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Last post Author Topic: Knight to queen's bishop 3 - Snowden charged with espionage.  (Read 354804 times)

IainB

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Re: Knight to queen's bishop 3 - Snowden charged with espionage.
« Reply #525 on: February 27, 2014, 07:38 AM »
I hadn't realised that GCHQ/NSA were apparently so amazingly up to their armpits in deliberately fomenting revolution/war [...]
this is not directly related to the linked presentation (? - it may be implied, but not clearly - although I would have been happier if the images were bigger, i.e. I may have missed something).
And I'm not saying they're not - and you may even have posted before here about it - but if you're going to throw out a statement that bald, it needs/deserves a reference/link.

Sorry, perhaps I should have pointed out the link in the Guido article where it says: View this document on Scribd. The material could be disinformation though, as Guido suggests, but if it isn't, then...

I have to say that there doesn't seem to be much bluntness (if any) about anything I wrote there - I was not making a definite or clear expression of something as fact or a formal account of facts or events. What I mentioned was a perception - that "this seems quite serious" and that they "were apparently so amazingly up to their armpits in deliberately fomenting revolution/war".
Someone else's perceptions and experience may differ, but that does not necessarily invalidate my perceptions, and it doesn't necessarily "need/deserve a reference/link" either, just because someone says it does or feels that it should to (say) align with their perceptions and to have any validity.

Let's suppose that someone was to say to me either:
(a) "Obama appears to be the greatest and most ethical President of our times", or
(b) "Obama appears to be the greatest liar and most deceiving President of our times".

In either case, I might say "What makes you say that?" in a genuine attempt to try to understand how they might have arrived at that perception. If my mind was open to the response, then I might learn something from the answer - who knows?

In actual fact, of course, I probably wouldn't ask such a question as I am usually indifferent as to why people think whatever they might think about their elected leaders. My rule of thumb is "By their fruits ye shall know them" - e.g., (say) Maggie Thatcher's rumoured penchant for breakfasting on the aborted foetuses of coalminers' wives, which, if true, would probably place her in a pretty dim light.

Renegade

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Re: Knight to queen's bishop 3 - Snowden charged with espionage.
« Reply #526 on: February 27, 2014, 09:09 AM »
Let's suppose that someone was to say to me either:
(a) "Obama appears to be the greatest and most ethical President of our times", or
(b) "Obama appears to be the greatest liar and most deceiving President of our times".

"A" totally needs to be in the Silly Humor thread. :P

But just about any president's name would suffice... :P ;)
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Freedom is the right to be wrong, not the right to do wrong. - John Diefenbaker

tomos

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Re: Knight to queen's bishop 3 - Snowden charged with espionage.
« Reply #527 on: February 27, 2014, 09:35 AM »
^point taken Iain.
And thanks Stoic for the viewing tip :)
Tom

IainB

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No, I Don't Trust You! - "Explicit Trusted Proxy in HTTP/2.0"
« Reply #528 on: February 27, 2014, 03:33 PM »
I put this in this thread as it seemed relevant to the SnowdenGate revelations re snooping/surveillance of traffic flowing variously through ISPs, Google, Microsoft, etc. - that is, SCS (State & Corporate Surveillance).

If the proposals of the IETF (Internet Engineering Task Force) Internet-Draft "Explicit Trusted Proxy in HTTP/2.0" (14 Feb 2014) are agreed, then this snooping/surveillance looks like it could be formalised as "standard practice" in the Internet architecture, and authorised and enabled regardless of Internet users' wishes.

Currently I am aware of only one publicly available and apparently feasible defeat for "man-in-the-middle" attacks by ISPs, governments or other criminals - that would seem to be OpenDNSCrypt.
One wonders how long that is going to be tolerated by the SCS fraternity or indeed whether OpenDNS might not already have been obliged to compromise OpenDNSCrypt without publishing that fact. One would have no way of knowing for sure. It's all about Trust.

(Copied below sans embedded hyperlinks/images.)
No, I Don't Trust You! -- One of the Most Alarming Internet Proposals I've Ever Seen
February 22, 2014

If you care about Internet security, especially what we call "end-to-end" security free from easy snooping by ISPs, carriers, or other intermediaries, heads up! You'll want to pay attention to this.

You'd think that with so many concerns these days about whether the likes of AT&T, Verizon, and other telecom companies can be trusted not to turn our data over to third parties whom we haven't authorized, that a plan to formalize a mechanism for ISP and other "man-in-the-middle" snooping would be laughed off the Net.

But apparently the authors of IETF (Internet Engineering Task Force) Internet-Draft "Explicit Trusted Proxy in HTTP/2.0" (14 Feb 2014) haven't gotten the message.

What they propose for the new HTTP/2.0 protocol is nothing short of officially sanctioned snooping.

Of course, they don't phrase it exactly that way.

You see, one of the "problems" with SSL/TLS connections (e.g. https:) -- from the standpoint of the dominant carriers anyway -- is that the connections are, well, fairly secure from snooping in transit (assuming your implementation is correct ... right?)

But some carriers would really like to be able to see that data in the clear -- unencrypted. This would allow them to do fancy caching (essentially, saving copies of data at intermediate points) and introduce other "efficiencies" that they can't do when your data is encrypted from your client to the desired servers (or from servers to client).

When data is unencrypted, "proxy servers" are a routine mechanism for caching and passing on such data. But conventional proxy servers won't work with data that has been encrypted end-to-end, say with SSL.

So this dandy proposal offers a dandy solution: "Trusted proxies" -- or, to be more straightforward in the terminology, "man-in-the-middle attack" proxies. Oh what fun.

The technical details get very complicated very quickly, but what it all amounts to is simple enough. The proposal expects Internet users to provide "informed consent" that they "trust" intermediate sites (e.g. Verizon, AT&T, etc.) to decode their encrypted data, process it in some manner for "presumably" innocent purposes, re-encrypt it, then pass the re-encrypted data along to its original destination.

Chomping at the bit to sign up for this baby? No? Good for you!

Ironically, in the early days of cell phone data, when full capability mobile browsers weren't yet available, it was common practice to "proxy" so-called "secure" connections in this manner. A great deal of effort went into closing this security hole by enabling true end-to-end mobile crypto.

Now it appears to be full steam ahead back to even worse bad old days!

Of course, the authors of this proposal are not oblivious to the fact that there might be a bit of resistance to this "Trust us" concept. So, for example, the proposal includes the assumption of mechanisms for users to opt-in or opt-out of these "trusted proxy" schemes.

But it's easy to be extremely dubious about what this would mean in the real world. Can we really be assured that a carrier going through all the trouble of setting up these proxies would always be willing to serve users who refuse to agree to the proxies being used, and allow those users to completely bypass the proxies? Count me as skeptical.

And the assumption that users can even be expected to make truly informed decisions about this seems highly problematic from the git-go. We might be forgiven for suspecting that the carriers are banking on the vast majority of users simply accepting the "Trust us -- we're your friendly man-in-the-middle" default, and not even thinking about the reality that their data is being decrypted in transit by third parties.

In fact, the fallacies deeply entrenched in this proposal are encapsulated within a paragraph tucked in near the draft's end:

"Users should be made aware that, different than end-to-end HTTPS, the achievable security level is now also dependent on the security features/capabilities of the proxy as to what cipher suites it supports, which root CA certificates it trusts, how it checks certificate revocation status, etc. Users should also be made aware that the proxy has visibility to the actual content they exchange with Web servers, including personal and sensitive information."

Who are they kidding? It's been a long enough slog just to get to the point where significant numbers of users check for basic SSL status before conducting sensitive transactions. Now they're supposed to become security/certificate experts as well?

Insanity.

I'm sorry gang, no matter how much lipstick you smear on this particular pig -- it's still a pig.

The concept of "trusted proxies" as proposed is inherently untrustworthy, especially in this post-Snowden era.

And that's a fact that you really can trust.

--Lauren--
I'm a consultant to Google. My postings are speaking only for myself, not for them.

- - -

Addendum (24 February 2014): Since the posting of the text above, I've seen some commentary (in at least one case seemingly "angry" commentary!) suggesting that I was claiming the ability of ISPs to "crack" the security of existing SSL connections for the "Trusted Proxies" under discussion. That was not my assertion.

I didn't try to get into technical details, but obviously we're assuming that your typical ISP doesn't have the will or ability to interfere in such a manner with properly implemented traditional SSL. That's still a significant task even for the powerful intelligence agencies around the world (we believe at the moment, anyway).

But what the proposal does push is the concept of a kind of half-baked "fake" security that would be to the benefit of dominant ISPs and carriers but not to most users -- and there's nothing more dangerous in this context than thinking you're end-to-end secure when you're really not.

In essence it's a kind of sucker bait. Average users could easily believe they were "kinda sorta" doing traditional SSL but they really wouldn't be, 'cause the ISP would have access to their unencrypted data in the clear. And as the proposal itself suggests, it would take significant knowledge for users to understand the ramifications of this -- and most users won't have that knowledge.

It's a confusing and confounding concept -- and an unwise proposal -- that would be nothing but trouble for the Internet community and should be rejected.

- - -

Posted by Lauren at February 22, 2014 08:24 PM | Permalink
Twitter: @laurenweinstein
Google+: Lauren Weinstein

IainB

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Mark Zuckerberg Says The US Has Become A Threat To, Rather Than A Champion For, The Internet | Techdirt
from the indeed dept

Better late than never: it appears that Mark Zuckberberg is finally really pissed off about the NSA surveillance efforts.
(Read the rest at the link.)
___________________________
I find this rather amusing. These people are creeping out of the woodwork professing to be "Shocked, I tell you! Shocked!"
Yeah, right.
Pass the popcorn.

Like we didn't already know that the US has become a threat to, rather than a champion for, the Internet. ...
Goodness gracious! Has it really?    :tellme:

40hz

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Re: Knight to queen's bishop 3 - Snowden charged with espionage.
« Reply #530 on: March 14, 2014, 06:44 AM »
^Really! Can you believe it?

Amazing how brave these people are to speak out - once everybody else has.

Sad truth is that virtually none of these industry leading lights much cared until it started becoming obvious that the current state of affairs was going to hurt their business in the long run.

If "voluntary cooperation" could have been made to pay off, they'd still be as silent as clams. Just like they pretty much were up until a month or two ago.

people.png

Stoic Joker

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Re: Knight to queen's bishop 3 - Snowden charged with espionage.
« Reply #531 on: March 14, 2014, 07:11 AM »
+1 on the high 5 - Holy Shit! That's Funny (and true)!

-------------------------------------------------------

Sadly if the US government wasn't wasting so much time peeking in our backyards and panty drawers, they'd of had time to grab a few shots of the rest of the planet and we'd know where that Malaysian plane went.

News flash for the NSA: The plane isn't on friggin FaceBook ... So zip up your flies, go out side, and do some real work for a change.

40hz

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Re: Knight to queen's bishop 3 - Snowden charged with espionage.
« Reply #532 on: March 14, 2014, 07:58 AM »

Sadly if the US government wasn't wasting so much time peeking in our backyards and panty drawers, they'd of had time to grab a few shots of the rest of the planet and we'd know where that Malaysian plane went.

Yeah. It's much like the one thing about SETI that always made me laugh...

It gets no government funding because it's been called a waste of time and resources. But IF SETI ever did detect a signal that was clearly and provably from some extraterrestrial source, the feds and their military would be in there in a heartbeat, grabbing files, seizing facilities, shutting down networks, slapping DoD and NSA classification stickers on everything in sight, "debriefing" (i.e. threatening) every SETI researcher and employee they could put a finger on to keep their mouths shut...

The day SETI succeeds is the day SETI (as a public science project) will cease to exist.

But that's ok. Because it's for our "protection." :-\

Vurbal

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Re: Knight to queen's bishop 3 - Snowden charged with espionage.
« Reply #533 on: March 14, 2014, 10:36 AM »
^ So just think what it will be like if they ever find intelligent life on this planet.
I learned to say the pledge of allegiance
Before they beat me bloody down at the station
They haven't got a word out of me since
I got a billion years probation
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Follow the path of the unsafe, independent thinker. Expose your ideas to the danger of controversy. Speak your mind and fear less the label of ''crackpot'' than the stigma of conformity.
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Stoic Joker

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Re: Knight to queen's bishop 3 - Snowden charged with espionage.
« Reply #534 on: March 14, 2014, 11:37 AM »
Sadly if the US government wasn't wasting so much time peeking in our backyards and panty drawers, they'd of had time to grab a few shots of the rest of the planet and we'd know where that Malaysian plane went.

...

The day SETI succeeds is the day SETI (as a public science project) will cease to exist.

Yes, but at least we'll know that when SETI shuts down...The Invasion is only months away ... So we get a little something out of that deal.

P.S. ^That^ is why I suck at being an optimist. ;)

^ So just think what it will be like if they ever find intelligent life on this planet.

Yeah, like that's ever going to happen. :D

40hz

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Re: Knight to queen's bishop 3 - Snowden charged with espionage.
« Reply #535 on: March 14, 2014, 04:30 PM »
^ So just think what it will be like if they ever find intelligent life on this planet.

"It would be the end of everything we know." as Marvin Minsky once said when asked what it would be like if television were actually good.

40hz

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Re: Knight to queen's bishop 3 - Snowden charged with espionage.
« Reply #536 on: March 14, 2014, 04:43 PM »
Yes, but at least we'll know that when SETI shuts down...The Invasion is only months away ...

Really? I don't think we'll have the chops to take on or invade an extraterrestrial civilization ever. ;) We're far too enthusiastic about shutting down scientific research and technical schools to ever develop such advanced capabilities. We're also more than content with patenting the obvious - and then fighting over it - to make any real advances.

Besides, the money is needed for far more important things, like giving every town in the USA with a population over 4000 their very own police tank, monitoring every scrap of digital communication - and storing it forever, and bailing out our corrupt financial institutions so they can still pay their criminal directors their annual bonuses...

I mean c'mon! As a people we need to set priorities. :-\

wraith808

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Re: Knight to queen's bishop 3 - Snowden charged with espionage.
« Reply #537 on: March 14, 2014, 04:59 PM »
^ I think he meant the invasion as in the alien invasion of Earth. ;)

tomos

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40hz

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Re: Knight to queen's bishop 3 - Snowden charged with espionage.
« Reply #539 on: March 14, 2014, 06:43 PM »
^ I think he meant the invasion as in the alien invasion of Earth. ;)

I thought so too.

My comment was a lame attempt at making a snarky joke.  ;) ;)

Shades

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Re: Knight to queen's bishop 3 - Snowden charged with espionage.
« Reply #540 on: March 14, 2014, 07:45 PM »
Brilliant, Tomos  :Thmbsup:

IainB

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Re: Knight to queen's bishop 3 - Snowden charged with espionage.
« Reply #541 on: March 14, 2014, 10:14 PM »
^ So just think what it will be like if they ever find intelligent life on this planet.
___________________
There is intelligent life on this planet, but I'm just passing through... ;)

Vurbal

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Re: Knight to queen's bishop 3 - Snowden charged with espionage.
« Reply #542 on: March 14, 2014, 10:46 PM »
^ So just think what it will be like if they ever find intelligent life on this planet.
___________________
There is intelligent life on this planet, but I'm just passing through... ;)

You might want to go around instead. It gets pretty hot toward the center.   :P
I learned to say the pledge of allegiance
Before they beat me bloody down at the station
They haven't got a word out of me since
I got a billion years probation
- The MC5

Follow the path of the unsafe, independent thinker. Expose your ideas to the danger of controversy. Speak your mind and fear less the label of ''crackpot'' than the stigma of conformity.
- Thomas J. Watson, Sr

It's not rocket surgery.
- Me


I recommend reading through my Bio before responding to any of my posts. It could save both of us a lot of time and frustration.

TaoPhoenix

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Re: Knight to queen's bishop 3 - Snowden charged with espionage.
« Reply #543 on: March 14, 2014, 11:48 PM »

Sadly if the US government wasn't wasting so much time peeking in our backyards and panty drawers, they'd of had time to grab a few shots of the rest of the planet and we'd know where that Malaysian plane went.

News flash for the NSA: The plane isn't on friggin FaceBook ... So zip up your flies, go out side, and do some real work for a change.

From another angle, I'm wondering why in this era of "everyone online", that if there started to be trouble, *why no one got a digital communication off*. 239 people and no one managed to tweet something?! How about just someone's phone syncing email? Wouldn't that produce a ping on the cell tower?

And does anyone else smell a bad TV movie coming?
>:(

IainB

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Re: Knight to queen's bishop 3 - Snowden charged with espionage.
« Reply #544 on: March 15, 2014, 06:20 AM »
...You might want to go around instead. It gets pretty hot toward the center.   :P
______________________

Heh. Do you know this from first-hand experience?

Your amusing comment just reminded me of a story told me by a Welsh computer salesman some years ago:
__________________________

The English salesman in Cardiff.
An English computer salesman from London was attending a 4-day sales convention in Cardiff (Wales) towards the beginning of Winter.
He drove there by car, checked-in to his pre-booked hotel, and attended the conference each day, usually ending up each evening in a local pub, after dinner, where he would drink solidly at the bar until closing time, and then go to bed.

On the evening of the third day of the convention, he was in the pub, and was talking with the Welsh barman, complaining bitterly about the weather. It had rained incessantly for the 3 days whilst he had been there so far.

"I tell you," he said, "it had been fine when I left England, a crisp Winter's day, but it started to rain as soon as I got across the ruddy border into Wales, and it hasn't f###ing stopped. It rained all during the drive to Cardiff, and by the time I got to my hotel it was f###ing bucketing down. The first night the noise of the heavy rain f###ing drumming against the window of my hotel room ensured that I didn't get much bloody sleep. It was raining at breakfast time the next morning, it was bloody raining all during the convention that day, so we didn't get out to see some of the historical sights around Cardiff that had been planned. It was still pissing down whilst I was having dinner that evening, and when I came over to this pub after dinner it was f###ing bucketing down again.
Now I wouldn't mind, if it had been just the one day, but it's gone on for three f###ing days solid now without letup. Rain, f###ing rain, f###ing rain. Easing off to a fine drizzle for a few hours would have been nice - I could have enjoyed the brief respite - but no, it's just been f###ing bucketing down and bucketing down all the f###ing time and I tell you I'm f###ing fed up with it. I've had enough. I'd have f###ing gone home today if I could have, just to get out of this f###ing waterlogged hole, but I can't you see, because I've got to f###ing well stick around to the bitter end of this sales convention as I am the main sales rep for my company, and I have to make a speech tomorrow, so I can't f###ing leave until after that.
I'd never been to Cardiff before this week. If I'd known what a f###ing waterlogged s##thole it was I would never have f###ing come. This place has to be the f###ing arsehole - the bloody rectum - of the world, I f###ing kid you not."

At this point, he put his pint glass to his lips and took a long, slow drink of the amber liquid. The bar had gone silent, and the several local Welshmen drinking nearby who had been listening intently to his diatribe against the weather were looking curiously at him. One of them, who was sat just a couple of bar stools away from the salesman, turned towards him and enquired, "Oh yes, just passing through are you?"
« Last Edit: March 15, 2014, 06:28 AM by IainB »

40hz

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Re: Knight to queen's bishop 3 - Snowden charged with espionage.
« Reply #545 on: March 15, 2014, 07:35 AM »
From another angle, I'm wondering why in this era of "everyone online", that if there started to be trouble, *why no one got a digital communication off*. 239 people and no one managed to tweet something?! How about just someone's phone syncing email? Wouldn't that produce a ping on the cell tower?

Possibilities in no particular order:

  • No receiving tower within range
  • No phone handy. Not all airlines allow in flight use of cellphones. Some places make you shut it off and pack it with your luggage.
  • Something nefarious was planned, and those responsible brought a jammer - most likely disguised as a cellphone. Interesting possibility since the flight transponder also went silent while the flight was supposedly in the air. That would slot in nicely with a hijacking.
  • Rapid catastrophic flight failure - no time to tweet.
  • Alien abduction.
  • The first incident that marks the beginning of The Rapture.

Movie suggestion:

Gus Parker is unhappily married. He is on a business trip to sell advanced surveillance technology to despotic small eastern governments. Unbeknownst to him, suicide hijackers (abetted by Russian right-wing ultra-nationalists) are on board who have obtained a black market Soviet era tactical nuke and have seized control of the plane with the intent of detonating the device over Kiev if the Ukrainian government does not agree to cede Crimea to the Russian Federation. Gus realizes he is about to die and attempts to call his wife intending to apologize for not being a better father and a husband - an attempt complicated by the fact his phone is packed in his flight case in the overhead luggage rack. The hijackers scream for Gus to sit back down and wave their weapons menacingly at the cabin passengers. Suddenly Gus disappears along with 10 percent of the other passengers. Only their empty clothing remains to mark the spot where they were sitting. Gus it seems has sincerely and truly repented of his sins, attained salvation, and been transported to heaven along with the other faithful in the plane. The hijackers freak out and threaten to detonate the bomb unless somebody tells them where the missing passengers went - which leads to an interesting debate between them and the passengers about life, duty, salvation, and right action - with a healthy dose of patriotism and "family values" thrown in for good measure. The hijackers believe the element of surprise is now blown but decide to salvage what they can of their mission and detonate their bomb anyway. They fly over the ocean, away from any populated coastline, and prepare to broadcast a prepared speech which will now characterize their mission as a "first warning" - with a threat that others will follow in their footsteps if the Ukrainian issue is not resolved peacefully and fairly for all Ukrainians. (Apparently the earlier debate led to a semi-change of heart even though they still remain 'bad guys.') But before they can do so, the plane and all it's passengers abruptly disappear - abducted by a huge UFO that is only briefly glimpsed before all that is left is an empty sky over an endless and restless sea. <Eerie music swells. Fade to black.> <Text scrolls up on screen:>

FLIGHT 234 DISAPPEARED WITHOUT A TRACE.

DESPITE A MASSIVE MULTINATIONAL SEARCH EFFORT NEITHER THE PLANE OR ITS WRECKAGE WAS EVER FOUND NOR WAS ITS BLACK BOX FLIGHT RECORDER EVER RECOVERED.

THE INCIDENT REMAINS UNDER INVESTIGATION.

THE FATE OF ITS 300 PASSENGERS REMAINS UNKNOWN.

<Music swells. Quick fade to black. Cut to Verizon commercial>
 :P

Yeah...that's so sucky it just might become the next uber-successful "made for TV" movie. Hey NBC? ABC? CBS? FOX? Call me!
« Last Edit: March 15, 2014, 08:12 AM by 40hz »

IainB

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Re: Knight to queen's bishop 3 - Snowden charged with espionage.
« Reply #546 on: March 15, 2014, 08:07 AM »
^^ @40hz: Have you got the link for that movie/trailer? Sounds guuud!   ;)

40hz

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Re: Knight to queen's bishop 3 - Snowden charged with espionage.
« Reply #547 on: March 15, 2014, 08:14 AM »
^If they call me you'll be the first to know. Promise. :Thmbsup:

Hmm...wonder how much attention all those hot button words in the above have netted me with the NSA. :huh:

Oops...I just used another hot button word didn't I? :o

 ;D

4wd

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Re: Knight to queen's bishop 3 - Snowden charged with espionage.
« Reply #548 on: March 16, 2014, 12:27 AM »
Re. MH370 - It amazes me that there isn't an EPIRBw mounted on aircraft tail assemblies that:

a) like most boats/ships, start transmitting the moment they hit water.
b) activates on collision.
c) can't be switched off internally, it's autonomous.

You could even make it a bit smarter: it's fed the terminating coords by the originating tower according to flight plan and if the point at which velocity falls below sustained flight occurs doesn't happen within a specified radius of the termination, it goes off.

What use is the f'n flight recorder if you can't find the aircraft in the first place?

TaoPhoenix

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Re: Knight to queen's bishop 3 - Snowden charged with espionage.
« Reply #549 on: March 16, 2014, 01:01 AM »
Heh 40hz that was epic!