Miscellaneous And Off Topic Subjects

[Da Geezer]

George Bush : left-handed
Bill Clinton : left-handed
George W. Bush: left-handed
Barak Obama : left-handed

The prosecution rests.

[crashcourse]

not my smartest post ever

faces reality of 6.5 years of free office pool picks

[entropy]

sooooooo.... what are everyone's initial thoughts on the CIA hacking "news"?

[CGVT]

sooooooo.... what are everyone's initial thoughts on the CIA hacking "news"?

I don't know why anyone would be surprised. This kind of shit has been going on for years in one form or another.

[Da Geezer]

Good question Ent.

I knew 15 years ago that the spooks had the capability of turning cell phones and certain TVs into listening devices, so that much is nothing new. I seriously doubt if any FISA warrant was/is sought for listening using these devices.

I expect there will be a full-scale hunt for the person(s) who leaked to Wikileaks. And I never rule out this being a false-flag operation, because spooks do what spooks do. I'm still conflicted about Snowden, and probably will be about whoever leaked this traunch of information.

[Wild Hoss]

I would guess that the Agency was leaning heavily on those practices as replacements for agent sourcing, so being outed in such fashion is likely to cost lives at some point.

[Jeff Buchanan]

There is now and will always be an argument over privacy v national security. This news only gives rise to a continuation of it.

The NSA is the government agency that collects, among other things, signal intelligence. The scope and complexity of it would stagger the casual citizen. For the most part, it is an absolutely necessary undertaking when it is properly regulated, and, IMO, it is. Jon, would disagree and he would offer an entirely defensible argument of why it can be dangerous to liberty.

10-20 years ago when this capability became useful, outing it then would have been a major blow to Intel collection. Today? The bad guys, the smart ones, have effective electronic countermeasures that already render Intel collection by these means of little value. The dumb ones, will still use computers, cell phones and laptops and the usefullness of the intel collected monitoring them isn't going to be affected by this news.

[Wild Hoss]

IDK that we can assume the smart ones have this knowledge (Or its full extent) or the capability to spoof it. Nor that the dumb ones do not watch Al Jazeera.

Its probably also worth noting that even the smart ones have family and friends that probably aren't operating with great communications security, and might spill useful info.

[hack]

http://lawfare.libsyn.com/edward-jay-epstein-on-how-america-lost-its-secrets

So interesting on this topic.

It sure does call into question the Internet of Things. I don't need a fridge that orders milk for me, and I'm fine with the TV I have. I don't want to stock my house with devices that can be used against me.

[Wild Hoss]

hack writes his articles on a printing press, submits them by carrier pigeon.

[hack]

Damn straight I'm a luddite. I can find lots of good in the Unabomber's manifesto.

[hack]

Reminds me of this, though. I'd like to lock him in a room with talent: I am an artisanal attorney

[Wild Hoss]

I am going to intercept your next transmission.

[hack]

Already thought of that. I'm moving to the town-crier model.

[WingsFan]

My power has went out 4 times, but came back on shortly.

More than 370,000 utility customers are without power in southeast Michigan, and that number could continue to rise throughout the day because of high winds.A 68 m.p.h wind gust was recorded at Detroit Metro Airport, a 61 m.p.h gust came in at Coleman A. Young International Airport, a gust of 63 m.p.h was recorded in Mount Clemens and Ann Arbor saw a 66 m.p.h gust, according to the National Weather Service.