"1999-12-27 The military is launching an IT-offensive
The defence force will in a few years have the ability to hack into those computer systems that can threaten national security. This is the orders given to the military by the Swedish government. - We should first be able to protect our own IT-systems, but in the future we should also be able to disrupt or disable others, say colonel Michael Moore at the defence HQ in Stockholm.
Modern societies are dependent on and controlled by the help of computer During the growth of information technology new threats have emerged. One such threat is distant computer warfare. That means that a hostile state or group could use so called hackers and IT-soldiers to penetrate and destroy the military and civilian networks of states. Confusion, and eventually destroying the ability to rely on important systems, are the goals of offensive IT-units.
In October a Swedish military delegation visited Pentagon. Important connections were made in Washington. - For several days we were given a look into the problems and possibilites in the area of information warfare. My impression is that the americans have decided to share their information and experiences in the area much more than they used to, says Ingvar Åkesson. As a consequence of the USA-visit, the government has decided that the military and the military university shall perform a first exercise to increase security in civilian infrastructure systems next year. During the exercise it is permitted to try to break into the two agencies computer systems. A group of experts on computer security will be hand picked from several areas of the defence.If the exercise works well, another step will be taken in 2001. The government wants the military to perform a large test as the one previously done in America.
The "Eligible Receiver" test was performed in the summer of 1997, and it gave the Pentagon a nasty chock. 35 government computer experts were given the task of hacking into the most sensitive information systems in the US. The experts were able to crack codes to several military bases and battle ships using software freely available to anyone. **********************
1999-12-27
Försvaret satsar på IT-offensiv Försvarsmakten ska inom några år ha förmåga att tränga in i främmande datasystem, som kan hota landets säkerhet. Det framgår av regeringens senaste uppdragsbrev till Försvarsmakten. - Vi ska dels kunna skydda våra egna IT-system, men också på sikt kunna störa eller slå ut andras, säger överste Michael Moore vid försvarshögkvarteret i Stockholm. I det så kallade regleringsbrevet till Försvarsmakten heter det: "Försvarsmakten skall stärka förmågan att motstå informationskrigföring samt öka informationssäkerheten inom sina IT-system. Försvarsmakten skall även utveckla sin förmåga att genomföra informationsoperationer."
Den sista meningen leder till en ny offensiv uppgift för Försvarsmakten. Traditionella frontkrig med militära styrkor stående mot varandra får allt mindre betydelse i internationell militär planläggning. På 2000-talet handlar det mera om vad som kan utspelas i cyberrymden. Moderna samhällen styrs och leds med datorns hjälp. Under informationsteknologins framväxt har nya hot tagit form. Ett sådant är datakrig på distans. Det betyder att en illasinnad stat eller grupp med hjälp av så kallade hackers och IT-soldater kan tränga in och förstöra staters militära och civila ledningssystem. Förvirring och på sikt oförmåga att använda viktiga system, är målet för offensiva IT-förband.
I oktober besökte en svensk militär delegation försvarshögkvarteret Pentagon. Gruppen leddes av Försvarsdepartementets rätts - och expeditionschef Ingvar Åkesson. I gruppen ingick bland andra FOA-chefen Bengt Anderberg, generalmajor Staffan Näsström från FMV och departementets säkerhetsexpert överste Ingvar Hellqvist. Viktiga dörrar öppnades i Washington. - I flera dagar fick vi inblick i problem och möjligheter inom området informationskrigföring. Mitt intryck är att amerikanarna bestämt sig för att i större utsträckning än tidigare dela med sig av sina erfarenheter på området, berättar Ingvar Åkesson. Som en konsekvens av USA-besöket har regeringen beslutat att Försvarsmakten och Försvarshögskolan nästa år ska genomföra en förberedande övning för att öka säkerheten i samhällsviktiga informationssystem. Under övningen ges möjlighet att försöka tränga in i de två myndigheternas datasystem. En grupp experter på dataintrång och IT-kontroll ska handplockas från flera myndigheter i totalförsvaret. Om övningen faller väl ut tas ytterligare ett steg år 2001. Då vill regeringen att Försvarsmakten genomför en stor dataövning efter amerikansk förebild.
Sommaren 1997 genomfördes övningen "Eligible Receiver", som gav Pentagon näst intill skrämselhicka. 35 statliga dataspecialister fick uppgiften att tränga in i USA:s mest känsliga informationssystem. Specialisterna kunde med hjälp av vanlig civil programvara knäcka källkoder till flera militärbasers och hangarfartygs ledningssystem.
Yeah, like someone said, "Why do ATI continue to give their cards names that make them sound like they are going to jump out of the machines and rip peoples' throats out?"
They decided in 1998 to upgraded SUNET to 155 Mbps until the beginning of 1999. When they wrote the contract, they had planned to upgrade to 622 Mbps around 2002, but they now believe that if the current traffic increase continues at the same rate SUNET will not be able to provide acceptable access to users by the end of 2000.
The decision when to upgrade is a really tough one. There is a political debate going on in Sweden right now about whether the goverment should provide broadband to all citizens by building a new nationwide fiberoptic network. Some people and companies argue loudly for this, and say it will be good both for the economy and the citizens. Others protest loudly and say it's back to the bad old collective days and against the new more market oriented society Sweden has become. SUNET has to decide soon if they are going to do the 622 Mbps upgrade now (which will cost money and might become obsolete quickly), or if they should wait and use the new broadband solution (which might be delayed or not show up at all.)
General info: Apart from 40 high schools and universites, they also support 49 libraries and 22 museums. In 1999 the number of permanently connected computers were above 185 000, and the number of daily users exceeded 500 000 (I'm one of them, but since I don't live in a student apartment I don't have 10 Mbps, alas). The administrative HQ of SUNET is at Kungliga Tekniska Högskolan (Royal Institute of Technology) in Stockholm, Umeå University handles the expansion.
SUNET world connections from KTH: Helsingfors 155 Mbps Copenhagen 155 Mbps Oslo 155 Mbps Reykjavik 4 Mbps Warsaw 7 Mbps USA 310 Mbps Europe 155 Mbps Russia 4 Mbps Ukraine 384 Kbps Estonia 2 Mpbs
Have you noticed that whenever someone posts a pro-NRA post on Slashdot, no matter how offtopic to the subject being discussed, there is a moderator there to moderate it up?
Oh -- and get this -- they do get free health care. It's called Title XXI, medicaid or other welfare programs. That and the country hospital system. Sure, they aren't quite as good as the private hospitals, but they are free for the people who qualify.
Oh, so now you DO have socialized health care? I'm glad to hear that.
Now what was it about the bottom 10% in the US having it so bad?
Even if people in your area have it so well, I doubt you have seen how all people in the US have it. For instance, isn't something like 10% of young black men in jail? Don't they count? Also I believe the US rates quite low if you compare global numbers on literacy, vote participation, crime rates, infant mortality rates, pollution, number of psychopaths per capita, teen pregnancy, etc etc.
I'll leave the name calling to you, thanks.
Ok, then I guess I'll just have to leave the high horses and snide innuendos to you...
Well, I wrote "privliged" instead of "priveleged" in my first post. And in your answering post, you wrote "I have never been 'priviliged'". Hence, I thought you were mocking my spelling, see?
At any rate, when I start posting in Swedish on a site hosted in Sweden, then maybe you have a point.
Actually, wouldn't the exact moment when you started posting in Swedish be the moment when I WOULDN'T have a point? Because then we would be "even"?
At any rate, if the bottom 10% were doing so badly in the US, then I can't figure out why so many people from outside clamor to get in here.
I have news for you - people are clamoring to get into all western countries, including Canada and Europe. That's because we western nations fuck their countries every day, for instance by keeping them permanently in debt, and paying them peanuts to dump our trash there.
Welfare should only be for those who have a legitimate medical reason they can't work. . I've got no time for the lazy -- and nobody would have time for me if I was.
Strawman alert. No one said welfare was for the lazy. It is you who assumed people in trouble are lazy.
What it comes down to is I am tired of hearing people from other countries who have socialist medicine telling us over here we need it.
Please read my previous post, and the one you answered before. You said you thought your way was better, we said we though our way was better. We didn't try to force you to do anything.
From what I've seen, the top 10% will be what they are, and bottom 10% are going to be SOL no matter what.
I'm afraid I don't know what SOL means. "Stupid or lazy"?
Perhaps I am callous, so be it.
Oh good, we agree on something! Now you can call me a naive, bleeding heart communist and then we are even.;-)
Ok this thread is getting really offtopic. Sorry if I caused any offence, I didn't mean to flame.
Strange, I am a U.S. citizen, and I've got medical insurance, most of which is paid by my employer.
Oh, a Slashdot reader has insurance, that's surprising (I mean, so few of us are young, privileged, western, middle-class-or-better white males). Lots of people don't have jobs, lot's of people don't have any choice but working for an employer who doesn't provide insurance. Your comments about current unemployment is irrelevant, as the situation have been worse before and likely will be again. The wealth of a society should not be measured by how the top 10% live, it should be measured by how the bottom 10% live.
I am sick and tired of the whining about the lack of socialist medicine in the US.
Socialist is a loaded word. If caring about people is socialist, I guess I am a socialist. And your callousness makes me sick and tired.
Cool? Cool?? It doesn't matter if he is just a populist or if he is serious about his anti-semitism (and I for one believe he is serious). He is constantly trying to whip up hate against jews, and succeeding quite well in some areas too. I also believe he is a full blown psychopath. A female journalist (I believe she was American actually) who interviewed him a couple of years ago wrote an article. She claimed that when she began to ask him difficult questions about his politics during the interview, he eventually smiled and leaned over, and said, essentially, "I can rape you here and now. My bodyguards will help me subdue you, they obey my every word. No one will hear you. You are in my power now, bitch." Luckily some people came by and she managed to get away from him. He probably just wanted to scare her, but still. Also, did you seen the fight in the duma? He was not holding back there. He was pulling this woman's hair very hard and if people weren't holding his other arm he would probably have punched her in the face at the same time.
Greed itself leads there -- farmed wood has controlled growth circumstances, while natural-growth forest bends every which way and is more susceptible to disease, wildfire, and such. It makes better economic sense to farm wood rather than chop down old-growth forest,
But what happens if a forest owner has 50% farmed wood, and 50% old-growth forest? Wouldn't he think "Hmm, if I chop down all the old-growth forest and replaces it with farmed wood, I will double my profit!"
especially once you factor in the negative PR involved in logging old-growth stuff.
I thought you were trying to take away the negative stigma of logging the old stuff?
As far as Simon's book being rubbish.... We'll have to disagree on that.
Seems so.:-) Apologies for my language in the previous post btw. I'll try more rational arguing and less flames today.
His analyses matches observed fact better than, say, Paul Ehrlich, whose persistence in preaching doom and envirochaos even after being proved wrong time and again marks him as a serious kook.
Sure, I don't believe in Paul Erhlich either. But his kookery is a lesser evil.
The long-run record shows that, every time supplies of something we previously thought necessary have grown scarce, one of the following things happen: *More of the stuff is found *Better use of existing stocks of the stuff is made *Some other stuff that does the job is found that is available in higher quantities *Any combination of the above
Sure, chicken meat is available in higher quantities than Dodo meat. That is because the Dodo is DEAD. It's GONE. Dodo go bye-bye. Correct me if I am wrong, but it seems you consequently take the stance that something is useful only if it benifits humans. I believe the fact that the Dodo is extinct is a tragedy. And its gone forever! How the hell can you put a price on that? The extinction rate for animals has increased 100 too 1000 times the last 100 years. Biologists who have studied the 5 last mass extinsions in earth history believe rebounds in diversity take >10 million years. Does your precious market protect the animals? No! Rhino horns continued to get more and more expensive, becuase there is a never ending source of Asian men worried about their possible lack of potence, and a never ending source of starving Africans who makes more money by poaching a rhino than slaving at a farm. If the free market had continued to rule the rhinos would have gone long ago. And when the rhinos were gone, I guess the more numerous tiger penises would have to be a rational replacement, huh?
And the same pattern is repeated all over the world. Rain forests are cut down to be replaced by grazing ground, Asian fishermen blow up reefs with dynamite, north Japanese continue having their "dolphin slaughtering spring festivals" and bitch about the fact that these days there might only be 10 dolphins on a good year, and while they were kid there were thousands who swam into the nets. Ditto for south Europeans and tuna.
Gas prices are at an adjusted-dollar historic low.
Past performance is no guarantee of future results,
Agreed.
but I'll pick the historical record (especially over such a long period of time) over half-baked analyses every time.
The historical records did NOT include the industrial revolution, it did not include a 6 billion human population that consumes more and more energy, and gets longer and longer average lifespan. Therefore historical data is not applicable on todays situation. Most biologists agree that there have been at least 5 major extinctions in earth history. We are now entering the 6th one, which is caused by humans. And this time, compared the 5 earlier ones, extinction is far surpassing the known rate of evolution.
Again, the heart of my argument is: * Nature has value in itself apart from human resource value. * The free market is too short sighted to put rational prices on the environment.
Your argument suffers from several flaws. The most important one is that it makes the assumption that a) All are rational b) All have access to perfect information.
We might be running out tomorrow of resource X that we need to live. However, since science hasn't gotten around to finding this out, we DON'T KNOW IT. And then, it WON'T AFFECT THE PRICES, right?
You mentioned in another post that "trees are growing back". This is bullshit. They are not growing back fast enough. They are usually planted by human in a single species environment. A new disease that affects only a certain kind of tree might kill only 0.01% of a forest population where the forest is an old, "natural" biodiversive forest. However, if it is a man made forest were all the trees are the same species, they might all be wiped out. And there are animals who REQUIRE old trees. Chopping down old forests and replacing them with all young trees might kill off these species too.
BTW - the link you published is rubbish. It is flawed logic used to rationalise greed. The guy who wrote it should study some basic biology instead of sitting with his nose in economy books all the time.
I believe the Compuserve chief was declared innocent (or at least had his sentence removed) only last week.
For those who doesn't know, German law said that the people who owned the Internet providers were personally responsible for everything that the customers put on the Internet, which lead to the Compuserve boss being sentenced to jail for, I believe, pedophelia (since Compuserve Germany hadn't monitored all Internet traffic in and out and stopped a customer from distributing nude pictures of children)!
I believe the ban will never be a reality. Good thing too. I have no love for Scientology, but this is absurd.
The next thing that I'm going to do is set up a few perl scripts to download information about the weather or maybe/. headlines or whatever, and forward them to my phone via a cron tab.
Cool! This is EXACTLY what I have been thinking of doing. I'm pretty much a UNIX beginner and wanted to do this both to learn UNIX better and also the new wireless technology. Might even do something useful with it!
*beep* There are now two "last minute" tickets to Greece available from Sun Travels. Call xxxx to book them.
Correct me if I'm wrong but isn't Christian Science the sect that teaches that bacteria is the symptom of disease, not the cause? And that prayer is the only sure cure (unless God had decided it was your time to go of course)?
I know the Christian Science Monitor is a respected paper, and I was very impressed with the quality of the articles when I just browsed through, but I find it ironic that the voice of that sect published news about biology and medicine. Scary that their was the most in depth article too. What does that say about the other media?
Yes, I believe wireless will be the next big thing. This is one technology where actually Europe is far ahead of the US. Analysts claim that in 5 years or so, most people in Europe will access the net through wireless systems, while in the US the numbers will be significantly less.
Scandinavia, and especially Sweden is the number one spot to look out for when it comes to wireless stuff. Intel just opened a new office in Stockholm explicitly to tap the knowledge about wireless. When Amazon wanted people to design their wireless service, they advertised in Swedish computer magazines only! Ok enough boasting (I'm just proud my crappy country manages to do one thing right for once.)
So anyway, what you should keep an eye out for is news about Symbian (Ericsson, Motorola, Nokia, Panasonic, Psion) and Bluetooth (3Com, Ericsson, Intel, IMB, Lucent, Motorola, Toshiba, and most recently, Microsoft *puke*). Of these, Ericsson is most defenitely the driving force behind Bluetooth. They have recently presented the first real Bluetooth products, among other things a small headset with voice recognition you put behind your ear that connects to your mobile phone. So even if your phone is in your bag next door, you can just put your hand up to your ear like the agents in the Matrix and answer a call, or make one by just pressing a button and saying the name of who you want to call to. Pretty cool! The transmission energy is much less than a normal mobile phone too, which is a good thing considering that many recent experiments show mobile phones might damage cell walls in the brain, causing yummy thing like early Alzheimers.
With Bluetooth you will also be able to put your speakers anywhere in the room without connecting them to your stereo (though a power cord is probably a good thing). Same thing with computer components, you could put your printer and your scanner somewhere where they don't take up any place. Your mobile phone will be "smart". When you are home, it will use Bluetooth to connect to your home phone, so you will pay local call fees. When you step out of your home, it will start to work like a normal mobile phone. You will be able to use it on an airplane as well, and of course to send emails and such.
A mobile phone with a Bluetooth chip will be able to communicate with any thing that has a Bluetooth chip in it. Therefore, you might be able to use it as a universal remote in your home, as an electronic car key, and so on. Symbian and Bluetooth have some intersting "use cases" for how this will work, you can read them here (travelling to Paris) and here (the three-in-one phone, the portable PC as a speaker phone, and others).
In the future, the mobile will of course merge with Palm type computers to create something that will be your phone, watch, calendar, wallet, remote, key, ID card, passport, gameboy, workstation all into one. Check out the sci-fi book "Bloom" by Wil McCarthy for an interesting vision of how these personal assistants will work. In the book they are worn as glasses, and called Specs. Some people get totally lost in their ideal virtual words, this is frowned upon as a sort of addiction. The main plot of the book is about nano-technological ascension though.
I have been startled by the recent development in the computer business, how quickly a company can fall from grace and another rise to take its place. A few years ago (before I knew about Linux and Slashdot I should add) I thought the Wintel alliance had such a deathgrip on the market it would take at least 10 years before something would come along that could replace them.
But this year there have been at least three companies that went practically overnight from being the standard that all others were measured against to being rather pathetically looking has-beens. Microsoft is in deep shit. Most people consider 3Dfx thoroughly beaten by nVidia in the current generation of cards, and from what I have seen in their next generation cards nVidia will continue to widen the gap. They are finally beginning to handle enough polygons to give realistic outdoor scenes with "real" trees. What is 3Dfx boasting about? Putting four identical old technology chips on a new board, which wastes memory and requires a separate power line in to the card. A buffer that can give you blurred motion lines? Whopee, that must be fun all of five minutes. And now AMD finally getting everything right, including the timing of the launch.
But even if the upstarts are current media darlings they are still fighting an uphill battle. They have less money to throw around on advertising and continued research, and they must make a lot of profit and contine to win consumer loyalty or they risk falling back into obscurity.
This thread brings up two interesting questions, the exaggerated patenting which has been discussed many times on Slashdot, and the way the rich countries use this to screw poorer countries and the enviroment (which, being citizens of rich countries, most Slashdot users seem to ignore).
There is a stealthy organisation called JUSCANZ (Japan, US, Canada, Australia, New Zealand) which lobbies for rich businesses against the environment whenever they can. If you haven't heard about them, you are not the only one. Check out this URL for more information.
So arrange innocent-sounding "code phrases" with them now, things like "Agnes has a bad cold" (but don't use this one!), as a way you can inform them that you were interrogated by the secret police, without giving the police a way to detect that you did so.
Snort. Silly paranoia. And even if the secret police were after you, do you think something like that would help?
It is good that he brings up this issue and makes people aware of it, but remember that it is not a law yet. It is a proposal. Even if the British passes it, you can still go to the European court of human rights and other institutions. Anyway, I have hope for the British. Did you know that they are finally about to get rid of that enourmous undemocratic gerontocratic conservative anchor, the House of Lords?
I can't believe you are all falling for this obvious red herring. The NSA *wants* you to believe they are overloaded so you will begin to be incautious and start to send your underground mails unencrypted. The arrests will begin soon.
This in turn is a cover up move intended to draw away media attention from the impending invasion of Europe, to stop Intel from investing in Suse. And who is behind all this do you ask? Microsoft of course!!! They are the only ones who benifit from the P3 markings, which will be used to crack down on piracy of Microsoft Paint. By forcing all to use Pentium 3 and cutting investments in Linux Bill Gates will soon recover all ground lost, and with Eschelon to aid him his world domination plans are soon fulfilled.
I am so happy I found Slashdot, I get *ALL* my world news I need here.
One thing that has been ticking me off is the fact that whenever opposition to GM food is discussed, it is automatically assumed that what we oppose against is danger to human health. Always! In all media I have been reading (Swedish, British and American)
As other people here pointed out, there are more long term things to worry about with regards to nature and human health. Nature is a really complex system. I don't mean to go all "Gaia" on you here, but fact is that if you pull one thread, you don't know what will happen somewhere else in 10 years or so. Take for instance the (maize?) crop which AFTER they had been "exhaustively tested" and declared safe by American scientists was discovered to kill off a species of butterfly. Oops. Perhaps we Europeans are right to err on the cautious side? "Gene hopping" has been documented as happening, and as we include human related genes in animals (for instance creating cows that create milk that contain medicines, or pigs that create...something...was it insulin?) we increase the risks that species skipping diseases or other unforseen consequences occur.
What I especially worry about is the fact that companies are even more shortsighted than your average consumer. It doesn't care about biodiversity. It doesn't care about ethics, it only cares about profit. Luckily there finally was an outrage when companies had planned to introduce the new genetically crippled crops. Smart idea, and really scary consequences. The crops are unable to live more than a year, and the seeds are not fertile. By selling these seeds to, in the first stages, third world farmers at an enourmously reduced price these crops would crowd out the natural crops which give less output but whose seeds can be used to plant next years crop. When the farmers are hooked, the company has a sure steady supply of income. If the farmers refuse to pay what the company demands, they would instantly be screwed. (And you thought Microsoft forced Office upgrades were scary?) But what happens in 500 years when we have replaced all "natural" vegetation bred by hundreds of thousands of years of evolution to survive with our own instantly manufactured kind bred to serve us? If the human race goes, so would life on earth in a year because we wouldn't be here to manufacture next years crop.
What it finally brings down to is a different view of nature and our place in things. Americans seem to have no ethical doubts about twisting nature so that its whole existance is to provide us with more food to gorge on. I think we have reached a point now. We are already overcrowded as we are. Will we start to take responsibility for our reproduction and consumption and help third world countries do the same (higher living standards means falling nativity rates) or will we begin to change nature so that we can continue to breed like roaches until we cover the whole surface of the planet?
Some countries are ahead of you. The TCO 95 certification set standards for economy, ergonomics and environment, and it has become the standard for monitors worldwide. TCO has now finished the TCO 99 certification for printers, copiers and faxes. These specifications are much stricter than for instance the American EnergyStar.
Unfortunately, when TCO was going to make cheap computers available for their members, the printers offered in the package were not TCO 99 marked, because those would have made the computers too expensive. Oops. Back to the drawing board.
I still think its a good idea though. We love computers, but we must consider the toll on people and especially the enviroment.
I agree. Have you seen the new Cronenberg film eXistenZ? It's about the blurring between VR and reality. I can hear you all yawning already, but it's actually pretty cleverly done.
The plot elements are as bizarre as they always are in Cronenberg films (the man with the orifice fetechism), so you can't take that as proof that "oh yeah, now they are obviously back in the VR world". In fact, your observation that extreme bizarre violence might be confused for fiction is used in the film. At one point one character takes up a gun and blows out the brains of an old man because she thinks he is boring. "Come on, lighten up, its just a game...." While we, the real (I hope) audince is sitting there wondering which option is the worst one from the viewpoints both of ethics and entertainment.
A) That the characters are so confused they believe the real world is VR and the movie just got preachy, or B) that the whole thing will end with "Ta-da, fooled you, everything is ok, it was just VR all along. Hope you enjoyed all the violence, wink wink."
Yes, this is what I have been considering before. How about combining it with the cyclotron (if that is the correct name for those three rings) to enable changing the body position for things like swimming, diving, crawling...
Its gonna be a hell lot of wires though to get entangled in.
Now, Transmeta comes along with (what appears to be) a 'make things play nice together' strategy, instead of warring over instruction sets and other proprietary BS.
Put this to use in a mobile device, where size, energy consumption (and it's evil twin, heat generation) are directly related to cost and usability, and there's a market that will welcome you with open arms!
[...]
Another thought occurs to me as well... imagine a portable / palmtop / handheld that can peacefully co-exist and talk directly with all others! Psion, Palm and WinCE...others that aren't so well known. You can't transfer your electronic business card from a WinCE device to a Palm, but this just might make it possible!!!
Nokia, Ericsson, Intel, Toshiba and others have quietly been working on something called Bluetooth which do exactly what you describe. Bluetooth is an open specification for wireless communication of data and voice. Intel makes the chips, and Ericsson are the ones who have been first with the products. Check out this neat toy. And it is available now. If the Transmeta chip is done in January, it will take quite some time to agree on the specs and the protocols. Bluetooth has already solved that.
Microsoft is dead against Bluetooth, which usually means its a good idea. I hope that Transmeta is not working on a direct competitor to Bluetooth, more on something that would complement and enhance it.
Slashdot Mirror
"1999-12-27
The military is launching an IT-offensive
The defence force will in a few years have the ability to hack into those computer systems that can threaten national security. This is the orders given to the military by the Swedish government.
- We should first be able to protect our own IT-systems, but in the future we should also be able to disrupt or disable others, say colonel Michael Moore at the defence HQ in Stockholm.
Modern societies are dependent on and controlled by the help of computer During the growth of information technology new threats have emerged. One such threat is distant computer warfare. That means that a hostile state or group could use so called hackers and IT-soldiers to penetrate and destroy the military and civilian networks of states. Confusion, and eventually destroying the ability to rely on important systems, are the goals of offensive IT-units.
In October a Swedish military delegation visited Pentagon. Important connections were made in Washington.
- For several days we were given a look into the problems and possibilites in the area of information warfare. My impression is that the americans have decided to share their information and experiences in the area much more than they used to, says Ingvar Åkesson.
As a consequence of the USA-visit, the government has decided that the military and the military university shall perform a first exercise to increase security in civilian infrastructure systems next year. During the exercise it is permitted to try to break into the two agencies computer systems. A group of experts on computer security will be hand picked from several areas of the defence.If the exercise works well, another step will be taken in 2001. The government wants the military to perform a large test as the one previously done in America.
The "Eligible Receiver" test was performed in the summer of 1997, and it gave the Pentagon a nasty chock. 35 government computer experts were given the task of hacking into the most sensitive information systems in the US. The experts were able to crack codes to several military bases and battle ships using software freely available to anyone.
**********************
1999-12-27
Försvaret satsar på IT-offensiv
Försvarsmakten ska inom några år ha förmåga att tränga in i främmande datasystem, som kan hota landets säkerhet. Det framgår av regeringens senaste uppdragsbrev till Försvarsmakten.
- Vi ska dels kunna skydda våra egna IT-system, men också på sikt kunna störa eller slå ut andras, säger överste Michael Moore vid försvarshögkvarteret i Stockholm.
I det så kallade regleringsbrevet till Försvarsmakten heter det:
"Försvarsmakten skall stärka förmågan att motstå informationskrigföring samt öka informationssäkerheten inom sina IT-system. Försvarsmakten skall även utveckla sin förmåga att genomföra informationsoperationer."
Den sista meningen leder till en ny offensiv uppgift för Försvarsmakten. Traditionella frontkrig med militära styrkor stående mot varandra får allt mindre betydelse i internationell militär planläggning. På 2000-talet handlar det mera om vad som kan utspelas i cyberrymden.
Moderna samhällen styrs och leds med datorns hjälp. Under informationsteknologins framväxt har nya hot tagit form. Ett sådant är datakrig på distans. Det betyder att en illasinnad stat eller grupp med hjälp av så kallade hackers och IT-soldater kan tränga in och förstöra staters militära och civila ledningssystem.
Förvirring och på sikt oförmåga att använda viktiga system, är målet för offensiva IT-förband.
I oktober besökte en svensk militär delegation försvarshögkvarteret Pentagon.
Gruppen leddes av Försvarsdepartementets rätts - och expeditionschef Ingvar Åkesson. I gruppen ingick bland andra FOA-chefen Bengt Anderberg, generalmajor Staffan Näsström från FMV och departementets säkerhetsexpert överste Ingvar Hellqvist.
Viktiga dörrar öppnades i Washington.
- I flera dagar fick vi inblick i problem och möjligheter inom området informationskrigföring. Mitt intryck är att amerikanarna bestämt sig för att i större utsträckning än tidigare dela med sig av sina erfarenheter på området, berättar Ingvar Åkesson.
Som en konsekvens av USA-besöket har regeringen beslutat att Försvarsmakten och Försvarshögskolan nästa år ska genomföra en förberedande övning för att öka säkerheten i samhällsviktiga informationssystem.
Under övningen ges möjlighet att försöka tränga in i de två myndigheternas datasystem. En grupp experter på dataintrång och IT-kontroll ska handplockas från flera myndigheter i totalförsvaret.
Om övningen faller väl ut tas ytterligare ett steg år 2001. Då vill regeringen att Försvarsmakten genomför en stor dataövning efter amerikansk förebild.
Sommaren 1997 genomfördes övningen "Eligible Receiver", som gav Pentagon näst intill skrämselhicka. 35 statliga dataspecialister fick uppgiften att tränga in i USA:s mest känsliga informationssystem. Specialisterna kunde med hjälp av vanlig civil programvara knäcka källkoder till flera militärbasers och hangarfartygs ledningssystem.
************************************************ ***
************************************************ ***
The decision when to upgrade is a really tough one. There is a political debate going on in Sweden right now about whether the goverment should provide broadband to all citizens by building a new nationwide fiberoptic network. Some people and companies argue loudly for this, and say it will be good both for the economy and the citizens. Others protest loudly and say it's back to the bad old collective days and against the new more market oriented society Sweden has become. SUNET has to decide soon if they are going to do the 622 Mbps upgrade now (which will cost money and might become obsolete quickly), or if they should wait and use the new broadband solution (which might be delayed or not show up at all.)
General info:
Apart from 40 high schools and universites, they also support 49 libraries and 22 museums. In 1999 the number of permanently connected computers were above 185 000, and the number of daily users exceeded 500 000 (I'm one of them, but since I don't live in a student apartment I don't have 10 Mbps, alas). The administrative HQ of SUNET is at Kungliga Tekniska Högskolan (Royal Institute of Technology) in Stockholm, Umeå University handles the expansion.
SUNET world connections from KTH:
Helsingfors 155 Mbps
Copenhagen 155 Mbps
Oslo 155 Mbps
Reykjavik 4 Mbps
Warsaw 7 Mbps
USA 310 Mbps
Europe 155 Mbps
Russia 4 Mbps
Ukraine 384 Kbps
Estonia 2 Mpbs
History:
1989 64 Kbps
1992 2 Mbps
1994 34 Mbps
1999 155 Mbps
************************************************ ***
My opinions of guns is best summed up by this recent article on Salon.
Cheers,
Lars
************************************************ ***
Oh, so now you DO have socialized health care? I'm glad to hear that.
Now what was it about the bottom 10% in the US having it so bad?
Even if people in your area have it so well, I doubt you have seen how all people in the US have it. For instance, isn't something like 10% of young black men in jail? Don't they count? Also I believe the US rates quite low if you compare global numbers on literacy, vote participation, crime rates, infant mortality rates, pollution, number of psychopaths per capita, teen pregnancy, etc etc.
I'll leave the name calling to you, thanks.
Ok, then I guess I'll just have to leave the high horses and snide innuendos to you...
************************************************ ***
Well, I wrote "privliged" instead of "priveleged" in my first post. And in your answering post, you wrote "I have never been 'priviliged'". Hence, I thought you were mocking my spelling, see?
At any rate, when I start posting in Swedish on a site hosted in Sweden, then maybe you have a point.
Actually, wouldn't the exact moment when you started posting in Swedish be the moment when I WOULDN'T have a point? Because then we would be "even"?
************************************************ ***
"I was never 'priviliged'
Hey, thanks, spelling flames against someone writing in a foreign language. That's brave.
************************************************ ***
I have news for you - people are clamoring to get into all western countries, including Canada and Europe. That's because we western nations fuck their countries every day, for instance by keeping them permanently in debt, and paying them peanuts to dump our trash there.
Welfare should only be for those who have a legitimate medical reason they can't work. . I've got no time for the lazy -- and nobody would have time for me if I was.
Strawman alert. No one said welfare was for the lazy. It is you who assumed people in trouble are lazy.
What it comes down to is I am tired of hearing people from other countries who have socialist medicine telling us over here we need it.
Please read my previous post, and the one you answered before. You said you thought your way was better, we said we though our way was better. We didn't try to force you to do anything.
From what I've seen, the top 10% will be what they are, and bottom 10% are going to be SOL no matter what.
I'm afraid I don't know what SOL means. "Stupid or lazy"?
Perhaps I am callous, so be it.
Oh good, we agree on something! Now you can call me a naive, bleeding heart communist and then we are even.
Ok this thread is getting really offtopic. Sorry if I caused any offence, I didn't mean to flame.
Cheers,
Lars
************************************************ ***
Oh, a Slashdot reader has insurance, that's surprising (I mean, so few of us are young, privileged, western, middle-class-or-better white males). Lots of people don't have jobs, lot's of people don't have any choice but working for an employer who doesn't provide insurance. Your comments about current unemployment is irrelevant, as the situation have been worse before and likely will be again. The wealth of a society should not be measured by how the top 10% live, it should be measured by how the bottom 10% live.
I am sick and tired of the whining about the lack of socialist medicine in the US.
Socialist is a loaded word. If caring about people is socialist, I guess I am a socialist. And your callousness makes me sick and tired.
************************************************ ***
Cool? Cool?? It doesn't matter if he is just a populist or if he is serious about his anti-semitism (and I for one believe he is serious). He is constantly trying to whip up hate against jews, and succeeding quite well in some areas too. I also believe he is a full blown psychopath. A female journalist (I believe she was American actually) who interviewed him a couple of years ago wrote an article. She claimed that when she began to ask him difficult questions about his politics during the interview, he eventually smiled and leaned over, and said, essentially, "I can rape you here and now. My bodyguards will help me subdue you, they obey my every word. No one will hear you. You are in my power now, bitch." Luckily some people came by and she managed to get away from him. He probably just wanted to scare her, but still. Also, did you seen the fight in the duma? He was not holding back there. He was pulling this woman's hair very hard and if people weren't holding his other arm he would probably have punched her in the face at the same time.
Yeah, really cool guy there. Fool.
************************************************ ***
But what happens if a forest owner has 50% farmed wood, and 50% old-growth forest? Wouldn't he think "Hmm, if I chop down all the old-growth forest and replaces it with farmed wood, I will double my profit!"
especially once you factor in the negative PR involved in logging old-growth stuff.
I thought you were trying to take away the negative stigma of logging the old stuff?
As far as Simon's book being rubbish.... We'll have to disagree on that.
Seems so.
Apologies for my language in the previous post btw. I'll try more rational arguing and less flames today.
His analyses matches observed fact better than, say, Paul Ehrlich, whose persistence in preaching doom and envirochaos even after being proved wrong time and again marks him as a serious kook.
Sure, I don't believe in Paul Erhlich either. But his kookery is a lesser evil.
The long-run record shows that, every time supplies of something we previously thought necessary have grown scarce, one of the following things happen:
*More of the stuff is found
*Better use of existing stocks of the stuff is made
*Some other stuff that does the job is found that is available in higher quantities
*Any combination of the above
Sure, chicken meat is available in higher quantities than Dodo meat. That is because the Dodo is DEAD. It's GONE. Dodo go bye-bye. Correct me if I am wrong, but it seems you consequently take the stance that something is useful only if it benifits humans. I believe the fact that the Dodo is extinct is a tragedy. And its gone forever! How the hell can you put a price on that? The extinction rate for animals has increased 100 too 1000 times the last 100 years. Biologists who have studied the 5 last mass extinsions in earth history believe rebounds in diversity take >10 million years. Does your precious market protect the animals? No! Rhino horns continued to get more and more expensive, becuase there is a never ending source of Asian men worried about their possible lack of potence, and a never ending source of starving Africans who makes more money by poaching a rhino than slaving at a farm. If the free market had continued to rule the rhinos would have gone long ago. And when the rhinos were gone, I guess the more numerous tiger penises would have to be a rational replacement, huh?
And the same pattern is repeated all over the world. Rain forests are cut down to be replaced by grazing ground, Asian fishermen blow up reefs with dynamite, north Japanese continue having their "dolphin slaughtering spring festivals" and bitch about the fact that these days there might only be 10 dolphins on a good year, and while they were kid there were thousands who swam into the nets. Ditto for south Europeans and tuna.
Gas prices are at an adjusted-dollar historic low.
And global temperatures are nearing an all time high. In the meantime, half the worlds rivers it at risk, and the pa cific Island nations are dying. But action is not taken, because business sponsored think tanks deny it happens. And business run trade organisaitons claim that any coordinated effort to stop it is a trade barrier.
Past performance is no guarantee of future results,
Agreed.
but I'll pick the historical record (especially over such a long period of time) over half-baked analyses every time.
The historical records did NOT include the industrial revolution, it did not include a 6 billion human population that consumes more and more energy, and gets longer and longer average lifespan. Therefore historical data is not applicable on todays situation. Most biologists agree that there have been at least 5 major extinctions in earth history. We are now entering the 6th one, which is caused by humans. And this time, compared the 5 earlier ones, extinction is far surpassing the known rate of evolution.
Again, the heart of my argument is:
* Nature has value in itself apart from human resource value.
* The free market is too short sighted to put rational prices on the environment.
************************************************ ***
a) All are rational
b) All have access to perfect information.
We might be running out tomorrow of resource X that we need to live. However, since science hasn't gotten around to finding this out, we DON'T KNOW IT. And then, it WON'T AFFECT THE PRICES, right?
You mentioned in another post that "trees are growing back". This is bullshit. They are not growing back fast enough. They are usually planted by human in a single species environment. A new disease that affects only a certain kind of tree might kill only 0.01% of a forest population where the forest is an old, "natural" biodiversive forest. However, if it is a man made forest were all the trees are the same species, they might all be wiped out. And there are animals who REQUIRE old trees. Chopping down old forests and replacing them with all young trees might kill off these species too.
BTW - the link you published is rubbish. It is flawed logic used to rationalise greed. The guy who wrote it should study some basic biology instead of sitting with his nose in economy books all the time.
************************************************ ***
For those who doesn't know, German law said that the people who owned the Internet providers were personally responsible for everything that the customers put on the Internet, which lead to the Compuserve boss being sentenced to jail for, I believe, pedophelia (since Compuserve Germany hadn't monitored all Internet traffic in and out and stopped a customer from distributing nude pictures of children)!
I believe the ban will never be a reality. Good thing too. I have no love for Scientology, but this is absurd.
************************************************ ***
Cool! This is EXACTLY what I have been thinking of doing. I'm pretty much a UNIX beginner and wanted to do this both to learn UNIX better and also the new wireless technology. Might even do something useful with it!
*beep* There are now two "last minute" tickets to Greece available from Sun Travels. Call xxxx to book them.
************************************************ ***
I know the Christian Science Monitor is a respected paper, and I was very impressed with the quality of the articles when I just browsed through, but I find it ironic that the voice of that sect published news about biology and medicine. Scary that their was the most in depth article too. What does that say about the other media?
************************************************ ***
Scandinavia, and especially Sweden is the number one spot to look out for when it comes to wireless stuff. Intel just opened a new office in Stockholm explicitly to tap the knowledge about wireless. When Amazon wanted people to design their wireless service, they advertised in Swedish computer magazines only!
Ok enough boasting (I'm just proud my crappy country manages to do one thing right for once.)
So anyway, what you should keep an eye out for is news about Symbian (Ericsson, Motorola, Nokia, Panasonic, Psion) and Bluetooth (3Com, Ericsson, Intel, IMB, Lucent, Motorola, Toshiba, and most recently, Microsoft *puke*). Of these, Ericsson is most defenitely the driving force behind Bluetooth. They have recently presented the first real Bluetooth products, among other things a small headset with voice recognition you put behind your ear that connects to your mobile phone. So even if your phone is in your bag next door, you can just put your hand up to your ear like the agents in the Matrix and answer a call, or make one by just pressing a button and saying the name of who you want to call to. Pretty cool! The transmission energy is much less than a normal mobile phone too, which is a good thing considering that many recent experiments show mobile phones might damage cell walls in the brain, causing yummy thing like early Alzheimers.
With Bluetooth you will also be able to put your speakers anywhere in the room without connecting them to your stereo (though a power cord is probably a good thing). Same thing with computer components, you could put your printer and your scanner somewhere where they don't take up any place. Your mobile phone will be "smart". When you are home, it will use Bluetooth to connect to your home phone, so you will pay local call fees. When you step out of your home, it will start to work like a normal mobile phone. You will be able to use it on an airplane as well, and of course to send emails and such.
A mobile phone with a Bluetooth chip will be able to communicate with any thing that has a Bluetooth chip in it. Therefore, you might be able to use it as a universal remote in your home, as an electronic car key, and so on. Symbian and Bluetooth have some intersting "use cases" for how this will work, you can read them here (travelling to Paris) and here (the three-in-one phone, the portable PC as a speaker phone, and others).
In the future, the mobile will of course merge with Palm type computers to create something that will be your phone, watch, calendar, wallet, remote, key, ID card, passport, gameboy, workstation all into one. Check out the sci-fi book "Bloom" by Wil McCarthy for an interesting vision of how these personal assistants will work. In the book they are worn as glasses, and called Specs. Some people get totally lost in their ideal virtual words, this is frowned upon as a sort of addiction. The main plot of the book is about nano-technological ascension though.
************************************************ ***
But this year there have been at least three companies that went practically overnight from being the standard that all others were measured against to being rather pathetically looking has-beens. Microsoft is in deep shit. Most people consider 3Dfx thoroughly beaten by nVidia in the current generation of cards, and from what I have seen in their next generation cards nVidia will continue to widen the gap. They are finally beginning to handle enough polygons to give realistic outdoor scenes with "real" trees. What is 3Dfx boasting about? Putting four identical old technology chips on a new board, which wastes memory and requires a separate power line in to the card. A buffer that can give you blurred motion lines? Whopee, that must be fun all of five minutes. And now AMD finally getting everything right, including the timing of the launch.
But even if the upstarts are current media darlings they are still fighting an uphill battle. They have less money to throw around on advertising and continued research, and they must make a lot of profit and contine to win consumer loyalty or they risk falling back into obscurity.
************************************************ ***
There is a stealthy organisation called JUSCANZ (Japan, US, Canada, Australia, New Zealand) which lobbies for rich businesses against the environment whenever they can. If you haven't heard about them, you are not the only one. Check out this URL for more information.
http://www.igc.org/climate/1.c1.juscanz.html
************************************************ ***
Snort. Silly paranoia. And even if the secret police were after you, do you think something like that would help?
It is good that he brings up this issue and makes people aware of it, but remember that it is not a law yet. It is a proposal. Even if the British passes it, you can still go to the European court of human rights and other institutions. Anyway, I have hope for the British. Did you know that they are finally about to get rid of that enourmous undemocratic gerontocratic conservative anchor, the House of Lords?
************************************************ ***
This in turn is a cover up move intended to draw away media attention from the impending invasion of Europe, to stop Intel from investing in Suse. And who is behind all this do you ask? Microsoft of course!!! They are the only ones who benifit from the P3 markings, which will be used to crack down on piracy of Microsoft Paint. By forcing all to use Pentium 3 and cutting investments in Linux Bill Gates will soon recover all ground lost, and with Eschelon to aid him his world domination plans are soon fulfilled.
I am so happy I found Slashdot, I get *ALL* my world news I need here.
;-)
************************************************ ***
As other people here pointed out, there are more long term things to worry about with regards to nature and human health. Nature is a really complex system. I don't mean to go all "Gaia" on you here, but fact is that if you pull one thread, you don't know what will happen somewhere else in 10 years or so. Take for instance the (maize?) crop which AFTER they had been "exhaustively tested" and declared safe by American scientists was discovered to kill off a species of butterfly. Oops. Perhaps we Europeans are right to err on the cautious side? "Gene hopping" has been documented as happening, and as we include human related genes in animals (for instance creating cows that create milk that contain medicines, or pigs that create...something...was it insulin?) we increase the risks that species skipping diseases or other unforseen consequences occur.
What I especially worry about is the fact that companies are even more shortsighted than your average consumer. It doesn't care about biodiversity. It doesn't care about ethics, it only cares about profit. Luckily there finally was an outrage when companies had planned to introduce the new genetically crippled crops. Smart idea, and really scary consequences. The crops are unable to live more than a year, and the seeds are not fertile. By selling these seeds to, in the first stages, third world farmers at an enourmously reduced price these crops would crowd out the natural crops which give less output but whose seeds can be used to plant next years crop. When the farmers are hooked, the company has a sure steady supply of income. If the farmers refuse to pay what the company demands, they would instantly be screwed. (And you thought Microsoft forced Office upgrades were scary?) But what happens in 500 years when we have replaced all "natural" vegetation bred by hundreds of thousands of years of evolution to survive with our own instantly manufactured kind bred to serve us? If the human race goes, so would life on earth in a year because we wouldn't be here to manufacture next years crop.
What it finally brings down to is a different view of nature and our place in things. Americans seem to have no ethical doubts about twisting nature so that its whole existance is to provide us with more food to gorge on. I think we have reached a point now. We are already overcrowded as we are. Will we start to take responsibility for our reproduction and consumption and help third world countries do the same (higher living standards means falling nativity rates) or will we begin to change nature so that we can continue to breed like roaches until we cover the whole surface of the planet?
************************************************ ***
Unfortunately, when TCO was going to make cheap computers available for their members, the printers offered in the package were not TCO 99 marked, because those would have made the computers too expensive. Oops. Back to the drawing board.
I still think its a good idea though. We love computers, but we must consider the toll on people and especially the enviroment.
************************************************ ***
The plot elements are as bizarre as they always are in Cronenberg films (the man with the orifice fetechism), so you can't take that as proof that "oh yeah, now they are obviously back in the VR world". In fact, your observation that extreme bizarre violence might be confused for fiction is used in the film. At one point one character takes up a gun and blows out the brains of an old man because she thinks he is boring. "Come on, lighten up, its just a game...." While we, the real (I hope) audince is sitting there wondering which option is the worst one from the viewpoints both of ethics and entertainment.
A) That the characters are so confused they believe the real world is VR and the movie just got preachy, or
B) that the whole thing will end with "Ta-da, fooled you, everything is ok, it was just VR all along. Hope you enjoyed all the violence, wink wink."
If you haven't seen it, I can recommend it.
************************************************ ***
Its gonna be a hell lot of wires though to get entangled in.
************************************************ ***
Put this to use in a mobile device, where size, energy consumption (and it's evil twin, heat generation) are directly related to cost and usability, and there's a market that will welcome you with open arms!
[...]
Another thought occurs to me as well... imagine a portable / palmtop / handheld that can peacefully co-exist and talk directly with all others! Psion, Palm and WinCE...others that aren't so well known. You can't transfer your electronic business card from a WinCE device to a Palm, but this just might make it possible!!!
Nokia, Ericsson, Intel, Toshiba and others have quietly been working on something called Bluetooth which do exactly what you describe. Bluetooth is an open specification for wireless communication of data and voice. Intel makes the chips, and Ericsson are the ones who have been first with the products. Check out this neat toy. And it is available now. If the Transmeta chip is done in January, it will take quite some time to agree on the specs and the protocols. Bluetooth has already solved that.
Microsoft is dead against Bluetooth, which usually means its a good idea. I hope that Transmeta is not working on a direct competitor to Bluetooth, more on something that would complement and enhance it.
Check out
the Bluetooth homepage for more info.
************************************************ ***