China is firmly under the control of the Communist Party of the People's Republic of China, a one party communist country that is allowing some free enterprise due to reforms following the disastrous Great Leap Forward and the Cultural Revolution that managed to help them kill 70,000,000 people or so. Lenin did the same thing back in the 1920s under the New Economic Policy. It didn't last in the Soviet Union. It may not last in China.
The United States is still very much a free, democratic society.
So do you have any policy recommendations for handing the 3,000 front companies that China has in the US for espionage, or their continuing efforts at hacking to both steal valuable data and establish control of systems for future use?
So far you seem to be advocating that the US simply be a target. That tends to not work out well in the long run.
What about the government of the United States which has violated the Constitutions of the United States ???
Let me see.....
Snowden took highly classified information, fled the country to a communist nation with nuclear weapons pointed at the United States and 3,000 front companies conducting espionage within its borders, from there he started off by revealing highly classified intelligence programs intended to safeguard American live, then went on to reveal details about the highly classified operations of an American ally. Up to this point some people could talk themselves into the position that he was performing some sort of service to Americans. He then proceeded to expose American intelligence operations with no direct impact on the constitutional rights of American citizens, and then fled extradition. He has caused both potential security and diplomatic problems for the US, and there may be significant economic fallout as well.
The US Congress, on the other hand, has passed various laws both empowering and regulating the behavior of the executive branch intelligence agencies. Many of those laws have been tested in courts and survived the challenge. The courts have overseen the actions of the intelligence agencies, as has Congress, and the executive branch. Accepting this is unpopular with some people, especially for those whose sole recognized authority is the pristine Constitution as written. They can't find the basis for these actions in their personal copy of the Constitution, and probably find current revelations objectionable under at least the 4th Amendment, maybe the 5th, and possibly others. Of course they are overlooking the President's Article II powers which have been recognized in courts, as well the Law of War and the differences between it and ordinary criminal law in terms of the constitution. Unable to recognize why the gap between current practice and their document from 1789 exists, the explanation becomes corruption and traitors instead of 220 years of jurisprudence, precedents that must be considered, and the collective experience of the nation and its judiciary in applying the Constitution, not to mention the Authorization for Use of Military Force the Congress passed which is legally a declaration of war. (And no, the fact that the conflict might last a long time doesn't change anything in that regard, nor does the fact that it is al Qaida.)
Although I believe that the national security apparatus in a democracy must be watched, and some of the revelations to be disquieting in light of what has been going on at the IRS, I don't find this a hard choice.
So you see no difference between a random internet poster and the most populous nation on earth, Communist China, which has nuclear weapons pointed at the United States, 3,000 front companies in the US conducting espionage, and which is actively encroaching upon the territory of its neighbors, some of which are US allies?
You see no way in which they might be approached differently?
Frankly, I trust wild eyed revolutionaries like you less than I trust them. Most revolutionaries promise utopia, none deliver them. It isn't uncommon for what comes after revolution to be far worse than what preceded it. The fact that you advocate mass murder as the start of building your utopia is a warning sign. The fact that you would throw away the US Constitution with its many protections and separations of power for something unspecified but somehow better is another warning sign. You are being carried away by your imagination. Beware, or you may end up being carried away by men in uniform, either white or blue.
Computing in the UK really had a head start on the US in many ways, but in usual form it was underfunded and lacked vision;
There was a considerable amount of important computer work done in the UK in the early years. For example, when considering Manchester's contributions one shouldn't overlook the pioneering work done with Atlas. But there is far more than that. In some cases you can trace the path of key developments we rely upon today, or that that probably most people have at least heard of, to things developed in Britain through some familiar names.
A notable example is the computer language, "BCPL", developed by Dr. Martin Richards at Cambridge in 1966. Dennis Ritchie ported BCPL to Multics. Ken Thompson and Dennis Ritchie used BCPL on Multics and from it derived the language "B". Some early Unix utilities were written in the BCPL derivative B. After additional rework of B, it became C, the heart of the Unix system. And of course C has led to the widely used derivatives C++ and Objective C.
BCPL was also used by Dr. Richards to develop the portable Tripos operating system, which was used on a variety of minicomputers. As microprocessors become ever more powerful and started forming the basis for powerful personal comptuers, Tripos was eventually selected to became the heart of the Amiga's AmigaDOS operating system.
BCPL has been available on many systems with familiar names, including (reportedly) the Raspberry Pi.
To anyone interested in the whys and wherefores of C, a passing acquaintance with BCPL is worthwhile. Viewed forwards through BCPL, rather than backwards through Java and C++, many C constructs, and idiomatic C ways of doing things, just make a lot more sense.
Beyond its historical importance, BCPL had intrinsic merits. In retrospect, what particularly impresses, is the elegant simplicity of its compiler. This is well documented in the book BCPL: the language and its compiler by Martin Richards and Colin Whitby-Stevens (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1979). -- more
Your points are well made. The Falklands are much better garrisoned and defended today than they were in 1982. And ship for ship, the Royal Navy's warships are much more capable. I still think there is reasonable cause for concern given the size of the cutbacks in MoD. I think Lord West has a point, and it isn't just the Royal Navy that has shrunk. The Vulcans are long gone from the RAF, with no replacement. RAF squadrons are being deactivated. And the British Army is shrinking. Well, hopefully it will end up being temporary, and peace holds. Britain has more to defend than just the Falklands. In Britain's favor, only fools underestimate Britain's military and its ability to punch above weight.
The most innovative theater going these days is not "security theater,' but "civil rights theater." As demonstrated above, the dialog is ever more scintillating and persuasive. The plots ever more colorful. The fiction ever more developed. The distraction from the real world ever more enticing. But every once in a while, ugly reality blows up in your face, with the threat to do so again.
These results are from a poll of Muslim students: – 33% claim that killing is justified if done to protect religion. – 40 percent support the introduction of sharia for British Muslims. – 33 percent support a worldwide Islamic caliphate based on sharia.
Well, enjoy the show. Don't worry if you miss today's performance, it will have a long run.
Ladies and gentlemen, history will title this period "1983".
History can be a tricky thing, especially when you are projecting into the future to determine what "the history" will be.
For all we know the current period could in fact be not "1983," but rather "1938." Will one of the many crisis or conflicts be the Sudetenland? Will one of them turn out to be the invasion of Poland? There are plenty of candidates.
Let us hope a shooting war between the major powers doesn't start any time soon.
He said: “I am horrified our naval flotilla now comprises only 19 frigates and destroyers.
"In the Falklands, in the first month of fighting, we had four sunk and 14 damaged. That makes you think. We seem to have forgotten that when you fight you lose things.
"Here we are with 19 frigates and destroyers. Are they bonkers? Are they mad? How have they allowed this to happen?”
I will second that. And beyond just the fact that FreeBSD is a great OS and has spawned a number of derivative systems is the fact that it participates in the *BSD ecosystem in which useful ideas and developments are shared among the many BSD based distributions. (FreeBSD, NetBSD, OpenBSD.....n) That makes for a lot of innovation and experimentation that benefits much of Unixland, and beyond.
In the empire of lies, truth is treason. -Ron Paul
Interesting counterpoint to that of celebrated statesman, Sir Winston Churchill, who recognized the importance of secrecy in wartime, and the value of deceiving the enemy..
"In war-time, truth is so precious that she should always be attended by a bodyguard of lies." -- Winston Churchill
It is to protect intelligence programs that guard against terrorist attacks on innocent people, Americans as well as people in other nations.
Al Qaida and its associates have repeated demonstrated the willingness and ability to attack innocent civilians around the world. Terrorism is not a trivial problem, but is being kept in check by active measures. There is a long list of arrests and convictions for terrorism and related offenses that can help one differentiate between successful anti-terrorism measures and "magic anti-terrorism rocks."
Thanks, but I think you came closer to my point than his.
... government is going to make sure that they try to match up a known terrorist phone with somebody in the United States. I don’t think you’re talking to the terrorists.
The point is that a number of people (not pointing at anyone in particular) have said something along the lines of, "If you have nothing to hide, you have nothing to fear."
Could you remind me which people in government were saying that? I know it is very popular on Slashdot, but I don't recall it being common coming from the national security establishment. I think I do recall them saying things along the lines of they don't target ordinary Americans, which is a very different thing.
Who is the US engaged in war with that he has given aid and comfort to?
The US is at war with al Qaida under the terms of Public Law 107-40 passed by the 107th Congress, which under well settled legal precedent is equivalent to a declaration of war. When Snowden exposed US national security secrets to the world, al Qaida wasn't wearing ear muffs. They found out too, so they are no doubt working on countermeasures and workarounds.
(a) In General.--That the President is authorized to use all necessary and appropriate force against those nations, organizations, or persons he determines planned, authorized, committed, or aided the terrorist attacks that occurred on September 11, 2001, or harbored such organizations or persons, in order to prevent any future acts of international terrorism against the United States by such nations, organizations or persons.
Only if you consider American citizens enemies of the American government.
Apparently you confuse the Taliban, al Qaida, the People's Republic of China, North Korea, Iran, Syria, et. al., with American citizens. You tell the world and everybody knows, including the very terrorists against whom you are trying to protect the American people. He could have gone to the inspector general or Congress, but didn't. Who knows what the damage will be?
Slashdot Mirror
China is firmly under the control of the Communist Party of the People's Republic of China, a one party communist country that is allowing some free enterprise due to reforms following the disastrous Great Leap Forward and the Cultural Revolution that managed to help them kill 70,000,000 people or so. Lenin did the same thing back in the 1920s under the New Economic Policy. It didn't last in the Soviet Union. It may not last in China.
The United States is still very much a free, democratic society.
The problem isn't horses there, its bull.
So do you have any policy recommendations for handing the 3,000 front companies that China has in the US for espionage, or their continuing efforts at hacking to both steal valuable data and establish control of systems for future use?
So far you seem to be advocating that the US simply be a target. That tends to not work out well in the long run.
I wonder how much of this post is kidding? Poe's law at it's best.
You might find that has an unexpected application.
**WHO** is the real traitor ?
Snowden a traitor ??
What about the government of the United States which has violated the Constitutions of the United States ???
Let me see.....
Snowden took highly classified information, fled the country to a communist nation with nuclear weapons pointed at the United States and 3,000 front companies conducting espionage within its borders, from there he started off by revealing highly classified intelligence programs intended to safeguard American live, then went on to reveal details about the highly classified operations of an American ally. Up to this point some people could talk themselves into the position that he was performing some sort of service to Americans. He then proceeded to expose American intelligence operations with no direct impact on the constitutional rights of American citizens, and then fled extradition. He has caused both potential security and diplomatic problems for the US, and there may be significant economic fallout as well.
The US Congress, on the other hand, has passed various laws both empowering and regulating the behavior of the executive branch intelligence agencies. Many of those laws have been tested in courts and survived the challenge. The courts have overseen the actions of the intelligence agencies, as has Congress, and the executive branch. Accepting this is unpopular with some people, especially for those whose sole recognized authority is the pristine Constitution as written. They can't find the basis for these actions in their personal copy of the Constitution, and probably find current revelations objectionable under at least the 4th Amendment, maybe the 5th, and possibly others. Of course they are overlooking the President's Article II powers which have been recognized in courts, as well the Law of War and the differences between it and ordinary criminal law in terms of the constitution. Unable to recognize why the gap between current practice and their document from 1789 exists, the explanation becomes corruption and traitors instead of 220 years of jurisprudence, precedents that must be considered, and the collective experience of the nation and its judiciary in applying the Constitution, not to mention the Authorization for Use of Military Force the Congress passed which is legally a declaration of war. (And no, the fact that the conflict might last a long time doesn't change anything in that regard, nor does the fact that it is al Qaida.)
Although I believe that the national security apparatus in a democracy must be watched, and some of the revelations to be disquieting in light of what has been going on at the IRS, I don't find this a hard choice.
So you see no difference between a random internet poster and the most populous nation on earth, Communist China, which has nuclear weapons pointed at the United States, 3,000 front companies in the US conducting espionage, and which is actively encroaching upon the territory of its neighbors, some of which are US allies?
You see no way in which they might be approached differently?
The 50th Anniversary of the Atlas computer
Frankly, I trust wild eyed revolutionaries like you less than I trust them. Most revolutionaries promise utopia, none deliver them. It isn't uncommon for what comes after revolution to be far worse than what preceded it. The fact that you advocate mass murder as the start of building your utopia is a warning sign. The fact that you would throw away the US Constitution with its many protections and separations of power for something unspecified but somehow better is another warning sign. You are being carried away by your imagination. Beware, or you may end up being carried away by men in uniform, either white or blue.
The Soviet Story (2008)
Computing in the UK really had a head start on the US in many ways, but in usual form it was underfunded and lacked vision;
There was a considerable amount of important computer work done in the UK in the early years. For example, when considering Manchester's contributions one shouldn't overlook the pioneering work done with Atlas. But there is far more than that. In some cases you can trace the path of key developments we rely upon today, or that that probably most people have at least heard of, to things developed in Britain through some familiar names.
A notable example is the computer language, "BCPL", developed by Dr. Martin Richards at Cambridge in 1966. Dennis Ritchie ported BCPL to Multics. Ken Thompson and Dennis Ritchie used BCPL on Multics and from it derived the language "B". Some early Unix utilities were written in the BCPL derivative B. After additional rework of B, it became C, the heart of the Unix system. And of course C has led to the widely used derivatives C++ and Objective C.
BCPL was also used by Dr. Richards to develop the portable Tripos operating system, which was used on a variety of minicomputers. As microprocessors become ever more powerful and started forming the basis for powerful personal comptuers, Tripos was eventually selected to became the heart of the Amiga's AmigaDOS operating system.
BCPL has been available on many systems with familiar names, including (reportedly) the Raspberry Pi.
Classic BCPL
To anyone interested in the whys and wherefores of C, a passing acquaintance with BCPL is worthwhile. Viewed forwards through BCPL, rather than backwards through Java and C++, many C constructs, and idiomatic C ways of doing things, just make a lot more sense.
Beyond its historical importance, BCPL had intrinsic merits. In retrospect, what particularly impresses, is the elegant simplicity of its compiler. This is well documented in the book BCPL: the language and its compiler by Martin Richards and Colin Whitby-Stevens (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1979). -- more
BCPL: A tool for compiler writing and system programming
THE PROGRAMMING LANGUAGE B
The Development of the C Language
Two words: Al Gore.
Two words: urban legend.
I'm reasonably certain that Al Gore isn't an urban legend. But if anyone could prove it, there might be 10 quid in it for charity.
The great tragedy of Science — the slaying of a beautiful hypothesis by an ugly fact. -- Thomas Huxley
Your points are well made. The Falklands are much better garrisoned and defended today than they were in 1982. And ship for ship, the Royal Navy's warships are much more capable. I still think there is reasonable cause for concern given the size of the cutbacks in MoD. I think Lord West has a point, and it isn't just the Royal Navy that has shrunk. The Vulcans are long gone from the RAF, with no replacement. RAF squadrons are being deactivated. And the British Army is shrinking. Well, hopefully it will end up being temporary, and peace holds. Britain has more to defend than just the Falklands. In Britain's favor, only fools underestimate Britain's military and its ability to punch above weight.
Cheers.... or should that be Ahoy!?
Feel free to send your correction to the author of the article, or the publisher, since that is where the information came from.
Do you have a handy reference showing the SI unit for floating point operations? I can't seem to find one.
The most innovative theater going these days is not "security theater,' but "civil rights theater." As demonstrated above, the dialog is ever more scintillating and persuasive. The plots ever more colorful. The fiction ever more developed. The distraction from the real world ever more enticing. But every once in a while, ugly reality blows up in your face, with the threat to do so again.
7 July 2005 London bombings
Major terror attack on scale of 7/7 foiled every year in UK, police reveal
At Least 4,000 Suspected of Terrorism-Related Activity in Britain, MI5 Director Says
MI5 warns al-Qaida regaining UK toehold after Arab spring
What do British Muslims think of the UK?
These results are from a poll of Muslim students:
– 33% claim that killing is justified if done to protect religion.
– 40 percent support the introduction of sharia for British Muslims.
– 33 percent support a worldwide Islamic caliphate based on sharia.
Well, enjoy the show. Don't worry if you miss today's performance, it will have a long run.
Ladies and gentlemen, history will title this period "1983".
History can be a tricky thing, especially when you are projecting into the future to determine what "the history" will be.
For all we know the current period could in fact be not "1983," but rather "1938." Will one of the many crisis or conflicts be the Sudetenland? Will one of them turn out to be the invasion of Poland? There are plenty of candidates.
Let us hope a shooting war between the major powers doesn't start any time soon.
Lord West: cut foreign aid to defend the Falklands
He said: “I am horrified our naval flotilla now comprises only 19 frigates and destroyers.
"In the Falklands, in the first month of fighting, we had four sunk and 14 damaged. That makes you think. We seem to have forgotten that when you fight you lose things.
"Here we are with 19 frigates and destroyers. Are they bonkers? Are they mad? How have they allowed this to happen?”
I will second that. And beyond just the fact that FreeBSD is a great OS and has spawned a number of derivative systems is the fact that it participates in the *BSD ecosystem in which useful ideas and developments are shared among the many BSD based distributions. (FreeBSD, NetBSD, OpenBSD.....n) That makes for a lot of innovation and experimentation that benefits much of Unixland, and beyond.
I'm afraid you are quite wrong as shown in this post.
So you concede that they do conduct surveillance of terrorists then? Fine, that will do.
And regarding the question of actions at the G20 summit, that was British, not American.
In the empire of lies, truth is treason. -Ron Paul
Interesting counterpoint to that of celebrated statesman, Sir Winston Churchill, who recognized the importance of secrecy in wartime, and the value of deceiving the enemy..
"In war-time, truth is so precious that she should always be attended by a bodyguard of lies." -- Winston Churchill
It is to protect intelligence programs that guard against terrorist attacks on innocent people, Americans as well as people in other nations.
Al Qaida and its associates have repeated demonstrated the willingness and ability to attack innocent civilians around the world. Terrorism is not a trivial problem, but is being kept in check by active measures. There is a long list of arrests and convictions for terrorism and related offenses that can help one differentiate between successful anti-terrorism measures and "magic anti-terrorism rocks."
Major terror attack on scale of 7/7 foiled every year in UK, police reveal
NSA director: Surveillance foiled 50 terror plots
National Counterterrorism Center: Annex of Statistical Information
Thanks, but I think you came closer to my point than his.
... government is going to make sure that they try to match up a known terrorist phone with somebody in the United States. I don’t think you’re talking to the terrorists.
Not targeting ordinary Americans.
This is what the article said. I'll let it speak for itself.
"That amount of money is well short of what's needed to build an exascale system, or a computer of 1,000 thousand petaflops."
The foibles of units: How many is a billion?
The figure came from the article, although I see the mistake.
"That amount of money is well short of what's needed to build an exascale system, or a computer of 1,000 thousand petaflops."
The point is that a number of people (not pointing at anyone in particular) have said something along the lines of, "If you have nothing to hide, you have nothing to fear."
Could you remind me which people in government were saying that? I know it is very popular on Slashdot, but I don't recall it being common coming from the national security establishment. I think I do recall them saying things along the lines of they don't target ordinary Americans, which is a very different thing.
Who is the US engaged in war with that he has given aid and comfort to?
The US is at war with al Qaida under the terms of Public Law 107-40 passed by the 107th Congress, which under well settled legal precedent is equivalent to a declaration of war. When Snowden exposed US national security secrets to the world, al Qaida wasn't wearing ear muffs. They found out too, so they are no doubt working on countermeasures and workarounds.
Private Manning is facing similar circumstances.
SEC. 2. AUTHORIZATION FOR USE OF UNITED STATES ARMED FORCES.
(a) In General.--That the President is authorized to use all necessary and appropriate force against those nations, organizations, or persons he determines planned, authorized, committed, or aided the terrorist attacks that occurred on September 11, 2001, or harbored such organizations or persons, in order to prevent any future acts of international terrorism against the United States by such nations, organizations or persons.
Only if you consider American citizens enemies of the American government.
Apparently you confuse the Taliban, al Qaida, the People's Republic of China, North Korea, Iran, Syria, et. al., with American citizens. You tell the world and everybody knows, including the very terrorists against whom you are trying to protect the American people. He could have gone to the inspector general or Congress, but didn't. Who knows what the damage will be?