So now...
... what was known to Russian and Chinese intelligence services for quite a long time, has become a general knowledge. Good for Western powers. Keep up a good job stepping on your d*ck!
245 publicly visible posts • joined 19 Feb 2017
Slightly wrong interpretation: not "death to', just GTFO.
And I'd still prefer to see the evidence, not rants. "the Turla malware crew, which is thought to have links to SVR sister agency the FSB, might have been involved" is no evidence. "Thought to have links", "might have been involved" is speculation, not evidence.
Turn on your critical thinking, people!
I surely hope they didn't stop. Spies spy. It's in their job description. Every country worth mentioning has external intelligence service, and this country better make sure the service is functional.
By the same token, every country has counter-intelligence service, which better be functional as well (or else.)
This time Russian intelligence outplayed the US and UK counter-intelligence for a while, but then the counter-intelligence caught up. Good for them.
Government slurping is always there, no matter where you live. All governments strive for better internal surveillance and better external intelligence. It's like second law of thermodynamics: just like the entropy ever grows, any given government tries to reach as much totalitarian mode of operation as possible.
Dear Adelio, you, like AC above, quote the "gun death" rates. What percentage of them are suicides? In US, I heard, it's pretty high. It is understandable: when a person decides to commit suicide, they look for the easiest way out, and if firearms are available, the choice is clear.
Note that I'm not debating your or CA's statements that there is much more gun violence in US (even removing the suicide part) than in UK or Australia. I'm debating the root cause: you and AC think it's stricter gun control laws, and I think it's difference in public attitude, "the level of general madness", if you will.
You are right, you are safer in Australia than I am in US, at least from gun violence. But not because the gun control laws are stricter in Australia. It's because there are more criminals and psychos in US. As I said, the people's attitude.
Criminals and psychos will find a weapon, gun control or not. If they can't find the gun, they'll find a knife and behead somebody. Look what's going on in France.
The point I'm trying to convey is, normal law-abiding citizens will not attack other citizens with guns (knives, machetes, ropes). Imposing strict gun laws disarms the law-abiding citizens, not criminals or psychos. And leaves the law-abiding citizens defenseless.
And don't kid yourself that "gun laws control what weapons criminals have access to". Criminals don't buy arms in a neighborhood gun shop. They have access to stolen or smuggled automatic arms. They are criminals.
Fortunately, Australians are pretty much laid back and are not inclined to resolve their problems with violence exceeding a good fist fight in a local pub. Thank God for this, not for strict gun control laws.
Guns are not the problem in US, people's attitude is. In Israel, for example, percentage of gun owners is higher than in US. How many mass shootings have been there in Israel in a month? I'm not even mentioning Switzerland, where all adult men have to have battle-grade (not castrated versions "for civilian market") firearms and load of ammo safely stored in their houses.
Guns don't kill, people do. Outlaw the guns, and only outlaws will have them.
You admit, in sunny Australia gun crimes still happen despite strict gun control. Gang on gang, eh? That's because gun control laws only concern law-abiding citizens, they are nothing to the gangs. You want to have gangs the only armed force in your country? I truly hope you never get in their way, because you'll have to defend yourself and your family with a broom or a soup ladle.
Putin and Xi are really weak men afraid of words? My dear, your naivete is charming. They rule their countries with iron hand, letting their subject oligarchs prosper and grow, but not at the expense of the state. And when their subject oligarchs get too cocky, they are reminded of certain facts of life.
You, of course, would prefer the corporations being given a free rein to run amok with their greed, right?
It's not the first time an AI-powered chat-bot has been shut down because it deviated into not-so-politically-correct speech. Some time ago the same happened to Microsoft's chat bot. So-called "AI" systems have no intelligence despite the name (although they are artificial, no doubt about that), their "speech" comes from statistical analysis of the speech of human inter-actors. In a way, the poor tensor processors are good at reflecting the general mood of the crowd, nothing more.
So who is to blame? Where do you think a simple, stupid chat-bots learned the hate speech? Of course, you can break the mirror if you don't like what you see, but your face will still be the same.
At a public lecture on astronomy.
Lector: "In approximately six billion years our sun will transition to a red giant phase..."
A gentleman from the audience: "Excuse me, in how many years you said?"
Lector: "Approximately six billion years."
A gentleman from the audience (looking much relieved): "Uff, thank God! I thought you said in six million years."
Why grapple satellites or take them out one-by-one with a laser? Three-five nuclear explosions in space, and whole constellations of satellites are dead.
Somebody in Pentagon must have stumbled on James Bond's "Dr. No" movie all of a sudden. Even there, the perpetrators were after manned space capsules, not satellites.
I've noticed since we started working remotely, the meeting load intensified significantly. Fortunately, there are not too many meetings I really must attend, so I ignore the rest, which gives me a chance to get something done.
I think the reason for this meeting fever is the managers' inherent desire to micro-manage. When they see their subordinates every day, they are more or less relaxed. When they don't see the subordinates day after day, their managerial glands get excited, and they start inventing meetings just to check if the subordinates are still around, and to remind the subordinates the managers still exist and do something "proactively".
Then again, some of my colleagues definitely feel lonely working from home, so they jump to every opportunity to communicate, no matter what about, and attend all the meetings. So maybe it's not a bad thing after all.
This is what will help. These tracking gimmicks are just another kind of surveillance pushed under the pretense of "fighting the pandemics". Tracking won't protect you from COVID-19 (or anything else, as a matter of fact). Yes, you may learn postfactum you might have gotten infected when you visited that brothel (or an opera). Does this help much?
Eastern Texas is the haven for patent trolls, now southern Texas becomes the home to unbridled absurdity. What's that about Texan courts? Are they all malicious, or totally incompetent, or criminally insane?
My cousin went totally bonkers and hung himself. Let me sue the company that produced the rope! Right, I'm going to Texas.
Mr. Doe was caught (in Texas) while attempting the burglary. Said he: "Why accusing me? My lock-picks are made from steel made by company X, blame them!" So they did.
Oh Lord, I've never could imagine such an idiocy! I understand, of course, that not all the judges are Einsteins, but one would expect at least **some** sense in a judge.
Surely, the case will be thrown out on higher appeals, but still... What's that about Texan courts?
Section 230 says: “platforms should not be held liable if a particular piece of content evades its detection – that would be impractical for platforms with billions of posts per day – but they should be required to have adequate systems in place to address unlawful content.” Note: "unlawful content."
And what are they policing? Is alt-right content unlawful? No, it's just stupid. Is QAnon-related content unlawful? Ditto. Is COVIG-19 BS unlawful? Ditto. Are Trump's posts illegal? Ditto.
Why did Russia throttle (not very successfully) Twitter and threatened to ban it altogether? Because Twitter didn't respond to their demands to remove teen suicide propaganda. Is teen suicide propaganda illegal? Yes, in most countries. And Twitter responded with "We stand for free societal dialog and discussion." Aha, in the form of teen suicide propaganda.
To keep enjoying S.230 protection, social networks should "have adequate systems in place to address unlawful content", if their policies deviate from it, they are not protected and may face lawsuits and penalties.
Disclaimer: I'm not an employee, a shareholder, or a user of the "social" networks, and thus have no interest in their well-being or existence.