NSA Infected 50,000 Computer Networks With Malicious Software 264
rtoz writes "The American intelligence service — NSA — infected more than 50,000 computer networks worldwide with malicious software designed to steal sensitive information, documents provided by former NSA-employee Edward Snowden show."
Belgium is a NATO member (Score:5, Insightful)
The NSA was conducting a military operation against an ally.
Re:Belgium is a NATO member (Score:5, Funny)
I didn't think the NSA considers US citizens as "allies". More like "terrorists with no known links to proven terrorists".
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Nice observation there. What country doesn't spy on allies? Are you that naive?
AFAIK it is illegal for Finnish government agents to stage hostile operations inside foreign nations.
Related [youtube.com]
Re:Belgium is a NATO member (Score:5, Informative)
AFAIK it is illegal for Finnish government agents to stage hostile operations inside foreign nations.
It is illegal for the NSA to do what they are doing too, but that doesn't seem to be stopping them.
Re:Belgium is a NATO member (Score:5, Informative)
Didn't stop them from scaring seven shades of shit out of the Russians before, during and after WWII though.
Re:Belgium is a NATO member (Score:5, Funny)
New Yorkers do that to people all the time.
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New Yorkers do that to people all the time.
And now you know why we picked an island to call New York.
So we could keep them with their own kind.
The U.S. government is EXTREMELY corrupt. (Score:3, Insightful)
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The U.S. government is EXTREMELY corrupt, and the response of U.S. citizens is to make foolish jokes.
Well, the 2% who give a shit enough to crack jokes are cracking jokes, for they likely know it's far too late to do fuck-all about it.
You're not hearing from the other 98% who don't give a shit, and helped create this mess, one obedient sheep at a time.
Re:The U.S. government is EXTREMELY corrupt. (Score:5, Insightful)
The response of SOME U.S. citizens is to make foolish jokes.
--there, fixed for you
Regrettably, I cannot fix your bigotry.
A large percentage of U.S. citizens are glad that the Guardian published the information that Snowden took. While he broke the rules, the news media has a responsibility to publish these documents to highlight any improprieties and illegalities going on in the U.S. Federal Government. That's what the news media did with "Watergate" and the Ellsburg Paper. It resulted in the resignation of POTUS Richard M. Nixon. There is no reason for these documents to be withheld now. Regrettably, the U.S. news media did not take the lead in this particular story or other stories during the current regime.
Re:The U.S. government is EXTREMELY corrupt. (Score:5, Interesting)
That's what the news media did with "Watergate" and the Ellsburg Paper. It resulted in the resignation of POTUS Richard M. Nixon.
I've thought about that a lot lately. I remember how the country was at a standstill during that time. I wonder if Watergate would even merit being published currently, let alone force a resignation.
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You do live in a democracy right? That means YOU the American people are responsible for your government. Stop being pussies and blaming it on the other 99% of the population and do something about it please. Protest, riot, petition, whatever you ne
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>>>> the media can be expected to be loyal.
The patriotic bias is one of the most widespread, and unrecognized, journalistic slants. Frankly, as a stakeholder (voter) I'd rather the media just tell us the truth instead of what they think should be he truth. That way I can make reasonable decisions and use my power wisely
Re:The U.S. government is EXTREMELY corrupt. (Score:5, Insightful)
I enjoyed the response of Europeans a lot more when they learned their governments were doing the exact same thing. Americans care about this stuff. When people in other countries learn their governments do the exact same things, they try to excuse it then turn the conversation back to America.
Re:Belgium is a NATO member (Score:5, Informative)
For contrast, Finland has a population significantly smaller than New York City.
And the original question was "What country doesn't spy on allies?"
Re:Belgium is a NATO member (Score:4, Insightful)
Yes it does matter that some countries do have moral standards. Unlike, as displayed by the article, USA and UK.
Re:Belgium is a NATO member (Score:5, Insightful)
That's what the other countries want you to think.
Countries don't really have moral standards. Just budgets.
Re: Belgium is a NATO member (Score:4, Insightful)
I like your summary there. Interesting that the two countries doing terrible things because groupthink and budget ... are the two with the most thoroughly broken FPTP electoral systems.
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And the point is -- does it matter what is illegal for the Finnish government to do inside foreign nations, when that's basically like envisioning Queens and Brooklyn invading Jersey?
Well, Finland is bordering a nation with largest landmass in the world whose population has historically posed an existential risk to Finns with wars fought on the most centuries since pre-800 AD. It is in the interest of self-preservation to know what your neighbour has parked near your border and what he's up to if a successful suckerpunch will lead to the complete collapse of organized national defense.
Re:Belgium is a NATO member (Score:4, Insightful)
Existential risk? Since 800 AD? Wars? Um, Finland has not existed at all as a country during most of that time.
Yes, existential risk to Finns .
Finnic tribe habitation. 800 ad [wikimedia.org] Finnic tribe habitation. 912 ad [imgur.com], also [imgur.com],
Earliest conflicts with Russians during existance of written records. [wikipedia.org]
And by the 14th century we arrive at this [wikimedia.org]
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spying is not hostile.
When you do it by means of actually attacking something, be it a computer system or a person, it is.
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Re:Belgium is a NATO member (Score:5, Informative)
NSA is a subagency of the DOD and is headquartered inside a military base.
Re:Belgium is a NATO member (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Belgium is a NATO member (Score:5, Funny)
If you look at the previous NSA Directors, you'll probably notice a curious pattern.
They're all white men?
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The NSA is most certainly a military organization. You should really read the Puzzle Palace and learn how the NSA was started.
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Act of war. (Score:5, Insightful)
Wasn't this exactly what the USA declared to be considered an act of war, that would justify retaliation with conventional weapons?
Re:Act of war. (Score:4, Insightful)
Probably. You have to remember that the government has different standards for others than for us. We don't care if we violate international law. We only care if others violate the rules we set (be they laws we set or otherwise).
Re:Act of war. (Score:5, Insightful)
Probably. You have to remember that the government has different standards for others than for us. We don't care if we violate international law. We only care if others violate the rules we set (be they laws we set or otherwise).
Yes, The "Do as I say, not as I do" standard.
Re:Act of War (Score:4, Insightful)
Yes, The "Do as I say, not as I do" standard.
"American Exceptionalism" in NewSpeak. Double-plus FTFY.
don't be grandiose (Score:5, Insightful)
these people are not warriors - they are parasites, and should be treated as such.
it's simply criminal, they should go to jail, like all the rest.
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This doesn't even touch the worst of it. There are now 50,000 compromised computer networks out there, there will be a mad rush by organised crime and various criminal organisation to find those, network time bombs and make use of them. Even fucking worse, these hacks on the odd occasion will have been planted on the networks of criminal organisations, so all they have to do is find them local, decode and then they will have the basis for the keys to 50,000 other networks. Those fucking morons have created
Re:Act of war. (Score:5, Informative)
Wasn't this exactly what the USA declared to be considered an act of war, that would justify retaliation with conventional weapons?
And the people with political power are the ones who stand to get even richer if it does start another war (digital or conventional). They don't care who else dies or if the economy as a whole goes down the shitter as long as they make money. The US's defense budget is HUGE, how much of that goes to private contracts? In 2011, $374 billion went to private contracts, 15 times greater than any other US federal agency.
Re:Act of war. (Score:5, Interesting)
Wasn't this exactly what the USA declared to be considered an act of war, that would justify retaliation with conventional weapons?
Exactly, all members of the NSA are guilty of high treason. Think about it, over the last several decades they have worked quietly behind the scenes to deliberately weaken all encryption algorithms and computer/electronic security.
Every time a hospital or the electrical grid gets hacked and taken out of service, every time a rival hacks in and steals classified information from a government computer or trade secrets from a corporate one, every time someone's identity gets stolen, every time someone's computer gets infected by a virus, the NSA directly contributed to the ease by which this was done. That is IMHO directly supplying aid and comfort to enemies of the people.
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Article 3, Section 3 of the US Constitution. Learn it, love it, live it.
In other words, no, the members of the NSA are NOT guilty of treason.
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"adhering to their Enemies, giving them Aid and Comfort. "
That's exactly what weakening the encryption systems of the United States' own infrastructure has accomplished, however inadvertently.
Re:Act of war. (Score:4, Informative)
There's that annoying word "adhering"... You need to show allegiance to a specific, declared enemy in time of war to prove treason.
Criminal, yes. Betrayal, yes. Treason, no.
Re: Act of war. (Score:2)
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That would be impossible to happen. No other country has the military capabilities to forgo US aid in case of invasion from any number of outside threats. Russia could take most every European country should something like that happen and they were isolated from half of the western allies (Including European countries who didn't give in).
Besides, the economic problems that would arise would be enough to stop most countries from doing that. It really just isn't realistic for it to happen.
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Muscle is no longer required these days. Cyber attacks and drone strikes are well within the budget capacities of wealthy individuals, never mind nation states. It may not have happened yet, but one no longer needs an aircraft carrier to project power around the world.
Business is business (Score:4, Insightful)
It's reasonable to expect every intelligence agency to spy on anyone they can.
Perhaps as regards governments the hypocrisy should be dropped, and caught spies simply traded for other caught spies as was Cold War custom. Business IS business, and trusting anyone, even "allies" (whatever that means) can be childish especially if they are penetrated by enemy operatives.
How much we wish to restrain internal spying is another matter.
Re:Business is business (Score:5, Insightful)
Why is that "reasonable"? Shouldn't they be focusing their resources of groups/nations that present some threat to us?
Except that this hurts US businesses because now there will be more incentive for other nations (even friendly nations) to use something other than our products.
Not to mention that "penetrated by enemy operatives" sounds more like a movie synopsis rather than a rational approach to international diplomacy.
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The idea there is that (for example) Israel *does* present a nuclear armed threat to America because they have a set of conventional and nuclear capabilities that *could* threaten American interests. For this reason paranoid (professional intelligence) people in the US want to know all the details of what and wher
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"Not to mention that "penetrated by enemy operatives" sounds more like a movie synopsis rather than a rational approach to international diplomacy."
Such penetration was commonplace during the Cold War and no reason exists to believe it would stop since there is much to be gained from knowledge. International diplomacy should logically embrace the idea that there are "no friends or enemies, only interests" because it's really a bunch of different mobs cutting deals while vying for advantage.
"Except that this
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Then you shouldn't have any problem naming two such incidents. So prove it.
Yeah. That's why we have that string of military bases along the US/Canada border.
Seriously
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Nothing about building it themselves? Or buying from a friendly nation that they trust NOT to spy on them like that?
If if a nation cannot develop computer software then probably you shouldn't even bother spying upon them :-) But even if a target nation is not known for software prowess but still warrants spying (Pakistan, Iran?) they still have F/OSS that can be obtained from multiple servers, compared, reviewed, compiled, and code-signed. Unlike digging ditches, one programmer can supply software for un
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Then you shouldn't have any problem naming two such incidents. So prove it.
This is retarded to even think but, okay. In the real world, a friend today can become the enemy tomorrow. Not to mention, we actually get most of our best intelligence from our allies, whether they wish to give it to us or not.
Yeah. That's why we have that string of military bases along the US/Canada border.
We have 70+ military bases and installations along the Us/Canada border from Washington in the west to Maine in the east. Here [google.com]
So cutting US exports is a good thing in your opinion? I would say that it was a problem. And why would the software from other nations be compatible with our software? And if it isn't then there is the problem with "lock in" and not much benefit from "competition".
Why would it need to be compatible?
Apple has been around for years and has a lot of money. And yet there are still times when dealing with a government agency or a private company that a Microsoft product is required. So why do you think that this situation will be improved by introducing MORE platforms that are intentionally incompatible?
First of all, when the government began introducing computers into the common work environments, Apple was not a real comp
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Why wouldn't military allies pose a threat? Seriously, this is an incredibly naive view of the utility of intelligence. You think that a relatively small number of terrorists trying ineffectually to lob a few bombs is really the only major concern? Or even "partner/competitor" nations like China that have a single second hand aircraft carrier? No state military power is realistically goi
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The military definition of "threat" is based entirely on the CAPABILITIES of a nation/group, NOT on their intentions (stated or otherwise).
In other words, EVERY other nation represents a "military threat" of one degree or another (yah, Somalia is a "threat" - a minute one, but not non-zero)....
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Reality has now set in and many other contractors, nations, mil, groups within govs, cults, oligopolies, duopolies, cartels, faiths, criminals seem to be able to buy the same 'keys' for their own ends.
The other aspect is who is testing all the countries crypto internally... how did all this US/UK crypto junk get passed the testing of top gov staff a
Re:Business is business (Score:4, Interesting)
It's reasonable to expect every intelligence agency to spy on anyone they can.
Perhaps as regards governments the hypocrisy should be dropped, and caught spies simply traded for other caught spies as was Cold War custom. Business IS business, and trusting anyone, even "allies" (whatever that means) can be childish especially if they are penetrated by enemy operatives.
How much we wish to restrain internal spying is another matter.
Nothing the NSA has been doing is reasonable.
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Any breach of the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act will be dealt with swiftly and harshly. I'm sure the FBI is driving over there right now to investigate.
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Because they know things.
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So you can make sure they die properly.
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Wow.. spying on allies is like molesting children now. Some of you people have a seriously fucked view on life.
I don't know what else to say. This is definitely disturbing and I'm at a loss of the comparison other then to say it is seriously fucked up- not even close if you were using nukes to take out a mouse.
Remember "Rat" from "The Core" ? (Score:2)
NSA's relationship to AV companies (Score:4, Interesting)
Did the NSA force AV companies to not track the NSA virus, then keep it "legally" secret?
Re:NSA's relationship to AV companies (Score:4, Insightful)
no all AV companies are US companies, IE Kaspersky...
and even if they were some people involved would have leaked the info
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I think the NSA has the technical abilities to simply avoid detection in the first place and, if something does get detected, it's as a generic botnet program.
Re:NSA's relationship to AV companies (Score:5, Informative)
If in doubt change brands and try Kaspersky.
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In Soviet Russia, programs execute YOU! (Score:3)
I believe that the only method to get rid of such threat is to make files executable by change of their attributes, not their extension. You understand what I mean ;-)
State-Sponsored Terrorism or an Act of War. (Score:2)
These are the two options of how to classify this thing. It is not really possible to get more evil in nature, just in scale.
These are the spasms before the end of empire (Score:5, Interesting)
The US is choosing the path of aggression instead of the path
of civilized behavior.
This is a strategy designed by fools. If the fools responsible were the
only ones who would pay for their crimes that wouldn't be so bad.
But every American will pay for what a tiny minority of American swine have done.
By the way, before you start in with your xenophobic redneck moron responses, I AM an American,
and I see what is coming and I do not like it one bit. When the rest of the world has had enough
of the US overstepping its bounds, all the US military power won't make a bit of difference.
Economic sanctions alone can and will bring the US to its knees. If you don't believe this is
possible, you need to read more history.
.
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In spite of everything, U.S. is still a big country with a lot of natural resources. The only reason most of those resources are not being exploited is availability of cheap resources from elsewhere. Sanctions that isolate the U.S. will merely shift the opportunity inwards. There'd be a whole lot of growth of the industry. Yeah, there'd also be the environmental problems that it brings, but oh well, at the moment we're merely exporting them.
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Economically, the US is already on its knees. The fitness of the US economy is on par with Greece. The only thing holding it up is its reputation, and that is going down the drains really fast at the moment...
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Economic sanctions alone can and will bring the US to its knees
Sanctions? Hardly necessary. To bring the US to its knees, all that needs to happen is for the Chinese to stop buying US Treasury bonds [bloomberg.com]. Whoops....
Re:These are the spasms before the end of empire (Score:5, Insightful)
As a Russian citizen I doubt. You know, the strength of US Dollar is based on the fact that it's the only currency exchangeable to petroleum, and every country that uses any other currency for this purpose becomes democratic. (Saddam sold oil for Euros, and his country became democratic, Lybia sold oil for Euros and became democratic too, Iran sold oil for gold and will surely become democratic immediately after Syria).
And I fear that China will become democratic too.
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As a Russian citizen I doubt. You know, the strength of US Dollar is based on the fact that it's the only currency exchangeable to petroleum,
Fortunately, seems you are wrong [investmentwatchblog.com] on this account.
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The funniest part of this post?
The "anonymous" bit.
ROFLMAO.
-The NSA.
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The US is choosing the path of aggression instead of the path of civilized behavior. This is a strategy designed by fools.
It is called "game theory". It is a virus that teaches that the only way to achieve a predictable result is to cheat, steal and lie. Because everyone else does.
There are two kinds of people in this world, those who will lean into its principles thinking that (despite its ugly face) there is some shred of real science hidden underneath because of its (apparent) success in helping to model animal behaviors. But if Lassie played by the rules of Game Theory she'd leave Timmy down in the well because it would ac
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Uh, in times past the US has been 100% independent. In fact, prior to WWII the US was very isolationist and doing just fine as an independent sleeper superpower.
Sanctions wouldn't do shit.
Isolationist? Oh, [wikipedia.org] really? [wikipedia.org]
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Uh, in times past the US has been 100% independent. In fact, prior to WWII the US was very isolationist and doing just fine as an independent sleeper superpower.
Sanctions wouldn't do shit.
Prior to WWII, the US contained a significant portion of the world's manufacturing capabilities. A lot of new and high-tech (for the time) devices were made in part or in full in the USA.
Since then, the US has exported a significant portion of its manufacturing, to the point where it has not only not gained new manufacturing capabilities in the last 30-40 years, but it has actually lost manufacturing capabilities [slashdot.org] that it once possessed.
As the GP stated, sanctions would bring the current USA to its knees,
Reality check (Score:2, Insightful)
Look, you give an agency the task of preventing damage to your country - that is what they are going to try and do, any way they can or have to. And lets be real, laws are just a game. Everyday we see how loopholes, misinterpretations etc are used to get around anything. You think ANYONE at ANYTIME expected GE, Apple, Microsoft to pay 0 taxes? And yet
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Laws are what civilized people follow.
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There is no morality to it. The law says you have to pay the least you are obligated to pay and if companies or individuals can make that 0% without violating other laws, then it is the legal amount they own.
The answer is not throwing your hands up and demanding the companies go to prison, it is in changing the laws they are using as loop holes in order to get away with it. Trust me, the IRS has very vindictive tax enforcers who have no problem throwing little old ladies into the street in order to get a fe
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I understand. I guess it would be easy to change computers and post from other IPs when your posting has too many down mods or posted too many stock replies to topics on your agenda lists.
It is definitely harder to post from an agenda with a logged in account.
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I guess that makes sense if you are ashamed and/or embarassed about your position.
Year Zero (Score:3, Interesting)
the spooks are in everyone's wires (Score:2)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YzrZukr3mbU [youtube.com]
Tell that to Gary McKinnon (Score:5, Insightful)
The USA pursued Gary McKinnon [wikipedia.org] for a decade for cracking some USA military and NASA computers, mainly those where incompetent sysadmins had not changed default passwords. What Gary McKinnon was wrong; but this is also wrong and worse by an order of magnitude.
Do we assume that the USA gov't will hand over those responsible as it wanted the UK to hand over Gary McKinnon ? I would eat all of my hats if the USA gov't even talked about the possibility.
Re:Tell that to Gary McKinnon (Score:4, Informative)
His guilt depends. A few years back, a Swiss court decided with regard to somebody breaking into computers at the WEF, that a default password was equivalent to no password and a software secured by a default password was the same as unsecured software and hence no breaking in had happened, but rather access to a public resource. Accordingly, the person responsible walked. I find that quite a sensible verdict.
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Useless PR hack (Score:3)
A government spokesperson states that any disclosure of classified material is harmful to our national security.
What a useless PR hack. Two points:
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A government spokesperson states that any disclosure of classified material is harmful to our national security.
JFYI: Long time ago I worked with (then) top secret information in some Soviet scientific institution (Disclaimer: This info is a GPS coordinates and is not secret anymore). I have found that a fraudster pseudo-scientist successfully used the top secret status to cover his activity from scientific community and to milk the Russian military-industrial complex with his pseudoscientific activities.
I cannot believe that similar over-secrecy with similar results cannot happen everywhere, including US.
Re:Illegal? (Score:4, Insightful)
If it's good enough for the RIAA & MPAA to use the term, then it's good enough for the rest of the world.
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That would deny other NATO nations the advantages of similar espionage. Not smart on their part.
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[1] http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2009/11/godfather-of-spam-goes-to-prison-for-four-years/ [arstechnica.com]
[2] http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2008/11/facebook-spammer-fined-almost-1-billion-under-can-spam/ [arstechnica.com]
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Your work would also help people learning computer security.
Re:SELinux? (Score:4, Insightful)
And yet he still doesn't disclose what was weird or concerning to them even in an anonymous posting talking about finding something weird or concerning. It's like those whisper campaigns that don't really say anything bad but say something in a way that people interpret it badly then as momentum builds, things are simply added by people who think they heard more then what was said. Before you know it, an attorney general running for governor wants to take birth control away from women when the courts have said long ago that the state couldn't do that and nothing he done as the lead attorney for the state indicates that he ever wanted to do or try to do such things.
I mean even if he was scared/worried that something could come back on him, all he would need to do is find someone who doesn't care like at a defcon and tell them where to look anonymously.
Re:Roadmap needed (Score:5, Insightful)
Dude, you focus on anti terrorism but it has been happening long before that.
Some people claim the constitution is an archaic piece of paper which has long outlived its usefulness and should be reinterpreted as much as possible to get around it's limitations. We call these people the "living document" people who think reinterpreting definitions allows portions of it to change meanings as the needs of society changes. This is despite the fact that there is an amendment process and if anything actually did need changed, it could be using the amendment process. But the outcome is the second amendment being nothing but the military having the right to have guns and you and I can hunt, free speech zones (which was originally instituted by the democrats) equaling first amendment rights, removal of all religious displays from public view as the first amendment free exercise of religion, cops dressed like military assault teams having the right to kick in the wrong door and kill the occupants as being the forth amendment's right to be secure in your person, papers and effects. There are a lot more that has happened when we get away from strict interpretations of the US constitution.
You may have only noticed this crap with the war on terror. But it has been around for a while before it. Your rights have been subject to interpretations for quite a while now and terrorism is only the latest if the move.
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Don't worry, they didn't. It was borrowed money.
Which debt will be paid (interest included) with his taxes.