one they've started prosecution on is Manning. And the Espionage Act of 1917 clearly applies there.
What fails to come to light in this thread is any evidence of a conspiracy to lean on Wikileaks agents. Yet you've invoked all this as proof. And that proof fails to deliver. Just as it fails to deliver when all the other conspiracy theorists invoke it to explain away criticisms of Wikileaks and anything else that touches Wikileaks or Assange in a negative light.
As an aside, the article described this supposed dedicated group as "nearly 120 intelligence analysts, FBI agents, and others" - not sure where you get "propaganda specialists" out of that although I think you're counting "spooks" twice naming the FBI. The problem I keep having in these threads is that there's supposed to be clear proof, yet every time a little digging is done, we discover that the bias of the individual has produced fictions and presented them as fact.
"I invoke... Internet Killswitch."
"Why are you invoking the Killswitch? There's nothing to stop here."
"I'm stopping the HACKERS."
[Situation Room laughter]
From the article:
They're getting an exercise scenario storyline but the big difference is that now someone is creating props to go with it. And they create new props and storyline as the game progresses. I don't see how you expect this would provide a way to "inject malicious payload[s]."
Let's see... once again, according to the material you've linked:
So his job is to analyze Wikileaks' activities and prepare a case for prosecution if the Government wants to go that direction? And that's the evidence of Government leaning on Wikileaks staff? Investigation.
Furthermore, the article does fall in line with what I've already pointed out. They were given a lead on an accused leak. And presumably have been involved in putting together a case against Manning. Which is exactly what that leaked document outlines; going after the leaks.
Once again - I have to ask if you even READ what you're linking to. You even quote a definition for conspiracy that hardly fits the material you're providing.
....there is a plan....
Pop quiz; what is the plan? Have you actually read that document? The most direct "plan" in the leaked document is as follows:
In summery, go after whistle-blowers / leaks. That's it. No grand government conspiracy to lean on Wikileaks staff. No grand plan to get Assange personally. Yet every time anything remote touches on Wikileaks or Assange, we get post after post about how it is the latest evidence of powerful enemies pulling strings all in accordance with The Plan.
Seriously folks, where that skepticism that prevents you from swallowing everything fed to you by your government? Does it all go out the window because you're being fed by someone who matches your politics?
By federal law, any product of the Federal Government cannot be copyrighted (and thus, it's probably even less encumbered in that regard than FOSS). Of course, good luck getting them to disclose it.
First - you'll find Fed Gov't contributers to various OSS projects if you do a bit of digging. Having said that, it's not that simple.
While the Government might not be able to copyright works, individuals are free to patent inventions. One of the perks working at NASA is that they assist their employees with patent applications for whatever they're working on with the stipulation that the Government gets carte blanc to use the invention. But that's if you're a civil servant. NASA's strategy these days is to limit their Civil Service manpower to mostly oversight / management of programs. Meanwhile, much of the technical work is being shifted to contractors. Contractors hold all rights to whatever works they do under contract and are generally able to sell that work to other entities (law allowing). So not all Federal Government work goes in to the community pot with less and less doing so these days.
I should note that this off-loading strategy isn't absolute. There are still many Civil Servants at NASA doing technical work. NASA is less of a top-down directed organization than a collection of organizations within various groupings and sub-groupings with their own little fiefdoms and budgets that tend to work towards common goals. So while there may be a general trend, there will be plenty of small pockets of resistance that buck that trend if they have firm control over their own budget and the leeway with which to finance it (that and firing a Civil Servant is rather involved).
It all depends on price structure. I'm not really looking forward to how this is going to shake out; my confidence isn't really high for any telecom company. But the silver lining I could see is a low-priced small data plan.
I've got people in my household who would love to get an Android phone but can't justify the $30 data plan. Part of that is that they're rarely out-and-about and spend the vast majority of their time either at home, at school, or the office where wifi is already available. If we can get a shared data plan or several small data plans, they'd be shopping for an Android phone.
Granted - they're not really in the tethering market. But they are in the market for a decently open phone that hasn't been hamstrung by ring-tone and multimedia marketing plans.
Verizon has also shown time and time again that it will lock down phones to an extreme degree. If you think AT&T's reluctance to allow tethering is a problem, wait until Verizon gets to dictate terms.
I hate to find myself in the position of arguing for the Devil... but Verizon has made some tentative steps away from being the lock-down kings. Their Android offerings lack much of the normal Verizon crap. The latest 2.2 build includes USB tethering (you can do Wifi tethering on your own - though the Droid 1 will only do AdHoc - not all devices like that). We'll see how long this behavior continues. I should note that the tethering is likely to come with a future surcharge but everyone seems to be wanting to do this.
I don't care.
Although...I did have a strange feeling inside...as if millions of farmers had suddenly been silenced.....?
Maybe it was an alteration in Warden's behavior.
I think the answer is geographically sensitive. For example, the answer might be different if the buck banging was in Bangkok vs. Timbuktu.
I guess because closed source projects generally DON'T receive public scrutiny?
Ever read Bugtraq and Full Disclosure mailing lists?
Heh, well theories always abound, though, I have trouble believing that anyone in power would want to diminish his own power with chaos, no matter what he "believed".
We can always debate on who's religious nuts are most crazy. But in the end, they're all batshit insane. And insane people don't do rational things.
The question is whether any individual in power is really batshit insane. Or are they just trying to identify as "one of us" so the batshit insane masses will follow their word without question. Ask the fundamentalist Christian groups in the US how well that's been working out for them in recent years.
If you're doing a study on the behavior of frogs, then you're spot on. Otherwise, you've missed the point. No profit for you in either case.
Kudos for a quite excellent bad car analogy.
The point is that the details aren't as important as the concept. That is - unless you're trying to claim that the fable is fact. Otherwise, it's about the concept and not about the facts per se. If it was about the facts, we'd have to conclude that a person behaves the same way as frog. Or that foxes really do like grapes.
That's the fundamental issue with analogies, anecdotes, fables, etc. There's a mis-match between the actual subject and the given story. They help frame a concept. Which might work when a discussion is entirely conceptual (assuming the story does actually frame the concept). But even the best car analogy becomes background noise to fact.
Perhaps that's why he said it was a story. Maybe a better word would be "fable". None the less, the anecdote is still good even if the science isn't.
I hear the media's even doing Facebook and Twitter now. Such a trifecta of power; there's no stopping them. Well. Except for when there's celebrity news.
Is the 12th Imam supposed to be Jesus? Or does Jesus work somewhere in to the peaceful years part of the story?
As for Jesus appearing for the Mormons... that'd make them insufferably smug.
AFAIK Iran has never advocated the destruction of Israel with a "kill all jews" kind of vibe. What Iran has said is that they'd like to see the current government (of Israel), which from their point of view is based on aggressive nationalistic idealism and presents a threat to Iran and the world, become a thing of the past.
This is one of the interesting things about the situation. Ahmadinejad uses strong language and rhetoric. Then when questioned about it, it is always a mis-translation of a much less aggressive meaning. This has happened several times. It is either a very coy political move, a complete disregard for the world stage, or an example of an exceptionally difficult language. I'm inclined to believe that no matter how difficult the language may be to translate, someone speaking on the world stage would be able to enlist enough advisors to craft a speech that avoids massive "lost in translation" pitfalls.
Besides, Iran nuking Israel is one of the dumbest things they could do. It is not advocated by Iran, instead it is advocated by various US right-wing/neocon publications as their wet dream which supposedly hastens the "return of Jesus" (through the battle at Armageddon as told in the Bible). Yes, seriously.
Funny you should mention that. There's a belief that Ahmadinejad is attempting to bring the world to chaos so that the 12th Imam may appear to this world and save it. In doing so, heralding an unprecedented period of peace under Islam. Baby Jesus doesn't fit in to that very well.