Backing up is incredibly easy compared to the loss of your data.
Never put all your eggs in one basket. Trusting that "nothing bad will happen", trusting 3rd-party band-aids like virus scanners and patches only makes you unnecessarily vulnerable.
Not backing up because you don't believe you will ever need it is just as bad as never patching or never updating your virus scanner, because you believe for some reason you'll never get a virus.
It's incredibly easy to do, there are so many circumstances which can lead to the need for restoring from them, and there's nothing worse than that feeling of "how on earth did I end up with no good backup of my incredibly important data I can't afford to lose".
Maybe CowboyNeal has been in the living in the basement for too long, but everybody else knows that saying "chink" is very offensive to Chinese, Japanese, and other Asian people.
"Chink in the armour" is an outrageously common phrase in the English language.
My thoughts when I read it? "What does armour have to do with battery runtimes...".
The first thoughts of racist association did not enter my head until I read your comment. I'm from Australia, though, and if people are going to be racist there are much worse words that can be used.
I just spent the last week designing, building and testing an ISA card that can emulate an old Boca BB-1008 RS232 8-port serial card from circa 1990.
It's for backup of a data acquisition unit in an oil & gas data logging setup... and it all runs on an old 16-bit MS-DOS app. Desqview & QEMM... this stuff is not going away any time soon (but they are working on it... slowly), because it "just works" - the windows software they've tried using is still b0rk3d in several ways that they can't tolerate in the environment they're in.
I don't believe USB would be a suitable format for DC power termination in datacentre equipment. It's really only designed for devices that draw half an amp or so. The output on even a modest ATX PSU numbers in the 10s of Amps per rail.
Yes, it has solid-state over-current protection which means you don't blow fuses on a short, but the same is true in most half-decent DC-DC power converters (including the ones you find in a normal ATX PSU).
I only have knowledge of low-power stuff, but I imagine that implementing solid-state current limiting for DC buses carrying hundres of amps would be a major implementation challenge (read: expensive). But then, there's no reason why one must use fuses, resettable circuit breakers commonly found in the AC world and in the DC systems of aircraft and heavy machinery should be fine.
I never made ANY such claims. You, OTOH, keep acting as if you know what is best for everyone, and take a serious condescending tone with anyone who supports the right to posess firearms.
No, no... my _first post_ in this thread was mainly to clarify that Australia DOES have guns. The parent to my first post stated a lot of problems with Australia (all valid) except on of them was false: that we don't have guns. We do.
I regret saying: "You guys have a scary gun culture over there". I should have known that would stir some shit, but didn't realise it until I hit submit.
I still stand by everything else I've said though.
I simply explained our right, and the justification for that right, to own firearms. And, idiotically, you kept blabbering about personal defense, to me, when I specifically stated that that was not an issure I care about one lick.
Yes, excellent, okay. "Idiotically", I seem to be debating with most people over the right to personal defense, opposite to you. My mistake.
I am seriously skeptical as to whether the restriction against automatic weapons will seriously be a major obstical against overthrowing a government, however.
My "preception of normal" comes from the normal standards of the society I live in. My "perception of normal" is local to where I live. It is correct, and appropriate, for the context in which I currently live. I don't pretend I'm trying to say what's good for you (though my original post should have been worded differently, for sure).
Be that as it may, I submit that you should widen your perceptions and accept the necessities in other parts of the world. If the simple realities of existence in the rest of the world, not all or even most, but large portions, is so "alien" to you, I can only take that as a sign of ignorance.
I like to think I _have_ a "wide perception" of the world. It seems we have an initial mis-understanding between each other: I'm seriously not interested in preaching here. I'm trying to justify why unrestricted, free-for-all gun laws (or lack thereof) does not necessarily make sense in Australia.
So, again, I ask you to "also" widen your perception as to the necessities of other parts of the world.
If the simple realities of existence in the rest of the world, not all or even most, but large portions, is so "alien" to you, I can only take that as a sign of ignorance.
A sign of ignorance? Nice, not a hint of a narrow mind at all you have there, painting the whole world with one brush. I am not saying that I find gun culture to be "alien" as a sign that "hey look at us, you should be like us, guns are teh badz0r". I acknowledge guns play a large part in many places of the world, just not ours, and not now. My original intent was to attempt - and I have surely failed in your case - to explain that there exist places in this world where guns are not necessary.
This is what I have been explaining to others, it's failed on you because you mainly want your guns to stage a rebellion against the government or invading force or something. Fair enough. I think we've gotten into an argument where one side is talking about apples and the other oranges, to a certain degree, and that would be my fault I do admit... thank my "idiocy", if you will.
Furthermore, history is rife with violent uprisings that eventually lead to greater freedom, or fought back against encroaching, malicious powers; that you are so sure you are so safe from such necessity is foolish, IMO.
This kind of thinking, that it is inevitable that we will succumb to circumstances where violent uprising is the only option, is unfamiliar to me in the context of our (short) history and government. Most of our governments have been right bastards in many ways including (and especially?) the current one, but I haven't for a moment believed that the normal (admittedly frustratingly lethargic) democratic process would fail
Don't take my word for it, I'm just a lowly EE with a passing interest in crypto... but as far as I can tell, your propositition isn't particularly any more vulnerable to a man-in-the-middle or phishing attack than other methods.
You probably know already what MITM is about, but let me waffle on some more:-) It behaves totally transparently to both the end-user and server, as if it wasn't even there, and making itself a part of the un-encrypted communications path - monitoring all your actions in plaintext. It begins by, perhaps, stealing the private SSL keys from the server so that as far as the end user is concerned, they're dealing with the same old server. They must also hack the end-user's network so that the user's DNS is poisoned to go to a different IP address for the MITM server, and/or re-routing the legit IP to the MITM server. Given the poor security history of various consumer DSL routers, this wouldn't be beyond the realms of possibility. This could all also be achieved hacking the desktop PC itself - wasn't it Valve (guys that ended up having to deal with leaked Halflife 2 source) that got hacked via a carefully crafted email that installed a back-door via an exploit of an Outlook bug? Anyway, the MITM connects to the real server pretending it's the end-user, and simply forwards everything the user does as if the MITM was the actual user.
As you can see, the MITM can monitor all your actions in plaintext. Neither the user nor the server knows the difference. As far as I know, nearly _ALL_ network systems are vulnerable to this, if any of the routers between the user and the server can be hacked. IP networks (as opposed to ATM point-to-point links) are especially vulnerable because we can't detect any additional latency the MITM causes because latency is variable and unpredictable on an IP network.
This is where quantum cryptography comes in handy, which involves the use of optical fibres between two points... in a nut-shell, it's vitually impossible to monitor passively because doing so changes the state of the (entangled) photons and hence corrupts the data stream. MITM is still theoretically possible, by again spoofing both sides to the other and acting as a decrypt/re-encrypt proxy to gain access to the unencrypted data stream, but the point is that this is detectable by an easily detectable jump in the comms latency. Unless the MITM has some crazy alien technology that far exceeds that which is installed at the endpoints, all such decryption/re-encryption will incur a very noticeable jump in latency because of the time taken to re-encode all the data.
Aside: just to give an idea of how obvious an MITM attack would be on fibre, we were able to measure the speed of light by sending infrared pulses down a 200m spool of fibre in 2nd year at university in a poorly funded lab. Current optical detectors/emitters which terminate these firbes have huge latencies compared to light itself - in other words, you'd need detectors/emitters and the re-encoding process itself to all happen "at the speed of light"... I'm not an expert in this field either, but AFAICT it's basically impossible today in 2005.
One type of "man-in-the-middle" scenario is known as "replay attack", which your scheme is vulnerable to.
A replay attack works by re-using old authentication data. In your case, the MITM could keep track of how many authentiction sessions you've done, and which passes have been expired on your OTP card. It could then start presenting the user with a challenge without actually forwarding to the real server; these artificial "failed" requests happen say half the time, and only present the "real" challenge to the user the other half of the time. Build up a collection of unused, valid responses which the attacker can hopefully have a good chance of gaining access to the real server at their own leisure without triggering too many failed attempts before hitting a challenge that has been learned.
Smartcard/USB hard-tokens which apply a crypto algorithm i
I'm not sure what your point is. I was just clarifying that the eavesdropper could not learn the contents of the user's OTP card in the way you described.
Whilst I don't pretend to have the knowledge of even a first year undergrad specialising in cryptography, I have studied basic cryptographic techniques as part of my EE degree, and my understanding of the term "one time pad" is that it describes Alice and Bob both being in posession of the same list of arbitrary sets of data which can be utilised as secret keys. It just avoids transferring the key itself in message exchange, since both authorised parties already know it, reducing the chance of the eavesdropper reverse-engineering it. The only way an eavesdropper can learn it is by physically stealing the pad and making a copy. The poster's idea of printing the "pad" from the webserver creates a gaping hole, but that's beside the point.
Additionally, the OP's idea is susceptable to having the OTP card being copied and used/without knowledge to anyone/, whereas a list of one time passwords crossed out in sequence - well, at least the authorised user would notice their passwords are "out of sync" next time they go to use it, but then again if the attacker can copy the pad then he can also cross off a couple of passwords on Alice's behalf before she next uses the system without her noticing too.
Of course, you already knew this. I'm just wondering why you are clarifying the role of OTP to me.
The issues you raise are valid, and I don't think the poster thought his matrix was at all special cryptographically - just that it was a compact way to store 361 items of OTP information.
The OP thinks his idea is great because it's much better than simple user/pass authentication; but in reality we both know security has many more issues than this thing solves, the only benefit of his system is that it reduces vulnerability to keyloggers and weak passwords.
You're right, it is bad to replace a crappy system with an only slightly-less crappy one at the expense of a false sense of security, but I can see some merit to his idea for a very limited set of applications where the only alternative is traditional user/pass authentication on its own. Many finger-print scanners are laughably easy to fool with sticky-tape: but they're still used in the real world for convenience, not security applications.
Yes, the idea is "crap" but the fact is it's a one-time pad. The attacker cannot gain unauthorised access in the way you described. The attacker can cause a Denial of Service, but they won't get access.
Ah, I must have mis-read your post originally, I must have only skimmed it...
For some reason I thought you proposed an OTP system where each password was crossed off by the user (so the OTP selection works on sequence). In this way, the system would at least expose when your card has been copied and used (because now the user's set of passwords is out-of-sequence). Except for when the attacker is able to temporarily get your card and mark off a few passwords for you, the way I pointed out in my other post.
But this system doesn't even give you that protection... an attacker can photocopy your card and use it at his/her leisure at any time and you wouldn't know.
The poster said that each element in the matrix is only requested once.
So no part of the matrix is every repeated; the eavesdropping attacker can't do anything with learned matrix elements, because the system will never ask for those elements again.
I'm not a cryptanalyst either, but from what I can see the main problem is that the "something you have" is too easy to duplicate. It can be copied, the attacker can mark off a couple of OTPs and use them for him/her self within a pretty significant period of time (say, over a weekend) and you wouldn't even know.
Then it's just a matter of planting a keylogger (software or hardware) or even just looking over the shoulder to get the "something you know".
I do agree it's a nifty solution that would be better than traditional user/pass, especially if the office is a trusted secure environment and you're wanting a publicly accessible authentication into a VPN or something, but not very convenient.
Ack i thought you were going to have a reasonable discourse, the only thing i see here is you writing for the mods,
I am not "writing for mods", these are my genuine thoughts.
this article is off the front page now you won't be modded up and appealing to the mods with your hollow touchy feely garbage isn't going to get you anywhere.
"Reasonable discourse" would be where I agree with everything you say, right?
Your naivety is astounding, our entire defense strategy is based around an incursion from our nothern neighbour and to hold off any incursion until the US arrives.
My "naivety" is bred the same way yours is: by basing my understanding of the situation on 2nd, 3rd, 4th, 5th hand information... that I have arrived a different conclusion to you is not surprising. I really do think you are simplifying a very complex issue. This is not even a remotely complete summary of Australia's defense strategy, from what I have learnt speaking with acquaintences in the Army and relatives in the RAAF. Indonesia could potentially develop into a credible threat, but at the moment diplomacy is doing its job.
I was speaking specifically of Indonesia, if you think that Indonesia as a country 'likes' Australia your again more than a little naive, if you forget we did lead a force to kick them out of East Timor 6 years ago. Australia is viewed as an outsider in SE Asia, your comment about Australia being better friends,etc,etc...doesn't match up to reality, there are more countries in Asia than Japan and China, your displaying your own ignorance while trying to find mine.
It seems you're not matching my understanding of the Indonesia situation either. Are you referring to: the indonesian people? The military? The Government? These are all quite seperate entities in that country... Australia was "forced" to invade East Timor; we already had a deal with Indonesia for the oil reserves in the East Timor sea. We were doing our best to work with Indonesia on that, until human rights abuses became such a public issue we were forced to deal with it.
NB: We had good relations with the government, but the Indonesian government didn't seem to have much control over their militia. As far as I can tell, and I admit freely that I have no 1st hand information - nor do you - but it is also "public knowledge" that we had to do what we did. Even the Indonesians understood that.
It's not "us vs them"; even the "enemy", you seem to think of them as, can see rational logic behind what we did. It hurt their pride, but at the same time they are not totally batshit insane - they do have the capacity for understanding and acceptance of the situation on the world stage.
Additionally, we are not necessarily "friends" with Asian neighbours, but we do have at least some mutual respect and understanding. To go from the situation we have now into a hostile engagment would involve a lot warning signs and many months, at the quickest, of development.
It's not my fault if reality is 'depressing' to you, i'm not anxious about anything, i understand how things are, things are the way they have always been, there is nothing special about this time that means we are immune from the perils humanity has always faced, whether it be from despotic governments here or next door.
I'm glad you find comfort in your paranoia.
The rest of your comment is more than a little patronising, you somehow have derived any entirely fictional character from my post but in reality dont know anything about me, what race i am where i'm from or where i've been, your just hoping the mods will found your drek insightful without thinking about it.
This has nothing to do with mods. I am interested in finding out makes you think the way you do. Because it's a very odd and unjustified point of view to me.
I don't mean to patronise. I do respect your opinion: I'm just wondering how you formed it. I doubt it's possible to form an opinion on how forei
did you look at that graph 75% of all gun deaths are suicidies.
Yes, actually I mentioned this factoid in another post in this thread. . . ?
Do you inderstand that the majority of guns that existed in Australia in 1995 are still in the same place today? That only 750,000 guns where handed in when estimates are that there were between 2.5 and 5 million guns in this country in 1992.
Okay..?
For security of couse having an armed population increases our security, we are an island nation, in a part of the the world that isn't very friendly to us.
Ah. An "us" vs "them". Interesting. Who exactly is "unfriendly" to us? We have better relations with more Asian nations than they do with each other. E.G., Japan vs China, Japan vs Korea, Taiwan vs China, etc. Whatever quarrels Australia has with most of asia are nothing compared to tensions between our other neighbours.
Our armed forces have enough ammunition for three days of fullscale combat, a joke.
And you know this how? Are you an employee of ADFA? Even if this were true, consider this: full-scale combat does not happen without warning and it doesn't catch us by surprise overnight. For the "3 days worth of ammo" figure to even be remotely in the realms of possibility, you're talking about sudden, immediate continuous engagment of every ADFA combat unit, which is furthermore logistically "very difficult". The situation develops over time. We purchase and/or manufacture ammunition as necessary. There is no need to keep a $hiteload of ammo around (although despite your concerns I am pretty sure we have more than our fair share) - it would only make us more vulnerable to attack! We don't want to make ourselves a target of our neighbours do we?
Countries monitor other countries very carefully. They often try to infer thinking of the foreign country through their military spending decisions. Acquisition of certain hardware sends them signals about what that country percieves as a threat - or legitimate target. A lot of consideration goes into spending on military hardware: ever wondered why we chose to buy into such a piss-poor short-range JSF aircraft? Because our legendary F-111s were bought back in the 70s, a time when our Asian neighbours simply couldn't match state-of-the-art that it was. We had the air superiority. Now, China is very strong, growing stronger, much quicker. By not refreshing, and actually phasing out our flagship long-range strike aircraft we are sending a signal to China that "our hardware is for defense, not attack".
ADFA aims to protect Australia, alone if necessary. They have far more understanding of the problem than you or I. There are variables and considerations in play here you would never dream of. It's amazing that you think ADFA's flaws are as simple as a little imbalance in the accounting of their ammo.
If you think their flaws are so obvious, why don't you join the reserves and do something about it? Or go full-time?
If you believe things are so bad between us that a full-scale combat could develop overnight - then I pity your anxious soul. There are things in our world affairs happening that none of us know or comprehend. Mountains of untold relationship negotiations and diplomacy. Do you even know a foreign language? Have you ever tried to integrate with a different culture? Or do you just fear funny sounding people you don't understand, enjoying feeding your own paranoia for no reason?
Did you know that in the 2001 census, it was shown that 16% of Australian homes speak a language other than english in the house?
Exactly which country(ies) threaten us? And for what reason? Do you sincerely believe our asian neighbours want to invade us? All hell would break loose. Do you seriously think we can afford to seriously piss off our asian neighbours? All hell would break loose.
We live in a global society. Try to think outside of the box...
Police state, yep, we're getting there. But the rest of your comments are... depressing.
Now, given that we had 20,008,700 people in December 2003 that means your chance of being a victim of homicide in Australia during that time (ignoring demographic issues obviously) roughly one in 66,304, or about 0.0015082%.
According to an FBI crime stats report there were 16,204 murders in 2002. The report says that's a rate of 5.6 per 100,000 - a percentage of 0.0056%. That's about 3.7 times our rate here - not catastrophic, and I do apologise for the sensationalist quip about "not even a fraction". But at least significant.
The report also says roughly 2/3rds were committed using firearms. In Australia it was "just under 16%".
The real question is: can you meaningfully compare these two sets of statistics? Does one country's crime rate really compare when you're talking about different cultures? More importantly, if you had the situation with gun restrictions here over there in America, would there be less murder victims or would the killers just use alternative means?
I don't pretend to know for sure the answers to these questions, but I'm leaning to the "in theory, if you didn't have so many goddamn guns there might be less successful murders".
I say "in theory" because it seems that change is impossible. Gun culture seems to be deeply entrenched - I doubt any politician would commit political suicide by attempting such a thing.
Speaking of political suicide, I saw a documentary about Falcone et. al. recently trying to clear out the mafia in Italy in the 80s/90s. That was literally political suicide; along with his colleagues he was asassinated.
Mafioso - terrorists you can trust.
Anyway, our murder rate here is less but not shockingly less, I suppose. But it is at least a counter-argument that you need personal gun ownership to be safe from violent killers.
Does the fact I disagree with your personal opinion (you seem to believe it's based on a universal truth) - does that really make me "dense"?
It is alien, amazing and surreal, only because you have never faced such circumstances. Your perception of normal is in stark contrast to much of human history. In fact, fuck history, it's in stark contrast to the present in much of the world.
My "preception of normal" comes from the normal standards of the society I live in. My "perception of normal" is local to where I live. It is correct, and appropriate, for the context in which I currently live. I don't pretend I'm trying to say what's good for you (though my original post should have been worded differently, for sure). So I'd appreciate it if you stopped pretending that you think you know what's good for us.
Right now, there isn't a place for guns for the sake of "personal defence" here where I live (a different place to where you live). And that's that. Just because this isn't so in other places in the world, doesn't mean we should adjust accordingly. We should enjoy our peace and safety if it's there. I'll be buggered if I know how people like you get so worried and worked up into such a state that you think a constant state of fear against some intangible paranoia is desirable.
That we're "in stark contrast to the present in much of the world" is open to debate too. Many countries have much tougher gun laws than we do. Additionally, you're somehow connecting world events with personal gun ownership... am I the only one that finds this rather ambiguous?
Quite right. But guerilla warfare is hardly a foreign concept to a significant number of people alive today. In fact, this whole discussion seems rather ridiculous with the backdrop of guerilla warfare going on around the world right now.
And guerilla warfare seems rather ridiculous with the backdrop of non-gun-wielding nations around the world right now.
True, Australia has some pretty damning issues. Environmental, territorial (read: east timor sea), civil liberties... but I don't see why we should play "follow the leader". Your way is not necessarily the best way, or the only way. Please acknowledge this, at least.
All very fair enough. You're entitled to that. I just take issue when Americans think we're "backwards" for our gun laws. Granted, the laws did bugger all in reducing crime in general (were they supposed to?) and whilst gun deaths have gone down, they were already low to begin with. And hundreds of thousands of illegal weapons are still at large. Still, I don't think a lack of automatic weapons is going to be the primary obsticle in overthrowing a tyrannical government - and I don't see how more guns makes us any safer either, in the context of the communities where I have lived.
Woah - when I said "he was just a rational guy" I based that on a few chopped minutes I saw of the discussion about him on TV; reading the transcript I read to... well, I don't agree with his attitude, that's what I wanted to clarify.
But the fact he's liable to 7 years prison is wrong too: I don't think that anti-war sentiment should land you in gaol.
And we do have big problems with freedom of speech here. Just the other day a radio interviewee tried to explain the point of view of Iraqi suicide bombers - trying to explain why they think it's "right" to blow up allied forces - and now the media has gone into a frenzy over this "unaustralian, terrorist loving peace hater". He now risks up to 7 years in prison under new anti-terrorism laws for "inciting terrorism". He was just a rational caucasian aussie man, not even muslim.
Islamic leaders in Australia are warning that if this is going to continue, the banning of open public forum debate on the issues in Iraq under the guise of "anti-terrorism", then discussion of "jihad" topics will only go underground, unchecked, and could possibly breed even more terrorism right here at home.
We've already removed books from bookshops.
Yep, it's the thought police. The radio station he was interviewed on can be found liable too. They will likely only recieve monetary fines, but still.
We definately have some messed up stuff going on - I just can't figure guns into the equation of a possible solution.
A violent assult against the government and its servants would only serve to repulse the general public against the assailant's cause. The government would use the violence to their advantage.
Additionally, I believe anyone who has the leadership skills to organise a large militia is also going to be able to influence politics using existing methods anyway. If things get so bad you have to "over-throw" them from the bottom-up instead of the usual process of top-down; I just think it's an almost hopeless battle. You have to contend with the hive-mind of the public, and have the media on your side. This is likely to be impossible unless the media themselves feel threatened by the government.
For now, the "revenue generating" stories are where they sensationalise any perceived terrorist sympathsiser "in our very own homeland". Likely, a new emerging militia will recieve equally depressing negative coverage in the name of profits, whilst missing the big picture. As usual.
If you're referring to me, I was not intending to promote "stricter gun controls". I just wanted to clear up the misconception that Australia "has no guns". I then justified why we have such "heavy" restrictions.
Well, I'll preface this by saying that I grew up on a farm, have spent most of my life in rural areas. I have shot feral pigs and kangaroos with friends when growing up. I've now lived in Brisbane for 4 years. At the moment, I'm living in a mostly Asian suburb in Brisbane. I walk 45 minutes to and from university - I've habitually made that walk at all hours of late night/early morning. My worst experience: being stopped by the cops and asked what I was doing taking a stroll at 04:00am. And a drunken mob that wanted me to join in.
So perhaps I'm naive that we don't have a gun problem in Australia - I can only take your word for it. The gun owners I know that had guns "bought back" (about 6), weren't too shook up about it. Some were even excited, actually getting money for their faulty, disused or little-valued weapons.
I'm not denying we have some pretty fucked up shit happening in the govnerment. It seems it's now impossible to even discuss the suicide bomber's point of view in Iraq without risk of being thrown into prison for seven years for "inciting terrorism". The irony, of course, is that the most terrorism of all will be the misfortune our own citizens will face in the name of "anti-terrorism".
Also just wondering if you have been in the western suburbs of Sydney lately? No shortage of hardware there, of course all in the hands of lebanese, vietnamese and anglo (bikie) gangs (as is the inevitable outcome of gun laws brought into a country that was (is) absolutely full of weapons).
No I haven't. Actually, I hope I never have to go to Sydney. I also wonder if you're repeating common opinion or have actually witnessed this.
many many Australians have an aversion to pomp, sentimentality and tearful patriotism but also have a deep seated distrust in their government.
If it comes to that, I'm one of them. Nothing shits me more than "oi oi oi" and the persona presented on Today Tonight/A Current Affair.
I also know quite a few people who would never hand over their weapons no matter what laws the government passed. All from the old school, people who were alive and saw what 'civilised' governments will do to their citizens under the guise of 'national security', it seems the younger generation was never taught. Do you actually think that any future government will voluntarily repeal the last 40 years and layers and layers of legislation, regulations and expansion?
Whatever you were trying to say there, I must admit, it went completely over my head.
However, the fact remains: Tyrannical government or not, do you think more guns increases our standard of living? Our security? Our freedom?
What is your point? On the one hand, you somehow think guns are going to allow us to individually do something about the government. I think this is laughable.
On the other hand, you're pushing this point that there are many illegal guns that remain in Australia. Here, you probably have a point. I don't pretend to know the local "underground" situation in Sydney or even Brisbane for that matter - all I can do is look at the official stats and compare them to the US.
Can you point out something I may have missed in deciding that these stats represent a downward trend in gun deaths? Additionally, they're not corrected for population growth, with the figures presented being shown in absolute numbers.
I really don't have a passion for politics and propaganda, scandal and conspiracy - I just want to do my own thing (preferrably without having to sleep with a gun under my pillow). Perhaps I'm naieve, but here, I'm just saying that more guns doesn't mean more good, or can it?
We have (or at least had) a very different culture here. I don't even know a friend of a friend of a friend who was a victim of a crime that involved guns. I don't know anyone through any vague acquaintency that was shot or murdered in some way via guns. I know one person involved in a shooting accident: he lost a finger. For the record, I grew up on a farm. I went shooting, with my friends too. We had a great time (in a sick kind of way) when I was about 14, shooting pest animals like kangaroos and feral pigs. When a shooting death occurs, it stays in the TV/papers for weeks.
We don't want to have to sleep with guns under our pillows. So whilst we can still have robbers lifting our loungeroom hifi system or ripping out our Sony head-units from the carpark, we at least don't have to fear the criminal will point a gun at us and kill us in an instant. I know people who have been involved in gang fights; knives were brandished, but no guns. Do criminals end up with guns? Yes. Do many petty crims use, or have ever used firearms? No.
I did not intend to say that your gun culture was "wrong", just that overall, for the values that we hold in our society (mostly the same as yours I guess but from a different point of view) it doesn't work here. Again, I was trying to justify our own gun restrictions, not demonise the American Way (tm).
Can you not at least acknowledge that in our case, not yours, that there is a possibility that more guns will only degrade our society and our standard of living?
I'm a little skeptical that should you need to overthrow a tyrannical government, that laws restricting the use of automatic weapons are going to be a significant obstical. You'll need a better plan than "buy big guns".
Thanks for the input. Australia gets called "the lucky country" (or perhaps that's what we call ourselves, who knows) because we were founded in peace. So for this reason I suppose I just can't grasp the "gun religion" culture the US has, formed out of the (comparitively) violent history you guys have had. Likewise, I would appreciate that USians stopped believing this adopting this attitude towards guns everywhere else in the world is going to make it a better place.
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Backing up is incredibly easy compared to the loss of your data.
Never put all your eggs in one basket. Trusting that "nothing bad will happen", trusting 3rd-party band-aids like virus scanners and patches only makes you unnecessarily vulnerable.
Not backing up because you don't believe you will ever need it is just as bad as never patching or never updating your virus scanner, because you believe for some reason you'll never get a virus.
It's incredibly easy to do, there are so many circumstances which can lead to the need for restoring from them, and there's nothing worse than that feeling of "how on earth did I end up with no good backup of my incredibly important data I can't afford to lose".
And yes, I do speak from experience...
Will it stop the onward march of socialism?
;)
I'm confused by this one. There's an onward march of socialism? I thought it fascism
Maybe CowboyNeal has been in the living in the basement for too long, but everybody else knows that saying "chink" is very offensive to Chinese, Japanese, and other Asian people.
"Chink in the armour" is an outrageously common phrase in the English language.
My thoughts when I read it? "What does armour have to do with battery runtimes...".
The first thoughts of racist association did not enter my head until I read your comment. I'm from Australia, though, and if people are going to be racist there are much worse words that can be used.
The censors in this country would assplode if they had to deal with those women.
Did you visit those sites you linked? I was expecting something obscene, or at least bikini swimwear level exposure or something.
The people in all these photos (except 2 or 3), however, are fully clothed... I don't get it?
I just spent the last week designing, building and testing an ISA card that can emulate an old Boca BB-1008 RS232 8-port serial card from circa 1990.
It's for backup of a data acquisition unit in an oil & gas data logging setup... and it all runs on an old 16-bit MS-DOS app. Desqview & QEMM... this stuff is not going away any time soon (but they are working on it... slowly), because it "just works" - the windows software they've tried using is still b0rk3d in several ways that they can't tolerate in the environment they're in.
I don't believe USB would be a suitable format for DC power termination in datacentre equipment. It's really only designed for devices that draw half an amp or so. The output on even a modest ATX PSU numbers in the 10s of Amps per rail.
Yes, it has solid-state over-current protection which means you don't blow fuses on a short, but the same is true in most half-decent DC-DC power converters (including the ones you find in a normal ATX PSU).
I only have knowledge of low-power stuff, but I imagine that implementing solid-state current limiting for DC buses carrying hundres of amps would be a major implementation challenge (read: expensive). But then, there's no reason why one must use fuses, resettable circuit breakers commonly found in the AC world and in the DC systems of aircraft and heavy machinery should be fine.
No, no... my _first post_ in this thread was mainly to clarify that Australia DOES have guns. The parent to my first post stated a lot of problems with Australia (all valid) except on of them was false: that we don't have guns. We do.
I regret saying: "You guys have a scary gun culture over there". I should have known that would stir some shit, but didn't realise it until I hit submit.
I still stand by everything else I've said though.
I simply explained our right, and the justification for that right, to own firearms. And, idiotically, you kept blabbering about personal defense, to me, when I specifically stated that that was not an issure I care about one lick.
Yes, excellent, okay. "Idiotically", I seem to be debating with most people over the right to personal defense, opposite to you. My mistake.
I am seriously skeptical as to whether the restriction against automatic weapons will seriously be a major obstical against overthrowing a government, however.
I like to think I _have_ a "wide perception" of the world. It seems we have an initial mis-understanding between each other: I'm seriously not interested in preaching here. I'm trying to justify why unrestricted, free-for-all gun laws (or lack thereof) does not necessarily make sense in Australia.
So, again, I ask you to "also" widen your perception as to the necessities of other parts of the world.
If the simple realities of existence in the rest of the world, not all or even most, but large portions, is so "alien" to you, I can only take that as a sign of ignorance.
A sign of ignorance? Nice, not a hint of a narrow mind at all you have there, painting the whole world with one brush. I am not saying that I find gun culture to be "alien" as a sign that "hey look at us, you should be like us, guns are teh badz0r". I acknowledge guns play a large part in many places of the world, just not ours, and not now. My original intent was to attempt - and I have surely failed in your case - to explain that there exist places in this world where guns are not necessary.
This is what I have been explaining to others, it's failed on you because you mainly want your guns to stage a rebellion against the government or invading force or something. Fair enough. I think we've gotten into an argument where one side is talking about apples and the other oranges, to a certain degree, and that would be my fault I do admit... thank my "idiocy", if you will.
Furthermore, history is rife with violent uprisings that eventually lead to greater freedom, or fought back against encroaching, malicious powers; that you are so sure you are so safe from such necessity is foolish, IMO.
This kind of thinking, that it is inevitable that we will succumb to circumstances where violent uprising is the only option, is unfamiliar to me in the context of our (short) history and government. Most of our governments have been right bastards in many ways including (and especially?) the current one, but I haven't for a moment believed that the normal (admittedly frustratingly lethargic) democratic process would fail
Don't take my word for it, I'm just a lowly EE with a passing interest in crypto... but as far as I can tell, your propositition isn't particularly any more vulnerable to a man-in-the-middle or phishing attack than other methods.
:-) It behaves totally transparently to both the end-user and server, as if it wasn't even there, and making itself a part of the un-encrypted communications path - monitoring all your actions in plaintext. It begins by, perhaps, stealing the private SSL keys from the server so that as far as the end user is concerned, they're dealing with the same old server. They must also hack the end-user's network so that the user's DNS is poisoned to go to a different IP address for the MITM server, and/or re-routing the legit IP to the MITM server. Given the poor security history of various consumer DSL routers, this wouldn't be beyond the realms of possibility. This could all also be achieved hacking the desktop PC itself - wasn't it Valve (guys that ended up having to deal with leaked Halflife 2 source) that got hacked via a carefully crafted email that installed a back-door via an exploit of an Outlook bug? Anyway, the MITM connects to the real server pretending it's the end-user, and simply forwards everything the user does as if the MITM was the actual user.
You probably know already what MITM is about, but let me waffle on some more
As you can see, the MITM can monitor all your actions in plaintext. Neither the user nor the server knows the difference. As far as I know, nearly _ALL_ network systems are vulnerable to this, if any of the routers between the user and the server can be hacked. IP networks (as opposed to ATM point-to-point links) are especially vulnerable because we can't detect any additional latency the MITM causes because latency is variable and unpredictable on an IP network.
This is where quantum cryptography comes in handy, which involves the use of optical fibres between two points... in a nut-shell, it's vitually impossible to monitor passively because doing so changes the state of the (entangled) photons and hence corrupts the data stream. MITM is still theoretically possible, by again spoofing both sides to the other and acting as a decrypt/re-encrypt proxy to gain access to the unencrypted data stream, but the point is that this is detectable by an easily detectable jump in the comms latency. Unless the MITM has some crazy alien technology that far exceeds that which is installed at the endpoints, all such decryption/re-encryption will incur a very noticeable jump in latency because of the time taken to re-encode all the data.
Aside: just to give an idea of how obvious an MITM attack would be on fibre, we were able to measure the speed of light by sending infrared pulses down a 200m spool of fibre in 2nd year at university in a poorly funded lab. Current optical detectors/emitters which terminate these firbes have huge latencies compared to light itself - in other words, you'd need detectors/emitters and the re-encoding process itself to all happen "at the speed of light"... I'm not an expert in this field either, but AFAICT it's basically impossible today in 2005.
One type of "man-in-the-middle" scenario is known as "replay attack", which your scheme is vulnerable to.
A replay attack works by re-using old authentication data. In your case, the MITM could keep track of how many authentiction sessions you've done, and which passes have been expired on your OTP card. It could then start presenting the user with a challenge without actually forwarding to the real server; these artificial "failed" requests happen say half the time, and only present the "real" challenge to the user the other half of the time. Build up a collection of unused, valid responses which the attacker can hopefully have a good chance of gaining access to the real server at their own leisure without triggering too many failed attempts before hitting a challenge that has been learned.
Smartcard/USB hard-tokens which apply a crypto algorithm i
I'm not sure what your point is. I was just clarifying that the eavesdropper could not learn the contents of the user's OTP card in the way you described.
/without knowledge to anyone/, whereas a list of one time passwords crossed out in sequence - well, at least the authorised user would notice their passwords are "out of sync" next time they go to use it, but then again if the attacker can copy the pad then he can also cross off a couple of passwords on Alice's behalf before she next uses the system without her noticing too.
Whilst I don't pretend to have the knowledge of even a first year undergrad specialising in cryptography, I have studied basic cryptographic techniques as part of my EE degree, and my understanding of the term "one time pad" is that it describes Alice and Bob both being in posession of the same list of arbitrary sets of data which can be utilised as secret keys. It just avoids transferring the key itself in message exchange, since both authorised parties already know it, reducing the chance of the eavesdropper reverse-engineering it. The only way an eavesdropper can learn it is by physically stealing the pad and making a copy. The poster's idea of printing the "pad" from the webserver creates a gaping hole, but that's beside the point.
Additionally, the OP's idea is susceptable to having the OTP card being copied and used
Of course, you already knew this. I'm just wondering why you are clarifying the role of OTP to me.
The issues you raise are valid, and I don't think the poster thought his matrix was at all special cryptographically - just that it was a compact way to store 361 items of OTP information.
The OP thinks his idea is great because it's much better than simple user/pass authentication; but in reality we both know security has many more issues than this thing solves, the only benefit of his system is that it reduces vulnerability to keyloggers and weak passwords.
You're right, it is bad to replace a crappy system with an only slightly-less crappy one at the expense of a false sense of security, but I can see some merit to his idea for a very limited set of applications where the only alternative is traditional user/pass authentication on its own. Many finger-print scanners are laughably easy to fool with sticky-tape: but they're still used in the real world for convenience, not security applications.
Yes, the idea is "crap" but the fact is it's a one-time pad. The attacker cannot gain unauthorised access in the way you described. The attacker can cause a Denial of Service, but they won't get access.
Ah, I must have mis-read your post originally, I must have only skimmed it...
:-)
For some reason I thought you proposed an OTP system where each password was crossed off by the user (so the OTP selection works on sequence). In this way, the system would at least expose when your card has been copied and used (because now the user's set of passwords is out-of-sequence). Except for when the attacker is able to temporarily get your card and mark off a few passwords for you, the way I pointed out in my other post.
But this system doesn't even give you that protection... an attacker can photocopy your card and use it at his/her leisure at any time and you wouldn't know.
Still, it's nifty
The poster said that each element in the matrix is only requested once.
So no part of the matrix is every repeated; the eavesdropping attacker can't do anything with learned matrix elements, because the system will never ask for those elements again.
I'm not a cryptanalyst either, but from what I can see the main problem is that the "something you have" is too easy to duplicate. It can be copied, the attacker can mark off a couple of OTPs and use them for him/her self within a pretty significant period of time (say, over a weekend) and you wouldn't even know.
Then it's just a matter of planting a keylogger (software or hardware) or even just looking over the shoulder to get the "something you know".
I do agree it's a nifty solution that would be better than traditional user/pass, especially if the office is a trusted secure environment and you're wanting a publicly accessible authentication into a VPN or something, but not very convenient.
I believe the concern is they have to "upgrade" to specific software or equipment. Not sure if they have an FCC approved wiretap patch for Asterisk...
Ack i thought you were going to have a reasonable discourse, the only thing i see here is you writing for the mods,
I am not "writing for mods", these are my genuine thoughts.
this article is off the front page now you won't be modded up and appealing to the mods with your hollow touchy feely garbage isn't going to get you anywhere.
"Reasonable discourse" would be where I agree with everything you say, right?
Your naivety is astounding, our entire defense strategy is based around an incursion from our nothern neighbour and to hold off any incursion until the US arrives.
My "naivety" is bred the same way yours is: by basing my understanding of the situation on 2nd, 3rd, 4th, 5th hand information... that I have arrived a different conclusion to you is not surprising. I really do think you are simplifying a very complex issue. This is not even a remotely complete summary of Australia's defense strategy, from what I have learnt speaking with acquaintences in the Army and relatives in the RAAF. Indonesia could potentially develop into a credible threat, but at the moment diplomacy is doing its job.
I was speaking specifically of Indonesia, if you think that Indonesia as a country 'likes' Australia your again more than a little naive, if you forget we did lead a force to kick them out of East Timor 6 years ago. Australia is viewed as an outsider in SE Asia, your comment about Australia being better friends,etc,etc...doesn't match up to reality, there are more countries in Asia than Japan and China, your displaying your own ignorance while trying to find mine.
It seems you're not matching my understanding of the Indonesia situation either. Are you referring to: the indonesian people? The military? The Government? These are all quite seperate entities in that country... Australia was "forced" to invade East Timor; we already had a deal with Indonesia for the oil reserves in the East Timor sea. We were doing our best to work with Indonesia on that, until human rights abuses became such a public issue we were forced to deal with it.
NB: We had good relations with the government, but the Indonesian government didn't seem to have much control over their militia. As far as I can tell, and I admit freely that I have no 1st hand information - nor do you - but it is also "public knowledge" that we had to do what we did. Even the Indonesians understood that.
It's not "us vs them"; even the "enemy", you seem to think of them as, can see rational logic behind what we did. It hurt their pride, but at the same time they are not totally batshit insane - they do have the capacity for understanding and acceptance of the situation on the world stage.
Additionally, we are not necessarily "friends" with Asian neighbours, but we do have at least some mutual respect and understanding. To go from the situation we have now into a hostile engagment would involve a lot warning signs and many months, at the quickest, of development.
It's not my fault if reality is 'depressing' to you, i'm not anxious about anything, i understand how things are, things are the way they have always been, there is nothing special about this time that means we are immune from the perils humanity has always faced, whether it be from despotic governments here or next door.
I'm glad you find comfort in your paranoia.
The rest of your comment is more than a little patronising, you somehow have derived any entirely fictional character from my post but in reality dont know anything about me, what race i am where i'm from or where i've been, your just hoping the mods will found your drek insightful without thinking about it.
This has nothing to do with mods. I am interested in finding out makes you think the way you do. Because it's a very odd and unjustified point of view to me.
I don't mean to patronise. I do respect your opinion: I'm just wondering how you formed it. I doubt it's possible to form an opinion on how forei
... never mind that I said ADFA instead of ADF each time :-)
did you look at that graph 75% of all gun deaths are suicidies.
Yes, actually I mentioned this factoid in another post in this thread. . . ?
Do you inderstand that the majority of guns that existed in Australia in 1995 are still in the same place today? That only 750,000 guns where handed in when estimates are that there were between 2.5 and 5 million guns in this country in 1992.
Okay..?
For security of couse having an armed population increases our security, we are an island nation, in a part of the the world that isn't very friendly to us.
Ah. An "us" vs "them". Interesting. Who exactly is "unfriendly" to us? We have better relations with more Asian nations than they do with each other. E.G., Japan vs China, Japan vs Korea, Taiwan vs China, etc. Whatever quarrels Australia has with most of asia are nothing compared to tensions between our other neighbours.
Our armed forces have enough ammunition for three days of fullscale combat, a joke.
And you know this how? Are you an employee of ADFA? Even if this were true, consider this: full-scale combat does not happen without warning and it doesn't catch us by surprise overnight. For the "3 days worth of ammo" figure to even be remotely in the realms of possibility, you're talking about sudden, immediate continuous engagment of every ADFA combat unit, which is furthermore logistically "very difficult". The situation develops over time. We purchase and/or manufacture ammunition as necessary. There is no need to keep a $hiteload of ammo around (although despite your concerns I am pretty sure we have more than our fair share) - it would only make us more vulnerable to attack! We don't want to make ourselves a target of our neighbours do we?
Countries monitor other countries very carefully. They often try to infer thinking of the foreign country through their military spending decisions. Acquisition of certain hardware sends them signals about what that country percieves as a threat - or legitimate target. A lot of consideration goes into spending on military hardware: ever wondered why we chose to buy into such a piss-poor short-range JSF aircraft? Because our legendary F-111s were bought back in the 70s, a time when our Asian neighbours simply couldn't match state-of-the-art that it was. We had the air superiority. Now, China is very strong, growing stronger, much quicker. By not refreshing, and actually phasing out our flagship long-range strike aircraft we are sending a signal to China that "our hardware is for defense, not attack".
ADFA aims to protect Australia, alone if necessary. They have far more understanding of the problem than you or I. There are variables and considerations in play here you would never dream of. It's amazing that you think ADFA's flaws are as simple as a little imbalance in the accounting of their ammo.
If you think their flaws are so obvious, why don't you join the reserves and do something about it? Or go full-time?
If you believe things are so bad between us that a full-scale combat could develop overnight - then I pity your anxious soul. There are things in our world affairs happening that none of us know or comprehend. Mountains of untold relationship negotiations and diplomacy. Do you even know a foreign language? Have you ever tried to integrate with a different culture? Or do you just fear funny sounding people you don't understand, enjoying feeding your own paranoia for no reason?
Did you know that in the 2001 census, it was shown that 16% of Australian homes speak a language other than english in the house?
Exactly which country(ies) threaten us? And for what reason? Do you sincerely believe our asian neighbours want to invade us? All hell would break loose. Do you seriously think we can afford to seriously piss off our asian neighbours? All hell would break loose.
We live in a global society. Try to think outside of the box...
Police state, yep, we're getting there. But the rest of your comments are... depressing.
Well, if the overall aim is to preserve human life - then I don't see gun ownership beyond the practical purposes as benefiting society.
But you raise a valid point. So I'll spend a few minutes looking this up.
Ok.
There's this report that says there were 308 homocide victims in 2003-2004. And this report shows the trends since 1915. The caption reads: The percentage of homicides committed with a firearm continued a declining trend since 1969. In 2002, just under 16% of homicides involved firearms. The figure was similar in 2001, down from a high of 44% in 1968.
Now, given that we had 20,008,700 people in December 2003 that means your chance of being a victim of homicide in Australia during that time (ignoring demographic issues obviously) roughly one in 66,304, or about 0.0015082%.
According to an FBI crime stats report there were 16,204 murders in 2002. The report says that's a rate of 5.6 per 100,000 - a percentage of 0.0056%. That's about 3.7 times our rate here - not catastrophic, and I do apologise for the sensationalist quip about "not even a fraction". But at least significant.
The report also says roughly 2/3rds were committed using firearms. In Australia it was "just under 16%".
The real question is: can you meaningfully compare these two sets of statistics? Does one country's crime rate really compare when you're talking about different cultures? More importantly, if you had the situation with gun restrictions here over there in America, would there be less murder victims or would the killers just use alternative means?
I don't pretend to know for sure the answers to these questions, but I'm leaning to the "in theory, if you didn't have so many goddamn guns there might be less successful murders".
I say "in theory" because it seems that change is impossible. Gun culture seems to be deeply entrenched - I doubt any politician would commit political suicide by attempting such a thing.
Speaking of political suicide, I saw a documentary about Falcone et. al. recently trying to clear out the mafia in Italy in the 80s/90s. That was literally political suicide; along with his colleagues he was asassinated.
Mafioso - terrorists you can trust.
Anyway, our murder rate here is less but not shockingly less, I suppose. But it is at least a counter-argument that you need personal gun ownership to be safe from violent killers.
Does the fact I disagree with your personal opinion (you seem to believe it's based on a universal truth) - does that really make me "dense"?
It is alien, amazing and surreal, only because you have never faced such circumstances. Your perception of normal is in stark contrast to much of human history. In fact, fuck history, it's in stark contrast to the present in much of the world.
My "preception of normal" comes from the normal standards of the society I live in. My "perception of normal" is local to where I live. It is correct, and appropriate, for the context in which I currently live. I don't pretend I'm trying to say what's good for you (though my original post should have been worded differently, for sure). So I'd appreciate it if you stopped pretending that you think you know what's good for us.
Right now, there isn't a place for guns for the sake of "personal defence" here where I live (a different place to where you live). And that's that. Just because this isn't so in other places in the world, doesn't mean we should adjust accordingly. We should enjoy our peace and safety if it's there. I'll be buggered if I know how people like you get so worried and worked up into such a state that you think a constant state of fear against some intangible paranoia is desirable.
That we're "in stark contrast to the present in much of the world" is open to debate too. Many countries have much tougher gun laws than we do. Additionally, you're somehow connecting world events with personal gun ownership... am I the only one that finds this rather ambiguous?
Quite right. But guerilla warfare is hardly a foreign concept to a significant number of people alive today. In fact, this whole discussion seems rather ridiculous with the backdrop of guerilla warfare going on around the world right now.
And guerilla warfare seems rather ridiculous with the backdrop of non-gun-wielding nations around the world right now.
True, Australia has some pretty damning issues. Environmental, territorial (read: east timor sea), civil liberties... but I don't see why we should play "follow the leader". Your way is not necessarily the best way, or the only way. Please acknowledge this, at least.
All very fair enough. You're entitled to that. I just take issue when Americans think we're "backwards" for our gun laws. Granted, the laws did bugger all in reducing crime in general (were they supposed to?) and whilst gun deaths have gone down, they were already low to begin with. And hundreds of thousands of illegal weapons are still at large. Still, I don't think a lack of automatic weapons is going to be the primary obsticle in overthrowing a tyrannical government - and I don't see how more guns makes us any safer either, in the context of the communities where I have lived.
Cheers
Woah - when I said "he was just a rational guy" I based that on a few chopped minutes I saw of the discussion about him on TV; reading the transcript I read to... well, I don't agree with his attitude, that's what I wanted to clarify.
But the fact he's liable to 7 years prison is wrong too: I don't think that anti-war sentiment should land you in gaol.
Good post.
:-/
And we do have big problems with freedom of speech here. Just the other day a radio interviewee tried to explain the point of view of Iraqi suicide bombers - trying to explain why they think it's "right" to blow up allied forces - and now the media has gone into a frenzy over this "unaustralian, terrorist loving peace hater". He now risks up to 7 years in prison under new anti-terrorism laws for "inciting terrorism". He was just a rational caucasian aussie man, not even muslim.
Islamic leaders in Australia are warning that if this is going to continue, the banning of open public forum debate on the issues in Iraq under the guise of "anti-terrorism", then discussion of "jihad" topics will only go underground, unchecked, and could possibly breed even more terrorism right here at home.
We've already removed books from bookshops.
Yep, it's the thought police. The radio station he was interviewed on can be found liable too. They will likely only recieve monetary fines, but still.
We definately have some messed up stuff going on - I just can't figure guns into the equation of a possible solution.
A violent assult against the government and its servants would only serve to repulse the general public against the assailant's cause. The government would use the violence to their advantage.
Additionally, I believe anyone who has the leadership skills to organise a large militia is also going to be able to influence politics using existing methods anyway. If things get so bad you have to "over-throw" them from the bottom-up instead of the usual process of top-down; I just think it's an almost hopeless battle. You have to contend with the hive-mind of the public, and have the media on your side. This is likely to be impossible unless the media themselves feel threatened by the government.
For now, the "revenue generating" stories are where they sensationalise any perceived terrorist sympathsiser "in our very own homeland". Likely, a new emerging militia will recieve equally depressing negative coverage in the name of profits, whilst missing the big picture. As usual.
I'm feeling quite depressed now...
If you're referring to me, I was not intending to promote "stricter gun controls". I just wanted to clear up the misconception that Australia "has no guns". I then justified why we have such "heavy" restrictions.
So perhaps I'm naive that we don't have a gun problem in Australia - I can only take your word for it. The gun owners I know that had guns "bought back" (about 6), weren't too shook up about it. Some were even excited, actually getting money for their faulty, disused or little-valued weapons.
I'm not denying we have some pretty fucked up shit happening in the govnerment. It seems it's now impossible to even discuss the suicide bomber's point of view in Iraq without risk of being thrown into prison for seven years for "inciting terrorism". The irony, of course, is that the most terrorism of all will be the misfortune our own citizens will face in the name of "anti-terrorism".
Also just wondering if you have been in the western suburbs of Sydney lately? No shortage of hardware there, of course all in the hands of lebanese, vietnamese and anglo (bikie) gangs (as is the inevitable outcome of gun laws brought into a country that was (is) absolutely full of weapons).
No I haven't. Actually, I hope I never have to go to Sydney. I also wonder if you're repeating common opinion or have actually witnessed this.
many many Australians have an aversion to pomp, sentimentality and tearful patriotism but also have a deep seated distrust in their government.
If it comes to that, I'm one of them. Nothing shits me more than "oi oi oi" and the persona presented on Today Tonight/A Current Affair.
Whatever you were trying to say there, I must admit, it went completely over my head.
However, the fact remains: Tyrannical government or not, do you think more guns increases our standard of living? Our security? Our freedom?
What is your point? On the one hand, you somehow think guns are going to allow us to individually do something about the government. I think this is laughable.
On the other hand, you're pushing this point that there are many illegal guns that remain in Australia. Here, you probably have a point. I don't pretend to know the local "underground" situation in Sydney or even Brisbane for that matter - all I can do is look at the official stats and compare them to the US.
Can you point out something I may have missed in deciding that these stats represent a downward trend in gun deaths? Additionally, they're not corrected for population growth, with the figures presented being shown in absolute numbers.
I really don't have a passion for politics and propaganda, scandal and conspiracy - I just want to do my own thing (preferrably without having to sleep with a gun under my pillow). Perhaps I'm naieve, but here, I'm just saying that more guns doesn't mean more good, or can it?
Okay, all very good thoughts and I respect that.
The original purpose of my post was to point out the incorrect notion that "Australia has no guns". Australia _DOES_ have guns (though restricted).
But I do take issue when what you think is good for your culture in your own country, is good for us too.
I strongly believe in my mind that unrestricted, unregulated free-for-all gun ownership would do far more harm than good in Australia.
Does comitting a crime entitle you to death? Do you feel qualified to sentence someone to death?
I know that throwing statistics around is distasteful, but nonetheless I invite you to look at this pretty graph presented in absolute numbers and tell me that we need more guns.
We have (or at least had) a very different culture here. I don't even know a friend of a friend of a friend who was a victim of a crime that involved guns. I don't know anyone through any vague acquaintency that was shot or murdered in some way via guns. I know one person involved in a shooting accident: he lost a finger. For the record, I grew up on a farm. I went shooting, with my friends too. We had a great time (in a sick kind of way) when I was about 14, shooting pest animals like kangaroos and feral pigs. When a shooting death occurs, it stays in the TV/papers for weeks.
We don't want to have to sleep with guns under our pillows. So whilst we can still have robbers lifting our loungeroom hifi system or ripping out our Sony head-units from the carpark, we at least don't have to fear the criminal will point a gun at us and kill us in an instant. I know people who have been involved in gang fights; knives were brandished, but no guns. Do criminals end up with guns? Yes. Do many petty crims use, or have ever used firearms? No.
I did not intend to say that your gun culture was "wrong", just that overall, for the values that we hold in our society (mostly the same as yours I guess but from a different point of view) it doesn't work here. Again, I was trying to justify our own gun restrictions, not demonise the American Way (tm).
Can you not at least acknowledge that in our case, not yours, that there is a possibility that more guns will only degrade our society and our standard of living?
I'm a little skeptical that should you need to overthrow a tyrannical government, that laws restricting the use of automatic weapons are going to be a significant obstical. You'll need a better plan than "buy big guns".
Thanks for the input. Australia gets called "the lucky country" (or perhaps that's what we call ourselves, who knows) because we were founded in peace. So for this reason I suppose I just can't grasp the "gun religion" culture the US has, formed out of the (comparitively) violent history you guys have had. Likewise, I would appreciate that USians stopped believing this adopting this attitude towards guns everywhere else in the world is going to make it a better place.