...the list of its officials, which includes Mark Rasch, who headed the DOJ's Internet Crime Unit for 9 years; Kevin Manson, a retired Homeland Security official; George Johnson, who "develop[ed] secure tools for the exchange of sensitive information between federal agencies" for the Pentagon; Ira Winkler, a former NSA official; and Suzanne Gorman, former security chief of the New York Stock Exchange. These are people with extensive, sophisticated expertise in compiling highly invasive data about individuals' Internet activities, and more so -- given their background -- how to package it in a way that can be used by federal agencies.
Please mod my parent post up - or undo the ignorant troll moderation via meta-moderation.
Nothing in the post is trolling.
The Troll mod should stay, you deserved it. If you were not trolling, your extremely naive. Only Rupert Murdochs paper The Times/Fox media mouthpieces tried to make the claim that people have already been assassinated based on this material. However there is not one single shred of evidence to back up the claim - not even a single name of someone potentially in danger. Oh yeah, the one name that they did mention on the front page, implying that it was recent assassination - actually died two years ago... but they fail to mention little facts like that, or tell you buried right down on page 13.
On the other hand, you have direct evidence of thousands of civilian deaths. I don't see you being too concerned about that FACT - only some Fox fiction.
So, please stop your trolling - or switch off Fox news and friends, mouthpieces for the MIC, and start thinking for yourself.
Wikileaks is a small group of people dealing with lots and lots of data. It's not surprising that they screwed up and released papers with personal info in them.
Well, actually, they didn't released papers with personal info - Only Rupert Murdochs paper The Times/Fox media mouthpieces tried to make that shit stick - however the echo chamber that is the US mainstream media has tried (successfully I might add) to amplify this lame point despite there being not one single shred of evidence to back up the claim. Oh yeah, the one name that they do mention as already dead - died two years ago... but they fail to mention little facts like that, or tell you buried down on page 13.
Yes, let's learn from the French: The French Nuclear Lesson
If you don't like that review, there are plenty of others that demonstrate over and over Nuclear is not "competitive" (let's say viable competitive it will never be) unless your willing to increase taxes (or inflate your currency) to subsidize construction, operation and waste disposal to the hilt. That or you could always do what the Italians and some other countries have done, and just quietly dump it into the sea.
Quotes:
"Like the U.S., France does not have a permanent solution for disposal. The cost of temporary waste storage -- hundreds of billions of euros -- is being passed along to French taxpayers and ratepayers by the state and its subsidized plant operators."
"The only other hope for nuclear would be to subsidize it, and subsidies must increase taxes, deepen the budget deficit, or both. That's not new in America: The fossil fuels industry receives more subsidies than all other forms of energy combined."
Can't see how we can repair untold environmental damage, merely cover up some of the more obvious scars - but we sure can prevent it from happening again. Prosecute AND JAIL top executives... then keep going right up into the political appointee's whose job it is to police them. Then maybe we might have a chance of not seeing them happen again in 50 years or so.
Then watch the entire footage those "clips" the Daily Show edits.
I'm a Daily Show and Colbert fan, but please don't take them as real journalists. Even they themselves say that.
Check this Daily Show report out (it is a google link since the video keeps getting take down notices on youtube). What you say is a complement really, because if their kind of journalism is not "real" - it is certainly more enlightening than the processed sanitized crap the "pro's" try to shovel down our throats.
Thanks for looking. Given the extra details ("Fool me 8 times") I found it in the top ranks of this google search. Forget looking for it on Youtube though - every youtube video appears to have been pulled by Viacom. Obviously this excellent rant touched a raw nerve, hopefully it will get mirrored wide enough to keep it alive hehe.
We get the Daily show here in Oz, last night's episode was hillarious. He started by showing a clip of Obama calling for "an end to US dependence on foriegn oil", followed by clips of every president all the way back to Nixon making the exact same call.
Got a youtuble link to it?
Re:United States Government Accountability Office?
on
Top Secret America
·
· Score: 2, Insightful
I do agree that Newspapers have never been fully trustworthy, however the research links posted above do quantify just how low the so called credible press sources have fallen in just the last decade vs ~a century of history. In any case, there is no reason to excuse this kind of behavior anymore as you appear to be doing, even despite the few and far between shining moments you picked out. Yes critical thinking is always important with everything we read and there is no substitute for it, however if you catch a person lying to you repeatedly - do you keep listening to their stories and take extra effort to discern the lies/manipulation from the truth - or do you simply stop associating with them, at most tell them clearly that this behavior will not be tolerated?
We live in a global communication age, and the internet allowing us to collectively take our eyeballs elsewhere away from the traditional news cartels. The more we all do so, the quicker our "Free Press" will get the message that these shenanigans are not going to be tolerated anymore - after which they might lose the arrogance and up their game.
Re:United States Government Accountability Office?
on
Top Secret America
·
· Score: 3, Insightful
Is it possible yet to filter out Slashdot stories sourced from certain press channels? That would be a great feature - I'd like to vote my disapproval for these kinds of dismal journalistic practices by filtering _any_ stories based on these rotten apples as a source.
Re:United States Government Accountability Office?
on
Top Secret America
·
· Score: 5, Interesting
Worse, if the latest research (Warning: PDF research paper) on journalist standards at "credible" newspapers like Washington Post/NYT is any indication, we can't even trust anything that isn't secret to be reported correctly inside "Top Secret America". Sad, very sad, but at least the rapidly growing internet journalism is showing them up...
I have to wonder - if all the baby turtles natural predators are already dead, and we go release ~70'000 healthy hand nurtured healthy turtles in an ecosystem whose balance has been totally screwed up, perhaps for many decades to come... whether we are just going to be heaping more shit on top of what we have already dumped on the system. The ecosystem does not care that turtles have big teary looking eyes - those little beak's still have to eat something...
Corrupt government(s) already passed laws over the past several years that make it almost impossible to jail anybody for corruption and similar charges,... [but] still looks corrupt because evidence is being published
OR, you need to brush up on the very basics of corporate saving face methods. Oh yeah, A letter. They really fought this tooth and nail, rallied and informed the public every chance they could. Must really have taxed their PR team to the limit to get that letter signed. Do you really discount the possibility that these large, influential companies with deep pockets signed that letter to maintain a scrap of credibility with their clients, not to mention being able to turn around and sucker you by wimpering "it's not our fault, we apposed this Act"? At the very _best_ this late whining now is most probably pressure to externalising the cost of monitoring back to the taxpayer.
Exactly! That is a preemptive strike on their part, because in a few short years the technology will be viable for normal people to use a network of wireless nodes that completely bypass normal ISP's. Think wireless P2P "phones" relaying messages with only a few nodes connected to the wider internet at any one time etc, all conveniently outlawed now before they take hold and cut into the ISP/telco's market.
This is just code to have the Act applied to small ISP's as well as large, and nothing to do with repealing the act altogether like it sounds. It also scores brownie points for the public image of these big ISP's. Cat is out of the bag now, the chances that this Digital Economy Act will be repealed now are next to none - and I have a hard job believing that BT is really against this Act NOW, after it has been passed. If they were really against they would have kicked up a row well before this.
I kinda get annoyed when people say "Use SIP" to the "I want to replace Skype with open source/non proprietary" question. Ok so SIP exists and clients are out there, I have even tried a few out with tech orientated friends. Now show me where all my __non tech friends__ can download AND install a sleek simple easy to use SIP client in around three clicks, and be chatting a minute later with no configuration? (the minimum bar that Skype has set). AFAIK such a SIP client does not yet exist - the SIP community has failed to cater even remotely to the only crowd that will actually make SIP relevant on the desktop (and so by extension, other areas).
Key in Open Source S... and google will show you just how popular it is to search for Skype alternatives - the demand is there. Clicking through the search shows just how sorry the state of SIP actually is. Top listed "Top ten" lists from 2007, half baked solutions. Hardly comparable to Skype's prominent big download button, about three click install and your talking (over an encrypted link, no less).
I so wish I was wrong about this and there did exist a SIP client where I could email to my non-techy friends and have them chatting in minutes. Maybe one day hopefully, when someone (anyone, please!) in the SIP community get their act together. I'd love nothing more than if someone replied to prove I am wrong here...
Or on the other hand, one of the most intelligent people of his day only scored 120 because the test does not reflect intelligence, not in any meaningful/comparative sense. You can quite easily study for an IQ test, repeat a lot of the same types of problems before the test for a while and you easily score much better than if you walked in unprepared.
The CEO of Activision who's primary goal is to milk as much money from computer games as possible by any means necessary.
In this case, the point is moot. Anyone who supports an open standard platform for gaming gets my vote, greedy or not. Walled gardens, especially when they are the dominant garden in the park, are never good for consumer choice or price in the long run. Sure Kotick can charge more on the PC than on some propriety gaming platform where he must follow orders. But he also can't exclude competition or dictate any terms to anyone else... so go to it Activision, I really hope you succeed in making a plugin and play gaming PC platform based on open standards!
Slashdot Mirror
Some of the names behind Project Vigilante:
...the list of its officials, which includes Mark Rasch, who headed the DOJ's Internet Crime Unit for 9 years; Kevin Manson, a retired Homeland Security official; George Johnson, who "develop[ed] secure tools for the exchange of sensitive information between federal agencies" for the Pentagon; Ira Winkler, a former NSA official; and Suzanne Gorman, former security chief of the New York Stock Exchange. These are people with extensive, sophisticated expertise in compiling highly invasive data about individuals' Internet activities, and more so -- given their background -- how to package it in a way that can be used by federal agencies.
From here and here.
So... perhaps it is a honeypot as well? In any case, the real operation is run backend to your ISP.
Adrian Lamo worked as an Analyst for Project Vigilant - which specializes in collecting any and all data from major ISP's where the EULA permits third parties (i.e. pretty much all of them).
Lamo also just happened to turn in chat logs for military whistleblower Bradley Manning. There is already decent evidence to suggest that Lamo never talked to Manning, but was given the logs by this secretive private catch-all spy network "Project Vigilante" and told to turn them in.
Please mod my parent post up - or undo the ignorant troll moderation via meta-moderation.
Nothing in the post is trolling.
The Troll mod should stay, you deserved it. If you were not trolling, your extremely naive. Only Rupert Murdochs paper The Times/Fox media mouthpieces tried to make the claim that people have already been assassinated based on this material. However there is not one single shred of evidence to back up the claim - not even a single name of someone potentially in danger. Oh yeah, the one name that they did mention on the front page, implying that it was recent assassination - actually died two years ago... but they fail to mention little facts like that, or tell you buried right down on page 13.
On the other hand, you have direct evidence of thousands of civilian deaths. I don't see you being too concerned about that FACT - only some Fox fiction. So, please stop your trolling - or switch off Fox news and friends, mouthpieces for the MIC, and start thinking for yourself.
Wikileaks is a small group of people dealing with lots and lots of data. It's not surprising that they screwed up and released papers with personal info in them.
Well, actually, they didn't released papers with personal info - Only Rupert Murdochs paper The Times/Fox media mouthpieces tried to make that shit stick - however the echo chamber that is the US mainstream media has tried (successfully I might add) to amplify this lame point despite there being not one single shred of evidence to back up the claim. Oh yeah, the one name that they do mention as already dead - died two years ago... but they fail to mention little facts like that, or tell you buried down on page 13.
True. As recent published research demonstrates: The WaPo, NYTimes, and LATimes all do not deserve our eyeballs (Warning: PDF Publications).
"Like the U.S., France does not have a permanent solution for disposal. The cost of temporary waste storage -- hundreds of billions of euros -- is being passed along to French taxpayers and ratepayers by the state and its subsidized plant operators."
"The only other hope for nuclear would be to subsidize it, and subsidies must increase taxes, deepen the budget deficit, or both. That's not new in America: The fossil fuels industry receives more subsidies than all other forms of energy combined."
Can't see how we can repair untold environmental damage, merely cover up some of the more obvious scars - but we sure can prevent it from happening again. Prosecute AND JAIL top executives... then keep going right up into the political appointee's whose job it is to police them. Then maybe we might have a chance of not seeing them happen again in 50 years or so.
Then watch the entire footage those "clips" the Daily Show edits. I'm a Daily Show and Colbert fan, but please don't take them as real journalists. Even they themselves say that.
Check this Daily Show report out (it is a google link since the video keeps getting take down notices on youtube). What you say is a complement really, because if their kind of journalism is not "real" - it is certainly more enlightening than the processed sanitized crap the "pro's" try to shovel down our throats.
Especially The NYT, WashPost, and LATimes all do not deserve our eyeballs. Young journalists, do yourselves a favor... and go elsewhere.
Research shows that you are better off just dumping NYT/WashPost/other similar players in the news market if you care at all about balanced and accurate reporting. By denying them our collective eyeballs, they might actually adjust their arrogance down a tad and revert to better journalistic standards.
Thanks for looking. Given the extra details ("Fool me 8 times") I found it in the top ranks of this google search. Forget looking for it on Youtube though - every youtube video appears to have been pulled by Viacom. Obviously this excellent rant touched a raw nerve, hopefully it will get mirrored wide enough to keep it alive hehe.
We get the Daily show here in Oz, last night's episode was hillarious. He started by showing a clip of Obama calling for "an end to US dependence on foriegn oil", followed by clips of every president all the way back to Nixon making the exact same call.
Got a youtuble link to it?
I do agree that Newspapers have never been fully trustworthy, however the research links posted above do quantify just how low the so called credible press sources have fallen in just the last decade vs ~a century of history. In any case, there is no reason to excuse this kind of behavior anymore as you appear to be doing, even despite the few and far between shining moments you picked out. Yes critical thinking is always important with everything we read and there is no substitute for it, however if you catch a person lying to you repeatedly - do you keep listening to their stories and take extra effort to discern the lies/manipulation from the truth - or do you simply stop associating with them, at most tell them clearly that this behavior will not be tolerated?
We live in a global communication age, and the internet allowing us to collectively take our eyeballs elsewhere away from the traditional news cartels. The more we all do so, the quicker our "Free Press" will get the message that these shenanigans are not going to be tolerated anymore - after which they might lose the arrogance and up their game.
Is it possible yet to filter out Slashdot stories sourced from certain press channels? That would be a great feature - I'd like to vote my disapproval for these kinds of dismal journalistic practices by filtering _any_ stories based on these rotten apples as a source.
Worse, if the latest research (Warning: PDF research paper) on journalist standards at "credible" newspapers like Washington Post/NYT is any indication, we can't even trust anything that isn't secret to be reported correctly inside "Top Secret America". Sad, very sad, but at least the rapidly growing internet journalism is showing them up...
I have to wonder - if all the baby turtles natural predators are already dead, and we go release ~70'000 healthy hand nurtured healthy turtles in an ecosystem whose balance has been totally screwed up, perhaps for many decades to come... whether we are just going to be heaping more shit on top of what we have already dumped on the system. The ecosystem does not care that turtles have big teary looking eyes - those little beak's still have to eat something...
there are lots of legal challenges that are leaning towards that they won't be able to do so.
Those "legal challenges" appear to just melt away when you waive a "National Security" orders around.
Corrupt government(s) already passed laws over the past several years that make it almost impossible to jail anybody for corruption and similar charges,... [but] still looks corrupt because evidence is being published
Too true. Which makes the Icelandic governments IMMI move to give safe harbor to free press initiatives like these examples all the more critical going forward.
Your (both) right, my f*up for being a lazy git and weigh'in in where I had no frigin clue of the facts. Apologies all round.
OR, you need to brush up on the very basics of corporate saving face methods. Oh yeah, A letter. They really fought this tooth and nail, rallied and informed the public every chance they could. Must really have taxed their PR team to the limit to get that letter signed. Do you really discount the possibility that these large, influential companies with deep pockets signed that letter to maintain a scrap of credibility with their clients, not to mention being able to turn around and sucker you by wimpering "it's not our fault, we apposed this Act"? At the very _best_ this late whining now is most probably pressure to externalising the cost of monitoring back to the taxpayer.
Exactly! That is a preemptive strike on their part, because in a few short years the technology will be viable for normal people to use a network of wireless nodes that completely bypass normal ISP's. Think wireless P2P "phones" relaying messages with only a few nodes connected to the wider internet at any one time etc, all conveniently outlawed now before they take hold and cut into the ISP/telco's market.
This is just code to have the Act applied to small ISP's as well as large, and nothing to do with repealing the act altogether like it sounds. It also scores brownie points for the public image of these big ISP's. Cat is out of the bag now, the chances that this Digital Economy Act will be repealed now are next to none - and I have a hard job believing that BT is really against this Act NOW, after it has been passed. If they were really against they would have kicked up a row well before this.
I kinda get annoyed when people say "Use SIP" to the "I want to replace Skype with open source/non proprietary" question. Ok so SIP exists and clients are out there, I have even tried a few out with tech orientated friends. Now show me where all my __non tech friends__ can download AND install a sleek simple easy to use SIP client in around three clicks, and be chatting a minute later with no configuration? (the minimum bar that Skype has set). AFAIK such a SIP client does not yet exist - the SIP community has failed to cater even remotely to the only crowd that will actually make SIP relevant on the desktop (and so by extension, other areas).
Key in Open Source S... and google will show you just how popular it is to search for Skype alternatives - the demand is there. Clicking through the search shows just how sorry the state of SIP actually is. Top listed "Top ten" lists from 2007, half baked solutions. Hardly comparable to Skype's prominent big download button, about three click install and your talking (over an encrypted link, no less).
I so wish I was wrong about this and there did exist a SIP client where I could email to my non-techy friends and have them chatting in minutes. Maybe one day hopefully, when someone (anyone, please!) in the SIP community get their act together. I'd love nothing more than if someone replied to prove I am wrong here...
Or on the other hand, one of the most intelligent people of his day only scored 120 because the test does not reflect intelligence, not in any meaningful/comparative sense. You can quite easily study for an IQ test, repeat a lot of the same types of problems before the test for a while and you easily score much better than if you walked in unprepared.
The CEO of Activision who's primary goal is to milk as much money from computer games as possible by any means necessary.
In this case, the point is moot. Anyone who supports an open standard platform for gaming gets my vote, greedy or not. Walled gardens, especially when they are the dominant garden in the park, are never good for consumer choice or price in the long run. Sure Kotick can charge more on the PC than on some propriety gaming platform where he must follow orders. But he also can't exclude competition or dictate any terms to anyone else... so go to it Activision, I really hope you succeed in making a plugin and play gaming PC platform based on open standards!