mashed post instead of preview as I waw collecting my thoughts. By "weirdness" I had heard twice now, since two years ago, that banking systems in particular have been compromised and it's ongoing and they haven't been able to stop it. The technique was allegedly able to go through firewalls because it was *requested*. I didn't understand it then and I don't know but it sounds like this deal in the article sliding in under the name server.
I was able to later on get to one of the mirrors. Appreciate the effort! I don't pretend to understand most of it, but I gathered a little. It seems... convulted and a lot of effort for little return, except in the *obscurity* of it. I can't see it being used for a whole lot despite variations on this:
*
o Rumors of various botnets / malware using DNS as a covert channel
--true stuff? Might explain some of the weirdness going on.
... open office this distro go around, because I realised in all the previous distros I never used the thing, not once, and it's hundreds of megs, a simple bear to keep upgraded on a dialup, etc. I made a few test pages and looked at it before, ok it looks like an office suite to me, but as I am not going to school, nor working in an office, etc, I can get by with any text editor out there for my writing needs. If it needs to look purty I know just enough html to be dangerous......
SO, to get back to slashdot reality, for those of us who can't see the power point, what are a few of the highlights and new and shiny ideas, if you would please and thankyou, and then folks can discuss it instead of just cussing it with no idea what's going on. OK, basic stuff I got the cliff notes version down: DNS, domain name service, translates words into numbers so ye olde browser or whatnot can get from here to there on the intarweb. The numbers are assigned by various poobahs with political overtones anc controversy, but it apparantly works. Someone gets money for doing this,because they sayso, and there's a few dozen whopper boxes sitting in nuclear bomb proof bunkers someplace that are the motherlode of rip snortin rootin tootin routin ability and all they do is DNS action when they aren't putting the moves on the female robots hanging around the bunkers or playing poker.
Oh man, this is just NEAT. I'm getting the bbc real feed on dialup and it's working pretty good.
man, way back when, I was the designated radio listener for space launches at my junior high. Would go out to the playground to listen to the space launches, then run in every 15 minutes and get on the PA system to give a "live" update. had to go outside to get the transistor radio to pick up any good stations, and I was one of the few people who even HAD a "transistor" as we used to call them. And now PRIVATE SPACE FLIGHT!
manomanomanoman
Any of you geezers remember how everything used to just stop and people would stay glued to their tvs or radios when we had ANY manned launch, and the coverage was full time start to finish? Way different now, I just ran my over the air tv dial-NADA- what a shame. Oh well, that's what the net is for, you can get what you want!
well, thanks. I'll try to keep more up on what is going on over there, even though it really doesn't apply a whole lot to me. I guess I got confused by the little summary.
my isp (small mom and pop outfit) is also a whitebox shop and has a big sign out front that says "we will fix your viruses". I think they like they can make a nice chunk of change off of relatively simple repairs, it's a steady business model. AFAIK talking to the guy who runs it, I'm the only linux user he has. Not saying this is true for all ISPs, but it's like "you" as joe homeuser getting them to do an oil change and tuneup and tire rotation for these shops, and most of them I have been in charge a pretty snazzy rate for de infesting machines and applying patches-all things the owners of the PCFs could do themselves, but most users choose to remain ignorant it appears,and don't make the effort, so the fixit repair shops take advantage of that, at least the first few times the users get nailed. Say 50$ or something a pop to have your box cleaned, it adds up. I imagine a lot of/. readers here make some nice loot off of windows insecurities and viruses, especially the ones who get hired to run networks or who get called in to fix stuff. No problems and everything running smooth = much less money made in *some* cases. I know that's a bit cyncical, but I bet it's true.
...for now, and I live out in the stix and don't have broadband,and I have certainly whined about it enough, but I STILL don't want anything that will mess up the radios. No SUH. I look at my radios as my ultimate backup communications tool. The telcos can go down, the internet can go down, the TV stations off air, cells can be jammed up-and I still have communication, and it's both ways commo if I want it. And you can get information in real time, from a variety of places all over the planet, with any normal multiband receiver and a chunk of scrap wire for an antenna, Under 50$ and you're in. And it costs zero but some minimal electric power, you don't even need grid power, run it off your car battery in an emergency. Free as in beer and free as in speech, short range down the block to around the world range- what's not to like? Let them study it some more in places that are using it, I read about in scotland I think they tried it, but don't just dump it out there and "see what happens". I'll wait for my broadband with low powered wifi and a directional antenna or if someone decides to run some better cablez down the road. We don't need to trade one form of electronic human communication for another, we can have BOTH if we are smart.
and what you say is correct, I'll grant that-take your word for it. What I am thinking is also correct though, by trying to be all things to all people all the time they dilute resources, have to work around a lot of inconsistencies, etc. There's nothing stopping any large desktop project like gnome from deciding on being an *integrated* project rather than a *scattered* project that tries to be the kitchen sink for eveything out there.
It's just an idea, no biggee. Here is my thinking in an anology form. If I was starting out to build a car, and I wanted it to be the best car, I wouldn't simultaneously try to build a car,a truck,a tractor,a motorcycle,an airplane, a submarine, and a ferris wheel all at the same time. In meat space, companies that are just starting out and have a good idea but get sidetracked and try that sort of model run into problems a lot of times. I think things would get scattered and confusing and would slow down the primary deal. Eventually maybe, ya, branch out,after your core important product is just super established and well built and well received and works really well, sure go for it then, branch out, but initially, nope, wouldn't do it for a long time, I'd stick with the meat and potatoes market I was looking for that would maybe bring home the bacon, make it easier on me, and better for the clients-initially.
... I live out in the country and I am SERIOUSLY considering getting a horse. I've worked with them before on a ranch and at a stables, but never owned one, but still... grow your own fuel, grow your own replacement vehicle, the same vehicle can be used for basic trannsportation, as a tractor in the garden and woodlot, etc. I got several vehicles to choose from to drive around and work with now, but still... it is not far fetched to think that the old fashioned way might become pretty valuable and "new" fashioned pretty quickly. Like say the worlds various nutjob "leaders" for one reason or another decide the middle east might be a good place to start tossing some nukes around in, how fast before normal civilisation slows to a crawl then? Like RIGHT NOW I think some aforementioned fatcat nutjob folks with the juice to pull it off are considering whacking iran with nukes, premeptively. It COULD happen. I think-just a hunch but I think-that things could get outta hand pretty qucikly then, and this go to the pumps get what ya want lifestyle could go buh bye. Who would have access to fuel? The government and uberrich and that's about it, with maybe a few gallons a week with a ration card or something. Lot of the dudes here at slashdot don't remember it, a lot of us here DO remember it, the OPEC embargo and how FAST your fuel reality can change, no matter the reason. If you can't get it or only can get 2 gallons, than that's it, you can bitch all you want to, but if the fatcats don't have it or won't cut it loose, you are screwed.
Pie in the sky hydrogen and backyard Mr. Fusion tech ain't here, and ain't gonna be here for awhile, and growing a lot of grains to make biodiesel/ethanol you might as well just feed it to yourself and the horse and be done with it, eliminate the middleman. I already got some solar and a wind genny so I'm covered for a minimum of electric for whatever that is worth. We heat primarily with wood, so that's covered. We use this idea called "shade" for cooling in the summer, that's all we got, and one small fan we could do without actually. It's only mid june and the garden is exploding already, we gots more food then we can hardly give away in the 'hood now. FUEL though no matter which alternative energy scheme you look at is a hassle, at least at what people would consider to be "normal" quantities. I've made some ethanol before and burned it in two motorcycles and one chain saw, so I know I got the skills to do that, but it takes a ton of some kind of carbohydrates to pull that off. You got to have *mass quantities* of sugars basically. The large scale outfits doing it are being cute and a little loose with the practicality aspects of it, they use huge quantities of diesel and oil and natural gas derived fertilisers and other stuff just to grow some sugars to turn them back into some sort of fuel, it's a circular illogicity in a lot of aspects. I guarantee mass farming like we know it just ceases without diesel and big quantites of electric and natural gas. It just STOPS, at least the way it's set up now. Just basic food without cheap diesel and cheap natural gas could rise to..geez, pick a number, 20x what it costs now maybe.
I just think at some point in time that this cushy lifestyle everyone is used to in the industralised whirrled is gonna get seriously b0rken. That's why I keep thinking of horses (or mules or whatever), hay burners. Worked for thousands of years. I also think the big oil guys and banks and whatnot KNOW this and are arranging reality to see who is the bigdog and who will actually own and control middle east oil, and i guarantee it don't got nuthin to do with "bringing democracy to the poor..." fill in the blanks ethnic groups. It's about WHO OWNZ THE OIL.
I remember my folks and my grandparents talking to me about the great depression. They were flat broke but existed more or less OK until the bogus bankers and taxes stole their land from them, which I think is part of why the depression occurred, a planned mass ripoff, but that's a side issue, we got
....why not, really? It's more than half way there already. When I think OS, I think the pile of applications I use. The gnome desktop and assembled apps are a GUI computing experience, that appears to me to be the design goal, they don't need much more to make a full fledged gnome OS, only real probs I could forsee would be which package manager they wanted to use, and they could put it to a vote probably.
Just a thought and I know in advance a lot of folks will say "you can do this with distroX, why should they....", I know that, just throwing it out for a possibility. Distros by and large are just choice of kernel, arch, how they package, pile 0 libraries, and what apps ya got. More or less.
... I'll be the first to admit I don't have all the answers. I managed to aquire *some* of the answers, which lead me to start questioning more. The more I question and learn, the more answers I get, but they lead to a doubling of the questions.
In a nutshell, these are a few of my beliefs at this time:
Not a hell of a lot of differences in the top levels of the two major political parties. They are both run by international big money interests more than any other demographic. As such, it's silly to think one group or the other "in power" in the public sphere will be much different than the other, when the real power is above them, and they are just the script readers. At lower levels-county and precinct, you have normal true believers, who are more or less just regular joes and janes who believe in the "system" and want their point of view extended and they sincerely think it will make a difference. This is normal, but to my view, borderline naieve, if you really watch what is SAID all the time as opposed to what actually HAPPENS all the time, and it's historically researchable, so again, just my POV, but there's not much excuse to keep up the charade of the "system" working beyond inertia and a lot of wishful thinking.
I am convinced there have been several mini coups which have taken place since I have been politically aware, and that there are overlapping and struggling power groups all fighting for supremecy in running the nation (world too). I don't think there's any one over all master plan/conspiracy, just a lot of gigantic crime cartels who's interest and alliances with each other wax and wane. It's just the sheer scale of some of them that makes those cartels significant. An analogy I like to use is that there are a lot of big wolf packs, all fighting for supremecy over the herds, and they only thing they agree on is that they are all wolves, and the rest of the planet is where the prey herds live that they use, so they fight over them, but stay united as "wolves", or predators.
I'm afraid that the premier all-powers intelligence service we have, the cia, is mostly corrupt at the top and in the entrenched bureaucracy, and has been since it's inception. Other intel agencies I am still evaluating, I think they have some corruption, but not nearly as much. Perhaps inside the dod are a few groups that are really nothing more than organized muscle for some power blocs and get used more for economic and political profit than for any sort of legit "national protection" service.. NSA I think by and large is not all evil. ONI is split down the middle. I really can't comment beyond there, my contacts aren't as good. The civilian agencies, like the fbi, have been long compromised,this is more or less public info, it goes way back, they have consistently persecuted any whistleblowers, exactly like they are doing to 9-11 whistleblowers now. The DEA are just nuts,whacko,and the BATF are trigger happy by design now. All the other I think 40 different federal copshops-ehh, who knows. WHY we need 40 odd something federal police agencies is beyond me, other than someone seems to think that civvies need a lot of "herding" to keep them "in line".
It's obvious that really big money calls all the shots-mostly- so that means banks and the market, including commodities, so that's wehere the true corruption starts. For them to continue to be corrupt takes the connivance of judges, and the big media, and I think that should be apparent. You don't get to be a big time judge without being in someones pocket. It just won't happen. You don't get to be a big time reporter if you rock all the boats. A small raft once in awhile, sure, they'll let a few get rocked. big ones? Nope, they tippy toe and ignore the real important stuff when they can. the internet is blowing them out of the water now, and they can't control it, one of the few nice things lately.
I think there's something to the "secret societies conspiracies" angle, but I am REALLY confused on that because there's so many of them and t
stalin, hitler, mao, pol pot, pinochet, the shah, and on and on were all widely popular initially in their respective nations. It's the herd mentality, and it's easier for cult like leaders to tell a big lie and keep repeating it then to tell small ones and having to keep proving them. More effective, too. Large political groups/nations do this all the time. Got a problem? Blame it on the other guy. In the meantime the real creators of the problem are probably pointing anyplace but at themselves. Happens more often than not.
Humans are by nature tribal, and social, which means they want to "belong" to something, and they want to think the other guys are wrong, because that makes them "better" somehow. Witness sports team fanaticism and rivalries. It's real, corporations make upmteen billions a year on the phenomenon. Carry it to an absurd level, you get jingoistic nationalism. Now I'm a nationalist myself, but I really try to not be a doofus about it, and to be able to recognize good/bad in most cases, and stay honest enough to change my views when presented with new good data. I also consider it my duty to help make things more honest, or better. It's really just a normal civilisation concept, do unto others, and etc. The golden rule. Some people do this, a lot don't, and an even higher number apparently don't think one way or the other on most subjects outside day to day mundanities. I am not condemning them per se, just noting it as a general observation.
In our original rebellion against royal rule, and taxation without representation, and the other abuses, only a small percentage were actually rebels. An equal number stayed tories, or supporters of the crown, while the vast bulk just blew in the wind and stayed wishy washy until they saw which way things were getting sorted out. What happens though is eventually everyone realises there is no such thing as neutrality, either side in a conflict will notice you aren't "with" them so ergo, you must be "against" them. Sucks, but there ya go.
Oh well, whatever happens, happens. And yes, aquire a firearm, get training,and practice. It's a nice sport, a variety of sports actually, there's a lot of geeky aspects to it, ballistics, etc are quite fascinating, and hardware is hardware, it's always cool.... and you never know when use of a tool might come in handy.
I'm a skeptic and deal in data. I don't know how old you are, but I'm old enough to have seen the government lie, I mean come up with whoppers, then years later it gets found out. Want a big one? Remember a little excursion called viet nam? We allegedly got attacked in the tonkin gulf by north vietnamese gunboats, so we had to go to war because they were gonna invade iowa any week later? that war not called a war but really was a war? I watched military goon after political lackey swear up and down that happened, eventually leading us into a more than a decade-long war, fifty thousand US dead, 2 to 3 million vietnamese dead. A war based on a total lie, just now this year offically admitted to, we have the released audio of mcnamara and johnson talking about it, yet all sorts of people-like me-kept saying it was a lie, and waited through drivel that statists like you spewed out for years and years. You aren't the first to defend a lie or liars, especially with not even a juvenile (and shopuld be embarrassing to you) debate 101 tactic. I don't know if it's on purpose, or you are uneducated, lack any sort of historical perspective, or if you get paid to do it, or what, but eventually, this generations governmental lies will become more well known than they are now, and the liars will be universally recognized as such. Already, hundreds of millions around the planet can see they are liars, funny you seemed to have missed any of the news lately. And frankly, with a tool like the internet, there is no excuse to remain uninformed any longer except crass laziness. Are you still maintaining that iraq = al queda and they bought uranium from niger? Is that a fact, or is it a lie? Which is it, binary answer now. So if I say it's a lie, and it's proven, that makes it..what? To me, that makes it just a statement of data. It is not a theory now, it's data, even the government who first claimed it admits it's a lie. that makes them *liars* because they got told it was a lie before they uttered it in public, at the state of the union message, and in front of the Un security council.
I am a skeptic, and going from past governments track record, it is prudent to be skeptical of their statements, and to look for a wide range of sources and information before coming to a conclusion. Do you do that? Do you think I want my government to be lying, that this gives me some sort of pleasure? Do you think I like seeing people mislead, lied to, and murdered and thieved from, whether americans or others?
I have several personal friends suffering from the lingering effects of agent orange poisoning, based on the lies the war and political profiteers spewed way back then. The government - military, scientists, politicians, all declared *at the time* that it was perfectly safe, that it wasn' t chemical warfare (how spraying chemicals isn't chemical is beyond me, but it's what they claimed). Turns out, they were lying, thousands died a pretty horrible death, suffering from it, hundreds of thousands in viet nam suffered from it, and they knew they were lying at the time, they just waited for a couple of decades and change to admit to it, that and after thousands of people showed them the facts and kept embarrassing them in public. Is this "conspiracy theory" or data? I say it's data, proven, but I heard a lot of drivel that it wasn't true-from the liars, bbecause that is their nature, commit crimes and lie about them. It's a simple concept. It's one of the things criminals do, they lie.
In short, your extremely amateur trolling means nothing, except people can read the entire exchange and realise that nothing has changed in the mindset of criminals or criminal supporters-they lie by choice, with phony sincerity, or with malicious sarcasm, which means they are clinically sociopathic, and they always deny involvement, or excuse it, which shows they are psychopathic.
Have a good one, next time send someone competent, perhaps with a higher GS rating. You won't make the data go away, it's still there, an
A boss that has actually come up through the ranks and successfully performed with all the tasks required IS someone you can go to with a problem or advice and who might listen to you. Conversely, I have had (thankfully not too many) bosses who were just college degreed "managers" and who were pretty lame and dismal, it's like they just hallucinate reality and you are supposed to reproduce it some magical way. nuts.. Now I am coming from a blue collar background, but I bet the same general rules apply in IT. Frankly, I never could understand how someone who has no clue about the actual work being done could be in any way qualified to be a "boss" of said work. In fact, they're oughta be a law you can't be a boss without doing the job first and proving competency, and for a long time, to boot.
... analysts who look at all the angles, have been pointing out for years that the US has been hijacked and is being run by a shadow government composed of various criminal cliques inside the civilian and military branches in government, with ties to international banking and various other interests inside what has become known as the military industrial complex. And a general and president warned us to be aware of this possibility, to be vigilant to protect out liberty, because he saw it coming, and used his farewell address to the nation on his retirement to emphasize this. I would call that a credible source for one. And several of the predictions indicate it would be a one step at a time manuever, and they would use lies and deceit to create over-blown artifical threats, sometimes even resorting to terrorism themselves in order to get supra governmental powers "granted" to them.
As far as I can see, they suceeded, and continue with their sucess.
google for the northwoods documents for a starter. Then go re-research the reichstagg fire. Then go google for 9-11, government prior knowledge.
Foreign "terrorists" did not remove a single born with right I have, my own government seeks to do so though, and it is apparent to me they can lie and lie with complete impugnity to do so.
And it's precisely because they have so many 100% "order followers" that they can continue to get away with it.
Heglian dialectic, currently US government official policy
1-Create a problem. 2-Garner the reaction you wanted to get. 3-Offer a "solution" to the problem you created. 4-Profit!
... the do so at their peril. Just following orders is no excuse to engage in supporting despotism. The possee comitatus act allows for the military to be used in extreme circumstances inside the united states, so it becomes a matter of interpretation on a case by case basis. You are required to follow orders, but not illegal orders. The commander in chief does not have a blank check in these matters, although current thinking and actions by the military tend to indicate they don't understand this very well,(don't *want to understand it* is more my opinion), and your two examples ARE examples of it being abused, yet the orders got followed. Pity. Bad precedents after bad precedents. Following illegal orders puts you outside your oath, because if the person issuing you the order is doing so illegally, you must not follow it, and any citizen being persecuted by this illegal order has the moral and legal remedy of resisting whatever is being forced upon him. that's in the laws as well as all the other stuff.
Anecdotal but a few years ago my nephew, a career army nco, quit. He refused to re up despite being offered a huge amount of cash to do so. He is not very political,never was as far back as I can remember, but he told me he simply refused to go along with what he knew was coming, martial law,dictatorial military rule, and especially he didn't agree with what they were trying to brainwash him into, which is that the second amendment is only a government granted privelege, not a born with right, and that only regular military, the guard, and selected civilian police have any "right" to keep and bear. He also said it was rare to hear the term "civilian" without it being part of "fingcivilian" to help get that mindset established, part of a demonisation processs, similar to what police are undergoing today. The stories he related to me indicated that that is an on-purpose aspect, an indoctrination they are carrying out for the future. My personal opinion is that it is an accurrate assessment of his,because I haave heard correlating anecdotals based on talking to a number of other individuals I know who were serving. He was instructing at west point at the time, and I tell you, I was shocked. Here's a young man who liked baseball, girls, 4 wheel drives and hunting, and it was his interest in guns and hunting and being exposed to some gunrights information, etc, before he joined that clued him into what was going down. He did NOT want to quit, he had purposely gone in directly out of high school,just like his father way back, my BIL, but he stuck to his principles and did, he wanted nothing to do with todays new "follow any orders no matter what" army.
I think the trends are ominous, and I am not exaggerating when I will state I feel the USA in 2004 has more parallels with mid 30's germany than most people want to admit to right now.
Here, you can state an opinion as long as you don't make it a declarative. For instance, I can say (this is rough, but along these lines), "IMO, Senator Lardbottom is a bottom sucking scum muncher" whereas if I said "I saw Senator Lardbottom eating scum from the bottom of the pond",that's an exact declarative, designed to denigrate and slander him in public, then I'd have to be prepared to actually prove it because I could get sued. It also depends on whether or not malice is intended, and we have a few differences between "public"people and "proivate" people. "Celebrities" or people in the news commonly are expected to absorb a bit more abuse than most people. I forget the exact definitions now, but it's look-uppable under libel and slander, they are slighly different. A lawsuit then gets sticky pretty quick.
As regards the brazilian gents comments, I believe I read his analogy correctly with regards drug dealing. The old classical method is the first shot of heroin say is free or cheap from the dealer, you get addicted to it and can not quit, then the dealer jacks up the price back to whatever the going rate is. Once you are hooked, you can't get away easily. MS offers closed source propietary, offers a deal, gets huge amounts of business established, then has you hard and stuck to them by being forced to keep upgrading to incompatable versions, etc. They also use their power in "turf" battles like drug dealers in a way, abusing their market-share positions to force computer vendors to bundle their software "or else", etc. A drug dealer might use similar tactics to keep rival drug dealers out of his area. So I see it fairly as an accurate analogy.
I couldn't see this case getting off the ground in the US, but I guess Brazil has a more strict interpretation of it, goes probably with cultural machismo perhaps and honor or something.
I can see it happening. It's just following the trends we are seeing the past several years. All they have to do is mutter something about terrorism or "protect the children" and they seem to get whatever they want passed into law. We have SO many apparent obvious violations and contradictions in what passes for constitutional law, and we have no practical way other than jury nullification to fight them. You certainly can't rely on congress, no apparent constituional checks before asny law is passed. And "taking it all the way to the supreme court" is no guarantee it will be either heard, nor even if it is heard, that they will use the english language in "interpreting" it. Look how long the miller decision has stood. I mean, you can just go find some links on the net to show that short barrel shotguns, etc, were used in ww1. Look at the endangered species act, which results in government taking without compensation. No knock raids, etc. The IRS seizing bank accounts and tangible assets with no trial, charges, case, anything. Local police being authorised to seize cash if in their opinion you have "too much" on you. You need "permission" to travel. Letting a consortium of private banks issue debt instruments that can never be paid back because they control how many units may be legally circulated, and charge us back "interest". On and on. Nuts. We need a regime change Mr. President.
And BTW, aren't you sorry now you surrounded yourself with those goons who set you up and betrayed you, and who talked you into Keynesian economics and bankrolling red china? Shows ya what happens when you go to bohemian grove... and that K guy....man... talk about getting sucker punched.
This is illegal in brazil? There's no difference between an analogy and a statement of (alleged) fact? Pretty strange methinks. So you can't have an opinion, even if it's based on data that can be verified, and use an analogy to describe your opinion. Seems like normal conversations might get a scosh weird then, how can you discuss various things there without going to court every other day?
.... MOVE private funded space research to a more hospitable nation, and just ignore the united states. Pick any underfunded but enthusiastic second or third world country that needs a shot in the arm national prestige-wise and wouldn't mind being the recipient of a new global enterprise of such an import. There is bound to be a more hospitable nation that has enough resources and would embrace this enthusiastically. Hmm, how about brazil? Or on the african continent, mozambique? Does anyone else have any nations to promote who might want to do this? I initially in the last space thread mentioned russia as a possibility, because it has a national structure and resources for space research, but in a days retrospect on it, and viewing even more news from there, I just don't know if it could be pulled off there, due to...well, current business climates and political uncertainties shall we say. I wouldn't rule them out, just perhaps it might be more prudent to look elsewhere.
Anyway, there has to be another nation that would consider this without near the amount of hassle. Perhaps even "authorising" 90% peroxide as fuel for a start.
Slashdot Mirror
mashed post instead of preview as I waw collecting my thoughts. By "weirdness" I had heard twice now, since two years ago, that banking systems in particular have been compromised and it's ongoing and they haven't been able to stop it. The technique was allegedly able to go through firewalls because it was *requested*. I didn't understand it then and I don't know but it sounds like this deal in the article sliding in under the name server.
I was able to later on get to one of the mirrors. Appreciate the effort! I don't pretend to understand most of it, but I gathered a little. It seems... convulted and a lot of effort for little return, except in the *obscurity* of it. I can't see it being used for a whole lot despite variations on this:
*
o Rumors of various botnets / malware using DNS as a covert channel
--true stuff? Might explain some of the weirdness going on.
... open office this distro go around, because I realised in all the previous distros I never used the thing, not once, and it's hundreds of megs, a simple bear to keep upgraded on a dialup, etc. I made a few test pages and looked at it before, ok it looks like an office suite to me, but as I am not going to school, nor working in an office, etc, I can get by with any text editor out there for my writing needs. If it needs to look purty I know just enough html to be dangerous......
SO, to get back to slashdot reality, for those of us who can't see the power point, what are a few of the highlights and new and shiny ideas, if you would please and thankyou, and then folks can discuss it instead of just cussing it with no idea what's going on. OK, basic stuff I got the cliff notes version down: DNS, domain name service, translates words into numbers so ye olde browser or whatnot can get from here to there on the intarweb. The numbers are assigned by various poobahs with political overtones anc controversy, but it apparantly works. Someone gets money for doing this,because they sayso, and there's a few dozen whopper boxes sitting in nuclear bomb proof bunkers someplace that are the motherlode of rip snortin rootin tootin routin ability and all they do is DNS action when they aren't putting the moves on the female robots hanging around the bunkers or playing poker.
And so on.
So... what's next?
some of the words and specs around if you want to dunk this troll bait in the water. Man this is an old one.
to dick, mel, steve, the rest of their team, the ansari X prize consortium, and the admins at bbc who mashed the turbo button on their video servers.
WAY TO GO GUYS! Serious congrats!
And you lucky slashdotters who got to see it live, make with the observations soonest!
Oh man, this is just NEAT. I'm getting the bbc real feed on dialup and it's working pretty good.
man, way back when, I was the designated radio listener for space launches at my junior high. Would go out to the playground to listen to the space launches, then run in every 15 minutes and get on the PA system to give a "live" update. had to go outside to get the transistor radio to pick up any good stations, and I was one of the few people who even HAD a "transistor" as we used to call them. And now PRIVATE SPACE FLIGHT!
manomanomanoman
Any of you geezers remember how everything used to just stop and people would stay glued to their tvs or radios when we had ANY manned launch, and the coverage was full time start to finish? Way different now, I just ran my over the air tv dial-NADA- what a shame. Oh well, that's what the net is for, you can get what you want!
too FREEKING cool!
well, thanks. I'll try to keep more up on what is going on over there, even though it really doesn't apply a whole lot to me. I guess I got confused by the little summary.
my isp (small mom and pop outfit) is also a whitebox shop and has a big sign out front that says "we will fix your viruses". I think they like they can make a nice chunk of change off of relatively simple repairs, it's a steady business model. AFAIK talking to the guy who runs it, I'm the only linux user he has. Not saying this is true for all ISPs, but it's like "you" as joe homeuser getting them to do an oil change and tuneup and tire rotation for these shops, and most of them I have been in charge a pretty snazzy rate for de infesting machines and applying patches-all things the owners of the PCFs could do themselves, but most users choose to remain ignorant it appears,and don't make the effort, so the fixit repair shops take advantage of that, at least the first few times the users get nailed. Say 50$ or something a pop to have your box cleaned, it adds up. I imagine a lot of /. readers here make some nice loot off of windows insecurities and viruses, especially the ones who get hired to run networks or who get called in to fix stuff. No problems and everything running smooth = much less money made in *some* cases. I know that's a bit cyncical, but I bet it's true.
...for now, and I live out in the stix and don't have broadband,and I have certainly whined about it enough, but I STILL don't want anything that will mess up the radios. No SUH. I look at my radios as my ultimate backup communications tool. The telcos can go down, the internet can go down, the TV stations off air, cells can be jammed up-and I still have communication, and it's both ways commo if I want it. And you can get information in real time, from a variety of places all over the planet, with any normal multiband receiver and a chunk of scrap wire for an antenna, Under 50$ and you're in. And it costs zero but some minimal electric power, you don't even need grid power, run it off your car battery in an emergency. Free as in beer and free as in speech, short range down the block to around the world range- what's not to like? Let them study it some more in places that are using it, I read about in scotland I think they tried it, but don't just dump it out there and "see what happens". I'll wait for my broadband with low powered wifi and a directional antenna or if someone decides to run some better cablez down the road. We don't need to trade one form of electronic human communication for another, we can have BOTH if we are smart.
Have to admit I am astonished. I had NO idea they WEREN'T working on IE!
I guess I gotta read beyond the headlines here. usually I do before I post, I'm pretty good about RTFA, but... I was just floored when I saw that.
and what you say is correct, I'll grant that-take your word for it. What I am thinking is also correct though, by trying to be all things to all people all the time they dilute resources, have to work around a lot of inconsistencies, etc. There's nothing stopping any large desktop project like gnome from deciding on being an *integrated* project rather than a *scattered* project that tries to be the kitchen sink for eveything out there.
It's just an idea, no biggee. Here is my thinking in an anology form. If I was starting out to build a car, and I wanted it to be the best car, I wouldn't simultaneously try to build a car,a truck,a tractor,a motorcycle,an airplane, a submarine, and a ferris wheel all at the same time. In meat space, companies that are just starting out and have a good idea but get sidetracked and try that sort of model run into problems a lot of times. I think things would get scattered and confusing and would slow down the primary deal. Eventually maybe, ya, branch out,after your core important product is just super established and well built and well received and works really well, sure go for it then, branch out, but initially, nope, wouldn't do it for a long time, I'd stick with the meat and potatoes market I was looking for that would maybe bring home the bacon, make it easier on me, and better for the clients-initially.
... I live out in the country and I am SERIOUSLY considering getting a horse. I've worked with them before on a ranch and at a stables, but never owned one, but still... grow your own fuel, grow your own replacement vehicle, the same vehicle can be used for basic trannsportation, as a tractor in the garden and woodlot, etc. I got several vehicles to choose from to drive around and work with now, but still... it is not far fetched to think that the old fashioned way might become pretty valuable and "new" fashioned pretty quickly. Like say the worlds various nutjob "leaders" for one reason or another decide the middle east might be a good place to start tossing some nukes around in, how fast before normal civilisation slows to a crawl then? Like RIGHT NOW I think some aforementioned fatcat nutjob folks with the juice to pull it off are considering whacking iran with nukes, premeptively. It COULD happen. I think-just a hunch but I think-that things could get outta hand pretty qucikly then, and this go to the pumps get what ya want lifestyle could go buh bye. Who would have access to fuel? The government and uberrich and that's about it, with maybe a few gallons a week with a ration card or something. Lot of the dudes here at slashdot don't remember it, a lot of us here DO remember it, the OPEC embargo and how FAST your fuel reality can change, no matter the reason. If you can't get it or only can get 2 gallons, than that's it, you can bitch all you want to, but if the fatcats don't have it or won't cut it loose, you are screwed.
Pie in the sky hydrogen and backyard Mr. Fusion tech ain't here, and ain't gonna be here for awhile, and growing a lot of grains to make biodiesel/ethanol you might as well just feed it to yourself and the horse and be done with it, eliminate the middleman. I already got some solar and a wind genny so I'm covered for a minimum of electric for whatever that is worth. We heat primarily with wood, so that's covered. We use this idea called "shade" for cooling in the summer, that's all we got, and one small fan we could do without actually. It's only mid june and the garden is exploding already, we gots more food then we can hardly give away in the 'hood now. FUEL though no matter which alternative energy scheme you look at is a hassle, at least at what people would consider to be "normal" quantities. I've made some ethanol before and burned it in two motorcycles and one chain saw, so I know I got the skills to do that, but it takes a ton of some kind of carbohydrates to pull that off. You got to have *mass quantities* of sugars basically. The large scale outfits doing it are being cute and a little loose with the practicality aspects of it, they use huge quantities of diesel and oil and natural gas derived fertilisers and other stuff just to grow some sugars to turn them back into some sort of fuel, it's a circular illogicity in a lot of aspects. I guarantee mass farming like we know it just ceases without diesel and big quantites of electric and natural gas. It just STOPS, at least the way it's set up now. Just basic food without cheap diesel and cheap natural gas could rise to..geez, pick a number, 20x what it costs now maybe.
I just think at some point in time that this cushy lifestyle everyone is used to in the industralised whirrled is gonna get seriously b0rken. That's why I keep thinking of horses (or mules or whatever), hay burners. Worked for thousands of years. I also think the big oil guys and banks and whatnot KNOW this and are arranging reality to see who is the bigdog and who will actually own and control middle east oil, and i guarantee it don't got nuthin to do with "bringing democracy to the poor..." fill in the blanks ethnic groups. It's about WHO OWNZ THE OIL.
I remember my folks and my grandparents talking to me about the great depression. They were flat broke but existed more or less OK until the bogus bankers and taxes stole their land from them, which I think is part of why the depression occurred, a planned mass ripoff, but that's a side issue, we got
....why not, really? It's more than half way there already. When I think OS, I think the pile of applications I use. The gnome desktop and assembled apps are a GUI computing experience, that appears to me to be the design goal, they don't need much more to make a full fledged gnome OS, only real probs I could forsee would be which package manager they wanted to use, and they could put it to a vote probably.
Just a thought and I know in advance a lot of folks will say "you can do this with distroX, why should they....", I know that, just throwing it out for a possibility. Distros by and large are just choice of kernel, arch, how they package, pile 0 libraries, and what apps ya got. More or less.
the main thing here is the content. Read at low enough level, you'll get most of the decent stuff.
although I do think it would be funnier if there were dozens more different descriptions with a modifier.
like:
-16 "please run this through babble fish again"
+89 "clearly not mortal"
-27 "too bad moore's law doesn't apply to your computer/OS"
+35 "wow! where is your paypal donation link?"
-45 "yes, we know you have a decent technical opinion, but please, next time remember to wear your pants to work"
and so on.....
... I'll be the first to admit I don't have all the answers. I managed to aquire *some* of the answers, which lead me to start questioning more. The more I question and learn, the more answers I get, but they lead to a doubling of the questions.
In a nutshell, these are a few of my beliefs at this time:
Not a hell of a lot of differences in the top levels of the two major political parties. They are both run by international big money interests more than any other demographic. As such, it's silly to think one group or the other "in power" in the public sphere will be much different than the other, when the real power is above them, and they are just the script readers. At lower levels-county and precinct, you have normal true believers, who are more or less just regular joes and janes who believe in the "system" and want their point of view extended and they sincerely think it will make a difference. This is normal, but to my view, borderline naieve, if you really watch what is SAID all the time as opposed to what actually HAPPENS all the time, and it's historically researchable, so again, just my POV, but there's not much excuse to keep up the charade of the "system" working beyond inertia and a lot of wishful thinking.
I am convinced there have been several mini coups which have taken place since I have been politically aware, and that there are overlapping and struggling power groups all fighting for supremecy in running the nation (world too). I don't think there's any one over all master plan/conspiracy, just a lot of gigantic crime cartels who's interest and alliances with each other wax and wane. It's just the sheer scale of some of them that makes those cartels significant. An analogy I like to use is that there are a lot of big wolf packs, all fighting for supremecy over the herds, and they only thing they agree on is that they are all wolves, and the rest of the planet is where the prey herds live that they use, so they fight over them, but stay united as "wolves", or predators.
I'm afraid that the premier all-powers intelligence service we have, the cia, is mostly corrupt at the top and in the entrenched bureaucracy, and has been since it's inception. Other intel agencies I am still evaluating, I think they have some corruption, but not nearly as much. Perhaps inside the dod are a few groups that are really nothing more than organized muscle for some power blocs and get used more for economic and political profit than for any sort of legit "national protection" service.. NSA I think by and large is not all evil. ONI is split down the middle. I really can't comment beyond there, my contacts aren't as good. The civilian agencies, like the fbi, have been long compromised,this is more or less public info, it goes way back, they have consistently persecuted any whistleblowers, exactly like they are doing to 9-11 whistleblowers now. The DEA are just nuts,whacko,and the BATF are trigger happy by design now. All the other I think 40 different federal copshops-ehh, who knows. WHY we need 40 odd something federal police agencies is beyond me, other than someone seems to think that civvies need a lot of "herding" to keep them "in line".
It's obvious that really big money calls all the shots-mostly- so that means banks and the market, including commodities, so that's wehere the true corruption starts. For them to continue to be corrupt takes the connivance of judges, and the big media, and I think that should be apparent. You don't get to be a big time judge without being in someones pocket. It just won't happen. You don't get to be a big time reporter if you rock all the boats. A small raft once in awhile, sure, they'll let a few get rocked. big ones? Nope, they tippy toe and ignore the real important stuff when they can. the internet is blowing them out of the water now, and they can't control it, one of the few nice things lately.
I think there's something to the "secret societies conspiracies" angle, but I am REALLY confused on that because there's so many of them and t
stalin, hitler, mao, pol pot, pinochet, the shah, and on and on were all widely popular initially in their respective nations. It's the herd mentality, and it's easier for cult like leaders to tell a big lie and keep repeating it then to tell small ones and having to keep proving them. More effective, too. Large political groups/nations do this all the time. Got a problem? Blame it on the other guy. In the meantime the real creators of the problem are probably pointing anyplace but at themselves. Happens more often than not.
Humans are by nature tribal, and social, which means they want to "belong" to something, and they want to think the other guys are wrong, because that makes them "better" somehow. Witness sports team fanaticism and rivalries. It's real, corporations make upmteen billions a year on the phenomenon. Carry it to an absurd level, you get jingoistic nationalism. Now I'm a nationalist myself, but I really try to not be a doofus about it, and to be able to recognize good/bad in most cases, and stay honest enough to change my views when presented with new good data. I also consider it my duty to help make things more honest, or better. It's really just a normal civilisation concept, do unto others, and etc. The golden rule. Some people do this, a lot don't, and an even higher number apparently don't think one way or the other on most subjects outside day to day mundanities. I am not condemning them per se, just noting it as a general observation.
In our original rebellion against royal rule, and taxation without representation, and the other abuses, only a small percentage were actually rebels. An equal number stayed tories, or supporters of the crown, while the vast bulk just blew in the wind and stayed wishy washy until they saw which way things were getting sorted out. What happens though is eventually everyone realises there is no such thing as neutrality, either side in a conflict will notice you aren't "with" them so ergo, you must be "against" them. Sucks, but there ya go.
Oh well, whatever happens, happens. And yes, aquire a firearm, get training,and practice. It's a nice sport, a variety of sports actually, there's a lot of geeky aspects to it, ballistics, etc are quite fascinating, and hardware is hardware, it's always cool.... and you never know when use of a tool might come in handy.
I'm a skeptic and deal in data. I don't know how old you are, but I'm old enough to have seen the government lie, I mean come up with whoppers, then years later it gets found out. Want a big one? Remember a little excursion called viet nam? We allegedly got attacked in the tonkin gulf by north vietnamese gunboats, so we had to go to war because they were gonna invade iowa any week later? that war not called a war but really was a war? I watched military goon after political lackey swear up and down that happened, eventually leading us into a more than a decade-long war, fifty thousand US dead, 2 to 3 million vietnamese dead. A war based on a total lie, just now this year offically admitted to, we have the released audio of mcnamara and johnson talking about it, yet all sorts of people-like me-kept saying it was a lie, and waited through drivel that statists like you spewed out for years and years. You aren't the first to defend a lie or liars, especially with not even a juvenile (and shopuld be embarrassing to you) debate 101 tactic. I don't know if it's on purpose, or you are uneducated, lack any sort of historical perspective, or if you get paid to do it, or what, but eventually, this generations governmental lies will become more well known than they are now, and the liars will be universally recognized as such. Already, hundreds of millions around the planet can see they are liars, funny you seemed to have missed any of the news lately. And frankly, with a tool like the internet, there is no excuse to remain uninformed any longer except crass laziness. Are you still maintaining that iraq = al queda and they bought uranium from niger? Is that a fact, or is it a lie? Which is it, binary answer now. So if I say it's a lie, and it's proven, that makes it ..what? To me, that makes it just a statement of data. It is not a theory now, it's data, even the government who first claimed it admits it's a lie. that makes them *liars* because they got told it was a lie before they uttered it in public, at the state of the union message, and in front of the Un security council.
I am a skeptic, and going from past governments track record, it is prudent to be skeptical of their statements, and to look for a wide range of sources and information before coming to a conclusion. Do you do that? Do you think I want my government to be lying, that this gives me some sort of pleasure? Do you think I like seeing people mislead, lied to, and murdered and thieved from, whether americans or others?
I have several personal friends suffering from the lingering effects of agent orange poisoning, based on the lies the war and political profiteers spewed way back then. The government - military, scientists, politicians, all declared *at the time* that it was perfectly safe, that it wasn'
t chemical warfare (how spraying chemicals isn't chemical is beyond me, but it's what they claimed). Turns out, they were lying, thousands died a pretty horrible death, suffering from it, hundreds of thousands in viet nam suffered from it, and they knew they were lying at the time, they just waited for a couple of decades and change to admit to it, that and after thousands of people showed them the facts and kept embarrassing them in public. Is this "conspiracy theory" or data? I say it's data, proven, but I heard a lot of drivel that it wasn't true-from the liars, bbecause that is their nature, commit crimes and lie about them. It's a simple concept. It's one of the things criminals do, they lie.
In short, your extremely amateur trolling means nothing, except people can read the entire exchange and realise that nothing has changed in the mindset of criminals or criminal supporters-they lie by choice, with phony sincerity, or with malicious sarcasm, which means they are clinically sociopathic, and they always deny involvement, or excuse it, which shows they are psychopathic.
Have a good one, next time send someone competent, perhaps with a higher GS rating. You won't make the data go away, it's still there, an
... why you got a troll modifier. Looks like a simple legit question to me.
Full moon maybe...
A boss that has actually come up through the ranks and successfully performed with all the tasks required IS someone you can go to with a problem or advice and who might listen to you. Conversely, I have had (thankfully not too many) bosses who were just college degreed "managers" and who were pretty lame and dismal, it's like they just hallucinate reality and you are supposed to reproduce it some magical way. nuts.. Now I am coming from a blue collar background, but I bet the same general rules apply in IT. Frankly, I never could understand how someone who has no clue about the actual work being done could be in any way qualified to be a "boss" of said work. In fact, they're oughta be a law you can't be a boss without doing the job first and proving competency, and for a long time, to boot.
... analysts who look at all the angles, have been pointing out for years that the US has been hijacked and is being run by a shadow government composed of various criminal cliques inside the civilian and military branches in government, with ties to international banking and various other interests inside what has become known as the military industrial complex. And a general and president warned us to be aware of this possibility, to be vigilant to protect out liberty, because he saw it coming, and used his farewell address to the nation on his retirement to emphasize this. I would call that a credible source for one. And several of the predictions indicate it would be a one step at a time manuever, and they would use lies and deceit to create over-blown artifical threats, sometimes even resorting to terrorism themselves in order to get supra governmental powers "granted" to them.
As far as I can see, they suceeded, and continue with their sucess.
google for the northwoods documents for a starter. Then go re-research the reichstagg fire. Then go google for 9-11, government prior knowledge.
Foreign "terrorists" did not remove a single born with right I have, my own government seeks to do so though, and it is apparent to me they can lie and lie with complete impugnity to do so.
And it's precisely because they have so many 100% "order followers" that they can continue to get away with it.
Heglian dialectic, currently US government official policy
1-Create a problem.
2-Garner the reaction you wanted to get.
3-Offer a "solution" to the problem you created.
4-Profit!
... the do so at their peril. Just following orders is no excuse to engage in supporting despotism. The possee comitatus act allows for the military to be used in extreme circumstances inside the united states, so it becomes a matter of interpretation on a case by case basis. You are required to follow orders, but not illegal orders. The commander in chief does not have a blank check in these matters, although current thinking and actions by the military tend to indicate they don't understand this very well,(don't *want to understand it* is more my opinion), and your two examples ARE examples of it being abused, yet the orders got followed. Pity. Bad precedents after bad precedents. Following illegal orders puts you outside your oath, because if the person issuing you the order is doing so illegally, you must not follow it, and any citizen being persecuted by this illegal order has the moral and legal remedy of resisting whatever is being forced upon him. that's in the laws as well as all the other stuff.
Anecdotal but a few years ago my nephew, a career army nco, quit. He refused to re up despite being offered a huge amount of cash to do so. He is not very political,never was as far back as I can remember, but he told me he simply refused to go along with what he knew was coming, martial law,dictatorial military rule, and especially he didn't agree with what they were trying to brainwash him into, which is that the second amendment is only a government granted privelege, not a born with right, and that only regular military, the guard, and selected civilian police have any "right" to keep and bear. He also said it was rare to hear the term "civilian" without it being part of "fingcivilian" to help get that mindset established, part of a demonisation processs, similar to what police are undergoing today. The stories he related to me indicated that that is an on-purpose aspect, an indoctrination they are carrying out for the future. My personal opinion is that it is an accurrate assessment of his,because I haave heard correlating anecdotals based on talking to a number of other individuals I know who were serving. He was instructing at west point at the time, and I tell you, I was shocked. Here's a young man who liked baseball, girls, 4 wheel drives and hunting, and it was his interest in guns and hunting and being exposed to some gunrights information, etc, before he joined that clued him into what was going down. He did NOT want to quit, he had purposely gone in directly out of high school,just like his father way back, my BIL, but he stuck to his principles and did, he wanted nothing to do with todays new "follow any orders no matter what" army.
I think the trends are ominous, and I am not exaggerating when I will state I feel the USA in 2004 has more parallels with mid 30's germany than most people want to admit to right now.
Here, you can state an opinion as long as you don't make it a declarative. For instance, I can say (this is rough, but along these lines), "IMO, Senator Lardbottom is a bottom sucking scum muncher" whereas if I said "I saw Senator Lardbottom eating scum from the bottom of the pond",that's an exact declarative, designed to denigrate and slander him in public, then I'd have to be prepared to actually prove it because I could get sued. It also depends on whether or not malice is intended, and we have a few differences between "public"people and "proivate" people. "Celebrities" or people in the news commonly are expected to absorb a bit more abuse than most people. I forget the exact definitions now, but it's look-uppable under libel and slander, they are slighly different. A lawsuit then gets sticky pretty quick.
As regards the brazilian gents comments, I believe I read his analogy correctly with regards drug dealing. The old classical method is the first shot of heroin say is free or cheap from the dealer, you get addicted to it and can not quit, then the dealer jacks up the price back to whatever the going rate is. Once you are hooked, you can't get away easily. MS offers closed source propietary, offers a deal, gets huge amounts of business established, then has you hard and stuck to them by being forced to keep upgrading to incompatable versions, etc. They also use their power in "turf" battles like drug dealers in a way, abusing their market-share positions to force computer vendors to bundle their software "or else", etc. A drug dealer might use similar tactics to keep rival drug dealers out of his area. So I see it fairly as an accurate analogy.
I couldn't see this case getting off the ground in the US, but I guess Brazil has a more strict interpretation of it, goes probably with cultural machismo perhaps and honor or something.
I can see it happening. It's just following the trends we are seeing the past several years. All they have to do is mutter something about terrorism or "protect the children" and they seem to get whatever they want passed into law. We have SO many apparent obvious violations and contradictions in what passes for constitutional law, and we have no practical way other than jury nullification to fight them. You certainly can't rely on congress, no apparent constituional checks before asny law is passed. And "taking it all the way to the supreme court" is no guarantee it will be either heard, nor even if it is heard, that they will use the english language in "interpreting" it. Look how long the miller decision has stood. I mean, you can just go find some links on the net to show that short barrel shotguns, etc, were used in ww1. Look at the endangered species act, which results in government taking without compensation. No knock raids, etc. The IRS seizing bank accounts and tangible assets with no trial, charges, case, anything. Local police being authorised to seize cash if in their opinion you have "too much" on you. You need "permission" to travel. Letting a consortium of private banks issue debt instruments that can never be paid back because they control how many units may be legally circulated, and charge us back "interest". On and on. Nuts. We need a regime change Mr. President.
And BTW, aren't you sorry now you surrounded yourself with those goons who set you up and betrayed you, and who talked you into Keynesian economics and bankrolling red china? Shows ya what happens when you go to bohemian grove... and that K guy....man... talk about getting sucker punched.
%^)
This is illegal in brazil? There's no difference between an analogy and a statement of (alleged) fact? Pretty strange methinks. So you can't have an opinion, even if it's based on data that can be verified, and use an analogy to describe your opinion. Seems like normal conversations might get a scosh weird then, how can you discuss various things there without going to court every other day?
.... MOVE private funded space research to a more hospitable nation, and just ignore the united states. Pick any underfunded but enthusiastic second or third world country that needs a shot in the arm national prestige-wise and wouldn't mind being the recipient of a new global enterprise of such an import. There is bound to be a more hospitable nation that has enough resources and would embrace this enthusiastically. Hmm, how about brazil? Or on the african continent, mozambique? Does anyone else have any nations to promote who might want to do this? I initially in the last space thread mentioned russia as a possibility, because it has a national structure and resources for space research, but in a days retrospect on it, and viewing even more news from there, I just don't know if it could be pulled off there, due to...well, current business climates and political uncertainties shall we say. I wouldn't rule them out, just perhaps it might be more prudent to look elsewhere.
Anyway, there has to be another nation that would consider this without near the amount of hassle. Perhaps even "authorising" 90% peroxide as fuel for a start.