For the first part, I didn't say they were equivalent. I said it was the same criteria by which China and Snowden were criticized, not that the US was doing to all of its citizens all of the things that the US criticizes China for.
For the second, honest question: does published information actually retain its classification?
> My guess is that that info is still classified, even though it's public, and accessing it might be a technical violation for those without clearances.
What prevents people to use their 3G network to fetch up the article ? Public is public, it's too late for clearance.
So who the F can we trust? All those denials from everyone and now we see this, which I kinda suspected since Verizon was ordered to hand over the same for phone calls.
I am channeling grugq here. The answer is clearly stated in Biggie's 3rd Commandment of OPSEC:
Number 3: Never trust nobody
Your moms'll set that ass up, properly gassed up
Hoodied and masked up, shit, for that fast buck
She be laying in the bushes to light that ass up
I think that line pales in comparison, and that is being generous. Anyway, Carl Malamud was already using it for a different purpose: https://yeswescan.org/
That's pretty restrictive. I know a large number of scientists and computer programmers who believe the only thing you can trust are protocols and math, and they're usually completely unable to function outside of the narrow domain of their work.
I think a better philosophy is to trust that people will behave according to the incentives and information available to them. So if there is an organization out there, you can bet that it will act to expand the scope of the organizations' actions, because organizations that don't do this eventually get replaced by ones that do. If the organization is tasked with keeping tabs on all of America's adversaries, you can bet that they will see adversaries wherever possible to preserve a purpose for the organization.
> I would bet good money they already have working quantum computers, in which case current crypto may have quite a few problems.
Both statements in that sentence are ridiculous. Do you also wear a tin foil hat while having such thoughts?
First, quantum computing is one of those fields for which you need the brightest minds to solve it. Government jobs may still be attractive for researchers, but if they need to keep such developments a secret, it means they have to limit themselves to the people they can actually hire. This means their talent pool will be more limited than that of a company like Google, or a university like MIT, organizations that can always collaborate with whomever they want in the open, including foreign companies and universities. For building a practical quantum computer, they can have big budgets too, given that companies like Google are interested in machine learning, not to mention the pool of investors that would be dying to be a part of the next revolution. Some of the brightest minds we have worked on quantum computing already, in the open. The idea that a single country's government would be able to do a better job, in secret, is preposterous.
Second, quantum computing doesn't solve P = NP. The difficulty of brute-forcing AES-256 is only reduced to that of AES-128. It is something, but not much and that's only speaking about asymptotic complexity. Going from a feeble experiment in building a quantum computer to building farms of such computers to run distributed algorithms on them - well, I can assure you that farms of commodity hardware with capable GPUs will be used instead for a really long time.
It's not that unrealistic. Correct, it does not solve P = NP. It does, as another commenter pointed out, make it much faster (feasible) to reverse RSA by factorization.
Re: Recruiting. There are a _lot_ of very bright minds working for the government. Don't forget that the government is willing to pay literally any price to get the talent they need, and say "we will give you unlimited resources to all materials, any budget, anything".
Investors look like a joke if you get paid a large sum and have unlimited resources. Often with TS technologies you can still declassify parts of your research for the public and co-author papers. This is the same thing we do when say, the M1 Abrams Tank. We will export everything except still-classified parts to foreign countries for sale.
There are 5 Nobel prize winners at NIST alone, 4 in physics and 1 in chemistry.
It may be true that you can't trust anyone in the abstract but practically speaking we need to be able to trust our government, to a point, with all sorts of powers and abilities.
Consensus mistrust of the government should worry us more than any particular capabilities it has.
Consensus mistrust? Did you just coin a new phrase or is that some new lingo the kids are saying these days? I have never heard it before and google was no help.
I think the issue here is not so much "trust" but "trust and verify." With a proper level of effective oversight it seems that things would be much different.
AP - The Official NSA Public Relations Organization
Yeah, Al Qaeda didn't know that NSA listens and reads to their communications. That's why Bin Laden used couriers to personally deliver thumbdrives and had no telephone or internet.
It's amazing that the AP would so eagerly accept these anonymous government officials' stories after they were specifically targeted by the FBI, what was it, a month ago?
Why grant these people anonymity, when all they're doing is spouting out government-serving platitudes with zero evidence or justification for keeping their identities secret?
True, but it would likely be impractical to use couriers to communicate between Al Qaeda H.Q. to any Al Qaeda cells in the U.S., or even in an adjacent country.
It's their site and all but as a business they should be more inclusive. Ironic since billions of people are (at least nominally) Christian and most probably observe or note Easter.
From what I've gathered, they've never really "doodled" anything that could remotely resemble a religion in the event that it looks like they endorse or favor it over others. Cesar Chavez was a civil rights activist akin to MLK or Gandhi so it seems pretty apt that they'd honor him in a doodle.
EDIT: Looks like I was wrong about religious-based doodles. But it still stands that they don't have to pander to a certain segment of the population (especially a major one) on an annual basis. Personally, I feel the doodles are more about educating and informing. I often come across doodles that represent some person or thing that I had no idea about before and find myself clicking on the doodle and the subsequent links it pulls up as part of the search. Seems like it's not always about celebrating the most commonly known ideas/people.
In fact, having already done Easter was part of their response to this "controversy" -- there were two subjects for the same day, so they picked the one they hadn't already featured.
They doodle Christmas, saint Valentine's day, and all saints eve every year. Easter is the only commercialized Christian holiday they don't cover every year.
How does highlighting Chavez (the American farm worker advocate, not the Venezuelan ex-president) slight Christians? Heck, Cesar Chavez himself was Catholic.
So you can't even say they've ignored the holiday, just that they prefer to highlight different ones from year to year (with exceptions presumably due to internal popularity or artists' personal predilections).
(Sorry for wasting thread space on this old, off-topic, manufactured controversy.)
Invariably when you hear about a "war on Christianity" in first world countries, the topic is a manufactured non-issue. It never stops, and logic plays no part in it.
I don't think it is a talking point outside of the US (if it is, I have not been exposed to it), but people in the US do like to point out what they perceive as "a war on christianity" in other countries.
If the country in question is, I don't know, Cambodia, perhaps that is true (no idea if it is or not). But if the American christian fundamentalists are claiming that there is a war on christianity in England or France, then they are without doubt full of shit.
It seems like there is a certain brand of christian fundamentalist in America that really wants to think that the Romans are still tossing them to lions or something. They find that idea vindicating perhaps, I don't know. I don't get it.
You know what would be inclusive? Acknowledging that not everybody is Christian, and being OK with the Google home page celebrating something other than your Christian holidays on occasion.
You know what would be inclusive? Acknowledging that not everybody is Christian, and being OK with the Google home page celebrating something other than your Christian holidays on occasion.
You know what would be inclusive? Acknowledging that not everybody is for Gay Marriage, and being OK with the Google home page celebrating something other than your pro-Gay Marriage ruling.
Personally I am barely a "believer" and don't oppose gay marriage but your argument made no sense. No doubt you can find people opposing Mandela, Mother Teresa and even Einstein, so no doodles for them to be inclusive?
Not everyone supports gay marriage and not all opinions are deserving of the same amount of respect. It's OK for companies like Google to have the courage to have an opinion.
This is an issue of direct relevance to many of those that work at Google. I think it's fine for corporations to take a stand on social issues that directly affect their employees.
The problem isn't with companies having opinions, even political ones. There are opinions I disagree with, but am OK with companies having. And then there are opinions of a lower quality, like those that are hateful and based on superstition. To those, I object.
I think what we should understand is corporate tries really hard to be socially acceptable (some of the ways are marketing themselves as champions of women rights, equal opportunities, LGBT community supporters). It is up to them as to what stand they want to take on a matter. It would be even more courageous if they take the opposite stand on this particular matter precisely because people would howl, cry and do what not.
You are being obtuse; Einstein, Mandela, and gay marriage are not religious topics. I would expect that they would tread lightly around Mother Teresa, being not only a religious figure but a particularly controversial one (read: accusations of human rights issues. Proper heavyweight controversy.)
I'm not saying "omitting Easter is inclusive because not everyone is Christian". I'm saying allowing Easter to be overshadowed by something else occasionally is inclusive. If it has to be about you every time, year after year, that's not inclusive.
Google has had a front page logo for many christian celebration days, like Christmas. Given this, you're acting incredibly entitled by hijacking a thread for your pet issue to complain about a rainbow color around the search box for a specific search term. Google is already giving much much more attention to Christianity than to gay marriage, but you demand more.
There's also no agreement on a name for the Christian holiday celebrating the resurrection of Jesus. Most of my Orthodox friends call it "Pascha" (and set its date based on the Julian calendar), and my Messianic friends consider it part of the larger "Pesach" (or "Passover" when they decide to communicate it in English). Some simply call it "Resurrection Sunday".
Just going to throw this out there but I think it would be really cool if they DID include a Ramadan doodle...
I'm a Christian and I think it's cool when I see a religious and non-Christian theme. It helps to make me more aware of other religions and their holidays. You may think that's strange for a Christian, but it isn't actually. Just strange for the ones you hear from in the media.
>> So what? Islam has 1.5 billion "members" and I don't recall any special Ramadan doodles.
Not sure if they are any doodles for Mohammed or Ramadan in Arabic and largely Muslim countries but I don't see why they should be any in countries where Islam barely registers. That applies to any other religion of course. Google would be insane to put a Christmas doodle in Pakistan, Indonesia or Saudi Arabia for example. Local sensitivities should apply.
>>In short: not everything is about Jesus. Hopefully, this trend will continue.
Like I said, this is Google's page but simply because they did it doesn't mean it's the right thing to do. Google surely loves to take boatload of adwords money for Easter and Christmas. Why do they respect local sensitivities when it comes to making money?
> Not sure if they are any doodles for Mohammed or Ramadan in Arabic and largely Muslim countries but I don't see why they should be any in countries where Islam barely registers
OTOH, why not? Spreading knowledge is usually a good thing...
As long as <non-local-religious/cultural-event X> doesn't conflict with something local, and isn't the sort of thing that raises local hackles (a few things do; most things, not really), why not show it, and teach some people a little thing about another culture...?
Can you imagine the righteous Christian indignation and uproar that would ensue if Google ever turned down money from some Christian advertiser on the basis you suggest?
These numbers are highly exaggerated. For example, the largest christian church has more than 1 billion members (member=baptized) and I don't think that currently there is any way of officially leaving the church after being baptized...
The right of apostasy is considered part of the ICCPR treaty[1], so it should be respected by all the parties. At least here in Portugal, you have the right to demand they stop using you in statistics and such.
Of course, most people don't bother even if they aren't actually religious, so the Church still claims 80% of us are Catholic, even though many don't even get married in a religious ceremony anymore, much less attend mass.
They have done the Easter Bunny before, Easter egg hunts and suchlike. They just didn't do it this year. They don't mark gay pride every year either, that I'm aware of.
There hasn't been an Easter doodle since 2000. The doodle team goes to great lengths to avoid recognizing people/subjects that are controversial (not that this is always successful)
Judging by what I have read, Pandora is not making much (if anything) so there's a limit on how much they can pay. Maybe the is not a feasible business model, or maybe someone else--other than the artist--is getting the lion share of the royalties.
It's clearly a feasible business model. They've survived a long time, and haven't bled out. With some strict cost cutting, they can probably break even, and that's more the problem.
To be a prospering model, rather than a struggling one, they might have to raise prices on customers while trying to hold royalty payments to a steady %.
The biggest potential threat to Pandora, other than the labels killing them with royalties, is Apple and Google.
I notice that the 4th Amendment doesn't factor into it.
The 4th doesn't really apply if you're talking about the war on [drugs, terrorism, child molesters, tax cheaters, file sharers] etc. etc. etc. We are always at war
I use mainly so I can search with Google. Without adblock, it's a nightmare on many searches, the first screen of my laptop is all ads (not including youtube, maps, Google local etc.
FSB, er KGB Jr quite able to add dozens of cameras in any room he may stay, or maybe they can tell by the sound the keys he presses, analyze the light the monitor releases or who the hell knows.
Of course they may briefly arrest him to check his status, and Igor on the other room is cloning his hard drives. Last resort they may blackmail him, go to hell /a USA prison or tell us the password.
Russia wins by copying his files and denying it. Espionage is alive and well, just last month a CIA officer was arrested allegedly trying to recruit agents for as much as $1 Mil a pop. The info Snowden has in his laptop is super valuable, why not have it?
My guess is that that info is still classified, even though it's public, and accessing it might be a technical violation for those without clearances.