I got the truck ('99 Tahoe 4wd) with 160,000 miles on it. It was a nice truck, that was neglected. It had a rear axle "noise", which ended up being it fell apart 2.5 miles from the sellers house. The wires all looked good. The first sensor to really cause problems (i.e., engine stops running) was the crank sensor. It happened on a road trip. It sputtered while we were heading out of town, so I hooked up the OBD-II reader and it said crank sensor. We stopped by a store, since I still knew the close stores at that point. We made it 50 more miles, and the engine just stopped. The VSS is the bastard. It works most of the time, but will just drop intermittently. Because of that, it would keep shifting from 4th to 3rd gear around 55mph. I could go up to 65+ mph, and it would stay in 4th, or drive around in 3rd gear. I've changed it, tested the wires, and looked for absolutely anything that could have problems. Nothing.
The way the intake and injectors are on a L31 is that there's a "spider" inside the intake manifold, and all the injectors are inside the manifold. Changing them is a project, and the injector/spider set is expensive. Because the extra hardware is in the way of the air flow, it hurts the performance, or at least to 4 of the cylinders. I opted to replace the intake manifold, and put a 750cfm carb on top. Now the whole assembly comes off with 8 bolts.:)
It had an undetected intake manifold gasket leak. Like, all was fine one day. I had to drive to the datacenter to deliver some hardware and install it. The drive there was fine. I made it half way home. The engine overheated and then stalled. In the dark, on the side of the road, I only saw that the radiator was dry. My only choices were to walk about 10 miles for water, or fill up with sea water and flush it when I got home. I opted for sea water. Towing wasn't a good option, I'd wait for hours. I made it half way (now 3/4 total trip) home, and it started acting very funny. I managed to pull into a 24 hr Walmart, where I could actually see. The radiator was dry again. Now I could see, the crank case oil wasn't oil any more, it looked like a chocolate shake. I took a taxi home from there, and had it towed in the morning.
I flushed the oil and radiator that day, and proceeded to strip the engine down so I could inspect everything. BTW, flushing that stuff out is a horrible messy job. I found the bad intake manifold gasket. I also found one intake valve had bent somehow. I assuming it was the timing chain, but when I did get that far, it lined up fine. There was wear on the gears, and the chain was a little sloppy but still serviceable. Since I was that far, I opted to change it. And that's the point it's at now. Parts from Summit Racing should be here tomorrow.:)
Other problems I've found on it were... The front differential (4wd) had no gear oil. I changed the different when I did the rear end, because I changed the gearing so it could move better.
The rear differential was shot. I put in new gears and a limited slip unit so it would drive better than the locker. I use it to move stuff, but I'm not towing houses with it.:)
The transfer case was dry. Not just dry, there were chunks of what used to be fluid. Filling it works for about a week, but it leaks. The limited slip transfer case (push button auto-4wd) isn't ideal, and a lot of off-road people put the manual version in because of reliability problems. It's here as well as the shift lever, but hasn't been installed yet. It's an easy swap, except for the weight of it.
The tires were shot. One formed a bubble on a short trip. I limped home very very carefully. When I got home, the bubble was the size of a softball. The next morning the tire was flat. It popped overnight just sitting in the driveway.:) I already had 4 new tires being shipped, so that was ok.
Did I mention I got the truck *real* cheap? The total investment in
1) Just because you've identified attacker(s) in one part of the system, doesn't mean that they aren't in other parts. They could retaliate for that action.
2) You can gain valuable intelligence about who they are and how they're doing it.
Now the good reasons *not* to.
Items 1 through 1,000,000) They were in critical infrastructure equipment, and have retrieved an unknown amount of information. Every second they are in, it increases the risk of what they might acquire, or they might do.
1,000,001) There should be a policies and procedures manual which says any machine which is potentially compromised should immediately be disconnected from the network, and a trained computer forensics team should immediately begin evaluating the situation.
I know that feeling. I was helping a friend with his car. It was a simple change the pads job on a newer Toyota sedan. He got the parts and came over to my place with them.. The front ones were wrong. Very obviously two inches too short wrong. We took them back to the store, but they couldn't find any information about the one in my hand. It took 3 stores before we finally found someone who had it in the computer.
The timing chain is a bit odd. It came with a single roller chain. The replacement that everyone lists is a double roller chain. It's better, but they really shouldn't list it as the OEM replacement when it doesn't fit under the cover. I bought both from the same store online, since they weren't stocked locally. The "fix" is to get the timing chain cover for an older engine (1967-1997 SBC). It doesn't have provisions for mounting the crank sensor. That's ok though, I just decomputerized the engine. I got really tired of bad or intermittently malfunctioning sensors, and the fact the injectors cost more than a new intake manifold and carburetor. The pleasant side effect is, it'll have more power now, get slightly better gas mileage, and eliminate a lot of under-hood clutter. Well, assuming I can remember all the finer details of tuning carbureted engines, which I haven't done in over 15 years.:) I'll miss the OBD-II diagnostics, but I can add an O2 sensor gauge and a vacuum gauge on the A pillar.
It was for some special real world input devices. I don't remember right off who made them or what they were called. They were various RFID tokens, where the instructions for the readers were verbal "Here's your wires, you figure out how to hook it up. Use our Perl module to read it".
Most of the programmers I know, know several languages and use the best one for the job. Some use exactly one language, and use one framework to make it happen. Some can't even make a "hello world" page without making a project out of it.
I've amazed some "programmers" with sed, awk, and grep. I've had "senior" programmers tell me how impossible it is to parse gigs of web server logs. They say it's black magic when I can (oh my gosh) grep for an IP, and show all the requests a user made. It kills me a little more inside each time I have to teach professionals how to use the basic tools of their job.
:) I ran into trouble with mine. It's a Chevy Tahoe with a L31 engine. I tore the whole engine down, and have been putting it back together a bit better than original. I ran into an insanely stupid problem. The "meets OEM spec" timing chain that the parts store was a perfect match, wasn't. None of the stores stock the right one. The new timing chain cover that'll work with it is on the way.
I should get back to work that'll make me money. I'm setting up new hosting servers for friends and family's hosting needs. I still need to get the billing up. Gotta collect that $10/yr on a regular basis.:)
Sorry, it sounded like you did more focused work in the past.
I'd say PHP. Make some web pages that do something. You can do plenty of system stuff with it. You already have some skill in it. If you find there's something it can't do, like working with real world interfaces, do those in Perl. If you can't do it with Perl, do it with C. I had fun with an embedded project, flipping contactors (big relays), reading sensors, and showing statistics on a 40x2 LCD.
Quite a while back, I was playing with a basic stamp, using it to drive a spark gap (15KV between two carbon rods). That was in their basic language. If I had the interface from the embedded project, I could have worked some magic. I played some very clumsy music through it.
The whole spark gap thing was part of an experiment with the Stanley Meyer water engine. Find the magic frequency, and make a fortune.:) As a side note, the magic frequency doesn't exist, despite unsubstantiated claims to the contrary. Increases in voltage (approx 1VDC to 130VDC) increases output, 15KV didn't do anything because of the reduced amperage, but it made cool sparks with the electrodes exposed.
To come back around, you need to figure out what you want to do, before you ask which tool is best for the job.
Because they don't want to say "I'm a noobie, what should I code in?"
If he was a seasoned programmer, he would have included little tidbits like what he intended to do, and what his experience was.
Web page? PHP.
High load gaming? a flavor of C.
3d gaming without reinventing the engine? Whatever that engine needs.
Phone apps? Java.
Simplify how his Linux machine boots? Bash.
Some new hardware that he just invented? Probably assembly.
"Hello World"? Any language he'd like.
I started real development with Perl. I've mostly moved away from it, but there are still a few things that I need the Perl modules to do, that are difficult to find good interfaces anywhere else.
Yup, I think you get exactly what I'm saying. It's not the paper that says you're good. It's the skills that you have learned.
Most self-educated IT people that I know have a pretty broad range of interests and skills. Just today, I was working on one of my cars, did a little home repair stuff, and now I'm taking a break before I get back into my personal servers, doing some sysadmin work and some programming. Tonight, I'll probably get back into some of the long running discussions I've been having with people on Facebook on a variety of topics.
Actually, it's not all that hard to prove. It's all in how much money have to burn. You can subpoena an awful lot of things. Work records, such as timeclock history and personnel files will show if others are habitually late or leave early, and how those time shortages were handled. For those who don't clock in or out, witness testimony about their arrival and departures, as well as scheduling and email history can show more. If a manager's meetings were all scheduled from noon to 3pm, that's a hint. If emails were only sent from 11am to 4pm, that's another. Finally, the AA could testify to the fact that he arrived at 11am, went to lunch from noon to 2pm, and then leaves at 4pm, that would be the best proof.
But, someone who was recently terminated, and wasn't already independently wealthy, they wouldn't be able to afford the court fees, legal assistance, depositions, copy expenses, etc, etc.
Exactly that came up in the hearing, the one time I had to fight for unemployment benefits. Their major claim was that I showed up late 3 times in a few months. I worked 12 hours a day, 5 days a week for 2 years. In the pre-trial mediation, I defended myself (I couldn't afford legal assistance). They brought up the 3 incidents. I asked for timeclock information on the others, and they admitted no other employees time was being tracked. I asked for how many other employees had been reprimanded for time related incidents, and none were. They volunteered earlier that I was given special provisions, as I would work longer days.
The whole truth to that was, they were preparing to be acquired by another company. They were trying to cut the employee costs, and I was #6 or #7 on the list (I don't recall at the moment). Each of them was terminated "with cause", and most were absolutely bogus claims. They didn't want the increased unemployment insurance costs. A few of us fought it, and we all won. Some others got lucky and found new employment quickly. This was just a few years ago (mid-recession), so finding work for those who were newly liberated of our responsibilities was very difficult.
I still know of one guy who still isn't working after that. He was next after me. He has been very frugal with his money, so he does still have enough to live on for a while, but those resources are becoming rapidly depleted. Others have found themselves in and out of horrible part time jobs paying minimum wage, when they had held down senior positions for years.
I think you may have misunderstood what I was saying. If your attitude is "I'm better than [superior] because I have a degree", and you keep saying it because you have this feeling of superiority that you spent 4 years in school, that's bad. Insubordinate behavior is still exactly that. If you go around telling everyone that your boss is a moron, the moron will probably fire you.
I have worked under people with a stack of degrees, and people with no formal education. In both cases, there were good and bad. I have also worked under a fair number of people who do have inferior skills to my own. Some ask me for help, which I'm fine with. It's the ones who don't ask for help, and continue stuck on the same problems, or going down the wrong track that are a problem. Some have made it abundantly clear that they "know" I am better at their job than they are, and that's why I was no longer there.
At one job, we had a guy with a Masters degree. He didn't make a lot of friends by continually reminding everyone "I have a masters, and you don't." It was that much worse when he started insisting that people call him "Master [name]". Honestly, you could have a doctorate, but unless you are my MD, I won't call you Doctor Bob.
Unfortunately, your rank (as it could be considered) granted by diploma is a rank that is purchased, not earned. You paid to go through school. If you couldn't accomplish something the first time, you'd repeat it as long as it took (i.e., "career students"). Some people go through tremendous effort to find the easy courses, where the material is easy, or the instructor doesn't care and passes almost everyone.
I have a deep respect for the higher military ranks, NCO and CO alike. Incompetence and sloth (usually) don't allow for substantial rank increases. A retired colonel or general have earned the respect, and rarely have I needed to change that opinion. While most who are alive today and still in the work force today do have degrees, the degree is only another bit of training to them.
Good, then I gave a big FU to those of you who hold CS degrees. Over the last 15 years, a few titles I've held have been "Sr. SysAdmin", "Director of IT", and "Chief Information Officer".
Honestly, you can't claim that a piece of paper makes you any better or worse than another candidate. When I've hired or authorized hiring, the primary qualification is "Can this candidate do the job better than the other candidates, within the constraints of the position?" The constraints being salary and other incentives.
I've known some people who the only thing they have to show is their degree. I've known others who have actually learned the desired field, and can do it well. I've also seen many people who have great degrees who struggle in very low positions.
As for the piece of paper being worthless, many are. To show this, I purchased a very official looking Doctorate, which had contacts that would confirm the fact that I earned the degree, and many people who tried to research it couldn't find anything to say it was just a worthless piece of paper. I won't ever claim that I actually earned the degree. I use it as an example of how you cannot trust user provided credentials without verification.
If you are a candidate interviewing with me or any of my subordinates, you had better show that you have the skills required to accomplish the tasks in the position. Saying little more than "I have a degree in this, hire me!" will only get you an invitation to leave the premises.
If you are hired, and you continually voice your opinion that you are better than your superiors who don't have degrees, you will find yourself dismissed for insubordination. Expect that anywhere.
HoTMaiL was launched in 1996, running Solaris and FreeBSD.
Microsoft acquired HoTMaiL in 1997.
They migrated to Windows 2000 in June and July of 2000. (citation)
HoTMaiL was rebranded to Hotmail, and then a few various MS names.
I know some of you kids haven't been on the Internet quite so long, but I remember when it happened, and many outages during the migration.
Just because a company buys another company, even if it's Microsoft doing the purchasing, it doesn't mean that they will migrate to Microsoft platforms overnight.
I can't comment on Danger, as I've never heard of them, never used them, and honestly don't care. I know the Hotmail history, because I was an early user, and still have a few accounts. They collect spam, which jumped substantially when the MS acquisition happened.
The problem with that is, corporations make income, but not all of it goes to owners nor shareholders. Most corporations, the majority of the income goes back out to expenses. Of course, that's taxed every which way too. I don't even know where to begin, to know how much of every dollar disappears in taxes as it changes hands. It probably looks roughly like the media (movie/music) sales compared to what artists end up earning.
Taxes, and all the complicated laws that accompany them are what keeps accountants in business. If it was easy, anyone could safely do it on their own.
They all pay their taxes honestly. The problem is, they're exploiting holes in tax law to minimize their tax burden. Everyone does this. Even your average Joe citizen. They file their taxes with as many exemptions as possible, to minimize what they have to pay.
The larger the company, the more ways they have to get around it. Look at GE.
I'm sure most of us have heard of tax shelters, offshore accounts, blah, blah, blah.. There are a plethora of ways to hide income, or minimize its impact on you.
I, JWSmythe, could open JWSmythe Consulting in any of a number of countries. Payments to "me" could go to these offshore companies with no tax burden in the US. When tax time comes around, *I*, the citizen of the US, never earned a penny here. I did enjoy the comforts of an off shore company paying my mortgage, utilities, and whatever other expenses I had.
It doesn't work quite that smoothly. Making no money can raise red flags. So I would be paid a low salary, but I still wouldn't need to worry about pesky things like bills.
For the record, I do not operate this way. It's usually people and companies that make at least $500k/yr that benefit from it. For what I make, it it would cost me more to set up the offshore company than I pay in taxes. I report everything honestly. I pay my taxes appropriate for where I actually live. If I were to cheat the system in any sort of way, I'd get treated like a criminal, and suffer from tax liens, payroll deduction, and bank account seizures. Us citizens have to worry about such things. Big companies rarely do. At worst, they can negotiate their way around such problems.
In the case of the Apple and Microsoft stories, they used domestic tax havens to avoid paying state taxes. I'm sure they also used quite a few international ones for various dealings. Many companies also frequently get tax incentives for operating in a particular city. I've seen many companies come and go, where a local government will offer them a period of no taxes, or even negative taxes (us taxpayers pay them). When the term of that agreement expires, and the local government expects to start getting a return on their investment, the company moves that office to somewhere else willing to make a sweet offer. It's good for the company. It's not so good for the people who were working in that location, when they find that their job has been moved or downsized.
IMHO, no company should get special treatment. Taxes work because everyone pays equally. In reality, the lower classes cover the tax burden, while the large corporations enjoy benefits.
I didn't read too far into the MS and Apple situation. It seems there is a royalty tax, which may have been imposed by the state as an attempt to profit from a small high income segment of the state's industry. That's speculation though, I didn't research that at all.
There's a real case there. Imagine a vampire, who has changed his identity every 20 to 30 years for centuries. He'd fake his own death, and move on with enough riches to start over.
Now they'll have a lineage of the names he used, where he lived, and quite likely be able to identify trends in his feeding patterns. The truth will be known, and there will be nowhere for him to hide. The lineage of his crimes will haunt him forever.
I guess the important part of that is, if vampires were real. Imagine being the walking dead, and trying to get a drivers license, passport, or other photo ID. It'd be damned near impossible.
You know, that'd probably make a pretty good TV show. They could pair him with a ghost and werewolf. They could show him trying to live life in a big city, like London or Boston, for example. Nah, that'd never work.:)
Honestly, there are a lot of old servers still out there. Sometimes it's budgets that keep them in place. Sometimes it's poor management. Sometimes it's the simple fact that it still works. I've encouraged people to upgrade. Sometimes they don't do it because of money (small hosting, no significant change, they don't upgrade), or sometimes stupidity (small hosting, large customer base, fear of change).
I won't totally agree with all the reasons.
One of my own servers is an dual Opteron 240, 1.3Ghz with 2Gb RAM. It started out life with 3 250Gb IDE drives as a RAID5. All of the drives have failed at some point, and they've been swapped with 320GB drives. It happens to be currently running Slackware64 13.37. It started out life with Gentoo, then Redhat, then Slamd64. I only went the Gentoo and Redhat route, because there was no 64bit Slackware at the time. That server, when it was new, cost about $3,500.
The new servers are AMD FX-8120, 8 core, 3.888Ghz with 16GB ram and mirrored 1TB SATA drives. I went the route that Google did with their open rack mount servers, so I saved a good bit of money on cases. Each of those cost just about $600. I suspect most datacenters wouldn't allow me to run with the open rack style, so I'd have to drop an extra $300 to $600 on cases. These run a fresh install of Slackware64 13.37.
Both the Opteron and the FX machines are still running. I just haven't moved everything away from the Opteron yet, but I do have the hardware to move it to.
I wrote to Patrick (Slackware) about some good options. I won't go into depth on them here. It's up to him and his folks if they want to use them.
I am a huge Slackware fan. Anything Slackware didn't provide directly in the distribution, I used to get from linuxpackages.net. For the last few years, I've gotten additional stuff from slackbuilds.org. Between Slackbuilds and the sources on Slackware, it's been real easy to roll up my own updated packages. It's much easier than the old days of just installing additional stuff from source, and not having a clean removal path.
For a big commercial company, I don't recommend leaving hardware running for over 5 years. That's the end of the usable life. In 5 years, there is bigger, better, and faster available. It's also usually close to the end of life for the drives. I know some places upgrade yearly, which is fine and dandy if you have a huge fiscal budget, and IT people who like to keep real busy.:) It seems that places that really do the yearly upgrades have things set up and documented better to allow for smooth migrations between machines. Places that stagnate on solutions tend to have more stuff tied in closely to a specific setup, and it's difficult for them to move.
You know, Celerons weren't really all that bad. We ran groups of redundant web servers with Celeron CPUs. They weren't blazing fast, but they were cheap. For the price, it was an easy sell to buy more servers, and let them all work a little easier. That was with an amazingly high load site too, and despite the claims of fire and brimstone the first thing to go after 4 or 5 years was usually just the CPU fan. As generic home grown servers, they out performed the name brand comparables at a fraction of the cost.
Ya, traffic sniffing will find all kinds of amazing things.
Honestly, I'm not that paranoid, I just like saying it.
My Google history (they'd never keep that, right?) is a cornucopia of information searches on people, places, drugs, sex, rock and roll, weapons, terrorist activities and histories, and (of course) programming stuff.:)
I was talking to my girlfriend while watching TV one night. We go off on wild tangents.
One show had a domestic (US) terrorist using Semtex. I could have sworn it was manufactured in Europe, and never found production uses in the US. I was wrong.
The next show had the POTUS as a character (fictional POTUS). They were having a meeting in the oval office, which seemed to drag on for hours. So our tangent left me wondering, "Where's the closest bathroom to the oval office?" Like, when the POTUS has to take a #2, does he have to run across the White House, or is there a Presidential crapper nearby. For some reason in TV and movies, unless there's a purpose to put a character out of the room, you never hear someone say "Be right back, gotta take a shit.", and walk off camera. If you never noticed it before, you will now.:)
On a recent Fringe episode, I couldn't identify one of the rifles used, so I went looking based on the characteristics of what it looked like. It was a Galatz. I thought it was a decorated AR10. And ever since Stargate SG1 showed the FN P90, I've wanted one (well, a PS90), but I haven't been able to justify the cost.
I may look like I know everything, but when I don't, there's a Google search history of it.:)
My searches are diverse enough, and contain enough key words where if they really did use Google searches as a reason to bust someone, I'd have my own personal government funded security outside the door 24/7. That is, unless my file has been tagged "harmless", and they just ignore me.:)
I'm not sure which is more disturbing, that you know about a site called narcoticnews.com, or that it exists.:)
I didn't follow the link though, I have enough reasons to be on too many lists. I don't need the DEA knocking down my front door to find no drugs. It's expensive to replace a door.:) That, and we'd spend the next two hours trying to catch the cats that went running out. "Make sure you shut... no don't let the cat.. shit, cat got out again."
It's all supply vs demand. The US keeps the supply very tight. So as the demand continues to remain constant or rise (well, after the 1980's peak), a cut in supply will always raise the price.
It's that much easier when your clients *have* to have the product. It's almost like they're addicted or something.:)
There are other questions on this. How involved is the US Gov't with drug smuggling into the US?
(I hate linking to Wikipedia, but if you're unfamiliar with those topics, it should be a good starting point for you. They are a few of many examples.)
It's actually a very elegant plan, with guaranteed success. Companies insulated from direct government involvement deal with the aspects of illegal drugs, from production, to wholesale distribution. From the wholesale distribution point on, it's handled by shady characters who already know their life is on the line if they sell out someone up the chain. It's a cash only business where almost no one keeps books on it, and they definitely don't file their taxes.
If you had the power of the federal government, and you know that increased taxation is political suicide, what better way to make money. Of course, we hear about the guy with 10 kilos getting caught in an airport. Once in a while you'll hear about a big shipment getting caught too. That's the competition. Well, sometimes their own, but with no direct ties. It drives the prices up (oh no, a shipment was seized), and keeps the competition marginalized. Drug enforcement deals with (relatively) smaller groups, to ensure the big company (gov't) continues amazing profits. Those profits are off the books, out of public view, out of congressional oversight, and can finance anything you can imagine.
Since the money has no trail, there isn't a distinct trail left for whatever covert (or covert-ish) operation they want to do. Of course, if anyone gets out of line, we've armed various domestic branches of the government to the teeth. All they have to do is name a reason. Illegal immigrants? Call ICE. Could be terrorists? Call DHS. Competition that we haven't managed to eliminate? Call the IRS. The IRS won't show up with a combat team, but if necessary, they'll show up with plenty of other gun toting agencies. That is, if they want to get so involved. Gangland style shootings, or IRA style bombings are very effective, and can have investigations going towards lots of dead ends. "The M.O. indicates it was the Red Gang". Investingating them won't turn up anything. "Maybe their competition, the Blue Gang did it". Nope, nothing there either. Why? Because it's simple enough for anyone with enough information to replicate any crime, especially with a big enough budget. Your entire suspect pool will be shown to be innocent (or jailed unjustly), because the real suspect has no ties to that area.
Does this give you a new view on Central and South American US operations since at least the 1980's? Why would we send troops to bust a drug dealer on another continent? Because we "think of the children"? ha. Children are little more than future consumers and future tax payers.
So yes, the "War on Terrorism" and the "War on Drugs" are government theater, carved out of the same script. Unfortunately for the players, all the weapons have real bullets, and the tragic ending isn't followed with a bow and curtain close.
It doesn't take a tin-foil hat to see these kinds of things. I am well grounded in reality. There are plenty of tin-foil hat wearing folks who could expand on this, probably including bigfoot and aliens.:)
1. the use of violence and threats to intimidate or coerce, especially for political purposes. 2. the state of fear and submission produced by terrorism or terrorization. 3. a terroristic method of governing or of resisting a government.
You'll find that the terrorists in this situation aren't nameless faceless Arabic speaking people with binary explosives in their luggage, or underwear made of C4. Those who inspire terror are present in every airport, every border, and throughout the US. They arrest people off the streets because they may not have the right papers (4th amendment). They can take you for dissenting opinions (1st amendment). They can arrest and hold you indefinitely (8th amendment). They conduct wars on the other side of the world in the name of stopping terrorism, yet they are the terrorists. How many sovereign nations are now occupied by US troops, with continuing operations there?
This is not intended to be negative in any sort of way to our troops. It is negative to the terrorism leaders, who continue to conduct these operations.
For those that say the government are not terrorists, think about it a little. Who forced themselves on a 4 year old girl? Who feels it is appropriate to molest anyone who wishes to travel? Who makes you file papers under the threat of seizing your income, property, and possibly putting you in jail, and the threat stands if you did file them, but made mistakes? Ask the hundreds of thousands world wide who have lost loved ones in the last decade at the hands of US troops. Ask that little girl if she's scared of the big scary people in blue shirts.
I'm scared of the US Government. They concern me more than gang bangers on the corner, or people making noise on the other side of the world.
The TSA, DHS, and ICE are the largest terror groups in the United States. Branches of the DoD and their associates are the largest terror group world wide.
I intentionally left the FBI and CIA out of the above references. They do excellent work, although it doesn't make the news frequently.
I honestly don't understand why we continue to stand for it.
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I got the truck ('99 Tahoe 4wd) with 160,000 miles on it. It was a nice truck, that was neglected. It had a rear axle "noise", which ended up being it fell apart 2.5 miles from the sellers house. The wires all looked good. The first sensor to really cause problems (i.e., engine stops running) was the crank sensor. It happened on a road trip. It sputtered while we were heading out of town, so I hooked up the OBD-II reader and it said crank sensor. We stopped by a store, since I still knew the close stores at that point. We made it 50 more miles, and the engine just stopped. The VSS is the bastard. It works most of the time, but will just drop intermittently. Because of that, it would keep shifting from 4th to 3rd gear around 55mph. I could go up to 65+ mph, and it would stay in 4th, or drive around in 3rd gear. I've changed it, tested the wires, and looked for absolutely anything that could have problems. Nothing.
The way the intake and injectors are on a L31 is that there's a "spider" inside the intake manifold, and all the injectors are inside the manifold. Changing them is a project, and the injector/spider set is expensive. Because the extra hardware is in the way of the air flow, it hurts the performance, or at least to 4 of the cylinders. I opted to replace the intake manifold, and put a 750cfm carb on top. Now the whole assembly comes off with 8 bolts. :)
It had an undetected intake manifold gasket leak. Like, all was fine one day. I had to drive to the datacenter to deliver some hardware and install it. The drive there was fine. I made it half way home. The engine overheated and then stalled. In the dark, on the side of the road, I only saw that the radiator was dry. My only choices were to walk about 10 miles for water, or fill up with sea water and flush it when I got home. I opted for sea water. Towing wasn't a good option, I'd wait for hours. I made it half way (now 3/4 total trip) home, and it started acting very funny. I managed to pull into a 24 hr Walmart, where I could actually see. The radiator was dry again. Now I could see, the crank case oil wasn't oil any more, it looked like a chocolate shake. I took a taxi home from there, and had it towed in the morning.
I flushed the oil and radiator that day, and proceeded to strip the engine down so I could inspect everything. BTW, flushing that stuff out is a horrible messy job. I found the bad intake manifold gasket. I also found one intake valve had bent somehow. I assuming it was the timing chain, but when I did get that far, it lined up fine. There was wear on the gears, and the chain was a little sloppy but still serviceable. Since I was that far, I opted to change it. And that's the point it's at now. Parts from Summit Racing should be here tomorrow. :)
Other problems I've found on it were...
The front differential (4wd) had no gear oil. I changed the different when I did the rear end, because I changed the gearing so it could move better.
The rear differential was shot. I put in new gears and a limited slip unit so it would drive better than the locker. I use it to move stuff, but I'm not towing houses with it. :)
The transfer case was dry. Not just dry, there were chunks of what used to be fluid. Filling it works for about a week, but it leaks. The limited slip transfer case (push button auto-4wd) isn't ideal, and a lot of off-road people put the manual version in because of reliability problems. It's here as well as the shift lever, but hasn't been installed yet. It's an easy swap, except for the weight of it.
The tires were shot. One formed a bubble on a short trip. I limped home very very carefully. When I got home, the bubble was the size of a softball. The next morning the tire was flat. It popped overnight just sitting in the driveway. :) I already had 4 new tires being shipped, so that was ok.
Did I mention I got the truck *real* cheap? The total investment in
There are two good reasons for doing this.
1) Just because you've identified attacker(s) in one part of the system, doesn't mean that they aren't in other parts. They could retaliate for that action.
2) You can gain valuable intelligence about who they are and how they're doing it.
Now the good reasons *not* to.
Items 1 through 1,000,000) They were in critical infrastructure equipment, and have retrieved an unknown amount of information. Every second they are in, it increases the risk of what they might acquire, or they might do.
1,000,001) There should be a policies and procedures manual which says any machine which is potentially compromised should immediately be disconnected from the network, and a trained computer forensics team should immediately begin evaluating the situation.
2 vs 1,000,001.. It's a tough call.
I know that feeling. I was helping a friend with his car. It was a simple change the pads job on a newer Toyota sedan. He got the parts and came over to my place with them.. The front ones were wrong. Very obviously two inches too short wrong. We took them back to the store, but they couldn't find any information about the one in my hand. It took 3 stores before we finally found someone who had it in the computer.
The timing chain is a bit odd. It came with a single roller chain. The replacement that everyone lists is a double roller chain. It's better, but they really shouldn't list it as the OEM replacement when it doesn't fit under the cover. I bought both from the same store online, since they weren't stocked locally. The "fix" is to get the timing chain cover for an older engine (1967-1997 SBC). It doesn't have provisions for mounting the crank sensor. That's ok though, I just decomputerized the engine. I got really tired of bad or intermittently malfunctioning sensors, and the fact the injectors cost more than a new intake manifold and carburetor. The pleasant side effect is, it'll have more power now, get slightly better gas mileage, and eliminate a lot of under-hood clutter. Well, assuming I can remember all the finer details of tuning carbureted engines, which I haven't done in over 15 years. :) I'll miss the OBD-II diagnostics, but I can add an O2 sensor gauge and a vacuum gauge on the A pillar.
It was for some special real world input devices. I don't remember right off who made them or what they were called. They were various RFID tokens, where the instructions for the readers were verbal "Here's your wires, you figure out how to hook it up. Use our Perl module to read it".
Very true.
Most of the programmers I know, know several languages and use the best one for the job. Some use exactly one language, and use one framework to make it happen. Some can't even make a "hello world" page without making a project out of it.
I've amazed some "programmers" with sed, awk, and grep. I've had "senior" programmers tell me how impossible it is to parse gigs of web server logs. They say it's black magic when I can (oh my gosh) grep for an IP, and show all the requests a user made. It kills me a little more inside each time I have to teach professionals how to use the basic tools of their job.
:) I ran into trouble with mine. It's a Chevy Tahoe with a L31 engine. I tore the whole engine down, and have been putting it back together a bit better than original. I ran into an insanely stupid problem. The "meets OEM spec" timing chain that the parts store was a perfect match, wasn't. None of the stores stock the right one. The new timing chain cover that'll work with it is on the way.
I should get back to work that'll make me money. I'm setting up new hosting servers for friends and family's hosting needs. I still need to get the billing up. Gotta collect that $10/yr on a regular basis. :)
Sorry, it sounded like you did more focused work in the past.
I'd say PHP. Make some web pages that do something. You can do plenty of system stuff with it. You already have some skill in it. If you find there's something it can't do, like working with real world interfaces, do those in Perl. If you can't do it with Perl, do it with C. I had fun with an embedded project, flipping contactors (big relays), reading sensors, and showing statistics on a 40x2 LCD.
Quite a while back, I was playing with a basic stamp, using it to drive a spark gap (15KV between two carbon rods). That was in their basic language. If I had the interface from the embedded project, I could have worked some magic. I played some very clumsy music through it.
The whole spark gap thing was part of an experiment with the Stanley Meyer water engine. Find the magic frequency, and make a fortune. :) As a side note, the magic frequency doesn't exist, despite unsubstantiated claims to the contrary. Increases in voltage (approx 1VDC to 130VDC) increases output, 15KV didn't do anything because of the reduced amperage, but it made cool sparks with the electrodes exposed.
To come back around, you need to figure out what you want to do, before you ask which tool is best for the job.
Because they don't want to say "I'm a noobie, what should I code in?"
If he was a seasoned programmer, he would have included little tidbits like what he intended to do, and what his experience was.
Web page? PHP.
High load gaming? a flavor of C.
3d gaming without reinventing the engine? Whatever that engine needs.
Phone apps? Java.
Simplify how his Linux machine boots? Bash.
Some new hardware that he just invented? Probably assembly.
"Hello World"? Any language he'd like.
I started real development with Perl. I've mostly moved away from it, but there are still a few things that I need the Perl modules to do, that are difficult to find good interfaces anywhere else.
Yup, I think you get exactly what I'm saying. It's not the paper that says you're good. It's the skills that you have learned.
Most self-educated IT people that I know have a pretty broad range of interests and skills. Just today, I was working on one of my cars, did a little home repair stuff, and now I'm taking a break before I get back into my personal servers, doing some sysadmin work and some programming. Tonight, I'll probably get back into some of the long running discussions I've been having with people on Facebook on a variety of topics.
Actually, it's not all that hard to prove. It's all in how much money have to burn. You can subpoena an awful lot of things. Work records, such as timeclock history and personnel files will show if others are habitually late or leave early, and how those time shortages were handled. For those who don't clock in or out, witness testimony about their arrival and departures, as well as scheduling and email history can show more. If a manager's meetings were all scheduled from noon to 3pm, that's a hint. If emails were only sent from 11am to 4pm, that's another. Finally, the AA could testify to the fact that he arrived at 11am, went to lunch from noon to 2pm, and then leaves at 4pm, that would be the best proof.
But, someone who was recently terminated, and wasn't already independently wealthy, they wouldn't be able to afford the court fees, legal assistance, depositions, copy expenses, etc, etc.
Exactly that came up in the hearing, the one time I had to fight for unemployment benefits. Their major claim was that I showed up late 3 times in a few months. I worked 12 hours a day, 5 days a week for 2 years. In the pre-trial mediation, I defended myself (I couldn't afford legal assistance). They brought up the 3 incidents. I asked for timeclock information on the others, and they admitted no other employees time was being tracked. I asked for how many other employees had been reprimanded for time related incidents, and none were. They volunteered earlier that I was given special provisions, as I would work longer days.
The whole truth to that was, they were preparing to be acquired by another company. They were trying to cut the employee costs, and I was #6 or #7 on the list (I don't recall at the moment). Each of them was terminated "with cause", and most were absolutely bogus claims. They didn't want the increased unemployment insurance costs. A few of us fought it, and we all won. Some others got lucky and found new employment quickly. This was just a few years ago (mid-recession), so finding work for those who were newly liberated of our responsibilities was very difficult.
I still know of one guy who still isn't working after that. He was next after me. He has been very frugal with his money, so he does still have enough to live on for a while, but those resources are becoming rapidly depleted. Others have found themselves in and out of horrible part time jobs paying minimum wage, when they had held down senior positions for years.
I think you may have misunderstood what I was saying. If your attitude is "I'm better than [superior] because I have a degree", and you keep saying it because you have this feeling of superiority that you spent 4 years in school, that's bad. Insubordinate behavior is still exactly that. If you go around telling everyone that your boss is a moron, the moron will probably fire you.
I have worked under people with a stack of degrees, and people with no formal education. In both cases, there were good and bad. I have also worked under a fair number of people who do have inferior skills to my own. Some ask me for help, which I'm fine with. It's the ones who don't ask for help, and continue stuck on the same problems, or going down the wrong track that are a problem. Some have made it abundantly clear that they "know" I am better at their job than they are, and that's why I was no longer there.
At one job, we had a guy with a Masters degree. He didn't make a lot of friends by continually reminding everyone "I have a masters, and you don't." It was that much worse when he started insisting that people call him "Master [name]". Honestly, you could have a doctorate, but unless you are my MD, I won't call you Doctor Bob.
Unfortunately, your rank (as it could be considered) granted by diploma is a rank that is purchased, not earned. You paid to go through school. If you couldn't accomplish something the first time, you'd repeat it as long as it took (i.e., "career students"). Some people go through tremendous effort to find the easy courses, where the material is easy, or the instructor doesn't care and passes almost everyone.
I have a deep respect for the higher military ranks, NCO and CO alike. Incompetence and sloth (usually) don't allow for substantial rank increases. A retired colonel or general have earned the respect, and rarely have I needed to change that opinion. While most who are alive today and still in the work force today do have degrees, the degree is only another bit of training to them.
Falsifying credentials at hire time are usually grounds for immediate termination, regardless of how long you have worked for a company.
I wonder what their history of termination for this kind of issue have been.
Good, then I gave a big FU to those of you who hold CS degrees. Over the last 15 years, a few titles I've held have been "Sr. SysAdmin", "Director of IT", and "Chief Information Officer".
Honestly, you can't claim that a piece of paper makes you any better or worse than another candidate. When I've hired or authorized hiring, the primary qualification is "Can this candidate do the job better than the other candidates, within the constraints of the position?" The constraints being salary and other incentives.
I've known some people who the only thing they have to show is their degree. I've known others who have actually learned the desired field, and can do it well. I've also seen many people who have great degrees who struggle in very low positions.
As for the piece of paper being worthless, many are. To show this, I purchased a very official looking Doctorate, which had contacts that would confirm the fact that I earned the degree, and many people who tried to research it couldn't find anything to say it was just a worthless piece of paper. I won't ever claim that I actually earned the degree. I use it as an example of how you cannot trust user provided credentials without verification.
If you are a candidate interviewing with me or any of my subordinates, you had better show that you have the skills required to accomplish the tasks in the position. Saying little more than "I have a degree in this, hire me!" will only get you an invitation to leave the premises.
If you are hired, and you continually voice your opinion that you are better than your superiors who don't have degrees, you will find yourself dismissed for insubordination. Expect that anywhere.
HoTMaiL was launched in 1996, running Solaris and FreeBSD.
Microsoft acquired HoTMaiL in 1997.
They migrated to Windows 2000 in June and July of 2000. (citation)
HoTMaiL was rebranded to Hotmail, and then a few various MS names.
I know some of you kids haven't been on the Internet quite so long, but I remember when it happened, and many outages during the migration.
Just because a company buys another company, even if it's Microsoft doing the purchasing, it doesn't mean that they will migrate to Microsoft platforms overnight.
I can't comment on Danger, as I've never heard of them, never used them, and honestly don't care. I know the Hotmail history, because I was an early user, and still have a few accounts. They collect spam, which jumped substantially when the MS acquisition happened.
The problem with that is, corporations make income, but not all of it goes to owners nor shareholders. Most corporations, the majority of the income goes back out to expenses. Of course, that's taxed every which way too. I don't even know where to begin, to know how much of every dollar disappears in taxes as it changes hands. It probably looks roughly like the media (movie/music) sales compared to what artists end up earning.
Taxes, and all the complicated laws that accompany them are what keeps accountants in business. If it was easy, anyone could safely do it on their own.
They all pay their taxes honestly. The problem is, they're exploiting holes in tax law to minimize their tax burden. Everyone does this. Even your average Joe citizen. They file their taxes with as many exemptions as possible, to minimize what they have to pay.
The larger the company, the more ways they have to get around it. Look at GE.
I'm sure most of us have heard of tax shelters, offshore accounts, blah, blah, blah.. There are a plethora of ways to hide income, or minimize its impact on you.
I, JWSmythe, could open JWSmythe Consulting in any of a number of countries. Payments to "me" could go to these offshore companies with no tax burden in the US. When tax time comes around, *I*, the citizen of the US, never earned a penny here. I did enjoy the comforts of an off shore company paying my mortgage, utilities, and whatever other expenses I had.
It doesn't work quite that smoothly. Making no money can raise red flags. So I would be paid a low salary, but I still wouldn't need to worry about pesky things like bills.
For the record, I do not operate this way. It's usually people and companies that make at least $500k/yr that benefit from it. For what I make, it it would cost me more to set up the offshore company than I pay in taxes. I report everything honestly. I pay my taxes appropriate for where I actually live. If I were to cheat the system in any sort of way, I'd get treated like a criminal, and suffer from tax liens, payroll deduction, and bank account seizures. Us citizens have to worry about such things. Big companies rarely do. At worst, they can negotiate their way around such problems.
In the case of the Apple and Microsoft stories, they used domestic tax havens to avoid paying state taxes. I'm sure they also used quite a few international ones for various dealings. Many companies also frequently get tax incentives for operating in a particular city. I've seen many companies come and go, where a local government will offer them a period of no taxes, or even negative taxes (us taxpayers pay them). When the term of that agreement expires, and the local government expects to start getting a return on their investment, the company moves that office to somewhere else willing to make a sweet offer. It's good for the company. It's not so good for the people who were working in that location, when they find that their job has been moved or downsized.
IMHO, no company should get special treatment. Taxes work because everyone pays equally. In reality, the lower classes cover the tax burden, while the large corporations enjoy benefits.
I didn't read too far into the MS and Apple situation. It seems there is a royalty tax, which may have been imposed by the state as an attempt to profit from a small high income segment of the state's industry. That's speculation though, I didn't research that at all.
There's a real case there. Imagine a vampire, who has changed his identity every 20 to 30 years for centuries. He'd fake his own death, and move on with enough riches to start over.
Now they'll have a lineage of the names he used, where he lived, and quite likely be able to identify trends in his feeding patterns. The truth will be known, and there will be nowhere for him to hide. The lineage of his crimes will haunt him forever.
I guess the important part of that is, if vampires were real. Imagine being the walking dead, and trying to get a drivers license, passport, or other photo ID. It'd be damned near impossible.
You know, that'd probably make a pretty good TV show. They could pair him with a ghost and werewolf. They could show him trying to live life in a big city, like London or Boston, for example. Nah, that'd never work. :)
Honestly, there are a lot of old servers still out there. Sometimes it's budgets that keep them in place. Sometimes it's poor management. Sometimes it's the simple fact that it still works. I've encouraged people to upgrade. Sometimes they don't do it because of money (small hosting, no significant change, they don't upgrade), or sometimes stupidity (small hosting, large customer base, fear of change).
I won't totally agree with all the reasons.
One of my own servers is an dual Opteron 240, 1.3Ghz with 2Gb RAM. It started out life with 3 250Gb IDE drives as a RAID5. All of the drives have failed at some point, and they've been swapped with 320GB drives. It happens to be currently running Slackware64 13.37. It started out life with Gentoo, then Redhat, then Slamd64. I only went the Gentoo and Redhat route, because there was no 64bit Slackware at the time. That server, when it was new, cost about $3,500.
The new servers are AMD FX-8120, 8 core, 3.888Ghz with 16GB ram and mirrored 1TB SATA drives. I went the route that Google did with their open rack mount servers, so I saved a good bit of money on cases. Each of those cost just about $600. I suspect most datacenters wouldn't allow me to run with the open rack style, so I'd have to drop an extra $300 to $600 on cases. These run a fresh install of Slackware64 13.37.
Both the Opteron and the FX machines are still running. I just haven't moved everything away from the Opteron yet, but I do have the hardware to move it to.
I wrote to Patrick (Slackware) about some good options. I won't go into depth on them here. It's up to him and his folks if they want to use them.
I am a huge Slackware fan. Anything Slackware didn't provide directly in the distribution, I used to get from linuxpackages.net. For the last few years, I've gotten additional stuff from slackbuilds.org. Between Slackbuilds and the sources on Slackware, it's been real easy to roll up my own updated packages. It's much easier than the old days of just installing additional stuff from source, and not having a clean removal path.
For a big commercial company, I don't recommend leaving hardware running for over 5 years. That's the end of the usable life. In 5 years, there is bigger, better, and faster available. It's also usually close to the end of life for the drives. I know some places upgrade yearly, which is fine and dandy if you have a huge fiscal budget, and IT people who like to keep real busy. :) It seems that places that really do the yearly upgrades have things set up and documented better to allow for smooth migrations between machines. Places that stagnate on solutions tend to have more stuff tied in closely to a specific setup, and it's difficult for them to move.
Patrick, check your email. :)
I'm volunteering development and other suggestions.
You know, Celerons weren't really all that bad. We ran groups of redundant web servers with Celeron CPUs. They weren't blazing fast, but they were cheap. For the price, it was an easy sell to buy more servers, and let them all work a little easier. That was with an amazingly high load site too, and despite the claims of fire and brimstone the first thing to go after 4 or 5 years was usually just the CPU fan. As generic home grown servers, they out performed the name brand comparables at a fraction of the cost.
Of course, they all got retired years ago. :)
Ya, traffic sniffing will find all kinds of amazing things.
Honestly, I'm not that paranoid, I just like saying it.
My Google history (they'd never keep that, right?) is a cornucopia of information searches on people, places, drugs, sex, rock and roll, weapons, terrorist activities and histories, and (of course) programming stuff. :)
I was talking to my girlfriend while watching TV one night. We go off on wild tangents.
One show had a domestic (US) terrorist using Semtex. I could have sworn it was manufactured in Europe, and never found production uses in the US. I was wrong.
The next show had the POTUS as a character (fictional POTUS). They were having a meeting in the oval office, which seemed to drag on for hours. So our tangent left me wondering, "Where's the closest bathroom to the oval office?" Like, when the POTUS has to take a #2, does he have to run across the White House, or is there a Presidential crapper nearby. For some reason in TV and movies, unless there's a purpose to put a character out of the room, you never hear someone say "Be right back, gotta take a shit.", and walk off camera. If you never noticed it before, you will now. :)
On a recent Fringe episode, I couldn't identify one of the rifles used, so I went looking based on the characteristics of what it looked like. It was a Galatz. I thought it was a decorated AR10. And ever since Stargate SG1 showed the FN P90, I've wanted one (well, a PS90), but I haven't been able to justify the cost.
I may look like I know everything, but when I don't, there's a Google search history of it. :)
My searches are diverse enough, and contain enough key words where if they really did use Google searches as a reason to bust someone, I'd have my own personal government funded security outside the door 24/7. That is, unless my file has been tagged "harmless", and they just ignore me. :)
Nah, I'm not really that paranoid, I just like to pretend.
I was a little disappointed when I got to their site, and there was no RSS feed though.
I'm not sure which is more disturbing, that you know about a site called narcoticnews.com, or that it exists. :)
I didn't follow the link though, I have enough reasons to be on too many lists. I don't need the DEA knocking down my front door to find no drugs. It's expensive to replace a door. :) That, and we'd spend the next two hours trying to catch the cats that went running out. "Make sure you shut... no don't let the cat .. shit, cat got out again."
It's all supply vs demand. The US keeps the supply very tight. So as the demand continues to remain constant or rise (well, after the 1980's peak), a cut in supply will always raise the price.
It's that much easier when your clients *have* to have the product. It's almost like they're addicted or something. :)
There are other questions on this. How involved is the US Gov't with drug smuggling into the US?
Cocaine One
ATF drug/gun scandal
Air America
(I hate linking to Wikipedia, but if you're unfamiliar with those topics, it should be a good starting point for you. They are a few of many examples.)
It's actually a very elegant plan, with guaranteed success. Companies insulated from direct government involvement deal with the aspects of illegal drugs, from production, to wholesale distribution. From the wholesale distribution point on, it's handled by shady characters who already know their life is on the line if they sell out someone up the chain. It's a cash only business where almost no one keeps books on it, and they definitely don't file their taxes.
If you had the power of the federal government, and you know that increased taxation is political suicide, what better way to make money. Of course, we hear about the guy with 10 kilos getting caught in an airport. Once in a while you'll hear about a big shipment getting caught too. That's the competition. Well, sometimes their own, but with no direct ties. It drives the prices up (oh no, a shipment was seized), and keeps the competition marginalized. Drug enforcement deals with (relatively) smaller groups, to ensure the big company (gov't) continues amazing profits. Those profits are off the books, out of public view, out of congressional oversight, and can finance anything you can imagine.
Since the money has no trail, there isn't a distinct trail left for whatever covert (or covert-ish) operation they want to do. Of course, if anyone gets out of line, we've armed various domestic branches of the government to the teeth. All they have to do is name a reason. Illegal immigrants? Call ICE. Could be terrorists? Call DHS. Competition that we haven't managed to eliminate? Call the IRS. The IRS won't show up with a combat team, but if necessary, they'll show up with plenty of other gun toting agencies. That is, if they want to get so involved. Gangland style shootings, or IRA style bombings are very effective, and can have investigations going towards lots of dead ends. "The M.O. indicates it was the Red Gang". Investingating them won't turn up anything. "Maybe their competition, the Blue Gang did it". Nope, nothing there either. Why? Because it's simple enough for anyone with enough information to replicate any crime, especially with a big enough budget. Your entire suspect pool will be shown to be innocent (or jailed unjustly), because the real suspect has no ties to that area.
Does this give you a new view on Central and South American US operations since at least the 1980's? Why would we send troops to bust a drug dealer on another continent? Because we "think of the children"? ha. Children are little more than future consumers and future tax payers.
So yes, the "War on Terrorism" and the "War on Drugs" are government theater, carved out of the same script. Unfortunately for the players, all the weapons have real bullets, and the tragic ending isn't followed with a bow and curtain close.
It doesn't take a tin-foil hat to see these kinds of things. I am well grounded in reality. There are plenty of tin-foil hat wearing folks who could expand on this, probably including bigfoot and aliens. :)
Consider who the terrorists are.
terrorist
terrorism
You'll find that the terrorists in this situation aren't nameless faceless Arabic speaking people with binary explosives in their luggage, or underwear made of C4. Those who inspire terror are present in every airport, every border, and throughout the US. They arrest people off the streets because they may not have the right papers (4th amendment). They can take you for dissenting opinions (1st amendment). They can arrest and hold you indefinitely (8th amendment). They conduct wars on the other side of the world in the name of stopping terrorism, yet they are the terrorists. How many sovereign nations are now occupied by US troops, with continuing operations there?
This is not intended to be negative in any sort of way to our troops. It is negative to the terrorism leaders, who continue to conduct these operations.
For those that say the government are not terrorists, think about it a little. Who forced themselves on a 4 year old girl? Who feels it is appropriate to molest anyone who wishes to travel? Who makes you file papers under the threat of seizing your income, property, and possibly putting you in jail, and the threat stands if you did file them, but made mistakes? Ask the hundreds of thousands world wide who have lost loved ones in the last decade at the hands of US troops. Ask that little girl if she's scared of the big scary people in blue shirts.
I'm scared of the US Government. They concern me more than gang bangers on the corner, or people making noise on the other side of the world.
The TSA, DHS, and ICE are the largest terror groups in the United States. Branches of the DoD and their associates are the largest terror group world wide.
I intentionally left the FBI and CIA out of the above references. They do excellent work, although it doesn't make the news frequently.
I honestly don't understand why we continue to stand for it.