This smells of the guy trying to provide an option that makes it sound like he's not in it just for the money,
No, this smells of the guy grasping at straws, hoping in vain to find validation for his bullshit belief that he is not responsible for his own actions.
In short, he's a pathetic, useless waste of oxygen.
I remember a time when people were expected to take responsibility for their own actions. The world was a much better place then.
Now everyone who engages in anti-social / psychopathic behavior is a "victim". We blame government. We blame society. And best of all, we blame inanimate objects. But under no circumstances can we point out that the guy actually chose to behave in the way he did, and that he is entirely, 100% to blame for the situation he finds himself in.
(I'm not saying that viewing pornography is "in general" anti-social behavior, however, within the context of the boundaries of his marriage, it apparently qualified.)
Yeah, that Mother Theresa, I'd hate to have ever run into her in a dark alley.
Religious *zealots* *sometimes* devolve into violence.
Religion, when practiced as intended, and as practiced by the overwhelming majority of religious people, is all about peace, tolerance, understanding, and love of your fellow man.
You're allowing your perception to be skewed by the few nutjobs who have managed to grab a wildly disproportionate share of media coverage.
Re-imaging the system to a clean slate fix it all.
Not necessarily. Yes, it's effective against run-of-the-mill malware, but there are examples of highly sophisticated malware that can survive a reimage, or even a complete hard drive replacement. You and I are unlikely to be infected by such, as the examples I know of were developed by highly funded, highly motivated organizations, and were directed at a specific, high-value target.
If I was giving advice to such a high-value target, and was personally on the hook if the malware returned, then yes, across the board replacement of hardware might seem like an attractive option.
However, we are in agreement that the physical destruction of the old hardware was taking things to an absurd extreme.
The answer is the same for all of the scenarios, there would be utter outrage.
No, the answer for all of the scenarios is: It wouldn't be allowed to happen.
The ocean floor would be littered with the remains of sunken Chinese aircraft carriers, and collecting pieces of downed Mexican drones would become the latest fad for a weekend outing.
Even if the US saw the sub coming from 200 miles away, given that it posed no threat, it's a perfectly valid strategic move to pretend you were surprised. This reveals much less about your capabilities than publicly saying "We saw you coming from 215.75 nautical miles out".
And then cleanse internal systems in your own sweet time.
The problem is that cleansing the systems isn't as simple as it sounds. Even some "regular" malware that everyday folks get can be insanely hard to remove. And then just when you're sure you've got it all, you reboot and it's back. There are a few out there that A/V tools just don't seem to be able to deal with well.
Now, imagine your systems contain data that would be a "high priority target" for a nation-state able to fund the development of a sophisticated attack targeted specifically at you. And that the systems MUST be clean, and it's your signature that has to go on the form guaranteeing, 100%, beyond any shadow of any doubt, that every last shred of the malware has been eliminated.
I can see why a wholesale replacement of the hardware would be an appealing option.
It will have to be by air, there's no alternative.
Definitely.
Unfortunately, he seems to have made a huge mistake in flying to Moscow. He's pretty well boxed in. I spent some time looking at the map yesterday, and I wasn't seeing any realistic flight path he can take out of there that would avoid airspace of countries likely to interfere.
He may very well be stuck. At the very least, it would probably require a chartered flight, and not a commercial flight running on established flight paths.
He should have headed to South America right from the git-go.
Encrypt the text file, then upload it to Dropbox. Better yet, upload it to multiple free cloud storage providers as a hedge against one of them going out of business.
Trying to use printouts as a backup medium for digital data is the epitome of "doing it the hard way".
First everything Snowden says is common knowledge. Second, everything Snowden says is false. Third, Snowden has committed treason by endangering national security by revealing information that is both false and common knowledge.
I recall people using specially designed.zip archives
Hmm....
"Specially designed" is overstating it a bit. There's no trick to it. Just create a text file composed of all zeros (or whatever character you choose, but/dev/zero makes zero the easy choice) of whatever size you choose, then compress it.
His best case scenario is to receive asylum in some shithole third-world country and spend the rest of his life living in squalor while always looking over his shoulder for the CIA agent assigned to "quietly" take him out.
Honestly, I don't know if that was a typo, or if I just hadn't had enough coffee yet. Since I said it twice, I'm going to blame it on caffeine defficiency.
I don't know what the aircraft's status was at the time, but if fuel was running low enough, then denying permission to land is effectively the same as denying a flyover.
The US holds one of the six "unspankable" seats in the UN.
While there are technically things they could do, in the real world there is very little they can do against any of the 6 permanent members of the security council that would have any teeth.
Slashdot Mirror
Fuck a petition.
Make this a referendum on a ballot. I'll vote for it.
This smells of the guy trying to provide an option that makes it sound like he's not in it just for the money,
No, this smells of the guy grasping at straws, hoping in vain to find validation for his bullshit belief that he is not responsible for his own actions.
In short, he's a pathetic, useless waste of oxygen.
I remember a time when people were expected to take responsibility for their own actions. The world was a much better place then.
Now everyone who engages in anti-social / psychopathic behavior is a "victim". We blame government. We blame society. And best of all, we blame inanimate objects. But under no circumstances can we point out that the guy actually chose to behave in the way he did, and that he is entirely, 100% to blame for the situation he finds himself in.
(I'm not saying that viewing pornography is "in general" anti-social behavior, however, within the context of the boundaries of his marriage, it apparently qualified.)
Please frame your complaints in the form of pros/cons or valid attacks on the language instead of cheap rhetoric with no citations.
Pros: None.
Cons: JavaScript sucks donkey balls.
Religions always devolve into violence. Always.
Yeah, that Mother Theresa, I'd hate to have ever run into her in a dark alley.
Religious *zealots* *sometimes* devolve into violence.
Religion, when practiced as intended, and as practiced by the overwhelming majority of religious people, is all about peace, tolerance, understanding, and love of your fellow man.
You're allowing your perception to be skewed by the few nutjobs who have managed to grab a wildly disproportionate share of media coverage.
And I say this as a non-religious person myself.
Their noise cancelling headphones are actually somewhat decent.
Of course, that's more due to the noise cancellation rather than the sound quality, and the price is at least double what it should be.
Um.....
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Deputy_Secretary_of_Defense
For anyone that doesn't have their head buried in the sand, absolutely no later than about a decade ago.
It's been the truth for longer than that, but a 10 years or so ago was when they gave up even token efforts to pretend otherwise.
How many state of Rhode Island's is that?
Re-imaging the system to a clean slate fix it all.
Not necessarily. Yes, it's effective against run-of-the-mill malware, but there are examples of highly sophisticated malware that can survive a reimage, or even a complete hard drive replacement. You and I are unlikely to be infected by such, as the examples I know of were developed by highly funded, highly motivated organizations, and were directed at a specific, high-value target.
If I was giving advice to such a high-value target, and was personally on the hook if the malware returned, then yes, across the board replacement of hardware might seem like an attractive option.
However, we are in agreement that the physical destruction of the old hardware was taking things to an absurd extreme.
Holy crap. The years have not been kind.
That was between "equal first world nations"?
The answer is the same for all of the scenarios, there would be utter outrage.
No, the answer for all of the scenarios is: It wouldn't be allowed to happen.
The ocean floor would be littered with the remains of sunken Chinese aircraft carriers, and collecting pieces of downed Mexican drones would become the latest fad for a weekend outing.
Exactly.
Even if the US saw the sub coming from 200 miles away, given that it posed no threat, it's a perfectly valid strategic move to pretend you were surprised. This reveals much less about your capabilities than publicly saying "We saw you coming from 215.75 nautical miles out".
And then cleanse internal systems in your own sweet time.
The problem is that cleansing the systems isn't as simple as it sounds. Even some "regular" malware that everyday folks get can be insanely hard to remove. And then just when you're sure you've got it all, you reboot and it's back. There are a few out there that A/V tools just don't seem to be able to deal with well.
Now, imagine your systems contain data that would be a "high priority target" for a nation-state able to fund the development of a sophisticated attack targeted specifically at you. And that the systems MUST be clean, and it's your signature that has to go on the form guaranteeing, 100%, beyond any shadow of any doubt, that every last shred of the malware has been eliminated.
I can see why a wholesale replacement of the hardware would be an appealing option.
It will have to be by air, there's no alternative.
Definitely.
Unfortunately, he seems to have made a huge mistake in flying to Moscow. He's pretty well boxed in. I spent some time looking at the map yesterday, and I wasn't seeing any realistic flight path he can take out of there that would avoid airspace of countries likely to interfere.
He may very well be stuck. At the very least, it would probably require a chartered flight, and not a commercial flight running on established flight paths.
He should have headed to South America right from the git-go.
Forget the hard copy.
Encrypt the text file, then upload it to Dropbox. Better yet, upload it to multiple free cloud storage providers as a hedge against one of them going out of business.
Trying to use printouts as a backup medium for digital data is the epitome of "doing it the hard way".
First everything Snowden says is common knowledge.
Second, everything Snowden says is false.
Third, Snowden has committed treason by endangering national security by revealing information that is both false and common knowledge.
Yep, that pretty much sums it up. :)
I recall people using specially designed .zip archives
Hmm....
"Specially designed" is overstating it a bit. There's no trick to it. Just create a text file composed of all zeros (or whatever character you choose, but /dev/zero makes zero the easy choice) of whatever size you choose, then compress it.
If Snowden has a happy ending,
Where is the happy ending?
His best case scenario is to receive asylum in some shithole third-world country and spend the rest of his life living in squalor while always looking over his shoulder for the CIA agent assigned to "quietly" take him out.
Has he revealed anything that anyone paying attention hadn't already assumed to be happening somewhere?
No, not really.
However, the difference between "assumed to be true" and "confirmed to be true" is not insignificant.
Even with his elevated access, he should not have been able to comment authoritatively on anything but what he was working on directly.
In the real world there is a vast ocean of difference between "should not have" and "could not have".
Quite often not having access to something is more a matter of policy than the presence of any actual barrier.
Yes, there are 5.
Honestly, I don't know if that was a typo, or if I just hadn't had enough coffee yet. Since I said it twice, I'm going to blame it on caffeine defficiency.
I don't know what the aircraft's status was at the time, but if fuel was running low enough, then denying permission to land is effectively the same as denying a flyover.
The US holds one of the six "unspankable" seats in the UN.
While there are technically things they could do, in the real world there is very little they can do against any of the 6 permanent members of the security council that would have any teeth.