Quote from: Renegade on July 18, 2013, 02:00 PM

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... ↓)

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.  

For a bit of perspective on the Stasi vs. the NSA:

http://falkvinge.net/2013/07/05/stasi-vs-the-u-s-nsa-back-to-back-whos-worse-and-by-how-much/

Quote

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.stackexchange.com/questions/16829/will-nsas-utah-data-center-be-able-to-handle-and-process-five-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...

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.

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 : )

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!

Quote

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.......

[attach]

Quote from: TaoPhoenix on July 19, 2013, 09:35 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".

Quote from: TaoPhoenix on July 19, 2013, 09:35 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.

(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. : )

@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...

Quote from: Renegade on July 19, 2013, 04:57 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!"

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!

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.

^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...

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.”