"Flame could only have been developed with the backing of a wealthy nation-state"
Further to other people's comments here; Has anyone seen an estimated cost to produce something like Flame or Stuxnet?
Crypto breakthrough shows Flame was designed by world-class scientists
121–128 of 128 posts
Re: Crypto breakthrough shows Flame was designed by world-class scientists
#122Hmm... if only there was some sort of National Security Agency that employed cryptographers so we'd know about these things first and could protect us from these attacks.
The NSA employs more mathematicians than any other organization. Source: http://www.nsa.gov/research/tech_transfer/advanced_math/inde...
Does anyone have any idea what kind of salary a mathematician in NSA can expect? Unfortunately I'm not a US citizen, so I cannot apply, but I'd like to compare it to what they would pay me in my home country.
Re: Crypto breakthrough shows Flame was designed by world-class scientists
#123Earlier quoted context omitted.
We like to separate the citizens and the government, but I don't think this is the case. For most of the citizens, loyal muslims etc, that's exactly how they want to live. Western media just overplays dissidents and people that talk to our "sentiments". Insignificant opposition parties and small protests are elevated to the level of mass popular protest. If the situation was reversed, imagine what other countries wou…
Downvotes? Because of disagreeing? Very democratic. It amazes that people believe that the people of such a country like Iran do not want to live in a religious muslim state and are "forced" by the government. And it amuses me, because, you have an example right in your backyard: the "middle america" has tens of millions of people that want to live in a Christian state, with no evolution teaching in schools, no abort…
"Downvotes? Because of disagreeing?"
No, because of polluting what is generally a rational place of discussion with ludicrous extremist propaganda and general idiocy.
Re: Crypto breakthrough shows Flame was designed by world-class scientists
#124Earlier quoted context omitted.
We like to separate the citizens and the government, but I don't think this is the case. For most of the citizens, loyal muslims etc, that's exactly how they want to live. Western media just overplays dissidents and people that talk to our "sentiments". Insignificant opposition parties and small protests are elevated to the level of mass popular protest. If the situation was reversed, imagine what other countries wou…
Downvotes? Because of disagreeing? Very democratic. It amazes that people believe that the people of such a country like Iran do not want to live in a religious muslim state and are "forced" by the government. And it amuses me, because, you have an example right in your backyard: the "middle america" has tens of millions of people that want to live in a Christian state, with no evolution teaching in schools, no abort…
It is entirely appropriate to criticize Iran on its own merits. You can argue that it is hypocritical to do so, but it does nothing to mitigate the facts against the Iranian government, which are many. And while it is true that there are executions in Texas, a lack of rights for gays in the US, etc, you wouldn't want to try to argue that Iranians have it better...or would you?
Re: Crypto breakthrough shows Flame was designed by world-class scientists
#125"Flame could only have been developed by a wealthy nation-state" While I do agree that it was indeed developed by one, I'm not sure how it could only have been developed by one. Would it truly take massive levels of money to do or simply some smart, determined people?
There's also the combination of goals and benefits: it's easy to hypothesize a drug cartel or the Russian mafia having enough money to fund something - complicated by the percentage of top-notch crypto people who wouldn't work for an illegal organization - but it's hard to come up with a scenario where they'd be going after Iran rather than, say, compromising a few million credit cards.
Industrial espionage would be similar: hard to keep secret, fairly high risk and in most cases it'd be easier and more reliable just to take your megabucks and pay someone for whatever data you want. Why spend millions funding a big R&D team when you could just pay one of your target's sysadmins a million or two to get the data for sure?
Re: Crypto breakthrough shows Flame was designed by world-class scientists
#126Earlier quoted context omitted.
> And submarines and cell phone networks are pretty standard technologies, well understood,... But what about, well, drugs? Don't drug cartels employ chemists to refine old drugs and develop "better" ones?
Well understood also. It's not like they're doing cutting edge pharmaceutical drug research that takes mega scientists and billions in funding and very precise enzyme targeting, etc. They mostly iterate on known drugs to make their making cheaper / more addictive. And they can easily test on junkies (I presume).
I disagree. You're focusing on recreational drugs, but the performance drug market might be smaller but significantly richer.
During years EPO wasn't detectable by anti-doping testing. Correct me if I'm wrong but I think it requires cutting edge pharmaceutical drug research to avoid detection.
Re: Crypto breakthrough shows Flame was designed by world-class scientists
#127Earlier quoted context omitted.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Death_of_Neda_Agha-Soltan You are arguing a very weak position.
No, you're arguing from isolated facts presented in a sentimental package from mainstream media. Do you know how many deaths there have been in protests in the US? Like, say, the Kent State shootings, were police shot 4 students dead. Or all around the world, for that matter? There have been 2-3 killings by the British police in the last 2 years, they even beat a guy in wheelchair ( http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-11987…
> No, you're arguing from isolated facts
Ok, look man, I'm down with anyone who wants to say the US could do better. I could do better. You could do better. But a fact, always beats a strawman, which is what you presented previously. Because the reality is that the Iranian government killed a bunch of its own people and did their level best to suppress that information. Now you've switched from defending Iran to reaching back a generation to find something you can cite to prosecute the United States.
Just to add another fact, Here's a more comprehensive discussion of casualties in the protests where that Iranian lady died
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2009_Iranian_election_protests#...
My point stands: you are arguing from a very weak position. Further weakened by the fact that your thesis keeps moving around. If you're going take on the martyr's quest of defending an outrageous position, you can expect you're going to be expected to present an outragously good argument: all your shit in one bag, sewn up tight. If you're frustrated that people can come along and shoot holes in your argument with a sentence or two, maybe you could consider that as evidence that your argument may not ever hold water.
There's a great passage, I think it's TH White's Once and Future King, where Lancelot has a dream where he sees two armies of knights, white and black fighting. The white side is loosing, so he takes their side. And gets slaughtered. On waking, he is told: know what you're fighting for. Don't fight for the losing side just because they're losing.
Re: Crypto breakthrough shows Flame was designed by world-class scientists
#128Earlier quoted context omitted.
Thanks. Just to be clear, toxicology is pending. My gut says this is mental illness, not drugs, based on the perp's record. Also, I don't own a TV, don't watch TV, and get my news from friends and NPR. So I don't generally see much of this news-of-the-wierd. Thankfully, it appears.
I supplement my lack of TV news with a once-or-twice-daily visit to Drudge. It compresses all the utter lunacy down to one appropriately-ugly page and keeps me a couple days ahead of the GOP talking points at the same time.
I learned about this specific issue from people selling the Hornady Z-max anti-zombie ammunition, actually.