Re "Given the hostility towards science in the US these days, I am not very confident in how "temporary" a situation it is that america is unable to perform their own launches into space these days."
Thats why Russia, India and China put so much effort in keeping their production lines working at any cost over the decades.
Most smart nations can lift something into space. The real effort is in getting just the perfect design for every complex, sensitive payload. Humans, sensitive science without risking epic shake apart.
The metallurgy has to be nurtured and kept in house and staff kept working, passing down skills. A start up 20 years later is just a huge problem trying to relearn what was lost and never well documented due to "security" or "no bid" or just the thought that the company would always have the skills for every step. Test a new design that might never offer the features needed.
Stopping the budgets of a set of rocket systems tends to really slow later rocket making skills.
Most nations who joined the nuclear club late kind of have to sign up to all kinds of international standards and protections to keep their university, power, medical and research tracked and watched.
Stuff missing is tracked as nations like to build projects on the side. To prevent that everything is registered.
To the world. Other nations just have to learn to enjoy the fun of freedom.
Add languages and support tools to get access. Don't ask any gov for access. Draw the best users to the brand and never seek the approval of bureaucrats.
Fun and freedom will always attract the best new users. Been banned or reported is just like gov sanctioned web 2.0 in most repressive regimes. Not the best policy to grow any brand.
Swapping out US protection before, during and after free speech for "international" acceptance just removes all the real people who don't want to be corrected or banned.
People can move to other new free platforms and have fun. Any brand once tainted by bureaucrats is a joke.
Stay with freedom as a core value or state for all to see that the directions of theocracies and absolute monarchies are now more valued than freedom.
The US has one great selling point no other nation can ever have. Freedom. Sell it to the world. Bureaucrats and policy banning comments is rather common globally and offers no growth.
The other fun question is if the private sector has so much info how could so much plain text data move to such an ip range using detectable methods?
Why is so much data been kept as plain text facing global networks?
The "server room without internal procedures" is really the key to all this. What and who gets to define access for years of domestic content without question.
Recall the internal and external reactions to PRISM.
Room 641A https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
Qwest reportedly balked nsa records sweep (5/12/2006) http://www.nbcnews.com/id/1275...
Re 'Ha, their plot will be foiled because the Russians ditched windows for Linux."
Russia studied US actions in Serbia and will be able to absorb any induced issues.
Power grid, mass media. Turn off the lights and block the wider public from their favourite broadcasters.
Discontent will drive people to new faces and well developed US funded slogans.
The next step is to fund NGO's and groups to push local issues or create issues to sway elections and demand a change of government.
Another color revolution https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
NGO's, civil society then get vast amounts of cash to change to supporting US backed policies.
The only big question is just how much Western infrastructure Russia added to its grid and how networked it was.
Expect a flood of placed stories on US founded web 2.0 media and some attempt to game the Russian speaking social media.
The washingtonpost has:
"IP addresses listed" and near the end its " “not aware of any specific or credible cybersecurity threats relating to the upcoming general election systems,”"
CNN notes:
"We have seen no access into statewide registration database and no manipulation of that database." and "FBI investigators believe the the hacks and attempted intrusions of state election sites were carried out by hackers working for Russian intelligence."
The Guardian has
"in calling out what it says is Russian-directed hacking."
So its back to ip ranges a "calling out" and a 'believe"?
But timezones match working hours, ip ranges and easy to discover code litter. In the past the code also something to do with a board game called "Chess" thats part of compulsory education in some nations. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... ""two or more connected tools/tactics to attack a specific target similar to the chess strategy"
Given the removal of protections like the Smith–Mundt Act "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smith–Mundt_Act" domestic propaganda is now legal.
Once all this would have just been passed to a waiting international press.
Now its been pushed domestically.
"Revealed: US spy operation that manipulates social media" (18 March 2011) https://www.theguardian.com/te...
or "British army creates team of Facebook warriors" (31 January 2015) https://www.theguardian.com/uk...
So the past legal press protections are gone and contractors love the over time.
Thinking in terms of US competitiveness who would want to push for '"the population" to distract US firms?
In a few easy steps other nations could be enjoying a flood of export quality US design jobs.
Position your nation as smart, safe, clean, friendly, low tax, free of government interference and have your top graduates ready.
US brands will be sending your smart nation design work in a few years just to protect the shareholders.
Just fund US lawyers to enforce that neutral selection process and big brands will be seeking better conditions globally.
So few people would have a clearance to see it and the thats the way the US gov likes it.
A few lawyers and staff install any hardware to log, track, store or split.
Any person who get the order is profiled to ensure they have no traits that would on average make them talk to the press.
Any request would be expressed in terms of the worst crimes to ensure compliance too during that year or decade.
Talking would let the worst kinds of people escape and break a case that was built over many years.
The positive and negative pressure put on anyone reading such a letter would be very crafted to be very persuasive.
i.e. every case would be criminal, the worst crimes and have years of discovery and undercover work behind it. That would the positive aspect to getting support.
The negative would be that so few people know about tracking any leak would be easy to find and result in decades of convictions added up. A life conviction over and over for stopping an active case.
The hint of a later medical exam to find out why they felt the need to make a case fail and court ordered medication to help with that condition?
Any publication helped "bad" people understand how the US gov gathers information, the person who talked is actively supporting "bad" people. More decades of crimes to add up. Great lawyers can get expensive with experts to find, but the feds can close bank accounts. No funding for a private sector legal team. Only offer a security cleared gov approved lawyer.
Such positive and negative talking points can be very chilling and ensure full complacence with all US gov request.
The other part is the US gov has seen so many cases lost as staff sell out to their faith, cult, have dual citizenship and years of work is lost when interesting people get away just after a telco support request is requested.
So the US gov is now very careful in selecting a few people in any company to approach and ensures they are trustworthy with random fakes case loads.
If any info leaks it can be tracked back to one person and security is tested until that person deep in a company can be trusted by the US gov.
Yes it is as flimsy as that. IP range, code thats been floating around for years that contractors know about, working hours.
The press publish that, the gov then works on what the press publishes and the press reports new official statements.
Re "The government must mandate equal quality of life for all!"
How can that be done in inner city areas? What connection quality exists beyond landline telephone connections?
Coax? Something from the U-verse years? DSL?
"pulp- and paper-insulated feeder cables" (8/15/2014) http://arstechnica.com/informa...
Build a new network and allow any service to be selected? Offer a US wide service with a new national Bell System to look after it all?
Go with a Universal Service Fund https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... thats offers "adequate facilities at reasonable charges" to inner city areas?
Who will fund, control, define and build adequate facilities? Is working voice and 911 adequate in an inner city area?
What kind of "Internet Access" should be built with subsidies? Tests for eligibility with citizenship and photo ID on application to get connected to a new fast gov network?
What speed should inner city users be offered if upgrades cannot be built given entire new networks need to be built to get past the paper and pulp tubes?
Enough to upload a scanned document to web 2.0 to interact with a city or state web portal? Make a VOIP call to a gov official or gov approved charity?
Should all websites be open to inner city users on this subsidies net? Or just a walled garden of approved social media, educational video sites and city/work/jobs/state/federal/gov services portals?
Should the US gov give free computers or locked down app devices for inner city users who can prove citizenship? A locked down browser that has a nice gui for gov/approved NGO/charity/employment/educational services? Just fast enough to VOIP/webcam for a job interview after requesting such an outside network connection be allowed?
Quality services to escape poverty or contact local or federal bureaucrats, get health results back, improve nutrition, find a local free clinic, report someone for a gift card? New Internet Stamps for inner city areas?
Truck in contractors from country and wealth parts of the city to fix inner city internet services?
The huge worry for the US is a generation of empowered whistleblowers with access. Staff cant use any of the official chain of command to get legal issues to the authorities.
Whistleblowers https://cryptome.org/2013-info... Staff know what happens after people raise internal mil/gov/contractor legal questions within the US.
A walk out to the press is the only still protected way to get the message out. Physically handing over material so no digital trail exists if both sides are cell phone aware when making the exchange. The press now finally know not to network any of material handed over or when drafting their reports.
The US constitution and laws are very protective when reporting mil, gov and contractor issues. Legal issues cant be protected behind color of law secrecy clauses, findings, letters.
So the US gov now has to review all past clearances and profile who might have walked out in bulk to the waiting US press. Or use the buddy system to double the size of big gov. Or secure the lobbyists, consultants, friends, think tank staff, lawyers, "dual" citizens from access.
All that has huge political funding and party access issues so its better to blame the some other nation rather than try to secure the US gov.
The ip range shows some staging server. Code litter left behind is so well understood by private sector security contractors that they should have been able to detect access in real time.
The time zone fits working hours in Russia.
Some person has the skill to evaded social engineering during an interview and thats a sure sign of a Russian background, education or coaching.
All that made it to the press and got passed around as fact.
The press quotes contractors and unnamed gov officials. US gov workers and supporters then quote the press reporting on what the contractors found.
The US gov then hints at what the press reported and experts found as reality with vague wordy paragraphs about code fragments. The US media can then quote the gov as confirming their security contractors.
One big echo chamber.
Code that is well understood and risks been on AV watch lists in the private sector is not much use.
Re "Why would someone build a weapon that could so easily be countered? They wouldn't."
The US way of thinking is not to add too much crypto.
A flying super computer is bad for two simple reasons. If it fails and glides down into enemy hands, every enemy gets a look at US thinking on secure maths.
The power and support needed for a secure system can be put to better use as payload or optics or time to loiter over any nation with no defence systems.
The US drone system is a rushed to market prototype that can be lost and analysed without giving any secrets away.
Think of a big fancy TV camera, a 1970's export grade weapons system and some navigation.
Any nation can request the parts from some arms trade show.
Re "How do the not expect that concept to extend to drones?"
Never use them against any advance enemy with skills.
Its not so much as "communications are disabled" as been damaged. The drone is not hardened. All the weight savings went into ammo count, big optics, time over the other nation to watch and track.
The drone was rushed into service to fight in nations where the US would never face advanced detection or long range systems.
Inside the Military’s Secret Terror-Tagging Tech (06.03.09) https://www.wired.com/2009/06/...
That is about all the drone was sold as to the political elite. To stay above any nation so that US backed operatives could plant retro reflector-based tags on interesting people or locations.
The problem is the US political class now thinks drones and cruise missile will always work against every nation because they always have against nations with no working defence systems.
Its a bit like faith in Enigma or blitzkrieg. It keeps on working until it does not.
The only option for the US is to get to all defence systems removed to make the area of operations totally safe for drones again.
Most advanced nations have worked that aspect out and have taken steps to absorb or counter that needed first step in safe drone use.
Re 'Profit from war."
The next step will be to sell the US gov on a new space drone project to stay one step above all advance nations. More high ground profits await.
Its the US bands that trusted, supported, helped, upgraded and bought into low pay nations over decades.
Its the US products brand on the device with US testing, spec and support.
Designed to US brands spec, per production run and contract.
The only easy way to secure a product is to make it in house. Have your own fab running in the USA or trusted 5 eye like nation.
US production runs in global factories are just puzzles to the smart international staff.
How many humans are needed, humans and robots or robots per part.
Also the same products have to sell globally. A lot of police forces/mil/govs just do not allow any device they cant totally access to be part of their national telco networks.
No need to run per nation production lines. Just have a police backdoor compliance per device, not need for extra production teams. The security services are happy, no per nation bans or competing products be granted access to lucrative markets.
Or the teams that are on call to help the NSA after upgrades.
Helping big gov expand more must be a growth sector needing private sector staff?
Don't read up online about the polygraph tests or buy any books online about the polygraph tests on any network with any "hops" of conection.
Step 1. Get a gov/mil security clearance to secure a job in the private sector for decades.
Step 2. Install as much proprietary hardware and software as the gov/mil contract will allow. Ensure a lot of call backs are needed over the decades of the project. Fix any "expected" proprietary issues with more proprietary products.
Step 3. When 2 people with accents knock on the door to offer a $100000 always say no, they are always 2 gov workers to witness testing staff.
Call company security, follow security policy.
Don't take work home with you, all workers home networks and calls will be shared with the gov.
Enjoy gov/mil work with that still in the private sector feeling for decades.
The only trick is to fool the gov/mil to keep buying big brand proprietary products. Thats the real work.
A brand can set up their own VOIP network that works within standards for each account as a supported product.
A telco can buy in a few branded server systems with the most accessed media content for streaming.
That will stop the service "tubes are saturated" as the content is on the users network
Users are buying access every month. Given them a pipe to the world. If the user wants VOIP, offer it to them on the providers terms. Free but the bandwidth is accounted for.
Wants streaming, have a big fast server ready for that deep within the ISP network.
Downloads and P2P are just part of what the user is buying the "internet" for and can be predicted.
If the "tubes are saturated" thats a ISP or telco design issue from the curb to a server or from a server to a nation telco site.
Count the users, do the math, see what they are using every day, night. Track what is/will/was getting "saturated" and upgrade that section of the network.
Invest so the "tubes" never ever get "saturated" and every one is happy.
Track all bandwidth issues from the users to the limits of the network and upgrade.
Slowing all users will just make them change providers and spread the message as to why and how happy they are with a new provider.
The issue with China is they now want international respect and equal standing for all aspects of Communist rule on the global stage.
A court order to recapture someone who escaped China is to be respected and the person sent back as with any normal "criminal" under international law.
Censorship and account tracking is just part of that legal system and if a US band wants access to the market in China they have to conform.
No more free exchange of ideas, freedom of speech, freedom after speech. No comments on corruption, pollution, local Party leaders, the movement of funds out of China to buy Western homes, luxury goods, educations or enjoy lavish holidays.
How does China want to contain anyone wanting to express such news online?
With "Social Credit". The wrong comments get tracked back to the person and they lose points. So do the friends and other connected people.
Having any bad credit person connected to you will lower you credit.
"China 'social credit': Beijing sets up huge system" http://www.bbc.com/news/world-...
Loss of credit will remove the ability for some jobs, education, housing, easy access to local government and services.
How to get more credit? Work hard to support the Party line, promote the Party.
Thats Communist social media with life changing results that Western brands who enjoyed the full protections of US law are now rushing to embrace and totally sell out to.
In the West its the NSA, GCHQ, NSL, FISA and help with junk encryption, track all emails.
Its just not the nations laws. The big US brands keep helping the security services and gravitate to the tracking requests of any bureaucracy just to add more users and grow the brand.
Millions of users been tracked is not customer freedom. They are not free to buy, sell or express any thoughts before during or after a purchase. Are fake, really limited consumers really useful for a US brands growth?
Users that have to return to a protected brand in China after been reported trying a Western brand too many times?
They cant buy what they want, rate certain books from Japan or explore the real history of Party leaders without legal issues.
As new customers that lack of freedom is not good long term.
A Dr in a country practice will soon get to understand what most of their active patients present with.
A Dr enjoying the normal, safe, happy suburbs will soon find their way around the over fed, middle-class life style aliments.
Having to serve in the inner city slums will present the vast complexity of poverty, live style, work related exposure and drug related conditions combined with poor nutrition.
Combine that with a flood of very sick people who bring with them rare, regionally eradicated and contagious conditions as they enter a nation illegally. Other patients present with inherited congenital conditions thanks to way too many generations inward looking tribal and faith based marriages.
What will an average AI designer do? Over load a database with rare poverty conditions that bemuse wealthy doctors and their middle class patients? Would such a broad system sell well?
Have upfront questions about the "origins" of the patient to offer a drop down GUI of very common regional conditions?
Its not that the AI is lacking, its that its database has been set for expected conditions found in normal hospitals that turn a profit.
Skin conditions, contagious conditions are been imported and the local AI expecting an average regional count of expected contentions cant keep up.
The US software designers have to spend time in charity hospitals, free clinics, boarder states and areas where uncontrolled migration related conditions present.
What used to be called "tropical medicine" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... in most advanced and healthy nations for the rare cases that returning tourists needed a specialist for now needs to be hardcoded in.
US database designers should also contact the smarter pathologists and epidemiologists and talk in person about what they are seeing nation wide. Pack the database with conditions they are seeing more and more of but go under reported in official federal digital statistics.
The US may only track certain types of TB and list many other contagious conditions as no longer needing active tracking. So official federal numbers are worthless as they are not been fully collected as well as they once had to be.
Once the database has been corrected to what is actually presenting daily, the AI will function as expected.
re 'Further compounding this natural slow down in growth is that boomers are all freaking out about how they will pay for retirement. "
Yes that expected interest rate to cover a few decades is looking interesting.
DirectX 12, full support for todays games. The ability to fully use one next gen gpu on Windows 10 with a new game.
No more big PSU, 2 hot, loud cards in SLI, hoping for a new beta driver to finally get to full resolution.
For many its just the ability to max out setting on a new must have game and click DirectX 12 in settings.
The next push will be maxed out 4K and VR. Physical reactions to VR long term could be different for a lot of people given the cheap, rushed early games.
Cultural enrichment gives bonus virtue signalling points for the creators and broadcaster. But always select from the correct issues. Some issues are so 1970's and just don't get big oppression awards or offer as much gov script support anymore.
Slashdot Mirror
Re "Given the hostility towards science in the US these days, I am not very confident in how "temporary" a situation it is that america is unable to perform their own launches into space these days."
Thats why Russia, India and China put so much effort in keeping their production lines working at any cost over the decades.
Most smart nations can lift something into space. The real effort is in getting just the perfect design for every complex, sensitive payload. Humans, sensitive science without risking epic shake apart.
The metallurgy has to be nurtured and kept in house and staff kept working, passing down skills. A start up 20 years later is just a huge problem trying to relearn what was lost and never well documented due to "security" or "no bid" or just the thought that the company would always have the skills for every step. Test a new design that might never offer the features needed.
Stopping the budgets of a set of rocket systems tends to really slow later rocket making skills.
Most nations who joined the nuclear club late kind of have to sign up to all kinds of international standards and protections to keep their university, power, medical and research tracked and watched.
Stuff missing is tracked as nations like to build projects on the side. To prevent that everything is registered.
Its the gateway to better nuclear weapons. The easy guide to that is to study the UK's production sites like Chapelcross.
To the world. Other nations just have to learn to enjoy the fun of freedom.
Add languages and support tools to get access. Don't ask any gov for access. Draw the best users to the brand and never seek the approval of bureaucrats.
Fun and freedom will always attract the best new users. Been banned or reported is just like gov sanctioned web 2.0 in most repressive regimes. Not the best policy to grow any brand.
Swapping out US protection before, during and after free speech for "international" acceptance just removes all the real people who don't want to be corrected or banned.
People can move to other new free platforms and have fun. Any brand once tainted by bureaucrats is a joke.
Stay with freedom as a core value or state for all to see that the directions of theocracies and absolute monarchies are now more valued than freedom.
The US has one great selling point no other nation can ever have. Freedom. Sell it to the world. Bureaucrats and policy banning comments is rather common globally and offers no growth.
The other fun question is if the private sector has so much info how could so much plain text data move to such an ip range using detectable methods?
Why is so much data been kept as plain text facing global networks?
The "server room without internal procedures" is really the key to all this. What and who gets to define access for years of domestic content without question.
Recall the internal and external reactions to PRISM.
Room 641A https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
Qwest reportedly balked nsa records sweep (5/12/2006)
http://www.nbcnews.com/id/1275...
Re 'Ha, their plot will be foiled because the Russians ditched windows for Linux."
Russia studied US actions in Serbia and will be able to absorb any induced issues.
Power grid, mass media. Turn off the lights and block the wider public from their favourite broadcasters.
Discontent will drive people to new faces and well developed US funded slogans.
The next step is to fund NGO's and groups to push local issues or create issues to sway elections and demand a change of government.
Another color revolution https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
NGO's, civil society then get vast amounts of cash to change to supporting US backed policies.
The only big question is just how much Western infrastructure Russia added to its grid and how networked it was.
Expect a flood of placed stories on US founded web 2.0 media and some attempt to game the Russian speaking social media.
The washingtonpost has:
"IP addresses listed" and near the end its " “not aware of any specific or credible cybersecurity threats relating to the upcoming general election systems,”"
CNN notes:
"We have seen no access into statewide registration database and no manipulation of that database." and "FBI investigators believe the the hacks and attempted intrusions of state election sites were carried out by hackers working for Russian intelligence."
The Guardian has
"in calling out what it says is Russian-directed hacking."
So its back to ip ranges a "calling out" and a 'believe"?
But timezones match working hours, ip ranges and easy to discover code litter. In the past the code also something to do with a board game called "Chess" thats part of compulsory education in some nations.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... ""two or more connected tools/tactics to attack a specific target similar to the chess strategy"
Given the removal of protections like the Smith–Mundt Act "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smith–Mundt_Act" domestic propaganda is now legal.
Once all this would have just been passed to a waiting international press.
Now its been pushed domestically.
"Revealed: US spy operation that manipulates social media" (18 March 2011)
https://www.theguardian.com/te...
or "British army creates team of Facebook warriors" (31 January 2015)
https://www.theguardian.com/uk...
So the past legal press protections are gone and contractors love the over time.
Thinking in terms of US competitiveness who would want to push for '"the population" to distract US firms?
In a few easy steps other nations could be enjoying a flood of export quality US design jobs.
Position your nation as smart, safe, clean, friendly, low tax, free of government interference and have your top graduates ready.
US brands will be sending your smart nation design work in a few years just to protect the shareholders.
Just fund US lawyers to enforce that neutral selection process and big brands will be seeking better conditions globally.
So few people would have a clearance to see it and the thats the way the US gov likes it.
A few lawyers and staff install any hardware to log, track, store or split.
Any person who get the order is profiled to ensure they have no traits that would on average make them talk to the press.
Any request would be expressed in terms of the worst crimes to ensure compliance too during that year or decade.
Talking would let the worst kinds of people escape and break a case that was built over many years.
The positive and negative pressure put on anyone reading such a letter would be very crafted to be very persuasive.
i.e. every case would be criminal, the worst crimes and have years of discovery and undercover work behind it. That would the positive aspect to getting support.
The negative would be that so few people know about tracking any leak would be easy to find and result in decades of convictions added up. A life conviction over and over for stopping an active case.
The hint of a later medical exam to find out why they felt the need to make a case fail and court ordered medication to help with that condition?
Any publication helped "bad" people understand how the US gov gathers information, the person who talked is actively supporting "bad" people. More decades of crimes to add up. Great lawyers can get expensive with experts to find, but the feds can close bank accounts. No funding for a private sector legal team. Only offer a security cleared gov approved lawyer.
Such positive and negative talking points can be very chilling and ensure full complacence with all US gov request.
The other part is the US gov has seen so many cases lost as staff sell out to their faith, cult, have dual citizenship and years of work is lost when interesting people get away just after a telco support request is requested.
So the US gov is now very careful in selecting a few people in any company to approach and ensures they are trustworthy with random fakes case loads.
If any info leaks it can be tracked back to one person and security is tested until that person deep in a company can be trusted by the US gov.
Yes it is as flimsy as that. IP range, code thats been floating around for years that contractors know about, working hours.
The press publish that, the gov then works on what the press publishes and the press reports new official statements.
Re "The government must mandate equal quality of life for all!"
How can that be done in inner city areas? What connection quality exists beyond landline telephone connections?
Coax? Something from the U-verse years? DSL?
"pulp- and paper-insulated feeder cables" (8/15/2014)
http://arstechnica.com/informa...
Build a new network and allow any service to be selected? Offer a US wide service with a new national Bell System to look after it all?
Go with a Universal Service Fund https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... thats offers "adequate facilities at reasonable charges" to inner city areas?
Who will fund, control, define and build adequate facilities? Is working voice and 911 adequate in an inner city area?
What kind of "Internet Access" should be built with subsidies? Tests for eligibility with citizenship and photo ID on application to get connected to a new fast gov network?
What speed should inner city users be offered if upgrades cannot be built given entire new networks need to be built to get past the paper and pulp tubes?
Enough to upload a scanned document to web 2.0 to interact with a city or state web portal? Make a VOIP call to a gov official or gov approved charity?
Should all websites be open to inner city users on this subsidies net? Or just a walled garden of approved social media, educational video sites and city/work/jobs/state/federal/gov services portals?
Should the US gov give free computers or locked down app devices for inner city users who can prove citizenship? A locked down browser that has a nice gui for gov/approved NGO/charity/employment/educational services?
Just fast enough to VOIP/webcam for a job interview after requesting such an outside network connection be allowed?
Quality services to escape poverty or contact local or federal bureaucrats, get health results back, improve nutrition, find a local free clinic, report someone for a gift card? New Internet Stamps for inner city areas?
Truck in contractors from country and wealth parts of the city to fix inner city internet services?
The huge worry for the US is a generation of empowered whistleblowers with access. Staff cant use any of the official chain of command to get legal issues to the authorities.
Whistleblowers https://cryptome.org/2013-info... Staff know what happens after people raise internal mil/gov/contractor legal questions within the US.
A walk out to the press is the only still protected way to get the message out. Physically handing over material so no digital trail exists if both sides are cell phone aware when making the exchange. The press now finally know not to network any of material handed over or when drafting their reports.
The US constitution and laws are very protective when reporting mil, gov and contractor issues. Legal issues cant be protected behind color of law secrecy clauses, findings, letters.
So the US gov now has to review all past clearances and profile who might have walked out in bulk to the waiting US press. Or use the buddy system to double the size of big gov. Or secure the lobbyists, consultants, friends, think tank staff, lawyers, "dual" citizens from access.
All that has huge political funding and party access issues so its better to blame the some other nation rather than try to secure the US gov.
The ip range shows some staging server. Code litter left behind is so well understood by private sector security contractors that they should have been able to detect access in real time.
The time zone fits working hours in Russia.
Some person has the skill to evaded social engineering during an interview and thats a sure sign of a Russian background, education or coaching.
All that made it to the press and got passed around as fact.
The press quotes contractors and unnamed gov officials. US gov workers and supporters then quote the press reporting on what the contractors found.
The US gov then hints at what the press reported and experts found as reality with vague wordy paragraphs about code fragments. The US media can then quote the gov as confirming their security contractors.
One big echo chamber.
Code that is well understood and risks been on AV watch lists in the private sector is not much use.
Re "Why would someone build a weapon that could so easily be countered? They wouldn't."
The US way of thinking is not to add too much crypto.
A flying super computer is bad for two simple reasons. If it fails and glides down into enemy hands, every enemy gets a look at US thinking on secure maths.
The power and support needed for a secure system can be put to better use as payload or optics or time to loiter over any nation with no defence systems.
The US drone system is a rushed to market prototype that can be lost and analysed without giving any secrets away.
Think of a big fancy TV camera, a 1970's export grade weapons system and some navigation.
Any nation can request the parts from some arms trade show.
Re "How do the not expect that concept to extend to drones?"
Never use them against any advance enemy with skills.
Its not so much as "communications are disabled" as been damaged. The drone is not hardened. All the weight savings went into ammo count, big optics, time over the other nation to watch and track.
The drone was rushed into service to fight in nations where the US would never face advanced detection or long range systems.
Inside the Military’s Secret Terror-Tagging Tech (06.03.09)
https://www.wired.com/2009/06/...
That is about all the drone was sold as to the political elite. To stay above any nation so that US backed operatives could plant retro reflector-based tags on interesting people or locations.
The problem is the US political class now thinks drones and cruise missile will always work against every nation because they always have against nations with no working defence systems.
Its a bit like faith in Enigma or blitzkrieg. It keeps on working until it does not.
The only option for the US is to get to all defence systems removed to make the area of operations totally safe for drones again.
Most advanced nations have worked that aspect out and have taken steps to absorb or counter that needed first step in safe drone use.
Re 'Profit from war."
The next step will be to sell the US gov on a new space drone project to stay one step above all advance nations. More high ground profits await.
Its the US bands that trusted, supported, helped, upgraded and bought into low pay nations over decades.
Its the US products brand on the device with US testing, spec and support.
Designed to US brands spec, per production run and contract.
The only easy way to secure a product is to make it in house. Have your own fab running in the USA or trusted 5 eye like nation.
US production runs in global factories are just puzzles to the smart international staff.
How many humans are needed, humans and robots or robots per part.
Also the same products have to sell globally. A lot of police forces/mil/govs just do not allow any device they cant totally access to be part of their national telco networks.
No need to run per nation production lines. Just have a police backdoor compliance per device, not need for extra production teams. The security services are happy, no per nation bans or competing products be granted access to lucrative markets.
Or the teams that are on call to help the NSA after upgrades.
Helping big gov expand more must be a growth sector needing private sector staff?
Don't read up online about the polygraph tests or buy any books online about the polygraph tests on any network with any "hops" of conection.
Step 1. Get a gov/mil security clearance to secure a job in the private sector for decades.
Step 2. Install as much proprietary hardware and software as the gov/mil contract will allow. Ensure a lot of call backs are needed over the decades of the project. Fix any "expected" proprietary issues with more proprietary products.
Step 3. When 2 people with accents knock on the door to offer a $100000 always say no, they are always 2 gov workers to witness testing staff.
Call company security, follow security policy.
Don't take work home with you, all workers home networks and calls will be shared with the gov.
Enjoy gov/mil work with that still in the private sector feeling for decades.
The only trick is to fool the gov/mil to keep buying big brand proprietary products. Thats the real work.
A brand can set up their own VOIP network that works within standards for each account as a supported product.
A telco can buy in a few branded server systems with the most accessed media content for streaming.
That will stop the service "tubes are saturated" as the content is on the users network
Users are buying access every month. Given them a pipe to the world. If the user wants VOIP, offer it to them on the providers terms. Free but the bandwidth is accounted for.
Wants streaming, have a big fast server ready for that deep within the ISP network.
Downloads and P2P are just part of what the user is buying the "internet" for and can be predicted.
If the "tubes are saturated" thats a ISP or telco design issue from the curb to a server or from a server to a nation telco site.
Count the users, do the math, see what they are using every day, night. Track what is/will/was getting "saturated" and upgrade that section of the network.
Invest so the "tubes" never ever get "saturated" and every one is happy.
Track all bandwidth issues from the users to the limits of the network and upgrade.
Slowing all users will just make them change providers and spread the message as to why and how happy they are with a new provider.
The issue with China is they now want international respect and equal standing for all aspects of Communist rule on the global stage.
A court order to recapture someone who escaped China is to be respected and the person sent back as with any normal "criminal" under international law.
Censorship and account tracking is just part of that legal system and if a US band wants access to the market in China they have to conform.
No more free exchange of ideas, freedom of speech, freedom after speech. No comments on corruption, pollution, local Party leaders, the movement of funds out of China to buy Western homes, luxury goods, educations or enjoy lavish holidays.
How does China want to contain anyone wanting to express such news online?
With "Social Credit". The wrong comments get tracked back to the person and they lose points. So do the friends and other connected people.
Having any bad credit person connected to you will lower you credit.
"China 'social credit': Beijing sets up huge system" http://www.bbc.com/news/world-...
Loss of credit will remove the ability for some jobs, education, housing, easy access to local government and services.
How to get more credit? Work hard to support the Party line, promote the Party.
Thats Communist social media with life changing results that Western brands who enjoyed the full protections of US law are now rushing to embrace and totally sell out to.
In the West its the NSA, GCHQ, NSL, FISA and help with junk encryption, track all emails.
Its just not the nations laws. The big US brands keep helping the security services and gravitate to the tracking requests of any bureaucracy just to add more users and grow the brand.
Millions of users been tracked is not customer freedom. They are not free to buy, sell or express any thoughts before during or after a purchase. Are fake, really limited consumers really useful for a US brands growth?
Users that have to return to a protected brand in China after been reported trying a Western brand too many times?
They cant buy what they want, rate certain books from Japan or explore the real history of Party leaders without legal issues.
As new customers that lack of freedom is not good long term.
A Dr in a country practice will soon get to understand what most of their active patients present with.
A Dr enjoying the normal, safe, happy suburbs will soon find their way around the over fed, middle-class life style aliments.
Having to serve in the inner city slums will present the vast complexity of poverty, live style, work related exposure and drug related conditions combined with poor nutrition.
Combine that with a flood of very sick people who bring with them rare, regionally eradicated and contagious conditions as they enter a nation illegally. Other patients present with inherited congenital conditions thanks to way too many generations inward looking tribal and faith based marriages.
What will an average AI designer do? Over load a database with rare poverty conditions that bemuse wealthy doctors and their middle class patients? Would such a broad system sell well?
Have upfront questions about the "origins" of the patient to offer a drop down GUI of very common regional conditions?
Its not that the AI is lacking, its that its database has been set for expected conditions found in normal hospitals that turn a profit.
Skin conditions, contagious conditions are been imported and the local AI expecting an average regional count of expected contentions cant keep up.
The US software designers have to spend time in charity hospitals, free clinics, boarder states and areas where uncontrolled migration related conditions present.
What used to be called "tropical medicine" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... in most advanced and healthy nations for the rare cases that returning tourists needed a specialist for now needs to be hardcoded in.
US database designers should also contact the smarter pathologists and epidemiologists and talk in person about what they are seeing nation wide. Pack the database with conditions they are seeing more and more of but go under reported in official federal digital statistics.
The US may only track certain types of TB and list many other contagious conditions as no longer needing active tracking. So official federal numbers are worthless as they are not been fully collected as well as they once had to be.
Once the database has been corrected to what is actually presenting daily, the AI will function as expected.
re 'Further compounding this natural slow down in growth is that boomers are all freaking out about how they will pay for retirement. "
Yes that expected interest rate to cover a few decades is looking interesting.
DirectX 12, full support for todays games. The ability to fully use one next gen gpu on Windows 10 with a new game.
No more big PSU, 2 hot, loud cards in SLI, hoping for a new beta driver to finally get to full resolution.
For many its just the ability to max out setting on a new must have game and click DirectX 12 in settings.
The next push will be maxed out 4K and VR. Physical reactions to VR long term could be different for a lot of people given the cheap, rushed early games.
Cultural enrichment gives bonus virtue signalling points for the creators and broadcaster. But always select from the correct issues. Some issues are so 1970's and just don't get big oppression awards or offer as much gov script support anymore.