The internet has selective retention, and things do disappear. It is still possible, last time I checked, to pull up some usenet posts that I made in the mid 90s. At one time Google was able to pull up certain information about me, but that disappeared 10 years ago. On the other hand, lots of things people posted online in information services like GEnie, CompuServe, The Source, etc., never made it onto the internet. Also, many of the old internet archives, ftp sites, gopher sites, archie sites, etc., are rapidly disappearing. I used to spend a certain amount of time spelunking, looking for various types of old information, and a lot of it has disappeared. Some professor leaves and his site and papers eventually tend to go away either by plan, accident, or negligence. A university reorganizes its web site, and old files and personal information goes away. Even on Slashdot it can be hard to find posts I made years ago. For years prior to getting an account I used to post from time to time, and I can find a couple of the posts I remember, but there is one I'd really like to find, and just can't. It seems to have faded into the ether.
You see the same thing happen with blogs and personal web sites. They tends to hand around for a time, sometimes a very long time. But if you change to another service, or lose interest, your stuff eventually tends to disappear for all sorts of reasons. In some cases that can mean a real loss of useful information given the growing important of blogs.
I think the fading memory of the internet is actually a problem. It often seems that for every bit of information that makes it onto the internet there is some fraction of other information that fades away. That would be great if the only problems we faced were new ones, but we keep having to fight the same old battles again and again. Sometimes the old documentation that had faded into irrelevance becomes very timely again, and the old techniques beat the new ones under the changed conditions. That is assuming you can find the documentation to make them work.
It depends on the delta. There are still many 32bit problems out there, and there are plenty of cases where having extra performance helps. If you have enough of the right size problems you could even reduce the number of systems that you would need.
It looks like it could allow packing a single system tighter with less wasted resources.
Reducing the footprint of individual programs could also have some benefits from system performance / management, especially in tight resource situations.
One minor drawback is that you would need to structure your user execution and runtime environment to account for the additional executable format.
Pulling some of the architectural advantages of the 64bit architecture (number of registers, etc.) into 32bit land should be gravy. A lot of that will depend on exactly how they behave in 32bit mode.
Where were they when the Boston Marathon attacks were being planned? They were snooping on Brazilian oil companies.
According to reports, NSA has approximately 40,000 employees and 31,000+ requests for intelligence information from other parts of the government. It not only can do more than one thing at once, it has to.
The problem with the Boston Marathon attacks was that the FBI dropped the ball - they didn't follow up on information from the Russian FSB. The NSA isn't all powerful and responsible for everything. The other parts of government need to meet their responsibilities as well.
And actually there was a way that NSA might have been able to prevent 9/11. NSA had communications of terrorists in Pakistan, IIRC, but they didn't know the other end was in California. That is where the metadata program might have prevented 9/11 since they would have been able to identify the domestic phone number for the FBI to investigate.
Keep in mind, many people actually died as a result of Gen. Washington's decision to commit treason against the crown.
Washington's actions paid off rather handsomely, many times over. The bill for Snowden's actions hasn't been presented yet, and it will take years to tally. It is far from clear that the reward will justify the cost in the long run.
Based on the 60 Minutes segment, if NSA sees something suspicious involving a US number it alerts the FBI of the number. The FBI would then investigate and identify who was involved.
You might as well watch the 60 Minutes segment. The metadata discussion, and a demonstration of the analysis, is near the beginning and in the transcript.
I don't believe I've heard anyone, in the government or not, make that claim. What possible good would metadata be to them if they couldn't associate it with an individual?
What I've mainly heard them say is "you shouldn't care, since we're not listening to the actual call". That's still garbage.
They show how it is done and discuss it in the 60 Minutes segment. It is pretty close to the start after a brief discussion with General Alexander. You can read the transcript and watch the video.
Briefly, they can chain together the calls from someone that they identify as a terrorist and see where it leads. How many calls, where they go.
If they run into a US number that looks suspicious they can alert the FBI to start an investigation based off from the phone number. It would be up to the FBI to identify who that was.
It is an occupational hazard. When you are good at your job, have a decent architecture, and have at lest the bare minimum of resources, you can pretty often keep things running reasonably smoothly to external appearances. Since things aren't obviously wrong people won't complain, they think you have enough, and think your job is "easy" since nothing big seems to go wrong. What they don't see is you scrambling behind the scenes to compensate for the lack of resources, catching problems and the occasional disaster before they happen, and wishing you had one more person so that you could finally get some real vacation time in. They will be deaf to your resource requests. Then they outsource you and are shocked at the bill.
And crashcy's obsession with me continues with 6 out of 7 of his last posts on me.
That is kind of pathetic. At least we can be clear that you aren't here to add to the discussion on the topic in a meaningful way.
Since you indicated in a post above that you are willing to shill for money, what would be your rate to go post on Reddit on the topic of your favorite pie?
This is why the "they hate us for our freedoms" tripe seems to actually fly with a lot of those folks. They seem to honestly not know what kind of brutal regimes their government is supporting and arming -- in their name, and on their dime.
The tripe is being served up mainly by people on the Left. The extremist Islamists such as al Qaida directly state that they want to take over the world, convert the population to Islam, and implement Sharia law in every country. They want to take back formerly Muslim lands, such as Spain.
They want to remove your freedom of worship or not worship, punishing any belief but Islamic belief to varying degrees. The general Muslim position has historically been that Christians and Jews are "People of the Book," close enough that they can be tolerated in Muslim lands, but heavily taxed to create an incentive towards conversion. Polytheists are a hated enemy to be converted, driven out, or killed. (The current extremists do not even want to make the traditional concession to Christians and Jews.) They want to use their religious law to remove your right to eat, drink, and read what you can now. They want to ban alcohol and pornography, for example. They want to remove freedom of expression and punish blasphemy, actively. They want to unify church and state as is the Islamic custom under the Calphate. They believe the problem their societies face will be solved not by digging more sewers and building more schools, but by chopping off more hands and heads. They want to bring that civilization to you, by force if necessary.
I'm not sure who you could miss that. If you have looked into the question at all you must have seen this. Do you reject it? How do you explain the stated desire to return Spain to Islamic rule by blaming the US? If you have looked into the question of extremist Islam in Europe, you know they have the same goal there for Europe. How do you blame that on the United States?
If you haven't noticed the US gets hated for acting and not acting at the same time. Don't interfere! You didn't interfere!
Of course there is little consistency among the Left on related questions. As a practical example, you can see how this operated in 1991 with Saddam's invasion of Kuwait. There was essentially no protest in Europe's streets when Saddam invaded Kuwait. The protests came when the US worked to remove Saddam's army. Saddams' invasion wasn't treated as imperialism, or aggression, but removing it was.
As to my sig, I wasn't "guiding moderators" but reminding them that we are having a discussion here. That is hard to do if one viewpoint is removed from view simply because it is not your viewpoint. Some moderators took it to heart and the moderation of my posts become somewhat less harsh, although various intolerant ideologues continue to mod bomb me from time to time. Fascism isn't truly dead, merely resting, and some moderators seem to take it as a guiding principle for their use of mod points.
As to my current sig, I suggest you read it again. I am not "threatening" people taking a contrary position to mine but am doing something different. Do you need assistance in parsing it? I realize that English isn't your first language.
So obviously there's some genuine kinship there, but hey, the dates are all off.
If the dates are off then don't eat them.
But seriously... 1984 should have been named '84. Totalitarianism will always be a threat to be guarded against. Making sure it is always on the mental horizon would probably be useful. 2084 is coming.
I wonder how many grams of NANO-THERMITE were sent away from investigators and "recycled" along with the rest of the WTC rubble-steel (both molten and cold)....
Our resident NSA shill is the submitter. I expect he'll be here all day.
It is interesting that you use the word "shill" since 4 out of 5 of your last comment posts* have been to disparage me, not even really discussing elements of the story. Does that make you an "anti-Cold Fjord shill?" It would seem so. The interesting question is, "why?" Do you not want the stories discussed or reported? The stories get voted on by Slashdot readers and selected by the editors, are you suggesting I control them? Where are the stories that you want to see posted? You don't seem to be making a positive contribution.
*You have to follow one of them to see he is replying to me.
Russian President Vladimir Putin defended the U.S. National Security Agency, and even said he envies President Barack Obama in light of the NSA revelations “because he can get away with it.”
Putin’s comments at a Thursday news conference reflected support for the NSA surveillance as a necessary tool to fight terrorism, but added that government rules should “limit the appetite” of the data-collecting agency, CBS News reports.
Keep in mind that Putin knows the NSA spies on Russia too. What is the world coming to? That really is an interesting development.
Well, maybe if Russia's security agencies got their hands on the NSA tasking list that Snowden took they now feel much less vulnerable. They would be right.
Slashdot Mirror
The internet has selective retention, and things do disappear. It is still possible, last time I checked, to pull up some usenet posts that I made in the mid 90s. At one time Google was able to pull up certain information about me, but that disappeared 10 years ago. On the other hand, lots of things people posted online in information services like GEnie, CompuServe, The Source, etc., never made it onto the internet. Also, many of the old internet archives, ftp sites, gopher sites, archie sites, etc., are rapidly disappearing. I used to spend a certain amount of time spelunking, looking for various types of old information, and a lot of it has disappeared. Some professor leaves and his site and papers eventually tend to go away either by plan, accident, or negligence. A university reorganizes its web site, and old files and personal information goes away. Even on Slashdot it can be hard to find posts I made years ago. For years prior to getting an account I used to post from time to time, and I can find a couple of the posts I remember, but there is one I'd really like to find, and just can't. It seems to have faded into the ether.
You see the same thing happen with blogs and personal web sites. They tends to hand around for a time, sometimes a very long time. But if you change to another service, or lose interest, your stuff eventually tends to disappear for all sorts of reasons. In some cases that can mean a real loss of useful information given the growing important of blogs.
I think the fading memory of the internet is actually a problem. It often seems that for every bit of information that makes it onto the internet there is some fraction of other information that fades away. That would be great if the only problems we faced were new ones, but we keep having to fight the same old battles again and again. Sometimes the old documentation that had faded into irrelevance becomes very timely again, and the old techniques beat the new ones under the changed conditions. That is assuming you can find the documentation to make them work.
Maybe we should hold off a bit to assess the affects. "Whistle blowers" aren't the only ones that Snowden has "inspired."
Virtually every terrorist group in the world shifting tactics in wake of NSA leaks: U.S. officials/A.
Your statement could be taken at face value, or ironically. I wonder which you intended?
It depends on the delta. There are still many 32bit problems out there, and there are plenty of cases where having extra performance helps. If you have enough of the right size problems you could even reduce the number of systems that you would need.
It looks like it could allow packing a single system tighter with less wasted resources.
Reducing the footprint of individual programs could also have some benefits from system performance / management, especially in tight resource situations.
One minor drawback is that you would need to structure your user execution and runtime environment to account for the additional executable format.
Pulling some of the architectural advantages of the 64bit architecture (number of registers, etc.) into 32bit land should be gravy. A lot of that will depend on exactly how they behave in 32bit mode.
Where were they when the Boston Marathon attacks were being planned? They were snooping on Brazilian oil companies.
According to reports, NSA has approximately 40,000 employees and 31,000+ requests for intelligence information from other parts of the government. It not only can do more than one thing at once, it has to.
The problem with the Boston Marathon attacks was that the FBI dropped the ball - they didn't follow up on information from the Russian FSB. The NSA isn't all powerful and responsible for everything. The other parts of government need to meet their responsibilities as well.
And actually there was a way that NSA might have been able to prevent 9/11. NSA had communications of terrorists in Pakistan, IIRC, but they didn't know the other end was in California. That is where the metadata program might have prevented 9/11 since they would have been able to identify the domestic phone number for the FBI to investigate.
Any sufficiently successful intelligence program may be indistinguishable from Magic.
Keep in mind, many people actually died as a result of Gen. Washington's decision to commit treason against the crown.
Washington's actions paid off rather handsomely, many times over. The bill for Snowden's actions hasn't been presented yet, and it will take years to tally. It is far from clear that the reward will justify the cost in the long run.
He actually is in a stressful position behind razor wire, but fashion choices available in Russia have expanded since the fall of the Soviet Union.
Old Soviet fashion show.
It wasn't really Slashdot they were interested in.
It's probably closer to say that Snowden works with carrier waves, not carriers on the waves.
Based on the 60 Minutes segment, if NSA sees something suspicious involving a US number it alerts the FBI of the number. The FBI would then investigate and identify who was involved.
I suggest watching it, it clarifies things.
You might as well watch the 60 Minutes segment. The metadata discussion, and a demonstration of the analysis, is near the beginning and in the transcript.
It is demonstrated in the 60 Minutes segment near the beginning.
I don't believe I've heard anyone, in the government or not, make that claim. What possible good would metadata be to them if they couldn't associate it with an individual?
What I've mainly heard them say is "you shouldn't care, since we're not listening to the actual call". That's still garbage.
They show how it is done and discuss it in the 60 Minutes segment. It is pretty close to the start after a brief discussion with General Alexander. You can read the transcript and watch the video.
Briefly, they can chain together the calls from someone that they identify as a terrorist and see where it leads. How many calls, where they go.
If they run into a US number that looks suspicious they can alert the FBI to start an investigation based off from the phone number. It would be up to the FBI to identify who that was.
You can bury an AK-47 for a long period of time and it'll continue to remain operation after you dig it up.
Two words: Zombie Kalashnikov.
It is an occupational hazard. When you are good at your job, have a decent architecture, and have at lest the bare minimum of resources, you can pretty often keep things running reasonably smoothly to external appearances. Since things aren't obviously wrong people won't complain, they think you have enough, and think your job is "easy" since nothing big seems to go wrong. What they don't see is you scrambling behind the scenes to compensate for the lack of resources, catching problems and the occasional disaster before they happen, and wishing you had one more person so that you could finally get some real vacation time in. They will be deaf to your resource requests. Then they outsource you and are shocked at the bill.
And crashcy's obsession with me continues with 6 out of 7 of his last posts on me.
That is kind of pathetic. At least we can be clear that you aren't here to add to the discussion on the topic in a meaningful way.
Since you indicated in a post above that you are willing to shill for money, what would be your rate to go post on Reddit on the topic of your favorite pie?
This is why the "they hate us for our freedoms" tripe seems to actually fly with a lot of those folks. They seem to honestly not know what kind of brutal regimes their government is supporting and arming -- in their name, and on their dime.
The tripe is being served up mainly by people on the Left. The extremist Islamists such as al Qaida directly state that they want to take over the world, convert the population to Islam, and implement Sharia law in every country. They want to take back formerly Muslim lands, such as Spain.
Alarm in Spain over al-Qaeda call for its "reconquest"
HAMAS Targets Spain
They want to remove your freedom of worship or not worship, punishing any belief but Islamic belief to varying degrees. The general Muslim position has historically been that Christians and Jews are "People of the Book," close enough that they can be tolerated in Muslim lands, but heavily taxed to create an incentive towards conversion. Polytheists are a hated enemy to be converted, driven out, or killed. (The current extremists do not even want to make the traditional concession to Christians and Jews.) They want to use their religious law to remove your right to eat, drink, and read what you can now. They want to ban alcohol and pornography, for example. They want to remove freedom of expression and punish blasphemy, actively. They want to unify church and state as is the Islamic custom under the Calphate. They believe the problem their societies face will be solved not by digging more sewers and building more schools, but by chopping off more hands and heads. They want to bring that civilization to you, by force if necessary.
I'm not sure who you could miss that. If you have looked into the question at all you must have seen this. Do you reject it? How do you explain the stated desire to return Spain to Islamic rule by blaming the US? If you have looked into the question of extremist Islam in Europe, you know they have the same goal there for Europe. How do you blame that on the United States?
If you haven't noticed the US gets hated for acting and not acting at the same time. Don't interfere! You didn't interfere!
Of course there is little consistency among the Left on related questions. As a practical example, you can see how this operated in 1991 with Saddam's invasion of Kuwait. There was essentially no protest in Europe's streets when Saddam invaded Kuwait. The protests came when the US worked to remove Saddam's army. Saddams' invasion wasn't treated as imperialism, or aggression, but removing it was.
As to my sig, I wasn't "guiding moderators" but reminding them that we are having a discussion here. That is hard to do if one viewpoint is removed from view simply because it is not your viewpoint. Some moderators took it to heart and the moderation of my posts become somewhat less harsh, although various intolerant ideologues continue to mod bomb me from time to time. Fascism isn't truly dead, merely resting, and some moderators seem to take it as a guiding principle for their use of mod points.
As to my current sig, I suggest you read it again. I am not "threatening" people taking a contrary position to mine but am doing something different. Do you need assistance in parsing it? I realize that English isn't your first language.
No, just concerned. You probably need help as well.
My suggest is that you get treatment instead of suffering in silence. Modern medicine offers many useful treatments for mental and emotional problems.
So obviously there's some genuine kinship there, but hey, the dates are all off.
If the dates are off then don't eat them.
But seriously... 1984 should have been named '84. Totalitarianism will always be a threat to be guarded against. Making sure it is always on the mental horizon would probably be useful. 2084 is coming.
I wonder how many grams of NANO-THERMITE were sent away from investigators and "recycled" along with the rest of the WTC rubble-steel (both molten and cold)....
Almost certainly none.
Does "nano-thermite" actually exist?
That can't be true since it's in my storage locker.
Metal encased Z80A computers will be back in style after North Korea pops the EMP bomb.
Our resident NSA shill is the submitter. I expect he'll be here all day.
It is interesting that you use the word "shill" since 4 out of 5 of your last comment posts* have been to disparage me, not even really discussing elements of the story. Does that make you an "anti-Cold Fjord shill?" It would seem so. The interesting question is, "why?" Do you not want the stories discussed or reported? The stories get voted on by Slashdot readers and selected by the editors, are you suggesting I control them? Where are the stories that you want to see posted? You don't seem to be making a positive contribution.
*You have to follow one of them to see he is replying to me.
Putin: I Envy Obama In Light Of NSA Revelations ‘Because He Can Get Away With It’
Russian President Vladimir Putin defended the U.S. National Security Agency, and even said he envies President Barack Obama in light of the NSA revelations “because he can get away with it.”
Putin’s comments at a Thursday news conference reflected support for the NSA surveillance as a necessary tool to fight terrorism, but added that government rules should “limit the appetite” of the data-collecting agency, CBS News reports.
Keep in mind that Putin knows the NSA spies on Russia too. What is the world coming to? That really is an interesting development.
Well, maybe if Russia's security agencies got their hands on the NSA tasking list that Snowden took they now feel much less vulnerable. They would be right.