And how, pray tell, does "identity management" and "data protection" work when the person (identity) viewing the information (data) is not only authorized to do so, but it's part of his JOB to be looking at that data for 40+ hours a week?
Please, enlighten us, Mr. AC. Tell us what standard solutions out there would have prevented this leak?
No, it's a case of social engineering, which is something that IT Security really can't do much to prevent against with fancy programming. The only thing they can do is educate people about the risks and possible methods that could be employed.
The military's intelligence system is not a "default permit" system - only people with specific clearance are allowed to access data on it. The problem is that THIS GUY was given a PERMIT to be in the system, and then decided that taking data from that system and leaking it would be a good idea.
It shouldn't be possible for one person to grab a copy of the entire database unless they're at the very top of the chain of command, if the leaker had the word "general" or similar in their title this might be excusable but otherwise it means the security systems failed spectacularly.
Right... because CEO's and CTO's are the only ones in any IT organization with root / admin access, right? I usually page my CFO when I need a new account created on a UNIX box, and my CIO when I need to get a new account created in an Oracle database.
What we have here is someone who was granted admin access who decided that he was going to leak data. There is no way to protect against that programatically without making it impossible for the hundreds of other analysts to do their job. This leak would not have had the scope it did if he wasn't the intelligence community equivalent of a pissed off sysadmin.
Selective reading much? His job is to "support his immediate command" - meaning, he provides analysis and reports to his "immediate command". That does not mean that he can only see data related to the company he's assigned to.
What the fuck good would an intel analyst be if you blindfolded him and told him "You can only look at the data that guys in your own company have submitted"? The role of an intel analyst is to review data, look for patterns, look for significant changes in tactics, equipment, etc., and then report on that to his commanders. That doesn't mean that only data submitted by his unit is available to him, because if that were the case, his job would be a pointless waste of time.
Four newspaper got the data in advance, for review, analysis and help in scrubbing.
I'm confused. You say they had help from four different newspapers in scrubbing the data, and it's documented that they've had offers from other organizations (Amnesty International among them). And yet, Mr. Assange has repeatedly stated that they had "no help" in scrubbing the data, and that they're just a poor, overburdened organization without the resources to do that work. So which is it?
So they released the whole thing, arguing that more lives are saved from immediate release, than would possibly be lost from undiscovered, uncensored informant names.
Yes, and they provided a HORRIBLE justification as to how they felt lives would be saved. Please detail for me the exact method by which lives will be saved by them rushing to publish this leak - will it: 1) Force NATO militaries to withdraw early? (No) 2) Provide some sort of insight into exactly how the intelligence we're gathering is flawed enough that it would lead us strike at a civilian? (No) 3) Make everybody around the world lay down their arms, hug, and break into a spontaneous rendition of "Give Peace a Chance"? (No)
So, serious question, I'd really like to know your answer to it: How does "immediate release" of this data do anything to save any civilian lives? There has to be an actual logical process by which you can show 'lives will be saved', or the claim is false, and the person making that claim is - at best - wrong, and at worst, guilty of exactly the kind of deception and spin that they claim to be fighting against. I can sit here and claim that my farts cure cancer, but unless I have some actual supporting evidence, it just makes me a crackpot nutter.
And before you smear Assange further, maybe you should get out and do something to fight oppressive governments yourself.
Should I join the Marines? That'd certainly give me a chance to fight oppressive governments, wouldn't it? I mean shit, I'd say the men and women of the various NATO militaries are doing more to fight oppressive governments than Julian Assange is!
And yet he was modded +4 interesting. Why? Because his unsubstantiated lies go with the prevailing nutter wisdom that the government is watching our every move in order to stifle free speech.
Frankly, I'm shocked that FBI and ICE didn't shut down his ability to post to slashdot, too! After all, if they can show up and raid outside their jurisdiction with a search warrant that doesn't exist, it seems to me that cutting him off from repeating the story to credulous mods on slashdot would be their next highest priority.
Not familiar enough with Cameron's behavior to have an opinion really - it's enough work keeping up with all the spin state-side.:) But yes, I agree - Republicans, Tea Partiers, and to a large extent, the Democrats as well, are all so busy spinning the public and trying to latch on to power that it's more or less impossible that anything will actually "change".
I know I'm just burning karma here with my comments, but I'm tired of watching the same old bullshit, FUD, and misinformation get spouted here on Slashdot, and accepted by most as if it's gospel truth.
This argument is ridiculous on its face, and is only made by clueless fuckwits who are struggling to justify his shitty review and redaction process because they feel that any harm caused is justified by giving the american government a black eye, even if it means more civilian deaths in afghanistan.
Do you think he would have been happy with the military's redaction of the documents? Since they are classified documents, he would have received back entirely-black pages. The military does not acknowledge his right to have the documents in the first place, so why would they help him publish them? Their stance is "You can't publish any of it," so redaction for them would have meant complete destruction of the documents.
If you want to violate an organization's policies, you don't ask them to help you do so. Might as well ask PETA to help you kill some dolphins.
So instead of doing the responsible thing and spending the time required to thoroughly review the data (even though he didn't have help from the people who the data was stolen from), he apparently figured it'd be more fun to put peoples' lives in danger and besides, he could probably get some donations and make a little name for himself.
I guess that's why not all documents were released then?
~70,000 documents were released. ~15,000 were held back. They didn't do a good job of reviewing the original 70k, why should we believe they'll do any better with the remaining 15k in the 3-4 weeks since the 70k were released?
Once again: he rushed to publish because he knew it would garner him some publicity. The remaining 15,000 or so documents will be released just in time to keep the story alive and get some more money flowing into his bad joke of an organization.
No, my argument in short form is that "if you're going to leak data, you have a moral responsibility to prevent harm to people identified in that data as a result of your leak."
He didn't do that, and in fact his response when it was pointed out that he had was "Oh well, that's too bad."
This isn't hard, you should really try to keep up.
Really? He reviewed them? And why, even after that review, have news outlets been able to find specific names, GPS coordinates, and other "personally identifiable data" within hours of getting access to the data? Several outlets have reported this, and Wikileaks has not disputed those claims at all, and in fact the only response was "Well it's not our fault."
Clearly their "review" and "redaction" process leaves quite a bit to be desired. Why? because they rushed to publish this data without spending the time doing a thorough job. In journalistic circles, that would earn you a huge blow to your credibility; Unfortunately, Mr. Assange is not a journalist, and he seems to have been granted some sort of infallible geek hero status here on Slashdot.
Yes, with him until he scored a public relations victory, it used to be "Assange-who". Let's be honest - this leak is all about him being able to gain some public attention. You just admitted that nobody really knew who he was prior to all this - and I'm sure that bothered him to no end, being just another yappy anti-war activist with a big agenda and no power to make that agenda a reality.
He saw the big prize, and he went for it. Now he's gotten a lot of publicity - let's hope the negative tone of some of it prompts him to develop some ethical & moral standards, instead of harming people in order to accomplish his activist goals.
List more of the "various other" human rights abuses the US has perpetrated. You listed two, and then started hand-waving - you don't get to skate on that by listing two lapses and then declaring the US a habitual offender. Back the statement up, please.
Did you bother to read the job description you linked? Where does it say what the scope of his intelligence is? Because I'm seeing a lot of language that says things like, "Receives, produces and disseminates intelligence reports containing information obtained from all sources."
I think you're simply assuming that "intel analyst" must have some arbitrary restrictions that you've kind of made up to make it seem like PFC Manning was able to circumvent all kinds of safeguards due to lax oversight. His job description is pretty clear that, as an intel analyst, he would be allowed to analyze intelligence from "all sources" and deliver reports on the same.
I'm stupid because you have difficulty understanding simple English words?
The thing you don't seem to realize is that new outlets & academics, having these things known as journalistic and/or professional standards & ethics, would tend to be less likely to identify people who might then be harmed as a result of their disclosure. But instead of full review & redaction, then disclosure to news agencies for analysis & review, Mr. Assange went with the option to dump the data on a web site for download by anybody, with (apparently) only the most cursory of review & redaction. Mr. Assange is, clearly, unfettered by such nonsense as professional standards.
Assange & public attention - yes, the two go quite well together, don't they? And yes, I'm well aware what he looks like - his image has been plastered all over the news for the past couple weeks, I'd have to be trying NOT to see him to not know what he looks like. Have you been living under a rock the past few weeks, that you wouldn't know what he looks like?
As far as your claim that "they did as the first thing" - bullshit. They dumped data on the news outlets because they new it would get them publicity. There was no collaboration or review of the data prior to Wikileaks publishing it, pretty much all those news outlets got to do was say, "Holy shit, he's got a lot of data he's making public!" -- in other words, the wikileaks "pre-sharing" was STRICTLY a publicity stunt.
I see. So the only possible alternatives in your mind are:
1) Wikileaks rushes to publish this dump of information, unedited, barely (and poorly) reviewed & redacted, in a massive dump of information to anybody in the world who wants to snag a copy, knowing that 99% of the people in the world who might be interested will be completely unable to understand what story the data tells;
2) Nobody ever sees the data, ever, because the government is manipulating us all.
How about the dozens of other ways this information could be made available to *news outlets* and academics for review & analysis, after a thorough scrubbing to remove names/locations/etc. of people who this data could cause harm to if their names are found in it? You know, the responsible-but-boring route which wouldn't get Mr. Assange's name in all the papers and give him a little public attention.
But yes, I can see where you'd consider MY thoughts stupid, when you've clearly thought through everything and distilled it to absolute black-and-white clarity and accounted for every possibility.
Your overly-reductionist, bumper-sticker-slogan rhetoric does not help your case. You are guilty of arguing in exactly the same overly-simplistic, naive, uninformed way that you are declaring the people disagreeing with you are.
Out of curiosity - do you get a fee from somebody every time you use the phrase "imperialistic war" in print? You seem to have really latched onto that one.
A democracy becomes nothing more than a mob if information is not released
And average people who know nothing about the context of a massive steaming dump of information dropped in front of them will often reach the wrong conclusion about the story that data tells. What's your point?
Have you actually looked at the type of documents included? Please explain how something like this gives anybody who isn't in the military or familiar with military reporting formats the ability to understand what's going on in Afghanistan - yes, this is an actual entry, taken from http://wardiary.wikileaks.org/afg/sort/type/enemy_action_0.html
"S3 REPORTS: SUMMIT 09 B CO ELEMENT SALUTE REPORT AS FOLLOWS: S- 3-4 PAX, A- SMALL ARMS FIRE, L-IVO 42 SWB 3910 1617, U-UNK, T-0415Z, E-AK-47."
So, I can tell you that this SALUTE report from the Bravo Company operations officer reports 3-4 enemy personnel targeting the unit with small arms fire at some grid location around 4:15 am GMT, equipped with what appears to be AK-47's.
Now please, tell us - is the war worth continuing? What value does THIS type of data have in civilians determining whether or not the war is worth continuing? What's that? You can't tell from this data?
Then tell me, what's the value of publishing this data, rather than someone who can understand it in context spending time analyzing it, redacting appropriate portions (i.e. informant names,locations,villages...), and writing a thoughful and scholarly article explaining what this data actually means?
Immigrations and Customs Enforcement (ICE) raids places looking for child pornography now? I would've thought that'd be a matter for the FBI, since they have primary jurisdiction over child pornography investigations & enforcement.
They are certainly no worse than serial killers in America. When was the last time police justified killing innocent American's in order to reach a serial killer by saying "Do you actually comprehend what sort of person he is. What he does to people? Sure I got a bunch of innocent children killed... but you don't understand... he was really bad."
"Mr. Madison, what you've just said is one of the most insanely idiotic things I have ever heard. At no point in your rambling, incoherent response were you even close to anything that could be considered a rational thought. Everyone in this room is now dumber for having listened to it. I award you no points, and may God have mercy on your soul."
The intel transition was a bit rocky, though I'd say porting the entire operating system to a new architecture and keeping the wheels on was a pretty large feat in and of itself. I found some occasional instability (most notably with USB devices, seemed the driver would occasionally crash/reset for no reason) under 10.5, but Snow Leopard has made some significant improvements in stability, performance, and resource usage.
If there were more big players in the market, there would be more innovation. Through this would arise more features. Look at the smart phone market right now, there are tons of players, and at last 4 big ones (Apple, Google, RIM, and Palm), this market is exploding with features and innovations, and a constantly decreasing price-point thanks to the competition.
Point taken on the price reduction, certainly, more competition would definitely help that. But I think comparing smartphones to mp3 players is a bit difficult, because of the simple fact that MP3 players are rather specific in purpose, and tend to be narrowly defined, while smart phones, and the innovations you're seeing in that area have much more to do with the fact that these devices are, essentially, pocket-sized computers. I don't honestly think we'd see much in the way of innovation in the mp3 player market, at least on the hardware & hardware features side. Perhaps we'd see more software and software support, I don't know.
And I feel your pain on the shrinking iPods, and that's why my 160GB classic ipod comes with me on any trip longer than "to work or to the store." My iPhone holds "enough" to get me through a day (I have a couple playlists set up to automatically load "the newest stuff" in my library, and my most frequently played songs to the iPhone), but the switch away from hard drives certainly caused me some pain as well. However, I also have to acknowledge that my music library of ~20k songs / 120GB is also significantly larger than the libraries of anybody else that I know, so I have to admit that it's very possible that many - perhaps most - people can fit their entire library on a 16gb flash chip.
No, I ignored your "and so did most people" claims because you present no data to back those claims up. Furthermore, there is nothing indicating "abuse of power" in a company buying lots of advertising for its new product, which would indicate that either: 1) Google and Microsoft are too stupid to realize that's all they need to do to sell their products; 2) Money and lots of advertising is not the only reason people buy products;
Your reasoning is poor for why Google and Microsoft both failed to have successful products.
Your examples of "awful Apple products" are not indicative of "design flaws" in the products themselves, because if they were problems in the general design of the products, *ALL OF THE UNITS* would have those issues. This is demonstrably not the case, with - arguably - the exception of the iphone 4 antenna. And given that that is a design tradeoff (the new antenna does - objectively, and subjectively - get better reception in low-signal areas, and hold a signal in weak areas better, at the expense of a larger reduction in signal strength if you happen to hold it in such a way as to bridge the antenna components), I'd say it's difficult to say that it's a design that is completely without merit.
Of course people have problems with Apple products - they're intricate pieces of technology, manufactured from 10's and 100's of electronic components. Your claims that those issues are due to "design" flaws rather than simply "bad units" and "manufacturing defects" are, as we would expect from any good Droid fanboi, incorrect and wildly overblown.
Feel better, sport? I've dignified your whining with a response. Suck it.
I see, so your completely anonymous claims that you've ruined no fewer than 6 macs, an iphone, and 2 ipods, most times within minutes of being allowed to play with them, must be taken at face value, because you are the unluckiest person in the world? Please actually describe the process by which you crashed them, won't you?
Or is it - once again - more likely that you are full of shit, and just making up claims to justify your dislike for Apple products?
Isn't that sort of the way publicly traded businesses are supposed to work?
If it's not a critical piece of your business and the benefits gotten from maintaining it are not worth the costs of maintaining it, the business should stop spending resources on it.
This, I can agree with. The military certainly should be reviewing it's control & vetting procedures to understand exactly how they missed so much data being leaked by a single person.
My objection is with Mr. Assange irresponsibly disclosing data that will cause harm to other people, and doing so knowingly, while claiming he bears no responsibility for that disclosure.
I don't expect he'll be "tried" for any of it, but I do think he has an ethical duty to prevent that "collateral damage" his activism is going to cause.
Apple has had its share of failures, and often falls below expectations.
Such as? I'm genuinely curious which products in recent memory (say the last 10 years) you feel have proved to be failed or below expectations? If I were to list them, I'd say Apple TV hasn't been a home run, Mac Book Air also hasn't, and the very real flaw with their Time Capsule power supplies (certain hardware runs) causing them to fail a year or so after purchase. And, arguably, the iPhone 4 antenna design.
What's your list?
Also... WTF is a normal usage pattern?
Consider that to mean "the things that most people will want to accomplish with the device." I.e., browsing the web, versus "installing an ssh client on it," or "editing videos and emailing photos," instead of "tinkering with baseband software."
Certainly there are a subset of power users who want or legitimately need the power and flexibility in their device that apple's designs don't offer. But that puts those peoples' "normal usage" requirements outside the bulk of everyday use for the device. In other words - your usage patterns are not "the norm," though they are normal - for you.
Though I suspect that is it didn't come out, or at least become as popular, the MP3 player market would be healthier and more advanced since less people would be trying to merely emulate the iPod,
What other features would you want in an MP3 player? (This is not a rhetorical question - I'm genuinely curious, what room for growth do you see in terms of this market, because it seems fairly mature to me - it's a pretty specific device.)
How has the iPod (and the iPod Touch) crippled the MP3 player market? Honestly, serious question - I'm curious what your opinion on this is, because frankly, I don't see a whole lot of new directions the MP3 players could take, unless they started embedding Satellite/HD/Radio tuners in them.
I'd be interested in one, if they could make it not sound like a 1963-era AM-radio broadcast, most of the portable radio tuners I've tried have had crappy reception, I don't imagine that a low-power chip in a mostly-metal case is going to somehow get much better reception for analog broadcasts, and I suspect that digital (satellite/hd broadcast) would require a much higher powered chip, given the size and voltage of the power supplies I've seen those type of units ship with.
Otherwise... what else - the ability to somehow add codecs for your favorite audio/video format? Sure, but my understanding again is that at least some of the decoding is happening on-chip, resulting in lower power usage, so adding any old codec you want could come with the downside of reducing how long a single charge lasts.
Slashdot Mirror
And how, pray tell, does "identity management" and "data protection" work when the person (identity) viewing the information (data) is not only authorized to do so, but it's part of his JOB to be looking at that data for 40+ hours a week?
Please, enlighten us, Mr. AC. Tell us what standard solutions out there would have prevented this leak?
Put up or shut up, twit.
No, it's a case of social engineering, which is something that IT Security really can't do much to prevent against with fancy programming. The only thing they can do is educate people about the risks and possible methods that could be employed.
The military's intelligence system is not a "default permit" system - only people with specific clearance are allowed to access data on it. The problem is that THIS GUY was given a PERMIT to be in the system, and then decided that taking data from that system and leaking it would be a good idea.
Right... because CEO's and CTO's are the only ones in any IT organization with root / admin access, right? I usually page my CFO when I need a new account created on a UNIX box, and my CIO when I need to get a new account created in an Oracle database.
What we have here is someone who was granted admin access who decided that he was going to leak data. There is no way to protect against that programatically without making it impossible for the hundreds of other analysts to do their job. This leak would not have had the scope it did if he wasn't the intelligence community equivalent of a pissed off sysadmin.
Selective reading much? His job is to "support his immediate command" - meaning, he provides analysis and reports to his "immediate command". That does not mean that he can only see data related to the company he's assigned to.
What the fuck good would an intel analyst be if you blindfolded him and told him "You can only look at the data that guys in your own company have submitted"? The role of an intel analyst is to review data, look for patterns, look for significant changes in tactics, equipment, etc., and then report on that to his commanders. That doesn't mean that only data submitted by his unit is available to him, because if that were the case, his job would be a pointless waste of time.
I'm confused. You say they had help from four different newspapers in scrubbing the data, and it's documented that they've had offers from other organizations (Amnesty International among them). And yet, Mr. Assange has repeatedly stated that they had "no help" in scrubbing the data, and that they're just a poor, overburdened organization without the resources to do that work. So which is it?
Yes, and they provided a HORRIBLE justification as to how they felt lives would be saved. Please detail for me the exact method by which lives will be saved by them rushing to publish this leak - will it:
1) Force NATO militaries to withdraw early? (No)
2) Provide some sort of insight into exactly how the intelligence we're gathering is flawed enough that it would lead us strike at a civilian? (No)
3) Make everybody around the world lay down their arms, hug, and break into a spontaneous rendition of "Give Peace a Chance"? (No)
So, serious question, I'd really like to know your answer to it: How does "immediate release" of this data do anything to save any civilian lives? There has to be an actual logical process by which you can show 'lives will be saved', or the claim is false, and the person making that claim is - at best - wrong, and at worst, guilty of exactly the kind of deception and spin that they claim to be fighting against. I can sit here and claim that my farts cure cancer, but unless I have some actual supporting evidence, it just makes me a crackpot nutter.
Should I join the Marines? That'd certainly give me a chance to fight oppressive governments, wouldn't it? I mean shit, I'd say the men and women of the various NATO militaries are doing more to fight oppressive governments than Julian Assange is!
And yet he was modded +4 interesting. Why? Because his unsubstantiated lies go with the prevailing nutter wisdom that the government is watching our every move in order to stifle free speech.
Frankly, I'm shocked that FBI and ICE didn't shut down his ability to post to slashdot, too! After all, if they can show up and raid outside their jurisdiction with a search warrant that doesn't exist, it seems to me that cutting him off from repeating the story to credulous mods on slashdot would be their next highest priority.
Not familiar enough with Cameron's behavior to have an opinion really - it's enough work keeping up with all the spin state-side. :) But yes, I agree - Republicans, Tea Partiers, and to a large extent, the Democrats as well, are all so busy spinning the public and trying to latch on to power that it's more or less impossible that anything will actually "change".
I know I'm just burning karma here with my comments, but I'm tired of watching the same old bullshit, FUD, and misinformation get spouted here on Slashdot, and accepted by most as if it's gospel truth.
This argument is ridiculous on its face, and is only made by clueless fuckwits who are struggling to justify his shitty review and redaction process because they feel that any harm caused is justified by giving the american government a black eye, even if it means more civilian deaths in afghanistan.
Do you think he would have been happy with the military's redaction of the documents? Since they are classified documents, he would have received back entirely-black pages. The military does not acknowledge his right to have the documents in the first place, so why would they help him publish them? Their stance is "You can't publish any of it," so redaction for them would have meant complete destruction of the documents.
If you want to violate an organization's policies, you don't ask them to help you do so. Might as well ask PETA to help you kill some dolphins.
So instead of doing the responsible thing and spending the time required to thoroughly review the data (even though he didn't have help from the people who the data was stolen from), he apparently figured it'd be more fun to put peoples' lives in danger and besides, he could probably get some donations and make a little name for himself.
~70,000 documents were released. ~15,000 were held back. They didn't do a good job of reviewing the original 70k, why should we believe they'll do any better with the remaining 15k in the 3-4 weeks since the 70k were released?
Once again: he rushed to publish because he knew it would garner him some publicity. The remaining 15,000 or so documents will be released just in time to keep the story alive and get some more money flowing into his bad joke of an organization.
No, my argument in short form is that "if you're going to leak data, you have a moral responsibility to prevent harm to people identified in that data as a result of your leak."
He didn't do that, and in fact his response when it was pointed out that he had was "Oh well, that's too bad."
This isn't hard, you should really try to keep up.
Really? He reviewed them? And why, even after that review, have news outlets been able to find specific names, GPS coordinates, and other "personally identifiable data" within hours of getting access to the data? Several outlets have reported this, and Wikileaks has not disputed those claims at all, and in fact the only response was "Well it's not our fault."
Clearly their "review" and "redaction" process leaves quite a bit to be desired. Why? because they rushed to publish this data without spending the time doing a thorough job. In journalistic circles, that would earn you a huge blow to your credibility; Unfortunately, Mr. Assange is not a journalist, and he seems to have been granted some sort of infallible geek hero status here on Slashdot.
Yes, with him until he scored a public relations victory, it used to be "Assange-who". Let's be honest - this leak is all about him being able to gain some public attention. You just admitted that nobody really knew who he was prior to all this - and I'm sure that bothered him to no end, being just another yappy anti-war activist with a big agenda and no power to make that agenda a reality.
He saw the big prize, and he went for it. Now he's gotten a lot of publicity - let's hope the negative tone of some of it prompts him to develop some ethical & moral standards, instead of harming people in order to accomplish his activist goals.
List more of the "various other" human rights abuses the US has perpetrated. You listed two, and then started hand-waving - you don't get to skate on that by listing two lapses and then declaring the US a habitual offender. Back the statement up, please.
Did you bother to read the job description you linked? Where does it say what the scope of his intelligence is? Because I'm seeing a lot of language that says things like, "Receives, produces and disseminates intelligence reports containing information obtained from all sources."
I think you're simply assuming that "intel analyst" must have some arbitrary restrictions that you've kind of made up to make it seem like PFC Manning was able to circumvent all kinds of safeguards due to lax oversight. His job description is pretty clear that, as an intel analyst, he would be allowed to analyze intelligence from "all sources" and deliver reports on the same.
I'm stupid because you have difficulty understanding simple English words?
The thing you don't seem to realize is that new outlets & academics, having these things known as journalistic and/or professional standards & ethics, would tend to be less likely to identify people who might then be harmed as a result of their disclosure. But instead of full review & redaction, then disclosure to news agencies for analysis & review, Mr. Assange went with the option to dump the data on a web site for download by anybody, with (apparently) only the most cursory of review & redaction. Mr. Assange is, clearly, unfettered by such nonsense as professional standards.
Assange & public attention - yes, the two go quite well together, don't they? And yes, I'm well aware what he looks like - his image has been plastered all over the news for the past couple weeks, I'd have to be trying NOT to see him to not know what he looks like. Have you been living under a rock the past few weeks, that you wouldn't know what he looks like?
As far as your claim that "they did as the first thing" - bullshit. They dumped data on the news outlets because they new it would get them publicity. There was no collaboration or review of the data prior to Wikileaks publishing it, pretty much all those news outlets got to do was say, "Holy shit, he's got a lot of data he's making public!" -- in other words, the wikileaks "pre-sharing" was STRICTLY a publicity stunt.
I see. So the only possible alternatives in your mind are:
1) Wikileaks rushes to publish this dump of information, unedited, barely (and poorly) reviewed & redacted, in a massive dump of information to anybody in the world who wants to snag a copy, knowing that 99% of the people in the world who might be interested will be completely unable to understand what story the data tells;
2) Nobody ever sees the data, ever, because the government is manipulating us all.
How about the dozens of other ways this information could be made available to *news outlets* and academics for review & analysis, after a thorough scrubbing to remove names/locations/etc. of people who this data could cause harm to if their names are found in it? You know, the responsible-but-boring route which wouldn't get Mr. Assange's name in all the papers and give him a little public attention.
But yes, I can see where you'd consider MY thoughts stupid, when you've clearly thought through everything and distilled it to absolute black-and-white clarity and accounted for every possibility.
Your overly-reductionist, bumper-sticker-slogan rhetoric does not help your case. You are guilty of arguing in exactly the same overly-simplistic, naive, uninformed way that you are declaring the people disagreeing with you are.
Out of curiosity - do you get a fee from somebody every time you use the phrase "imperialistic war" in print? You seem to have really latched onto that one.
And average people who know nothing about the context of a massive steaming dump of information dropped in front of them will often reach the wrong conclusion about the story that data tells. What's your point?
Have you actually looked at the type of documents included? Please explain how something like this gives anybody who isn't in the military or familiar with military reporting formats the ability to understand what's going on in Afghanistan - yes, this is an actual entry, taken from http://wardiary.wikileaks.org/afg/sort/type/enemy_action_0.html
"S3 REPORTS: SUMMIT 09 B CO ELEMENT SALUTE REPORT AS FOLLOWS: S- 3-4 PAX, A- SMALL ARMS FIRE, L-IVO 42 SWB 3910 1617, U-UNK, T-0415Z, E-AK-47."
So, I can tell you that this SALUTE report from the Bravo Company operations officer reports 3-4 enemy personnel targeting the unit with small arms fire at some grid location around 4:15 am GMT, equipped with what appears to be AK-47's.
Now please, tell us - is the war worth continuing? What value does THIS type of data have in civilians determining whether or not the war is worth continuing? What's that? You can't tell from this data?
Then tell me, what's the value of publishing this data, rather than someone who can understand it in context spending time analyzing it, redacting appropriate portions (i.e. informant names,locations,villages...), and writing a thoughful and scholarly article explaining what this data actually means?
Immigrations and Customs Enforcement (ICE) raids places looking for child pornography now? I would've thought that'd be a matter for the FBI, since they have primary jurisdiction over child pornography investigations & enforcement.
Sorry, but this story sounds pretty sketchy.
"Mr. Madison, what you've just said is one of the most insanely idiotic things I have ever heard. At no point in your rambling, incoherent response were you even close to anything that could be considered a rational thought. Everyone in this room is now dumber for having listened to it. I award you no points, and may God have mercy on your soul."
The intel transition was a bit rocky, though I'd say porting the entire operating system to a new architecture and keeping the wheels on was a pretty large feat in and of itself. I found some occasional instability (most notably with USB devices, seemed the driver would occasionally crash/reset for no reason) under 10.5, but Snow Leopard has made some significant improvements in stability, performance, and resource usage.
Point taken on the price reduction, certainly, more competition would definitely help that. But I think comparing smartphones to mp3 players is a bit difficult, because of the simple fact that MP3 players are rather specific in purpose, and tend to be narrowly defined, while smart phones, and the innovations you're seeing in that area have much more to do with the fact that these devices are, essentially, pocket-sized computers. I don't honestly think we'd see much in the way of innovation in the mp3 player market, at least on the hardware & hardware features side. Perhaps we'd see more software and software support, I don't know.
And I feel your pain on the shrinking iPods, and that's why my 160GB classic ipod comes with me on any trip longer than "to work or to the store." My iPhone holds "enough" to get me through a day (I have a couple playlists set up to automatically load "the newest stuff" in my library, and my most frequently played songs to the iPhone), but the switch away from hard drives certainly caused me some pain as well. However, I also have to acknowledge that my music library of ~20k songs / 120GB is also significantly larger than the libraries of anybody else that I know, so I have to admit that it's very possible that many - perhaps most - people can fit their entire library on a 16gb flash chip.
No, I ignored your "and so did most people" claims because you present no data to back those claims up. Furthermore, there is nothing indicating "abuse of power" in a company buying lots of advertising for its new product, which would indicate that either:
1) Google and Microsoft are too stupid to realize that's all they need to do to sell their products;
2) Money and lots of advertising is not the only reason people buy products;
Your reasoning is poor for why Google and Microsoft both failed to have successful products.
Your examples of "awful Apple products" are not indicative of "design flaws" in the products themselves, because if they were problems in the general design of the products, *ALL OF THE UNITS* would have those issues. This is demonstrably not the case, with - arguably - the exception of the iphone 4 antenna. And given that that is a design tradeoff (the new antenna does - objectively, and subjectively - get better reception in low-signal areas, and hold a signal in weak areas better, at the expense of a larger reduction in signal strength if you happen to hold it in such a way as to bridge the antenna components), I'd say it's difficult to say that it's a design that is completely without merit.
Of course people have problems with Apple products - they're intricate pieces of technology, manufactured from 10's and 100's of electronic components. Your claims that those issues are due to "design" flaws rather than simply "bad units" and "manufacturing defects" are, as we would expect from any good Droid fanboi, incorrect and wildly overblown.
Feel better, sport? I've dignified your whining with a response. Suck it.
I see, so your completely anonymous claims that you've ruined no fewer than 6 macs, an iphone, and 2 ipods, most times within minutes of being allowed to play with them, must be taken at face value, because you are the unluckiest person in the world? Please actually describe the process by which you crashed them, won't you?
Or is it - once again - more likely that you are full of shit, and just making up claims to justify your dislike for Apple products?
That would be helpful if all hiking and camping were done on roads, with a vehicle.
Isn't that sort of the way publicly traded businesses are supposed to work?
If it's not a critical piece of your business and the benefits gotten from maintaining it are not worth the costs of maintaining it, the business should stop spending resources on it.
The good news is, it's open source. Fork it.
This, I can agree with. The military certainly should be reviewing it's control & vetting procedures to understand exactly how they missed so much data being leaked by a single person.
My objection is with Mr. Assange irresponsibly disclosing data that will cause harm to other people, and doing so knowingly, while claiming he bears no responsibility for that disclosure.
I don't expect he'll be "tried" for any of it, but I do think he has an ethical duty to prevent that "collateral damage" his activism is going to cause.
You're right - I especially love how I'm the one who's being modded as Flamebait.
Such as? I'm genuinely curious which products in recent memory (say the last 10 years) you feel have proved to be failed or below expectations? If I were to list them, I'd say Apple TV hasn't been a home run, Mac Book Air also hasn't, and the very real flaw with their Time Capsule power supplies (certain hardware runs) causing them to fail a year or so after purchase. And, arguably, the iPhone 4 antenna design.
What's your list?
Consider that to mean "the things that most people will want to accomplish with the device." I.e., browsing the web, versus "installing an ssh client on it," or "editing videos and emailing photos," instead of "tinkering with baseband software."
Certainly there are a subset of power users who want or legitimately need the power and flexibility in their device that apple's designs don't offer. But that puts those peoples' "normal usage" requirements outside the bulk of everyday use for the device. In other words - your usage patterns are not "the norm," though they are normal - for you.
What other features would you want in an MP3 player? (This is not a rhetorical question - I'm genuinely curious, what room for growth do you see in terms of this market, because it seems fairly mature to me - it's a pretty specific device.)
How has the iPod (and the iPod Touch) crippled the MP3 player market? Honestly, serious question - I'm curious what your opinion on this is, because frankly, I don't see a whole lot of new directions the MP3 players could take, unless they started embedding Satellite/HD/Radio tuners in them.
I'd be interested in one, if they could make it not sound like a 1963-era AM-radio broadcast, most of the portable radio tuners I've tried have had crappy reception, I don't imagine that a low-power chip in a mostly-metal case is going to somehow get much better reception for analog broadcasts, and I suspect that digital (satellite/hd broadcast) would require a much higher powered chip, given the size and voltage of the power supplies I've seen those type of units ship with.
Otherwise... what else - the ability to somehow add codecs for your favorite audio/video format? Sure, but my understanding again is that at least some of the decoding is happening on-chip, resulting in lower power usage, so adding any old codec you want could come with the downside of reducing how long a single charge lasts.