I pretty much agree with your point, but would like to point out that no other country is or has been involved in as many large scale, outright wars as we are, at the frequency we are.
Frankly, given that the US government has a plan in place to discredit Wikileaks (which was, of course, leaked on Wikileaks), any article which takes an overtly negative tone of Wikileaks is immediately suspect. Anything that criticizes Wikileaks without at least mentioning that it is an organization of loosely connected volunteers should be taken with a grain of salt. There is a lot of misinformation about Wikileaks, and we really should not be perpetuating it.
I find this particularly fascinating. Wikileaks uncovers a plot to discredit it. Therefore, all criticism of Wikileaks "is immediately suspect." That must be awfully convenient, if not a bit ironic, for Wikileaks as an organization; volunteers or not.
My understanding is that the Verizon "unlimited" plan is 5GB. And it looks like they'll be moving to tiered data soon. The new MyVerizon app comes with a data meter widget.
Granted - it's still a better deal than AT&T. For now.
Hmm. I forgot about the facebook app. Sure enough - it's there. Amazon MP3 store - check. I've never even launched them; forgot they were even there. Missing was all the VCast, ringtone store, and other junk that usually comes with a Verizon phone.
There are pre-installed apps that I do use. Google Navigator. Youtube. Gmail. The Corporate email / calendar app. I'm sure some of that is Google standard and some of it is Motorola. Doubt any of that is Verizon.
I have to thank Jobs for that move. Consequently, I have a Droid that came crapware free. That was a pretty wierd step for Verizon and likely due to being off-balance by the iPhone.
1. I was being lazy in my original comments and in review I don't find this case a good example to take a stand on. The ground is just too squishy.
Fair enough. If I had applied my perspective to the case and found a lot of merit to what he's claiming, I'd point that out as well.
The Gary McKinnon case serves several ends; it is a public display of what happens when one goes against the state. It is a means of justifying the further fortification of the internet. And it is a means to add another coat of smear to the idea of a UFO presence.
From my experience, I'd say the Feds are after two things with McKinnon. They want to make an example of him. And they're following what they know. The US Government generally hasn't been very good at groking infosec. But the Government exists on a foundation of Law. They really get that and are really eager to use that tool. When all you understand is the hammer, you use that on everything - nail or screw included.
I've been in infosec meetings where the technical details of a threat and mitigation are glossed over. Meanwhile, the room lights up when the FBI agent talks about a case they're preparing to prosecute and equipment they've compounded as evidence. I'm rather disgusted with all that since, as I noted earlier, I find that as a sign of failure not a sign of progress. But that's been the traditional environment.
I suppose it's possible that this also serves to smear the UFO culture in general. McKinnon certainly does nobody in that camp any favors and, IMHO, serious UFO researchers should be outspoken in distancing themselves from him.
I would direct you to Richard Dolan's efforts if you are interested in reading the state of the current understanding of the UFO issue.
Noted.
For your part, you have now implied several times that you work closely with NASA in some capacity and that you have some fairly high level access to security proceedings there. I'm not sure what to make of that. Are you not a bit worried to be discussing internal policy on Slashdot, especially in light of this story about computer security?
Keep in mind that NASA is not entirely a single entity. From the outside it looks like a big, monolithic agency. On the inside, it's more of a schizophrenic collection of Centers and Directorates with power and autonomy existing based on what budgets any given entity controls (although there's been more attempts at top-down control in recent years).
I'm fairly comfortable with what I've commented on. I don't comment on specific policy. I don't provide technical details. I don't discuss any depth of NASA system security posture. And I wasn't involved with McKinnon's case so I'd make a really poor target for his defense to subpoena in a bid to weaken the case against their client.
Hm. You appear to already be several steps ahead here, so it's clear that you are invested in the outcome of this conversation.
You appear to find his claims offensive. I don't. They seem quite mundane, actually. If he were going to make up a bunch of unverifiable fictions, then why not something more dramatic? Nothing he says really defies belief.
I'm just familiar with the claims made in the press. I've seen the material you've linked to before. It's an old case and I've had plenty of time to digest what has been presented. If I seem ahead of the conversation, it's simply because the subject matter is well trodden.
As for the offensiveness of the claims, I find them laughable. What's offensive is that others are deluded by them. There's not much that can be done for that other than offer those who are willing to listen some insight. And I've had more insight to this environment than a lot of others. That doesn't make me all knowing. There's a slim possibility all this is real and I've been fooled by a shadow operation at JSC. But it is entirely unlikely.
I should also note that McKinnon isn't the only one that presents a really nice story with little plausibility. I've seen conspiracy theorists discuss the shooting in Building 44 as if it were a planned execution to shut someone up. The cornerstones of their suspicion, beyond the apparent desire to believe, are based on a perceived level of security and employee screening that are pure fictions. I find them laughable because I have the perspective to see it; not everyone does.
McKinnon's claims ARE extraordinary. He claims that he managed to get in to JSC's network and immediately target systems in Building 8. Then first system he hits, there's the evidence of UFOs being systematically removed from image stock. And let's be clear - finding images of aliens is a pretty amazing claim (even if you ignore the technical issues he apparently bypassed in even finding Building 8 systems on the network).
Maybe. Gary's description of the accusations laid against him indicate government fabrications. If NASA can't even make honest accusations when they have him dead to rights, then this indicates a preparedness to lie as a general feature of their operations. So. . , maybe.
Most definitely. I've been in meetings where honeypots for network intrusion were discussed; a much more real threat to JSC than UFO hunters. One of the key reasons the idea wasn't pursued was the effort put in to setting up and monitoring the honeypot wasn't justifiable.
The US Government's claims are worth questioning, to be sure. I don't usually talk in length about this territory as I find prosecution a part of failure - it should never have come to that. Part of what irks me about it is that an intrusion does cost the Government. There's a sudden flux of man hours to deal with the incident. And then sometimes there's the expense of replacing resources that the FBI has now tagged as evidence in a case they want to put together. It's a big waste of resources that could have been better spent on not allowing the situation to happen in the first place. This was especially true during the time period that McKinnon allegedly attacked Government systems.
Are the numbers fictions? I can't say; I don't get involved in that. But the idea that there was an expense isn't entirely unjustified. Even if the numbers are exaggerated to hit magic numbers that exist in laws prosecution wants to employ in this case, it doesn't mean that everything else McKinnon says has an air of truth.
He's making a defense which might give him the ability to avoid being jailed for sixty years in a foreign country. I'd do it too. That's not the point.
Actually, that is the point. You claimed he's being misrepresented. Yet he is presenting himself in this very light. More so, he's making claims that are tailor made to avoid the prosecution he desperately
I said "UFO related material", wording which was very deliberate, as it can encompass everything including honeytraps.
Really. UFO related material. Such as what? What material did he uncover? What part of his claims have any evidence whatsoever to back it up?
As for a honeytrap - that's an even more amusing. NASA has enough on its plate without creating honeytraps; especially honeytraps for something as obscure as UFO conspiracy theorists.
Just look at the moderation I received for saying nothing false.
Yes - among your well-reasoned truths is that all government employees are corrupt and that the public consists of "retarded pod people." Obviously the moderation was due to personal persecution and a desire to hide The Truth.
If you take an interest in UFO's and such, then a big part of your mind will scream at you: "Okay, but expect people to categorize you with Asperger's syndrome, government punishment, public ridicule and all things bad."
The Asperger's syndrome bit is his defense, not a Government accusation. As for the persecution, he's making some very grand statements with no backing. In short, he's presenting a fiction as earth-shattering truth and expects that the public should follow along without the extraordinary proof that should accompany such claims. Little wonder the public has balked, even openly ridiculed the man.
I find it frustrating that people who pride themselves on clear and logical thinking are so easily manipulated by herd responses.
Oh! A perfect opportunity for you to use the term "sheeple" and you missed it. Maybe next time.
Seriously though, if you're one of the "I want to believe" crowd, then you really should be supplementing that with "I need proof." Otherwise you'll be victim to any fiction that falls in line with your personal desire (herd response indeed).
I've seen a lot of conspiracy stuff written about NASA. A lot of it attributes these grand visions about how NASA works when the truth is a lot less fantastic. There's a lot of cool stuff at, for example, JSC - but people like McKinnon add in an almost super-natural air to what is actually fairly mundane. If you have an inside perspective, you get to see that.
Side note - Building 37 (life sciences) has an interesting underground lab that dates back to the Apollo era. We used to joke about that's where they keep the aliens. The humor is based on the conspiracy theory that JSC houses a huge underground facility where Hanger 18 / alien technology is housed and studied.
Yeah - I'm sure Sourcefire listing Snort as a product and providing a link to snort.org on the product page was all very confusing. But then, when a sales person starts to wonder, you know you're in trouble if you wander along side him.
I find it funny that everybody seems to have forgotten that he was searching for UFO related material, and that he found some.
What I find funny is that people actually believe he found UFO evidence. Truth is sometimes stranger than fiction. But that hardly makes all fictions truthful. And this story sounds awfully fictitious. Especially when no such evidence was ever produced.
Along those lines, I'd love to hear a detailed story about how this guy went about his attack. But sadly, no such details are ever likely to come to light. What we do know is that he read a lot of UFO conspiracy works. One work mentioned Building 8 at JSC. So he claims he targeted systems in Building 8. The problem here is that JSC is a pretty large campus with a very sprawling network. If he got a copy of the network map (that has limited distribution), then he would have been able to do this but that map is difficult to get one's hands on even with a valid reason to have a copy. Otherwise, I'm curious as to how he was able to identify a target in Building 8.
Even then, Building 8 is not what it is being described. It is, in fact, the A/V Club for JSC; it does a lot of multimedia work, has a really nice media library, prints banners and awards, has professional photographers on staff. But Building 8 is also the JSC clinic where some flight surgeons also have their offices and JSC employees can walk in to if they've injured themselves at work (they also have an ambulence). Building 8 is a relatively small facility with multiple purposes. So while the multimedia aspect might make it a good place to airbrush out aliens, it's hardly the secret lock-down lab designed to house NASA's darkest secrets.
I'm going to reverse the order of your sentences because of the order in which the parts of the summary you seemingly did not understand happen to appear. I don't think it really changes the meaning or even the tone of your comment. I apologize if anyone finds this misleading.
And that's the exact kind of mental gymnastics going on here. If you strip out context and follow the exact wording of the statement, it is all true and factual. But you have to go out of your way to divorce all other reasoning. The implication of the article is exactly what the OP is denouncing. But those are merely implied, not outright stated.
It looks like everyone is playing a game here. All sides are committing to a polite fiction so that neither side has to capitulate to the other's incompatible stance.
Interesting. The majority of teeth-gnashing about audio in Ubuntu seems to surround pulseaudio. I have it running on my laptop w/out issue (although I don't game on it). But I don't have it running in my Debian desktop environment.
It looks to me that pulseaudio is an attempt to get to a "just works" situation with Linux (and other environments). It's just a bit rougher than one would like. Hopefully the rough edges will smooth out quickly.
Is there anything in my assessment of the situation that you find questionable? Anything in there you find to be probably untrue or greatly suspect? It seems pretty clear and straight forward.
Yeah, I do have a question. How do you know this?
Look... I agree with most of your take on the situation (I suspect he knew a bit more than you give credit for - and far more than he now claims). But at the same time, the US does have a recent history of operations that would fall in line with this guy's claims. So there is room for doubt. Although I should probably point out to you that my statement was questioning the validity of the kidnapping claim. Even if I accept that there is a possibility that it is accurate.
Point taken. Sometimes one is volunteered. I learned early that it always looks better for you if you volunteer than get ordered when you still have to do the same thing anyway. But having said that, you don't need to whitewash it with hysteria. The Iranian scientist situation is very questionable.
Are the same people claiming that Childs is some sort of mis-understood hero the same people who had "Free Kevin" schwag back in the day? If not, I'm not sure I get the mentality, because from what I know of the situation (maybe not enough), he did sort of grossly overstep the bounds. Maybe he didn't deserve jail time, but I'm not about to go emulating my career after him.
Mitnick's following wasn't because he was a swell guy. It was an issue of overzealous prosecution and inappropriate detainment (i.e. a belief he could launch nuclear missiles by whistling in to a prison pay phone). In the end, he was little more than a white-collar thief and con-man who was reported as being, and consequently treated as, a supervillian master-mind. Some people took offense to that.
Childs is interesting in a lot of ways. He's been portrayed as a criminally-minded digital tyrant holding a city hostage. And he's been portrayed as both genius architect and lone defender of the network fending off a horde of incompetence and mis-management. As the dust settled, I began to suspect that the truth lies with a combination of those two portrayals (although perhaps not the whole of them).
My first reaction was to think that Mitnick and Childs are entirely different cases. But as I think about it - there is at least one similarity; both involve an overzealous prosecution. The cases garner sympathy because many of us find ourselves in environments where what we do isn't well understood. We deal with incompetence and ignorance on a frequent enough basis to give us pause. And it is easy to look at these cases and ponder whether there but for the grace of God go us.
Sound has been an ongoing issue for Linux environments in general. Things have gotten better. And, in fact, with my current Debian desktop and Linux laptop, sound has been pretty much working as I would expect (this weekend I was playing WoW, listening to music, flipping over to another screen to fire up YouTube videos - all without device blocks, audio distortion, or other ugliness from the past). Which is great. Except for the fact that it's 2010 and working sound shouldn't be something I notice.:P
This is a big YMMV. Your hardware is probably the biggest cause of frustration (although I've done an Ubuntu upgrade and had to tweak settings to get my sound working as expected with my docking station, etc.). In the past, I've purchased a good sound card and moved it as I upgraded hardware just so I didn't have to guess at whether in-board sound was going to be supported when I upgraded a MB. I wish that wasn't the situation. But unfortunately, not all hardware manufacturers have proper support for Linux.
I'd take this as a caveat. It's one of the little (and getting smaller) pitfalls that put people off Linux. But it won't be something everyone experiences. Maybe sometime in the real near future, it'll get down to the same level of tech-support white noise that Windows users experience when it comes to these issues (very few people having issues even if it sucks when you end up being one of those people).
but these guys have invested decades of their lives in a status quo which went **POOF**, just when they get the point where they are at the helm
naturally, they are bitter. they've been screwed by history. they call it disruptive technology for a reason
You're attributing far too much thought to the process. This isn't necessarily a hegemony of dinosaurs grumbling in to their scotch and getting back at those who have stolen their rightful place in history. These are people with years of experience doing what they know. The problem is that, as you noted, their experience was gained in an environment that has been disrupted. Their instincts do not fit. But people tend to do what they know. And so these individuals employ their experience and try to make it work in an environment they no longer have instincts for despite their years of experience.
Slashdot Mirror
I pretty much agree with your point, but would like to point out that no other country is or has been involved in as many large scale, outright wars as we are, at the frequency we are.
If only the Soviets were still around, right?
Frankly, given that the US government has a plan in place to discredit Wikileaks (which was, of course, leaked on Wikileaks), any article which takes an overtly negative tone of Wikileaks is immediately suspect. Anything that criticizes Wikileaks without at least mentioning that it is an organization of loosely connected volunteers should be taken with a grain of salt. There is a lot of misinformation about Wikileaks, and we really should not be perpetuating it.
I find this particularly fascinating. Wikileaks uncovers a plot to discredit it. Therefore, all criticism of Wikileaks "is immediately suspect." That must be awfully convenient, if not a bit ironic, for Wikileaks as an organization; volunteers or not.
My understanding is that the Verizon "unlimited" plan is 5GB. And it looks like they'll be moving to tiered data soon. The new MyVerizon app comes with a data meter widget.
Granted - it's still a better deal than AT&T. For now.
Hmm. I forgot about the facebook app. Sure enough - it's there. Amazon MP3 store - check. I've never even launched them; forgot they were even there. Missing was all the VCast, ringtone store, and other junk that usually comes with a Verizon phone.
There are pre-installed apps that I do use. Google Navigator. Youtube. Gmail. The Corporate email / calendar app. I'm sure some of that is Google standard and some of it is Motorola. Doubt any of that is Verizon.
I have to thank Jobs for that move. Consequently, I have a Droid that came crapware free. That was a pretty wierd step for Verizon and likely due to being off-balance by the iPhone.
1. I was being lazy in my original comments and in review I don't find this case a good example to take a stand on. The ground is just too squishy.
Fair enough. If I had applied my perspective to the case and found a lot of merit to what he's claiming, I'd point that out as well.
The Gary McKinnon case serves several ends; it is a public display of what happens when one goes against the state. It is a means of justifying the further fortification of the internet. And it is a means to add another coat of smear to the idea of a UFO presence.
From my experience, I'd say the Feds are after two things with McKinnon. They want to make an example of him. And they're following what they know. The US Government generally hasn't been very good at groking infosec. But the Government exists on a foundation of Law. They really get that and are really eager to use that tool. When all you understand is the hammer, you use that on everything - nail or screw included.
I've been in infosec meetings where the technical details of a threat and mitigation are glossed over. Meanwhile, the room lights up when the FBI agent talks about a case they're preparing to prosecute and equipment they've compounded as evidence. I'm rather disgusted with all that since, as I noted earlier, I find that as a sign of failure not a sign of progress. But that's been the traditional environment.
I suppose it's possible that this also serves to smear the UFO culture in general. McKinnon certainly does nobody in that camp any favors and, IMHO, serious UFO researchers should be outspoken in distancing themselves from him.
I would direct you to Richard Dolan's efforts if you are interested in reading the state of the current understanding of the UFO issue.
Noted.
For your part, you have now implied several times that you work closely with NASA in some capacity and that you have some fairly high level access to security proceedings there. I'm not sure what to make of that. Are you not a bit worried to be discussing internal policy on Slashdot, especially in light of this story about computer security?
Keep in mind that NASA is not entirely a single entity. From the outside it looks like a big, monolithic agency. On the inside, it's more of a schizophrenic collection of Centers and Directorates with power and autonomy existing based on what budgets any given entity controls (although there's been more attempts at top-down control in recent years).
I'm fairly comfortable with what I've commented on. I don't comment on specific policy. I don't provide technical details. I don't discuss any depth of NASA system security posture. And I wasn't involved with McKinnon's case so I'd make a really poor target for his defense to subpoena in a bid to weaken the case against their client.
Hm. You appear to already be several steps ahead here, so it's clear that you are invested in the outcome of this conversation.
You appear to find his claims offensive. I don't. They seem quite mundane, actually. If he were going to make up a bunch of unverifiable fictions, then why not something more dramatic? Nothing he says really defies belief.
I'm just familiar with the claims made in the press. I've seen the material you've linked to before. It's an old case and I've had plenty of time to digest what has been presented. If I seem ahead of the conversation, it's simply because the subject matter is well trodden.
As for the offensiveness of the claims, I find them laughable. What's offensive is that others are deluded by them. There's not much that can be done for that other than offer those who are willing to listen some insight. And I've had more insight to this environment than a lot of others. That doesn't make me all knowing. There's a slim possibility all this is real and I've been fooled by a shadow operation at JSC. But it is entirely unlikely.
I should also note that McKinnon isn't the only one that presents a really nice story with little plausibility. I've seen conspiracy theorists discuss the shooting in Building 44 as if it were a planned execution to shut someone up. The cornerstones of their suspicion, beyond the apparent desire to believe, are based on a perceived level of security and employee screening that are pure fictions. I find them laughable because I have the perspective to see it; not everyone does.
McKinnon's claims ARE extraordinary. He claims that he managed to get in to JSC's network and immediately target systems in Building 8. Then first system he hits, there's the evidence of UFOs being systematically removed from image stock. And let's be clear - finding images of aliens is a pretty amazing claim (even if you ignore the technical issues he apparently bypassed in even finding Building 8 systems on the network).
Maybe. Gary's description of the accusations laid against him indicate government fabrications. If NASA can't even make honest accusations when they have him dead to rights, then this indicates a preparedness to lie as a general feature of their operations. So. . , maybe.
Most definitely. I've been in meetings where honeypots for network intrusion were discussed; a much more real threat to JSC than UFO hunters. One of the key reasons the idea wasn't pursued was the effort put in to setting up and monitoring the honeypot wasn't justifiable.
The US Government's claims are worth questioning, to be sure. I don't usually talk in length about this territory as I find prosecution a part of failure - it should never have come to that. Part of what irks me about it is that an intrusion does cost the Government. There's a sudden flux of man hours to deal with the incident. And then sometimes there's the expense of replacing resources that the FBI has now tagged as evidence in a case they want to put together. It's a big waste of resources that could have been better spent on not allowing the situation to happen in the first place. This was especially true during the time period that McKinnon allegedly attacked Government systems.
Are the numbers fictions? I can't say; I don't get involved in that. But the idea that there was an expense isn't entirely unjustified. Even if the numbers are exaggerated to hit magic numbers that exist in laws prosecution wants to employ in this case, it doesn't mean that everything else McKinnon says has an air of truth.
He's making a defense which might give him the ability to avoid being jailed for sixty years in a foreign country. I'd do it too. That's not the point.
Actually, that is the point. You claimed he's being misrepresented. Yet he is presenting himself in this very light. More so, he's making claims that are tailor made to avoid the prosecution he desperately
I said "UFO related material", wording which was very deliberate, as it can encompass everything including honeytraps.
Really. UFO related material. Such as what? What material did he uncover? What part of his claims have any evidence whatsoever to back it up?
As for a honeytrap - that's an even more amusing. NASA has enough on its plate without creating honeytraps; especially honeytraps for something as obscure as UFO conspiracy theorists.
Just look at the moderation I received for saying nothing false.
Yes - among your well-reasoned truths is that all government employees are corrupt and that the public consists of "retarded pod people." Obviously the moderation was due to personal persecution and a desire to hide The Truth.
If you take an interest in UFO's and such, then a big part of your mind will scream at you: "Okay, but expect people to categorize you with Asperger's syndrome, government punishment, public ridicule and all things bad."
The Asperger's syndrome bit is his defense, not a Government accusation. As for the persecution, he's making some very grand statements with no backing. In short, he's presenting a fiction as earth-shattering truth and expects that the public should follow along without the extraordinary proof that should accompany such claims. Little wonder the public has balked, even openly ridiculed the man.
I find it frustrating that people who pride themselves on clear and logical thinking are so easily manipulated by herd responses.
Oh! A perfect opportunity for you to use the term "sheeple" and you missed it. Maybe next time.
Seriously though, if you're one of the "I want to believe" crowd, then you really should be supplementing that with "I need proof." Otherwise you'll be victim to any fiction that falls in line with your personal desire (herd response indeed).
I've seen a lot of conspiracy stuff written about NASA. A lot of it attributes these grand visions about how NASA works when the truth is a lot less fantastic. There's a lot of cool stuff at, for example, JSC - but people like McKinnon add in an almost super-natural air to what is actually fairly mundane. If you have an inside perspective, you get to see that.
Side note - Building 37 (life sciences) has an interesting underground lab that dates back to the Apollo era. We used to joke about that's where they keep the aliens. The humor is based on the conspiracy theory that JSC houses a huge underground facility where Hanger 18 / alien technology is housed and studied.
Yeah - I'm sure Sourcefire listing Snort as a product and providing a link to snort.org on the product page was all very confusing. But then, when a sales person starts to wonder, you know you're in trouble if you wander along side him.
I find it funny that everybody seems to have forgotten that he was searching for UFO related material, and that he found some.
What I find funny is that people actually believe he found UFO evidence. Truth is sometimes stranger than fiction. But that hardly makes all fictions truthful. And this story sounds awfully fictitious. Especially when no such evidence was ever produced.
Along those lines, I'd love to hear a detailed story about how this guy went about his attack. But sadly, no such details are ever likely to come to light. What we do know is that he read a lot of UFO conspiracy works. One work mentioned Building 8 at JSC. So he claims he targeted systems in Building 8. The problem here is that JSC is a pretty large campus with a very sprawling network. If he got a copy of the network map (that has limited distribution), then he would have been able to do this but that map is difficult to get one's hands on even with a valid reason to have a copy. Otherwise, I'm curious as to how he was able to identify a target in Building 8.
Even then, Building 8 is not what it is being described. It is, in fact, the A/V Club for JSC; it does a lot of multimedia work, has a really nice media library, prints banners and awards, has professional photographers on staff. But Building 8 is also the JSC clinic where some flight surgeons also have their offices and JSC employees can walk in to if they've injured themselves at work (they also have an ambulence). Building 8 is a relatively small facility with multiple purposes. So while the multimedia aspect might make it a good place to airbrush out aliens, it's hardly the secret lock-down lab designed to house NASA's darkest secrets.
So, GoogleOS:BaiduOS=RedHat:CentOS?
Less RedHat:CentOS, more RedHat:RedFlag.
"GreenMetalMan. Better than Android. GreenDam already installed."
When I wrote "SourceFire site", you read "snort.org" because...?
When you wanted to get source code for snort, you went to SourceFire's web page because...?
I'm going to reverse the order of your sentences because of the order in which the parts of the summary you seemingly did not understand happen to appear. I don't think it really changes the meaning or even the tone of your comment. I apologize if anyone finds this misleading.
And that's the exact kind of mental gymnastics going on here. If you strip out context and follow the exact wording of the statement, it is all true and factual. But you have to go out of your way to divorce all other reasoning. The implication of the article is exactly what the OP is denouncing. But those are merely implied, not outright stated.
It looks like everyone is playing a game here. All sides are committing to a polite fiction so that neither side has to capitulate to the other's incompatible stance.
Interesting. The majority of teeth-gnashing about audio in Ubuntu seems to surround pulseaudio. I have it running on my laptop w/out issue (although I don't game on it). But I don't have it running in my Debian desktop environment.
It looks to me that pulseaudio is an attempt to get to a "just works" situation with Linux (and other environments). It's just a bit rougher than one would like. Hopefully the rough edges will smooth out quickly.
Is there anything in my assessment of the situation that you find questionable? Anything in there you find to be probably untrue or greatly suspect? It seems pretty clear and straight forward.
Yeah, I do have a question. How do you know this?
Look... I agree with most of your take on the situation (I suspect he knew a bit more than you give credit for - and far more than he now claims). But at the same time, the US does have a recent history of operations that would fall in line with this guy's claims. So there is room for doubt. Although I should probably point out to you that my statement was questioning the validity of the kidnapping claim. Even if I accept that there is a possibility that it is accurate.
Point taken. Sometimes one is volunteered. I learned early that it always looks better for you if you volunteer than get ordered when you still have to do the same thing anyway. But having said that, you don't need to whitewash it with hysteria. The Iranian scientist situation is very questionable.
Preaching to the choir.
Whatever happened to TJ Max anyway?
Are the same people claiming that Childs is some sort of mis-understood hero the same people who had "Free Kevin" schwag back in the day? If not, I'm not sure I get the mentality, because from what I know of the situation (maybe not enough), he did sort of grossly overstep the bounds. Maybe he didn't deserve jail time, but I'm not about to go emulating my career after him.
Mitnick's following wasn't because he was a swell guy. It was an issue of overzealous prosecution and inappropriate detainment (i.e. a belief he could launch nuclear missiles by whistling in to a prison pay phone). In the end, he was little more than a white-collar thief and con-man who was reported as being, and consequently treated as, a supervillian master-mind. Some people took offense to that.
Childs is interesting in a lot of ways. He's been portrayed as a criminally-minded digital tyrant holding a city hostage. And he's been portrayed as both genius architect and lone defender of the network fending off a horde of incompetence and mis-management. As the dust settled, I began to suspect that the truth lies with a combination of those two portrayals (although perhaps not the whole of them).
My first reaction was to think that Mitnick and Childs are entirely different cases. But as I think about it - there is at least one similarity; both involve an overzealous prosecution. The cases garner sympathy because many of us find ourselves in environments where what we do isn't well understood. We deal with incompetence and ignorance on a frequent enough basis to give us pause. And it is easy to look at these cases and ponder whether there but for the grace of God go us.
Sound has been an ongoing issue for Linux environments in general. Things have gotten better. And, in fact, with my current Debian desktop and Linux laptop, sound has been pretty much working as I would expect (this weekend I was playing WoW, listening to music, flipping over to another screen to fire up YouTube videos - all without device blocks, audio distortion, or other ugliness from the past). Which is great. Except for the fact that it's 2010 and working sound shouldn't be something I notice. :P
This is a big YMMV. Your hardware is probably the biggest cause of frustration (although I've done an Ubuntu upgrade and had to tweak settings to get my sound working as expected with my docking station, etc.). In the past, I've purchased a good sound card and moved it as I upgraded hardware just so I didn't have to guess at whether in-board sound was going to be supported when I upgraded a MB. I wish that wasn't the situation. But unfortunately, not all hardware manufacturers have proper support for Linux.
I'd take this as a caveat. It's one of the little (and getting smaller) pitfalls that put people off Linux. But it won't be something everyone experiences. Maybe sometime in the real near future, it'll get down to the same level of tech-support white noise that Windows users experience when it comes to these issues (very few people having issues even if it sucks when you end up being one of those people).
Sure. Linux isn't for everyone. OSX isn't for everyone. Windows isn't for everyone. But you won't get that from the marketing departments.
This is slashdot. Brace yourself.
You're imagining a Beowulf cluster of turtle hatchlings, aren't you.
My copy of World of Warcraft (from Classic / Vanilla to WotLK) has never seen a Windows system thanks to Wine.
When the RIAA or MPAA is directly involved with putting people in GITMO, you'll have a point.
but these guys have invested decades of their lives in a status quo which went **POOF**, just when they get the point where they are at the helm
naturally, they are bitter. they've been screwed by history. they call it disruptive technology for a reason
You're attributing far too much thought to the process. This isn't necessarily a hegemony of dinosaurs grumbling in to their scotch and getting back at those who have stolen their rightful place in history. These are people with years of experience doing what they know. The problem is that, as you noted, their experience was gained in an environment that has been disrupted. Their instincts do not fit. But people tend to do what they know. And so these individuals employ their experience and try to make it work in an environment they no longer have instincts for despite their years of experience.