jcl

Linux Experts
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Posts posted by jcl

  1. Timely article in the WaPo: How a Detainee Became An Asset.

    After enduring the CIA's harshest interrogation methods and spending more than a year in the agency's secret prisons, Khalid Sheik Mohammed stood before U.S. intelligence officers in a makeshift lecture hall, leading what they called "terrorist tutorials."

    In 2005 and 2006, the bearded, pudgy man who calls himself the mastermind of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks discussed a wide variety of subjects, including Greek philosophy and al-Qaeda dogma. In one instance, he scolded a listener for poor note-taking and his inability to recall details of an earlier lecture.

    Speaking in English, Mohammed "seemed to relish the opportunity, sometimes for hours on end, to discuss the inner workings of al-Qaeda and the group's plans, ideology and operatives," said one of two sources who described the sessions, speaking on the condition of anonymity because much information about detainee confinement remains classified. "He'd even use a chalkboard at times."

    These scenes provide previously unpublicized details about the transformation of the man known to U.S. officials as KSM from an avowed and truculent enemy of the United States into what the CIA called its "preeminent source" on al-Qaeda. This reversal occurred after Mohammed was subjected to simulated drowning and prolonged sleep deprivation, among other harsh interrogation techniques.

  2. Two thoughts on that: Apparently no one's willing to take on the job of Security Czar, and I don't have a problem with the government having the capability of seizing control of the Internet during emergencies (just as they seize control of streets, airports, etc., during emergencies).

    The government owns the streets and airports.

    The original bill was horrible. It gave the President complete discretion to decide what networks were 'critical infrastructure' and what events were 'cybersecurity emergencies'. As far as I can recall, there was no oversight at all. I'm not sure the President was even required to inform Congress about their decisions.

    That alone would have been bad. What made it horrible was section 14(a)(1): "The Secretary of Commerce [...] shall have access to all relevant data concerning [critical infrastructure networks] without regard to any provision of law, regulation, rule, or policy restricting such access". Consider the implications.

    The language in the latest draft seems to be softer than in the original but the excerpt linked from the article doesn't include the sections that had the worst bits in the original, so who knows.

  3. If we commit torture, we are no better than those of whom we are fighting.

    I've never understood that argument. I mean, I understand it, I know what it's supposed to mean, but I've never seen it used in situations where "we" (whoever "we" is) were doing something that was as bad as what "they" were doing any reasonable standard. Usually what "we" are doing is unremarkable.

    We are America, and if we're going to consider ourselves "more civilized than the others" (which in itself is a completely different discussion) then we cannot torture, and those responsible must be held accordingly.

    No one who's aware of the history of civilization could believe that being civilized requires or implies righteousness. How many hundreds of millions of people did civilized nations kill last century?

    If you want America to start acting like "extremest" groups, then what's the point of any of this?

    Proactive self-defense?

  4. if it is best for your county

    then it should go ahead

    It doesn't affect the country. It's not even clear how it would affect Massachusetts.

    not so long ago a vice president

    and president

    made there own rules

    and look how many people died and are still dying

    Federal law requires that someone respond to that with snark about Chappaquiddick.

    ted kennedy is popular outside of the usa

    and right now that is some thing americans could do with

    The world isn't high school. There are more important things than being popular.

  5. So lets say the president wasn't really elected (most people know better) but does that make it right for King Kennedy to rewrite rules so he can appoint a new senator with out any election.

    But if rewriting the rules is wrong, then Kennedy's proposal to undo the last rewrite would be righting a wrong. Ethics is hard :(

    Well maybe it does in our new socialism.

    I miss old socialism.

  6. Hmmmmm. I thought that political talk was not permitted here?

    In the politics forum? It's fine. Here, watch:

    One that came in second in a national election but was appointed anyway.

    He was elected. The president is elected by the electoral college. The electoral college is selected by the state legislatures. Full stop. There is no national election. If you don't like it, propose a constitutional amendment.

    The same one that was "re-elected" (is that technically correct...can you be re-elected when you never were elected in the first place?) because the "terror level" was conveniently elevated on the eve of the election.

    The threat level was elevated in August for a few specific targets. The national threat level wasn't elevated at all in 2004.

  7. Treatment is not cheap. The full course costs $14,500 (£8,790) for 45 days, and there is a $200 (£121) application fee and $800 (£485) interview fee before people can be admitted. Staying at the centre longer than 45 days costs $9,300 (£5,635) a month.

    That doesn't sound even a little bit like a scam.

  8. So are the claims of 3Gb/sec on these drives THAT over rated? Clearly that is what they are stating. If you are correct that would be a huge lie.

    Not exactly. "SATA 3Gb/s" is one of the official names of the second generation SATA specification and SATA-IO -- the organization responsible for SATA -- recommends (or requires?) that products that implement the spec use that name. It isn't supposed to imply that the devices are capable of 3 Gbit/s transfers. I'm not sure the if even the SATA interfaces on the devices have to be capable of 3 Gbit/s. (In fact, even if you had a drive that was capable of reading or writing 3 Gbit/s, you couldn't do it on SATA 3Gb/s because of the overhead of the SATA protocols.)

  9. They still have like five million subscribers -- who can't make money on that? All I need is fifty cents from each of five million people and I'd be a happy camper. Ten cents. I'd settle for a penny. Just joking.

    Keep in mind that most of their subscribers will expire before their subscriptions.

  10. Most cookies are harmless; they are simple text files which keep track of your customizations and history on the site so that they do not have to keep them on their servers. Wouldn't you rather have your marketwatch stock tracking preferences stored on your computer than on theirs? How about search history? Would you prefer google to keep a record of what you search for on their servers or on your computer?

    Google does record your search history on their servers if you have a Google account and search history is enabled. I can't remember if it's opt-in or opt-out but it's easy enough check if it's enabled. As far as I know, that's the only user-visible search history that Google provides. Odds are that MarketWatch stores your preferences on their servers, too.

    Cookies are really only useful for storing very small quantities of often used but utterly unimportant information. For everything else, it's cheaper, safer, and more reliable to store the information on the server and use cookies to identify browser profiles or sessions.

    Incidentally, HTML5 is (probably) going to introduce a more general client-side storage mechanism that will drive the tin foil hat crowd up the wall.

  11. How can you not work with a modem? I've heard of not having a router? But not having a modem?

    OP is working with a WRT54G. If that isn't a modem -- and as far as I know there are no WRT54Gs with modems -- then the OP is not working with a modem. They probably have a modem but it's not the modem that they're trying to get working.

    Even if OP wasn't given a modem by his ISP (ridiculously unlikely) then even still, his wireless router will act as his modem. Whatever the case is, he'll still have to setup PPOE on his router if he has DSL.

    I have DSL and a WRT54G. The modem uses PPPoE over the phone port and runs a DHCP server for the LAN port. The router is connected via it's WAN port to the modem's LAN port and configured to use DHCP (not PPPoE). It works. Apparently it works for the OP with their other router, too.

  12. The modem has to use PPPoE. OP doesn't seem to working with a modem.

    I fail to understand how setting a router to bridge mode if it is a PPPOE connection between a DSL modem and a linksys router depends on the network.

    You don't need bridging if you have multiple "smart devices" on a network. If you connect the routers in the obvious way -- WAN port on the 'inner' router to a LAN port on the 'outer' -- they'll work as you'd expect, if not as you'd like.

  13. 1. Is your provider a DSL provider? If so you actually want to properly setup your router in PPPOE mode.

    Unless they have a modem that uses vanilla IP-over-Ethernet on the LAN port. Since OP said that their other router works in DHCP mode, it seems likely that that is the case.

    See a DSL router is what is known in common terms as a smart device and the wireless router is a smart device. Unfortunately smart devices conflict with each other, so you have to turn the dsl router into a dumb device by changing it into bridge mode.

    That depends on the network.

  14. I smell a "Rat" a "Big F***g Rat here... Clinton couldn't free his own Bowels if he had too... There must be something going on behind the scenes with this as I doubt anyone could just have a meeting then walk away with detainees that easily...

    North Korea is an attention whore. The US gave it the attention it wanted and, by sending Clinton, made it look like we take the DPRK seriously. There's no reason for the Koreans to keep the journalists after that.

  15. Likewise Bing will benefit from increasing ad revenue by including Yahoo ad customers in their search results.

    And the little "powered by Bing" at the bottom of every page. Every time you use Yahoo!, there'll be a little "Bing" in your peripheral vision. Bing. Bing. Bing. Bing.