Confirmed: CBS News Reporter's Computer Compromised 176
New submitter RoccamOccam writes "Shortly after the news broke that the Department of Justice had been secretly monitoring the phones and email accounts of Associated Press and Fox News reporters (and the parents of Fox News Correspondent James Rosen), CBS News' Sharyl Attkisson said her computer seemed like it had been compromised. Turns out, it was. 'A cyber security firm hired by CBS News has determined through forensic analysis that Sharyl Attkisson's computer was accessed by an unauthorized, external, unknown party on multiple occasions late in 2012. Evidence suggests this party performed all access remotely using Attkisson's accounts. While no malicious code was found, forensic analysis revealed an intruder had executed commands that appeared to involve search and exfiltration of data.'"
Better security might help (Score:5, Insightful)
A good example why reporters (and others) need to care about IT security.
Re:Better security might help (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Better security might help (Score:5, Insightful)
While it is known that MS has given vulnerabilities to the NSA before patching them, it is highly doubtful the same is going on with Linux or the free BSDs. The risk of being discovered would just be too big.
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While it is known that MS has given vulnerabilities to the NSA before patching them
Citations?
Re:Better security might help (Score:4, Interesting)
Please excuse my sceptism. I just googled the topic and it seems there's some evidence they've been doing this along with contributing to PRISM. Very enlightening to say the least!
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No problem. I probably saw the same things you found.
Re:Better security might help (Score:5, Informative)
http://arstechnica.com/security/2013/06/nsa-gets-early-access-to-zero-day-data-from-microsoft-others/ [arstechnica.com]
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It's all over the internet. Here for one:
http://arstechnica.com/security/2013/06/nsa-gets-early-access-to-zero-day-data-from-microsoft-others/ [arstechnica.com]
It seems to me that when Microsoft's involved, "responsible disclosure" guidelines should be adjusted to immediate public release, as long as MS is feeding exploits to hackers before fixing them.
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It seems to me that when Microsoft's involved, "responsible disclosure" guidelines should be adjusted to immediate public release, as long as MS is feeding exploits to hackers before fixing them.
It seems to me that ALL vulnerabilities should be disclosed immediately. Vuln in FireFox? No problem, use IE or Opera. Vuln in PDF? Uninstall it until it's fixed or use a different reader or writer. It's not like there's only one OS, spreadsheet, browser, image editor, etc.
It seems to me that when a white hat finds
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tell ME, the user, so I can stop using the vulnerable software until it's fixed.
Yes, tell you the user that there's a problem in a piece of software, and what part of that software, but also give the vendor some amount of time to fix it before dumping the exploit into metasploit. I once called this Informed Disclosure [bfccomputing.com] for lack of a better term.
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I agree with you; I support immediate public disclosure as well.
The reasons I wrote what I did last night were that a) I didn't want to sidetrack the discussion into one about immediate versus "responsible disclosure" in general, and b) I wanted to make a point that might persuade those in support of "responsible disclosure" that Microsoft has shown that it doesn't deserve whatever benefits it may receive from the practice, since they've been colluding with a known hacker organization that's been violating
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Funny. So remember everyone - if you find a critical bug in Windows, do what this guy did. [slashdot.org] Disclosing it confidentially to Microsoft instead would be highly irresponsible.
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recall the cynic's, i.e founding father's, observation that government seeks massive regulation and legislation precisely to have things to lord over people with.
Interesting if true, do you have a citation for that? I've never seen it and would be interested in reading it. I'm a readaholic and love learning.
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You don't need "malware" when you've got Windows.
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There's no need to insert vulnerabilities into Linux. The Linux kernel is riddled with vulnerabilities.
If you've ever wondered to yourself, "how the heck do those Linux developers commit such huge changes between minor versions without introducing bugs", well I have some news for you....
If you want to run a secure system, try OpenBSD or NetBSD. Development occurs at a slower, more conservative pace, particularly with OpenBSD. And there are virtually none of the "dump and run" feature submissions that are so
Re:Better security might help (Score:4, Insightful)
When you are talking about local exploits, maybe. But this is about remote exploits. When you have compromised an user account, you do not need privilege escalation to spy on them, you just need to get in as said user. That limits the scope of what needs to be looked at rather dramatically.
Also, for security critical operation, a vanilla Linux is not a good idea. Use AppArmor or SELinux with custom, restrictive configurations. (Yes, I know that SELinux is from the NSA, but the risk of putting in back-doors is just to big.) Running a server is different. There, the largest risk is from the server software. Things like OpenSSH and Postfix are very secure, Apache2 without modules less so and Apache2 with modules can be a real nightmare, depending on the modules.
I do agree on the development model though. But you need to take into account that most of the fast development in Linux is the drivers. The rest is done a lot more carefully and with significantly more review.
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Very stupid, obviously. SELinux has been intensively scrutinized by others. Remember that it is FOSS, anybody can look. Any hacker finding a planted vulnerability in SELinux would have made a name for life.
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Sorry, but sendmail has been known to be insecure and likely unfixable for decades. The architecture just sucks and cannot really be secures. Nobody that wants security cares about it anymore, they just use PostFix instead. Same is true for bind. One vulnerability after the other. A bloated monster with cryptic configuration, even after the redesign.
Finding bugs is one thing. If the architecture and design is unsound (overly convoluted, complicated and cryptic), no amount of finding of bugs is going to fix
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(Yes, I know that SELinux is from the NSA, but the risk of putting in back-doors is just to big.)
Risk of all those eyeballs catching it just because it is open source? Just like they didn't catch serious vulnerabilities for years in one of the most used and critical open sourced programs SendMail [google.com]?
Leaving aside the fact that SendMail is a horrible warty conglomeration of modules for mostly-extinct mail-routine systems supporting rules written in a cryptic macro language. SendMail is a mail application, and while secure mail is very important, security is the very purpose of SELinux.
Where security is one more thing to consider for apps like SendMail, it's the core function of SELinux, and core functions are the most-scrutinized of all, because when they don't work, the app itself is useless.
Aside from
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Indeed. Well said.
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But who eyeballs the eyeballs?
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The nose knows.
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Yes, NetBSD and OpenBSD are good for security (so are FreeBSD and DragonflyBSD), but there are still points to note:
First, local security is an issue. The surface attack is so big that if you let an attacker play with remote access to the shell, he will find a security hole, even in NetBSD or OpenBSD
Second, OpenBSD security emphasis push them to play down vulnerabilities, because they do not want to recognize them as such. OpenBSD errata have many "reliability fixes" that may be vulnerability fixes. And the
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This cooperation between MS and the NSA maybe explains why MS got away in most cases of monopolistic abuses during so many years: it's easier to infiltrate computers worldwide if they all use the same OS.
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Well, if we are talking about exploits in Microsoft Windows, it's most likely intended to be used offensively. I doubt NSA stores their top secrets on Windows machines.
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Re:Better security might help (Score:5, Informative)
SELinux is not provided by the NSA anymore. It has been incorporated into the kernel and all you have to do is enable stuff that you want to use now. The code has been reviewed and the NSA was not the only entity involved, so I would not worry about that too much.
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And there is the other thing: The NSA does not only spy on people, they also help securing people against others spying on them. Now, theoretically it is possible to secure a planted backdoor cryptographically so that nobody else can use it. That is however highly obvious in the code. If, on the other hand, they had a backdoor not secured in this fashion in SELinux, the risk of, say, the Chinese fining it would far out-weight any advantage of having access via this backdoor themselves. This is not the first
Re:Better security might help (Score:4, Interesting)
It isn't the operating systems. Too many people pay attention to them. The secret code is in the compilers (where all the NSA fake employees work). It works this way: the compiler itself was compiled by the NSA to add secret code to the compiler source. This way, even if you are compiling from the clean and open source files, you will still get the NSA features. And when the OS is compiled, the NSA features are also added. For all 'hard-copy' operating systems, additional effort is made to ensure that the final copy is compromised. For open source or downloadable operating systems, the NSA runs a program where they swap out bytes at the ISP level while retaining the checksums. I've heard that this program is code named LEYTUNNEL.
Posted via Tor to protect myself and my source
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Now you know why I'm considering a switch to Red Flag Linux [redflag-linux.com]: I'm hoping that the Chinese backdoors will cancel out the ones from the NSA.
Or at least keep them busy.
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This approach is mostly a curiosity. It is not nearly as undetectable as you may think, and once one compiler executable has been exposed to have this backdoor, the cat's out of the bag.
There's also the problem that
1. A compiler detecting that it is compiling itself isn't trivial, especially not for an open-source compiler that gets updated constantly.
2. The back door insertion isn't trivial, for the same reason: the program being targeted may have changed. Not only must you detect it, you must make sure th
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Indeed. All it requires for some kernel hacker to do some experiments or try to fix some issues. As soon as things break in suspicious ways, looking at the assembler code is easy.
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Interesting sci/fi, but how much is true? Personally I can only speak of common things I have used like RHEL and GNU compilers provided by Redhat. If what you said was true, I should be able to see things in a stack. The compiler would have to embed network objects into code it detects as network code. That would take some massive work, and be easily visible in the gcc/g++ source code.
Potentially an issue, but I think it's pretty far away from the "likely" category. In closed source, of course this cou
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That would take some massive work, and be easily visible in the gcc/g++ source code.
The modified compiler is only distributed as a binary. There is no source code available.
The compiler would have to embed network objects into code it detects as network code.
No, the compiler would only need to add a few instructions that--under certain circumstances--modify calls to libraries that it knows are already being linked into the target executable. A compromised compiler is in the perfect position to determine everything about the executable it's compiling and to compromise it in extremely subtle ways. Think about all of the exploits that require only a single buffer overflow t
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While doable, this is really hard to conceal well. It is also a very old and well-known attack to security experts. Here is the problem: People are actually looking at assembler code from time to time and may well find this. There are not many places a backdoor could be put in. Basically layer 2 or 3 is the only place. That is not so much code. And then there is the problem on how to find where to put it in.
As to binary deliveries, maybe you have heard of signed code? Like the Linux kernel sources? Or the D
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You don't think that there are hundreds of thousands of eyeballs scrutinizing the source code right now, especially after Snowden's revelations? It's pretty damned hard to put a back door in an open source OS or app and not have it found fairly quickly, impossible to not have it found sooner or later.
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Indeed. Just my point. And once such a thing is found, they could never do it successfully again.
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SELinux goes well beyond the NSA. Security compliance in Linux goes back well over a decade and ended up being a mix of various technologies. If do not understand SELinux, then the cure for your ignorance is to go learn it. I'm not backing what the NSA has been doing with "The People" mind you, just correcting your ignorant statements here.
SELinux and the NSA involvement was really to ensure that Linux could be compliant with a very long and stringent set of requirements including protection for auditd a
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I can't argue your point about the need to care about security and raising awareness. However the idea that locking down your box could stop the government is naive. If they can convince a judge they can get a warrant. With a warrant you simply enter the residence and install something like a hardware keylogger [keelog.com] (that's a commercial one, they come much smaller) or a pinhole camera.
Your TrueCyrpt secured hard drive hosting your locked down Operating System behind the firewall of doom that only ever connects t
Oddly specific denial (Score:5, Interesting)
Why is the justice department denial so specific:
To our knowledge, the Justice Department has never compromised Ms. Attkisson’s computers, or otherwise sought any information from or concerning any telephone, computer, or other media device she may own or use.
It sounds like a carefully worded statement that leaves open the possibility that they planted an old fashioned bug to listen to her in her home, or a GPS tracker on her car, or secretly searched her house, or one of the other many ways they can secretly keep someone under surveillance.
Why not a simple "We have never had Ms Attkisson under any surveillance or covertly obtained any information about her"?
Besides, if she used a Verizon Business cell phone, or if the same cell phone meta-data order that was leaked to the press was given to all of the carriers, then the government *did* seek information concerning telephones used by her.
Re:Oddly specific denial (Score:5, Insightful)
When you have an Attorney General who will, under oath in front of Congress, commit perjury, why are any of their other statements considered credible?
Not posting anonymously because the DOJ and NSA are tracking us either way.
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But he's telling the truth this time. Honest.
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It sounds like a carefully worded statement that leaves open the possibility ...
because, as Brett Buck mentioned, it might not have been the DOJ, OR it might have been the DOJ and the people who did it conveniently forgot to pass the information up the chain.
Plausible deniability, doncha know.
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Not all hacking comes from the government, but as they say, probably a good part do. That was what i read in their denial, "this time, i think that wasn't us"
I'd like to hear a good argument by those that think this was the government, why they would feel it appropriate (as in, best method of completing the task) to use her accounts to log in?
Compromised account? Sure that wasn't some 50 year old sysadmin that thought she was hot and was looking for pictures of her she might have put on the computer? Like, what girl doesn't have mirror shots taken from her phone once in a while? He wanted to see some of her skin. Not get her work data.
I am one of the mor
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As i said, the government said that weren't them.... probably. But could had been, after all, reporters or press in general are the ones that receive leaks to announce them.
But odds are high that is just another windows intrusion as there are many, i.e. running a trojan or any new worm, or be a new version of something on the lines of Red October [securelist.com] that could take years on be detected.
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Because that lie would be caught already.
The real weasel words here are "To our knowledge". Of course it's not "to their knowledge", they would deliberately shield themselves from knowledge of the details if they did it. That's plausible deniability 101.
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Because the NSA is NOT part of the Justice Department?
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Because it wasn't the Justice Department? I would have assumed it was someone associated with the Obama campaign. I am sure there would be no shortage of volunteers.
well that would explain why they say that Justice Department hasn't done it.. rather than just say that they have no information whatsoever on the subject and if she wants feds to investigate she should report the crime to the police..
Re:Oddly specific denial (Score:5, Insightful)
well that would explain why they say that Justice Department hasn't done it.
That is NOT what they said. Read the quote carefully. It simply says that the speaker has no knowledge of the justice dept doing it, not that they didn't do it. This is a classic example of a bureaucratic waffle. It sounds like they are actually saying something meaningful, but if you parse the sentence, it is basically vacuous.
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Why is the justice department denial so specific:
Because they're refuting a specific accusal?
Seriously, what kind of logic is this? The justice department didn't say that they didn't try to poison her! They must have!
If think it's more like if she was found poisoned, and the Justice department said "I have no knowledge the DoJ had any involvement with poisoning her food or by poisoning her with toxic gas. We have no comment on whether or not we poisoned her with an injection toxin or through a contact poison".
tsk tsk.... (Score:5, Funny)
Welcome to the Botnet (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Welcome to the Botnet (Score:4, Informative)
Occam's razor would suggest that she got pwned by a drive-by exploit on some site she visits. In the same way anyone else might. She just happened to be of some level of importance.
but it was an attack by someone who knew the user/pass. like, from her mail or whatever..
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Drive-by hacking, probably not as it doesnt look like they were after money, or extortion, or attempting ransomware installation. In fact, because it attempted to be stealth, its not even an attack for fun, as most vandals like to let you know you got pwnd.
It might not be internal domestic spying thug, could be from the UK (The Guardian likes to tap phones and listen to voicemails too) or china - (too many examples to list).
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>The Guardian likes to [...] listen to voicemails too
Are you mixing up the News of the World and The Guardian?
That's a pretty big mistake to make.
Re: Welcome to the Botnet (Score:3, Interesting)
Total coincidence that she was the only non-Fox reporter looking into Fast & Furious gun running scandal, and this happened right around when that was heating up.
Obama's people wanted to know if they'd been caught.
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What data? (Score:5, Interesting)
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You mean "meta-data". :p
Security begins with Linux (Score:2)
I would not trust a commercial operating system to not be loaded with back doors accessible to the NSA. That's not even considering the history of Windows vulnerabilities. If I were in charge of IT for a foreign government, a news agency, a military or any business I would start by banning the use of Windows. With Linux it should be possible to have a computer which can search the Internet and prepare reports with no open ports for external attack. That should be the first step. Following that there ne
Re:Security begins with Linux (Score:4, Insightful)
So you are going to read code line by line to determine that no such exploits exist?
Anytime you run ANYTHING that you did not build AND control yourself... you run that risk... the best we can do is hope we can trust who we get our OS, router or tank from... and perhaps audit them from time to time (if we have that power) to try to make sure.
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So you are going to read code line by line to determine that no such exploits exist?
It's probably enough just to run an operating system by and for paranoiacs, e.g. OpenBSD. If you really think someone is out to get you, at least take some precautions.
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How did you download that copy of OpenBSD? ISO or sources?
You can view the fingerprint from an anonymous login, and use it to verify your ISO.
How far up/down the chain are you willing to trust? Here is hoping that the manufacturer of your motherboard didn't slip something in as well!
Yes, that's a good point. If you are willing to run one of the small handful of motherboards for which coreboot is a simple recipe, that's one answer.
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FUD.
BSD is a far more mature and tested codebase than Linux + GNU. Exploits and vulnerabilities found are quickly fixed. Compare that to Microsoft. All open source OS that are commonly used have the "thousands of pairs of eyes" going for it at least, way better than a "black box".
I build my openbsd from source, that's how you patch it anyway. Never been p0wn3d in 12 years of use and I put my server right on the internet without firewall (it is a firewall among other things). Meanwhile, Windows.....
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holy shit! You put your firewall on the internet without a firewall? Don't you know you need at least 3 firewalls to be truly safe??
yeah but then they come at you through 7 proxies and you're done for.
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Some organisations will audit their code, and when they do so it will be better to start from a small, clean codebase.
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A computer for work should be a tool, not a toy, and user preference should not be the highest priority. Security should be first.
For most businesses, first is maintainability via tools that your IT staff knows how to use, then user preference, then productivity, then security.
For businesses with well-run IT departments, it's either productivity, security, maintainability, preference or security, productivity, maintainability, preference.
The latter schemes are both valid, depending on what your business's security needs are.
Hold it... (Score:3)
...why say DOJ? It could be the Chinese.
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...why say DOJ? It could be the Chinese.
(when looked at with the "common sense eyes", both of them behaves in a totally "alien" way. So, what's the difference?)
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It could be Anon.
Errrr... China? (Score:2)
Just sayin'. NSA may be bad-boy du-jour, but China's the one who's been hacking accounts on media and technology companies. I'd think NSA would be content to just sit there and sniff your traffic.
Worse Than You Think (Score:2)
I have friends in state-level law enforcement. A great deal of "private personal" data about search phrases, download histories, email, and sites visited, is shared via FBI-CIA-NSA "cooperation" with the NCIS. It then migrates into lexisnexis and the other legal big data houses.
Pro Tip: If you value your job, never, ever access a personal home account from a work client, even to plan a trip, play Angry Birds at lunchtime, or pay a bill. Once the two identities are linked, they're linked forever.
And remember
I guess it's just me (Score:2)
But I actually like the idea of the government snooping around, hacking into accounts, and logging everything. If for no other reason it makes people worried and nervous. And when people are worried and nervous they are less likely to do things they know they shouldn't do for fear of being watched and caught.
I like it. Yes indeedy I like it a lot.
Reporter's Windows Computer Compromised .. (Score:2)
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Leave an embassador to die, no one bats an eye.
Spy on some reporters, everyone looses their minds....
Yawn....
The Slashdot audience is either retarded or full of partisan idiots.
The quoted comment is quite relevant to the level of attention the media and the public pay to seriously important failings based on party politics of the government and of course is modded down.
While this fluff nonsense gets modded up.
Maybe they just wanted hot pics of her (Score:2)
by Spy Handler (822350) on Friday June 14, 2013 @07:19PM (#44012213) Homepage Journal
She's a nice looking lady... sure she's like 50 now, but around the year 2000 I was unemployed and watching late night TV, and she used to be a regular on CBS late late night news (like past midnight). I remember thinking hey she's really cute.
I'm sick of it, and reading the comments is a waste of time here. All you libtards can congratulate yourselves on your partisanship and continue doing so as America becomes a banana republic.
And while you a
Re:Yawn... (Score:5, Informative)
The best thing to do if you want to change people's minds is to find facts and present them reasonably, politely, logically, in a factual manner, and possibly with a reference link. Flames and insults seldom change peoples minds, and rarely snark, but facts sometimes do. Note that I wrote "sometimes." And it is often a long process. Being in the minority on Slashdot often means having to ignore insult, bad moderation, harassment, trolls, the occasional doppelganger [slashdot.org] trying to discredit you, silly arguments against you being highly moderated while you get mod bombed, the occasional death threat or wish for your injury, and all manner of other nonsense. And you have to live with the fact that vehement statements that are uninformed, silly, completely wrong, and often inflammatory, will be highly moderated as long as they are from the proper politically correct perspective. There are people from all around the world that post here with all manner of ideas, including: liberals, socialists, progressives, libertarians, conservatives, communists, Nazis, Islamists, Christians, atheists, the occasional Jedi, programmers, sys admins, engineers, doctors, lawyers, soldiers, students, mathematicians, physicists, and I'm going to stop because the full list is so long, seemingly unbounded. It can be frustrating, but try to be salt, if you care to.
Re:Yawn... (Score:5, Interesting)
Think back to the 1960s. Many of the complaints the "radicals" had were in fact legitimate. The Vietnam war was poorly managed and ultimately a colossal waste of lives and resources. Agent Orange really was a horrible toxin, causing permanent injuries. Drafting people to send them to a pointless war really was an evil act (and the draft dodgers were making a decision that in retrospect was a smart one)
Marijuana really was a drug with low potential for harm, black people really were being oppressed, and nudism and free love must have been pretty fun.
The point is, what did mainstream culture have to say then? What did all those protests do to affect the decisions made by The Man? Fuck-all, that's what. Doesn't seem any different now.
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Oh, I don't know if it was smart or not. I served. I came back and used my GI Bill benefits to learn what I needed to have a better career. Now that I'm retired, I get all of my health care from the VA, and don't have to worry about whether or not Obamacare is good or not because it doesn't apply to me, unlike lots of the draft dodgers who are now worrying, very loudly in a few cases, about how they're going to pay their ev
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That's like saying "playing cards at the casino was a smart decision for me". Just because you were lucky and came out ahead doesn't mean the house doesn't win overall.
You were lucky, and if somehow you had to play another round (suppose some medical treatment existed that could make you 20 again, and the government started drafting everyone for a land war with China) it would still be a bad idea.
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None. First off, the VC was smashed in the Tet Offensive, before I joined up and second, I was in the Navy in Tonkin Gulf bombarding NVA positions in '72. AFAIK, nobody I knew in school was killed or even wounded in 'Nam.
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"(and the draft dodgers were making a decision that in retrospect was a smart one)"
Think of it as evolution in action.
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Unfortunately that doesn't really work in the modern polarized world.
Especially when it is posted br ACs.
We've seen years worth of facts and figures and reasonable presentation be marginalized and ignored.
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The best thing to do if you want to change people's minds is to find facts and present them reasonably, politely, logically, in a factual manner, and possibly with a reference link.
No, no and no !
And I'll explain why.
First, look at yourself.
How do you think you can change ?
Do you think that integrating a new idea changes you ?
Do you think that change is an incremental process, and that you can change after accepting a few ideas ?
You are totally wrong !
Change is always here, it happens naturally, and you can accept or refuse this natural change.
Nobody really wants to change, because they are in a local optimum, so they put all their efforts to remain in this local optimum because any i
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Yes, you got that right, but I don't see any defeatism.
It would be defeatist only if you believe that you can change people.
I have no evidence to back my arguments, only my personal experience and feelings.
But I doubt you'll ever find an evidence to prove the contrary, because change is a natural process.
The change is so natural that you are not even conscious that you change, only others can tell you.
And the change is so subtle that only close friends may notice it after a long time.
But hey, prove me that
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If you think anybody whose name isn't Dupont or Gates will be able to do jack shit about any of this you REALLY haven't been paying attention
Congratulations! You haven't even tried and you have lost. In the former Eastern Bloc there was a phenomenon called the inner policeman. The citizens had the rules of the state drummed in them so solidly that it didn't occur to the majority to rise up. Any rebellious thoughts were quashed by their own minds. Your defeatism is just as effective.
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I think you have hit the nail on the head, only I am thinking of those who blindly accept the loss of privacy, rights of free speech, right to assemble in protest etc in order to permit the Authorities to fight "Terrorism". Yes, detecting terrorist plots before they become terrorist events is a good thing but there needs to be some transparency in *how* they are being detected and some dialog concerning how far rights of privacy can be violated and under what circumstances, rather than the NSA just sucking
Re:Yawn... (Score:4, Insightful)
I think /. is showing it's biased, but it's mostly biased on things other than tech issues. On tech issues like online privacy, everyone has the same opinion here.
On something like Benghazi or Guantanamo Bay or (whatever), for most people it's ok when their guy does it, not ok when the other guy does it.
We will all be a lot better off if this president's (remaining) defenders admit they were sold a bill of goods.
(from a 3rd party voter)
Spot on, Anonymous Coward in post #44014949 (Score:2)
Re:Yawn... (Score:5, Insightful)
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Man, that is so sad.