There’s news that police have rounded up a bunch using e-mailed viruses to access bank accounts. Why isn’t M$ in the docket for aiding and abetting? Aren’t the people who made a browser/OS in which clicking on or viewing an e-mail installs a virus just as guilty as the thieves? Remember Napster? Why were they shut down and the trash that M$ distributes as an operating system is allowed to wreck the web?
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“Nonsense. I lived in the Middle East for years and never met anyone who rooted for terrorists.”
Well, you didn’t live in Palestine or Gaza or Iran, Robert. The Saudis are not the culprits and they do treat offenders harshly, I understand. But that is because it is bad for business. The Saudis are like the Microsoft of the oil countries.
“You may recall that USA, Saudi Arabia were gung ho! when Osama Bin Laden raised funds in Saudi Arabia and travelled in a rough style to Afghanistan to kill Russians”
I don’t think that Osama Bin Laden ever did any such thing, Robert. The Taliban, sure, but not Osama. IIRC, he was pissed about the bases in Saudi Arabia being used after the first Gulf War.
“The USA was born out of terror. Ask the RedCoats who were ambushed along country roads just as the Talibanis do now in Afghanistan.”
My, my, you are becoming a radical, Robert. The Brits ambushed by the American revolutionists were part of an army and USA vs Taliban is somewhat aking to that. But killing the thousands or hundreds in terrorist attacks on civilians as being tried by Al Quida is quite a different thing. I am surprised that you would try to justify such actions!
The Taliban is in trouble because the Mullah whoever refused to hand over Bin Laden and so became an accomplice after the fact. We should get out of there and wait and see which band of brigands gets the upper hand. Once they are out in the open, they are more easily dealt with, even using UACs.
“They are not stupid people.”
I think that they are incredibly stupid people who could simply disengage, bide their time while the coalition troops are withdrawn entirely, and then reassert themselves as they did before. Instead, they keep at it, giving the warriors and excuse to propose some new “final offensive”.
@amicus_curious
Nonsense. I lived in the Middle East for years and never met anyone who rooted for terrorists. In Saudi Arabia, they were hunted down and shot like rabbits. You may recall that USA, Saudi Arabia were gung ho! when Osama Bin Laden raised funds in Saudi Arabia and travelled in a rough style to Afghanistan to kill Russians. They weren’t called terrorists then but heroes. I doubt the USA would have any worries about cooperation from the muslim world if they were not supporting Israel no matter what they do in the Middle East. So, on two counts the USA created the problem more or less and yet a_c wants to blame all muslims for it.
Israel has occupied and disrespected lands that have been part of the muslim world for more than 1000 years. Settling that matter to the satisfaction of their neighbours would have prevented lots of trouble. Now the opportunity is gone forever. The USA has killed more than 100K muslims in the first Gulf war and a similar number now in Iraq and Afghanistan. The muslim world will remember that for a long time.
The USA was born out of terror. Ask the RedCoats who were ambushed along country roads just as the Talibanis do now in Afghanistan. One man’s terrorist is another man’s freedom fighter. Insurgents are rarely able to face armies successfully so they resort to all kinds of irregular tactics that are designed to demoralize armies, populations and governments. This is nothing new. It is not an invention of muslims but a natural response to a force majeur, anger and vengeful thoughts. Every terrorist the USA, Europe, Canada kills over there is a friend or relative of someone who may well be urged to action. We are creating terrorists. We are terrorists.
Look at some of the videos from Afganistan on YouTube and WikiLeaks. What the USA calls firepower is murder and is not making friends or discouraging terror in the world. The terrorists will keep getting more creative. They are not stupid people. They learn from setbacks. The USA and others do not seem to learn from Vietnam. They killed in a 20:1 ratio and still lost the war.
“There are billions of muslims (adherents to Islam) in the world and only a tiny splinter are terrorists”
True, although it has been shown that quite a few more are rooting for the terrorist team, if you remember the scenes from the Middle East that were shown in the aftermath of the 9/11 incidents. And the converse, i.e. “There are thousands of terrorist in the world and they are all muslims!”, is true for all practical purposes, too.
If some cure for this disease is not found soon, there may be a lot of “chemotherapy” applied as a desperate final solution and a lot of innocent hair will be shed as collateral damage. What does not seem to happen is cooperation by the “innocent muslims” who surround the terrorists. No one seems to want to rat them out and that conveys a certain degree of guilt in many people’s minds.
“Why isn’t M$ in the docket for aiding and abetting?”
Perhaps it is because they are not violating the law, eh? Someone compromises a cheap lock and so the lock maker should be found guilty? With such odd perspectives, it is no wonder that the Linux advocates have managed to keep Linux in last place in all the markets that they pursue.
“Remember Napster? Why were they shut down and the trash that M$ distributes as an operating system is allowed to wreck the web?”
Well, your information is rather dated, Robert. They were bought and sold a few times and currently operate as a sort of iTunes equivalent for BestBuy.
http://www.napster.com
I would not put it past M$ and governments to cooperate in espionage. M$ will do anything for $1.
OTOH, Lou Gallio is a bit of a nut. He equates Islam (a religion, meaning “submission to God”) with terrorism. There are billions of muslims (adherents to Islam) in the world and only a tiny splinter are terrorists. Jihad means “struggle” and it is not just about violence but resistance to oppression and so on. The constitution of the USA embraces “Freedom of Religion”, so Gallio, while attacking all kinds of folks for unconstitutional activity is promoting unconstitutional responses in restricting a religion unreasonably.
While he does endorse GNU/Linux as a safer software, I would not put a lot of weight on some of his points of view. His views on Islam as a threat to the USA is just as extreme as the terrorists who figure killing innocent people is worthwhile or right. The terrorists use Islam for recruitment for evil in much the same way as the Bible was used as justification to burn women alive. Extremism is wrong anywhere, any time. I think Gallio is extreme.
Well here’s an even better reason to give open source a whirl, and specifically dump the blue E, besides the usual random malware/crimeware:
http://www.examiner.com/homeland-security-in-houston/obama-fbi-microsoft-collusion-warrantless-snooping-on-the-internet
Quoted from there:
“Back in 2008, Microsoft provided the U.S. government a technical “backdoor” to its browser, which serves the majority of users (over 60%). Backdoor access is undetectable by security software—it bypasses normal authentication (passwords, etc.), firewalls and other computer security devices. In other terms, the Department of Justice, Homeland Security, the FBI and other security agencies can already eavesdrop on anyone using Microsoft’s Internet Explorer browser.”
It’s one more reason why open source code yet again is a great thing, nefarious chunks of code get pruned and weeded out.
Governments treat repeat offenders differently. M$ has repeatedly shown disrespect for competition. Every time a government slaps them for some offence they quickly crank out another unimaginable offence. They offend faster than the legislators or courts can keep up with them. Therefor, banning is the only effective measure. Ban them for at least ten years so the market can return to normal competition. If they can return to compete on quality and price, OK, but allowing them to write their own punishment as in the “final settlement” is silly. “OK, we agree not to do any of those bad things again.” does not cover future infringements. In some places a perpetual offender is banned forever.
“Government should ban M$.”
That may be a little heavy handed for my taste, I’d just settle for them not turning a blind eye to the anti-competitive practices that reduce choice to the consumer. Besides a vastly downsized, humbled, and hungry-to-innovate (technically, not in the marketing and backroom deals sense) MS might actually help spur MacOS, GNU/Linux, BSD, and the rest along faster as well. I for one refuse to buy from a Best Buy or Circuit City (who are now defunct) as they do not carry what I want as a consumer, though the wife did buy something that I would not have last holiday (and despite kid glove treatment Vista SP2 also known as “7″ choked on the OEM install; I was amazed at how much crapware was riding along as well). Mostly we have just ordered and bought off Craigslist, Ebay and the like parts and cobbled stuff together.
“The problem is that most users of PCs do not have much idea about security and because everyone uses “that other OS” that that is a normal level of security.”
That is a multi-system attitude. This is called ignorance. People who do not care about security will mind it later when their bank accounts get hacked or their online accounts etc. As they say “security is a process not a state” and this applies with people as well. Some attacks succeed regardless of the used OS be it GNU/Linux, MacOS or Windows. Though Windows has the worst “history” from them all and while M$ changes some things then it is too late and i suspect they would have to rewrite much of the OS losing compatibility along the way (they can’t afford it really thanks to all those businesses using legacy software) as is the case with Windows Phone 7. GNU/Linux in current situation is safer even thanks to the low “usage” (which i don’t mind at all) BUT the difference is that GNU/Linux already has the tools to be safer if such needs arise.
There have been such disasters. I worked at a place that unplugged from the Internet during one of the big worm attacks. It was a long time before there was a better defence except for installing GNU/Linux.
In the infantry if you are “guarding the wire” and you let in the first twenty people you see carrying a rifle because it was not the standard-issue rifle of the enemy, you would be shot for dereliction of duty. That’s what M$ did when it shipped an OS with no firewall and which executed images as data, and …
The problem is that most users of PCs do not have much idea about security and because everyone uses “that other OS” that that is a normal level of security. Those in the know seem unable to take action. I can promote FLOSS. Others can too. Government should ban M$.
Perhaps we haven’t faced a real malwaredisaster where perhaps 85% of computers stop working. These trojans have made just “interesting problems” so far. Then there is media talking about computer malwares without precise definition – Windows malware. People can’t stand brandnew car broken, but they have tolerance for broken OS of brandnew computer.