And you think any non-geek would have a clue to ask for an OEM version? The average consumer sees only the boxed versions and scoffs at the price. Simple as that. It's too expensive and doesn't run so well on any mid to low end PC available today. (And that's what the masses are buying)
You have a warped vision of why the military exists. It's not to serve you, me, your country, my country, or any other emotionally driven crap feel good ideology. The military is simply one part of a larger political arsenal controlled by a small few, usually used to coerce another small group of individuals in to compliance.
There is typically no security at all on either the up or downlinks of commercial satellites. (Station keeping uplinks are encrypted pretty good though) Transponders generally operate over a wide bandwidth so it is not feasible just to switch one off as it would also switch off many (sometimes hundreds or thousands of) paying customers. Usually the best that can be done to prevent unwanted signals is to try and drown them out with a higher SNR, though on a heavily loaded satellite this is sometimes not possible due to the power requirements needed for normal operations.
Finding a satellite and frequency to use is as simple as looking up azimuth and elevation from any on line database (there are many) and then pointing your dish in the right direction.
One could set up a fairly decent packet switched network or video link for about $250,000 US dollars. I'm certain it could be done for much less money if you shop around or get creative with a few spare cable modems.
No need for covert hacking, most satellites are little more than expensive dumb repeaters in space, anyone with a few thousand dollars can bounce a signal off one without restriction, sometimes without even being noticed for a good length of time, if at all.
Given that the best automated methods of scanning and identifying energy spikes is about as good as speech recognition 15 years ago - and don't kid your selves on this point you 3 letter agency drone PHB's:-), it is still vastly quicker to have a human operator run through with a spectrum analyser to figure out what should or should not be there. Back when I was working for the man, the visible part of the clark belt in my section of the sky was filled with satellites having many thousands of transmissions on each polarity in use. Weeding out the pirates is tedious and never ending work for a space based telco.
I'm certain Intelsat don't want any non-paid for signals period, though the legalities of pirate transmissions are a bit of a grey area depending on which country you are in. I have seen on many occasions a sweeping CW (carrier wave) running back and forth across what I assume are unwanted transmissions. I'd say there's not really much more Intelsat can do except suck it up and try to identify unknowns a tad faster than they have been doing in the past, and then simply try to disrupt the signal - no guarantee this will work though.
The fine article makes it sound like Intelsat have some sophisticated system that'll let them drop the transmissions with a flick of a few switches - this is an interesting feel good fluff explanation probably more aimed at their investors. What they really mean is that there is sweet FA they can do about it beyond asking nicely for the naughty men to turn off their bad signal, otherwise they'll take their transponder and switch it off for everyone, only for a few minutes though.
Traffic Analysis. I'm not surprised you were blown off. It's a difficult concept to beat in to middle and upper level management - at least in a way that would make them understand that they can make more money, or simply that you are not going to steal their thunder, but make things better.
You might try applying to one of the 3 letter agencies in your country - these concepts are well established. Given the increasing complexity of communication systems, you might very likely find yourself with a rather rewarding career. Crappy pay, but interesting work.
I'm not sure that China (Or other neighbouring Asian countries) really think too much about American market penetration. The Chinese equivalent of Spears is alive and well right here in Asia with an audience numbering somewhere around the billion mark.
Overclocking screwups don't brick the router so bad that you need JTAG - shorting the antenna ground to pin 16 of the flash chip while plugging in the power puts it in tftp mode again. No soldering iron required.
You might want to try plugging your linksys in to a spec-an rather than repeating the word of the masses. They are not as noisy as you might think. In many ways you'd be better off investing in a more sophisticated antenna system rather than tweaking the power outputs.
I have a couple of 8 element yagi's that work fine over a few kilometres at 28 milliwatts.
No, not really, most of it is dark fiber. It is corporate greed. This becomes far more apparent if you travel to Asia (Just a couple of hours flight time away) Without wanting to sound like I'm dissing my own country, Australians are drip fed technology by a small number of corporate players.
GSM is a good example - SS7 being a rather essential component, SMS happens to be part of the payload running over that beast. Given the cost of phone calls and monthly rental charges, the rate to send 1 text is a very tiny fraction of a cent. How much do they charge? When I left Australia it was somewhere around 25 cents per message. No idea what it is now. Here in Asia for about $5AUD I can send an unlimited number of messages per month.
I sometimes wonder if it is simply because the masses have no idea how the technology really works, or they are *ahem* to apathetic to care.
Echelon is a very old cover name that hasn't been used in 20 years. These days it's UKUSA. Such terms only describe a very specific type of connection between a number of allied countries anyway, in itself the term has virtually nothing to do with the article. The system that is described has been in existence in one form or another ever since electronic based intelligence gathering began. Only the complexity has changed.
The system that is described in the article is not new at all (many others have pointed this out already), the cost is generally between 1 and 10 million USD depending on the number of inputs needed. It is not a single black box, but made up of a collection of hardware that is far from small in size.
Don't take my word for it though - I can neither confirm or deny anything I say.
The parent you responded to is not at all stating he can do better so the challenge isn't really appropriate or needed. Regardless of his ability, and I believe he has more than enough given what he says, if you spend even a short time reading about photo manipulation he is accurate in every respect. That's not to say the image doesn't look 'better' - for most people the result is better, likely because they've not seen or had someone tweak their old family portraits. For others it really isn't that good. Some pictures are as good as they'll ever be without a re-shoot, no matter how good the software is. (This seems more like the point he was making) The line between a simple touch up and a talent in fine arts becomes blurry to the point that it's not worth the effort in some instances.
Like the parent said YMMV - Just today I found 6 viruses using sophos that AVG chose to ignore. One of them hosed every word document across several computers.
In the Philippines they really only burn insulated wire, car tyres, and anything with springs like beds and chairs. Electronics rarely make it to the dump sites these days, too much value to be thrown away, they usually end up in repair shops, stripped for spares. (I do a lot of work for a charity here on Smokey Mountain dump site in Manila)
You are right about the garbage falls, though it's usually the land slides that take out 200 people or more at a time.
I'm not so certain your thoughts are completely valid. While certain groups of individuals may have every genetic twist to make them more likely to perform certain actions, or help push along various forms of addiction, in making your point you sound a bit like an apologist simply because you neglect 'Free Will' - nobody puts a gun to their heads. (Not normally anyway) The first step is a choice, generally the next several steps can also be met with rational thought to the potential outcome.
As do a number of Asian countries. I think most everyone that has travelled anywhere in the world for more than a couple of weeks will have sensed a difference at some level when compared to their home country.
The Dutch certainly do like to tell you how great it is back home:-) (Often without even the need to be asked) I agree with you by the way.
At around the 9/11 time period I was working for an Australian 3 letter agency, Australia is obviously not the USA but we are allied in numerous ways that make such definitions a little irrelevant. Speaking in a general sense, politicians are rarely (if ever) the single initiating point behind any tasking. A free hand is regularly given throughout many of the intelligence organisations from top to bottom.
There are some very smart and free thinking people up on Russell Hill, I know the same is true in the States - I've lived through several investigative commissions, some of which were high profile in their day. It's safe to say that the people running them often have their own political ambitions and largely ignore or present only a limited subset of the information available, the same goes for those on the inside. What you see on TV and in newspapers is little more than a chess game.
FWIW, I quit and moved to another country because the internal politics and interpretations of the law no longer matched the jobs I was being asked to undertake, pretty ironic in so many ways that I can very probably never tell. Live and learn.
I guess my point is that it is never as cut and dry as you come across in your post, there is always an agenda. Always. We would never drop anything without exhausting the source first. To be told to do so would be tantamount to initiation of our own internal investigations on why. I first heard the name Osama Bin Laden back in 1991, I never stopped hearing that name. You can bet your arse he was high profile, it is ludicrous to say we would be told to drop investigation of events surrounding him either before or after 9/11.
Take that as you will.
By the way, I am not included in the "We" you mention in regard to the slaughter of the countries earlier inhabitants. I'm Australian by birth, I do not appoint blame to myself or anyone currently alive with the actions of previous generations. Terrorist is about as strong a word as hate, I don't think you quite grasp the true meaning of it given that you use it in such a blanket manner - I'm sure you would have given specific names and instances if you meant it any differently.
More than a few cell phone manufacturers do unique keys for each handset already, why would it be so hard to have a custom jig do the same for any other hardware device?
I'm all for spybot search and destroy, but why on earth do they not fix their simple gui button placement problem in teatimer. I know it's easy to sort out with reshack, though seriously, I've made my share of donations, why has it remained broken for years now?
I received a blender manual after submitting one of my pics for a siggraph display way back - maybe 98, or 99, I don't quite recall now. Good bunch of people back in the NaN days.
I never said anything at all about red light cameras, reading isn't your strong point. I'm Australian by the way, and I do think your version of freedom is different to mine. No matter, you didn't really understand what I said anyway.
In short no. You're not the only one to point this out. It's a strange thought process, and one I have yet to really grasp - A small part of the reason why I joined the military was because I felt violence should, in the absolute best case, be exceedingly unnecessary to resolve problems. Probably an idealistic pipe dream, but I joined with the hope that I might actually prevent war, or at the very least help keep things in perspective. It's a concept that goes well beyond slinging a gun through leech infested jungle. Think back to the cold war where a thousand nukes on both sides prevented even the most trigger happy individual from hitting the button.
FWIW my category was electronic warfare, pretty broad with many specialities, I worked in most of them at one point or another. Perhaps some branches are different, but for myself, never once did I unquestioningly accept what I was asked to do, frequently I voiced some very differing opinions, though when done right, it's rather easy to have your voice heard right at the top.
Politicians play conspiracy theories, in my little world, the military was a place of generally like minded individuals. We all had a conscience.
Slashdot Mirror
Dude, you seriously need to get out of America a little more and have a sniff of reality.
And you think any non-geek would have a clue to ask for an OEM version? The average consumer sees only the boxed versions and scoffs at the price. Simple as that. It's too expensive and doesn't run so well on any mid to low end PC available today. (And that's what the masses are buying)
You have a warped vision of why the military exists. It's not to serve you, me, your country, my country, or any other emotionally driven crap feel good ideology. The military is simply one part of a larger political arsenal controlled by a small few, usually used to coerce another small group of individuals in to compliance.
There is typically no security at all on either the up or downlinks of commercial satellites. (Station keeping uplinks are encrypted pretty good though) Transponders generally operate over a wide bandwidth so it is not feasible just to switch one off as it would also switch off many (sometimes hundreds or thousands of) paying customers. Usually the best that can be done to prevent unwanted signals is to try and drown them out with a higher SNR, though on a heavily loaded satellite this is sometimes not possible due to the power requirements needed for normal operations.
Finding a satellite and frequency to use is as simple as looking up azimuth and elevation from any on line database (there are many) and then pointing your dish in the right direction.
One could set up a fairly decent packet switched network or video link for about $250,000 US dollars. I'm certain it could be done for much less money if you shop around or get creative with a few spare cable modems.
No need for covert hacking, most satellites are little more than expensive dumb repeaters in space, anyone with a few thousand dollars can bounce a signal off one without restriction, sometimes without even being noticed for a good length of time, if at all.
:-), it is still vastly quicker to have a human operator run through with a spectrum analyser to figure out what should or should not be there. Back when I was working for the man, the visible part of the clark belt in my section of the sky was filled with satellites having many thousands of transmissions on each polarity in use. Weeding out the pirates is tedious and never ending work for a space based telco.
Given that the best automated methods of scanning and identifying energy spikes is about as good as speech recognition 15 years ago - and don't kid your selves on this point you 3 letter agency drone PHB's
I'm certain Intelsat don't want any non-paid for signals period, though the legalities of pirate transmissions are a bit of a grey area depending on which country you are in. I have seen on many occasions a sweeping CW (carrier wave) running back and forth across what I assume are unwanted transmissions. I'd say there's not really much more Intelsat can do except suck it up and try to identify unknowns a tad faster than they have been doing in the past, and then simply try to disrupt the signal - no guarantee this will work though.
The fine article makes it sound like Intelsat have some sophisticated system that'll let them drop the transmissions with a flick of a few switches - this is an interesting feel good fluff explanation probably more aimed at their investors. What they really mean is that there is sweet FA they can do about it beyond asking nicely for the naughty men to turn off their bad signal, otherwise they'll take their transponder and switch it off for everyone, only for a few minutes though.
Traffic Analysis. I'm not surprised you were blown off. It's a difficult concept to beat in to middle and upper level management - at least in a way that would make them understand that they can make more money, or simply that you are not going to steal their thunder, but make things better.
You might try applying to one of the 3 letter agencies in your country - these concepts are well established. Given the increasing complexity of communication systems, you might very likely find yourself with a rather rewarding career. Crappy pay, but interesting work.
I'm not sure that China (Or other neighbouring Asian countries) really think too much about American market penetration. The Chinese equivalent of Spears is alive and well right here in Asia with an audience numbering somewhere around the billion mark.
Overclocking screwups don't brick the router so bad that you need JTAG - shorting the antenna ground to pin 16 of the flash chip while plugging in the power puts it in tftp mode again. No soldering iron required.
You might want to try plugging your linksys in to a spec-an rather than repeating the word of the masses. They are not as noisy as you might think. In many ways you'd be better off investing in a more sophisticated antenna system rather than tweaking the power outputs.
I have a couple of 8 element yagi's that work fine over a few kilometres at 28 milliwatts.
I mentioned some IRC oddities about brainslayer in december 2005 here on slashdot: http://hardware.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=16992 5&cid=14163059
Interesting that his name would come up again.
No, not really, most of it is dark fiber. It is corporate greed. This becomes far more apparent if you travel to Asia (Just a couple of hours flight time away) Without wanting to sound like I'm dissing my own country, Australians are drip fed technology by a small number of corporate players.
GSM is a good example - SS7 being a rather essential component, SMS happens to be part of the payload running over that beast. Given the cost of phone calls and monthly rental charges, the rate to send 1 text is a very tiny fraction of a cent. How much do they charge? When I left Australia it was somewhere around 25 cents per message. No idea what it is now. Here in Asia for about $5AUD I can send an unlimited number of messages per month.
I sometimes wonder if it is simply because the masses have no idea how the technology really works, or they are *ahem* to apathetic to care.
The fiber running between
Cube. You mean Beryl yes? You can set that up so windows are interactive in most all positions. You have a use for vista?
r )
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beryl_(window_manage
Echelon is a very old cover name that hasn't been used in 20 years. These days it's UKUSA. Such terms only describe a very specific type of connection between a number of allied countries anyway, in itself the term has virtually nothing to do with the article. The system that is described has been in existence in one form or another ever since electronic based intelligence gathering began. Only the complexity has changed.
The system that is described in the article is not new at all (many others have pointed this out already), the cost is generally between 1 and 10 million USD depending on the number of inputs needed. It is not a single black box, but made up of a collection of hardware that is far from small in size.
Don't take my word for it though - I can neither confirm or deny anything I say.
-- Ex Them.
The parent you responded to is not at all stating he can do better so the challenge isn't really appropriate or needed. Regardless of his ability, and I believe he has more than enough given what he says, if you spend even a short time reading about photo manipulation he is accurate in every respect. That's not to say the image doesn't look 'better' - for most people the result is better, likely because they've not seen or had someone tweak their old family portraits. For others it really isn't that good. Some pictures are as good as they'll ever be without a re-shoot, no matter how good the software is. (This seems more like the point he was making) The line between a simple touch up and a talent in fine arts becomes blurry to the point that it's not worth the effort in some instances.
Like the parent said YMMV - Just today I found 6 viruses using sophos that AVG chose to ignore. One of them hosed every word document across several computers.
In the Philippines they really only burn insulated wire, car tyres, and anything with springs like beds and chairs. Electronics rarely make it to the dump sites these days, too much value to be thrown away, they usually end up in repair shops, stripped for spares. (I do a lot of work for a charity here on Smokey Mountain dump site in Manila)
You are right about the garbage falls, though it's usually the land slides that take out 200 people or more at a time.
I'm not so certain your thoughts are completely valid. While certain groups of individuals may have every genetic twist to make them more likely to perform certain actions, or help push along various forms of addiction, in making your point you sound a bit like an apologist simply because you neglect 'Free Will' - nobody puts a gun to their heads. (Not normally anyway) The first step is a choice, generally the next several steps can also be met with rational thought to the potential outcome.
Maybe if they flew the other way around the world this would not have happened. Sigh. Do they just not think or something?!
As do a number of Asian countries. I think most everyone that has travelled anywhere in the world for more than a couple of weeks will have sensed a difference at some level when compared to their home country.
:-) (Often without even the need to be asked) I agree with you by the way.
The Dutch certainly do like to tell you how great it is back home
At around the 9/11 time period I was working for an Australian 3 letter agency, Australia is obviously not the USA but we are allied in numerous ways that make such definitions a little irrelevant. Speaking in a general sense, politicians are rarely (if ever) the single initiating point behind any tasking. A free hand is regularly given throughout many of the intelligence organisations from top to bottom.
There are some very smart and free thinking people up on Russell Hill, I know the same is true in the States - I've lived through several investigative commissions, some of which were high profile in their day. It's safe to say that the people running them often have their own political ambitions and largely ignore or present only a limited subset of the information available, the same goes for those on the inside. What you see on TV and in newspapers is little more than a chess game.
FWIW, I quit and moved to another country because the internal politics and interpretations of the law no longer matched the jobs I was being asked to undertake, pretty ironic in so many ways that I can very probably never tell. Live and learn.
I guess my point is that it is never as cut and dry as you come across in your post, there is always an agenda. Always. We would never drop anything without exhausting the source first. To be told to do so would be tantamount to initiation of our own internal investigations on why. I first heard the name Osama Bin Laden back in 1991, I never stopped hearing that name. You can bet your arse he was high profile, it is ludicrous to say we would be told to drop investigation of events surrounding him either before or after 9/11.
Take that as you will.
By the way, I am not included in the "We" you mention in regard to the slaughter of the countries earlier inhabitants. I'm Australian by birth, I do not appoint blame to myself or anyone currently alive with the actions of previous generations. Terrorist is about as strong a word as hate, I don't think you quite grasp the true meaning of it given that you use it in such a blanket manner - I'm sure you would have given specific names and instances if you meant it any differently.
Ah, you are indeed correct, I never followed through on the logic!
More than a few cell phone manufacturers do unique keys for each handset already, why would it be so hard to have a custom jig do the same for any other hardware device?
I'm all for spybot search and destroy, but why on earth do they not fix their simple gui button placement problem in teatimer. I know it's easy to sort out with reshack, though seriously, I've made my share of donations, why has it remained broken for years now?
I received a blender manual after submitting one of my pics for a siggraph display way back - maybe 98, or 99, I don't quite recall now. Good bunch of people back in the NaN days.
I never said anything at all about red light cameras, reading isn't your strong point. I'm Australian by the way, and I do think your version of freedom is different to mine. No matter, you didn't really understand what I said anyway.
In short no. You're not the only one to point this out. It's a strange thought process, and one I have yet to really grasp - A small part of the reason why I joined the military was because I felt violence should, in the absolute best case, be exceedingly unnecessary to resolve problems. Probably an idealistic pipe dream, but I joined with the hope that I might actually prevent war, or at the very least help keep things in perspective. It's a concept that goes well beyond slinging a gun through leech infested jungle. Think back to the cold war where a thousand nukes on both sides prevented even the most trigger happy individual from hitting the button.
FWIW my category was electronic warfare, pretty broad with many specialities, I worked in most of them at one point or another. Perhaps some branches are different, but for myself, never once did I unquestioningly accept what I was asked to do, frequently I voiced some very differing opinions, though when done right, it's rather easy to have your voice heard right at the top.
Politicians play conspiracy theories, in my little world, the military was a place of generally like minded individuals. We all had a conscience.