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Edited by Mrph1 on Nov 30th 2023 at 11:03:59 AM
Jupiterian Local
The Supreme Court has ruled that isolated human genes cannot be patented.
Oh, good, SCOTUS is sane at least some of the time.
edited 13th Jun '13 1:32:32 PM by Fighteer
"It's Occam's Shuriken! If the answer is elusive, never rule out ninjas!"Of course it's illegal! If it were legal, it wouldn't be civil disobedience! And internet vigilantism is not necessarily incompatible with civil disobedience, either.
It's a form of terrorism, deathpigeon. Let's not mince words. It has nothing to do with civil disobedience, because it's not "disobeying" the thing it's attacking. It may be done for a noble purpose, but it's no more inherently noble than is throwing bombs or rioting in the streets.
edited 13th Jun '13 2:11:10 PM by Fighteer
"It's Occam's Shuriken! If the answer is elusive, never rule out ninjas!"FISA almost never turns down a request. One of the main criticisms of it is that it operates as a rubber stamp body. Of course, the public is not party to those hearings so that criticism can neither be confirmed nor denied. I find that unsettling.
And the fact that it is subject to government oversight is ultimately irrelevant to me. If my concern is that the government is overstepping it's bounds, then why would I trust the government to self-moderate? It amounts to someone saying "Even though I have a history of violating the law and the principles of civil rights in the name of security, take my word for it: I'm not doing that this time."
Gathering information that is not immediately available to the public without probable cause is a severe change in precedent. That they won't look at it (so they say) until they have a warrant (which they are almost never refused) is a level of trust I see absolutely no reason to have.
"FISA almost never turns down a request." That could just as easily be because there aren't that many illegitimate requests. You're right that we can't know because the deliberation isn't public, but that's what Congressional oversight is supposed to handle. The program is supposed to be secret because they don't want to alert the people being investigated. That's the whole point.
Do police announce warrants in the newspaper prior to executing them? No, because it would alert the targets of the warrants. Similar principle. (And yes, I recognize that the process is transparent after the fact. Doesn't change the basic point.)
edited 13th Jun '13 2:17:41 PM by Fighteer
"It's Occam's Shuriken! If the answer is elusive, never rule out ninjas!"...The fuck? How the fuck is that terrorism? Terrorism, to define it colloquially, is violence against civilians in order to achieve a political end with the intent of the killing causing terror. Webster defines it as "the systematic use of terror especially as a means of coercion" [1]
. Oxford defines it as "the unofficial or unauthorized use of violence and intimidation in the pursuit of political aims" [2]
. Dictionary.com defines it as "the use of violence and threats to intimidate or coerce, especially for political purposes" [3]
. Under none of those definitions is a DDoS attack ever terrorism. So what definition are you using? How the fuck is that terrorism?
A DDoS attack is electronic warfare: violence against a computer system's owners and users. It causes disruption of the system's proper function, potentially jeopardizing commerce and/or safety. It damages the victim, both in terms of the above disruption and in terms of the costs of remediating and protecting against the attack. It diminishes confidence in the usability of the system.
DDoS attacks are often a form of extortion: Give me something I want or I'll make your system unusable. As such, they are intended to create fear in the victim: fear that their systems can be made unusable at any time with no recourse other than to do what the attacker wishes.
In short, they are violence for the purpose of creating fear, in order to achieve a desired political or economic outcome.
"It's Occam's Shuriken! If the answer is elusive, never rule out ninjas!"That definition is too general.
Using almost the exact same definition, boycotts are also terrorism.
A boycott is economic warfare: violence against a business's owners and users. It causes disruption of the business's proper function, potentially jeopardizing commerce and/or safety. It damages the victim, both in terms of the above disruption and in terms of the costs of remediating and protecting against the boycott. It diminishes confidence in the usability of the business.
Boycotts are often a form of extortion: Give me something I want or I'll make your business unsuccessful. As such, they are intended to create fear in the victim: fear that their business can be made unsuccessful at any time with no recourse other than to do what the attacker wishes.
That said, I strongly disagree that one should DDOS the government. Seems like it can only end badly. I just think your definition of terrosism far too vague.
Then I guess the 9/11 attack against the Pentagon doesn't count as Terrorism, or the numerous times British Forces were attacked during The Troubles, or IEDs in Afghanistan and Iraq?
edited 13th Jun '13 2:43:47 PM by Greenmantle
Keep Rolling On9/11 counts because civilian aircraft was used, don't know enough about the troubles to make a claim for that one, and civilians are often often caught in IE Ds. I haven't checked the statistic in a while but last I remembera significant hunk of IED casualties are civilian.
"Give me what I want or I'll make your system unusable" is a perfect description of the '60s bus boycotts in Alabama. And Gandhi's March to the Sea. And the Velvet Revolution. And the People Power Revolution in the Phillipines.
That said, DDOS seems like a poor approach. I mean, getting into a hardware and software war with the guys who have Pentagon R&D on speed dial? I think setting up shadow networks and noncompliant email cooperatives with the best encryption the script kiddies can manage would be a better approach.
EDIT: Shut up Bill Maher.
edited 13th Jun '13 3:02:12 PM by RadicalTaoist
Share it so that people can get into this conversation, 'cause we're not the only ones who think like this.Boycotts exercise a consumer's right to not purchase a good or service. Of course it's harmful to the company so affected, but to equate that to vandalism or terrorism is to say that companies have a right to compel people to buy from them, which is absurd.
Hacking and DoS attacks, on the other hand, are deliberate attempts to render the business, organization, or whatever unusable by anyone. You can protest outside a Wal-Mart or refuse to shop there, but you can't block the entrance, board up the doors, cut its electrical wires, steal its merchandise, etc.
edited 13th Jun '13 4:55:47 PM by Fighteer
"It's Occam's Shuriken! If the answer is elusive, never rule out ninjas!"I think equating a DDOS attack to terrorism is... well, retarded. To put it mildly.
Obnoxious, yes. Illegal against certain parties and when you do it at a certain magnitude? Yes. Terrorism? No.
I think that what needed to happen did happen, by leaking this, regardless of what comes, Snowden opened the door to a nationwide conversation about this topic. That's a good thing. Regardless of any details that affect PRISM itself, PRISM is just one program. The real effects of this event are going to be an open and national dialogue on internal security and espionage, and what the American People define as acceptable. I feel that's a good thing.
rollin' on dubs
x-posted from the mil-thread:
White House: Syria crosses 'red line' with use of chemical weapons on its people
Washington (CNN) — Syria has crossed a 'red line' with its use of chemical weapons, including the nerve agent sarin gas, against rebels, a move that is prompting the United States to increase the "scale and scope" of its support for the opposition, the White House said Thursday.
CNN.com, foxnews.com
has a similar story.
wsj.com:
U.S. Stepping Up 'Military Support' to Syrian Rebels
WASHINGTON—President Barack Obama authorized his administration to provide arms to rebels fighting Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, officials briefed on the decision said Thursday, after the White House said it had confirmed that Damascus used chemical weapons in the country's civil war.
So, what are the odds that SOG and other such task forces will be working in Syria now?
Share it so that people can get into this conversation, 'cause we're not the only ones who think like this.In other news:
Ralph Nader Slams Obama Again: ‘Has There Ever Been A Bigger Con Man In White House?’
edited 13th Jun '13 6:43:35 PM by DeviantBraeburn
Everything is Possible. But some things are more Probable than others. JEBAGEDDON 2016
