I worked on the US drone program. The public should know what really goes on • Hacker News Board

Re: I worked on the US drone program. The public should know what really goes on

#461

Post by e12e » Mon, Dec 30, 2013, 7:51 PM UTC

jusben1369 wrote: post #112

We need to make sure we're not being manipulated. Here the Guardian is just serving up an emotional, unsubstantiated, one sided view of this discussion. I'm not sure how this is different to much of the chest beating I'd see on Fox News. I'm not here to argue for or against the drones. Just that if we pride ourselves on being educated and critical thinkers that we apply that to all sources of data we read. We all kno…

> We need to make sure we're not being manipulated. Here the Guardian is just serving up an emotional, unsubstantiated, one sided view of this discussion (...) > We all know war is hell.

Yes, but the drone attacks are unlawful systematic assasinations that are turning peace time living into hell. As there are no declared war zones (afaik, as I understand it the situation in Iraq is in a peculiar state of limbo, and there are presumably interventions in some of the civil wars that could be accepted as "wars", even if not decleared as such) were the US (or NATO) is involved.

So your comment is doing quite a bit of manipulation, itself -- accepting the use of leathal force against foreign civilian and paramilitary targets as equivalent with waging regular war.

I think history will show the push by the US in normalizing this type of terror to be a significant blow against the geneva conventions and agreement on the "rules of war" (which have never been followed to the letter, but have at least held the hope of bringing war criminals to justice and be used as a sound basis for refusing illegal orders).

I can't see how this stance by the US can't be used for justifying attacks on senators and lobbyists on US soil (for "their role in funding and facilitating illegal terrorist attacks against civilian targets").

Re: I worked on the US drone program. The public should know what really goes on

#462

Post by dragonwriter » Mon, Dec 30, 2013, 7:56 PM UTC

e12e wrote: post #461

jusben1369 wrote: post #112

We need to make sure we're not being manipulated. Here the Guardian is just serving up an emotional, unsubstantiated, one sided view of this discussion. I'm not sure how this is different to much of the chest beating I'd see on Fox News. I'm not here to argue for or against the drones. Just that if we pride ourselves on being educated and critical thinkers that we apply that to all sources of data we read. We all kno…

> We need to make sure we're not being manipulated. Here the Guardian is just serving up an emotional, unsubstantiated, one sided view of this discussion (...) > We all know war is hell. Yes, but the drone attacks are unlawful systematic assasinations that are turning peace time living into hell. As there are no declared war zones (afaik, as I understand it the situation in Iraq is in a peculiar state of limbo, and t…

> Yes, but the drone attacks are unlawful systematic assasinations that are turning peace time living into hell.

Its not peace time living. Its a war -- on which seems to be permanent and global, which is a problem, but a different one than you describe.

> As there are no declared war zones

Wars -- even the most formally declared ones -- rarely have declared zones. They have declared belligerents.

Re: I worked on the US drone program. The public should know what really goes on

#463

Post by pizza234 » Mon, Dec 30, 2013, 8:13 PM UTC

jeswin wrote: post #450

gnufied wrote: post #416

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>If some Chinese or Russian 'freedom' fighters decide to train militarily in US with the goal of toppling current govt of China/Russia and did actually cause deaths/damage in China/Russia, would US govt sit back and let them train in US? Probably not. The line of argument is so simplistic it boggles my mind. Lets get few facts straight: a. Goal of terrorists is not to topple US government. You can't draw parallels be…

"The line of argument is so simplistic it boggles my mind. Lets get few facts straight": 1. Operation cyclone: This was part of the cold war, both countries fought proxy wars across the world. The Soviet Union actively aided anti-american forces in other parts of the world. 2. Sure, everybody detests improper detentions (and killing, but I haven't seen much evidence). If a country is fighting home-grown terrorism wit…

It's very sad to see how the political/militarist propaganda is making an incredibly good job.

> The problem with the most common breed of terrorism is that it is entirely religiously motivated.

What's the religion supposed to be? Destruction of the USA? Do you think that terrorists target USA because it's written in their sacred books?

"Left to themselves, tyranny of the majority will soon ensue in those countries. Left to themselves, tyranny of the majority will soon ensue in those countries. Sure you could just let them take over and leave the problem to future generations"

There are many many countries with such regimes, and the majority of them is left to theirselves. Middle east countries are picked because they serve the political agenda.

Seriously, do you think that countries like Syria are the lucky ones which has been chosen to be "saved"?

And do you think that bombing a country will improve the situation? Hint: it won't.

Re: I worked on the US drone program. The public should know what really goes on

#464

Post by sejje » Mon, Dec 30, 2013, 9:47 PM UTC

alepper wrote: post #134

classicsnoot wrote: post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

7000000000 300000000 I never got passed pre-algebra, but i am having a hard time getting to 4%. I fully acknowledge i am shit at maths, but i would love an explanation (completely serious; i have heard this "4%" malarkey a few times now). I know these numbers are estimations at best, but they seem accepted so: >China: 1.3-1.5 billions >India: 1.3-1.4 billions >EU: 400 millions >US: 400 millions >sum total, all nation…

300,000,000 / 7,000,000,000 = 3 / 70, or a little less than half (3.5 / 70) of 10% (7 / 70). About 4%.

Or: 300,000,000 / 7,000,000,000 = 0.04285714285

4.28%

Re: I worked on the US drone program. The public should know what really goes on

#465

Post by dchichkov » Mon, Dec 30, 2013, 10:05 PM UTC

im3w1l wrote: post #397

dchichkov wrote: post #369

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Actually you are sort of wrong in both cases. Because a) drone is moving; b) drone can take multiple pictures; c) multiple drones can take pictures simultaneously. In case of multiple drones taking pictures, these can be synchronized using GPS time, down to a microsecond. And knowing the GPS coordinates of each drone you can recover the image. Pretty much with arbitrary quality. (& If you are really good at it and th…

>I can point you to some fancy research in computer vision, that allows you to do just that. Please do

Oh. I've tried finding that exact publication - they took a video of a city scene with dense fog/clouds in the background. If you'd play the video you couldn't see any shapes through the fog. At all. But after passing the whole video through reconstruction/de-noising, they've been able to recover the background (you could see s mountain, instead of dense fog).

It is not surprising and it's a pretty standard result actually. Can be called by different names (sparse sensing, denoising, superresolution, ...) and done by different methods (BP, LASSO, ...), but it always comes down to having a model (with some priors, e.g sparsity prior!) and using that model to re-project the data from your measurement projection into the projection of some interest to you.

I have no idea at what level you are, so I'd suggest this very well presented lecture (1 hour total): Compressed Sensing by Terence Tao http://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLC94A02A1218B24DF if you want to learn more. Examples of image recovery are in the part 5, part 6.

Re: I worked on the US drone program. The public should know what really goes on

#466

Post by macspoofing » Mon, Dec 30, 2013, 11:52 PM UTC

melling wrote: post #109

macspoofing wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Lots of "wrong people" get killed in all wars. What war are we in currently?!

Are you playing the we never declared war game? We didn't declare war in Korea either. It was the Korean Conflict. Anyway, let's try not to run into the weeds playing games. It adds no value to the conversation.

>Are you playing the we never declared war game?

Maybe. The 'declared war game' has several nice properties:

1) It provides a definite start and end to hostilities. 2) Clearly identifies a target. 3) Has relatively clear rules of war, especially with regards to treatment of POWs and civilians.

You don't want to play that game. Ok. So what are we left with?! We have not-really-POWs at Guantanamo. We drone-strike targets in Pakistan, Afghanistan, and apparently Yemen. There is no clarity around who the targets are, why they are targeted, who sentences them to death and what the procedure is, how long this will last, and any other information that would introduce some sort of accountability. Just a few weeks ago, a wedding convoy was mistakenly targeted and 17 innocent people died. Clearly there was some MASSIVE lapse in intelligence. Worse, why is a convoy EVER targeted given that more than likely most convoy-travelers are either innocent or not-deserving of a death sentence even if a known terrorist is among them. So...why did this happen? who was responsible for the 'mishap'? what was done to make sure this doesn't happen again? Who was fired/disciplined/court-marshaled?

Re: I worked on the US drone program. The public should know what really goes on

#467

Post by macspoofing » Mon, Dec 30, 2013, 11:55 PM UTC

kevinpet wrote: post #171

macspoofing wrote: post #86

The entire concept of targeted drone assassinations is so surreal. Executing a convict in the US civilian court system requires a trial with a high-burden of proof, and the convict is afforded multiple appeals before the sentence is carried out. But in this case all it takes for the state to execute a suspect is the interpretation of some mid-level analyst. More perplexing, there are no qualms around civilian collate…

> In what universe is striking a convoy carrying a suspect but also carrying innocent (or even if not innocent, not deserving a death sentence) civilians, deemed acceptable? During war, as accepted by every politician going back to the dawn of civilization. On the plus side, for the past several hundred years, we've started to make efforts to minimize. > there are no qualms around civilian collateral damage. Really?…

>During war

What war?!

>That seems to be all anyone is talking about when it comes to drones.

Just a few weeks ago, a wedding convoy was mistakenly targeted and 17 innocent people died. Why is a convoy EVER targeted given that more than likely most convoy-travelers are either innocent or not-deserving of a death sentence even if a known terrorist is among them. That's what I meant. Furthermore, where is the accountability?! Who was disciplined for this MASSIVE intelligence failure?!

Re: I worked on the US drone program. The public should know what really goes on

#468

Post by dragonwriter » Mon, Dec 30, 2013, 11:56 PM UTC

macspoofing wrote: post #91

melling wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There you go again ck2. One of your classic comments. We used to napalm people. Lots of "wrong people" get killed in all wars. Flying in B-17's and B-52's was pretty ugly too, we just couldn't record the carnage on video. There's probably never going to be a war where innocent people aren't killed. Precision weapons probably kill fewer people but if you want a "clean" war, I don't think that's possible. The real solu…

>Lots of "wrong people" get killed in all wars. What war are we in currently?!

> What war are we in currently?!

The one initiated by the 9/11 attacks and declared by Congress via Pub.L. 107-40 (September 14, 2011)

Re: I worked on the US drone program. The public should know what really goes on

#469

Post by ultimatedelman » Tue, Dec 31, 2013, 12:48 AM UTC

sleepyK wrote: post #429

gnufied wrote: post #416

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>If some Chinese or Russian 'freedom' fighters decide to train militarily in US with the goal of toppling current govt of China/Russia and did actually cause deaths/damage in China/Russia, would US govt sit back and let them train in US? Probably not. The line of argument is so simplistic it boggles my mind. Lets get few facts straight: a. Goal of terrorists is not to topple US government. You can't draw parallels be…

Bravo! All human rights violations aside, what the US doesn't realize is that every new drone strike is creating new cadres for Al Qaeda and others to recruit from.

I may not think the same way as a terrorist, but if joining some "club" made a really powerful country with really advanced weaponry want to kill me, I would probably be disincentivized from joining said "club".

At first it may be like, "Screw those bastards for killing us! Let's try to get them back!" but then after watching basically everyone I know who is a part of this group I joined get killed without us really accomplishing anything, I'd probably think more along the lines of, "Yeah, I don't want to do this anymore."

Re: I worked on the US drone program. The public should know what really goes on

#470

Post by macspoofing » Tue, Dec 31, 2013, 12:50 AM UTC

dragonwriter wrote: post #468

macspoofing wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Lots of "wrong people" get killed in all wars. What war are we in currently?!

> What war are we in currently?! The one initiated by the 9/11 attacks and declared by Congress via Pub.L. 107-40 (September 14, 2011)

It wasn't a declaration of war. It was an authorization of military force against targets that that committed or aided in the 9/11 attacks.

Using this Act almost 15 years later to justify drone attacks against targets that had nothing to do with 9/11 stretches the interpretation a little. No? I mean, surely, you're not suggesting that this act means the office of the president has perpetual authorization and apparently such a huge leeway in its interpretation.