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Last post Author Topic: Knight to queen's bishop 3 - Snowden charged with espionage.  (Read 355765 times)

Renegade

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Re: Knight to queen's bishop 3 - Snowden charged with espionage.
« Reply #175 on: July 18, 2013, 10:25 AM »
Unfortunately, I don't speak German, and was unable to read the article.

Oh... I just take for granted translation.  :-[


And that's why I don't use machine translation unless absolutely necessary. :)

I do like that he's come out against the surveillance, but, I can't say more about him. ;) (Dept. of Ed. is... ↓)
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Renegade

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Re: Knight to queen's bishop 3 - Snowden charged with espionage.
« Reply #176 on: July 19, 2013, 10:43 AM »
For a bit of perspective on the Stasi vs. the NSA:

http://falkvinge.net...rse-and-by-how-much/

So where the hated Stasi surveillance was a building in area, the NSA surveillance today is an entire continent.

As a final note, the word Stasi was a contraction of the East German surveillance agency’s full name, Ministerium für Staatssicherheit. It translates to National Security Agency.

In the immortal words of Darth Vader, "Impressive."
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wraith808

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Re: Knight to queen's bishop 3 - Snowden charged with espionage.
« Reply #177 on: July 19, 2013, 11:16 AM »
And that's why I don't use machine translation unless absolutely necessary. :)

I do like that he's come out against the surveillance, but, I can't say more about him. ;) (Dept. of Ed. is... ↓)

Eh... that's another discussion (I think it was one of those something was needed, and what we got wasn't what we needed things), but my major point from that was the fact that he said that 'America doesn't have a functioning democracy'.  Pretty strong words... but I guess only to me.  :o

« Last Edit: July 19, 2013, 11:24 AM by wraith808 »

Renegade

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Re: Knight to queen's bishop 3 - Snowden charged with espionage.
« Reply #178 on: July 19, 2013, 11:24 AM »
...but my major point from that was the fact that he said that 'America doesn't have a functioning democracy'.  Pretty strong words... but I guess only to me.  :o

Hey, I'm with you on that 110%! :D He's bang on the money there. But he sure as f*&k didn't help the situation with #2. His #2 really is a #2. :P :D
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wraith808

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Re: Knight to queen's bishop 3 - Snowden charged with espionage.
« Reply #179 on: July 19, 2013, 11:24 AM »
For a bit of perspective on the Stasi vs. the NSA:

http://falkvinge.net...rse-and-by-how-much/

So where the hated Stasi surveillance was a building in area, the NSA surveillance today is an entire continent.

As a final note, the word Stasi was a contraction of the East German surveillance agency’s full name, Ministerium für Staatssicherheit. It translates to National Security Agency.

In the immortal words of Darth Vader, "Impressive."

Oh... and it's bad, don't get me wrong.  I just have a thing for numbers and accuracy.

http://skeptics.stac...ve-zettabytes-of-dat

And the quality of the data is no where near the same as the Stasi, along with the endemic system of informants and fear used to get the data on a personal level.  And the sample size.  It's bad... but I hate making the same mistake in the other direction...

Renegade

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Re: Knight to queen's bishop 3 - Snowden charged with espionage.
« Reply #180 on: July 19, 2013, 11:57 AM »
Oh... and it's bad, don't get me wrong.  I just have a thing for numbers and accuracy.

http://skeptics.stac...ve-zettabytes-of-dat

And the quality of the data is no where near the same as the Stasi, along with the endemic system of informants and fear used to get the data on a personal level.  And the sample size.  It's bad... but I hate making the same mistake in the other direction...

Had a bit too much to drink to do any serious math there, but when I saw "NPR", my BULLSHIT alert went off. Dunno. But citing the NPR immediately puts a sour piece of cat turd in my mouth.

As for consumer and commercial systems... Pfft... that was just idiotic. When you order PB of storage, you get a tiny weeny bit of a discount. Again, my BULLSHIT alert started ringing off pretty darn loud.

Then again, I might sober up. But I rather doubt it. :P :D hehehe~!
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Stoic Joker

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Re: Knight to queen's bishop 3 - Snowden charged with espionage.
« Reply #181 on: July 19, 2013, 12:01 PM »
And the quality of the data is no where near the same as the Stasi, along with the endemic system of informants and fear used to get the data on a personal level.  And the sample size.  It's bad... but I hate making the same mistake in the other direction...

The data that the Stasi had wasn't quality...it was linear. Careful conclusions made once and tied with a bow, as all preprocessing material (data...) was removed.

The NSA on the other hand, collect everything...which only sounds messy ... Until you start mining it with pattern matching algorithms. The purpose being to bring to the surface information that isn't even there in a direct fashion.

The NSA doesn't need informants per se, because the "informant's" job's have been quite simple taken over by machines. The NSA still has fear in its toolbox, it's simply indirectly applied via the MSM. Why waste time trying to scare one person in an ally...when you can panic the whole town with a simple newscast? No fear has given way to the new favorite tools of choice apathy and ignorance. Social engineering 101...why waste the effort to beat information out of someone, if you can simply walk up and ask nicely.

The average casual conversation - think like a hacker and try it sometime - is an absolute treasure trove of information if you know how to leverage it properly.

wraith808

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Re: Knight to queen's bishop 3 - Snowden charged with espionage.
« Reply #182 on: July 19, 2013, 02:11 PM »
Had a bit too much to drink to do any serious math there, but when I saw "NPR", my BULLSHIT alert went off. Dunno. But citing the NPR immediately puts a sour piece of cat turd in my mouth.

The NPR part was in the question, not the answer (other than a very tangential article about what the NSA has disclosed, which is nothing)

If you read the answer itself, it has some very interesting plausibles and implausibles, with very realistic caveats about not knowing the exact capabilities but extrapolating from consumer available technologies.  But the other article gives quite spurious information (not that I necessarily say its false, just unsubstantiated) about the amount of data and definitely non-substantiated claims of their ability to process that amount of data.

TaoPhoenix

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Re: Knight to queen's bishop 3 - Snowden charged with espionage.
« Reply #183 on: July 19, 2013, 04:35 PM »
Without getting exhaustive, I think another couple of moves have been made here. Let's assume Snowden is the White King, but it's not clear who each of the opposing armies are yet. But there's been increasing news snips about "fighting for more transprency" at all levels of news.

So that's a "small subtle move advantage" for Snowden's side. Certainly only a couple of moves, but they're on the board.

Darn I'm almost ready to map this out : )


40hz

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Re: Knight to queen's bishop 3 - Snowden charged with espionage.
« Reply #184 on: July 19, 2013, 04:42 PM »
Darn I'm almost ready to map this out : )

You should. It would make a pretty fine looking pile of post-its and arrows on a whiteboard. I'm tempted myself - but I diagram things like that in my head so easily that I seldom ever bother to write any of it down. Also kinda hard to get a 2D drawing to adequately convey one of my linked multidimensional data stacks anyway. ;D

(Hmm...I'm thinking of getting back into LISP programming. Just picked up a few books last weekend and the old magic with that former 'girlfriend' came back in a flash. Maybe I should....nah! EMACS probably already does it.)
 8) ;D
« Last Edit: July 19, 2013, 04:47 PM by 40hz »

40hz

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Re: Knight to queen's bishop 3 - Snowden charged with espionage.
« Reply #185 on: July 19, 2013, 05:13 PM »
But there's been increasing news snips about "fighting for more transprency" at all levels of news.

I'd liken those more to side games right now.

I also think that very shortly something major is going to break. I'd be very surprised if Snowden and the US (with the help of Russia as go-between) aren't negotiating something via the back channel right now.

Or as Carrol put it:
look here!
I sent a message to the fish;
I told them "This is what I wish"

The little fishes of the sea,
They sent an answer back to me,

The little fishes' answer was
We cannot do it, Sir, because ...

I sent to them again to say
It will be better to obey.

The fishes answered with a grin,
'Why, what a temper you are in!'

I told them once, I told them twice;
They would not listen to advice.
   

   
I took a kettle large and new,
Fit for the deed I had to do.

My heart went hop, my heart went thump;
I filled the kettle at the pump.

Then someone came to me and said,
The little fishes are in bed.

I said to him, I said it plain,
'Then you must wake them up again'

I said it very loud and clear;
I went and shouted in his ear.

But he was very stiff and proud;
He said, 'You mustn't shout so loud.'

And he was very proud and stiff;
He said, 'I'd go and wake them, if ...'

I took a corkscrew from the shelf;
I went to wake them up myself.

And when I found the door was locked,
I pulled and pushed and kicked and knocked.

And when I found the door was shut,
I tried to turn the handle, but.......


Humpty-Dumpty,-Illustration-From-Through-The-Looking-Glass-By-Lewis-Carroll-1832-98-First-Published-1871.jpg

I say this because it's all too quiet on the public channels. The open threats have failed. As have the bluffs, spin control, threats of economic sanctions, Olympic boycotting, and diplomatic arm-twisting. Domestic popular support is dwindling for the administration. And international anger and lack of cooperation is increasingly apparent.

So now it's time to save face and work something out that everybody can semi-live with.

As many have pointed out, the damage to the secrecy of what's been going on has been done. Cat's out of the bag big time. Now that most of the moves to trigger political and social action have been played the only thing remaining is Snowden's deadman switch - which supposedly is the only thing left guarding the rest of his datacache.

Looks like something really serious is lurking in there, and the government knows it. Because they've had more than sufficient time by now to determine exactly what information Snowden has in his possession.

Good chance Snowden has already sent them a copy just to prove he has it. Because all discussion of how much information plus the number of documents he took has disappeared from the official announcements. Which seems to indicate he really has something BIG that the current administration does not want anybody to see - or even be aware of.

Snowden apparently also has enough documented technical expertise to make his threatened scorched earth option credible because (at least so far) the US hasn't tried anything too physical.

Be interesting to see who will end up laying down their king in the end.
« Last Edit: July 19, 2013, 05:19 PM by 40hz »

TaoPhoenix

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Re: Knight to queen's bishop 3 - Snowden charged with espionage.
« Reply #186 on: July 19, 2013, 05:25 PM »
...but I diagram things like that in my head so easily that I seldom ever bother to write any of it down.

Heh so if you do, I need your help! Assuming we use chess as a metaphor, roughly Snowden is White King vs "Nebulous USA" as Black King. Then we get to assign up to some 20 elements on both sides, not known until they announce something, so it's a bit more like a Wild Variant.

Clear so far:
Snowden is def playing White. Either 1. e4 or 1. d4, I'm not sure yet.
USA is def. on defensive. Still in the air is if they've built enough coiled energy to be a "King's Indian Defense" or if it's more all-out containment vs a Sicilian.

Consider that real chess takes place in about "six ply blocs" - aka the Ruy Lopez (Which I don't see here) has a bunch of "attack Bishop,Bishop moves" "Obligatory moves" that are important not to mis-count.

So I'd say we're at about move 12-15 by now, with some recent moves "for White" (and we may have to group a couple of news stories in a batch and assign misc null US moves)


TaoPhoenix

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Re: Knight to queen's bishop 3 - Snowden charged with espionage.
« Reply #187 on: July 19, 2013, 05:27 PM »
But there's been increasing news snips about "fighting for more transprency" at all levels of news.

I'd liken those more to side games right now.


I'll argue, def. not. "The Game" is "Snowden vs US Secret Agencies". The fact that "misc threats" go on is *part of the game*. Chess contains up to 40 threats per game, so this is def. still the "same game".


TaoPhoenix

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Re: Knight to queen's bishop 3 - Snowden charged with espionage.
« Reply #188 on: July 19, 2013, 05:33 PM »
...
I say this because it's all too quiet on the public channels. The open threats have failed. As have the bluffs, spin control, threats of economic sanctions, Olympic boycotting, and diplomatic arm-twisting. Domestic popular support is dwindling for the administration. And international anger and lack of cooperation is increasingly apparent.

So now it's time to save face and work something out that everybody can semi-live with.

As many have pointed out, the damage to the secrecy of what's been going on has been done. Cat's out of the bag big time. Now that most of the moves to trigger political and social action have been played the only thing remaining is Snowden's deadman switch - which supposedly is the only thing left guarding the rest of his datacache.

Looks like something really serious is lurking in there, and the government knows it. Because they've had more than sufficient time by now to determine exactly what information Snowden has in his possession.

Good chance Snowden has already sent them a copy just to prove he has it. Because all discussion of how much information plus the number of documents he took has disappeared from the official announcements. Which seems to indicate he really has something BIG that the current administration does not want anybody to see - or even be aware of.

Snowden apparently also has enough documented technical expertise to make his threatened scorched earth option credible because (at least so far) the US hasn't tried anything too physical.

Be interesting to see who will end up laying down their king in the end.

As a compound reply:

It's def. "too quiet" - but the "game" is *far from over*. Chess contains a lot of "threaten this, move that" sequences which are understood to be processed in "batches", not meant as actual threats. So a lot of that is going on here. It's still one game. 3...(pawn)a6 (attacks Bishop) 4. Ba4 (moves away from pawn) stuff is a lot of what we're seeing here. I'm looking for the big ticket moves that signify stuff.

If the US wins a "Magician Sweep" maneuver, they get to bury it all under "yay last month's news so who cares". That is a deadly maneuver that has a real chance of working. Snowden and US are not negotiating. It's still into Spin Control. I do think Snowden is close to the "right time" to do this - the same message means different things in different years...

And of course Snowden has a couple of tech tricks up his sleeve... he was an *analyst* gosh darnit, not the janitor. But yes, he did put a bit of work into his plan, and countered a couple of the cheaper moves by the US Gov.


TaoPhoenix

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Re: Knight to queen's bishop 3 - Snowden charged with espionage.
« Reply #189 on: July 19, 2013, 05:40 PM »
Darn I'm almost ready to map this out : )

You should. It would make a pretty fine looking pile of post-its and arrows on a whiteboard. I'm tempted myself - but I diagram things like that in my head so easily that I seldom ever bother to write any of it down. Also kinda hard to get a 2D drawing to adequately convey one of my linked multidimensional data stacks anyway. ;D

(Hmm...I'm thinking of getting back into LISP programming. Just picked up a few books last weekend and the old magic with that former 'girlfriend' came back in a flash. Maybe I should....

Not sure what LISP has to do with it ... but I can't map it out until I decide if the opening is a King's Indian or Queen's Gambit or a Sicilian. : )


TaoPhoenix

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Re: Knight to queen's bishop 3 - Snowden charged with espionage.
« Reply #190 on: July 19, 2013, 05:41 PM »
"White is making mistakes, and letting Black have "Compensation".


40hz

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Re: Knight to queen's bishop 3 - Snowden charged with espionage.
« Reply #191 on: July 19, 2013, 07:52 PM »
@Tao - sorry for being dense. I was thinking info mapping as in "break into boxes" which is a standard methodology in intel analysis and police investigations. I didn't realize you meant game mapping. On that I'm sure you know far more than I do since I'm a very very amateur chess player at best. (I'm more the Go type.)

re:LISP

Sorry. Geek joke. EMACS is mostly written in LISP. And the bulk of its extensions are too. There are extensions for almost anything you can imagine available for EMACS - hence it can do anything hence there's no reason to code anything because it's probably already been written.

I guess it's only a joke if you use or are familiar with EMACS...

cmpm

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Re: Knight to queen's bishop 3 - Snowden charged with espionage.
« Reply #192 on: July 19, 2013, 08:50 PM »
"White is making mistakes, and letting Black have "Compensation".



Black may be over-confident.
Good to let 'em think they might win, to a point.
If White thought it through, he has to have more moves planned.
Them damn pawns (other nations) could be trouble.
Seems Black already bared it's ass.

Renegade

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Re: Knight to queen's bishop 3 - Snowden charged with espionage.
« Reply #193 on: July 19, 2013, 10:39 PM »
Had a bit too much to drink to do any serious math there, but when I saw "NPR", my BULLSHIT alert went off. Dunno. But citing the NPR immediately puts a sour piece of cat turd in my mouth.

The NPR part was in the question, not the answer (other than a very tangential article about what the NSA has disclosed, which is nothing)

If you read the answer itself, it has some very interesting plausibles and implausibles, with very realistic caveats about not knowing the exact capabilities but extrapolating from consumer available technologies.  But the other article gives quite spurious information (not that I necessarily say its false, just unsubstantiated) about the amount of data and definitely non-substantiated claims of their ability to process that amount of data.

Heh! Should have said, "Had a bit too much to read!" :P :D

Saw the EB = ZB thing with NPR there and figured blech.

But people run through some decent numbers there. Some of the comments were really good as well:

anything experimental would be a) ridiculously expensive b) had to made completely in US c) by government agencies. Unless you're thinking some alien technology from Rosewell...

Hahaha! :D

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wraith808

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Re: Knight to queen's bishop 3 - Snowden charged with espionage.
« Reply #194 on: July 20, 2013, 12:22 AM »
I *did* really like that comment :)

40hz

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Re: Knight to queen's bishop 3 - Snowden charged with espionage.
« Reply #195 on: July 20, 2013, 09:54 AM »
An unrelated but very telling news story...

It would appear that international fugitive and CIA operative Robert Seldon Lady - who was recently convicted in abstentia by an Italian court for his role in the kidnapping and illegal transport of a suspect Muslim cleric (i.e. "extraordinary rendition") - was intercepted and taken into custody in Panama - only to be released in order to board a plane bound for the United States before Italy could begin extradition proceedings to get him back. The exact role of the United States in securing his release is "not immediately clear" according to the news report. (Yeah, right.)

Still...can you believe Panama did that? What a surprise! :-\

The Washington Post covered the story (which has gotten little US media coverage so far) here.
« Last Edit: July 20, 2013, 09:59 AM by 40hz »

Renegade

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Re: Knight to queen's bishop 3 - Snowden charged with espionage.
« Reply #196 on: July 20, 2013, 10:07 AM »
Still...can you believe Panama did that? What a surprise! :-\

Guess they're not too anxious to join along in the same fates as places like Iraq or Syria. Can't say as I really blame them too much for not wanting a nice solid dose of "democracy" delivered from 20,000 feet above or for not wanting battalions of uninvited "guests".
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40hz

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Re: Knight to queen's bishop 3 - Snowden charged with espionage.
« Reply #197 on: July 20, 2013, 10:34 AM »
^From 7,000 feet it certainly wouldn't be out of the question with this administration.

But seeing battalions of uninvited guests show up wouldn't be very likely. The US doesn't really have the troops to spare right now. Hence the big interest in drones...

Renegade

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Re: Knight to queen's bishop 3 - Snowden charged with espionage.
« Reply #198 on: July 20, 2013, 10:55 AM »
^From 7,000 feet it certainly wouldn't be out of the question with this administration.

But seeing battalions of uninvited guests show up wouldn't be very likely. The US doesn't really have the troops to spare right now. Hence the big interest in drones...


Oh. I meant that in the uninvited guests that Syria has rather than the uninvited guest that Iraq has/had. Y'know... al-CIAda sponsored guests. :P
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dr_andus

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Re: Knight to queen's bishop 3 - Snowden charged with espionage.
« Reply #199 on: July 22, 2013, 09:03 AM »
There seems to have been a shift in the game, in the sense that it's starting to look more like US v. Russia, than US v. Snowden at the moment, thanks to the forthcoming G20 summit in Moscow. It sure would look embarrassing if Obama had to share the media limelight with Snowden (being the two most newsworthy Americans in town at the same time, possibly at the same airport...). Journalists' questions and commentaries would just keep coming, overshadowing the actual G20 agenda.

It gives the power to the hosts, as the Russians could pull out that card and put it away at will, whenever someone is starting to criticise their human rights record. Plus it depends entirely on them, whether Snowden will still be at the airport in 6 weeks time, or stashed away somewhere else in Russia (Siberia comes to mind) or possibly in Latin America.

In the meantime, an interesting intervention from Germany:

The only person in Europe to see Snowden’s fate both in terms of political morality and in the context of the history of the US and Europe, is Rolf Hochhuth, the German author and playwright. He presented an eloquent petition to Chancellor Angela Merkel asking that Snowden be given asylum.

Hochhuth points out in the petition that where government is both accuser and perpetrator “the accused has no hope of justice”. He added that if Snowden returns to the US he faces years in prison, but if he stays in Russia he will be permanently muzzled.

So, why should Germany of all countries offer asylum to an American? Hochhuth writes that “more than any other, the German people are obligated to honour the right of asylum because, beginning in 1933, our elite, without exception from the Mann brothers to Einstein, survived the 12-year Nazi dictatorship purely because other countries, with the US as the greatest example, offered asylum to these refugees.”