I find it interesting that the linked "article" is actually an opinion piece from an "alternative newsweekly". It makes a lot of assumptions and unwarranted logical leaps; long on paranoia and short on facts. In any event, here's bit of history, with the important parts in bold. I doubt many people will be interested in what the leaders in the Intelligence Community actually have to say for themselves, their missions, and the law.
What is intelligence? If I asked this audience, what is it? You probably would struggle a little bit. I saw a movie, I read a book, I know a little bit about it. But let me sort of break it down into parts for you and then I want to talk about the community and how it's vital that we have such a community and why it's such a challenge for the American people.
First of all, when you collect intelligence, there are esoteric parts of it that basically comes down to taking a photograph - take a photograph of military equipment or geography, or people, or something, but you capture something that you want to examine later on. People communicate and you can listen to that communication, intercept it, process it, know when it turned on, when it turned off, and you can get lots of information from it. Or you can recruit a spy. A spy is someone who will share information that's secret, that's privileged inside a government or an organization that will share it with you. Those are the basic building blocks of intelligence. There's other little esoteric pieces, as I mentioned.
So when you look at us as a nation, we have an organization that takes pictures from space, from airplanes. They use that to make maps. They use it to make foundation for the geographic tracking of the world. They look for weapons systems. They look for mobilization. They're always looking for information from the context of the photographs. We have an organization. It's called the NGA, the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency. We have another one called the National Security Agency, the one I was privileged to lead. I will use an example that's historical: World War II.
In World War II, the great secret was that we were listening to and reading German high command communications from very early in the war. That was a strategic advantage that we enjoyed for the entire war. Now, think about that for a second. We are reading code to know what their orders are to the German field commanders. Often, we were reading it and understanding it before the German commanders could break it and decrypt it.
How do you now handle that information? Does the American public have a right to know? Now, think about the context. You're in global conflict, you're reading the communications of the enemy, and if it's compromised they'll change the rotors and their encryption system is gone. And I've just introduced you now to the issue of sharing information and protection of sources and methods.
The primary responsibility that I have was that the new Director of National Intelligence is to cause these agencies - the three I've just mentioned - to share information across boundaries and at the same time protect sources and methods. If we have this very vital source of information that's allowing to either understand or intercept or have an appreciation for an issue that's vital to the country, do we want that to appear on the front page of the newspaper? So that's the dilemma we're always attempting to balance.
Now, let me give you a little more context. If you look at the history of intelligence, we're not very prepared for anything that's ever happened. It's because Americans don't like spies. Think about our Constitution, the framing of the Constitution, the framework of the time. It's expensive. If you think about spies in
Wrong. Totally wrong. Mac antivirus software ONLY scans for W32 viruses as those are the only payloads that there are definitions for. You run that as a dontation of CPU cycles to your clueless Windows running counterparts who can't be bothered to run an OS designed from the ground up for multi-user networked security (like Linux, BSD, or as a result, MacOS)
Mac antivirus software from vendors like Symantec, Sophos, and Intego all include definitions for malware specifically designed for Windows and Mac OS X, in addition to other cases (e.g., Office macro viruses). Now, if you're asserting that there are no "viruses"-proper for Mac OS X, I must say that my statement intended to simply reflect "malware" in general.
First, that article had been there for quite some time (but was just updated in the last week of November, when the IT press noticed it), and was just a generic recommendation for antivirus software on Mac OS X, and pointed at some third parties who provide such software. Second, the representative did NOT say "No Antivirus Needed"; on the contrary, the representative said antivirus software offers additional protection.
Antivirus software has always been recommended in our environment on all systems, including Mac OS X. But the very real fact is that -- for whatever reasons, many of which can be argued to no end -- Macs have far less problems with malware and serious security vulnerabilities that have a real impact on users.
As Macs are increasingly used in mixed environments, antivirus software is always prudent, as Mac antivirus software also recognizes and captures Windows viruses in addition to Mac, stopping inadvertent spread. For example, Symantec's full array of virus definitions for Windows and Mac OS are included in the definitions on both platforms.
Malware exists for Mac OS X (and Mac OS before), and always has in various forms. Nearly all of them -- even the recent highly publicized cases -- are trojans requiring deliberate user interaction, and have no mechanism for mass-propagation. The proliferation of hardware- and software-based firewalls and other changes have helped the situation on all platforms.
Porn video codec trojans requiring user interaction -- even as their prevalence increases as Mac marketshare grows -- do not rise to the level of vulnerabilities potentially allowing remote administrative control of all versions of Windows without any user interaction or knowledge, nor the massive worms of old costing untold manhours and untold billions in recovery and lost productivity.
Macs have very real security problems, and Macs have malware specifically targeted at the platform. But for a variety of reasons, Mac OS X is, in a very real sense, a more secure computing platform with respect to malware. This does not mean there are not legitimate concerns and gripes, does not mean Apple has made some poor decisions with respect to security, and does not excuse gloating fanboys.
But frankly, Mac users always should have been running some kind of antivirus software, even if only to prevent unknowing propagation of Windows malware, and institutions such as ours have recommended this as policy for years. But since Apple updated a knowledgebase article, and since the trend has been to give an inordinate level of coverage to any Mac security issue, however minor, I'm sure this will continue to be melodramatically blown out of proportion.
Macs have far less problems with "malware" and related issues than Windows. Not all of this is only due to marketshare. Some is due to changing strategies of malware writers, new attacks on browsers and other cross-platform applications, increased attention to network security, better user education, and number of other factors. But even as Mac marketshare grows and the platform is increasingly targeted, there still have not been any high-impact massive issues with malware and/or severe security vulnerabilities as there have been on Windows.
Apple has come a long way on security response from its attitudes even a couple of years ago, and still has a long way to go. But if a benign recommendation for AV software get blown up into a huge issue with media extrapolating that this must mean Apple is under heavy attack, and indeed, Apple may even be aware of an impending flood of malware, I'm not surprised Apple responded by simply pulling the article altogether. The perception in the marketplace is that Macs have a lot less problems with malware. That's completely accurate. Why would Apple want that correct perception tarnished by a bunch of sensationalism?
This common "rule of thumb" for a recession is a long-accepted measure for whether an economy is in a recession. I never said there weren't numerous other factors, and, in fact, said just that in other posts. Another "rule of thumb" for a recession is that you often don't know you've had one until it's over, because of the complex measures and issues used to determine if there has, in fact, been a recession.
The reason I included the disclaimer is because many posts responding to my original immediately assumed I was a hardcore, Bush-loving, Rush-listening Republican. Unfortunately, that's not the case. So, instead of having most of the responses be ad hominem-style attacks against my (perceived) politics, I just thought I'd nip that in the bud. Of course, people like yourself take it to the next level by implying I am lying simply to "strengthen" my "case".
My "case" stands on its own, and that is when you drill it into peoples' heads for months that things are absolutely dreadful and terrible, and that our current situation rivals and may even be worse than the Great Depression, is it any surprise that consumer confidence utterly tanking can act as a major contributor to any real problems that may have existed beforehand?
There is plenty of blame to go around, and some of it rests squarely on a media eager to report dreary news, both for political reasons and otherwise, and on political operatives for whom it was extremely beneficial to have a terrible economic crisis to "blame" on the current administration, and on McCain, along with the "McCain == Bush" strategy. It's the same kind of political opportunism that surrounds any crisis, real or perceived.
Sadly, I think this strategy will backfire, because combined with the admitted volatility and troubles of the recent economic situations, people have successfully been scared into thinking they're going to have a rip-roaring recession like the US has never seen -- and that it might even be the end of Capitalism. And by golly, now we're probably going to have one hell of a recession. This isn't to lay blame in any one place, but the doom and gloom talk since, oh, right around the beginning of the recent campaign season about a year and a half ago -- when pretty much every economic metric was still at record levels and growth, even if some of it was "false" growth (it wasn't anymore false than the.com bubble) -- has definitely contributed to the current state of affairs.
And since a large element of the success of a Capitalist system is an element of trust and faith in the system itself, when you break that trust and faith, the system can begin to collapse. And then you have the self-fulfilling prophesy we've got now. Yes, driven part by greed, part by mistakes, part by lack of foresight, part by lack of regulation, and perhaps even by shortcomings of general principles of Capitalism itself. But it was also driven by an incessant drumbeat of gloom for eighteen months, even before the vast majority of Americans would have been affected by, well, anything. So it should be no surprise that we're exactly where we are right now, and to drive the negativity beyond what is warranted by reality is what I believe is patently irresponsible.
(Note: for those reading this and saying, "Oh my GOD, we were CERTAINLY in a recession, even a year ago, and anyone who says otherwise is a FOOL," that is exactly the kind of blind commitment to something that could not be said with such certainty, at the time, that I'm talking about.)
In case you didn't notice, saying "Giving risky loans to people less likely to be able to repay them is what caused the crisis," lays blame on the people giving the loans -- thus the phrase "giving risky loans" -- not on those who didn't repay.
Not quite sure where you got blaming the poor and minorities out of my post...
To expand on this a bit, many politicians and bankers alike created a climate where short term gains -- real and perceived -- in the booming housing market were considered more than the prospect of people not being able to repay when 3-, 5-, and 7-year interest-only, no-down-payment ARMs came due, or the prospect of interest-only, no-down-payment loans ending up upside down if housing prices retreated in any market.
Yes, bankers failed in their role to assess the overall risk. And this environment was encouraged and cheered by many politicians, and Wall Street, as if the housing market would keep booming forever. Sure, give people loans they can barely afford as it is whose payments are going to double a few years down the road -- no worries, they'll just make it up with the profit they made on the appreciation of their house! Right? Oops.
Why, then, did President Bush sign H.R. 5140, the Economic Stimulus Act of 2008 on February 13?
Because there are lot of other indicators that you might be heading for a recession -- like decreasing growth, for example.
But the definition of a recession is two quarters of negative growth, which we haven't had yet. By another definition, we haven't even had a declaration of being in a recession by one of the bodies that makes such declarations until yesterday.
So then why have we heard constant talk about how the US is in a recession for over a year now?
Answer: political opportunism, plain and simple. If you can make people believe we're in a recession and that the party of the current president caused it, in the midst of a presidential campaign, that bodes very well for the opposing party.
No matter your politics, you should consider that incredibly irresponsible. Aside from very real economic issues, we've also had nothing but recession...recession...RECESSION -- with the implication being that it's Bush's fault, and sometimes that being explicitly stated, depending on the pundit at hand -- hammered into our collective heads for nearly the entire campaign cycle.
When McCain said, "The fundamentals of our economy are strong," (emphasis mine) he was -- and still is -- 100% correct.
Unfortunately, it was better for some liberals to push the idea of a recession, which will now end up becoming a self-fulfilling prophesy. How long do you have to hear things are terrible before you believe they are, and start making changes in your own life? And then start feeling the effects of millions of other people making those changes, and people losing jobs, and businesses closing, and this vicious cycle causing a downward spiral?
Disclaimer:
1. I didn't vote for Bush.
2. I voted for Obama.
So assuming I'm a die-hard Republican because I'm saying something you likely disagree with isn't going to work.
So it's kind of funny you just called me "one of the last hard core republicans" when I'm anything but. What I don't like is hypocrisy and the one-sidedness of always only blaming one political party or one President -- whether it's Clinton and the Democrats or Bush and the Republicans -- for whatever ill is at hand. For the current economic situation, we had unprecedented political opportunism: it was politically expedient and beneficial for some liberals to push the notion that we're in really bad shape, even rolling out the Great Depression talk, and that Bush (and all the other things you hate about Bush, like the war!) is to blame for it.
There are so many contributing factors that it would be ridiculous to assert that economic decisions made in the current administration in the last 8 years have nothing to do with it. But at the same time, it's equally ridiculous to put blinders on to the incredible irresponsibility and shortsightedness of the decisions with regard to sub-prime lending in the name of getting people into homes. We never fully paid the piper for the internet bubble collapsing, and a lot of that, on a large scale, was parlayed into a booming housing market (and artificially created, so some extent, because of changes encouraged in lending practices).
We've only had one quarter of negative growth, and we only found out about that less than a month ago.
See? All the constant doom and gloom talk works, doesn't it? Even someone who knows the accepted definition of a recession such as yourself thought we were in one.
By that long-accepted definition of recession, the US is not even yet in a recession. The US GDP decreased for the first time in recent history only in the third (most recent) quarter, by 0.3%. In the second quarter -- earlier this year -- real GDP increased 2.8%.
But how long has the media been ceaselessly hammering it into our heads that we're in a recession, tolling the bells of doom and gloom? How many times have we heard the phrase, "In these tough economic times" inserted into nearly everything we see or hear? How long has the drumbeat of the "recession" been played, when we had nothing but positive growth reports, even in the midst of the sub-prime crisis?
Worse still, many people actually believe that whatever recession we'll end up having is exclusively the fault of only the current President, and can't look back to anything before the year 2000 for any blame whatsoever. The egregious irresponsibility of the sub-prime lending has a long and sordid history.
It is this kind of partisan willful ignorance on the part of many that has enabled the political agenda among some to drive the notion that the US is in a severe recession caused by the ineptness and reckless irresponsibility of the Bush administration, when the US had nothing but growth in the GDP until only a month ago. If you asked most people how long they thought the economy had been shrinking for negative, they'd probably say things like, "A year? Two years?"
Wrong.
Last quarter. And we just found out about it.
So we've heard talk, day after day, night after night, an incessant drilling into our heads that we're in a deep and severe recession -- one that may even now rival the Great Depression! -- creating panic and fear, causing people to pull investments and hold onto their wallets, change purchasing plans, in turn creating bleak forecasts for manufacturers and other business, which causes job loss, and then -- voilà!:
Is it any surprise we're going to have a recession on our hands?
Capitalistic systems only work when the participants have faith in the system -- when that faith collapses, for whatever reason, you get a recession. And that's a normal and accepted part of the cycle.
Once they start filtering content they believe children shouldn't see, why would they not also filter -- and perhaps monitor -- adult access to gambling websites, The Pirate Bay, Al-Qaeda websites, etc.?
Because:
1. Anything other than pornography filtering is not part of any proposal.
2. No one has seriously considered anything other than pornography filtering in the interests of "children".
3. The opt out proposal specifically allows for unfiltered access.
So, thank you for proving my point, and making a slippery slope argument to boot. You can argue slippery slope all you want, but the fact is that the US doesn't filter internet traffic as it is, there is no precedent for what you assert, no one is talking about filtering anything other than "pornography".
Again, I fully realize the subjectivity of this issue, and the drawbacks of the "Think of the children!" mantra. But the point is, the only thing on the table here is pornography filtering, and filtering from which one can opt out at that.
Now as for monitoring, that's a different issue altogether.
Keep in mind, though, that foreign intelligence collection on communications where one endpoint is outside of the United States and the target of the monitoring is not a US Persondoes not require, and has never required, a warrant or other judicial oversight or intervention...
...will ever happen, before anyone cries foul about the proposed "pornography filter", waxes philosophic about who decides what's blocked, melodramatically laments censorship in all its forms, and then makes tired, mind-numbing slippery slope arguments, from TFA (not to mention the summary itself):
To address concerns about the filter, the FCC is proposing that adults could opt out and access all Internet sites.
That, and under the proposal, access would be free, no one would have to use it, it is not designed to be a primary means of access, and the filter, when present at all, would only be for "pornography". (Yes, I realize the problems of filtering in this way, both technical and otherwise.)
Ignoring all the nightmarish technical and logistical details of how one might reliably "opt out" of the filter, not to mention the myriad hurdles to providing of free nationwide wireless internet (even if only in major metro areas), this isn't going to happen anyway.;-)
That said, I would have hoped that you could dig up some better references to support your post; Miranda Divine is an ignoarmus and Kieth Windshuttle has only slightly more credibility than David Irving.
It was more just that it was a very recent article (November 27, 2008) from a major media outlet, and very on point.
It's the content of the article that matters, no matter who the author; "People who are really confident [of their facts] relish debate," is still true no matter whence it comes.
...to what the majority of comments to this article will be related, given the delicious quotes like this in the article:'
"I'm used to seeing so many acorns around and out in the field, it's something I just didn't believe. [...] But this is not just not a good year for oaks. It's a zero year. There's zero production. I've never seen anything like this before."
[...]
The absence of acorns could have something to do with the weather, Simmons thought. But he hoped it wasn't a climatic event. "Let's hope it's not something ghastly going on with the natural world."
[...]
"This is the first time I can remember in my lifetime not seeing any acorns drop in the fall and I'm 53. You have to wonder, is it global warming? Is it environmental? It makes you wonder what's going on."
Of course, these will be ignored on page two of the story:
Whatever the reason for no acorns, foresters and botanists are paying attention.
But they say they're not worried yet. "What's there to worry about?" said Alan Whittemire, a botanist at the U.S. Arboretum. "If you're a squirrel, it's a big worry. But it's no problem for the oak tree. They live a long time. They'll produce acorns again when they're ready to."
White oaks can live as long as 300 years. Faster-growing red oaks can reach 200. And it takes only one acorn to make a tree, he said, which in an urban area with little open space is often more than enough.
"This is probably just a low year, a biological event, and it'll go away," Zimmer said. "But if this were to continue another two, three, four years, you might have to ask yourself what's going on, whether it is an indication of something bigger."
[P]erhaps people are starting to wonder whether the so-called precautionary principle, which would have us accept enormous new taxes in the guise of an emissions trading scheme and curtail economic growth, is justified, based on what we actually know about climate.
One of Australia's leading enviro-sceptics, the geologist and University of Adelaide professor Ian Plimer, 62, says he has noticed audiences becoming more receptive to his message that climate change has always occurred and there is nothing we can do to stop it.
In a speech at the American Club in Sydney on Monday night for Quadrant magazine, titled Human-Induced Climate Change - A Lot Of Hot Air, Plimer debunked climate-change myths.
"Climates always change," he said. Our climate has changed in cycles over millions of years, as the orbit of the planet wobbles and our distance from the sun changes, for instance, or as the sun itself produces variable amounts of radiation. "All of this affects climate. It is impossible to stop climate change. Climates have always changed and they always will.
His two-hour presentation included more than 50 charts and graphs, as well as almost 40 pages of references. It is the basis of his new book, Heaven And Earth: The Missing Science Of Global Warming, to be published early next year.
Plimer said one of the charts, which plots atmospheric carbon dioxide and temperature over 500 million years, with seemingly little correlation, demonstrates one of the "lessons from history" to which geologists are privy: "There is no relationship between CO2 and temperature."
[...]
Plimer says creationists and climate alarmists are quite similar in that "we're dealing with dogma and people who, when challenged, become quite vicious and irrational".
Human-caused climate change is being "promoted with religious zeal... there are fundamentalist organisations which will do anything to silence critics. They have their holy books, their prophet [is] Al Gore. And they are promoting a story which is frightening us witless [using] guilt [and urging
Believe it or not, everything someone says, just because they are affiliated with NSA, isn't always all propaganda or misinformation.
Hint: no one has found operations that are allegedly in violation of any law by "looking for them" from the outside. They've all been leaked to the media. And the legality of the various operations is anything but clear cut, and will likely be a subject of legal debate for years to come.
NSA doesn't just invent things to do on its own. Intelligence agencies serve one primary purpose, and that is to conduct intelligence activities in response to its customers, the ultimate customer being the President, necessary for the conduct of foreign relations and the protection of the national security of the United States.
If you choose to politicize everything, then no doubt you ascribe the worst possible intent and overt malice to any activities with which you take issue. Unfortunately, the truth is often far more nuanced -- and elusive -- than the paranoid oversimplification by breathless bloggers would have you believe. Conspiracy theories are much more fun to dabble in, though, aren't they? Facts are, after all, quite boring.
...and even then, only did so as a guest/contractor, then you have no idea about what is going on at NSA currently.
Computing under DOD has always been an exercise in maintaining extreme reliability, sometimes at the cost of (perceived) modernization. Many enterprise organizations still use several-year-old, proven systems because that's what's reliable and that's what works. And what ignorant managers proudly attest to in any organization is usually separated by a gulf from reality.
But you're right: things have changed. There's a lot of old technology all over the military and the IC, but there is also a lot of conventional modern -- and even "bleeding edge" -- gear. The mindset has drastically changed from "must be built here" to the extensive use of commercial-off-the-shelf (COTS) solutions. And that was already happening in the mid- to late-1990s.
Funny you should mention universities -- academia is simultaneously a fantastic dinosaur zoo of its own, and simultaneously a breeding ground for some of the most exciting and groundbreaking work. NSA has long had this same duality. If you saw the NSA of the last 10-15 years, you'd be surprised at the technology in play -- warts and all.
The NSA's role in Vietnam has been well documented in a specific agency history by agency historian Robert J. Hanyok, who wrote of NSA's botched intelligence on the supposed second attack in the Gulf of Tonkin. But Mr. Johnson's interpretation differs. Mr. Johnson hired Mr. Hanyok to expand on the more-limited treatment of the war in Mr. Johnson's history.
Mr. Hanyok finds that NSA not only made analytic errors but it also withheld information from the White House, leading White House officials to believe that there had been a second attack when there hadn't been. Mr. Johnson maintains that the NSA was "flat wrong" in reporting a second attack in the Tonkin Gulf, but he attributes it to human error not an effort to manipulate the White House. (Vol. 2, p. 583)
Another area of interest is the legal issues with which the NSA has always grappled:
Mr. Johnson's history makes clear that NSA, and its predecessors, have long grappled with legal uncertainty. "Early American cryptologists worked without the knowledge of the American public," Mr. Johnson writes of the World War I period. "They even worked without knowing if what they were doing was legal or not. It was an odd and unsettling position to be in." (Vol. 1, p. 272)
Even as Congress sought to clarify the laws on government intercept operations, the 1934 Federal Communications Act left vague whether such activities were legal. A 1950 bill amending the criminal code that then-Sen. Lyndon B. Johnson pushed gave legal protection to intercept activities. The NSA was created two tears later in a secret memo from President Truman, but it wasn't until 1959 that it was named in legislation.
Meanwhile, the revelation in 1960 that two NSA employees had defected to the Soviet Union in prompted multiple agency investigations. An intensive screening of agency employees turned up 26 employees believed to be homosexual who were fired. "The proceedings were not all that a civil libertarian might have wanted, but they calmed the waters enough for NSA to begin functioning again," Mr. Johnson writes. (Vol. 1, p. 284)
It wasn't until 1968 that NSA's activities were officially authorized through obscure language in a crime bill. "It did so just in time," Mr. Johnson writes. "The Watergate period and the attendant Church and Pike Committee hearings called into question all that was illegal about espionage and much of what was legal, too." (Vol. 2, p. 474)
Those hearings revealed NSA's involvement with two eavesdropping programs -- known as Shamrock and Minaret. For decades, Shamrock obtained copies of cable traffic entering or leaving the U.S., and Minaret intercepted communications of Americans who had been placed on a watchlist.
In his history, Mr. Johnson reveals that the NSA lawyer who first looked at Minaret "stated that the people involved seemed to understand that the operation was disreputable if not outright illegal." (Vol. 3, p. 85) Reports from the program were designed to look like they didn't come from NSA.
Mr. Johnson gives great credit to NSA Director Gen. Lew Allen for shutting them down, noting that the director said "the did not pass the smell test." (Vol. 3, p. 84) Mr. Johnson is openly critical of the programs, writing, for example, that Minaret "came to a well-deserved end." (Vol. 3, p. 86)
He says in an interview that NSA employees involved should have gone to their bosses and said, "Boss, if you keep doing this, you're violating the law, and you could go to jail."
Mr. Johnson, in an interview, points to the current controversy over NSA's warrantless surveillance in the wake of 9/11. He noted that he was impressed to see reports that in 2004, about two and a half years into the program, NSA lawyers began demanding to see the White House's legal justifications for the program. Their efforts along with those of some new J
An electromagnetic weapon, such as an E-bomb, doesn't imply only an above-ground nuclear detonation for the purpose of creating an electromagnetic pulse -- though that is often the first thing that comes to mind. Nor does it even imply a bomb or explosion.
You can also have directed energy weapons that disable electronic gear on a much smaller scope and scale (say, a naval vessel). This is the kind of attack we're talking about -- not a nuclear detonation.
That's not to say the US still wouldn't respond with overwhelming force; but if other command and control functions are also similarly degraded, it would give China valuable time to position itself as it desired.
"Information Warfare" (IW), sometimes called Information Operations (IO), spans several arenas, from the purely technical to the social and psychological. The goals and missions of IO and intelligence in general, particularly against and within non-free societies, will constantly be at odds with the democratic nature of the United States and the West. Even so, the United States currently doesn't appear to acknowledge the scope of the information campaigns China has executed against it. The thought in some circles that China isn't the danger others believe it to be is apparently proof that China's long-standing information campaigns to convince Americans of just that appear to be working quite well. China's motives are strategic rather than tactical in nature; that is, they do not necessarily serve any direct or immediate specific purpose, but rather serve to create influence in its own favor over long periods of time. For this reason, many in the US see China as something of a misunderstood ally, while China simultaneously builds out its military capability.
While cyber warfare is now routinely considered in various analyses of China and other nations, the larger question of why China is so diligently pursuing this path is overlooked. China's activities in this realm are assumed to be part of a natural technological progression. However, a study of literature examining China's efforts in Information Warfare viewed against the backdrop of the importance of the Information Revolution which is sweeping the globe paints a picture of a nation looking to the information realm as a critical and key mechanism to modernize its military capabilities. Similar to how the Industrial Revolution ushered in a new era and greatly enhanced nations' abilities to wage war, the Information Revolution again could change the face of conflict. China's motivations for expanding its cyber warfare capabilities against the United States may transcend that of simple technological evolution, and warrant a deeper examination. Why, then, can China be expected to expand its Information Warfare capabilities, particularly with respect to the United States?
The US Army War College's Strategic Studies Institute encapsulates these findings in one simple thought: to China's leadership, it could mean a pathway to modernization that would obviate the need for costly and time-consuming interim modernization. "IW offers opportunities to win wars without the traditional clash of arms" (Yoshihara 2001). Indeed, China appears to be focused on the notion of such asymmetric warfare. Yoshihara (2001) goes on to explore the current state of Chinese IW and IO philosophy. The focus of Chinese theoreticians appears squarely focused on the possibility of IW offering China a decisive option to defeat a superior adversary by crippling its command and control capabilities. Moreover, Yoshihara (2001) notes that some Chinese military scholars consider the notion of victory without conventional battle; not only via disabling information-based attacks in the electronic realm, but even via more subtle psychological operations (PSYOP) designed to alter and shape an adversary's thinking.
Part of China's motivations for the intense focus on the information realm stems from China's fascination with recent conflicts driven by information. China witnessed the decisive US tactical victory in the Persian Gulf War, and wondered how such practice could be applied by its own military. China is cognizant of the fact that it, too, will be subject to information-based attacks as it becomes more dependent on information-based systems. China's focus is on building a high technology war-fighting machine, with the prospect of skipping costly interim steps to modernize its military capabilities.
Pervasive in the Chinese writing on IW is the notion of shaping the environment to facilitate military objectives; critically, the Chinese "view information warfare as a tool to counter the overwhelming military superiority of the United States" (Armistead 2001). It is this thought
I didn't say I was comfortable with Diebold's CEO saying what he did...but he didn't say he would "do anything to help the Republicans" (your obvious implication being he'd do anything, including rig his company's voting machines...even though it would take likely literally hundreds of people in the process to actually pull off what many people think happened in a coordinated fashion). What he said in a fundraising letter in his capacity as a Republican business leader in Ohio was, "I am committed to helping Ohio deliver its electoral votes to the president."
And even though Diebold had paper trail systems as options for many of their products, they often weren't purchased by municipalities because they weren't required by law.
And I didn't say e-voting was superior. I said that it was thought to be superior by those in Congress (many Democrats, including those who sponsored the legislation which resulted in the increases in electronic voting machines, ostensibly to make the process modern and fair). The major oversight was And if you read my post, I agreed that paper voting is the way to go, if only for a reason of maintaining confidence in the process. That alone would be worthwhile.
You can't even pretend to be informed about e-voting, at all, if you had never even seen a case of votes being "switched" to anything but Republican, when there are plenty of examples of both ways. It's just that the bloggers and activists who think it's all a vast right-wing conspiracy to steal elections are a lot louder.
It happens both ways, and it can still be attributed to simple error, even if it's the "same thing" every time. It's the individual county election departments (clerk's offices, etc.) who set these things and their ballot layouts up, and they don't have the power nor the skill nor the capability to do what you're describing.
And yes, it could still be an error, due to the way the screens are physically set up, even if the reported errors are "always" Republican.
What I mean by this is in this particular instance, not in general. There are reports of votes "flipping" both ways. But if there is something happening in one jurisdiction in one state, and it's always the same problem, and the same order is on every ballot, then it's no surprise that the manifestation of the problem is the same.
These machines are not "switching votes". They're just not.
If the machines were "switching votes", they'd do it internally and secretly, and not make it look like they're putting checkmarks next to the wrong boxes. Especially since the voter isn't able to view a paper receipt.
If I had to guess, the way the ballot is organized in terms of candidate ordering probably makes it easy or possible to look like you're pressing the right area, but the boxes and/or your perception of the boxes' location isn't perfectly aligned with the touch sensing elements. Because people are so sensitive to this issue, any errant touch among thousands of voters accidentally getting the wrong box VISIBLY checked, AND able to be corrected, is going to be interpreted as malice instead of (user) error. "When asked if she is sure she touched the box for Rockefeller, she said, 'I'm absolutely positive.'" Yeah, just like a lot of users are "absolutely positive" that they did the right thing. No, they THINK they did the right thing. That's the only thing they are "absolutely positive" of.
Since so many people want to believe that the electronic voting machines are rigged to make Republicans win elections[1], so I'm sure people will choose to believe that this is due to a GOP conspiracy instead of simple errors. (And yes, it could still be an error, due to the way the screens are physically set up, even if the reported errors are "always" Republican. Does that mean it's not an issue that should be addressed, even if it is only a genuine design/setup error? No. But if you can touch the screen a little more carefully and get the checkmark beside the right name, that is what matters. Who hasn't ever had a touchscreen ATM or a touchscreen POS station not register a touch as something unintended? You don't think the ATM is trying to rip you off when it picks "Savings" when you meant "Checking". You just hit cancel and do it again.)
Remember, too, that in many jurisdictions in which we have electronic voting machines, they're there as a direct result of Democratic-sponsored legislation, like HAVA, in response to the voting difficulties with antiquated machines in Florida in 2000. The problem? Everyone assumed that modern technology was just great and overlooked a mandatory requirement for a paper trail. Of course, now ALL e-voting vendors have voter-verifiable paper trail capability as options, but many municipalities didn't want to spend the extra money to deploy since it wasn't required by law.
Also, "In Putnam County, early voters have the option of asking for either touch-screen machines or optical scan ballots -- paper ballots on which people mark in their election choices." And when people are using the machine, "The main thing people need to remember is that when you are done voting, make sure everybody you wanted to vote for has a check mark beside them." Just because you touch once and it registers wrong doesn't imply that it can't be corrected. Has no one ever used a backspace key on a computer before? Or an eraser on a pencil, for that matter?
Bottom line? Since this clearly is causing so much fear and doubt[2], we should go back to a simple, auditable paper solution, if only so conspiracy theorists can STFU and stop thinking every election where their preferred candidate doesn't win is "stolen".
[1] Have to put in the disclaimer. Very aware of the famous quote about "delivering the election to George Bush" by Diebold's CEO. It was in his capacity as a Republic business leader, but still a very, very, very poor showing on his part, and ridiculous appearance of a conflict of interest, even if none actually exists in reality.
[2] And it's actually not causing a level of problems that are probably any worse than error in paper or any other voting. But the perception is that it is a huge problem, and subverting democracy, and that is reason enough to change.
Slashdot Mirror
...they would do good to read at least this portion of a speech by Director of National Intelligence Mike McConnell at Harvard's Kennedy School of Government just last week.
I find it interesting that the linked "article" is actually an opinion piece from an "alternative newsweekly". It makes a lot of assumptions and unwarranted logical leaps; long on paranoia and short on facts. In any event, here's bit of history, with the important parts in bold. I doubt many people will be interested in what the leaders in the Intelligence Community actually have to say for themselves, their missions, and the law.
E.g.:
Symantec: The attached installer will automatically update Norton AntiVirus for Mac virus definitions and engine files to detect and repair the most recently discovered Macintosh and PC viruses.
Sophos: Integrated cross-platform virus detection means Windows viruses can be deleted and cleaned on a Mac OS X computer.
Wrong. Totally wrong. Mac antivirus software ONLY scans for W32 viruses as those are the only payloads that there are definitions for. You run that as a dontation of CPU cycles to your clueless Windows running counterparts who can't be bothered to run an OS designed from the ground up for multi-user networked security (like Linux, BSD, or as a result, MacOS)
Mac antivirus software from vendors like Symantec, Sophos, and Intego all include definitions for malware specifically designed for Windows and Mac OS X, in addition to other cases (e.g., Office macro viruses). Now, if you're asserting that there are no "viruses"-proper for Mac OS X, I must say that my statement intended to simply reflect "malware" in general.
First, that article had been there for quite some time (but was just updated in the last week of November, when the IT press noticed it), and was just a generic recommendation for antivirus software on Mac OS X, and pointed at some third parties who provide such software. Second, the representative did NOT say "No Antivirus Needed"; on the contrary, the representative said antivirus software offers additional protection.
Antivirus software has always been recommended in our environment on all systems, including Mac OS X. But the very real fact is that -- for whatever reasons, many of which can be argued to no end -- Macs have far less problems with malware and serious security vulnerabilities that have a real impact on users.
As Macs are increasingly used in mixed environments, antivirus software is always prudent, as Mac antivirus software also recognizes and captures Windows viruses in addition to Mac, stopping inadvertent spread. For example, Symantec's full array of virus definitions for Windows and Mac OS are included in the definitions on both platforms.
Malware exists for Mac OS X (and Mac OS before), and always has in various forms. Nearly all of them -- even the recent highly publicized cases -- are trojans requiring deliberate user interaction, and have no mechanism for mass-propagation. The proliferation of hardware- and software-based firewalls and other changes have helped the situation on all platforms.
Porn video codec trojans requiring user interaction -- even as their prevalence increases as Mac marketshare grows -- do not rise to the level of vulnerabilities potentially allowing remote administrative control of all versions of Windows without any user interaction or knowledge, nor the massive worms of old costing untold manhours and untold billions in recovery and lost productivity.
Macs have very real security problems, and Macs have malware specifically targeted at the platform. But for a variety of reasons, Mac OS X is, in a very real sense, a more secure computing platform with respect to malware. This does not mean there are not legitimate concerns and gripes, does not mean Apple has made some poor decisions with respect to security, and does not excuse gloating fanboys.
But frankly, Mac users always should have been running some kind of antivirus software, even if only to prevent unknowing propagation of Windows malware, and institutions such as ours have recommended this as policy for years. But since Apple updated a knowledgebase article, and since the trend has been to give an inordinate level of coverage to any Mac security issue, however minor, I'm sure this will continue to be melodramatically blown out of proportion.
Macs have far less problems with "malware" and related issues than Windows. Not all of this is only due to marketshare. Some is due to changing strategies of malware writers, new attacks on browsers and other cross-platform applications, increased attention to network security, better user education, and number of other factors. But even as Mac marketshare grows and the platform is increasingly targeted, there still have not been any high-impact massive issues with malware and/or severe security vulnerabilities as there have been on Windows.
Apple has come a long way on security response from its attitudes even a couple of years ago, and still has a long way to go. But if a benign recommendation for AV software get blown up into a huge issue with media extrapolating that this must mean Apple is under heavy attack, and indeed, Apple may even be aware of an impending flood of malware, I'm not surprised Apple responded by simply pulling the article altogether. The perception in the marketplace is that Macs have a lot less problems with malware. That's completely accurate. Why would Apple want that correct perception tarnished by a bunch of sensationalism?
This common "rule of thumb" for a recession is a long-accepted measure for whether an economy is in a recession. I never said there weren't numerous other factors, and, in fact, said just that in other posts. Another "rule of thumb" for a recession is that you often don't know you've had one until it's over, because of the complex measures and issues used to determine if there has, in fact, been a recession.
The reason I included the disclaimer is because many posts responding to my original immediately assumed I was a hardcore, Bush-loving, Rush-listening Republican. Unfortunately, that's not the case. So, instead of having most of the responses be ad hominem-style attacks against my (perceived) politics, I just thought I'd nip that in the bud. Of course, people like yourself take it to the next level by implying I am lying simply to "strengthen" my "case".
My "case" stands on its own, and that is when you drill it into peoples' heads for months that things are absolutely dreadful and terrible, and that our current situation rivals and may even be worse than the Great Depression, is it any surprise that consumer confidence utterly tanking can act as a major contributor to any real problems that may have existed beforehand?
There is plenty of blame to go around, and some of it rests squarely on a media eager to report dreary news, both for political reasons and otherwise, and on political operatives for whom it was extremely beneficial to have a terrible economic crisis to "blame" on the current administration, and on McCain, along with the "McCain == Bush" strategy. It's the same kind of political opportunism that surrounds any crisis, real or perceived.
Sadly, I think this strategy will backfire, because combined with the admitted volatility and troubles of the recent economic situations, people have successfully been scared into thinking they're going to have a rip-roaring recession like the US has never seen -- and that it might even be the end of Capitalism. And by golly, now we're probably going to have one hell of a recession. This isn't to lay blame in any one place, but the doom and gloom talk since, oh, right around the beginning of the recent campaign season about a year and a half ago -- when pretty much every economic metric was still at record levels and growth, even if some of it was "false" growth (it wasn't anymore false than the .com bubble) -- has definitely contributed to the current state of affairs.
And since a large element of the success of a Capitalist system is an element of trust and faith in the system itself, when you break that trust and faith, the system can begin to collapse. And then you have the self-fulfilling prophesy we've got now. Yes, driven part by greed, part by mistakes, part by lack of foresight, part by lack of regulation, and perhaps even by shortcomings of general principles of Capitalism itself. But it was also driven by an incessant drumbeat of gloom for eighteen months, even before the vast majority of Americans would have been affected by, well, anything. So it should be no surprise that we're exactly where we are right now, and to drive the negativity beyond what is warranted by reality is what I believe is patently irresponsible.
(Note: for those reading this and saying, "Oh my GOD, we were CERTAINLY in a recession, even a year ago, and anyone who says otherwise is a FOOL," that is exactly the kind of blind commitment to something that could not be said with such certainty, at the time, that I'm talking about.)
In case you didn't notice, saying "Giving risky loans to people less likely to be able to repay them is what caused the crisis," lays blame on the people giving the loans -- thus the phrase "giving risky loans" -- not on those who didn't repay.
Not quite sure where you got blaming the poor and minorities out of my post...
To expand on this a bit, many politicians and bankers alike created a climate where short term gains -- real and perceived -- in the booming housing market were considered more than the prospect of people not being able to repay when 3-, 5-, and 7-year interest-only, no-down-payment ARMs came due, or the prospect of interest-only, no-down-payment loans ending up upside down if housing prices retreated in any market.
Yes, bankers failed in their role to assess the overall risk. And this environment was encouraged and cheered by many politicians, and Wall Street, as if the housing market would keep booming forever. Sure, give people loans they can barely afford as it is whose payments are going to double a few years down the road -- no worries, they'll just make it up with the profit they made on the appreciation of their house! Right? Oops.
Gas prices didn't cause the sub-prime crisis.
Giving risky loans to people less likely to be able to repay them is what caused the crisis.
But wow, congratulations on even more twisted logic that I could have imagined...
Why, then, did President Bush sign H.R. 5140, the Economic Stimulus Act of 2008 on February 13?
Because there are lot of other indicators that you might be heading for a recession -- like decreasing growth, for example.
But the definition of a recession is two quarters of negative growth, which we haven't had yet. By another definition, we haven't even had a declaration of being in a recession by one of the bodies that makes such declarations until yesterday.
So then why have we heard constant talk about how the US is in a recession for over a year now?
Answer: political opportunism, plain and simple. If you can make people believe we're in a recession and that the party of the current president caused it, in the midst of a presidential campaign, that bodes very well for the opposing party.
No matter your politics, you should consider that incredibly irresponsible. Aside from very real economic issues, we've also had nothing but recession...recession...RECESSION -- with the implication being that it's Bush's fault, and sometimes that being explicitly stated, depending on the pundit at hand -- hammered into our collective heads for nearly the entire campaign cycle.
When McCain said, "The fundamentals of our economy are strong," (emphasis mine) he was -- and still is -- 100% correct.
Unfortunately, it was better for some liberals to push the idea of a recession, which will now end up becoming a self-fulfilling prophesy. How long do you have to hear things are terrible before you believe they are, and start making changes in your own life? And then start feeling the effects of millions of other people making those changes, and people losing jobs, and businesses closing, and this vicious cycle causing a downward spiral?
Disclaimer:
1. I didn't vote for Bush.
2. I voted for Obama.
So assuming I'm a die-hard Republican because I'm saying something you likely disagree with isn't going to work.
Recessions are a normal part of the capitalist business cycle. Recessions wash out excesses in the system by shaking out inefficient companies, thus clearing the way for new competitors, and they work to keep supply and demand in sync over the long term.
[...] recessions are considered a normal part of a capitalist economy [...]
Etc.
As for your assumptions about Bush:
1. I didn't vote for Bush.
2. I voted for Obama.
So it's kind of funny you just called me "one of the last hard core republicans" when I'm anything but. What I don't like is hypocrisy and the one-sidedness of always only blaming one political party or one President -- whether it's Clinton and the Democrats or Bush and the Republicans -- for whatever ill is at hand. For the current economic situation, we had unprecedented political opportunism: it was politically expedient and beneficial for some liberals to push the notion that we're in really bad shape, even rolling out the Great Depression talk, and that Bush (and all the other things you hate about Bush, like the war!) is to blame for it.
There are so many contributing factors that it would be ridiculous to assert that economic decisions made in the current administration in the last 8 years have nothing to do with it. But at the same time, it's equally ridiculous to put blinders on to the incredible irresponsibility and shortsightedness of the decisions with regard to sub-prime lending in the name of getting people into homes. We never fully paid the piper for the internet bubble collapsing, and a lot of that, on a large scale, was parlayed into a booming housing market (and artificially created, so some extent, because of changes encouraged in lending practices).
...of negative growth.
Only one, the most recent, where the GDP shrank by 0.3%.
The prior quarter GDP growth was 2.8%.
We've only had one quarter of negative growth, and we only found out about that less than a month ago.
See? All the constant doom and gloom talk works, doesn't it? Even someone who knows the accepted definition of a recession such as yourself thought we were in one.
A long-standing rule of thumb for "recession" is that it is defined as contraction in the GDP for at least two consecutive quarters (six months).
More info.
By that long-accepted definition of recession, the US is not even yet in a recession. The US GDP decreased for the first time in recent history only in the third (most recent) quarter, by 0.3%. In the second quarter -- earlier this year -- real GDP increased 2.8%.
But how long has the media been ceaselessly hammering it into our heads that we're in a recession, tolling the bells of doom and gloom? How many times have we heard the phrase, "In these tough economic times" inserted into nearly everything we see or hear? How long has the drumbeat of the "recession" been played, when we had nothing but positive growth reports, even in the midst of the sub-prime crisis?
Worse still, many people actually believe that whatever recession we'll end up having is exclusively the fault of only the current President, and can't look back to anything before the year 2000 for any blame whatsoever. The egregious irresponsibility of the sub-prime lending has a long and sordid history.
It is this kind of partisan willful ignorance on the part of many that has enabled the political agenda among some to drive the notion that the US is in a severe recession caused by the ineptness and reckless irresponsibility of the Bush administration, when the US had nothing but growth in the GDP until only a month ago. If you asked most people how long they thought the economy had been shrinking for negative, they'd probably say things like, "A year? Two years?"
Wrong.
Last quarter. And we just found out about it.
So we've heard talk, day after day, night after night, an incessant drilling into our heads that we're in a deep and severe recession -- one that may even now rival the Great Depression! -- creating panic and fear, causing people to pull investments and hold onto their wallets, change purchasing plans, in turn creating bleak forecasts for manufacturers and other business, which causes job loss, and then -- voilà!:
Is it any surprise we're going to have a recession on our hands?
Capitalistic systems only work when the participants have faith in the system -- when that faith collapses, for whatever reason, you get a recession. And that's a normal and accepted part of the cycle.
Once they start filtering content they believe children shouldn't see, why would they not also filter -- and perhaps monitor -- adult access to gambling websites, The Pirate Bay, Al-Qaeda websites, etc.?
Because:
1. Anything other than pornography filtering is not part of any proposal.
2. No one has seriously considered anything other than pornography filtering in the interests of "children".
3. The opt out proposal specifically allows for unfiltered access.
So, thank you for proving my point, and making a slippery slope argument to boot. You can argue slippery slope all you want, but the fact is that the US doesn't filter internet traffic as it is, there is no precedent for what you assert, no one is talking about filtering anything other than "pornography".
Again, I fully realize the subjectivity of this issue, and the drawbacks of the "Think of the children!" mantra. But the point is, the only thing on the table here is pornography filtering, and filtering from which one can opt out at that.
Now as for monitoring, that's a different issue altogether.
Keep in mind, though, that foreign intelligence collection on communications where one endpoint is outside of the United States and the target of the monitoring is not a US Person does not require, and has never required, a warrant or other judicial oversight or intervention...
...will ever happen, before anyone cries foul about the proposed "pornography filter", waxes philosophic about who decides what's blocked, melodramatically laments censorship in all its forms, and then makes tired, mind-numbing slippery slope arguments, from TFA (not to mention the summary itself):
That, and under the proposal, access would be free, no one would have to use it, it is not designed to be a primary means of access, and the filter, when present at all, would only be for "pornography". (Yes, I realize the problems of filtering in this way, both technical and otherwise.)
Ignoring all the nightmarish technical and logistical details of how one might reliably "opt out" of the filter, not to mention the myriad hurdles to providing of free nationwide wireless internet (even if only in major metro areas), this isn't going to happen anyway. ;-)
That said, I would have hoped that you could dig up some better references to support your post; Miranda Divine is an ignoarmus and Kieth Windshuttle has only slightly more credibility than David Irving.
It was more just that it was a very recent article (November 27, 2008) from a major media outlet, and very on point.
It's the content of the article that matters, no matter who the author; "People who are really confident [of their facts] relish debate," is still true no matter whence it comes.
...to what the majority of comments to this article will be related, given the delicious quotes like this in the article:'
Of course, these will be ignored on page two of the story:
I know it's not a popular sentiment here, but Beware the church of climate alarm.
Believe it or not, everything someone says, just because they are affiliated with NSA, isn't always all propaganda or misinformation.
Hint: no one has found operations that are allegedly in violation of any law by "looking for them" from the outside. They've all been leaked to the media. And the legality of the various operations is anything but clear cut, and will likely be a subject of legal debate for years to come.
NSA doesn't just invent things to do on its own. Intelligence agencies serve one primary purpose, and that is to conduct intelligence activities in response to its customers, the ultimate customer being the President, necessary for the conduct of foreign relations and the protection of the national security of the United States.
If you choose to politicize everything, then no doubt you ascribe the worst possible intent and overt malice to any activities with which you take issue. Unfortunately, the truth is often far more nuanced -- and elusive -- than the paranoid oversimplification by breathless bloggers would have you believe. Conspiracy theories are much more fun to dabble in, though, aren't they? Facts are, after all, quite boring.
...and even then, only did so as a guest/contractor, then you have no idea about what is going on at NSA currently.
Computing under DOD has always been an exercise in maintaining extreme reliability, sometimes at the cost of (perceived) modernization. Many enterprise organizations still use several-year-old, proven systems because that's what's reliable and that's what works. And what ignorant managers proudly attest to in any organization is usually separated by a gulf from reality.
But you're right: things have changed. There's a lot of old technology all over the military and the IC, but there is also a lot of conventional modern -- and even "bleeding edge" -- gear. The mindset has drastically changed from "must be built here" to the extensive use of commercial-off-the-shelf (COTS) solutions. And that was already happening in the mid- to late-1990s.
Funny you should mention universities -- academia is simultaneously a fantastic dinosaur zoo of its own, and simultaneously a breeding ground for some of the most exciting and groundbreaking work. NSA has long had this same duality. If you saw the NSA of the last 10-15 years, you'd be surprised at the technology in play -- warts and all.
...are in another Wall Street Journal article. On Vietnam:
Another area of interest is the legal issues with which the NSA has always grappled:
...and one which is related to, but transcends, politics, is:
How can any grand initiative that takes longer than eight -- or four -- years to implement ever again be achieved?
An electromagnetic weapon, such as an E-bomb, doesn't imply only an above-ground nuclear detonation for the purpose of creating an electromagnetic pulse -- though that is often the first thing that comes to mind. Nor does it even imply a bomb or explosion.
You can also have directed energy weapons that disable electronic gear on a much smaller scope and scale (say, a naval vessel). This is the kind of attack we're talking about -- not a nuclear detonation.
That's not to say the US still wouldn't respond with overwhelming force; but if other command and control functions are also similarly degraded, it would give China valuable time to position itself as it desired.
"Information Warfare" (IW), sometimes called Information Operations (IO), spans several arenas, from the purely technical to the social and psychological. The goals and missions of IO and intelligence in general, particularly against and within non-free societies, will constantly be at odds with the democratic nature of the United States and the West. Even so, the United States currently doesn't appear to acknowledge the scope of the information campaigns China has executed against it. The thought in some circles that China isn't the danger others believe it to be is apparently proof that China's long-standing information campaigns to convince Americans of just that appear to be working quite well. China's motives are strategic rather than tactical in nature; that is, they do not necessarily serve any direct or immediate specific purpose, but rather serve to create influence in its own favor over long periods of time. For this reason, many in the US see China as something of a misunderstood ally, while China simultaneously builds out its military capability.
While cyber warfare is now routinely considered in various analyses of China and other nations, the larger question of why China is so diligently pursuing this path is overlooked. China's activities in this realm are assumed to be part of a natural technological progression. However, a study of literature examining China's efforts in Information Warfare viewed against the backdrop of the importance of the Information Revolution which is sweeping the globe paints a picture of a nation looking to the information realm as a critical and key mechanism to modernize its military capabilities. Similar to how the Industrial Revolution ushered in a new era and greatly enhanced nations' abilities to wage war, the Information Revolution again could change the face of conflict. China's motivations for expanding its cyber warfare capabilities against the United States may transcend that of simple technological evolution, and warrant a deeper examination. Why, then, can China be expected to expand its Information Warfare capabilities, particularly with respect to the United States?
The US Army War College's Strategic Studies Institute encapsulates these findings in one simple thought: to China's leadership, it could mean a pathway to modernization that would obviate the need for costly and time-consuming interim modernization. "IW offers opportunities to win wars without the traditional clash of arms" (Yoshihara 2001). Indeed, China appears to be focused on the notion of such asymmetric warfare. Yoshihara (2001) goes on to explore the current state of Chinese IW and IO philosophy. The focus of Chinese theoreticians appears squarely focused on the possibility of IW offering China a decisive option to defeat a superior adversary by crippling its command and control capabilities. Moreover, Yoshihara (2001) notes that some Chinese military scholars consider the notion of victory without conventional battle; not only via disabling information-based attacks in the electronic realm, but even via more subtle psychological operations (PSYOP) designed to alter and shape an adversary's thinking.
Part of China's motivations for the intense focus on the information realm stems from China's fascination with recent conflicts driven by information. China witnessed the decisive US tactical victory in the Persian Gulf War, and wondered how such practice could be applied by its own military. China is cognizant of the fact that it, too, will be subject to information-based attacks as it becomes more dependent on information-based systems. China's focus is on building a high technology war-fighting machine, with the prospect of skipping costly interim steps to modernize its military capabilities.
Pervasive in the Chinese writing on IW is the notion of shaping the environment to facilitate military objectives; critically, the Chinese "view information warfare as a tool to counter the overwhelming military superiority of the United States" (Armistead 2001). It is this thought
NC votes flip to Obama
Votes switched from Bush to Kerry
Sorry to disappoint you.
These are just errors. It goes both ways.
I didn't say I was comfortable with Diebold's CEO saying what he did...but he didn't say he would "do anything to help the Republicans" (your obvious implication being he'd do anything, including rig his company's voting machines...even though it would take likely literally hundreds of people in the process to actually pull off what many people think happened in a coordinated fashion). What he said in a fundraising letter in his capacity as a Republican business leader in Ohio was, "I am committed to helping Ohio deliver its electoral votes to the president."
And even though Diebold had paper trail systems as options for many of their products, they often weren't purchased by municipalities because they weren't required by law.
And I didn't say e-voting was superior. I said that it was thought to be superior by those in Congress (many Democrats, including those who sponsored the legislation which resulted in the increases in electronic voting machines, ostensibly to make the process modern and fair). The major oversight was And if you read my post, I agreed that paper voting is the way to go, if only for a reason of maintaining confidence in the process. That alone would be worthwhile.
You can't even pretend to be informed about e-voting, at all, if you had never even seen a case of votes being "switched" to anything but Republican, when there are plenty of examples of both ways. It's just that the bloggers and activists who think it's all a vast right-wing conspiracy to steal elections are a lot louder.
I'm definitely looking forward to your reply.
Nor should they. See my post and its followup.
It happens both ways, and it can still be attributed to simple error, even if it's the "same thing" every time. It's the individual county election departments (clerk's offices, etc.) who set these things and their ballot layouts up, and they don't have the power nor the skill nor the capability to do what you're describing.
And yes, it could still be an error, due to the way the screens are physically set up, even if the reported errors are "always" Republican.
What I mean by this is in this particular instance, not in general. There are reports of votes "flipping" both ways. But if there is something happening in one jurisdiction in one state, and it's always the same problem, and the same order is on every ballot, then it's no surprise that the manifestation of the problem is the same.
These machines are not "switching votes". They're just not.
If the machines were "switching votes", they'd do it internally and secretly, and not make it look like they're putting checkmarks next to the wrong boxes. Especially since the voter isn't able to view a paper receipt.
If I had to guess, the way the ballot is organized in terms of candidate ordering probably makes it easy or possible to look like you're pressing the right area, but the boxes and/or your perception of the boxes' location isn't perfectly aligned with the touch sensing elements. Because people are so sensitive to this issue, any errant touch among thousands of voters accidentally getting the wrong box VISIBLY checked, AND able to be corrected, is going to be interpreted as malice instead of (user) error. "When asked if she is sure she touched the box for Rockefeller, she said, 'I'm absolutely positive.'" Yeah, just like a lot of users are "absolutely positive" that they did the right thing. No, they THINK they did the right thing. That's the only thing they are "absolutely positive" of.
Since so many people want to believe that the electronic voting machines are rigged to make Republicans win elections[1], so I'm sure people will choose to believe that this is due to a GOP conspiracy instead of simple errors. (And yes, it could still be an error, due to the way the screens are physically set up, even if the reported errors are "always" Republican. Does that mean it's not an issue that should be addressed, even if it is only a genuine design/setup error? No. But if you can touch the screen a little more carefully and get the checkmark beside the right name, that is what matters. Who hasn't ever had a touchscreen ATM or a touchscreen POS station not register a touch as something unintended? You don't think the ATM is trying to rip you off when it picks "Savings" when you meant "Checking". You just hit cancel and do it again.)
Remember, too, that in many jurisdictions in which we have electronic voting machines, they're there as a direct result of Democratic-sponsored legislation, like HAVA, in response to the voting difficulties with antiquated machines in Florida in 2000. The problem? Everyone assumed that modern technology was just great and overlooked a mandatory requirement for a paper trail. Of course, now ALL e-voting vendors have voter-verifiable paper trail capability as options, but many municipalities didn't want to spend the extra money to deploy since it wasn't required by law.
Also, "In Putnam County, early voters have the option of asking for either touch-screen machines or optical scan ballots -- paper ballots on which people mark in their election choices." And when people are using the machine, "The main thing people need to remember is that when you are done voting, make sure everybody you wanted to vote for has a check mark beside them." Just because you touch once and it registers wrong doesn't imply that it can't be corrected. Has no one ever used a backspace key on a computer before? Or an eraser on a pencil, for that matter?
Bottom line? Since this clearly is causing so much fear and doubt[2], we should go back to a simple, auditable paper solution, if only so conspiracy theorists can STFU and stop thinking every election where their preferred candidate doesn't win is "stolen".
[1] Have to put in the disclaimer. Very aware of the famous quote about "delivering the election to George Bush" by Diebold's CEO. It was in his capacity as a Republic business leader, but still a very, very, very poor showing on his part, and ridiculous appearance of a conflict of interest, even if none actually exists in reality.
[2] And it's actually not causing a level of problems that are probably any worse than error in paper or any other voting. But the perception is that it is a huge problem, and subverting democracy, and that is reason enough to change.