No, it's not necessarily ethical; rather, it would be legal (which you probably meant). Two things often align, but are very different beasts. Ethical (or more accurately, moral) viewpoint is with respect to right and wrong; legality just whether it is acceptable according to local legal standard.
And while ethical issues are indeed not black-and-white, they seldom have anything to do with national interests.
Governments don't have ethics but they do have laws. If it's legal then it's ethical according to the government.
Ok, the example might have been bad but the point still stands. One can imagine all kinds of illegal/immoral/unethical things done 'inside' the parliament as well, with the protection of immunity as long as you can convince 4% of people to support it. If they were doing this in order to illustrate the absurdity of that law, I would applaud them. If they actually intend to use it, then I don't think they are doing themselves any favors.
If its done by the parliament it's ethical according to Sweden. There are no objective ethical values because each country has a different national interest.
I strongly sympathize with your frustration. I regard the US as on a trajectory towards a dictatorial regime. You are not quite there yet. Personal core freedoms remain but the media already lost its independence and is corporate controlled hence the prominence of blogs. The establishment managed to channel the libertarian and right wing anger into the controllable Tea Party movement and disenfranchised progressives are yet not ready to break with Obama.
I see two paths:
The US continues its slide towards a regime where elections matter about as much as in the Soviet Union.
People will eventually be frustrated enough, as well as informed and organized enough via alternative means such as the internet, to challenge the two party oligopoly.
And thats why they've destroyed the economy and plan to kill the internet. This way you can't speak and can't afford to eat either if they decide you shouldn't. As far as the libertarian movement goes, it has been corrupted all along.
Alex Jones whom everybody looks up to as a lead libertarian is as establishment as Rush Limbaugh. He is with the big oil establishment and this is made obvious if you look at what he says and what he doesn't say about climate change.He has chosen a side which is personal to his self interest but which is not necessarily in anyone elses self interest. The tea party movement is the same way, they have been bought by the oil cartels.I could name names but I won't do so on this site, anyone who is into investigative reporting could follow the money and see that the tea party along with Alex Jones's network is a commercial enterprise.
Obama on the other hand is linked to the other establishment network. The climate change network that supports nuclear power over oil. This network also includes the hollywood oligarchs and they want to crack down on the internet to maintain their power. This just happens to result in a loss of free speech which they don't really like anymore than anyone else in the establishment.
So no I don't think either of those two situations will happen. What I predict will happen is that the USA is going to crack down so hard that the economy is going to continue down into a depression. We are going to see even more crackdowns and eventually other countries are going to take advantage of it. This means other countries are going to grow stronger while America is in chaos.
I think if we do not have a free press we wont even know whats going on. As a result we will be brainwashed by political foreign intelligence agencies and interests who will give disinformation and become the official media. The reason is because both Fox News and CNN are equally BS at this point. They both want to present a false reality and this is what has opened the door to internet bloggers who are controlled by foreigners who also present false realities.
The only solution in my opinion is for the US government to present the real reality somewhere in some form that is sophisticated enough so that the people who fight to protect this country can understand it. It's not important if teenage pot smokers in their basement understand whats going on. What is important is that the people actually fighting these wars understand what is going on. When the people who actually are fighting don't even understand whats going on then you have all sorts of problems.
I don't expect the government to give up any classified secrets. This isn't what I consider important. I expect the government to actually stop lying through the media and paint the true picture of reality to the people fit to handle it. We have Al Qaeda making a magazine now, we have all these different blogs online and the stories they are telling about the war seems more realistic than the bullshit we hear from the government.
It's just like with BP. You have BP acting like the spill really isn't bad. Telling it's own employees not to wear masks and hiding the fact that they get sick. Telling everyone t
They could have wrote their own steganography applications. Any known steganography application is probably also known by law enforcement and useless. The success or failure of steganography is based on the fact that the actual use of it and the type of it remains secret. When it's known then it's useless. to be kept secret or the encryption is worthless because the security of the scramble is the randomness of the key.
No, the whole point of steganography is that you use it to avoid provoking suspicion in the first place. Once the FBI et al have you under surveillance, it doesn't really matter what application you use to hide things, the authorities already know to look there anyway.
You don't exactly add a "secured by ABC steganography" attachment to all your emails...
Thats what I was saying. Steganographys secrecy is in the fact that nobody knows what type of steganography you are using. It's a matter of them not knowing where to look. This is very much like the secrecy of your key, if anyone knows the key then your encryption is broken.
As far as surveillance goes. if they were spies wouldn't they be trained to expect to be under constant surveillance? Unlike the rest of us, these spies knew all along they'd be under surveillance. They knew enough to use steganography but were too stupid to use it properly? That seems to be the situation.
In the article they are doing stuff like leaving their passwords out so the feds or whomever could access it. The steganography apps they used seem to have been stuff written by other people, hiding data in images. The point is they didn't seem to understand how to use the technology they had which leads me to believe they probably weren't trained.
Then again what would I know? Maybe this is what usually happens and most spies get caught? You'd think that they'd have some sophisticated technology though.
Because the Federal Government is beholden to the people who own the resources, namely us.
Maybe in a perfect democracy but thats not what we have. The US Government is owned by whomever controls the money and whoever owns the treasury bonds. The US citizens do not own the treasury bonds and are tax payers/soldiers at best for the people, entities and nations who do own the treasury bonds. What this means is that Americans do not own those resources, those resources are owned by whomever the US Government owes money to. How do you think the US Government will pay the debt?
I don't get to elect the people at the UN, and NGOs don't answer to me.
And neither does the US Government. The US Government answers to foreign bond holders, just as a corporation answers to it's shareholders. Your interests are rarely considered. Do you think you are someone special?
Even if I did get to elect people at the UN, my interests as an American are poorly represented by a large world government.
Your interests as an American aren't represented in any big government. Not the Federal Government, not the UN, not the big corporations that you arent a shareholder in. You can vote but does it look like any of these people operate in your best interest? The only way to influence the Federal Government is to form a union and have enough members and money that you can buy a massive amount of US treasury bonds and other vital assets that you can try to bargain with. You have to be a collective special interest group with a stake in the US Government to even get noticed.
The resources here belong to me as a citizen of this nation, so I want representation in how they're managed. The Federal Government isn't some random thing that was dropped on our heads. It exists because we're a sovereign nation with a need for some kind of central and united governance. It was concocted in order to address real problems that people living in large societies have, just like every other national government on the planet.
That is very wishful and in my opinion credulous thinking. You have no influence unless you have the ability to use carrot and stick. If you don't own any treasury bonds you cannot threaten to sell them. If you don't have enough collective wealth to buy treasury bonds you cannot promise to bail the US Government out by buying them. You aren't funding the war, so you wont profit from the results of conquest.
The land is owned by the US Government and the US Government is owned by whomever funds it.
Who said anything about it having to be a language? That seems like it would be even more difficult than writing a script and distributing the CD. The script could handle everything. It could be written in python, java, perl or any other language.
You would think a country like Russia would have some top notch programmers. All this talk about cyber warfare and hackers trained by the Russian government and they can't write code? I don't believe it.
they put on the bare minimum effort to convince the kgb they're still on the team (so they don't get any polonium in their tea)
then they dig up their free bags of money in sullivan county, and get on with their average suburban wannabe lives. when the kgb calls, they find a paranoid schizophrenic's blog and rivet their kgb bosses with useless tales of intrigue from the wild west. this spy ring is a joke
if you want to talk about modern life destroying cherished traditions, add this to your list: comfortable suburban living killed james bond
Seriously? You think Russia would put polonium in their tea? On US soil? I know the guy you are talking about so it does happen but I don''t think Russia would dare do that. That being said I agree the spy ring does look to be a joke and I'm not sure why there is such a big deal about this considering they were an unsuccessful ring.
They weren't all full of shit because some of them (the Chapman female) seemed to have some real skills.
They could have wrote their own steganography applications. Any known steganography application is probably also known by law enforcement and useless. The success or failure of steganography is based on the fact that the actual use of it and the type of it remains secret. When it's known then it's useless. It's very much like encryption where the key has to be kept secret or the encryption is worthless because the security of the scramble is the randomness of the key.
Let's just say it, these spies didn't know the technology and we should be glad they didn't. I don't understand why the hell we are seeing these ridiculous articles about what they should have done or about steganography applications they could have used. Yes a lot of those apps exist but the Russians didn't write it.
Writing the password probably isn't as smartest way to save it but lets be realistic, nobody can remember a 26 character password. It's bound to be written somewhere even if it's written in a PGP encrypted email message to self.
The threat they faced is nothing, and I mean absolutely nothing, compared to the threat we face. They might have had to deal with risk but there was less laws for them to deal with, there was less technology for them to deal with, and in general there were less enemies for them to deal with.
Chomsky might have changed minds but changing my mind doesn't change society. Society isn't influenced by our hearts. Chomsky will get nowhere because the only thing the empire cares about is maintaining itself. Their generation allowed people to do those sorts of things because there wasn't covert surveillance on the level there is now.
And even if you have some people who invent things or write books, this is not going to change the minds of the generals and joint chiefs of staff who really decide what actions to take. They will decide along with the President. Chomsky is not the President, he's not general, hes not head of the CIA or FBI, he's not head of the NSA, he has no rank in the security establishment or the civilian leadership.
I might agree with what he says but he doesn't have the power to change anything any more than Ron Paul has the power to become President. And a majority of their followers WILL be ending up dead or in jail because the government labels them domestic terrorists. They are probably being spied upon as we speak, with informants detailing their every move. On top of that the ones who really are serious? They'll be framed on some BS charges and locked in jail.
The US Government does not follow the Constitution when conducting the war on terrorism. They will frame you up and lock you up, and in some cases they'll just grab you up and not press charges for years until the society forgets you exist.
Okay, so why the National Park Service? Is that where we hide the nuclear missiles?
You're making the mistake of concluding that since governments wage war, that's all they do. Governments exist to manage shared resources. Ten people live on a lake, and one day, one of them decides to start draining it so he can sell the water. The other nine get together and stop him, and everybody decides to agree that nobody exclusively owns the lake. Voila. A new government is born.
Just because the military is a shared resource doesn't mean it's the only one. It's just the only one you're thinking about right now.
But why do we need federal government to do that? The UN could do it, a big NGO could do it, why the federal government? And even when the federal government does it, it's not designed for it.
ever hear of specialization? when there's a fire, i call the professional fireman, i don't start building a hose.
The proper response if you see a lot of crime in your neighborhood and a lot of gangs is to join the effort to fight it in an official capcity. This way you can have a fratenity/gang of your own, with your own guns, and your own powers that surpass that of the gang. If you are dumb enough to take on gangsters without the authority to do so, you can find yourself receiving death threats from those gangsters that you declared war on when you informed on them. Maybe you should read Sun Tzu, and never go into war unprepared.
leave policework to professional policemen, idiot
Why not become a professional police man? What stops you? You want to do something about gangs who bully innocent people? You have such a big conscience and you want to do something to improve the world? Why don't you become a policeman rather than tell everyone else what they arent doing? You cannot be a part time warrior. Either you are going to be a full time professional or you risk being harmed by gang members who only live that way 24/7.
if no one stands up to the gangs, there will be always be gangs
gangs exist everywhere, but are most potent where there are people who won't oppose them.
Either become a cop and stand up directly to them. Or you and your neighbors put up cameras and or make the police put up cameras. CCTV cameras don't prevent crime but it damn sure will make sure it doesnt happen in front of you.
if they go into a neighborhood and there is fierce opposition to their presence, then the gangs go away,
Yeah sure dude. I'm sure the mafia left little italy because italians there didn't want the mafia to take over. I'm sure it worked for all the organized crime mafias and gangs, outlaw bikers and I'm sure it worked in the wild west too. The shop owners could just put up a sign saying "no gunslingers" and thats all it would take right? Unless you have guns you cannot stop people who have guns. Unless you have the authority to use your gun you cannot protect yourself from people who kill with guns.
because the police round them up, because the gangs are reported by people who live there
This might work in rich suburban neighborhoods. This does not work in neighborhoods infested with gangs and dominated by poverty. When you take down the gangs in these neighborhoods you take out multiple sources of income that many families in these neighborhoods rely on. There are no jobs and you the do-gooder wants to crack down on the one group of people supplying all the jobs and money for the neighborhood? You do realize that some of these gangs actually have civilian supporters right? You do realize that some of these gangs are sophisticated and have civilians who spy and snitch for the gang right? Thats right you'll go to your neighborhood meeting and discuss how you want to crack down on the gangs, and someone at the meeting will record it and give it to the gang leader and now you'll be the target of the gang.
but if the gangs go to another neighborhood where no one complains as they do their dirty work, they stay there, and the police are stymied in their efforts by lack of cooperation by the citizens there
figure it out retard: you have to fight gangs, you just have to, to SURVIVE
if you choose NOT to fight them, then you will always have gangs threatening and menacing you, you live in fear: you are a slave. you can survive a day, sure, but you won't survive longterm, because gangs are gangs: they prey on the weak, and they will get to you at some point or another, until you stand up them to SURVIVE
or don't, and be their slave
you are really are a slave, you really do think like a slave
You know nothing about gangs, at least not any sophisticated gang
what problem do you have with these entities that somehow would be better if they didn't exist?
i take it you somehow magically believe if there were no feds or no un, whatever you hate that they are doing, wouldn't continue to get done
truth, moron: whatever it is that you hate that the feds or the un is doing, would still happen in a world without the feds or the un. except now would be even less recourse to fix whatever it is you hate they are doing
When did I say these entities should not exist? Yes the federal government is too big and intrusive but I never said it shouldn't exist. I don't think you understand libertarianism. It is not libertarians belief that the feds should not exist, it's that the feds should stick to what they are good at, and thats winning wars.
You are working with a strawman argument based on stuff I've never said. I never said that the UN shouldn't exist. I never said that governments should exist. Just like I wouldn't say corporations shouldn't exist, or that churches shouldn't exist. I recognize the value and function of these entities.
The government is the war machine. The corporation is the profit machine. The church is the faith machine.
I only have a problem when people try to assign faith to the government and tell people to treat the government as God. Telling people to have faith in politicians and government is wrong. Just like telling people to be loyal to corporations is wrong.
I think it's better if we keep the functions of these entities focused on what they are good at doing. A war machine might be able to do humanitarian aid, but only in the context of winning the war. It does not have a conscience. The corporation like BP might be able to pay for or do humanitarian aid but it does not have a conscience. Only the church and non profit entities have a conscience.
So let the conscience organizations do that. Let the war organizations do that. Let the profit organizations do that. And if we need to blend the functions we should rely on NGO's which are government funded.
you're probably one of those assholes who if they see a gang beating someone up, you don't even report it to the police: fear of reprisal
take responsibility for your world, and work for what is right, or be a slave, as you currently have chosen
the more there are people who think like you in this world, the more the state of the world is misery and poverty and suffering. evil men depend upon slaves like you to stand there and do nothing while they perpetuate transgressions. that really is the truth
you've sold your conscience. you have declared you won't stand up for what you believe. and if you don't exercise what you say your principles are, then you really don't have any principles
you're a self-made slave. pathetic
If you report everything to the police and you live in the same neighborhood as the gang, the members who aren't arrested will be beating your ass up. Stop trying to give survival strategies for a world you know little to nothing about.
If I want to clean up the streets because I witnessed a gang beating up somebody I know, I would join the police force and do it properly. I would not become a snitch/informant. I would not pretend like I'm a hero. I would join the police academy, get a gun and a badge and personally police the streets. What you have to understand about this world is that uniforms, authority, and protocol matter. Doing things the right way matters more than following your gut and getting your ass kicked or killed.
Looking at your signature proves to me that you have no concept of protocol and no respect for authority.
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it
Just because a law is stupid, or immoral in your opinion, it does not give you the authority to break or ignore the law. Right and wrong have nothing to do with the law, but whether or not you are a political prisoner has everything to do with whether or not you follow the law. Based on what you are saying you will be going to prison, and if you are an informant you probably wont last in prison unless they put you in a special protective section of the prison.
take responsibility for your world, and work for what is right, or be a slave, as you currently have chosen
the more there are people who think like you in this world, the more the state of the world is misery and poverty and suffering. evil men depend upon slaves like you to stand there and do nothing while they perpetuate transgressions. that really is the truth
You have no concept of risk management. You have no concept of what you are up against. You think you can make up the rules as you go along? It doesn't work that way. Rules that existed before you were born will exist after you die. You can follow these rules and you might have a better chance of making it to 60, 70, or 80+ years old.
you've sold your conscience. you have declared you won't stand up for what you believe. and if you don't exercise what you say your principles are, then you really don't have any principles
you're a self-made slave. pathetic
No I've said I'm not willing to DIE over it. OF course if I have the authority to resolve a situation in an ethical way I'll do so. But if I do not have the authority or resources, my only concern will be survival. I'm not a cop, I'm not a judge, I'm not the President, I'm not a billionaire CEO, I'm just a guy. I know my place in society and what I can and cannot get away with.
I'm guessing you are a young person who does not yet know the limits of what you can get away with. I hope when you do meet your limitations that it does not destroy you. And if you are able to break through those limits more power to you, I'm not standing in the way of progress.
but you seem to be suggesting that the existence of this fact is a permanent limitation on our ideals, and a reason to stop fighting for what we believe is right
you use the weight of the world to crush you, and then you suggest to others they will only be crushed as well, so they should just stop fighting and accept
and so you are part of the problem you complain about: you see abuse, and you accept it
all that is required for evil to triumph in this world is for good men to do nothing. you are arguing for us to do nothing. so i say to you: shut up, and stop evangelizing your ignorant cynicism
fight for what is right, or fuck off. but don't tell us it is pointless to fight. then you are just as bad as the evils you dislike: you help them, by accepting them
I don't have the power to stop abuse. I'm not a billionaire. I'm not a millionaire. I don't have influence. It's just not my role.
What I can do is make sure I don't abuse people. You can fight if you want but don't expect everyone to adopt the same lifestyle and role. Most people who fight end in jail or dead.
you don't even understand that what you complain about is the only thing that makes your life possible
without government, there is no civilization. without civilization, there is no little earnest you tapping away at a computer describing government in hilariously stilted terminology
i understand that you fear government. you have a nice list of downsides, all of which are real and i do not deny and i can add to even
now i'd like you to be intellectually honest and examine the upside of government, which through defect in intelligence, perception, or due to massive propaganda, you currently fail to conceive or understand
When did I say I was anti-government? or anti-civilization? Of course I fear a government that tortures and kills people. Just as anybody in this world would.
The upside of government is that without government we would disintegrate into tribal warfare, clan warfare, and gang warfare. There really is no better option.
But it is the same situation that created federal government, that creates the UN.
There are good and evil humans. Corporations aren't human. Dollars aren't human. The corporation and the dollar are weapons used by good or evil humans. Depending on the team that controls the best weapons decides the fate of the world.
so many people who believe "this is the way life is" actually believe "this is the way MY life is"
There are no government principles. individuals have principles. This is why collectivist government is so dangerous.
the boundaries and limitations they perceive on themselves, they think apply to other people. they don't
I wasn't talking about people, I was talking about government.
what principles you believe in matters. for example: ghosts don't exist. but if you believe in ghosts, it alters your behavior, and therefore, your belief in ghosts matters. if enough people believe in ghosts, human society (not the natural world, but we're not talking about that: define your terms) is altered to match this
My personal beliefs have nothing to do with the behavior of governments. Governments aren't run by personal beliefs.
human society is self-emergent phenomenon. it is bound only by what people believe, not just natural laws. this makes it very powerful. if i believe in clothing, cities, electrical wires, court systems... then this is what i will live in, instead of a cave. this applies to technology... and principles of society
Government is not the place to express principles. Hitler tried that and we see the result of this. Governments are only good at war.
if you believe in something like, say, human dignity, that matters. you can say human dignity doesn't exist, and that's true, according to mother nature. she'll kill you in the most brutal sudden insulting ways, and carry on in a blink, your entire existence a forgotten joke. but in the realm of human society, belief in human dignity alters behavior such that human dignity becomes a REAL (in the bounds of human society) concept. people grieve. they write songs about your passing, they build pyramids: human dignity is a principle, and its effects are palpable, and so it matters
I don't believe in torture. I would never torture as an individual. Governments don't believe in anything but military victory. Governments do anything to win including torture.
there also exists cynics, like yourself. they don't alter society, as a consequence of their own beliefs in not mattering.
Bin Laden wants to alter society to bring it into accordance with Islam. How does the US Government treat him? How does the US Government treat cult leaders who want to alter society?
they live in the shadows, feeding off the positive efforts of others. they won't contribute: they don't believe in contributing to causes, but they're happy for the clothing, the cities, the electrical wires, the sense of justice, the notion of freedom, the human conscience, that others full of belief labored to build into edifices of human society. they're dead weight, they're parasites. they'll say your life has no meaning, but they won't apply that principle to themselves. they still love to live, a life that supposedly has no meaning, according to their words: hypocrites
Change is a violent process. Change costs lives. Unless you are willing to kill and die to bring it about, don't tell other people they aren't contributing or don't do this or that.
those laboring under beliefs and principles are defining human society are actually making substantial differences. while those who simply sit there and deny that the effort matters in the end, only define the terms under which they themselves don't matter in the end
Unless you are willing to kill or die for those beliefs why does any of this matter? Lets be realistic here, most people are just trying to survive and live to see tomorrow and the next day. We aren't freedom fighters, we aren't terrorists, we aren't patriots, we aren't gangsters or members of militias. And the people who are these things are the people being tortured in secret prisons, the people b
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Because if they don't, this is an elitist policy.
If its done by the parliament it's ethical
No, it's not necessarily ethical; rather, it would be legal (which you probably meant). Two things often align, but are very different beasts. Ethical (or more accurately, moral) viewpoint is with respect to right and wrong; legality just whether it is acceptable according to local legal standard.
And while ethical issues are indeed not black-and-white, they seldom have anything to do with national interests.
Governments don't have ethics but they do have laws. If it's legal then it's ethical according to the government.
Ok, the example might have been bad but the point still stands. One can imagine all kinds of illegal/immoral/unethical things done 'inside' the parliament as well, with the protection of immunity as long as you can convince 4% of people to support it. If they were doing this in order to illustrate the absurdity of that law, I would applaud them. If they actually intend to use it, then I don't think they are doing themselves any favors.
If its done by the parliament it's ethical according to Sweden. There are no objective ethical values because each country has a different national interest.
Why would the Pirate Party of Sweden do this? Any Swedish citizens want to answer?
I strongly sympathize with your frustration. I regard the US as on a trajectory towards a dictatorial regime. You are not quite there yet. Personal core freedoms remain but the media already lost its independence and is corporate controlled hence the prominence of blogs. The establishment managed to channel the libertarian and right wing anger into the controllable Tea Party movement and disenfranchised progressives are yet not ready to break with Obama.
I see two paths:
And thats why they've destroyed the economy and plan to kill the internet. This way you can't speak and can't afford to eat either if they decide you shouldn't. As far as the libertarian movement goes, it has been corrupted all along.
Alex Jones whom everybody looks up to as a lead libertarian is as establishment as Rush Limbaugh. He is with the big oil establishment and this is made obvious if you look at what he says and what he doesn't say about climate change.He has chosen a side which is personal to his self interest but which is not necessarily in anyone elses self interest. The tea party movement is the same way, they have been bought by the oil cartels.I could name names but I won't do so on this site, anyone who is into investigative reporting could follow the money and see that the tea party along with Alex Jones's network is a commercial enterprise.
Obama on the other hand is linked to the other establishment network. The climate change network that supports nuclear power over oil. This network also includes the hollywood oligarchs and they want to crack down on the internet to maintain their power. This just happens to result in a loss of free speech which they don't really like anymore than anyone else in the establishment.
So no I don't think either of those two situations will happen. What I predict will happen is that the USA is going to crack down so hard that the economy is going to continue down into a depression. We are going to see even more crackdowns and eventually other countries are going to take advantage of it. This means other countries are going to grow stronger while America is in chaos.
I think if we do not have a free press we wont even know whats going on. As a result we will be brainwashed by political foreign intelligence agencies and interests who will give disinformation and become the official media. The reason is because both Fox News and CNN are equally BS at this point. They both want to present a false reality and this is what has opened the door to internet bloggers who are controlled by foreigners who also present false realities.
The only solution in my opinion is for the US government to present the real reality somewhere in some form that is sophisticated enough so that the people who fight to protect this country can understand it. It's not important if teenage pot smokers in their basement understand whats going on. What is important is that the people actually fighting these wars understand what is going on. When the people who actually are fighting don't even understand whats going on then you have all sorts of problems.
I don't expect the government to give up any classified secrets. This isn't what I consider important. I expect the government to actually stop lying through the media and paint the true picture of reality to the people fit to handle it. We have Al Qaeda making a magazine now, we have all these different blogs online and the stories they are telling about the war seems more realistic than the bullshit we hear from the government.
It's just like with BP. You have BP acting like the spill really isn't bad. Telling it's own employees not to wear masks and hiding the fact that they get sick. Telling everyone t
No, the whole point of steganography is that you use it to avoid provoking suspicion in the first place. Once the FBI et al have you under surveillance, it doesn't really matter what application you use to hide things, the authorities already know to look there anyway.
You don't exactly add a "secured by ABC steganography" attachment to all your emails...
Thats what I was saying. Steganographys secrecy is in the fact that nobody knows what type of steganography you are using. It's a matter of them not knowing where to look. This is very much like the secrecy of your key, if anyone knows the key then your encryption is broken.
As far as surveillance goes. if they were spies wouldn't they be trained to expect to be under constant surveillance? Unlike the rest of us, these spies knew all along they'd be under surveillance. They knew enough to use steganography but were too stupid to use it properly? That seems to be the situation.
In the article they are doing stuff like leaving their passwords out so the feds or whomever could access it. The steganography apps they used seem to have been stuff written by other people, hiding data in images. The point is they didn't seem to understand how to use the technology they had which leads me to believe they probably weren't trained.
Then again what would I know? Maybe this is what usually happens and most spies get caught? You'd think that they'd have some sophisticated technology though.
Because the Federal Government is beholden to the people who own the resources, namely us.
Maybe in a perfect democracy but thats not what we have. The US Government is owned by whomever controls the money and whoever owns the treasury bonds. The US citizens do not own the treasury bonds and are tax payers/soldiers at best for the people, entities and nations who do own the treasury bonds. What this means is that Americans do not own those resources, those resources are owned by whomever the US Government owes money to. How do you think the US Government will pay the debt?
I don't get to elect the people at the UN, and NGOs don't answer to me.
And neither does the US Government. The US Government answers to foreign bond holders, just as a corporation answers to it's shareholders. Your interests are rarely considered. Do you think you are someone special?
Even if I did get to elect people at the UN, my interests as an American are poorly represented by a large world government.
Your interests as an American aren't represented in any big government. Not the Federal Government, not the UN, not the big corporations that you arent a shareholder in. You can vote but does it look like any of these people operate in your best interest? The only way to influence the Federal Government is to form a union and have enough members and money that you can buy a massive amount of US treasury bonds and other vital assets that you can try to bargain with. You have to be a collective special interest group with a stake in the US Government to even get noticed.
The resources here belong to me as a citizen of this nation, so I want representation in how they're managed. The Federal Government isn't some random thing that was dropped on our heads. It exists because we're a sovereign nation with a need for some kind of central and united governance. It was concocted in order to address real problems that people living in large societies have, just like every other national government on the planet.
That is very wishful and in my opinion credulous thinking. You have no influence unless you have the ability to use carrot and stick. If you don't own any treasury bonds you cannot threaten to sell them. If you don't have enough collective wealth to buy treasury bonds you cannot promise to bail the US Government out by buying them. You aren't funding the war, so you wont profit from the results of conquest.
The land is owned by the US Government and the US Government is owned by whomever funds it.
Who said anything about it having to be a language? That seems like it would be even more difficult than writing a script and distributing the CD. The script could handle everything. It could be written in python, java, perl or any other language.
You would think a country like Russia would have some top notch programmers. All this talk about cyber warfare and hackers trained by the Russian government and they can't write code? I don't believe it.
they put on the bare minimum effort to convince the kgb they're still on the team (so they don't get any polonium in their tea)
then they dig up their free bags of money in sullivan county, and get on with their average suburban wannabe lives. when the kgb calls, they find a paranoid schizophrenic's blog and rivet their kgb bosses with useless tales of intrigue from the wild west. this spy ring is a joke
if you want to talk about modern life destroying cherished traditions, add this to your list: comfortable suburban living killed james bond
Seriously? You think Russia would put polonium in their tea? On US soil? I know the guy you are talking about so it does happen but I don''t think Russia would dare do that. That being said I agree the spy ring does look to be a joke and I'm not sure why there is such a big deal about this considering they were an unsuccessful ring.
They weren't all full of shit because some of them (the Chapman female) seemed to have some real skills.
They could have wrote their own steganography applications. Any known steganography application is probably also known by law enforcement and useless. The success or failure of steganography is based on the fact that the actual use of it and the type of it remains secret. When it's known then it's useless. It's very much like encryption where the key has to be kept secret or the encryption is worthless because the security of the scramble is the randomness of the key.
Let's just say it, these spies didn't know the technology and we should be glad they didn't. I don't understand why the hell we are seeing these ridiculous articles about what they should have done or about steganography applications they could have used. Yes a lot of those apps exist but the Russians didn't write it.
Why arrest them in a big show though? Usually spies are expelled not arrested.
Passphrases are not harder to brute force. In general if you have 26 random characters its hard to brute force.
Writing the password probably isn't as smartest way to save it but lets be realistic, nobody can remember a 26 character password. It's bound to be written somewhere even if it's written in a PGP encrypted email message to self.
The threat they faced is nothing, and I mean absolutely nothing, compared to the threat we face. They might have had to deal with risk but there was less laws for them to deal with, there was less technology for them to deal with, and in general there were less enemies for them to deal with.
Chomsky might have changed minds but changing my mind doesn't change society. Society isn't influenced by our hearts. Chomsky will get nowhere because the only thing the empire cares about is maintaining itself. Their generation allowed people to do those sorts of things because there wasn't covert surveillance on the level there is now.
And even if you have some people who invent things or write books, this is not going to change the minds of the generals and joint chiefs of staff who really decide what actions to take. They will decide along with the President. Chomsky is not the President, he's not general, hes not head of the CIA or FBI, he's not head of the NSA, he has no rank in the security establishment or the civilian leadership.
I might agree with what he says but he doesn't have the power to change anything any more than Ron Paul has the power to become President. And a majority of their followers WILL be ending up dead or in jail because the government labels them domestic terrorists. They are probably being spied upon as we speak, with informants detailing their every move. On top of that the ones who really are serious? They'll be framed on some BS charges and locked in jail.
The US Government does not follow the Constitution when conducting the war on terrorism. They will frame you up and lock you up, and in some cases they'll just grab you up and not press charges for years until the society forgets you exist.
You can use drugs without being addicted to drugs.
...?
Okay, so why the National Park Service? Is that where we hide the nuclear missiles?
You're making the mistake of concluding that since governments wage war, that's all they do. Governments exist to manage shared resources. Ten people live on a lake, and one day, one of them decides to start draining it so he can sell the water. The other nine get together and stop him, and everybody decides to agree that nobody exclusively owns the lake. Voila. A new government is born.
Just because the military is a shared resource doesn't mean it's the only one. It's just the only one you're thinking about right now.
But why do we need federal government to do that? The UN could do it, a big NGO could do it, why the federal government? And even when the federal government does it, it's not designed for it.
yeah, great ideas
you're truly a modern statesman, you got it all figured out, it's so simple and pat
(rolls eyes)
Anybody who doesnt agree with you must be a retard? Figures you'd make a statement like that.
what a moron
ever hear of specialization? when there's a fire, i call the professional fireman, i don't start building a hose.
The proper response if you see a lot of crime in your neighborhood and a lot of gangs is to join the effort to fight it in an official capcity. This way you can have a fratenity/gang of your own, with your own guns, and your own powers that surpass that of the gang. If you are dumb enough to take on gangsters without the authority to do so, you can find yourself receiving death threats from those gangsters that you declared war on when you informed on them. Maybe you should read Sun Tzu, and never go into war unprepared.
leave policework to professional policemen, idiot
Why not become a professional police man? What stops you? You want to do something about gangs who bully innocent people? You have such a big conscience and you want to do something to improve the world? Why don't you become a policeman rather than tell everyone else what they arent doing? You cannot be a part time warrior. Either you are going to be a full time professional or you risk being harmed by gang members who only live that way 24/7.
if no one stands up to the gangs, there will be always be gangs
gangs exist everywhere, but are most potent where there are people who won't oppose them.
Either become a cop and stand up directly to them. Or you and your neighbors put up cameras and or make the police put up cameras. CCTV cameras don't prevent crime but it damn sure will make sure it doesnt happen in front of you.
if they go into a neighborhood and there is fierce opposition to their presence, then the gangs go away,
Yeah sure dude. I'm sure the mafia left little italy because italians there didn't want the mafia to take over. I'm sure it worked for all the organized crime mafias and gangs, outlaw bikers and I'm sure it worked in the wild west too. The shop owners could just put up a sign saying "no gunslingers" and thats all it would take right? Unless you have guns you cannot stop people who have guns. Unless you have the authority to use your gun you cannot protect yourself from people who kill with guns.
because the police round them up, because the gangs are reported by people who live there
This might work in rich suburban neighborhoods. This does not work in neighborhoods infested with gangs and dominated by poverty. When you take down the gangs in these neighborhoods you take out multiple sources of income that many families in these neighborhoods rely on. There are no jobs and you the do-gooder wants to crack down on the one group of people supplying all the jobs and money for the neighborhood? You do realize that some of these gangs actually have civilian supporters right? You do realize that some of these gangs are sophisticated and have civilians who spy and snitch for the gang right? Thats right you'll go to your neighborhood meeting and discuss how you want to crack down on the gangs, and someone at the meeting will record it and give it to the gang leader and now you'll be the target of the gang.
but if the gangs go to another neighborhood where no one complains as they do their dirty work, they stay there, and the police are stymied in their efforts by lack of cooperation by the citizens there
figure it out retard: you have to fight gangs, you just have to, to SURVIVE
if you choose NOT to fight them, then you will always have gangs threatening and menacing you, you live in fear: you are a slave. you can survive a day, sure, but you won't survive longterm, because gangs are gangs: they prey on the weak, and they will get to you at some point or another, until you stand up them to SURVIVE
or don't, and be their slave
you are really are a slave, you really do think like a slave
You know nothing about gangs, at least not any sophisticated gang
what problem do you have with these entities that somehow would be better if they didn't exist?
i take it you somehow magically believe if there were no feds or no un, whatever you hate that they are doing, wouldn't continue to get done
truth, moron: whatever it is that you hate that the feds or the un is doing, would still happen in a world without the feds or the un. except now would be even less recourse to fix whatever it is you hate they are doing
When did I say these entities should not exist?
Yes the federal government is too big and intrusive but I never said it shouldn't exist. I don't think you understand libertarianism. It is not libertarians belief that the feds should not exist, it's that the feds should stick to what they are good at, and thats winning wars.
You are working with a strawman argument based on stuff I've never said. I never said that the UN shouldn't exist. I never said that governments should exist. Just like I wouldn't say corporations shouldn't exist, or that churches shouldn't exist. I recognize the value and function of these entities.
The government is the war machine.
The corporation is the profit machine.
The church is the faith machine.
I only have a problem when people try to assign faith to the government and tell people to treat the government as God. Telling people to have faith in politicians and government is wrong. Just like telling people to be loyal to corporations is wrong.
I think it's better if we keep the functions of these entities focused on what they are good at doing. A war machine might be able to do humanitarian aid, but only in the context of winning the war. It does not have a conscience. The corporation like BP might be able to pay for or do humanitarian aid but it does not have a conscience. Only the church and non profit entities have a conscience.
So let the conscience organizations do that. Let the war organizations do that. Let the profit organizations do that. And if we need to blend the functions we should rely on NGO's which are government funded.
you're probably one of those assholes who if they see a gang beating someone up, you don't even report it to the police: fear of reprisal
take responsibility for your world, and work for what is right, or be a slave, as you currently have chosen
the more there are people who think like you in this world, the more the state of the world is misery and poverty and suffering. evil men depend upon slaves like you to stand there and do nothing while they perpetuate transgressions. that really is the truth
you've sold your conscience. you have declared you won't stand up for what you believe. and if you don't exercise what you say your principles are, then you really don't have any principles
you're a self-made slave. pathetic
If you report everything to the police and you live in the same neighborhood as the gang, the members who aren't arrested will be beating your ass up. Stop trying to give survival strategies for a world you know little to nothing about.
If I want to clean up the streets because I witnessed a gang beating up somebody I know, I would join the police force and do it properly. I would not become a snitch/informant. I would not pretend like I'm a hero. I would join the police academy, get a gun and a badge and personally police the streets. What you have to understand about this world is that uniforms, authority, and protocol matter. Doing things the right way matters more than following your gut and getting your ass kicked or killed.
Looking at your signature proves to me that you have no concept of protocol and no respect for authority.
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it
Just because a law is stupid, or immoral in your opinion, it does not give you the authority to break or ignore the law. Right and wrong have nothing to do with the law, but whether or not you are a political prisoner has everything to do with whether or not you follow the law. Based on what you are saying you will be going to prison, and if you are an informant you probably wont last in prison unless they put you in a special protective section of the prison.
take responsibility for your world, and work for what is right, or be a slave, as you currently have chosen
the more there are people who think like you in this world, the more the state of the world is misery and poverty and suffering. evil men depend upon slaves like you to stand there and do nothing while they perpetuate transgressions. that really is the truth
You have no concept of risk management. You have no concept of what you are up against. You think you can make up the rules as you go along? It doesn't work that way. Rules that existed before you were born will exist after you die. You can follow these rules and you might have a better chance of making it to 60, 70, or 80+ years old.
you've sold your conscience. you have declared you won't stand up for what you believe. and if you don't exercise what you say your principles are, then you really don't have any principles
you're a self-made slave. pathetic
No I've said I'm not willing to DIE over it. OF course if I have the authority to resolve a situation in an ethical way I'll do so. But if I do not have the authority or resources, my only concern will be survival. I'm not a cop, I'm not a judge, I'm not the President, I'm not a billionaire CEO, I'm just a guy. I know my place in society and what I can and cannot get away with.
I'm guessing you are a young person who does not yet know the limits of what you can get away with. I hope when you do meet your limitations that it does not destroy you. And if you are able to break through those limits more power to you, I'm not standing in the way of progress.
Cuz I'd like to know when it's ok to stop living in fear and handing complete control over to the government. Or is that a national security secret?
Remember the Axis of evil? Thats who we are at war with.
which is wrong, and we should fight that
but you seem to be suggesting that the existence of this fact is a permanent limitation on our ideals, and a reason to stop fighting for what we believe is right
you use the weight of the world to crush you, and then you suggest to others they will only be crushed as well, so they should just stop fighting and accept
and so you are part of the problem you complain about: you see abuse, and you accept it
all that is required for evil to triumph in this world is for good men to do nothing. you are arguing for us to do nothing. so i say to you: shut up, and stop evangelizing your ignorant cynicism
fight for what is right, or fuck off. but don't tell us it is pointless to fight. then you are just as bad as the evils you dislike: you help them, by accepting them
I don't have the power to stop abuse. I'm not a billionaire. I'm not a millionaire. I don't have influence. It's just not my role.
What I can do is make sure I don't abuse people. You can fight if you want but don't expect everyone to adopt the same lifestyle and role. Most people who fight end in jail or dead.
you don't even understand that what you complain about is the only thing that makes your life possible
without government, there is no civilization. without civilization, there is no little earnest you tapping away at a computer describing government in hilariously stilted terminology
i understand that you fear government. you have a nice list of downsides, all of which are real and i do not deny and i can add to even
now i'd like you to be intellectually honest and examine the upside of government, which through defect in intelligence, perception, or due to massive propaganda, you currently fail to conceive or understand
When did I say I was anti-government? or anti-civilization? Of course I fear a government that tortures and kills people. Just as anybody in this world would.
The upside of government is that without government we would disintegrate into tribal warfare, clan warfare, and gang warfare. There really is no better option.
But it is the same situation that created federal government, that creates the UN.
There are good and evil humans. Corporations aren't human. Dollars aren't human. The corporation and the dollar are weapons used by good or evil humans. Depending on the team that controls the best weapons decides the fate of the world.
so many people who believe "this is the way life is" actually believe "this is the way MY life is"
There are no government principles. individuals have principles. This is why collectivist government is so dangerous.
the boundaries and limitations they perceive on themselves, they think apply to other people. they don't
I wasn't talking about people, I was talking about government.
what principles you believe in matters. for example: ghosts don't exist. but if you believe in ghosts, it alters your behavior, and therefore, your belief in ghosts matters. if enough people believe in ghosts, human society (not the natural world, but we're not talking about that: define your terms) is altered to match this
My personal beliefs have nothing to do with the behavior of governments. Governments aren't run by personal beliefs.
human society is self-emergent phenomenon. it is bound only by what people believe, not just natural laws. this makes it very powerful. if i believe in clothing, cities, electrical wires, court systems... then this is what i will live in, instead of a cave. this applies to technology... and principles of society
Government is not the place to express principles. Hitler tried that and we see the result of this. Governments are only good at war.
if you believe in something like, say, human dignity, that matters. you can say human dignity doesn't exist, and that's true, according to mother nature. she'll kill you in the most brutal sudden insulting ways, and carry on in a blink, your entire existence a forgotten joke. but in the realm of human society, belief in human dignity alters behavior such that human dignity becomes a REAL (in the bounds of human society) concept. people grieve. they write songs about your passing, they build pyramids: human dignity is a principle, and its effects are palpable, and so it matters
I don't believe in torture. I would never torture as an individual. Governments don't believe in anything but military victory. Governments do anything to win including torture.
there also exists cynics, like yourself. they don't alter society, as a consequence of their own beliefs in not mattering.
Bin Laden wants to alter society to bring it into accordance with Islam. How does the US Government treat him? How does the US Government treat cult leaders who want to alter society?
they live in the shadows, feeding off the positive efforts of others. they won't contribute: they don't believe in contributing to causes, but they're happy for the clothing, the cities, the electrical wires, the sense of justice, the notion of freedom, the human conscience, that others full of belief labored to build into edifices of human society. they're dead weight, they're parasites. they'll say your life has no meaning, but they won't apply that principle to themselves. they still love to live, a life that supposedly has no meaning, according to their words: hypocrites
Change is a violent process. Change costs lives. Unless you are willing to kill and die to bring it about, don't tell other people they aren't contributing or don't do this or that.
those laboring under beliefs and principles are defining human society are actually making substantial differences. while those who simply sit there and deny that the effort matters in the end, only define the terms under which they themselves don't matter in the end
Unless you are willing to kill or die for those beliefs why does any of this matter? Lets be realistic here, most people are just trying to survive and live to see tomorrow and the next day. We aren't freedom fighters, we aren't terrorists, we aren't patriots, we aren't gangsters or members of militias. And the people who are these things are the people being tortured in secret prisons, the people b