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Assange in 2011: "They have automated the process."

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Re: Assange in 2011: "They have automated the process."

#71
post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Could you elaborate a bit on what you found on your honeypot?

It appears that the honeypot has been compromised in both a domestic botnet running in system memory by "authorities" local to the US, and also that there are background processes in Windows that are inspecting the filesystem for binaries matching certain signatures no matter how the user configures the system, even "stubbing out" the visible processes that would make sense, like their anti-malware and indexing servi…

Those are pretty explosive claims.

a) How are you identifying the processes? 2) How are you determining that they are inspecting the filesystem?

Re: Assange in 2011: "They have automated the process."

#72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Which would also make it much more difficult to use and less useful. Maybe. As somebody who's worked in content management system design for a great deal of his career, I'm not at all convinced that the ongoing enclosure of information into systems of formatting serves people. Instead, what you find is people jumping through hoops to fit their information into the format chosen by others. Paul Goodman critiqued the…

> The users of FB have decided that this is the way they'd like to organize their information? In aggregate, by choosing to use Facebook, and by providing feedback and usage data that shapes how it changes. I realize that there is a certain stickyness and network effect at play, but at some level we have chosen this platform and format, and many (most?) are content with it. I can't really wrap my head around a useful…

>> The users of FB have decided that this is the way they'd like to organize their information?

>In aggregate, by choosing to use Facebook, and by providing feedback and usage data that shapes how it changes.

I simply draw a different conclusion from that than you do. At some level we have chosen it, yes. I'm not denying that, but instead trying to figure out whether that level is necessary. I appreciate the pushback!

Re: Assange in 2011: "They have automated the process."

#73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How is the emergence of superbugs immunity to antibiotic treatments entirely separate when they are different strands of organisms that were previously treated?

Vaccinations and treatment are completely different things and vaccines and antibiotics are also completely different things. There are plenty of resources on the Internet that explain these matters - if you can get past the anti-vaccine psuedoscience search engine spam. For example you can find plenty of people trying to blame resistant Whooping Cough on vaccines when the most likely cause is the reduction of vaccin…

"When antibiotics are used in an attempt to kill certain bacteria, a few may survive because they happen to have the appropriate genes; thus they will become the predominant strain. For instance, if the antibiotic kills a million bacteria but doesn’t kill five that are resistant, at their incredible multiplication rate—bacteria divide every 20 to 30 minutes—after 15 hours there will be 5 million descendants of those five, all of them resistant to the antibiotic.Some bacteria carry antibiotic resistance genes that can be passed to other species of bacteria.

These transferable genes often carry resistance to many antibiotics.

Staphylococcus aureus is a common germ that normally lives on your skin, but can gain entry to the body and cause abscesses, bone infections, pneumonia or infection of the heart valves. In the 1940s virtually all strains of S. aureus were susceptible to penicillin. Today, more than 90% of S. aureus strains are resistant to penicillin and many other antibiotics that were once effective against these bacteria."[0]

"One alternative, at least for some types of bacteria, is vaccination. Since Hib vaccines were introduced, the number of new cases of invasive Hib infections—both drug-sensitive and resistant—in infants and children in the U.S. has decreased by 99%."[0]

So yes, vaccines and antibiotics are different, but are meant to address the same things. From this most of the what we have seen so far has come from resistance to antibiotics, where vacancies have helping to address that void in some cases that didn't turn out to be accidental inoculation.

No vaccine is 100% effective; no vaccine is 100% safe. As with any drug, there are risks and side effects with vaccines, although serious side effects are mostly rare. However, there is a much higher standard of safety expected of preventive vaccines than for drugs because:

Vaccines are generally given to many people most of whom are healthy. People tolerate far less risk from Haemophilus influenzae type b vaccines than the antibiotics used to treat the diseases it causes, for example.

Many vaccines are given to children at the ages when developmental and other problems are being recognized for the first time. Because something happened at about the same time does not mean that one caused the other. (See Cause or Coincidence) Some vaccines are mandated by state legislatures in order to protect the health and welfare of the public. Some people think that this violates their civil rights, however."[1]

"Perception of risk depends on people’s experiences and knowledge. A person who experienced an adverse event after vaccination—or thinks that they know someone who did—will perceive vaccines as riskier than a person who has not. Conversely, one who has survived a vaccine-preventable disease—or a physician who has treated that disease—will likely be an advocate for vaccines.

Although concerns about vaccine safety are valid—and necessary—we must carefully examine each claim about the risks of immunizations"[1]

Taking the middle road on these issues is more productive than outright dismissal and becoming enraged, because it acknowledges some truth the individuals experiences/opinions or w/e that might be contrary to someone elses.

[0]: http://www.immunizationinfo.org/issues/general/vaccines-and-...

[1]: http://www.immunizationinfo.org/issues/general/vaccine-misin...

Re: Assange in 2011: "They have automated the process."

#74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Unfortunately such a social network would probably be so dominated by tinfoil-hat crazies that it would be unusable. The thing about social networks is of course that the people you want to socially network with need to be there. On the other hand you would be fully up to date at all times on the evils of vaccines and water fluoridation.

Nothing gets me riled up like a vaccination denier. I can't even hold a conversation with them, I just get really angry.

Hello, I'm a vaccination denier :)

I don't deny the science behind the vaccines, but the motives of the people who ultimately control the process. The same people have taken away the average person privacy IMHO will as easily take away say his capability to produce children. But I guess it's easier to close your eyes and keep imagining that the elite has the same moral as yours and would never do horrible things.

Re: Assange in 2011: "They have automated the process."

#75
I wonder whether the time has come to build some better tools for protecting privacy. Looking at the common implementations of encryption the publicly available free stuff has some fairly awful interfaces. It's especially a mess if you're looking at securely communicating with a website - I can't think of a single browser that supports anything like a decent standard of encryption for that.

Re: Assange in 2011: "They have automated the process."

#76
Assange is an exemplary case of how secret services operate. Containment plan is generally to discredit an inconvenient person via a character attack, which directs attention to a single person (and boy do the crowd loves gossip and celebrities), overshadowing whatever sensitive information there is to disclose. Make this person an unreliable source before they have anything to say.

He's been labeled a rapist, a crackpot, or even an agent of the evil, with little regard to atrocities exposed by the Wikileaks.

Yet like our beloved RMS, if you read the early texts, it is clear that they had seen it coming way before us - sane, normal people.

Re: Assange in 2011: "They have automated the process."

#77
post #39

I've been following these discussions the past couple of days on HN, and there are a few calm minds who are very knowledgeable of the law, who's comments have been enlightening and reassuring ('rayiner and others). But we now live in a completely online world, where nearly all communication and files are conveyed and hosted by third parties, and soon it will take several minutes for even a geek to mentally count up t…

Why privacy matters https://chronicle.com/article/Why-Privacy-Matters-Even-if/12... ;

That link is broken for me, but I found the article and enjoyed it.

https://chronicle.com/article/Why-Privacy-Matters-Even-if/12...

Re: Assange in 2011: "They have automated the process."

#78
post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It appears that the honeypot has been compromised in both a domestic botnet running in system memory by "authorities" local to the US, and also that there are background processes in Windows that are inspecting the filesystem for binaries matching certain signatures no matter how the user configures the system, even "stubbing out" the visible processes that would make sense, like their anti-malware and indexing servi…

Those are pretty explosive claims. a) How are you identifying the processes? 2) How are you determining that they are inspecting the filesystem?

I certainly understand the gravity of what I'm alleging, and I wish I had formal training in this stuff so I could publish my observations with some sort of rigour. I will say my methods are pretty crude and consist of:

Process of elimination as far as the processes are concerned. Basically I have been paring back the processes that are visible to me in memory until it should be a bare minimum for a functional Windows kernel in memory, and stubbing out the non-essential processes I find with empty "stubs" so that the hooks are still there but non-functional. Then observing disk io and memory usage, and repeating. Not very scientific, but again, I'm an amateur.

The stuff about disk platter noise is simply recording the audible and inaudible frequencies generated from the platter (I haven't upgraded to a ssd for the system disk yet), and then running regressions on the wave forms to detect anomalies via the noise generated by the platter and the reading head interacting. I was interested in looking into the inaudible frequencies because it seemed like a good way to cloak disk io from the average user.

As far as the botnet stuff, I've done some MITM packet analysis and some simple stuff like tracerts and observing changes in routing. Right now the box is routing all name service through what appears to be another compromised box in the US state of Georgia, though I'm hesitant to do much network topology due to port-scanning being considered the same as cracking.

This is all just a hobby, and I'm sure some of the stuff I've mentioned about is either very crazy sounding or perhaps already known to people more knowledgeable than me. I grew up when pcs were still a weird hobby for society, and so this sort of stuff seems like things we should be able to do without fearing repercussions.

Also, I only posted this to give context to what I had posted before, so take it for whatever you want to. I'm interested in non-violent solutions to improving society and I don't want to jeopardize that.

Re: Assange in 2011: "They have automated the process."

#79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Vaccinations and treatment are completely different things and vaccines and antibiotics are also completely different things. There are plenty of resources on the Internet that explain these matters - if you can get past the anti-vaccine psuedoscience search engine spam. For example you can find plenty of people trying to blame resistant Whooping Cough on vaccines when the most likely cause is the reduction of vaccin…

"When antibiotics are used in an attempt to kill certain bacteria, a few may survive because they happen to have the appropriate genes; thus they will become the predominant strain. For instance, if the antibiotic kills a million bacteria but doesn’t kill five that are resistant, at their incredible multiplication rate—bacteria divide every 20 to 30 minutes—after 15 hours there will be 5 million descendants of those…

I am not the poster who becomes enraged about vaccine-deniers, in case you've got that mixed up. Though I generally find that vaccine-deniers are people such that they have little interest in becoming better informed or having their opinion changed so discussion is fruitless. (Though I hope to meet some that are otherwise one day!)

Not vaccinating people and thus allowing a disease to run rampant in the population, drive up infant mortality, and be present and breeding and thus mutating is not in any way shape or form the same thing as the over-use, mis-use, or inevitable decline in effectiveness of antibiotics. The moral and scientific issues are very, very different. That was what I was taking issue with in my original response.

I find nothing of what you wrote and quoted in the above comment to disagree with.

Re: Assange in 2011: "They have automated the process."

#80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nothing gets me riled up like a vaccination denier. I can't even hold a conversation with them, I just get really angry.

Hello, I'm a vaccination denier :) I don't deny the science behind the vaccines, but the motives of the people who ultimately control the process. The same people have taken away the average person privacy IMHO will as easily take away say his capability to produce children. But I guess it's easier to close your eyes and keep imagining that the elite has the same moral as yours and would never do horrible things.

If you do not deny the science behind vaccines then you probably have a moral responsibility to make sure you and your children are vaccinated. I know how bad it is to have vaccinated people in the population but you only believe or suspect that the people producing that vaccines are part of an evil cabal of elites looking to destroy society.

I think you have to go with the certainty on that one, don't you?

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