Posted on 07/22/2002 11:09:21 AM PDT by AdA$tra
Congress has been working on legislation to create a militia composed of 'technology experts' who will manage the telecommunications infrastructure in times of national emergency.
The Senate bill passed last week emphasizes disaster response, not terror prevention, with such things as patching leaky government servers and databases, setting aside bandwidth and developing interoperable standards for emergency communications, and organizing local teams of geeks ready to lend a hand putting it all back together in the event of a natural disaster or terrorist attack.
All that sounds quite reasonable and the initial budget of $35 million refreshingly modest. But before we applaud, let's recall two things. First, most people in government actually expect some al-Qaeda kiddiot crew to fry the Internet with worms and ping floods one day; and second, we've seen a tremendous interest by the current administration in encouraging citizens to rat each other out for 'suspicious behavior'.
One example of this trend is the Department of Justice (DoJ) Operation TIPS, a pilot program establishing a snitch-network of workers eager to report on citizens. The postal service was originally solicited, but demurred.
So while there's no language in the bill referring to any sort of communications or Internet monitoring, we have to wonder if the agency about to be created might find ways of exerting pressure on volunteers to 'keep an eye on things'.
It seems plausible that volunteer geeks whom the agency deems trustworthy to rat and keep their mouths shut (consider the irony of trusting someone who squeals) might be in for a bit of gentle arm-twisting.
Both the Senate and the House have passed measures; the next step is to sort out the differences and portion out the pork in conference committee. The senate version is S-2037. The House version is included in its Homeland Security legislation.
On a related topic, we note that EFF Chairman Brad Templeton has just put up a Web page where citizens can rat on TIPS rats in return.
Thus, I have only this to say: "Toga Party"
Belushi could say more with one single raised eyebrow - think about him on the ladder outside the soroity window - than most of today's comedians can say in an entire monologue. Too bad he was a druggie.
That having been said, my advice to you is to start drinking heavily. You better listen to me, I'm pre-med.
What till the government finds out the things you've been writing.
You'll singlehandedly get me promoted from snitch to rat.
What is that? A Twisted Sister pin, ON YOUR UNIFORM!?!? What kind of a man are you? You are worthless and weak! You DO nothing, you ARE nothing, you sit in here all day and play that sick, repulsive, electric TWANG-er ... I CARRIED AN M16!!! And you, you carry that, that, that ... guiTARRR! Who are you?!?! Where do you come from?!?! Are you listening to me??!?! What do you wanna do with your life?!
NEVER.....EVER apologize for hijacking a thread......but if you do hijack a thread , just make sure you do it with panache.
Would I be dating myself if I said that I actually owned that album? There's no telling the taste of teenagers......
To-GA! To-GA! To-GA! To-GA!
Actually, I don't think it's so much that we're all the toga party generation - heck, I was around 8 when the movie came out - as much as a universal realization that there have been few to zero truly classic comedies made since the mid-1980s. Caddyshack, The Blues Brothers, Ghostbusters, etc.
"Cut the horseshit, son. I've got their disciplinary files right here. Who dropped a whole truckload of fizzies into the swim meet? Who delivered the medical school cadavers to the alumni dinner? Every Halloween, the trees are filled with underwear ... Every spring, the toilets ... explode."
God, what an arrogant smarter-than-thou twit this guy is. I wouldn't mind his arrogance so much, though, if he were at least correct. But he's totally wrong. Why couldn't al-Qaeda, or any other group, plant a ton of worms, viruses and ping flood programs on thousands of unprotected computers all over the world, and then set them all to go off at the same time? Any one of us could do it, on a smaller scale, right now if we wanted to. The programs, the viruses, and detailed instructions are freely available all over the web. We know from experience that the release of a single fast-propagating virus can slow the entire Internet to a crawl. We know as fact that the ping floods that take down entire sites (remember that incident in early 2000 where CNN, Amazon, eBay and E-Trade were all knocked offline at the same time?) are usually caused by the actions of a single person. Get enough geeks together on a project - maybe a few dozen, you wouldn't need hundreds - and they could absolutely wreak enough havoc on the Net to bring it to a near-standstill while destroying data on a lot of people's Windows PCs. If one bad-boy virus can slow the Net down by half, what will happen if three such viruses are released at the same time? And if those viruses were truly destructive, as no other virus-writer has yet dared release? Boom, instant disaster.
and second, we've seen a tremendous interest by the current administration in encouraging citizens to rat each other out for 'suspicious behavior'.
And here is where the author admits his entire article is bunk pulled right out of his ass. This is like saying that because California just passed that hideous auto-emissions bill, the CHP is going to fly to Detroit and arm-twist auto executives into allowing them to plant tracking devices in all new cars. Correlation does not equal causation, especially when nothing has been caused in the first place.
One example of this trend is the Department of Justice (DoJ) Operation TIPS, a pilot program establishing a snitch-network of workers eager to report on citizens. The postal service was originally solicited, but demurred.
And then changed their minds and decided to participate. If you're going to write a pissy rant disguised as a news article, Mr. Greene, at least bother to get your facts straight.
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