Belgian Home Affairs Minister: Terrorists Communicate Via PlayStation 4 (qz.com) 202
bricko writes with story at Quartz reporting the words of Belgium's home affairs minister Jan Jambon, who says that ISIL operators communicate using their PlayStation 4s; "which allows terrorists to communicate with each other and is difficult for the authorities to monitor. 'PlayStation 4 is even more difficult to keep track of than WhatsApp,' he said. The gaming console also was implicated in ISIL's plans back in June, when an Austrian teen was arrested for downloading bomb plans to his PS4." This seems a strange place to concentrate investigators' energies; terrrorists could be communicating in the chat session on the side of many social media games, too, or by any number of other means; Jambon would do well to read through some of the movie plotlines that Bruce Schneier has gathered.
LOL (Score:5, Funny)
We should ban all communication devices that terrorists might use, including pigeons
Re:LOL (Score:5, Funny)
https://pidgin.im/ [pidgin.im]
Re:LOL (Score:4, Insightful)
We should ban all communication devices that terrorists might use, including pigeons
I know you are trying to be sarcastic but no, we should fire politicians who go on interviews and give away our knowledge of the nature terrorist communications for being stupid idiots. A few years ago some Bush White House functionary proudly announced to the media that a prominent Al Qaeda figure had been located by tracking his satellite phone signal. An hour later all of the Al Qaeda chatter went silent and with it the signals intelligence. It is almost always more useful to sit and listen to these bozos talk than it is to block their comms or brag about what you know about their comms in the media.
Only in Belgium... (Score:2)
This Belgian minister is unfortunately not a stupid idiot. He just has a different goal than we do: this isn't about catching terrorists but about trying to drum up support for increased government surveillance.
Then luckily it's all in Belgium. A country where government and regulation seem optional, to the point that the country essentially did without a government for almost 2 years [wikipedia.org] at one point in time.
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Either this is false or they are idiots (Score:5, Interesting)
Either this information is false, or the Belgian minister is an idiot. If we can track them on a single platform, it would be dumb to let them know, because they will move somewhere else. It would also be dumb to tell them that it is hard for authorities to monitor if that was actually true. So I assume this is all false information disseminated as a deception.
Re:Either this is false or they are idiots (Score:5, Funny)
He is pretending to be ignorant and incompetent to give the terrorists a false sense of security.
That, or maybe he is simply Belgian.
Re:Either this is false or they are idiots (Score:5, Interesting)
No, he is attempting to provide political impetus to be able to make laws banning the use of end to end encrypted chat sessions, so that he can spy on everyone.
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Though he has a point. Reducing encrypted communication makes it harder for them to hide. With everyone using encryption it becomes impossible to track them down. If only a few end users use it there is a chance to find them through the metadata.
Not making encryption a standard implementation means that you and me can still use it, but authorities could find out that you and me exchanged encrypted communication.
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He is pretending to be ignorant and incompetent to give the terrorists a false sense of security.
That, or maybe he is simply Belgian.
Non! He is petrified that someone will use his handlebar moustache as a gaming controller!
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He is pretending to be ignorant and incompetent to give the terrorists a false sense of security.
That, or maybe he is simply Belgian.
Wow. He sure is convincing.
he holds a master in Computer Science (Score:2)
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You have my deepest sympathies.
human resources (Score:2)
Sorry, but it appears that you are off target (Score:2)
Within hours after the attacks in Paris, Belgium raided multiple sites, and arrested a number of suspected accomplices.
They have the ability to monitor, what they lack is the balls to act on their intelligence. Better to wait until an attack goes down, then arrest the conspirators, than to use the intelligence proactively.
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Balls? They don't even have the intention. About a third of the police you see on the streets of Brussels are norafs and most of the rest are fat chav women.
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"third of the police you see on the streets of Brussels are norafs"
WTF is a noraf?
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Either this information is false, or the Belgian minister is an idiot.
Why do you think terrorists plan everything from Belgium?
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Because the recent history of Islamic terror attacks in Europe have a significant contribution from a single district in Brussels (which for any of you challenged by world geography is in Belgium). In particular they seem to be the goto place to get weapons, including rocket launchers.
Specifically we are talking
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
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The headline should really be "terrorists use communications media less likely to be intercepted/monitored". Here's the Terrorist Communications Guide handbook, in pseudocode:
This week it might be a PS4, next week it'll be a TI Speak'n'Spell, whatever works.
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Comment removed (Score:5, Insightful)
Power (Score:4, Insightful)
We need to take any and all actions reasonable to ensure that those in power remain rightfully fearful of the governed masses.
Or you know, you could begin by not giving that much power to the government.
There's this small thing called "direct democracy" (= where it is the actual people who have the final say on everything. Not some representatives, but the general population). You should try it sometimes.
Oh, and please no dummy complaints that "it only works in very small territories". Come on. It's 2015. We're in the Internet Age.
Comment removed (Score:5, Interesting)
Democracy (Score:2)
Direct democracy doesnâ(TM)t work at any scale.
The pure direct democracy Switzerland begs to differ.
The United States founding fathers were correct in that the biggest threat to any populace is its own government.
...if this government has power.
If the government's only role is to organise things, and the final say for any decision is taken with democratic vote (ie.: nearly every single law gets voted by the general population before acceptance), the government can't pass any stupid or oppressive law.
(Unless the majority of the population is dumb enough to approve it. That can happen occasionnally. But in a country where the general population is happy - thanks to
Terrorist use telephones also (Score:1)
Ban all telephones, because if we don't, terrorists might kill us.
Jews did WTC and Paris.
9/11 was an inside job (mossad)
catpcha: robbery
No source or real information cited (Score:2)
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Now who might that be? I have no idea... [microsoft.com]
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FTFY. Surely the endorsement of the PS4 as hosting terrorist-grade communications facilities would be a major selling point?
Also :
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Perhaps you should try it.
Clueless. (Score:3)
With all the spying on its citizens, the governments are still clueless!
Re:Clueless. (Score:5, Insightful)
And afterwards "they" always say: oh yes, we had this guy on our watchlist.
So - then fucking do something with that information!!!
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Or work your watchlist better.
We don't know how many people are on it. If there are 50 people on it, then yeah, why the fuck don't you simply arrest them all? If there are 5000 people on it, then one slipping through the cracks is much more likely.
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If there are 5000 people on it,
If list is to big to effectively monitor and interdict the people on it before they do something then the list is useless. If the mass surveillance can't produce a list small enough to be actionable then the surveillance in useless. All the data in the world won't help you if you are not prepared to act on it.
I used to work with a guy who was obsessed with the idea of data driven decision making. However the culture of this organization made it completely impossible for him to implement changes based on
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If list is to big to effectively monitor and interdict the people on it before they do something then the list is useless. If the mass surveillance can't produce a list small enough to be actionable then the surveillance in useless. All the data in the world won't help you if you are not prepared to act on it.
That's nonsense. It's a watchlist, so its purpose is, if we go by name, that the people on the list get monitored closely. They haven't yet done anything arrest-worthy (else we should arrest them), but it is believed that they likely will. But since we're talking terrorism and not petty theft, we want to catch them before they do whatever they want to do.
For such a purpose a long list is fine, and 5000 would be manageable.
1) Total firewall. Nobody who has ever so much as visited the middle east while not wearing a US Service Uniform enters the country.
Which means I couldn't come because I had a holiday in Egypt last year. Like one milli
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But since we're talking terrorism and not petty theft, we want to catch them before they do whatever they want to do.
Fine than a 'watchlist' is the wrong tool isn't it. Its like having a screw driver when you need a wrench. The screw driver might as well be a spoon or a bag of marsh mellows. Whatever it is however nice a screw driver it may be it isn't fit for purpose.
So once again by your own admission its useless. Frankly even know who did it after the fact does not much matter. It won't bring back friends a loved ones. If you CANT stop them before they attack, than its no way worth the invasion of privacy and inf
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Fine than a 'watchlist' is the wrong tool isn't it.
Why?
Of course it shouldn't stop there. You actually need to follow up and prevent things, of course.
I say lock the boarder down.
Firstly, passports can be faked, so you would lock out a lot of innocent people and not lock out the terrorists.
Secondly, borders are huge, you can't lock them all down. If the USA closes its borders, terrorists will fly to Canada, rent a truck and take a hike in the woods.
Thirdly, the real problem is that our leaders are either incompetent or corrupt, because they don't act on information we have. For exampl
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If there are only 50 people on this list, then there are good reasons they went on the list. Otherwise, the list would be much bigger (which I assume it is).
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And afterwards "they" always say: oh yes, we had this guy on our watchlist. So - then fucking do something with that information!!!
But they couldn't, because of antiquated laws and activist judges who keep ruling that the bill of rights is only 90% void instead of 100%! They need more power and less oversight, and the people need to stop worrying about their so-called "rights" because the government promises to only target terrorists*, and you're not a terrorist, are you???
* - As a small minority of targets... but they're so hard to identify, and you know who else is evil? People who look at CP; surely you don't object to that right?
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Maybe I'm turning into a grammar nazi. Or, maybe the dumbing down of America is just getting on my nerves.
Free range? That's what you have when you don't fence your cattle/sheep/goats/other livestock. They are free to range over as much pasturage as they can reach, and still come back to the watering hole.
You meant "free reign", I believe. Unless you think Brahma bulls are responsible for the terrorism.
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They are free to range over as much pasturage as they can reach, and still come back to the watering hole.
Obviously that was exactly what he ment.
Probably he is german or scandinavian, 'free range' is a common phrase in our languages, that perhaps would be better translated into 'free to do X' in english, no idea.
For me his sentence was gramatically and semantically 100% perfect.
Game chat (Score:5, Interesting)
Actually, game-chat would probably be a good (for them) way to hide certain types of planning. I'm not saying it's true, but for a modern shooter or perhaps FPS, they could simply substitute "game" targets for real-life ones, and otherwise the conversation might sound much you would hear in some games.
OK, so sneak your infiltrator into the enemy Science Centre. There will be about 3 guards in positions X, Y, and Z. Group B will take them out, then you delivery the package by 14:00. Meanwhile group C enter the mass relay by 13:50, and take out all present. Group A will attempt to take out enemy power infrastructure and cause confusion at 13:30.
Maybe some of it would sound like weird BS, but would *you* suspect that some of the weird guys in CoD were actually plotting nefarious things in real life? Some of the shit that trolls said might be a good cover too, as most sane people either mute them or just ignore it. As a mid-level gamer I'm not sure I could tell the difference between a real-life nutball and the online nutball variety.
Re:Game chat (Score:5, Funny)
I'm not saying it's true, but for a modern shooter or perhaps FPS, they could simply substitute "game" targets for real-life ones, and otherwise the conversation might sound much you would hear in some games.
Heh. I've never heard anyone use in-game chat like that. The closest I've ever encountered was someone strategizing how to violate another player's mother.
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Re:Game chat (Score:5, Interesting)
You do actually have a point. Trying out Metal Gear Online with a couple of friends a week ago, I found myself stopping to think about just how dodgy our conversation would sound taken out of context. Hell, I remember conversations from my Counter-Strike days about where best to plant the bomb and how quickly we should be aiming to rush to the nuke. If the NSA really are listening in on everything we do on a "keyword" basis, then the average online game must be a hilariously massive flood of false positives for them.
A kind of steganography (Score:4, Interesting)
This makes complete sense. It's kind of a steganography, putting their data in where it can't be separated out easily or flagged because it blends in with the rest of it.
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You don't even need to use the itself to plan out attacks. The nature of some games is probably enough to make sorting out idle chatter from terrorist planning difficult, particularly if the intent is to gather evidence to apprehend people.
While intelligence agencies may act as though they are above the law, and they certainly twist the law to serve their purposes, they are ultimately accountable to the law. Making the wrong interpretation of chatter and having it end up in front of a judge would create m
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Ye olde' "hide in plain sight" strategy, like classified ads in days of yore.
Game chat is monitored (I wrote some code for the monitors to kick/ban players) and of course anybody playing the game can see it.
It's rather amusing to think that somewhere at the CIA and other intelligence agencies, there is probably a room full of PS4s running all of the online games.
It's been reported that a few years ago, some government agency bought a large quantity of PS3s. Speculation was it was to take advantage of their
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Since I've never played an online game - and only about 15 minutes in my life with an offline console before I decided to put it back into the raffle - this might be wrong. But can anyone join an online game, or can the person who sets up the game choose who to allow to play? If the latter, then the terrorists only need to carry the address of the game server, their user name and
Freedom vs Terrorists (Score:3)
Terrorists have attacked again. Drop your freedoms and bend over.
Do-it-themselves (Score:4, Insightful)
Why would any sane terrorist use any sort of service run by someone else? That just makes them vulnerable. Any sort of PC, install Linux and set up their own private XMPP server, instant fully-encrypted communications without leaving any logs or other traces on anyone else's systems where the authorities could get access to them. And with the authorities' current focus on social media it adds the additional layer of security of not being where anyone's looking for them to be. Geesh, I think government officials have been reading too many best-seller spy novels and listening to too few tech geeks.
White noise channel (Score:2)
Re:Do-it-themselves (Score:5, Interesting)
Why would any sane terrorist use any sort of service run by someone else? That just makes them vulnerable. Any sort of PC, install Linux and set up their own private XMPP server, instant fully-encrypted communications without leaving any logs or other traces on anyone else's systems where the authorities could get access to them. And with the authorities' current focus on social media it adds the additional layer of security of not being where anyone's looking for them to be. Geesh, I think government officials have been reading too many best-seller spy novels and listening to too few tech geeks.
It is counter intuitive, but encryption can actually make you more visible. NSA eavesdropping or not, the vast majority of people communicating on the internet still does not bother with encryption or uses something the NSA is known to be able to crack like HTTPS (well up to a point anyway). So if you are looking for a bunch of terrorist, start tracking the flow of encrypted signals traffic coming out of the Middle East starting with countries like Turkey, Lebanon, Jordan that are adjacent to Syria/Iraq and start with the most heavily encrypted traffic because that's most likely their boss relaying his orders and then just wait to see where the encrypted data ends up. You don't necessarily have to crack the messages just see where they end up. Once you know that you can start scratching the recipients off your list one by one. The FBI has caught blackmailers and hackers this way, they were the only ones generating heavily encrypted comms in some area. This kind of signals intelligence analysis is also why Al Qaeda resorted to using couriers carrying encrypted USB keys which worked pretty well for Bin Laden until he finally got sloppy after 11 years of successfully staying off the radar.
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Why would any sane terrorist use any sort of service run by someone else? That just makes them vulnerable. Any sort of PC, install Linux and set up their own private XMPP server, instant fully-encrypted communications without leaving any logs or other traces on anyone else's systems where the authorities could get access to them....
Will you be happy if they follow your advice and become untraceable?
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That requires technological know-how that is apparently hard to get.
From what I've read recently, one of the main reason authorities are surprised by the attack is that the making of a suicide bombing vest that explodes only when the wearer wants it to is already a sophisticated technological challenge and the people who can do it are highly valued within the terror organisations.
That makes me think setting up your own communications network is not necessarily as easy for them as it seems.
Re:Do-it-themselves (Score:4, Insightful)
More to the point, setting up a secure communications network requires technological know-how. While almost everyone uses some form of encrypted communications, very few people have the means to assess how secure those communications are. The end result is that the whole system is based upon trust. We trust that the underlying encryption algorithms are secure. We trust that the software that implements those algorithms is secure. We trust that the people who generate certificates are trustworthy. We trust that the means of distributing and verifying certificates is secure. We trust that everyone in the chain knows what they are doing so that a simple misconfiguration doesn't diminish the value of the whole system. And that is before you consider malice.
Create your own network, and red flags are raised. The people responsible for investigating those networks are going to look at each potential weakness in the chain, and exploit them if they can.
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Terrorists have tried to develop their own encryption systems before. "Asrar" is one that I vaguely recall. They all suck and can be broken almost immediately by any professional cryptanalyst on the back on a napkin.
As skilled cryptographers are very rare and tend not to be the type of people who think blowing things up is a good plan, this means they more or less have to use western developed products. Moreover if they do find "Islamic" encryption apps on the net it's often unclear if they were really prod
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Why would any sane terrorist
Ha!
Geesh, I think government officials have been reading too many best-seller spy novels and listening to too few tech geeks.
Tech Geeks aren't terrorists; as geeks, we can tell you how to set up a perfect system, but the terrorists will use what they use, and maybe for their purposes, their system works better. It's quite likely the terrorists are also reading spy novels instead of consulting with the nerds.
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OK, I get your point. Terrorists are - from your point of view - insane.
So, let's substitute "professional mercenary who is hired by a terrorist organisation" and now you can deal with the problem of sane people performing terrorist attacks without getting distracted by questions of their sanity.
In fact, your assertion of insanity in terrorists is flat out wrong. They are people who disagree with you over the meaning of the word "immoral". Things which you consider to be im
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Excellent points.
I don't think sanity is an objective measurement. If I thought someone needed to be put to death for their actions, I'd think you're insane for not killing them. Your (in)actions in this case, would, to me, seem irrational, and to use the contested word, insane.
For this particular case, we might love to see a good Linux install for perfect encrypted communication, but for someone about to die in a blaze of glory in a couple days, this probably isn't their biggest concern. I think most peopl
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Communicating isnt the problem (Score:2)
Communicating plans to commit evil deeds isnt the problem, its actually carrying them out that is the problem. In fact the more people these extremists communicate with about there plans the more likely someone will be able to talk them out of it.
But i guess the politicians will bring in more extreme laws in an effort to make people free of extremists....
What a waffle (Score:2)
N/T
too stupid for words (Score:2)
Why is such crap even given airplay?
Oh joy! (Score:3)
Have we found a way to tack yet another shooting on games. I'm impressed, I thought you couldn't steer this one towards the bad, evil games of murder, but leave it to our politicians to find a way.
Battlefront... (Score:2)
Sounds like some police just want an excuse to buy some Playstation 4's just prior to Star Wars battlefront coming out...
"Sorry sarge, we're too busy today 'monitoring' Playstation 4 to do any other work, I'm afraid we'll probably be at it pretty constantly for the immediate future..."
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Re:for the love of god (Score:5, Funny)
You're far more likely to die by slipping in your bathtub.
That's because your bathtub is designed by terrorists
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Re:for the love of god (Score:5, Insightful)
You seem to have forgotten that the Internet spans the entire world. And that many /. readers are not from the USA.
while I agree that the news coverage on the subject is often a bit excessive in some regards I strongly disagree with your apparent position that the 127 people who died in France yesterday and the hundreds of others who die every month elsewhere in the world don't matter because they are not American.
and FYI I am an American, I just have a broader world view than you have demonstrated.
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As a European, thank you.
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You seem to have forgotten that the Internet spans the entire world. And that many /. readers are not from the USA.
while I agree that the news coverage on the subject is often a bit excessive in some regards I strongly disagree with your apparent position that the 127 people who died in France yesterday and the hundreds of others who die every month elsewhere in the world don't matter because they are not American.
and FYI I am an American, I just have a broader world view than you have demonstrated.
I concur with your views and position on war deaths.
#youhavenogod (Score:2)
You're an inhuman little douchepot. You don't give a damn about terrorisim unless it involves the death of Americans? #frenchlivesdon'tmatter #britishlivesdon'tmatter #onlyamericanlivesmatter #i'mafuckingxenophobewhocaresfornooneoutsidemycozylittleworld #jewishlivesdon'tmatter #ragheadlivesdon'tmatter #onlydouchebagslikemematter
Re:for the love of god (Score:5, Insightful)
can we get 1 article not about terrorism? Something like 30 Americans have died from terrorism in the past 5 years. You're far more likely to die by slipping in your bathtub. The news coverage on terrorism is INSANELY blown out of proportion. I'd be fine not seeing another one for the rest of this decade.
At least this article has a technical angle, albeit a strange one. Throughout history entities have sought to keep their communications secret. At times obscurity was the order of the day, at other times cryptography was the method of choice, and sometimes a combination of the two are used.
Now that it's pointed out I'm not all that surprised that this kind of Internet-based medium would be used; it's specialized enough to be easily overlooked and given the nature of what's said on gaming systems during gameplay that there might not be much desire on the part of the operator of the proprietary system to monitor or even log communications. Of course, a downside, playing devil's advocate, is that if the operator of the system is logging, even if only to be able to address abuse after the fact, they might be able to comb through communications and uncover the participants, their IP addresses and possibly a degree of geolocation, plus any discussed plots including those that might not have been carried-out.
One of the things that kind of bothers me is that in this era of so much spying, including the very likely state of warrantless surveillance, that we've had high profile examples where that questionable system has failed. We had a fake expert on terrorism that lied about his credentials for many years. We've had cases of American domestic terrorism and mass-shootings that were publicized in advance by the shooters that were not uncovered or stopped. We've had cases of international terrorism in Western nations that were not uncovered. Clearly this spying is not only questionable in its legitimacy, but it's not even effective. Proponents can't claim that all of this spying on us, all of this expense and the chilling effects of known surveillance aren't even making us safer, so it's a net-negative.
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Re: for the love of god (Score:2)
IMHO the mass surveillance is just to line someone's pockets. It doesn't work, nobody is listening before or after the facts. They might find how they communicated but unless Facebook or Google kept track of it, the government sure as hell didn't or can't find it.
So it is basically a method of siphoning tax money towards companies and developers and since nobody cares or is listening it doesn't matter to our 'rights' whether or not they do it.
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tl;dr
People die, therefore doctors are useless. Crimes happen, therefore police are useless. People post illogical fallacious crap on the internet, therefore whoever taught you logic is useless.
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First, he didn't say it was useless, but to address your logic argument: if doctors just collected medical knowledge, but never helped helped anyone, then I'd consider them useless. If police logged all crime in a big data center but did nothing to stop it, then I'd consider them useless. Same for mass surveillance. If you collect terabytes of crap in a big data warehouse, but can only find information that would stop attacks in retrospect, that's useless.
I don't know how useful mass surveillance is, but fr
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You prefer 3D printing and uber?
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4) Could there be bitcoin on other planets, and is it being used to fund a replacement for systemd? If so what are the implications for you, the hard-working CIO?
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"For the love of god, can we get 1 article not about terrorism?"
The terrorism _was_ for the love of god.
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"Something like 30 Americans have died from terrorism in the past 5 years. You're far more likely to die by slipping in your bathtub. The news coverage on terrorism is INSANELY blown out of proportion. I'd be fine not seeing another one for the rest of this decade."
So how do you breathe under all that sand?
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And whats the odds of being forced into an style of life you don't wish for yourself in the next 10 years or so?
Re: for the love of god (Score:2)
>Anyhoo, France already sent their aircraft carrier east. Now there will be even more resolve to roll ISIS up.
You mean more Western bombs falling in the Middle East? How else can we a actively fund their recruiting efforts?
.
SHALL WE PLAY A GAME?
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I don't think "NOT PLAYING" is a valid option here. This is not two nuclear superpowers fighting each other, this is nuclear-capable countries fighting individual terrorists cells all over the place, hidden in the population.
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Yeah, because outlawing encryption and total surveillance of communication already did such a wonderful job we have to up the ante now.
How, I'd ask?
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Any open society can be penetrated by terrorists. Making western countries work like the terrorists' own hellholes is not a solution. You have to blast the terrorists at home and take away their funding sources for international operations. In this case that would mean carpeting ISIS territory with fuel-air bombs and sacking Saudi Arabia. It's the only way to be sure.
Re:for the love of god (Score:5, Funny)
Indeed. The French have perfected a method for reducing - or even totally avoiding - this risk.
According to the Australians, the Brits aren't far behind.
Re: Republicans hate Sony... (Score:1)
They're too stupid to play video games. Too stupid to play video games.
Re: Republicans hate Sony... (Score:1)
Which is why I'm glad Clinton has worked so hard to protect video games.
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That's dumb. If I don't listen the first time, I won't hear you the second time. Around about the third time, I'm thinking about putting a primer on the old reliable muzzle loader, and blasting away at the broken record. *
* You younger puppies ** probably don't remember vinyl records, which would sometimes crack, then send the needle into a repetitive loop in one groove.
** I love sadpuppies and rabidpuppies
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* You younger puppies ** probably don't remember vinyl records, which would sometimes scratch, then fail to move the needle from one groove.
Who doesn't remember vinyl?
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Is there an actual embargo on the video games? During the 1990s there was some concern with Iraq getting hold of a bunch of PS2s (I think they were) and clustering them together to make a supercomputer. I imagine the fears were unfounded but I seem to recall they'd actually ordered a whole ton of them and had them shipped to their country.
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It had to be later than the 90's because the PS2 didn't come out until 2000. That said I think the USAF did cluster a bunch of PS2's together for some reason, although now I can't find a reference to that. In 2010 the USAF did make a PS3 cluster for analyzing satellite imagery.
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Considering God, Jahwe and Allah are all names for the same deity, yes, the two are indeed equivalent.