No, disabling a commmunication medium dominated by citizens is, in fact, a wonderful thing to do in a war. It creates discontent within a country, which, in turn, decreases popular support for the government, making it harder to fight a war.
The wonderful thing is, it does this without killing anyone. Disabling a state's communications grid is not a big deal at all, compared to getting blown to pieces. Personally, if war is ever fought on U.S. soil, I'd much rather have my power and phone shut off than have my house destroyed.
Oh, surprise, we used cyberwarfare. Big deal. In fact, I'm all for it -- it's a lot easier to accidentally kill some innocent civilians with a bomb than over a network. Furthermore, any way to attack the enemy without putting American lives at risk is fine by me. This seems to be the least savage piece of warfare I've ever seen, really. I kind of wish they'd tell us exactly what they did, though. Maybe in 50 years.
That's not good at all. I mean, having a stock exchange in a developed country come under attack is bad enough, but having the attack look like it came from the U.S. (regardless of whether or not it did) is even worse.
Scary thought about what could happen if this happened to, say, Russia, and cooler heads did not prevail. Or between India and Pakistan, except those two really do assault each other's systems all the time.
Perhaps I'm insane. But I see nothing wrong with this program. They're trying to get kids not to BREAK THE LAW. I know it sounds crazy, but that's exactly what they're doing! And we let them get away with this?! Mon dieu!
Seriously, though, I don't see this as 'brainwashing,' any more than anything else that's taught in public schools. In spite of what anyone here may or may not do, however responsibly or irresponsibly, I'm pretty, without going to check, that hacking is a crime. Invading someone else's computer system without permission, regardless of intent, is a crime.
Again, I don't pretend to be an expert, and I hope this isn't quickly moderated down to a -2 or so, but this whole hacking vs. cracking thing sounds like the difference between someone breaking into your house to read your diary and someone breaking into your house to burn it down and kill you and your family. One is a lot more serious than the other, but both are crimes, and should be. Hacking and cracking are both, in my mind, the electronic equivalents to breaking and entering. Just because a large portion of the/. community has done it, doesn't make it right.
As for the idea that this is kind of a 'spark,' which will get kids cracking, I don't really think so. I've never seen a study that's said DARE increased drug use. Alerting someone to what is a crime, and can get them incarcerated, is not brainwashing, and it does not increase crime.
It's an interesting idea, and there's no good reason not to do it, but it won't work. cloned animals tend to show a lot of genetic defects in the first place. An animal that has been dead this long, even frozen, has almost certainly taken some genetic damage. That could only magnify the problems that exist with cloning live animals.
Of course, they could just fill in those gaps with DNA from frogs...
Actually, the debate is over whether public funding for this should or can be withdrawn. It's a rather large difference from making such art illegal. Just because we have the right to free speech, doesn't mean taxpayers are obligated to buy paintings that offend them.
Police state?! Come off it! I mean, seriously. I don't agree with the government's take on the crypto thing, but if you think this is a police state, you are completely nuts.
We have a really long way to go before it gets that bad, and I don't think we've started down a slippery slope yet. Calm down and put the assault rifle away. We don't need your militia to save us just yet.
As long as we're still debating using public funding to support pictures of the Virgin Mary smeared with elephant dung, I'm not especially concerned about our freedoms being limited.
What difference does it make? The only legitimate reason I've ever seen to make exporting crypto technology illegal is so that 'rogue states' such as Iraq, and terrorist groups, don't have access to it. It's a joke. I don't think a terrorist group or a hostile country has any qualms about breaking U.S. law and downloading or stealing American encryption software. That said, it might as well be legal. The benefits to not trying to restrict it outweigh any decent reason to keep it illegal.
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The wonderful thing is, it does this without killing anyone. Disabling a state's communications grid is not a big deal at all, compared to getting blown to pieces. Personally, if war is ever fought on U.S. soil, I'd much rather have my power and phone shut off than have my house destroyed.
Oh, surprise, we used cyberwarfare. Big deal. In fact, I'm all for it -- it's a lot easier to accidentally kill some innocent civilians with a bomb than over a network. Furthermore, any way to attack the enemy without putting American lives at risk is fine by me. This seems to be the least savage piece of warfare I've ever seen, really. I kind of wish they'd tell us exactly what they did, though. Maybe in 50 years.
Scary thought about what could happen if this happened to, say, Russia, and cooler heads did not prevail. Or between India and Pakistan, except those two really do assault each other's systems all the time.
Seriously, though, I don't see this as 'brainwashing,' any more than anything else that's taught in public schools. In spite of what anyone here may or may not do, however responsibly or irresponsibly, I'm pretty, without going to check, that hacking is a crime. Invading someone else's computer system without permission, regardless of intent, is a crime.
Again, I don't pretend to be an expert, and I hope this isn't quickly moderated down to a -2 or so, but this whole hacking vs. cracking thing sounds like the difference between someone breaking into your house to read your diary and someone breaking into your house to burn it down and kill you and your family. One is a lot more serious than the other, but both are crimes, and should be. Hacking and cracking are both, in my mind, the electronic equivalents to breaking and entering. Just because a large portion of the /. community has done it, doesn't make it right.
As for the idea that this is kind of a 'spark,' which will get kids cracking, I don't really think so. I've never seen a study that's said DARE increased drug use. Alerting someone to what is a crime, and can get them incarcerated, is not brainwashing, and it does not increase crime.
Of course, they could just fill in those gaps with DNA from frogs...
Actually, the debate is over whether public funding for this should or can be withdrawn. It's a rather large difference from making such art illegal. Just because we have the right to free speech, doesn't mean taxpayers are obligated to buy paintings that offend them.
We have a really long way to go before it gets that bad, and I don't think we've started down a slippery slope yet. Calm down and put the assault rifle away. We don't need your militia to save us just yet.
As long as we're still debating using public funding to support pictures of the Virgin Mary smeared with elephant dung, I'm not especially concerned about our freedoms being limited.
What difference does it make? The only legitimate reason I've ever seen to make exporting crypto technology illegal is so that 'rogue states' such as Iraq, and terrorist groups, don't have access to it. It's a joke. I don't think a terrorist group or a hostile country has any qualms about breaking U.S. law and downloading or stealing American encryption software. That said, it might as well be legal. The benefits to not trying to restrict it outweigh any decent reason to keep it illegal.