There's a difference between telling people not to get in over their heads and telling them to "distance themselves from this situation". That's like telling people not to openly disagree with the ruling party because opposition might get you in trouble. This isn't the fucking Soviet Union.
If you openly disagree AND you start acting in ways which reflect that then expect to be locked up. That is what happens usually.
The problem with Anonymous (and many of the ones you mentioned) is that they aren't freedom fighters so much as criminals. Taking down Mastercard and Visa when they refused payments to Wikileaks, freedom fighters, nicking innocent peoples credit cards and using them without consent, criminals. They have the usual attitude that anyone who isn't a member of their little group must be some form of sheeple and it's ok to damage or steal from the sheeple for any reason whatsoever. Problem is, the thing that keeps you from getting destroyed by the powers that be, that would be the support of the sheeple. Anonymous are a bunch of dickheads who incidentally do the right thing sometimes, just like lulzsec and a dozen other similar groups. Just because they occasionally aim their sights at "the bad guys" doesn't make them "the good guys". Tracking down identity thieves and credit card thieves is what the FBI is for, and this guy can rot for all I care.
The problem is many of them are uninformed, misinformed, or ill advised. My parent comment was to highlight the fact that many Anons are just teenage script kiddies, followers, in over their head, who don't really know whether their actions are right or wrong but who are following their gut instincts or feelings. I'm not claiming ever Anon is like this but the way they go about certain things or the ideas behind certain ops appear to be motivated entirely by gut reactions, feelings, without any real consideration of the long term outcomes.
The Cablegate leak was wrong. That leak could not have helped the USA and only could have benefit the terrorists if anything. Anon has not exposed genocide, or torture, or saved the world. Anon by it's current design is already obsolete for it's intended purposes. Any young person who joins into it because it's cool or because they agree with the ideology has to understand what they are getting themselves into and my commentary was meant as a warning to those who don't understand.
If you know you could lose your life or your freedom by your involvement but you are so passionate that you're willing to risk it all then go ahead. Just don't think it's just "activism" or "protesting", it's warfare and vigilantism and these sorts of groups if you study groups like them or if you study the lives of these sorts of individuals they usually end up in prison or dead because being a revolutionary is the worlds most dangerous profession.
Wait, what? The crips and gangster disciples were established to fight for social justice? I think its you that needs to go read a history book.
If you know the history of these gangs and the founding members you would understand why they started these gangs. They were started as a means of obtaining social justice for disenfranchised minority groups and youth during the civil rights era where minorities could not trust the police because there were few if any minority police, where the government was openly racist, where the KKK was still around. The fact that you don't know anything about Urban history proves my point that you're one of the people I'm talking about.
If an idiot commits a crime and he gets arrested and indicted, thats not cointelpro, thats called the legal system.
COINTELPRO works through and beyond the legal system. The FBI handles all that.
While this is partially true, its amusing that you neglect that anonymous is exactly what the USA needed in terms of cyberwarfare-- look at anonymous china, they relentlessly hacked.gov.cn sites, got real data-- not a collection of emails no one cares about, nothing but defense contractors and no real leaks came from it.
Where are your facts? Provide a URL to the real data you're talking about.
They arrest a few and shrug at china and go 'i dunno our legal system isnt perfect' and smile.
I could go into some personal experiences with the unacknowledged humint sides of anon, but whatever. You just wanted to blather on about stuff you dont know anything about, not actually be informed.
HUMINT side of Anon? Anon in China has nothing to do with Anon in the USA. If you're saying some Anon are patriotic then that is fine and dandy but some Anon act like domestic terrorists and are unpatriotic and you have to accept that truth as well. The Julian Assange faction of Anon is misguided. If you think you're more informed than me then say what you have to say.
Actually many of them know history and are just hoping they aren't the ones singled out.
But comparing them to basic thugs when they are the ones attempting to stand up to the thugs shows us just how biased you really are.
I did not call the Black Panthers, Gangster Disciples, Crips etc "basic thugs". You did. You don't know the history of these groups. You haven't done your research into these groups to understand why they exist. You assume they are basic thugs and the next group of people like you will look at Anon's as basic thugs or e-thugs in the exact same way you look at the forerunners of Anons. To put it simply the authorities view them all as domestic terrorist groups, gangs, or thugs, but if you're siding with Anon then you are too dumb to realize that everyone who is a victim of COINTELPRO is a political prisoner.
And if you're not siding with Anon then they are either thugs if you're a cop, or they are immature children in over their heads. No matter how you look at it, you gotta do your research.
Well, some of them are. Anonymous isn't one cohesive group, hell, it isn't even a real group by any stretch of the imagination.
It's technically an umbrella organization.
It is more like a mob with different sects within it.
Right, just like the commission or the Italian Mafia. And that is why the FBI is treating them like they treat other organized crime groups. It might be a group of families or a mob or whatever but to the feds they are domestic terrorists and you know this.
Many of them are attempting to do what good they can with the options they have,
They need to re-evaluate their options and re-evaluate what "good" is. They are brainwashed by people like Julian Assange. Most of them are script kiddies who don't have the technical or engineering knowledge to understand what is wrong with Julian Assange's overall vision. They don't understand the technology behind Tor, or understand cryptography, or understand the basis of onion routing and how it can be defeated, or the risks of digital currencies, but they blindly follow the leader without actually having studied or learned about the necessary subjects.
these are the ones the government targets to take them out of the way so they can keep their bad deeds secret. Then we have the group that is just wanting to see the world burn, these are the ones the government tries to portray them as while at the same time doing next to nothing to target these unless they hit something sensitive and cause a decent amount of damage.
What "bad deed secrets" has the U.S. government committed? You're talking about factions of the U.S. military? Be specific about it because the Cable Gate leak did not make the U.S. State Dept look bad, it actually seems like they were trying to do their jobs honorably.
So we have the "V for Vendetta" sect which the government attacks, then we have the Heath Ledger in Batman which they just ignore except as something to point at to portray the "V for Vendetta" sect as in an attempt to discredit them.
On this you have done your research. You might want to elaborate more on this but you're correct that Anon are vigilantes who sometimes come in useful when they aid the U.S. military or CIA in it's interests. On the other hand those same vigilantes make themselves part of the problem when they aid political interests or fight for moral causes which they do not understand. They are essentially used as tools for various governments and aren't aware of whether their actions are right or wrong or what the outcome ultimately is. They simply are used as puppet vigilantes for good or for evil.
You aren't entirely incorrect with what you say but you are incorrect in that you don't understand the context.
So now posting a URL can be trafficking in whatever it links to even if you're not serving it?
This is nuts, think of the implications;
Post a link to pirate bay and you've trafficked copyrighted material!?
That is a legit argument. Legally that is a concern but honestly at this point considering the stakes of the situation they weren't going to fight fair. If you piss off or threaten the feds they'll find something. Just ask Jim Bell.
He was promoting himself. He did not understand what he was doing. He was a typical kid from the suburbs getting himself involved with cartels, pissing off the FBI, and challenging the US military establishment. He is lucky to be arrested and be alive, and yes he's going to be spending many years in prison as apparently he did not agree to become an informant.
Let this be a lesson to any cyber pranksters or not so serious e-revolutionaries. These sorts of games are very dangerous and only lead to two possible outcomes, getting yourself killed or getting yourself locked away in prison.
The same thing happened in the 60s-70s when the Black Panthers, Crips, Gangster Disciples and many urban gangs wanted to fight for social justice through unity. The problem with these gangs is they did not understand that the FBI wasn't going to go along with that. FBI has had a counter intelligence program since the 1940s founded after the business plot coup attempt against FDR. Originally COINTELPRO was designed to protect the USA from fascists but when World War 2 ended World War 3 began (the Cold War) and it reached it's peak in the 60s-70s.
The problem with these e-revolutionaries is they don't study history. They don't understand that many of them are being exploited by foreign intelligence agencies, basically being tooled, and in many cases are nothing more than useful idiots. Just as the USA launched a war on drugs to fight and win the 60s Civil War, and now due to the crackdown on gangs you have millions of prisoners who are directly connected or the descendants of Black Panthers and or other groups. No one was paying any attention or fighting for these political prisoners and it's not over.
The new front is the internet. The government has made Julian Assange enemy of the state. Anyone who isn't prepared to go to prison or get killed should immediately distance themselves from this situation because the stakes are too high. You may disagree with your government, you may agree with the values of Julian Assange, but it does not mean it is going to be wise for you or your family to get involved in the situation. Cyberwarfare is not fun, it's not fair, there are no human rights, you can be entrapped, framed, set up for crimes you didn't do, or tricked into doing things you didn't know were crimes. You'll never know who among your friends are informants, you'll never see all the angles or know who is trying to get you killed or get you arrested.
The life of a revolutionary is very similar to the life of a gangster. It's often a shortened life. This is something many of the kids involved do not understand because they did not grow up around gangs and had somewhat sheltered childhoods. If they understood the dangers they wouldn't get involved. Barrett Brown is in over his head, he did not understand the dangers of which he got himself involved in. He also underestimated the lengths that governments will go to take someone out. The governments who want to take people like him out do not have any limits, they have way more technology than he can possibly hope to deal with, way more resources than he could possibly fathom, and a ruthlessness he cannot hope to understand.
For myself, I'd be happy with a solid 20 megabit connection. What I really want is:
20 megabits upstream as well as downstream, so things like VoIP don't choke on multiple users and I can upload files to an external server without causing congestion.
A connection that stays 20 megabits instead of getting choked down to a fraction of that when a bunch of neighbors start using their connections heavily.
Which means gigabit or better to the local distribution point, and neighborhood infrastructure that can handle the aggregate bandwidth. Most of the problems I have aren't my individual connection's bandwidth, it's the shared local infrastructure between my home's connection point and the ISP that's insufficient for the bandwidth of all the connected subscribers. Fix that and give me symmetric bandwidth and I'll be a happy camper.
Virgin started to realise (listened?) that their customers increasingly wanted this and the upstream has been steadily getting better here. A year or so ago they bumped everyone up on the upstream for free, and they consolidated their plans a little recently.
It's far from symmetrical (you can pay them for symmetrical 200/200, but be prepared to fork out), but the basic plans are pretty good now - 20/1, 60/3, 100/5 with no caps (just throttling on upstream if you exceed thresholds at peak times like the evening, but otherwise are non-monitored).
I'm on the 60/3 plan and have found that 3 Mbit upstream is more than adequate for video chatting and file uploads to the campus network etc. 7 MB downstream (and it's consistently as advertised, even at peak times) is just gravy.
I agree though, 1Gbs for the last mile right now is overkill - I can install Fallout New Vegas from scratch on steam in under 15 minutes, and I'm not even on the top plan - but pushing more ISPs into offering better upstream is the key.
It's not overkill. Imagine what you could run or host with that.
At $1000 per installation, they would get about $120B for 120M households; close enough to start. I would gladly pay a $1000 start-up fee for symmetrical 1Gbps/service. From other reports, Google is charging $70/month, with an operating cost of $5/month. As the early adopters start to accumulate, the revenue stream will offset the cost for the periodically lowered installation charge to increase penetration.
Establish a nation-wide signup. Require a credit card (Google Wallet) for signup; they won't be charged, but they'll separate the wheat from the chaff. Crunch the data to find the highest population density signups and start build-out in those areas. Provide near-realtime online updates on build-out area priority. This lets those interested in an area act as promoters / ambassadors to increase signups, and raise their area's priority. Like the first cities selected, let people compete - providing free word of mouth advertising in the process.
And don't forget the other side of the equation; offer servers reasonably priced 100Gb local Google data center / site interconnects to keep the on-net customers interested and happy.
You misunderstood the point. A gun is by definition lethal, and effective self-defense techniques with a handgun are all highly lethal (center of mass is where most vital organs are). Nevertheless, the point of self-defense is not to kill a person attacking you. It's to quickly and efficiently make them a non-threat to you. This coincidentally carries a high risk of death to the attacker, but that's not the purpose of drawing the gun.
Hence why, if the first shot incapacitates the attacker but he's still alive, shooting him again at that point (provided that you have time to clearly observe his state and conclude that he is not a threat anymore) is not legal. Similarly, if you draw a gun, and the guy just turns around and runs away, you can't shoot him - he's not threatening you anymore. On the other hand, of course, the idea of shooting at limbs and other non-vital parts initially is silly - you are more likely to miss, and if you hit, it is less likely to be an effective stopper.
The point is if you don't kill the guy you don't have to fight it in court. Non-lethal weapons can stop a person without killing them.
the point of using a handgun in self-defense is to incapacitate or buy yourself time, not to kill - the latter is merely a side effect, not a goal).
If you're not prepared to kill in my opinion you shouldn't be carrying a gun. There is a time to kill in self defense but lets not pretend like a gun isn't designed to kill.
Defend themselves from what? Why can't those citizens become a cop or buy a defense oriented weapon? A machine gun or high powered rifle is not a defense weapon.
GP was talking about firearms in general, not about specific weapons. A handgun is a "defense oriented weapon" - the best one there is as of today. Rifles and shotguns are there for hunting, sport and defense against predators in wilderness areas. Machine guns are already heavily regulated (and manufacturing one is illegal outright), so they're not subject of this discussion.
Defend themselves from what? Why, any threats of death or bodily harm that come from other people, such as a drugged out junkie with a knife. Go to YouTube and search for "security camera self defense", you'll see plenty of examples.
Become a cop? Don't be ridiculous. I shouldn't have to join a full-time police force just to get the means to defend myself in face of physical aggression from another person.
Oh, and regardless of all that, it should be the proponents of gun control who should provide a rationale for their proposed bans on gun ownership, not the other way around. The right to own and carry weapons is a personal freedom, not really any distinct from freedom to smoke marijuana or have an abortion. If you want to restrict a personal freedom, you better damn have a very good reason to do so.
I'm not for gun control. I'm for non-lethal weapons. I don't think a handgun is necessarily more effective than a non-lethal weapon. The adversary could wear a bullet proof vest, your gun could jam, they could be a better shot, or you could just not want to spend 20-30 years in jail for defending yourself.
If we are going to use printers to make weapons why aren't we making non-lethal weapons at least?
Non-lethal weapons are markedly less efficient for self-defense than lethal ones. Those that are actually somewhat efficient (like Tazers) are usually not nearly as non-lethal as their manufacturers would make you think.
Second of all why do we need to be making weapons at all? The government should have a monopoly on violence as it is the role of government to control weapons. Do we really want this?
Define "we". Someone has to make weapons for me to be able to buy one, monopoly or not. As it stands, those weapons are already made by private companies, and some of them can be pretty small workshops; what's the fundamental difference between a guy with a workshop, and a guy with a 3D printer?
Note that this does not preclude government regulation of weapon manufacture. A law could well be enacted that'd require the person producing the lower to register it. US does not have such a law, currently, for various reasons, but these are unrelated to this discussion.
Also, the government having a monopoly on violence does not preclude it from delegating it to its citizens under some circumstances where it's obviously a good idea, such as self-defense. And, of course, if you want your citizens to be able to efficiently defend themselves, you want them to be armed.
Defend themselves from what? Why can't those citizens become a cop or buy a defense oriented weapon? A machine gun or high powered rifle is not a defense weapon.
If we are going to use printers to make weapons why aren't we making non-lethal weapons at least? Second of all why do we need to be making weapons at all? The government should have a monopoly on violence as it is the role of government to control weapons. Do we really want this?
Governments should know everything but we know nothing. That is the most dystopian thing I've ever heard. Over the entrance to the CIA are the words from the Bible "Ye shall know the truth and the truth shall make you free". Maybe the government can keep a few secrets, such as how to make a nuclear weapon, but as little as possible should be secret within the government. On the other hand the government needs to go before a judge and present really good goddamn reason why they should know anything at all about me. I have nothing to hide but that's beside the point. You really piss me off, Mr. Police State. Your buddies Hitler and Stalin have croaked. I bet you feel real lonely without them.
The government has to know everything about everyone to protect everyone from everyone. Anyone could be made into a terrorist at any time. Anyone could become a radical. Anyone could snap and try to kill someone important. For that reason everyone has to be known because anyone who has secrets could be plotting something bad.
It's better to just give the government your secrets or accept their right to know them. The only problem I have is with leaks. If they know ever immoral or stupid or illegal thing you've done but agree to keep it secret what is the problem?
A folder is handed to political leaders and they get to ask questions. That becomes very addictive. First it was radio and all telegram messages.
WW2 german orders, movements, political power. Then Soviet arms testing, Soviet politics, local communist groups, unions, green movment, political groups in the USA, EU, huge commercial deals been backed by the other govs..
In the past they had to search data in near real time for 'words' and keep only terms of interest.
So you have had generations of political leaders who 'know' before many other people, thats not an easy thing to give up.
In the UK it was a matter of funding just to keep the information flowing without US help.
In the USA its more an agency power, funding, size and control thing - the NSA lost a lot of power and funding post cold war and before 2001.
The part the NSA was always warning against is now happening. The "who accesses it and why?" is now a push of data up from local police, state and federal groups. The problem is so many eyes now have clearance, from political, to mil to contractors in raw form... Why - they are doing the collecting and sorting.
The NSA is seeing its "prize" outsourced for technical, legal and political reasons. Some political groups feel the private sector made up of well connected, cleared contractors have the skills, code and new machine 'power' to view things in different ways and... later recall who gave them the contracts.
The NSA now faces a lot of new political thinktanks, contractors and other agency groups all offering unique language, crypto and insight.
All demanding the "need to know".
You answered a lot of my questions. I think we need to limit the eyes and those who know if we want to limit the probability of a leak and also we want to limit what people know to precisely what they need and no more.
I don't think we need or want police drones flying over our house to detect criminal activity. Drones were made for warfare, not to fight crime. Unless the crime is part of warfare the police shouldn't be involved. The FBI has the role anyway so local police have been trying to take too much power and this terrifies citizens for obvious reasons. While very few of us are terrorists at the same time almost all of us are breaking the law whether we know it or not so to give police the surveillance power would completely distort us culturally in a bad way at least in my opinion as people will adopt behavior under the impression that the police are everywhere watching them which isn't always good.
The surveillance power may be necessary but it's critical that it does not fall into the wrong hands. Once it does then America as a great nation is finished. What can we do to keep the surveillance power out of the wrong hands and to minimize leaks of information which shouldn't be leaked? (Example, which CEOs are cheating on their wives? Which college students use or sell illegal drugs?) etc.
And the somewhat smarter people obviously know that nothing on the internet is untraceable, though you can make it really hard, but they do not realize and/or accept that it is commonplace to intercept, datamine and record all online communications. And that it is kept till the end of days. Sadly enough datastorage is just that cheap these days.
Now the question arises will that information harm you now, in one year, 10 years, 20 years, 50 years...
The best response that I've heard to people saying that they have nothing to hide: Just tell them to give you all their passwords, to their Mail Account, Facebook, Dropbox, etc. If they argue that they do not trust YOU, tell them to send it in an envelope to the FBI, NSA, etc.
We should keep that information away from the police and do what we can to keep that information secret. The government might have legit reasons to have our secrets but at the same time they have to be kept from exploiting our secrets in their political pursuits, the pursuit of justice, or anything other than national security.
The NSA, CIA, DIA bulk collection is cleaned up and indexed very quickly and well. The US had a vision of an electronic file system back in the 1960's. It was well funded while other agencies around the world where still working with paper and dreaming about data entry into realtime file systems.
The NSA, DIA is not some federal police building with an old database and top contractors trying their best over many years.
Historically your "access to the data" might have been a good question. Now its any contractor, new agency or cleared staff member can have a look.
The tight cleared for "hierarchical" internal NSA structures are been replaced with a more open "cloud". You have 100000's for new 'cleared' staff in new buildings with new encrypted lines getting bulk data, adding their 'thoughts' for top wages.
Re 'It is wrong to keep people in fear." We dont really know what the US likes to do the "West" when they get interested.
Can we project from COINTELPRO and wonder about what parts of the world that keep "company" with the US do:
If your political at the low end of the scale get noticed you might face something like decades of undercover officers?:
The other question is why they have access? I think even if the CIA or others have access there must be a reason why.
What happened to need to know? I'm not against collecting the data because no one should keep secrets from the NSA/CIA but the question is who accesses it and why?
Imagine they had a backup, fine. Who gets access to the data? I can't even find my own files and people forget what we discussed on a mailing list. It is wrong to keep people in fear.
And it is wrong to keep company with RT.
The problem isn't that entire nations are intercepted. The problem is access control. Who gets to access those interceptions and why?
Slashdot Mirror
There's a difference between telling people not to get in over their heads and telling them to "distance themselves from this situation". That's like telling people not to openly disagree with the ruling party because opposition might get you in trouble. This isn't the fucking Soviet Union.
If you openly disagree AND you start acting in ways which reflect that then expect to be locked up. That is what happens usually.
>there are no human rights, you can be entrapped, framed, set up for crimes you didn't do, or tricked into doing things you didn't know were crimes.
Is there any difference for people not involved in warfare in USA?
You are a lot less likely to end up in prison or dead if you don't go to war with the U.S. government or other governments.
The problem with Anonymous (and many of the ones you mentioned) is that they aren't freedom fighters so much as criminals. Taking down Mastercard and Visa when they refused payments to Wikileaks, freedom fighters, nicking innocent peoples credit cards and using them without consent, criminals. They have the usual attitude that anyone who isn't a member of their little group must be some form of sheeple and it's ok to damage or steal from the sheeple for any reason whatsoever. Problem is, the thing that keeps you from getting destroyed by the powers that be, that would be the support of the sheeple. Anonymous are a bunch of dickheads who incidentally do the right thing sometimes, just like lulzsec and a dozen other similar groups. Just because they occasionally aim their sights at "the bad guys" doesn't make them "the good guys". Tracking down identity thieves and credit card thieves is what the FBI is for, and this guy can rot for all I care.
The problem is many of them are uninformed, misinformed, or ill advised. My parent comment was to highlight the fact that many Anons are just teenage script kiddies, followers, in over their head, who don't really know whether their actions are right or wrong but who are following their gut instincts or feelings. I'm not claiming ever Anon is like this but the way they go about certain things or the ideas behind certain ops appear to be motivated entirely by gut reactions, feelings, without any real consideration of the long term outcomes.
The Cablegate leak was wrong. That leak could not have helped the USA and only could have benefit the terrorists if anything. Anon has not exposed genocide, or torture, or saved the world. Anon by it's current design is already obsolete for it's intended purposes. Any young person who joins into it because it's cool or because they agree with the ideology has to understand what they are getting themselves into and my commentary was meant as a warning to those who don't understand.
If you know you could lose your life or your freedom by your involvement but you are so passionate that you're willing to risk it all then go ahead. Just don't think it's just "activism" or "protesting", it's warfare and vigilantism and these sorts of groups if you study groups like them or if you study the lives of these sorts of individuals they usually end up in prison or dead because being a revolutionary is the worlds most dangerous profession.
Wait, what? The crips and gangster disciples were established to fight for social justice? I think its you that needs to go read a history book.
If you know the history of these gangs and the founding members you would understand why they started these gangs. They were started as a means of obtaining social justice for disenfranchised minority groups and youth during the civil rights era where minorities could not trust the police because there were few if any minority police, where the government was openly racist, where the KKK was still around. The fact that you don't know anything about Urban history proves my point that you're one of the people I'm talking about.
If an idiot commits a crime and he gets arrested and indicted, thats not cointelpro, thats called the legal system.
COINTELPRO works through and beyond the legal system. The FBI handles all that.
While this is partially true, its amusing that you neglect that anonymous is exactly what the USA needed in terms of cyberwarfare-- look at anonymous china, they relentlessly hacked .gov.cn sites, got real data-- not a collection of emails no one cares about, nothing but defense contractors and no real leaks came from it.
Where are your facts? Provide a URL to the real data you're talking about.
They arrest a few and shrug at china and go 'i dunno our legal system isnt perfect' and smile.
I could go into some personal experiences with the unacknowledged humint sides of anon, but whatever. You just wanted to blather on about stuff you dont know anything about, not actually be informed.
HUMINT side of Anon? Anon in China has nothing to do with Anon in the USA. If you're saying some Anon are patriotic then that is fine and dandy but some Anon act like domestic terrorists and are unpatriotic and you have to accept that truth as well. The Julian Assange faction of Anon is misguided. If you think you're more informed than me then say what you have to say.
Actually many of them know history and are just hoping they aren't the ones singled out.
But comparing them to basic thugs when they are the ones attempting to stand up to the thugs shows us just how biased you really are .
I did not call the Black Panthers, Gangster Disciples, Crips etc "basic thugs". You did. You don't know the history of these groups. You haven't done your research into these groups to understand why they exist. You assume they are basic thugs and the next group of people like you will look at Anon's as basic thugs or e-thugs in the exact same way you look at the forerunners of Anons. To put it simply the authorities view them all as domestic terrorist groups, gangs, or thugs, but if you're siding with Anon then you are too dumb to realize that everyone who is a victim of COINTELPRO is a political prisoner.
And if you're not siding with Anon then they are either thugs if you're a cop, or they are immature children in over their heads. No matter how you look at it, you gotta do your research.
Well, some of them are. Anonymous isn't one cohesive group, hell, it isn't even a real group by any stretch of the imagination.
It's technically an umbrella organization.
It is more like a mob with different sects within it.
Right, just like the commission or the Italian Mafia. And that is why the FBI is treating them like they treat other organized crime groups. It might be a group of families or a mob or whatever but to the feds they are domestic terrorists and you know this.
Many of them are attempting to do what good they can with the options they have,
They need to re-evaluate their options and re-evaluate what "good" is. They are brainwashed by people like Julian Assange. Most of them are script kiddies who don't have the technical or engineering knowledge to understand what is wrong with Julian Assange's overall vision. They don't understand the technology behind Tor, or understand cryptography, or understand the basis of onion routing and how it can be defeated, or the risks of digital currencies, but they blindly follow the leader without actually having studied or learned about the necessary subjects.
these are the ones the government targets to take them out of the way so they can keep their bad deeds secret. Then we have the group that is just wanting to see the world burn, these are the ones the government tries to portray them as while at the same time doing next to nothing to target these unless they hit something sensitive and cause a decent amount of damage.
What "bad deed secrets" has the U.S. government committed? You're talking about factions of the U.S. military? Be specific about it because the Cable Gate leak did not make the U.S. State Dept look bad, it actually seems like they were trying to do their jobs honorably.
So we have the "V for Vendetta" sect which the government attacks, then we have the Heath Ledger in Batman which they just ignore except as something to point at to portray the "V for Vendetta" sect as in an attempt to discredit them.
On this you have done your research. You might want to elaborate more on this but you're correct that Anon are vigilantes who sometimes come in useful when they aid the U.S. military or CIA in it's interests. On the other hand those same vigilantes make themselves part of the problem when they aid political interests or fight for moral causes which they do not understand. They are essentially used as tools for various governments and aren't aware of whether their actions are right or wrong or what the outcome ultimately is. They simply are used as puppet vigilantes for good or for evil.
You aren't entirely incorrect with what you say but you are incorrect in that you don't understand the context.
So now posting a URL can be trafficking in whatever it links to even if you're not serving it?
This is nuts, think of the implications;
Post a link to pirate bay and you've trafficked copyrighted material!?
That is a legit argument. Legally that is a concern but honestly at this point considering the stakes of the situation they weren't going to fight fair. If you piss off or threaten the feds they'll find something. Just ask Jim Bell.
He was promoting himself. He did not understand what he was doing. He was a typical kid from the suburbs getting himself involved with cartels, pissing off the FBI, and challenging the US military establishment. He is lucky to be arrested and be alive, and yes he's going to be spending many years in prison as apparently he did not agree to become an informant.
Let this be a lesson to any cyber pranksters or not so serious e-revolutionaries. These sorts of games are very dangerous and only lead to two possible outcomes, getting yourself killed or getting yourself locked away in prison.
The same thing happened in the 60s-70s when the Black Panthers, Crips, Gangster Disciples and many urban gangs wanted to fight for social justice through unity. The problem with these gangs is they did not understand that the FBI wasn't going to go along with that. FBI has had a counter intelligence program since the 1940s founded after the business plot coup attempt against FDR. Originally COINTELPRO was designed to protect the USA from fascists but when World War 2 ended World War 3 began (the Cold War) and it reached it's peak in the 60s-70s.
The problem with these e-revolutionaries is they don't study history. They don't understand that many of them are being exploited by foreign intelligence agencies, basically being tooled, and in many cases are nothing more than useful idiots. Just as the USA launched a war on drugs to fight and win the 60s Civil War, and now due to the crackdown on gangs you have millions of prisoners who are directly connected or the descendants of Black Panthers and or other groups. No one was paying any attention or fighting for these political prisoners and it's not over.
The new front is the internet. The government has made Julian Assange enemy of the state. Anyone who isn't prepared to go to prison or get killed should immediately distance themselves from this situation because the stakes are too high. You may disagree with your government, you may agree with the values of Julian Assange, but it does not mean it is going to be wise for you or your family to get involved in the situation. Cyberwarfare is not fun, it's not fair, there are no human rights, you can be entrapped, framed, set up for crimes you didn't do, or tricked into doing things you didn't know were crimes. You'll never know who among your friends are informants, you'll never see all the angles or know who is trying to get you killed or get you arrested.
The life of a revolutionary is very similar to the life of a gangster. It's often a shortened life. This is something many of the kids involved do not understand because they did not grow up around gangs and had somewhat sheltered childhoods. If they understood the dangers they wouldn't get involved. Barrett Brown is in over his head, he did not understand the dangers of which he got himself involved in. He also underestimated the lengths that governments will go to take someone out. The governments who want to take people like him out do not have any limits, they have way more technology than he can possibly hope to deal with, way more resources than he could possibly fathom, and a ruthlessness he cannot hope to understand.
For myself, I'd be happy with a solid 20 megabit connection. What I really want is:
Which means gigabit or better to the local distribution point, and neighborhood infrastructure that can handle the aggregate bandwidth. Most of the problems I have aren't my individual connection's bandwidth, it's the shared local infrastructure between my home's connection point and the ISP that's insufficient for the bandwidth of all the connected subscribers. Fix that and give me symmetric bandwidth and I'll be a happy camper.
Virgin started to realise (listened?) that their customers increasingly wanted this and the upstream has been steadily getting better here. A year or so ago they bumped everyone up on the upstream for free, and they consolidated their plans a little recently.
It's far from symmetrical (you can pay them for symmetrical 200/200, but be prepared to fork out), but the basic plans are pretty good now - 20/1, 60/3, 100/5 with no caps (just throttling on upstream if you exceed thresholds at peak times like the evening, but otherwise are non-monitored).
I'm on the 60/3 plan and have found that 3 Mbit upstream is more than adequate for video chatting and file uploads to the campus network etc. 7 MB downstream (and it's consistently as advertised, even at peak times) is just gravy.
I agree though, 1Gbs for the last mile right now is overkill - I can install Fallout New Vegas from scratch on steam in under 15 minutes, and I'm not even on the top plan - but pushing more ISPs into offering better upstream is the key.
It's not overkill. Imagine what you could run or host with that.
I think demand is there for anyone who wants to host a site or run a business.
At $1000 per installation, they would get about $120B for 120M households; close enough to start. I would gladly pay a $1000 start-up fee for symmetrical 1Gbps/service. From other reports, Google is charging $70/month, with an operating cost of $5/month. As the early adopters start to accumulate, the revenue stream will offset the cost for the periodically lowered installation charge to increase penetration.
Establish a nation-wide signup. Require a credit card (Google Wallet) for signup; they won't be charged, but they'll separate the wheat from the chaff. Crunch the data to find the highest population density signups and start build-out in those areas. Provide near-realtime online updates on build-out area priority. This lets those interested in an area act as promoters / ambassadors to increase signups, and raise their area's priority. Like the first cities selected, let people compete - providing free word of mouth advertising in the process.
And don't forget the other side of the equation; offer servers reasonably priced 100Gb local Google data center / site interconnects to keep the on-net customers interested and happy.
How would most of us get $1000?
This could be funded by State government contracts.
You misunderstood the point. A gun is by definition lethal, and effective self-defense techniques with a handgun are all highly lethal (center of mass is where most vital organs are). Nevertheless, the point of self-defense is not to kill a person attacking you. It's to quickly and efficiently make them a non-threat to you. This coincidentally carries a high risk of death to the attacker, but that's not the purpose of drawing the gun.
Hence why, if the first shot incapacitates the attacker but he's still alive, shooting him again at that point (provided that you have time to clearly observe his state and conclude that he is not a threat anymore) is not legal. Similarly, if you draw a gun, and the guy just turns around and runs away, you can't shoot him - he's not threatening you anymore. On the other hand, of course, the idea of shooting at limbs and other non-vital parts initially is silly - you are more likely to miss, and if you hit, it is less likely to be an effective stopper.
The point is if you don't kill the guy you don't have to fight it in court. Non-lethal weapons can stop a person without killing them.
the point of using a handgun in self-defense is to incapacitate or buy yourself time, not to kill - the latter is merely a side effect, not a goal).
If you're not prepared to kill in my opinion you shouldn't be carrying a gun. There is a time to kill in self defense but lets not pretend like a gun isn't designed to kill.
Defend themselves from what? Why can't those citizens become a cop or buy a defense oriented weapon? A machine gun or high powered rifle is not a defense weapon.
GP was talking about firearms in general, not about specific weapons. A handgun is a "defense oriented weapon" - the best one there is as of today. Rifles and shotguns are there for hunting, sport and defense against predators in wilderness areas. Machine guns are already heavily regulated (and manufacturing one is illegal outright), so they're not subject of this discussion.
Defend themselves from what? Why, any threats of death or bodily harm that come from other people, such as a drugged out junkie with a knife. Go to YouTube and search for "security camera self defense", you'll see plenty of examples.
Become a cop? Don't be ridiculous. I shouldn't have to join a full-time police force just to get the means to defend myself in face of physical aggression from another person.
Oh, and regardless of all that, it should be the proponents of gun control who should provide a rationale for their proposed bans on gun ownership, not the other way around. The right to own and carry weapons is a personal freedom, not really any distinct from freedom to smoke marijuana or have an abortion. If you want to restrict a personal freedom, you better damn have a very good reason to do so.
I'm not for gun control. I'm for non-lethal weapons. I don't think a handgun is necessarily more effective than a non-lethal weapon. The adversary could wear a bullet proof vest, your gun could jam, they could be a better shot, or you could just not want to spend 20-30 years in jail for defending yourself.
If we are going to use printers to make weapons why aren't we making non-lethal weapons at least?
Non-lethal weapons are markedly less efficient for self-defense than lethal ones. Those that are actually somewhat efficient (like Tazers) are usually not nearly as non-lethal as their manufacturers would make you think.
Second of all why do we need to be making weapons at all? The government should have a monopoly on violence as it is the role of government to control weapons. Do we really want this?
Define "we". Someone has to make weapons for me to be able to buy one, monopoly or not. As it stands, those weapons are already made by private companies, and some of them can be pretty small workshops; what's the fundamental difference between a guy with a workshop, and a guy with a 3D printer?
Note that this does not preclude government regulation of weapon manufacture. A law could well be enacted that'd require the person producing the lower to register it. US does not have such a law, currently, for various reasons, but these are unrelated to this discussion.
Also, the government having a monopoly on violence does not preclude it from delegating it to its citizens under some circumstances where it's obviously a good idea, such as self-defense. And, of course, if you want your citizens to be able to efficiently defend themselves, you want them to be armed.
Defend themselves from what? Why can't those citizens become a cop or buy a defense oriented weapon? A machine gun or high powered rifle is not a defense weapon.
I wonder what having techie types with superior firepower as the societal norm will do to the prevalent stereotype.
The real question is why do we need more firepower? How do highly evolved highly intelligent people benefit from this?
If we are going to use printers to make weapons why aren't we making non-lethal weapons at least?
Second of all why do we need to be making weapons at all? The government should have a monopoly on violence as it is the role of government to control weapons. Do we really want this?
When persons get access, fine. What could they do with the information. How much time can they afford to investigate your data.
Depends on which persons and why. But I don't think just anyone should be able to and I don't think data they see should ever be leaked.
Governments should know everything but we know nothing. That is the most dystopian thing I've ever heard. Over the entrance to the CIA are the words from the Bible "Ye shall know the truth and the truth shall make you free". Maybe the government can keep a few secrets, such as how to make a nuclear weapon, but as little as possible should be secret within the government. On the other hand the government needs to go before a judge and present really good goddamn reason why they should know anything at all about me. I have nothing to hide but that's beside the point. You really piss me off, Mr. Police State. Your buddies Hitler and Stalin have croaked. I bet you feel real lonely without them.
The government has to know everything about everyone to protect everyone from everyone. Anyone could be made into a terrorist at any time. Anyone could become a radical. Anyone could snap and try to kill someone important. For that reason everyone has to be known because anyone who has secrets could be plotting something bad.
It's better to just give the government your secrets or accept their right to know them. The only problem I have is with leaks. If they know ever immoral or stupid or illegal thing you've done but agree to keep it secret what is the problem?
A folder is handed to political leaders and they get to ask questions. That becomes very addictive. First it was radio and all telegram messages.
WW2 german orders, movements, political power. Then Soviet arms testing, Soviet politics, local communist groups, unions, green movment, political groups in the USA, EU, huge commercial deals been backed by the other govs..
In the past they had to search data in near real time for 'words' and keep only terms of interest.
So you have had generations of political leaders who 'know' before many other people, thats not an easy thing to give up.
In the UK it was a matter of funding just to keep the information flowing without US help.
In the USA its more an agency power, funding, size and control thing - the NSA lost a lot of power and funding post cold war and before 2001.
The part the NSA was always warning against is now happening. The "who accesses it and why?" is now a push of data up from local police, state and federal
groups. The problem is so many eyes now have clearance, from political, to mil to contractors in raw form... Why - they are doing the collecting and sorting.
The NSA is seeing its "prize" outsourced for technical, legal and political reasons. Some political groups feel the private sector made up of well connected, cleared contractors have the skills, code and new machine 'power' to view things in different ways and ... later recall who gave them the contracts.
The NSA now faces a lot of new political thinktanks, contractors and other agency groups all offering unique language, crypto and insight.
All demanding the "need to know".
You answered a lot of my questions. I think we need to limit the eyes and those who know if we want to limit the probability of a leak and also we want to limit what people know to precisely what they need and no more.
I don't think we need or want police drones flying over our house to detect criminal activity. Drones were made for warfare, not to fight crime. Unless the crime is part of warfare the police shouldn't be involved. The FBI has the role anyway so local police have been trying to take too much power and this terrifies citizens for obvious reasons. While very few of us are terrorists at the same time almost all of us are breaking the law whether we know it or not so to give police the surveillance power would completely distort us culturally in a bad way at least in my opinion as people will adopt behavior under the impression that the police are everywhere watching them which isn't always good.
The surveillance power may be necessary but it's critical that it does not fall into the wrong hands. Once it does then America as a great nation is finished. What can we do to keep the surveillance power out of the wrong hands and to minimize leaks of information which shouldn't be leaked? (Example, which CEOs are cheating on their wives? Which college students use or sell illegal drugs?) etc.
Is that all you've got?
Absolutely!
A lot of laymen that I talked to about ECHELON think that I am some kind of crazy conspiracy theorist even though it is very well documented. Even in a report to the European Parliament. Source: http://www.europarl.europa.eu/sides/getDoc.do?pubRef=-//EP//NONSGML+REPORT+A5-2001-0264+0+DOC+PDF+V0//EN&language=EN
And the somewhat smarter people obviously know that nothing on the internet is untraceable, though you can make it really hard, but they do not realize and/or accept that it is commonplace to intercept, datamine and record all online communications. And that it is kept till the end of days. Sadly enough datastorage is just that cheap these days.
Now the question arises will that information harm you now, in one year, 10 years, 20 years, 50 years...
The best response that I've heard to people saying that they have nothing to hide: Just tell them to give you all their passwords, to their Mail Account, Facebook, Dropbox, etc. If they argue that they do not trust YOU, tell them to send it in an envelope to the FBI, NSA, etc.
We should keep that information away from the police and do what we can to keep that information secret. The government might have legit reasons to have our secrets but at the same time they have to be kept from exploiting our secrets in their political pursuits, the pursuit of justice, or anything other than national security.
Who gets access to the data?
The NSA, CIA, DIA bulk collection is cleaned up and indexed very quickly and well. The US had a vision of an electronic file system back in the 1960's. It was well funded while other agencies around the world where still working with paper and dreaming about data entry into realtime file systems.
The NSA, DIA is not some federal police building with an old database and top contractors trying their best over many years.
Historically your "access to the data" might have been a good question. Now its any contractor, new agency or cleared staff member can have a look.
The tight cleared for "hierarchical" internal NSA structures are been replaced with a more open "cloud". You have 100000's for new 'cleared' staff in new buildings with new encrypted lines getting bulk data, adding their 'thoughts' for top wages.
Re 'It is wrong to keep people in fear." We dont really know what the US likes to do the "West" when they get interested.
Can we project from COINTELPRO and wonder about what parts of the world that keep "company" with the US do:
If your political at the low end of the scale get noticed you might face something like decades of undercover officers?:
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2236811/Ten-women-sue-Scotland-Yard-tricked-sexual-relationships-officers-including-activist-spy-Mark-Kennedy.html
The other question is why they have access? I think even if the CIA or others have access there must be a reason why.
What happened to need to know? I'm not against collecting the data because no one should keep secrets from the NSA/CIA but the question is who accesses it and why?
Imagine they had a backup, fine. Who gets access to the data? I can't even find my own files and people forget what we discussed on a mailing list. It is wrong to keep people in fear.
And it is wrong to keep company with RT.
The problem isn't that entire nations are intercepted. The problem is access control. Who gets to access those interceptions and why?