Honestly it makes no sense to integrate PDF. It makes far more sense to integrate IRC, AOM/IM, or something like this but honestly, this is just commercial bloat. What we really want is just a browser that wont crash, that wont open our computer up to hackers, that that will load tube sites and have the latest scripting and html features.
Facebook? Twitter? Since when did Mozilla integrate commercial websites into their browser? Since integrating the Google search engine? Since AOL? This is why Netscape and Mozilla were originally kept separate. To keep the commercial bloat in the Netscape browser and allow the community to use Mozilla.
So while they're certainly dangerous they're not the world toppling danger they're made out to be. Far more dangerous are the corrupt governments around the world with proper armies, proper weapons and very smart intelligence people.
Not necessarily. A cipher is not going to last forever. The cipher in the case of the terrorist would just have to be secure long enough to complete the operation. When the operation is complete the cipher could be cracked and it would not make a difference.
So if the message is the day and time of the attack, the message only has to be secure until that day. If it's sent a week in advance then it only has to be secure for a week. There are many ciphers out there which would require more than a week to crack.
Usually, transparency is a good thing. In this case though, wouldn't the smart play have been to let sleeping dogs lie? Karim can't have been the only terrorist to rely on breakable encryption.
It wont make much of a difference. No matter what code they use the code breakers have a way to break it. AES can be broken if the random number generator isn't random. The one time pad can be broken by breaking the user.
Because if terrorists had a reliable key distribution network, they'd already be an army, not a loosely organized criminal band with minimal transportation infrastructure? One time pads are only as good as your distribution system. And the moment you run out of key bits and reuse them, your system is broken.
Could a book code be used?
Which is why the governments want to know what books everyone reads. The book code would not work. Generally speaking no encryption is 100% secure from the US government and the world has to accept that encryption is limited, just like guns are limited. They might protect you against civilians but they wont protect you against the military.
Because if terrorists had a reliable key distribution network, they'd already be an army, not a loosely organized criminal band with minimal transportation infrastructure? One time pads are only as good as your distribution system. And the moment you run out of key bits and reuse them, your system is broken.
But even if they had a key distribution, they'd have no way to protect the keys and no way to protect the brains that know the keys.
Basically the weakness of the one time pad is the physical security of the brains that remember them, and the physical security of the keys. Because physical security is something the US government has a monopoly on, no terrorist group, gang, or mafia is going to be safe using any encryption cipher and that includes one time pads. The terrorists will be tortured brutally, psychologically and physically, one by one, until they break and give up the keys. The base which stores all the keys will be raided, the computer which generates the keys will be stolen, the fact that it's very difficult to create massive numbers of truly random numbers means that more than likely it will be pseudo-random and if the number generator is stolen so are all the keys.
The one time pad is the most secure cipher on paper, in an academic setting, where there are laws, and rules. In war the one time pad does not work unless one has an army of sophistication and skill as the adversary, which means the one time pad is only useful for governments. It's not a cipher which would be useful for terrorists, gang members, etc.
Because if they use a one time pad, and get captured, they will be tortured.
Torture is how the one time pad is broken. You drug them, psychologically destroy them, eventually they'll want the pain to stop and they'll give up the key if they have it.
generally if it's symmetric it's going to be much harder to crack and there are many different ciphers that are very hard or very time consuming to crack. AES is just one of many.
The problem isn't the cipher. If you use AES then you'll be taken to Gitmo or some blacksite and tortured for the rest of your life until you give up the code. Or they'll take you to a psych ward, drug you, torture you, until you go insane and give up every secret.
This could take weeks, months, years or decades, they have trained psychologists, doctors, and professional torturers who enjoy testing new drugs and techniques.
So it's entirely pointless to try to keep secrets from the feds. The point is to keep secrets from Mallory.
I think in most case any cipher which prevents the adversary from cracking it within the same day is secure enough. It's a matter of time, not a matter of how secure the cipher is.
If your cipher is uncrackable, or too secure, then the adversary will be guaranteed to torture you when you get captured. If the cipher is crackable, but takes weeks, months, or years, this might actually be better for your physical security than the unbreakable code.
Basically the more secure the cipher, the greater the probability that you'll be tortured.
Which means crypto is never completely secure unless the key is located between two top secret underground bunkers and only the President and his counterpart have access to it.
Oh really? I'm pretty sure you're a troll but I'll play anyway. If you think: -Living your entire life in servitude -Having to work while sick because there is no such "sick time" (which would probably kill you even though simple rest would have helped)
Your argument is that it could be worse, that it's not as bad as it was in Hitler's concentration camp, or the 1400s dark ages. I'm saying it's not getting better and it's trending worse. Meaning we are building prisons on top of prisons, and we have millions of prisoners, and never can seem to have enough because we make profits from creating them. The end result will be the same, we are just working really hard to create that end result.
-Turning to prayer to solve every problem you can't understand (which is basically all of them) -Knowledge being sequestered by the wealthy simply because books were hard to make -and everyone was too busy dealing with their own food, illness and wild animals to even learn to read anyway
was somehow more conducive to solving the world's problems than the way things are now, you are quite naive.
What problem has been solved? We have more miserable people than ever. We live longer more miserable lives. Life might have been shorter in the tribal days, or the small village days, but people lived life to the fullest. Today people live miserable, and it's getting longer and more miserable for each new generation. This is then called progress.
Before technology the only time you knew of a famine, flood, or disease was when it was happening to you, and then you died before you could do anything about it.
People could read, write and do math going back since before Christ. So you don't know what you are talking about there. No we did not need this level of technology to survive. Native Americans survived just fine, as did Africans, Indians, Chinese, and while they had society and technology too, it was not the same. Even western society was not the same as it is today, for better for for worse. The difference is people had more liberty back then. Even if genocide and war were as common back then as they are now.
So in short, human rights have not advanced along with technology. We have technology, but we have the same backwards society we had back then, only with more technology, sophistication, and complexity. There is still slavery, still geoncide, still no human rights.
Science and technology allows people to study these problems without having the pressure of not dying from them, and their study can be used to help future generations continue the work. Starvation? People would starve to death all the time, and no one would ever know about it. Overpopulation is a myth, stop perpetuating it. This planet is huge and has plenty of farmland, the problem is entirely in distribution, and lack of incentive to improve it, and people spreading out to occupy said farmland rather than living in compact residential towers.
Do we have human rights? If we don't have human rights, overpopulation is not a myth.
HIV? People would just die without even knowing what happened. It would be chalked up to a bad cold. Worse, no one would know they had it and it would have killed most of us off by now, because things like condoms wouldn't have been invented, nor would word have gotten out to be careful about it. Science didn't cause it but it did save us (as a race) from it. Pollution - the only one you're right about. That is a technology+human nature problem, but honestly you cannot say that it's negative effects outweigh the benefits to the majority of humans [yet]. Simply put, would you say your quality of life is better when you have to use 5-10 candles to light up a room, accidentally knock them over and burn your bedroom to ash, then had to worry about rebuilding your home?
In exchange for the internet and computers, I received a
There are more of them, so of course more of them will graduate with degrees in anything.
Rather than competing fairly, we should be using every unfair advantage we have to one up them just as they are using every unfair advantage they have right now, such as price, or rigged exams, or lead in the toys sold to American babies.
Now I'm not advocating we use the lead in the toys, as obviously China punished the individuals responsible for that, but we have to sotp pretending like America with 300 million people will ever produce more of anything than 1.5 billion people. The math just does not work in our favor.
We do have some advantages, such as infrastructure which we aren't renewing and are allowing to go to waste. We do have a bigger economy which we aren't using to our advantage. It's our destiny to be the slaves of the Chinese. America has become a nation of pathetic silent servants.
It's because of science we even have the luxury of thinking about the problems of human nature.
If you'd prefer the days when priests would exorcise you whenever you got diarrhea (and of course only nobles had access this crucial service), that's your prerogative.
But what you don't understand is that just living longer doesn't mean we are living better. We live longer, and thats about it.
Back then they definitely lived shorter lives, but they accomplished so much more with their lives, and they had a lot less stress. When all you have to deal with is the natural environment, and you have ancient knowledge on how to deal with that, then you can deal with it. When your environment is artificial and always changing, so are the threats.
Our current environment is always changing. The threats are not the same from one year to the next or one decade to the next. Science has only increased the complexity of the threats that have always existed. Genocide, slavery, and torture can now be achieved through technological means. Technological progress is now being directed to achieve these ends.
Until I see technology directed towards human rights defense, anti-slavery, anti-genocide, etc, I've got no real reason to care about technology or science in any emotional way. Technology and science are being used to build a prison without walls. What are you going to do about it besides profit?
So it's simple. If you are a cyber crime investigator, then don't pretend to just be a "researcher".
Are you fucking retarded? Do you think undercover organized crime investigators should wear "Hi! I'm in the FBI!" t-shirts to avoid confusing the poor mafiosi?
That depends. If you are talking about investigating violent organized criminals then I could agree with you but these are hackers. Why would we need undercover organized crime investigators to go up against them in this specific instance?
I agree there could be some hackers out there who would require that, such as terrorist hackers or hackers who are actually in the mafia, but I don't think every hacker should have to be treated like some sort of organized criminal.
Also if there are undercover cops, from my perspective I'm not one of them so why would I think it's good if the underground hacker community, or slashdot for that matter were flooded with undercover cops? Those undercover cops being ubiqutous in the hacker community or in any community does not really necessary benefit the community. Automatically taking the side of authority, of undercover cops, does not necessary mean you are taking the good side or the civilian side in every situation.
So yes I think the FBI, at least the majority of so called cyber police or whatever they are calling themselves at this time, should have a badge, and act like cops. Just having a heavy police presence can deter a lot of crime from ever taking place. It will not deter all crime from taking place but it will make it so hackers don't feel like the internet is the wild west. I'm not implying that there is no role for undercover cops, I'm implying that if these so called "security researchers" are undercover, their covers suck and wouldn't even fool a teenager. They already wear the "I'm with the FBI" T-shirt by their behavior and passion, and if they were truly undercover cops I would have expected more varied cover.
This sort of cover is like hiding the undercover cop as a journalist. It sucks as a cover because it damages the trust in the community and makes the job much more difficult for actual researchers who aren't undercover cops.
Science isn't in itself any more noble than chess. We have the most advanced science in the world but our society hash't changed much has it?
Well, it did got rid of smallpox. And polio. And famine. And backbreaking farm work. And cities get clean drinking water and their waste is purified before being released.
But apart from medicine, plentiful food, clean water, warm houses, comfortable clothes, fast transportation, long-distance communication, contraceptives, weather forecasts, food preservation, insect repellants, electric light, sunglasses, robots, tractors, waste disposal, fire, wheel and beer... what has science ever done for us?
It disturbs me that Monty Python seems to be such an accurate portrayal of the world.
And now we are dealing with over population, starvation, war, HIV, pollution and a lot of other problems.
So while science solved one problem it created many other bigger problems in it's place. It's like cutting the head off a hydra. Until science is used to actually solve the problem of human nature, it's not going to really work to progress us forward.
We have the most advanced science in the world but our society hash't changed much has it?
Said the guy typing away on a surface made of synthetic polymer and sending bleeps and bloops to millions of other humans on the other side of the globe, facilitated by bugs flying around the earth that absorb and repeat those bleeps and bloops, all in the blink of an eye.
And how has society changed for the better because of it? There is just as much if not more suffering now, only it's high tech suffering rather than low tech. None of the major problems have been solved, not even education.
I support technology can make the world smarter but a less ignorant world actually will suffer even more when they realize the reasons why there is nothing they can do about certain "political" problems. Basically having more knowledge doesn't mean more power in every situation. You can have the knowledge to do anything, but if it cuts into the profits of others or steps on other peoples toes, then you'll be punished for having more knowledge.
I enjoy a good game of chess myself, on occasion. However, at the top level, chess is populated almost entirely by gigantic douchebags. I'm not surprised cheating went on. Look at some of Bobby Fischer's early matches. And hey, Kasparov isn't above cheating, either. His opponent didn't say anything because she knew he'd use his reputation to destroy her and anything she said.
"An interesting example of taking back moves at the highest level of OTB chess occurred recently at the elite 1994 Linares super tournament. It's claimed that there is video tape showing that PCA World Champion Garry Kasparov, while playing Judit Polgar, moved a knight to a square which would have cost him the exchange. Apparently, even though he had released the piece, he picked it up again and moved it to another square and went on to win the game." Link to more.
Bobby Fischer, the greatest American player ever, idolized Hitler and hated Jewish people, and cheered 9/11 on his radio show. Sample quote: "This is a wonderful day. Fuck the United States. Cry, you crybabies! Whine, you bastards! Now your time is coming." Don't think he was alone in the chess world, either, he had a lot of friends: as Gudmundur G. ThÃrarinsson, the man who arranged the famous "Cold War" match against Spassky in Iceland, said at Fischer's funeral, "In the fullness of time, history will judge the United States harshly for its treatment of Robert James Fischer."
I leave with this piece about chess, written in the 1500s. "Chess is certainly a pleasing and ingenious amusement, but it seems to have one defect, which is that it is possible to have too much knowledge of it, so that whoever would excel in the game must give a great deal of time to it, as I believe, and as much study as if he would learn some noble science or perform well anything of importance; and yet in the end, for all his pains, he only knows how to play a game. Thus, I think a very unusual thing happens in this, namely that mediocrity is more to be praised than excellence."
Why is one game more important than another? Importance is subjective. If someone wants to spend their life studying chess moves, and people are willing to pay them money to do it, then it's not such a bad lifestyle.
Science isn't in itself any more noble than chess. We have the most advanced science in the world but our society hash't changed much has it?
Have you gotten your meals out of dumpsters and supplemented them by shoplifting?
If not for family and friends I would be.
Have you gone days and days without a shower because you had no place to take one? Slept in parks and alleyways?
Once again, if not for family and friends that could happen to me.
I'm guessing the answer is "no."
The answer is no because I still have some family members and friends left. When I don't then the answer will be yes.
Well, I have. And you know what? I survived by doing what I had to do and through the kindness of people who had nothing to gain by helping me. Without those people I would be dead and we wouldn't be having this pleasant conversation.
What you experienced was caused by society, and was resolved by society. People are starving because of society. People live on the streets because of society. Yes society has some good people in it who care about people, but society itself does not care about us. It's individuals who care, not groups.
I learned that nobody owes me anything. I get what I get because I work hard for it. As it should be.
You get what you get because nobody is stopping you from working hard to get it. Don't assume that in every situation you'll be allowed to get something by hard work. Don't think just because you work hard that you are entitled to anything. Hard work can still leave you on the streets starving. Welcome to the real world where people all over the world in every country, including in this country, work hard, are willing to work hard, and still have nothing to show for it in many cases. If you have shelter, food, a bed, no matter how you manage to get it, consider yourself fortunate to have that and not be locked up in a prison.
What is more, I try to help people. Why? Because it's the right and ethical thing to do.
It would be just as right for the jews to help Hitler when he was homeless. Right? It would be just as right to help Mao when he was homeless right? It would be just as right to help Hitler when he is was dictator right? Or Stalin? Do-gooders help anybody, even their enemies. Do-gooders will even help enemies of human rights, free speech, and all the ethical positions they pretend to hold, because for them it's just about feeling good about themselves rather than actually helping themselves and others. If you want to feel good then go help random persons, if you want to accomplish something good then help one specific person at the most opportune moment.
I don't judge people by what they have or how they live or paint whole societies with a broad brush. I go by what people do and what they say.
I go by what people do. If I don't know what a person does, I don't know the person. If I don't know the person I cannot calculate the effects of helping them. A notorious rapist in the city could have their car break down, and little do I know someone is in the trunk of their car tied up, taped up, and still alive. If I help the rapist change his tire, he could go on to drive into the woods or the middle of no where, rape and murder the girl and dump the body. But I got to feel good about myself at that moment in time because I helped a complete stranger? When you don't know a person you don't know whether or not helping them will be good for you or bad for you, or good for society or bad for society, this is why it's better that we help people we know. This is why the US government does not help random people starving overseas, but it does help it's friends and the people it knows.
We live in an unequal world. It's not right and it breaks my heart to know that many people have short, harsh, brutal lives. But I can't make everything better.
Society is something I tolerate. I did not ask to be born into this society. I do not have any emotional attachment to this society. It's not all good.
There are good people who matter to me. I care about those people. The social contract isn't real and does not exist. People pretend it exists just as they pretend human rights exist and just as they adopt American exceptionalism.
You think the world owes you all it's natural resources because you are an American? You think lives in foreign countries don't matter? Are you willing to risk your life to stop the American empire from expanding? Are you willing to get locked up in Gitmo to protect human rights? Are you willing to be tortured?
Well that rich guy across the street from you isn't, else there might be human rights already. So yes I have a right to be as selfish as necessary to survive, and why expect everyone who doesn't have to be the selfless but expect the people who actually have something to give, like bankers and CEO's, for them greed is good?
Be consistent. Greed is good for everybody, or for nobody.
Slashdot Mirror
The awesome bar and all this commercial stupidity has to go. Whoever is in charge of Firefox right now sucks.
It made sense to go from Mozilla to Firefox, but from Firefox to this mess? This is Netscape all over again.
Honestly it makes no sense to integrate PDF. It makes far more sense to integrate IRC, AOM/IM, or something like this but honestly, this is just commercial bloat. What we really want is just a browser that wont crash, that wont open our computer up to hackers, that that will load tube sites and have the latest scripting and html features.
Facebook? Twitter? Since when did Mozilla integrate commercial websites into their browser? Since integrating the Google search engine? Since AOL? This is why Netscape and Mozilla were originally kept separate. To keep the commercial bloat in the Netscape browser and allow the community to use Mozilla.
So while they're certainly dangerous they're not the world toppling danger they're made out to be. Far more dangerous are the corrupt governments around the world with proper armies, proper weapons and very smart intelligence people.
Not necessarily. A cipher is not going to last forever. The cipher in the case of the terrorist would just have to be secure long enough to complete the operation. When the operation is complete the cipher could be cracked and it would not make a difference.
So if the message is the day and time of the attack, the message only has to be secure until that day. If it's sent a week in advance then it only has to be secure for a week. There are many ciphers out there which would require more than a week to crack.
Usually, transparency is a good thing. In this case though, wouldn't the smart play have been to let sleeping dogs lie? Karim can't have been the only terrorist to rely on breakable encryption.
It wont make much of a difference. No matter what code they use the code breakers have a way to break it.
AES can be broken if the random number generator isn't random.
The one time pad can be broken by breaking the user.
Because if terrorists had a reliable key distribution network, they'd already be an army, not a loosely organized criminal band with minimal transportation infrastructure? One time pads are only as good as your distribution system. And the moment you run out of key bits and reuse them, your system is broken.
Could a book code be used?
Which is why the governments want to know what books everyone reads. The book code would not work.
Generally speaking no encryption is 100% secure from the US government and the world has to accept that encryption is limited, just like guns are limited. They might protect you against civilians but they wont protect you against the military.
Because if terrorists had a reliable key distribution network, they'd already be an army, not a loosely organized criminal band with minimal transportation infrastructure? One time pads are only as good as your distribution system. And the moment you run out of key bits and reuse them, your system is broken.
But even if they had a key distribution, they'd have no way to protect the keys and no way to protect the brains that know the keys.
Basically the weakness of the one time pad is the physical security of the brains that remember them, and the physical security of the keys. Because physical security is something the US government has a monopoly on, no terrorist group, gang, or mafia is going to be safe using any encryption cipher and that includes one time pads. The terrorists will be tortured brutally, psychologically and physically, one by one, until they break and give up the keys. The base which stores all the keys will be raided, the computer which generates the keys will be stolen, the fact that it's very difficult to create massive numbers of truly random numbers means that more than likely it will be pseudo-random and if the number generator is stolen so are all the keys.
The one time pad is the most secure cipher on paper, in an academic setting, where there are laws, and rules. In war the one time pad does not work unless one has an army of sophistication and skill as the adversary, which means the one time pad is only useful for governments. It's not a cipher which would be useful for terrorists, gang members, etc.
Because if they use a one time pad, and get captured, they will be tortured.
Torture is how the one time pad is broken. You drug them, psychologically destroy them, eventually they'll want the pain to stop and they'll give up the key if they have it.
generally if it's symmetric it's going to be much harder to crack and there are many different ciphers that are very hard or very time consuming to crack. AES is just one of many.
The problem isn't the cipher. If you use AES then you'll be taken to Gitmo or some blacksite and tortured for the rest of your life until you give up the code. Or they'll take you to a psych ward, drug you, torture you, until you go insane and give up every secret.
This could take weeks, months, years or decades, they have trained psychologists, doctors, and professional torturers who enjoy testing new drugs and techniques.
So it's entirely pointless to try to keep secrets from the feds. The point is to keep secrets from Mallory.
The excuse being that they have to break the terrorists because they can't break the code in time to stop the attacks.
I think in most case any cipher which prevents the adversary from cracking it within the same day is secure enough.
It's a matter of time, not a matter of how secure the cipher is.
If your cipher is uncrackable, or too secure, then the adversary will be guaranteed to torture you when you get captured.
If the cipher is crackable, but takes weeks, months, or years, this might actually be better for your physical security than the unbreakable code.
Basically the more secure the cipher, the greater the probability that you'll be tortured.
Crypto is only as secure as the guy with the key.
Which means crypto is never completely secure unless the key is located between two top secret underground bunkers and only the President and his counterpart have access to it.
And even then it might not be completely secure.
If you have a secret and they can't break the code, they'll torture you until you break.
Oh really?
I'm pretty sure you're a troll but I'll play anyway. If you think:
-Living your entire life in servitude
-Having to work while sick because there is no such "sick time" (which would probably kill you even though simple rest would have helped)
Your argument is that it could be worse, that it's not as bad as it was in Hitler's concentration camp, or the 1400s dark ages. I'm saying it's not getting better and it's trending worse. Meaning we are building prisons on top of prisons, and we have millions of prisoners, and never can seem to have enough because we make profits from creating them. The end result will be the same, we are just working really hard to create that end result.
-Turning to prayer to solve every problem you can't understand (which is basically all of them)
-Knowledge being sequestered by the wealthy simply because books were hard to make
-and everyone was too busy dealing with their own food, illness and wild animals to even learn to read anyway
was somehow more conducive to solving the world's problems than the way things are now, you are quite naive.
What problem has been solved? We have more miserable people than ever. We live longer more miserable lives. Life might have been shorter in the tribal days, or the small village days, but people lived life to the fullest. Today people live miserable, and it's getting longer and more miserable for each new generation. This is then called progress.
Before technology the only time you knew of a famine, flood, or disease was when it was happening to you, and then you died before you could do anything about it.
People could read, write and do math going back since before Christ. So you don't know what you are talking about there. No we did not need this level of technology to survive. Native Americans survived just fine, as did Africans, Indians, Chinese, and while they had society and technology too, it was not the same. Even western society was not the same as it is today, for better for for worse. The difference is people had more liberty back then. Even if genocide and war were as common back then as they are now.
So in short, human rights have not advanced along with technology. We have technology, but we have the same backwards society we had back then, only with more technology, sophistication, and complexity. There is still slavery, still geoncide, still no human rights.
Science and technology allows people to study these problems without having the pressure of not dying from them, and their study can be used to help future generations continue the work.
Starvation? People would starve to death all the time, and no one would ever know about it.
Overpopulation is a myth, stop perpetuating it. This planet is huge and has plenty of farmland, the problem is entirely in distribution, and lack of incentive to improve it, and people spreading out to occupy said farmland rather than living in compact residential towers.
Do we have human rights? If we don't have human rights, overpopulation is not a myth.
HIV? People would just die without even knowing what happened. It would be chalked up to a bad cold. Worse, no one would know they had it and it would have killed most of us off by now, because things like condoms wouldn't have been invented, nor would word have gotten out to be careful about it. Science didn't cause it but it did save us (as a race) from it.
Pollution - the only one you're right about. That is a technology+human nature problem, but honestly you cannot say that it's negative effects outweigh the benefits to the majority of humans [yet]. Simply put, would you say your quality of life is better when you have to use 5-10 candles to light up a room, accidentally knock them over and burn your bedroom to ash, then had to worry about rebuilding your home?
In exchange for the internet and computers, I received a
There are more of them, so of course more of them will graduate with degrees in anything.
Rather than competing fairly, we should be using every unfair advantage we have to one up them just as they are using every unfair advantage they have right now, such as price, or rigged exams, or lead in the toys sold to American babies.
Now I'm not advocating we use the lead in the toys, as obviously China punished the individuals responsible for that, but we have to sotp pretending like America with 300 million people will ever produce more of anything than 1.5 billion people. The math just does not work in our favor.
We do have some advantages, such as infrastructure which we aren't renewing and are allowing to go to waste. We do have a bigger economy which we aren't using to our advantage. It's our destiny to be the slaves of the Chinese. America has become a nation of pathetic silent servants.
http://www.cointelpro2.com/
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=2967542171184509301#
It's because of science we even have the luxury of thinking about the problems of human nature.
If you'd prefer the days when priests would exorcise you whenever you got diarrhea (and of course only nobles had access this crucial service), that's your prerogative.
But what you don't understand is that just living longer doesn't mean we are living better. We live longer, and thats about it.
Back then they definitely lived shorter lives, but they accomplished so much more with their lives, and they had a lot less stress. When all you have to deal with is the natural environment, and you have ancient knowledge on how to deal with that, then you can deal with it. When your environment is artificial and always changing, so are the threats.
Our current environment is always changing. The threats are not the same from one year to the next or one decade to the next. Science has only increased the complexity of the threats that have always existed. Genocide, slavery, and torture can now be achieved through technological means. Technological progress is now being directed to achieve these ends.
Until I see technology directed towards human rights defense, anti-slavery, anti-genocide, etc, I've got no real reason to care about technology or science in any emotional way. Technology and science are being used to build a prison without walls. What are you going to do about it besides profit?
So it's simple. If you are a cyber crime investigator, then don't pretend to just be a "researcher".
Are you fucking retarded? Do you think undercover organized crime investigators should wear "Hi! I'm in the FBI!" t-shirts to avoid confusing the poor mafiosi?
That depends. If you are talking about investigating violent organized criminals then I could agree with you but these are hackers. Why would we need undercover organized crime investigators to go up against them in this specific instance?
I agree there could be some hackers out there who would require that, such as terrorist hackers or hackers who are actually in the mafia, but I don't think every hacker should have to be treated like some sort of organized criminal.
Also if there are undercover cops, from my perspective I'm not one of them so why would I think it's good if the underground hacker community, or slashdot for that matter were flooded with undercover cops? Those undercover cops being ubiqutous in the hacker community or in any community does not really necessary benefit the community. Automatically taking the side of authority, of undercover cops, does not necessary mean you are taking the good side or the civilian side in every situation.
So yes I think the FBI, at least the majority of so called cyber police or whatever they are calling themselves at this time, should have a badge, and act like cops. Just having a heavy police presence can deter a lot of crime from ever taking place. It will not deter all crime from taking place but it will make it so hackers don't feel like the internet is the wild west. I'm not implying that there is no role for undercover cops, I'm implying that if these so called "security researchers" are undercover, their covers suck and wouldn't even fool a teenager. They already wear the "I'm with the FBI" T-shirt by their behavior and passion, and if they were truly undercover cops I would have expected more varied cover.
This sort of cover is like hiding the undercover cop as a journalist. It sucks as a cover because it damages the trust in the community and makes the job much more difficult for actual researchers who aren't undercover cops.
Well, it did got rid of smallpox. And polio. And famine. And backbreaking farm work. And cities get clean drinking water and their waste is purified before being released.
But apart from medicine, plentiful food, clean water, warm houses, comfortable clothes, fast transportation, long-distance communication, contraceptives, weather forecasts, food preservation, insect repellants, electric light, sunglasses, robots, tractors, waste disposal, fire, wheel and beer... what has science ever done for us?
It disturbs me that Monty Python seems to be such an accurate portrayal of the world.
And now we are dealing with over population, starvation, war, HIV, pollution and a lot of other problems.
So while science solved one problem it created many other bigger problems in it's place. It's like cutting the head off a hydra. Until science is used to actually solve the problem of human nature, it's not going to really work to progress us forward.
Said the guy typing away on a surface made of synthetic polymer and sending bleeps and bloops to millions of other humans on the other side of the globe, facilitated by bugs flying around the earth that absorb and repeat those bleeps and bloops, all in the blink of an eye.
And how has society changed for the better because of it? There is just as much if not more suffering now, only it's high tech suffering rather than low tech. None of the major problems have been solved, not even education.
I support technology can make the world smarter but a less ignorant world actually will suffer even more when they realize the reasons why there is nothing they can do about certain "political" problems. Basically having more knowledge doesn't mean more power in every situation. You can have the knowledge to do anything, but if it cuts into the profits of others or steps on other peoples toes, then you'll be punished for having more knowledge.
I enjoy a good game of chess myself, on occasion. However, at the top level, chess is populated almost entirely by gigantic douchebags. I'm not surprised cheating went on. Look at some of Bobby Fischer's early matches. And hey, Kasparov isn't above cheating, either. His opponent didn't say anything because she knew he'd use his reputation to destroy her and anything she said.
"An interesting example of taking back moves at the highest level of OTB chess occurred recently at the elite 1994 Linares super tournament. It's claimed that there is video tape showing that PCA World Champion Garry Kasparov, while playing Judit Polgar, moved a knight to a square which would have cost him the exchange. Apparently, even though he had released the piece, he picked it up again and moved it to another square and went on to win the game." Link to more.
Bobby Fischer, the greatest American player ever, idolized Hitler and hated Jewish people, and cheered 9/11 on his radio show. Sample quote: "This is a wonderful day. Fuck the United States. Cry, you crybabies! Whine, you bastards! Now your time is coming." Don't think he was alone in the chess world, either, he had a lot of friends: as Gudmundur G. ThÃrarinsson, the man who arranged the famous "Cold War" match against Spassky in Iceland, said at Fischer's funeral, "In the fullness of time, history will judge the United States harshly for its treatment of Robert James Fischer."
I leave with this piece about chess, written in the 1500s.
"Chess is certainly a pleasing and ingenious amusement, but it seems to have one defect, which is that it is possible to have too much knowledge of it, so that whoever would excel in the game must give a great deal of time to it, as I believe, and as much study as if he would learn some noble science or perform well anything of importance; and yet in the end, for all his pains, he only knows how to play a game. Thus, I think a very unusual thing happens in this, namely that mediocrity is more to be praised than excellence."
Why is one game more important than another? Importance is subjective. If someone wants to spend their life studying chess moves, and people are willing to pay them money to do it, then it's not such a bad lifestyle.
Science isn't in itself any more noble than chess. We have the most advanced science in the world but our society hash't changed much has it?
Okay. I get it now. You're either a sociopath or a troll, either way you're getting ignored from now on. bye!
Neither. I'm not a sociopath or a troll, I just don't follow the same survival strategy.
Sucker.
Have you ever lived on the street?
Have you gotten your meals out of dumpsters and supplemented them by shoplifting?
If not for family and friends I would be.
Have you gone days and days without a shower because you had no place to take one? Slept in parks and alleyways?
Once again, if not for family and friends that could happen to me.
I'm guessing the answer is "no."
The answer is no because I still have some family members and friends left. When I don't then the answer will be yes.
Well, I have. And you know what? I survived by doing what I had to do and through the kindness of people who had nothing to gain by helping me. Without those people I would be dead and we wouldn't be having this pleasant conversation.
What you experienced was caused by society, and was resolved by society. People are starving because of society. People live on the streets because of society. Yes society has some good people in it who care about people, but society itself does not care about us. It's individuals who care, not groups.
I learned that nobody owes me anything. I get what I get because I work hard for it. As it should be.
You get what you get because nobody is stopping you from working hard to get it. Don't assume that in every situation you'll be allowed to get something by hard work. Don't think just because you work hard that you are entitled to anything. Hard work can still leave you on the streets starving. Welcome to the real world where people all over the world in every country, including in this country, work hard, are willing to work hard, and still have nothing to show for it in many cases. If you have shelter, food, a bed, no matter how you manage to get it, consider yourself fortunate to have that and not be locked up in a prison.
What is more, I try to help people. Why? Because it's the right and ethical thing to do.
It would be just as right for the jews to help Hitler when he was homeless. Right? It would be just as right to help Mao when he was homeless right? It would be just as right to help Hitler when he is was dictator right? Or Stalin? Do-gooders help anybody, even their enemies. Do-gooders will even help enemies of human rights, free speech, and all the ethical positions they pretend to hold, because for them it's just about feeling good about themselves rather than actually helping themselves and others. If you want to feel good then go help random persons, if you want to accomplish something good then help one specific person at the most opportune moment.
I don't judge people by what they have or how they live or paint whole societies with a broad brush. I go by what people do and what they say.
I go by what people do. If I don't know what a person does, I don't know the person. If I don't know the person I cannot calculate the effects of helping them. A notorious rapist in the city could have their car break down, and little do I know someone is in the trunk of their car tied up, taped up, and still alive. If I help the rapist change his tire, he could go on to drive into the woods or the middle of no where, rape and murder the girl and dump the body. But I got to feel good about myself at that moment in time because I helped a complete stranger? When you don't know a person you don't know whether or not helping them will be good for you or bad for you, or good for society or bad for society, this is why it's better that we help people we know. This is why the US government does not help random people starving overseas, but it does help it's friends and the people it knows.
We live in an unequal world. It's not right and it breaks my heart to know that many people have short, harsh, brutal lives. But I can't make everything better.
Then why do you help strangers? Just to feel goo
Society is something I tolerate. I did not ask to be born into this society. I do not have any emotional attachment to this society. It's not all good.
There are good people who matter to me. I care about those people. The social contract isn't real and does not exist. People pretend it exists just as they pretend human rights exist and just as they adopt American exceptionalism.
You think the world owes you all it's natural resources because you are an American? You think lives in foreign countries don't matter?
Are you willing to risk your life to stop the American empire from expanding? Are you willing to get locked up in Gitmo to protect human rights? Are you willing to be tortured?
Well that rich guy across the street from you isn't, else there might be human rights already. So yes I have a right to be as selfish as necessary to survive, and why expect everyone who doesn't have to be the selfless but expect the people who actually have something to give, like bankers and CEO's, for them greed is good?
Be consistent. Greed is good for everybody, or for nobody.