201–210 of 226 posts
I don't see this in CNN top yet, BBC is also silent(though UK citizen was killed by an US drone). However, RT and other media independent of western governments already have this on main page. Let's think why dear HNers.
You have a point however I just wanted to point out that RT is a very poor example to use.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
What is insane to me, is the reasoning behind suggesting "X is beneficial to Russia. Therefore Russia is doing X" without producing a shred of evidence. I am inclined to at least consider the possibility that you are a NSA/GCHQ agent[1] attempting to discredit and diminish the reputation of Snowden and Greenwald. See what I did there? 1. https://theintercept.com/2014/02/24/jtrig-manipulation/
So you're criticizing me for a suggestion I never made, about a country I never mentioned, and then you suggest my reasoning is insane? I think you need to work harder at this. If you can't countenance the possibility that your political hero figures could themselves be subject to manipulation then you're essentially adopting a religious attitude towards them. Unfortunately I am too marginal a person to be hired as a…
In my mind, Russia is congruent with 'foreign government' and is the first that came to my mind. Perhaps you could specify which foreign governments you were thinking of? I will rephrase my take on your allegation to "X is beneficial to country A. Therefore country A is doing X", which is a crazy thing to say without evidence.
> Unfortunately I am too marginal a person to be hired as a disinformation agent
I hope this shows the point I was making: I made an unfounded allegation that put you on the defensive just by raising the specter of it being a possibility (in your words "I'm inclined to at least consider the possibility".) It is this Bill O'Reilly-style insinuation that I objected to.
> If you can't countenance the possibility that your political hero figures could themselves be subject to manipulation
I countenance this possibility in the same manner that I countenance the possibility of Obama secretly being a muslim: the probability for both is non-zero, but I'm not going to waste cycles worrying about it. My attitude to both is "support your allegation with some proof or GTFO."
edit: added last quote & paragraph
Earlier quoted context omitted.
What is insane to me, is the reasoning behind suggesting "X is beneficial to Russia. Therefore Russia is doing X" without producing a shred of evidence. I am inclined to at least consider the possibility that you are a NSA/GCHQ agent[1] attempting to discredit and diminish the reputation of Snowden and Greenwald. See what I did there? 1. https://theintercept.com/2014/02/24/jtrig-manipulation/
What I see is you putting words into anigbrowl's mouth (letters onto his keyboard?)
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Why is it obvious that the attack on the hospital wasn't purposeful? This article by associated press indicates that they attacked the hospital on purpose. http://bigstory.ap.org/urn:publicid:ap.org:5e20fcd92aee49e69... > Obama is trying to kill people to make the world better... I have no words for this. How a person can even entertain such thoughts is beyond me.
>Why is it obvious that the attack on the hospital wasn't purposeful? Because there is no motive. From the story you quote "It's unclear whether commanders who unleashed the AC-130 gunship on the hospital — killing at least 22 patients and hospital staff — were aware that the site was a hospital or knew about the allegations of possible enemy activity." What is more likely. The US suddenly decided to murder a bunch o…
> I find it hard to believe that you can't understand why I'd think killing a bunch of Talibani is great for the world.
Look, we all reject the goals of the Taliban, I think we're here on the same page. But the problem I have with what you are saying is this:
Military campaigns usually have political or economic goals. The US declared their war on terror as the political goal when they started the military campaign in Afghanistan. Later they added building a democracy as a political goal in Afghanistan.
For this they had to undermine their opponents ability to fight their political goals and in the process they destroyed military infrastructure, weapon caches, communication and of course people were killed.
Killing is part of operations in war, but not the main strategy or goal. Whenever it is, you'll usually see genocide, ethnic cleansing and the likes.
Like the Jihadists raging in Syria right now. They are killing the "unbelievers" right now for a (in their distorted view) better world. And once you are killing for a better world, why not celebrate the act of killing by inventing new cruel ways of killing and even filming it? (like ISIS does)
I can't read the US presidents mind, but I'm absolutely sure that he would reject your line of thinking for the exact same reasons. He probably thinks about it as a way to undermine the terrorists capabilities of achieving their harmful goals. I for one reject the means he is using to achieve HIS goals, but I do not believe that he is a crazy person believing in killing for a better world!
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Thanks for explaining that, who are we at war against then?
Authorization for Use of Military Force Against Terrorists[1]: "IN GENERAL- That the President is authorized to use all necessary and appropriate force against those nations, organizations, or persons he determines planned, authorized, committed, or aided the terrorist attacks that occurred on September 11, 2001, or harbored such organizations or persons, in order to prevent any future acts of international terrorism…
Just giving another indication on how vague this wording is.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Authorization for Use of Military Force Against Terrorists[1]: "IN GENERAL- That the President is authorized to use all necessary and appropriate force against those nations, organizations, or persons he determines planned, authorized, committed, or aided the terrorist attacks that occurred on September 11, 2001, or harbored such organizations or persons, in order to prevent any future acts of international terrorism…
So, what's today's interpretation of the word "harboring"? The 9/11 terrorists lived in Germany, this could mean that Germany is considered fair game. Just giving another indication on how vague this wording is.
At the time they lived in Germany (before the attacks), the officials in the country obviously did not know of their plans.
For me the most grave offense of our current president was taking out Anwar al-Awlaki in 2011. I understand he was not a good individual, by any means, but he was an American citizen which entitled him to all of the protections afforded under The Constitution. Programs like these are what undermines any legitimacy our country has left.
What should the US have done instead? He was planning and committing terrorist attacks and there was no way to simply arrest him. Why should the US be obligated to allow Americans to commit war crimes when they are unreachable by law enforcement?
It is utterly shocking and disgusting.
I fail to see why this is not murder. According to press articles reporting about this inquiry, boys from the age of 12 were cleared to be killed by drones.
In my little happy world, there is only one reason when you are allowed to use violence - and that is self-defense (to protect you or others). And according to German law and probably the law of many other countries, your self-defense is only justified if the attack on you is (1) unlawful, (2) happening right now (has started or is immediately impending) and (3) if the means to counter the attack are within reason.
The killing via drones makes me feel very, very uncomfortable. I don't think it is compatible with human rights or any reasonable constitution.
EDIT: The following is a quote from the inquiry - quoted by the German Bundestag [1].
"In diesen Einsatzgebieten hätten alle männlichen Personen im Alter von über zwölf Jahren als legitime Ziele gegolten. Wenn ein Opfer jünger gewesen sei, sei das aber auch nicht besonders tragisch genommen worden. Man müsse das Gras mähen, bevor es wachse, habe es dann geheißen. Mit anderen Worten: Aus Kindern wären später ohnehin Terroristen geworden."
My clumsy translation: "In these areas of operation, all male persons above the age of 12 were considered legitimate targets. If a victim was younger, however, it was not regarded as a big deal. You have to mow the grass, before it grows, it was said. In other words: Children would have become terrorists later anyways."
This is revolting.
[1] http://www.bundestag.de/dokumente/textarchiv/2015/kw42_pa_ns...
Earlier quoted context omitted.
This only changes the apparent IMEI at the OS level to mask oneself from apps that pry. The hardware is still using the same old IMEI as far as the phone company and SIGINT is concerned. This is not readily, or trivially, changeable.
I believe it was easier and possible in older phones. For example if you get an SL45 somewhere, I remember you had to flash your IMEI (or any IMEI) after the firmware change - otherwise it failed to register on the network. That would suggest it wasn't only as software level.
As far as I know, nearly every "modern" or smartphone has distinct separation between OS+applications and the radio world to the point where they're not only running separate firmware (anyone flashing android images will have seen this) but they're running on physically separate CPUs.
The other sad thing about the older phones (I've got a 6310 and a 7110 on my desk at the moment) is that they often don't support A5/3 encryption, so you can't actually use them on most modern networks (I believe it's the encryption; if anyone else knows better please tell me) -so if you're desperate to change the IMEI for some reason you can't just use an ancient handset to do it. It also means I can't throw off the shackles of this modern world and re-live 1990's hardware :(
I guess my original question could be better phrased as "does anyone know if it's possible on a _modern_ handset -and as it's device specific; which ones?"
I also feel I should point out a couple of "good" reasons for the macro operators not wanting people to have the ability. As it's the hardware identifier, it's used to blacklist stolen handsets -and anything that discourages kids from stealing my phone at knifepoint is probably a good thing. Different handsets also have all sorts of odd network quirks too. For macro operators, being able to profile how different handsets behave on their network can be extremely useful just for the sake of keeping the network running properly.
My sudden paranoid realisation though is that if you're a TLA, being able to go from IMEI to make/model of handset and therefore know exactly what exploits to use, must be quite useful o_0
Earlier quoted context omitted.
So comparing a terrible mistake in an active war zone to a purposeful killing of civilians is..what exactly?
You need to understand how this game works. The word mistake does not mean what you think it means, just like "collect" and "interrogate" doesn't mean what you, and everyone else, thinks it means. How convenient that it was a "mistake". Reminds me of the time the US "mistakenly" bombed Al Jazeera's offices. [1] So the US will offer full support of the MSF's calls for a War Crime tribunal investigation? What really am…