331–340 of 346 posts
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Are you seriously asking why a branch of the the USA's government has less power outside of the USA?
if you consider the fact that the nsa and cia often collaborate closely, and then look at the amount of influence the cia has often displayed in the past, towards foreign countries/regimes etc., gejjaxxita's question seems quite reasonable.
$10Mi? That's a very cheap price for trashing your companies reputation. More importantly, it confirms that DRBD is backdoored or at least weak enough to be subverted.
You mean DRBG [1], right? I hope DRBD [2] isn't backdoored.
[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dual_EC_DRBG [2] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Distributed_Replicated_Block_De...
If it only cost $10m to bribe one of the biggest security companies around, how much does it cost to bribe a single open source developer who volunteers on tools like OpenSSL? What if you add blackmail to the mix? Makes me realize that we need bitcoin-style "hack or bruteforce our encryption schemes and you can legitimately get paid lots of money" bug bounties.
Luckily, open source can't include secret code. That's the point.
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Does anyone series believe that Iran is a threat to the world. How about basing threat levels on previous actions? For example, who invades countries most often? Or who's military kills the most people? I've heard about WMD threats before - and who did the invading and killing in the end? That saga ended with almost everyone looking bad.
Define "threat to the world". Can Iran destroy the whole world? Fortunately, not. Can Iran destabilize, hurt and incite violence? Not only can, it is doing it right now. >>> basing threat levels on previous actions? That would be stupid because it means that only the second action can be countered. Given how first action can cause devastating consequences, limiting oneself to only reacting to a second one would be te…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Define "threat to the world". Can Iran destroy the whole world? Fortunately, not. Can Iran destabilize, hurt and incite violence? Not only can, it is doing it right now. >>> basing threat levels on previous actions? That would be stupid because it means that only the second action can be countered. Given how first action can cause devastating consequences, limiting oneself to only reacting to a second one would be te…
I like that you use the term evil. Its good versus evil right? Bush didn't get far with that terminology. I'm not alone in feeling that a period of non-interventionism from America might help. The interventions of late have been fumbled and clumsy when put in a positive light. Torture, killing and ugly unilateralism. Recent acts in the Middle East may have killed tens of thousands of militants, but does anyone think…
I know. People that thought if USA sees no evil, hears no evil and refuses to speak about evil then all troubles would happen to somebody else existed since there was such thing as USA. They were wrong then and are still as wrong now.
>>> The question that never seems to be asked, is why did September 11 happen
You must be kidding me. One has to be unusually dense or unwilling to hear to ignore the deafening choir of non-interventionists and generic America-is-root-of-all-evil crowd blaming America for what happened at 9/11. Of course, it only tells us about them, not about why this heinous atrocity has really happened. The solution there is simple - these terrorists saw America as their enemy, and given the opportunity to deal a heavy blow to the enemy - opportunity enabled in some measure by complacency of the American administration, who for a long time thought terror is something that happens in bad places like Middle East but can't happen in America, despite many warnings to the contrary - given that opportunity, they struck their blow. One doesn't need any more complicated theory than that. As for why they chose America as their enemy - one doesn't need too much theory in that either, given that ideologists of Al-Qaeda explain it all by themselves. Their goals as religious fanatics dreaming of subjugating other people to their rule are incompatible with America's role as a world power strategically and with America's support of people unwilling to accept radical islamist rule tactically. Of course Al-Qaeda is the enemy of America - what else could they be, given that their premises are diametrically opposed to every premise this country is built on?
>>> Bombing and invading hasn't worked.
What you're calling "worked"? To make the strategy, you first have to define the goal. If the goal is "to ensure America is never the target of a terrorist attack", the solution is simple - America must cease to exist. If America exists, it can be target of a terrorist attack, and there's no known way to prevent it with 100% certainty. One, however, can make it harder to do, and for that there are many various plans, both good and bad.
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Or it won't, since technology will replace the need for it long before that. We don't use horses to drive our cars not because we've run out of horses.
Well, there's some unsubstantiated optimism if I've ever seen it. Let's hope you're right, but right now the physics and economics do not support your exuberance.
> [...] but RSA said in a statement: "RSA always acts in the best interest of its customers [...] True, you just have to keep in mind that their customer is the NSA.
RSA is thinking they can claim ignorance in the case of the DRBG being weak / possibly backdoored.
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Other executives have. Look at what happened to Qwest CEO Joseph Nacchio after challenging illegal NSA warrantless wiretapping requests. (Hint: he just got out of federal prison about two months ago.) http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB1000142405270230398390... Mr. Nacchio said he still believes his insider-trading prosecution was government retaliation for rebuffing requests in 2001 from the National Security Age…
Nacchio defrauded shareholders out of millions of dollars. Let's be careful about who we're valorizing.
So perhaps this guy is indeed a slimeball.
Fabricated up claims are by their nature nearly indistinguishable from real ones, and outright fabrication isn't the only unethical recourse: there is always panopticon powered selective prosecution— how many felonies have you committed this month?
Regardless, we can observe now that the result will be time in prison and tptacek on HN diligently countering any claim of governmental misconduct. The insight here isn't related to Nacchio's character, it's that claiming that the government is retaliating for failing to comply with their unlawful demands doesn't provide protection.
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Umm, Iran is run by a council of religious fanatics. There is no logic to Iran.
That may be (although it amounts to a gross oversimplification), but it's still a functional government and a self-interested bureaucracy. Daily life goes on in Iran much as anywhere else. Council of religious fanatics notwithstanding, and its occasional grandiloquent pronouncements also notwithstanding, Iran's government is mostly full of administrators and workers that implement things like water treatment, motor v…
I don't agree with this at all. For instance, Obama has done what he promised: More big government programs and spending, nationalized healthcare. People knew what they were getting with Obama when he ran for President. There are a lot of problems with America but I can't stand it when people attack it for reasons that it actually doesn't deserve.
> None of the very numerous Iranians here leave one with the impression that they are from a place with "no logic".
I was referring to the government, which was pretty explicit. Fundamentally, there is a tradeoff between religiosity and logic in any religious government. The two are opposites. We cannot assume that Iran will never instigate a war for religious reasons, or that no rogue element of its government will ever share its weapons with outside religious groups.
> Turn off Fox News.
We can discuss the issues, but you cannot dismiss me by trying to claim I'm ignorant. I actually don't even watch Fox News, but I disagree with maligning Americans who do.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
That may be (although it amounts to a gross oversimplification), but it's still a functional government and a self-interested bureaucracy. Daily life goes on in Iran much as anywhere else. Council of religious fanatics notwithstanding, and its occasional grandiloquent pronouncements also notwithstanding, Iran's government is mostly full of administrators and workers that implement things like water treatment, motor v…
> Imagine if someone thought US policy actually worked literally as presidential speeches suggest; you'd think they're an ignorant tool. "Everyone knows that speeches are just speeches," you'd say, with no connection to the actual practice of governance. I don't agree with this at all. For instance, Obama has done what he promised: More big government programs and spending, nationalized healthcare. People knew what t…
I can point you to a litany of campaign and post-inaugural promises that are widely perceived to be broken by a large cross-section of people, from closing Guantánamo to definitively and swiftly ending American involvement in Afghanistan and Iraq.
2. "We cannot assume that Iran will never instigate a war for religious reasons, or that no rogue element of its government will ever share its weapons with outside religious groups."
So, factionalism exists within the Iranian state? And what is the American state, a univocal monolith? For an overplayed but relevant example, I give you Iran Contra, or, for that matter, the runaway intelligence apparatus that Snowden helped put into sharper relief.
The point being that there are semi-autonomous appendages to any non-trivially-sized state. It should come as no surprise to anyone that there are extremist elements within Iran. Indeed, I would be willing to grant you that the extremist elements are more prominently positioned and influential within Iran's state. That's a far cry from "there is no logic to Iran". What does that even mean?