RIM In Trouble For Not Violating Privacy 278
sufijazz writes "The US government is not alone in wanting to snoop on everything citizens do over email/phone. The Indian government wants that right too. RIM is stating they have no means to decrypt, no master key, and no back door to allow the government to access email." The article notes that 114,000 BlackBerries are in use on the Indian subcontinent. The government is concerned about attacks by militants and sees the BlackBerry as a security risk.
can't work even if they wanted it to (Score:5, Insightful)
I bet if Blackberry did as they asked then people would start loading custom firmware on their phones to work around it.
Re:can't work even if they wanted it to (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:can't work even if they wanted it to (Score:4, Insightful)
Blackberry never had a monopoly on the messaging device.
What Blackberry does have is the best mobile messaging platform, by far. Great management tools, great encryption, great integration with existing IT infrastructure.
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Cheers.
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In a small cost-centric shop you don't need a BES. In a medium size enterprise where security, accountability, monitoring, and support are more of a focus the BES is extremely handy if used vaugely
Secret to the Blackberry's success (Score:3, Insightful)
Now if you disagree and wish to mod me down, mod me "Flamebait" like a man, not this limp-wristed "Ove
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As for the GUI - I'd like to know what's better. It's straight-forward, easy to navigate, incredibly stable. The iPhone is slick but not business-centric. If you like WM well i suppose there's one in every crowd.
There's no
Re:Secret to the Blackberry's success (Score:4, Interesting)
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1. "lost monopoly" - was it ever a monopoly?
2. "people flocked" - you mean, everybody will just give up using BB just because a govt is trying to snoop on them? Have you stopped using your phones here in US - govt is spying on your calls for years now.
3. "myriad other devices for convenient messaging services" - which on? BB is best there is out there when it comes to messaging. iPhone does not even come anywhere near, and its a moot point anyways - its not available i
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The others support SSL-encrypted IMAP and SMTP. I just don't see the appeal of the way BB does this stuff....
Re:can't work even if they wanted it to (Score:4, Informative)
What? You didn't drink the kool-aid? Seriously, I used to wonder the same thing, but the blackberry is a far better platform.
You're right, lots of mobile devices can do POP/IMAP/SMTP with SSL. So, you've got your mobile device, and you want to see if you've got email. You click the "check email" function, or it runs in the background all the time, checking every five minutes for new mail. That's called "pull" email, and it means you run up a considerable data bill, even when you're not sending email. There was some poor guy bought an iphone immediately when it came out, activated it with AT&T, then took his shiny new iPhone to Europe on a trip. The default for the iPhone is to check for new email every 5-10 minutes, even if the phone is not "on". So this poor sucker gets a huge international roaming data bill even if he didn't send/receive a single email.
By comparison, the blackberry is "push" email. There is no need to check for new messages. If your email account gets a new message, the server pushes it to your device. Unless you are sending/receiving a message, your data usage is zero. If the guy had a blackberry instead of the iphone, his international data bill would have been zero. Lots of people & companies like that, especially those of us who live in countries with ridiculously high data rates (like Canada - we are in the dark ages when it comes to mobile phones & services).
Does your nokia/treo/ericsson sync your todo list, calendar and address book in real time with your desktop?
In a large company with 50,000 employees, a blackberry can look up email addresses in active directory or notes.
RIM also realized the limitations of the handheld form factor. Even with a big screen handheld, you don't want or need the full html-ized email that most people send these days - it's not going to display well. So, why send all this data that doesn't display well? When the email arrives at the blackberry server, the server strips out most of the html fluff (which can reduce the size by 50%-90%), then compresses the message with a conventional compression algorithm, then encrypts the message with AES, then sends it to the blackberry device. That reduces the data bill even further. Beancounters like that.
Since big attachments aren't going to display well on a small handheld screen, the blackberry server compresses & modifies the attachment to a form that will display well on a small screen. Does your nokia/treo/ericsson do that?
What about device security? Does your nokia/treo/ericsson store the pop/imap email securely on the device in encrypted form? Nope. Blackberries can do that.
Does your nokia/treo/ericsson support PGP and S/MIME for extreme paranoia? No, but blackberries do.
RIM provides full documentation and a developer kit to build your own applications. You don't have to beg apple please pretty please can I write an application and put it on my own phone.
What if you lose your blackberry with all your important company secrets on it? The blackberry server can remotely lock the handheld, or even wipe the entire thing with a single command. Does your nokia/treo/ericsson do that?
Some companies are required by law (like investment banks) to track all communications that staff have with clients. Does your nokia/treo/ericsson do that? Blackberries can track every phone call, email, SMS, IM and PIN message.
Can you prevent your staff from installing software on a nokia/treo/ericsson? You can with blackberries.
Can you prevent your staff from using the internet, bluetooth, memory cards, cameras, GPS, or long-distance calls with a nokia/treo/ericsson? You can with blackberries.
Don't get me wrong, blackberries aren't needed by everyone. But they are very handy, and the best mobile messaging platform, by far.
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SMS is cheap? It's something like a billion dollars a gig. That is how they are making profit---not through data charges, but through nickel and diming people who don't realize they're being screwed.
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while some may say BB is better.. we have people here who had BB's at other places.. they like what we have and i have heard no complaints
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I reject your implicit assertion that there is an upside.
Re:can't work even if they wanted it to (Score:4, Funny)
Re:can't work even if they wanted it to (Score:4, Funny)
Re:can't work even if they wanted it to (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:can't work even if they wanted it to (Score:4, Interesting)
Solving terrorism is not as easy as just dealing with it. Somewhere in that someone has to fill the gaps between desiring to solve it, finding the cause, and eliminating the cause. The best minds and entire nations have been working on it for decades, yet it still persists. At some point, desperation kicks in and all the remaining options, although Orwellian, will be tried.
I don't think terrorism will ever be solved. It's an unrealistic goal so what needs to be decided is what level of freedom do we need and what cost of life is going to be acceptable to maintain our freedom.
Re:can't work even if they wanted it to (Score:5, Insightful)
How many people have died in the US due to terrorism compared to what we've spent on it?
How many people have died due to heart disease and cancer compared to what we've spent on them?
People's fears of scary muslims behind every corner are the stuff of Saturday morning cartoons.
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Re:can't work even if they wanted it to (Score:4, Insightful)
"Abso-fucking-lute-total-complete-unfettered-pure-grade-A-can-lick-the-chrome-off-a-bumper-freedom."
Personally, I will accept ZERO losses of freedom for even real gains in security. Not perceived gains mind you, REAL tangible gains.
You are correct in that solving terrorism is not an easy thing to do. Solving Islamic fundamentalist terrorism is easier to solve than just plain old "terrorism" though. I know some may want to give me a Troll modifier for what I say next, but think about what I am saying for a second....
I am PERFECTLY willing to go and KILL absolutely every one and everything affecting my freedom. Just point the direction. If a politician says to me that I have to lose freedom, privacy, and anonymity due to some enemy out there, I will respond with this question, "Can we just go kill them instead?".
The problem with being evolved and having limits is that there are others out there not willing to play by the rules of your game. Sometimes you have to fight for your freedoms, to fight for peace, as crazy and sad as that sounds.
If the entire Middle East has to become a huge field of glass to save the world for the rest of us, then so be it. Human history is littered with far more brutal events than something like that happening anyways.
I know how bad that sounds, but I just refuse to live with a high-colonic-super-duty-surveillance system shoved up my ass to deliver questionable gains in security in return for unquestionable losses of my freedom. Whatever happened to fighting for your freedom? I thought that was the American Way right?
Re:can't work even if they wanted it to (Score:5, Interesting)
Anyway. Back to business and on to your your reply.
It's too late. In 2008, you can be stopped, required to show your 'papers' (driver's license), questioned and interrogated, threatened with guns, shot, arrested, and taken into custody without committing any crime. How? By police. There are so many laws on the books that at any given moment in time you are guilty of something, even if it's a matter of interpretation and you eventually get off, it can still happen causing you grief, humiliation, financial loss, and wasted time. The depressing part is it's worsening by the month.
My stance would not be so aggressive. I would draw the line at our borders. Inside our borders, yes, but outside no. I don't feel invading other countries to root out 'tarrists' and thus create new 'tarrists' is a wise plan of action, nor is losing our moral ground.
We all have different definitions of fighting though.
Re:can't work even if they wanted it to (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:can't work even if they wanted it to (Score:5, Informative)
Yes, but blackberries make it easy to communicate securely. You don't have the hassle of a PKI infrastructure with S/MIME certificates, or using PGP.
Incidentally, blackberries support PGP and S/MIME on top of their existing security.
Re:can't work even if they wanted it to (Score:4, Interesting)
Actually you do have that infrastructure, and its managed by the IT people running the messaging server. That the point. Its all there, and its managed by the enterprises not RIM. That's why enterprises trust it... because they managed their own pki infrastructure, not RIM.
RIM made their devices support using it easily and out of the box, but they wouldn't have sold any if they hadn't, given who their original target market was.
The "problem" now is that I can setup an Exchange server in 'country X' and sell Blackberry hosted accounts on it to criminals or whoever, with end to end encryption to my server. And there is nothing the local government can do about it. They can't snoop on the data because its encrypted, and they can't even issue a warrant to the account host to get the data, because its in 'country X'.
I can snoop of course, because its my infrastructure, and I do have the keys. But my business and reputation is staked on not snooping, that's WHY I have customers.
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Its end to end encryption from the device to the enterprise messaging infrastructure. The encryption is essentially implemented and managed by the enterprise IT people not RIM, that's why rim has no 'access'; RIM just helps transport the data from device to enterprise and back, and designed their device and software to support enterprises that wanted to implement encryption.
Re:can't work even if they wanted it to (Score:5, Insightful)
Not that that gives the government the right to do what they are trying to do, but just that do not attribute to malice what can be attributed to idiocy, or desperation.
Just last week, there were several bomb blasts [atimes.com] that killed over 80 people and injured hundreds more.
I don't necessarily think they are trying to fight modern technology, as much as try to prevent the bad guys from using it to their benefit. I do not necessarily agree with the way they are going about it, but I can certainly see where they are coming from.
Unlike the US where the state seems to use one incident as the bugaboo for massive invasion of privacy, countries like India and Israel face terrorism on a daily basis, and for them, this is a real, hard problem that needs to be addressed.
This is also a debate that has been going on for a long time, and it is too early to make a call.
Re:can't work even if they wanted it to (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:can't work even if they wanted it to (Score:5, Insightful)
I believe Hanlon's razor [wikipedia.org] is dull and rusty and Hanlon was probably using his razor to shave his own malice. Not that I ever heard off Hanlon before looking the quote up.
I subscribe to the credo "Never attribute to stupidity that which can be adequately explained by malice". Call it mcgrew's razor if you wish, it cuts the opposite way as Hanlon's. Malice itself is usually stupid, and anger is almost always counterproductive in our world.
But it matters little whether the person you are making excuses for is stupid or evil, the result is the same, and the cure is often the same as well. Why do you think they say "wow, that smarts" when they are in pain?
Re:can't work even if they wanted it to (Score:5, Insightful)
Deal with the problem, not with the tools.
Ultimately... (Score:2)
Re:can't work even if they wanted it to (Score:5, Informative)
Its just when Tata Teleservices offered to provide the service that this suddenly became a 'terrorism' issue. Airtel and Hutch now Vodaphone have been providing blackberry since 2004.
This is not about terrorism but corporate politics and influence peddling which is the way of business in India. RIM just has to pay some money to the right people and this will die a natural death or ask Airtel/Vodaphone to stop their lobbying against Tata Tele.
Terrorism is fast becoming a favoured excuse and people should be a tad more skeptical before jumping to conclusions about threats that may not exist. Terrorists have many ways of communicating without resorting to blackberry. You can't stop technology because it can be abused.
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Hey...now there is a great reason to outsource all of our IT (with associated privacy info) over to India. If it doesn't go down due to domestic terrorism, nuclear war...it can get pinched and stolen by China easier...
Man..our US corporations have really thought this out well...
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This could set a precedent (Score:5, Interesting)
Will they be faced with the dilemma of changing their architecture versus being banned? Will they lose confidence no matter what? Hushmail at least used to publish their source code, but Skype is closed source and the binary is heavily obfuscated.
Re:This could set a precedent (Score:4, Informative)
Re:This could set a precedent (Score:4, Insightful)
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All BlackBerry traffic goes through their central servers located in Canada.
Re:This could set a precedent (Score:5, Funny)
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I sure hope not! A back door for government is a back door for anyone and everyone. It'd be like having trusted keys for software licensing enforcement, which we all know gets leaked in a heart-beat anyway. :-(
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The Blackberry uses whatever telco you subscribe to but the data portion is end-to-end encrypted. And they're a Canadian company so US laws don't apply. Same goes for Hushmail if memory serves.
Re:This could set a precedent (Score:5, Interesting)
I can remember when the PGP creator was put on trial in the US for his subversive software. The American government was smart in dropping the case and thus not setting a possible legal precedent (against themselves), but that was pre-9/11. As Bob Dylan once said "The times they are ah changin'"
Re:This could set a precedent (Score:4, Interesting)
He wasn't on trial for his subversive software, it was for exporting munitions without a license.
Most countries (including the USA) have rules on the exportation of military technology. They don't want John Doe to export 100,000 artillery shells to a war zone (or an enemy) without approval.
Encrypted communications technology was classified as a munition, so you need a license.
However, the mathematics for strong encryption had been known for years, and free available around the world, so the US wasn't accomplishing anything by blocking the export of PGP.
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Unless their implementation is buggy, that's got nothing to do with crackability. PGP (and any credible) security is in the key, not the algorithm.
>Will they be faced with the dilemma of changing their architecture versus being banned?
I sure hope not. Hushmail and Skype are applications/service providers. They don't maintain the physical infrastructure of fiber and copper cables. They are not "common carriers."
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Oh thats right, NSA lifted the export restrictions on high grade encryption because it could be cracked by their uber super computers anyway.
2. An access provider can only ever allow decryption of messages that they are on one end of the communication channel. If a Telco is a man in the middle of an encrypted channel, the telco cannot possibly facilitate a decryption request, so they can only ship the encrypted stream, origin
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End to End Encryption - independent of location (Score:5, Insightful)
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http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/RIM_agrees_to_pass_BlackBerry_content_on_condition/rssarticleshow/3056271.cms
Summary is indicative of the problem (Score:5, Insightful)
This shit infuriates me.
GOVERNMENTS DO NOT HAVE RIGHTS OF ANY KIND.
Governments have powers. This IS NOT a simple semantic argument.
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And since the PEOPLE grant them, the PEOPLE can (and should) be able to TAKE THEM AWAY.
So, let's pretend we (at least Americans) _remember_ the true spirit of our Founding Fathers....
That's why when we sheepishly ask the government to solve a problem, we really need to think before we grant them _more_ power.
And yes, it's not perfect, and we're to blame for most of the ills of our own governments... but in the US, we still have the Cons
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But between the government and its people, only republican (not the party) governments do not have rights. Monarchies have rights secured by god(s).(Which is a dubious claim because I've never seen a god testify in court that he granted said rights.) Democracies are a bit of a gray area, where popular vote can take anything it wants with a simple majority (of those that v
No they don't (Score:4, Insightful)
No, they do not. The have the powers and responsibilities of sovereignty, given to them by the people that instituted said government.
Calling it a "right" is a misuse of the term, and the rest of your post is just as factually inaccurate.
If you're being serious (Score:3, Insightful)
That's me, shamelessly banging everything that moves and constantly drunk off my ass in my "ivory tower".
Name a number that you think would cause me to reconsider renouncing my rights for safety. Start with a BIG number, you'll waste a ton of time otherwise.
And? That was sufficient to make you renounce your rights as a human
This message contains proprietary information... (Score:4, Informative)
... and is protected from disclosure.
So, what happens when trade secrets leak because some gov employee got bribed to access them and pass them to a competitor?... I would assume RIM could also be held liable for loss. And its harder to sue (and win) against a government, esp. somewhere like India. A lot easier to drag RIM in front of a jury in the US.
Re:This message contains proprietary information.. (Score:3, Interesting)
... and is protected from disclosure.
So, what happens when trade secrets leak because some gov employee got bribed to access them and pass them to a competitor?... I would assume RIM could also be held liable for loss. And its harder to sue (and win) against a government, esp. somewhere like India. A lot easier to drag RIM in front of a jury in the US.
How's this any different to a US government employee being bribed to arrange a tap on a business phoneline and passing details of any conversation to an outside party?
Re:This message contains proprietary information.. (Score:2)
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I'm not Indian, but in my country (USA) we developed patents for the express purpose of avoiding "trade secrets".
Trade Secrets are unamerican. No true American Conservative would defend their existance.
Just to be a little bit paranoid (Score:4, Insightful)
Think of this... If you are a government, wouldn't you like RIM to announce that their encryption is unbreakable, and then you announce how unhappy you are with them? I mean, wouldn't RIM be shooting itself in the foot to announce "Oh yes, there's a master key, and if we'll give it up under certain circumstances that we won't discuss"?
And what a great advertisement to have the government say "Even we can't snoop on your email". If you spent a billion dollars on advertising, you couldn't get that kind of great publicity.
It all seems to.... "convenient".
Re:Just to be a little bit paranoid (Score:5, Funny)
Since you want me to take it off, it must work! That is, unless that's what you want me to think, and it actually acts as a locator so you can more easily trace my position. Or perhaps it's all a ruse to distract me from noticing something else even MORE sinister....
Yes, it's all becoming clear to me now. I'm on to you!
Actually, now that you mention it... (Score:2)
You just see the colors from a distance because of how the light is bent.
No back door? (Score:2)
<tinfoil_hat scarcasm_mode=high>
Sure, that's what they say to the public...
</tinfoil_hat>
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I know you're joking, but the Blackberry platform has been audited from end-to-end [blackberry.com] by the governments of Canada, United Kingdom, Austria, Australia, New Zealand, United States, Norway and Turkey. Also approved by NATO and the Fraunhofer Institute for Secure Information Technology in Germany.
There may be back doors, but that is a pretty wide spectrum of institutions.
And frankly, you really don't need a back door. The blackberry is a secure conduit between a handheld
Security Risk? (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Security Risk? (Score:5, Insightful)
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Wait a second... (Score:5, Insightful)
Hold on a second there.
I believe the reason the US government uses the BlackBerry is because the service cannot be decrypted. If it could be, then they wouldn't be able to rely on it due to security and privacy considerations, etc.
As much as that statement is kindle for a fire I'm quite certain that at least in the context of using BlackBerry's, the US government has no interest on being able to decrypt communications. I think it's safe to assume the government is content with the fact that there is no backdoor to RIM's services.
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Personally, I stick with my motorola krazer and my palm tx - but if I were to get a smartphone I'd buy a Palm Treo. Never occurred to me why they love blackberry so friggin' much until this story.
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Problem. (Score:3, Insightful)
Blackberry privacy is only for large enterprises (Score:5, Informative)
Blackberry privacy is only for large enterprises. If you have a corporate Blackberry server, the keys are between the client units and the server, and RIM doesn't have them. If you use Blackberry's public servers, RIM has your E-mail. India only wants "non-corporate emails". [indiatimes.com]
Hey, this is easy to fix... (Score:3, Interesting)
Of course, knowing how hard it seems for RIM to let the gummint look at data, I may not give up my BB after all.
And even if they could snoop... (Score:2, Informative)
A: "Thank you Mohammed. I should water them."
M: "For best results, wait until after the 15th of May."
What does this hypothetical conversation mean? Heck if I know, nor does anyone else. Simple coded language will defeat the global governments and their growing desire to snoop in the name of terrorism. Even if they make encryption illegal, they won't break coded language if they don't know the code, nor will they be able to detect the more clever steganography al
Re:To quote the immortal Dick Cheney... (Score:5, Funny)
Come on, folks. This guy has a "Man Sized" safe in his office. What do you think he has in there? He has a man....to feed off of.
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You will be assimilated. Resistance is not only futile, when the time comes you will beg to join us.
Disclaimer: By "us" I mean cyborg, not Republican. I didn't vote for that particular cyborg and never would; I consider him and Bush to be traitors to my country. See what happens when you elect an alcoho
Biggety, libidinous bon mots? (Score:2, Funny)
I mean when a neo-conservative defenestrates it's like Raskolnikov filibuster deoxymonohydroxinate.
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Kudos (Score:2)
I haven't laughed so hard at something I found on the internet in forever.
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You mean like Rachel Ray?
Re:I have a better solution (Score:4, Funny)
You mean like Rachel Ray?
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Yes, but she has to eat it without using her hands, and no biting. I don't care what it would prove.
Now, if you'll excuse me, I think I need some 'alone time' after visualizing that.
Cheers
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The conflict between the Tamil and Sinhalese is ethnic and cultural, not religious if I recall correctly (buddhist monks have been known to run arms for the Tamil Tigers, for example).
However, it is possible you are correct that at least, in part, they're worried about the Tamil separatists. That particular group is absolutely fearless (they conduct suicide bombings that make incidents in Israel look tame by comparison), are strangely well-equipped (they have a navy?), and until recently were actually pig
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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rajiv_Gandhi_assassination [wikipedia.org]
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Religion: a large, popular cult
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Are you sure it wasn't Bill?
IHBT (Score:4, Insightful)
IF they're worried about Muslim terrorists, make everyone getting onboard the train have to eat a BLT.
That works for Jewish terrorists, too. Also for my terrorist daughter who is allergic to bacon. Yeah, she's downright MEAN!
And if they're worried about Christian terrorists, tell them they have to suck off a gay dude
EWWW! Being a Christian wouldn't keep me from sucking off a dude, but being heterosexual would. My bible doesn't say "thou shalt not suck cocks". There are 12 commandments for the Christian: Moses' ten and Jesus' two, although all ten are contained in the two.
Anyone who has read the first four books of the New Testament knows that Pat Robertson is s wolf in sheeps' clothing and has converted more Christians to athiesm than all the athiests at slashdot combined. Eat your heart out, you ineffectual piker!
I'm just sick of people telling me they believe all sorts of crazy shit based on "faith"
Then stop baiting them, troll.
My faith is based on personal experience. If you don't believe in penguins I can't blame you; they are rather improbable creatures. A bird that can't fly, but instead swims underwater and eats fish? And lives at the South Pole? Yeah they have pictures but there's photoshop. And yeah, there are all sorts of documents but those were meant to be works of fiction. People claiming to have actually seen penguins are either schitzophrenic, on drugs, or liars.
But I have experienced penguins, there's one at my local zoo. I'm sure you have some exotic explanation for why I imagine I saw a penguin at the zoo.
...and yet they think they can tell us what sort of science is permissible to be taught in public schools.
Much wisdom is contained in the book you so despise. However, I can understand your fear of it.Not me. Evolution does NOT go against anything the Bible says. Even teh Catholic Pope will agree that evolution is real (IANAC).
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What about vegetarian lesbian non-terrorists? Damn, looks like they might be Muslim, Hindu, and Christian terrorists.
Then our only solution would be to make them at combo platters.
Yeah, I support working class attacks on /religion/, but I also think that it is fucking stupid to think that one single test like that would solve your problem.
I'm being deliberately absurdist. I'm just sick of religion in general.
What if the Muslim person has had special dispensation from their holy leader to eat meat? Or to be allowed to cut their beard? It does happen, and it means your simplistic anti-terrorism measures don't work.
Then maybe we should just ban everyone from flying. Then we won't have to worry about terrorists getting onboard.
Thanks for trying though.
What's the consolation prize, rice-a-roni or turtle wax?
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Or non-objectivists. Or hell, people that like Chopin instead of Rachmaninov. Or abstract art of any kind.
Re:The gov't listens to everything (Score:4, Informative)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletion/America_Deceived [wikipedia.org]
Re:They can take a lesson from the USA (Score:5, Interesting)
Perhaps if one is suave enough to be using PGP or "rich" enough to have a blackberry things are different but for most people *any* involvement with law-enforecement agencies is bad news already. Gitmo is perhaps tame. Of course that doesn't make gitmo right, but a statement like "they need their own gitmo" is humorous in a dark sort of way.
To the idiot who downmodded above post (Score:3)
PS: Now that is the kind of post that can be modded troll. Go ahead and burn my karma. At least it would be targeted rightly to a trollish post. Idiots.