Yeah. I actually RTFA when this came out on/., and in the interview with the man arrested, he stated that he thought they were FBI, but it turned out to be the DHS.
Also, when I went back to the the/. article there is now an update:
Update: 01/21 21:41 GMT by U L : The Columbus Dispatch confirmed the story with the Department of Homeland Security. The ICE and not the FBI detained the Glass wearer, and there happened to be an MPAA task force at the theater that night, who then escalated the incident.
It was another typical bad/inaccurate summary by the submitter, and again, typically, not caught by the/. editors.
Yeah, I thought of the Stasi(Ministry for State Security of East Germany.) when they announced the formation of the DHS, and announced it's intended mission.
And if we thought J. Edgar Hoover's FBI was bad, we are in for a rude surprise. This is already much worse; J. Edgar was a piker compared to this.
Well, actually it was Dept. of Homeland Security that was called in, the 'suspected copyright infringer' was under the mistaken impression they were FBI agents at first.
But that really doesn't detract from your insightful comment, I just like things to remain factual/accurate when possible.:-)
Well, I don't really detect sarcasm, and same for troll detection, yet I have a hard time accepting these as real questions, but what the hell....
According to TFA, the botnet was mining bitcoins for the two botnet 'herders'.
'Doing anything bad?' 1.) Taking control away from the PC's owner and covertly installing malware 2.) Using significant amounts of energy at the owners expense without agreement 3.) Tor network users jumped from approx. 1 million users, to over 5 million users when this botnet went online. I imagine that would have the opposite effect of 'making Tor faster for everyone' 4.) In some cases, clogging and disrupting users networks
In other words, not doing anything good, and a whole lot of bad.
This is one time that Microsoft was acting responsibly, and did the right thing, IMHO. The Microsoft anti-malware tools worked as designed, although a bit more proactive than the normal reactive incident.
1.) quite a few, IMO 2.) none...I make it a habit to live by the 'Golden Rule', and it seems to have worked quite nicely over the long run.
Yes, I am arrogant, and have a large ego. But in the (paraphrased) words of Kid Rock: "They say I'm bragging, but I say: What? It ain't bragging motherfucker, if you can back it up!"
*semi-serious joke ahead!* All you foreigners sound the same to us, in the USA.
Really, we have dialect barriers to hurdle here in the USA, and now you want us to jump MORE hurdles?
But all joking aside, I have noticed the same things you pointed out and always chalked it up to some combination of ignorance and/or arrogance.
We assume that everyone in the world watches the same movies we do, but at the same time, we seem to forget the rest of the world is out there, and not culturally identical to us.
A.357 magnum may have a bigger exit wound under rare circumstances, but under similar conditions, the.357 magnum and 9mm will have essentially equal size entrance wound characteristics.
One doesn't even need to be hit by a bullet to be killed by it - high speed ammunition can tear tissue apart by the pressure differentials.
The only part of that statement that is even remotely true is the second part: yes, frequently high velocity projectiles do damage soft tissue from tearing and rupturing...but there are a lot of variables that affect this, so it cannot be ruled as absolute.(pro tip: the bullet has to hit the soft tissue before this can even be considered--all the bullets whizzing past cause no physical harm)
But that statement that "One doesn't even need to be hit by a bullet to be killed by it -..." is so full of crap that it's ludicrous! I'll even give you the possibility that in extremely rare (so rare as to be unheard of for all practical purposes) that some few individuals have 'died from fright' from being shot at...but [citation needed].
I have personally been shot three times: twice with 9mm ammunition (one pistol:Soviet made Makerov, and one sub-machine gun), and once with 7.62x39 ammo (AK-47--which has a MUCH higher velocity and kinetic energy than either 9mm or.357 hand guns).
I can assure you that I am not a ghost/dead. And having witnessed hundreds of combat deaths, none happened from near misses but bullets!
I think your highest priority at this stage should be to finally stop putting off that education you should have received as a child..it's for your own good, really.
What about other fields? From what women, including my own wife and my mother, have told me, this stuff isn't a problem unique to nursing, it's a problem unique to female-dominated work environments.
From the perspective of three different work environments: 1.) construction work- it seems only the well suited 'tomboy' types even choose this vocation, and mostly do quite well. They fit in as 'one of the guys', and the gender difference rarely causes problems.
2.) Military (US Army): similar to your wife's viewpoint.
3.) Veterinary Medicine: Both genders are usually juggling too many wildcats to even have time for anything but the tasks (emphasis on the plural) on hand for this to be an issue in the workplace.
BTW, the main problem with this type of discussion topic is that it is way too limited in scope to address the issue.
What I mean by that is this: There are a lot of contributing factors that need to be addressed at the same time. Things like social conditioning, physiological diff's between men and women, psychological diff's, cultural and environmental factors, etc. all play a part in this equation.
It's not like women are some alien species, they would simply like in a professional context to be judged on their capabilities and accomplishments rather than sexual attractiveness to male colleagues or bosses.
To those with limited intellect, the opposite gender does seem like an alien species. As long as people are 'mate shopping' at the workplace, this type of behavior will likely continue. Thankfully, every time i've been tempted in the past to do this, common sense kicked in, and I've resisted the impulse.
Men approach tasks and problem solving differently than women, and this point is the key to solving the problem, by learning to combine the approaches with the results exhibiting synergy, instead of discord and chaos.
Oh, and on a personal note, ugly is, as ugly does, IMHO. I've seen a lot of attractive people that have become instantly, overpoweringly, butt-ugly just by opening their mouths and speaking! (or by deeds)
Beauty is like a diamond gemstone to me. The attractiveness is caused by all of the sparkly facets combined with synergistic effect. Physical attraction is only one of the many facets, and not the most important one; unfortunately it seems to be the one most emphasized and sought after as a trophy.
First of all, a tip of the hat to the silver-tongued Karmashock!
Seriously, the comments you made above, and prior, are some of the most rational, factual, and well stated, that I have ever had the pleasure of encountering.
I would also like to toss into the debate additional arguments...
The Internet has changed the world profoundly. Pre-internet, communications were slower, in some areas significantly slower. "So what?" someone shouts.
Here is "what": You, me, anyone that can access the internet has most of the 'whole of 'known' knowledge of mankind' available. Included in that are countless webpages of info on how to build functional weapons with hand tools and common materials. Youtube has hundreds, if not thousands of videos about this: 'making an AK-47 out of a shovel in your home workshop, step by step' and similar.
US Army's "TM 310-20: Improvised Munitions" AKA 'McGuyver's Handbook' has been available as a download in.pdf for a loooong time. (and other formats) Just several examples of 'what'.
Banning stuff has to practically be global to actually be effective nowadays.
Oh sure, a local/regional ban may slow things down until black market arms mfg's and importers kick off (they will...witness all the meth and other drug labs and grow ops, and smuggling today), so in the very short long-term, same same.
Those same 'crazies' that we all want deprived of weapons can now ignore the ban if they are competent enough to look up the info on the net and build one, or pay someone to do so.
Side note: In college I had a professor ask the class "what is the most powerful tool or weapon mankind has developed today?" I answered "communication". Everyone argued with me that LASERs and nukes etc. were it, I replied 'But don't you need to communicate to develop, build, and use one of those?'
Modern comms have effectively shrunk the world we live in.
Excellent post, DarkOx...you make some interesting points.
I would like to also throw in a few things.
Snowden seems like an rational, intelligent person. What I mean by this is:
1.) He learned from Manning how not to do it. He got out of reach before making his move.
2.) Although it appears he scooped up a a lot of stuff, he's been fairly selective about what he has released. As you pointed out, some stuff not related to 'his cause' has been released, but I agree with your reasoning here. Unlike Manning, he did not just 'dump' everything. This is why I cannot accept any accusations of treason or turning traitor as being legitimate.
From past experience, I feel confident that if he gave the Russians everything he allegedly vacuumed up, then I assure you, the Russians would be screaming bloody murder- having evidence of all the stuff going on without compromising THEIR sources. It's not like they would be learning a lot of new stuff, it is just not worth compromising their intel sources at this time. But give them evidence that does not show their sources? Yeah, they would jump on that in a heartbeat! It would be too big of a diplomatic club NOT to use to their advantage, especially in context of the current global situation, primarily Syria/Middle East.
So, I have to conclude that either he did not give them everything that he copied, or that he did not get as much as he is being accused of.
Neither one justifies our gov't.'s reaction. The only things that do justify this reaction, all stink to high-heaven, and should not be happening.
The global telecom spying is old news.(2006, IIRC) The only thing new here is documentation on specific targets. Prior to Snowden, everyone(US and 'allies') could have the warm fuzzy's that THEY were exempt because 'we are on the same side'. Snowden shattered that illusion, forcing everyone to confront this face on.
And that is why all of the hoopla. Snowden flipped the lights on...all the dirt and roaches can be seen now.
In regards to 1.) above: We (USA) painted ourselves into a corner during Bush jr.'s reign that was difficult to get out of. Instead of working to get out of the corner, or even letting the paint dry, Obama has happily continued painting.
I can easily understand Snowden's actions and methods. I started getting nervous with our (USA) reactions to '9-11', both public and gov't.
Thanks for that comment....it does tint the picture from my perspective.
I think that this is the first time someone has pointed out this aspect that I can recall.
Are gov't. doc's copyrighted under a public domain type, or a restrictive type license? And why?
Those are two questions I would love to see addressed publicly regarding this incident.
It would seem to me that in their feverish attempts to legally crucify him, that they would have used copyright violations in addition to all of the other crapola they have been throwing at him if they could. So I have to conclude at this point, he cannot even be accused of pirating copyrighted files, and all of this is just a 'cover your ass' type witch hunt by our gov't., when they got caught with their pants around their ankles.
*sarcasm follows: Maybe they should sic the RIAA/MPAA on him...that would fix his cart!;-)
It's trademark, intellectual property, that allows you to tell the difference between Coke, Pepsi, and RC cola.
No, it is not. It is my nose and taste buds that tell me the difference. Lipstick(trademark) on a pig doesn' change the fact your still dealing with a pig.
Probably so, but I am making progress quick enough to suit me, and further improvement is still ongoing.
But at the same time to answer your second question, I think there are permanent limits I will not be able to overcome. That is mostly age related, as you age, your body decreases in ability to repair damage to itself, and repairing damage from a stroke involves the brain 're-wiring' itself to bypass the damage(dead areas of the brain killed off by the stroke). There are limits to the damage it can reroute and recover functions even in a young person, but it gets tougher for the older ones.
I'm hopeful progress will continue, but at 56 years old, I'm trying not to be delusional about it.
I'm really more grateful the damage was as little as it was, compared to other stroke victims I have witnessed!
Slashdot Mirror
Skip the coffee, your version is much more interesting!
I would be very interested in touring a brothel that was large enough to contain a town. :-)
Yeah. /., and in the interview with the man arrested, he stated that he thought they were FBI, but it turned out to be the DHS.
I actually RTFA when this came out on
Also, when I went back to the the /. article there is now an update:
Update: 01/21 21:41 GMT by U L : The Columbus Dispatch confirmed the story with the Department of Homeland Security. The ICE and not the FBI detained the Glass wearer, and there happened to be an MPAA task force at the theater that night, who then escalated the incident.
It was another typical bad/inaccurate summary by the submitter, and again, typically, not caught by the /. editors.
Yeah, I thought of the Stasi(Ministry for State Security of East Germany.) when they announced the formation of the DHS, and announced it's intended mission.
And if we thought J. Edgar Hoover's FBI was bad, we are in for a rude surprise. This is already much worse; J. Edgar was a piker compared to this.
Well, actually it was Dept. of
Homeland Security that was called in, the 'suspected copyright infringer' was under the mistaken impression they were FBI agents at first.
But that really doesn't detract from your insightful comment, I just like things to remain factual/accurate when possible. :-)
There's a price for outsourcing production, and now we are seeing some of the price.
This is not China 'throwing their fist' at our nose, this is China burping after the buffet we gleefully threw at them.
Well, I don't really detect sarcasm, and same for troll detection, yet I have a hard time accepting these as real questions, but what the hell....
According to TFA, the botnet was mining bitcoins for the two botnet 'herders'.
'Doing anything bad?'
1.) Taking control away from the PC's owner and covertly installing malware
2.) Using significant amounts of energy at the owners expense without agreement
3.) Tor network users jumped from approx. 1 million users, to over 5 million users when this botnet went online. I imagine that would have the opposite effect of 'making Tor faster for everyone'
4.) In some cases, clogging and disrupting users networks
In other words, not doing anything good, and a whole lot of bad.
This is one time that Microsoft was acting responsibly, and did the right thing, IMHO.
The Microsoft anti-malware tools worked as designed, although a bit more proactive than the normal reactive incident.
1.) quite a few, IMO
2.) none...I make it a habit to live by the 'Golden Rule', and it seems to have worked quite nicely over the long run.
Yes, I am arrogant, and have a large ego. But in the (paraphrased) words of Kid Rock: "They say I'm bragging, but I say: What?
It ain't bragging motherfucker, if you can back it up!"
I say give the retired cop a commendation and Public Service Award.
*semi-serious joke ahead!*
All you foreigners sound the same to us, in the USA.
Really, we have dialect barriers to hurdle here in the USA, and now you want us to jump MORE hurdles?
But all joking aside, I have noticed the same things you pointed out and always chalked it up to some combination of ignorance and/or arrogance.
We assume that everyone in the world watches the same movies we do, but at the same time, we seem to forget the rest of the world is out there, and not culturally identical to us.
A .357 magnum may have a bigger exit wound under rare circumstances, but under similar conditions, the .357 magnum and 9mm will have essentially equal size entrance wound characteristics.
One doesn't even need to be hit by a bullet to be killed by it - high speed ammunition can tear tissue apart by the pressure differentials.
The only part of that statement that is even remotely true is the second part:
yes, frequently high velocity projectiles do damage soft tissue from tearing and rupturing...but there are a lot of variables that affect this, so it cannot be ruled as absolute.(pro tip: the bullet has to hit the soft tissue before this can even be considered--all the bullets whizzing past cause no physical harm)
But that statement that "One doesn't even need to be hit by a bullet to be killed by it -..." is so full of crap that it's ludicrous!
I'll even give you the possibility that in extremely rare (so rare as to be unheard of for all practical purposes) that some few individuals have 'died from fright' from being shot at...but [citation needed].
I have personally been shot three times: .357 hand guns).
twice with 9mm ammunition (one pistol:Soviet made Makerov, and one sub-machine gun), and once with 7.62x39 ammo (AK-47--which has a MUCH higher velocity and kinetic energy than either 9mm or
I can assure you that I am not a ghost/dead. And having witnessed hundreds of combat deaths, none happened from near misses but bullets!
I think your highest priority at this stage should be to finally stop putting off that education you should have received as a child..it's for your own good, really.
From the perspective of three different work environments:
1.) construction work- it seems only the well suited 'tomboy' types even choose this vocation, and mostly do quite well. They fit in as 'one of the guys', and the gender difference rarely causes problems.
2.) Military (US Army):
similar to your wife's viewpoint.
3.) Veterinary Medicine:
Both genders are usually juggling too many wildcats to even have time for anything but the tasks (emphasis on the plural) on hand for this to be an issue in the workplace.
BTW, the main problem with this type of discussion topic is that it is way too limited in scope to address the issue.
What I mean by that is this:
There are a lot of contributing factors that need to be addressed at the same time.
Things like social conditioning, physiological diff's between men and women, psychological diff's, cultural and environmental factors, etc. all play a part in this equation.
It's not like women are some alien species, they would simply like in a professional context to be judged on their capabilities and accomplishments rather than sexual attractiveness to male colleagues or bosses.
To those with limited intellect, the opposite gender does seem like an alien species.
As long as people are 'mate shopping' at the workplace, this type of behavior will likely continue. Thankfully, every time i've been tempted in the past to do this, common sense kicked in, and I've resisted the impulse.
Men approach tasks and problem solving differently than women, and this point is the key to solving the problem, by learning to combine the approaches with the results exhibiting synergy, instead of discord and chaos.
Oh, and on a personal note, ugly is, as ugly does, IMHO.
I've seen a lot of attractive people that have become instantly, overpoweringly, butt-ugly just by opening their mouths and speaking! (or by deeds)
Beauty is like a diamond gemstone to me. The attractiveness is caused by all of the sparkly facets combined with synergistic effect.
Physical attraction is only one of the many facets, and not the most important one; unfortunately it seems to be the one most emphasized and sought after as a trophy.
Launch crew:
"Mission Control, we are just waiting for the Money Shot--that's the best part!"
"Coronal Mass Ejection beats bukkake(?-sp?) porn anytime."
First of all, a tip of the hat to the silver-tongued Karmashock!
Seriously, the comments you made above, and prior, are some of the most rational, factual, and well stated, that I have ever had the pleasure of encountering.
I would also like to toss into the debate additional arguments...
The Internet has changed the world profoundly.
Pre-internet, communications were slower, in some areas significantly slower. "So what?" someone shouts.
Here is "what":
You, me, anyone that can access the internet has most of the 'whole of 'known' knowledge of mankind' available.
Included in that are countless webpages of info on how to build functional weapons with hand tools and common materials.
Youtube has hundreds, if not thousands of videos about this: 'making an AK-47 out of a shovel in your home workshop, step by step' and similar.
US Army's "TM 310-20: Improvised Munitions" AKA 'McGuyver's Handbook' has been available as a download in .pdf for a loooong time. (and other formats)
Just several examples of 'what'.
Banning stuff has to practically be global to actually be effective nowadays.
Oh sure, a local/regional ban may slow things down until black market arms mfg's and importers kick off (they will...witness all the meth and other drug labs and grow ops, and smuggling today), so in the very short long-term, same same.
Those same 'crazies' that we all want deprived of weapons can now ignore the ban if they are competent enough to look up the info on the net and build one, or pay someone to do so.
Side note:
In college I had a professor ask the class "what is the most powerful tool or weapon mankind has developed today?"
I answered "communication". Everyone argued with me that LASERs and nukes etc. were it, I replied 'But don't you need to communicate to develop, build, and use one of those?'
Modern comms have effectively shrunk the world we live in.
It's a two edged sword....
I think you win with that gem!
Well done! (the comment-not the giraffe-I would prefer mine rare)
I stand corrected. Thanks for the reminder. :-)
Why do I suddenly feel doomed, and that life is futile?
You are a scary, disturbed person. :-)
Uhmmm...yes they are.
While I get your point (and agree), the specifics need addressing.
In other words, you got it backwards, or less than optimum word choice.
Why did we call Native Americans 'Indians'?
Because their skin color was similar to the Indians(from India).
We (Westerners) learned to screw American Indians by screwing the Indian Indians first.
("Yo, dawg! I heard you like Indians, so...")
"It would not be the firs time Indians got screwed." (This would fix the word choice issue.)
Excellent post, DarkOx...you make some interesting points.
I would like to also throw in a few things.
Snowden seems like an rational, intelligent person.
What I mean by this is:
1.) He learned from Manning how not to do it.
He got out of reach before making his move.
2.) Although it appears he scooped up a a lot of stuff, he's been fairly selective about what he has released. As you pointed out, some stuff not related to 'his cause' has been released, but I agree with your reasoning here.
Unlike Manning, he did not just 'dump' everything.
This is why I cannot accept any accusations of treason or turning traitor as being legitimate.
From past experience, I feel confident that if he gave the Russians everything he allegedly vacuumed up, then I assure you, the Russians would be screaming bloody murder- having evidence of all the stuff going on without compromising THEIR sources.
It's not like they would be learning a lot of new stuff, it is just not worth compromising their intel sources at this time.
But give them evidence that does not show their sources? Yeah, they would jump on that in a heartbeat! It would be too big of a diplomatic club NOT to use to their advantage, especially in context of the current global situation, primarily Syria/Middle East.
So, I have to conclude that either he did not give them everything that he copied, or that he did not get as much as he is being accused of.
Neither one justifies our gov't.'s reaction.
The only things that do justify this reaction, all stink to high-heaven, and should not be happening.
The global telecom spying is old news.(2006, IIRC)
The only thing new here is documentation on specific targets. Prior to Snowden, everyone(US and 'allies') could have the warm fuzzy's that THEY were exempt because 'we are on the same side'.
Snowden shattered that illusion, forcing everyone to confront this face on.
And that is why all of the hoopla. Snowden flipped the lights on...all the dirt and roaches can be seen now.
In regards to 1.) above:
We (USA) painted ourselves into a corner during Bush jr.'s reign that was difficult to get out of.
Instead of working to get out of the corner, or even letting the paint dry, Obama has happily continued painting.
I can easily understand Snowden's actions and methods. I started getting nervous with our (USA) reactions to '9-11', both public and gov't.
Thanks for that comment....it does tint the picture from my perspective.
I think that this is the first time someone has pointed out this aspect that I can recall.
Are gov't. doc's copyrighted under a public domain type, or a restrictive type license? And why?
Those are two questions I would love to see addressed publicly regarding this incident.
It would seem to me that in their feverish attempts to legally crucify him, that they would have used copyright violations in addition to all of the other crapola they have been throwing at him if they could.
So I have to conclude at this point, he cannot even be accused of pirating copyrighted files, and all of this is just a 'cover your ass' type witch hunt by our gov't., when they got caught with their pants around their ankles.
*sarcasm follows: ;-)
Maybe they should sic the RIAA/MPAA on him...that would fix his cart!
That just makes yer cat look more fuzzy and fluffy, FTW!
It's not a bug, it's an 'added value feature'!
We can just chalk it up to bad aim by the Prince.
How can they expect us to believe this crap?
Putting the word "transparency" in anything with a telecom bends the needle on my BS meter as it 'helicopters' off into the wild blue yonder.
Where was all of this 'transparency' stuff prior to Snowden's escapade?
We need ALL of the PATRIOT Act repealed now!
It's trademark, intellectual property, that allows you to tell the difference between Coke, Pepsi, and RC cola.
No, it is not.
It is my nose and taste buds that tell me the difference.
Lipstick(trademark) on a pig doesn' change the fact your still dealing with a pig.
Yeah, it looks different, but it still squeals, smells, and acts like a pig.
Jimmy Hoffa, encased in concrete? ;-)
Oh, and my car keys, hundreds of missing socks and the TV remote control. That's my theory.
Probably so, but I am making progress quick enough to suit me, and further improvement is still ongoing.
But at the same time to answer your second question, I think there are permanent limits I will not be able to overcome.
That is mostly age related, as you age, your body decreases in ability to repair damage to itself, and repairing damage from a stroke involves the brain 're-wiring' itself to bypass the damage(dead areas of the brain killed off by the stroke).
There are limits to the damage it can reroute and recover functions even in a young person, but it gets tougher for the older ones.
I'm hopeful progress will continue, but at 56 years old, I'm trying not to be delusional about it.
I'm really more grateful the damage was as little as it was, compared to other stroke victims I have witnessed!