Saturday, December 22, 2001

Whether you agree or not with their views isn't really relevant, it's their decisions :)

This is exactly and precisely what I believe. What I think and believe only applies to me, and It is not my place to impose my beliefs on other people and by extension other countries. It is anathema to me that another persons beliefs should be forced upon me or the country where I live.

My way of thinking and behaving protects those people in other countries who want to do national service, carry ID cards, be numbered, sell thier organs, pray to statues, not pray to statues. whatever. You are free to do what you want, as long as you dont try and make me do it, or submit to your ways.

If you try and do that, then you must die.
posted by Irdial , 2:56 PM Þ 

in the same way that GREAT britain, USSR, USA ( a brave new world set up to the greater degree by us by conveniently scrubbing out the natives, whose living standards we chose not to agree with, first), various strains of asian flu, have tried not to homogenize the world by attempting to conquer it, or rather its 'weaker' areas, to its own benefit ? ; ]
posted by a hymn in g to nann , 1:09 PM Þ 

Oh, you can still refuse army service (here) and go do something else for the time... Which I am. I'd never kill a man for my country, for any country.

And what a country does is their own business, you got that right, Akin. Whether you agree or not with their views isn't really relevant, it's their decisions :)
posted by Mikkel , 1:05 PM Þ 

The principle that slavery is wrong is not dissoluble. Once they can compel you to kill as a slave in the army, they can compel you to be sterilized, take vaccination, and do anything they want, because you are nothing more than a numbered piece of property.

If you think that its OK to be a piece of property, and all of your countrymen think that too, I don't have a problem with you, or your country, I simply choose not to live there. What I DO have a problem with, and I will be repeating myself, is when people from other countries try and tell me what I can and cannot do in the jurisdiction that I have chosen as my home.

This is the fundamental difference between the British and the Europeans. They cannot accept that their ways and beliefs are not suitable for everyone. They think that if you do not do as they do you are wrong, and therefore must be compelled to be and live as they do.

Doing what you want in your own house, on your own time and in your own jurisdiction is your business. If the Europeans understood that and were hot hell bent on trying to homogenize the whole world, we would be able to live side by side with them without any problems or acrimony.
posted by Irdial , 12:08 PM Þ 



???!
posted by john , 10:03 AM Þ 

I dunno. Seems like drafting or conscription, it's more extreme cousin, don't take morale into consideration. Like, a population that's forced into service is not going to want to fight as much as a population who have voluntarily decided to fight.
Take for instance, World War I, just because I heard this like, 6 hours ago. On Christmas, the german and english soldiers basically came out and had a party. They didn't give a shit about a war. But the generals and sergants and stuff got pissed off, cause they were mingling with the enemy. But the peons didn't see them as an enemy, just more people forced to kill others for some unknown reason.
Blah, fuckit, I'm tired as hell.
posted by Barrie , 7:44 AM Þ 

Being that I'm drunk and this keyboard is pretty fucking annoying, I'll keep it short (it's moterhfucking ergonomic)

Something about army serice that I've been thinking about since i got drafted: I am pro-drafting. This might seem kindof odd, as I am a person that is pro-liberty, but the more I think about it, the more right it seems... Compare; professional army versus drafted army. A professional army will consist (in the majority) of people who like the concept or army-ism, a drafted arny will consist of a broad spectrum of people from all over the idealisms... Thus, a drafted army will get lots of input that disagree with the concept, while a professional army will mostly get people that agree with the concept...

Now, what is best for the country at hand? Diverse input or one-sided input? This is why I am not against drafting, be it against human rights or not. A profesional army could easily come to different interests than a free army. Especially, their interests could eventually differ so much from the interests of the government so as to cause problems...

Just a few words 'fore I go to bed... :)

.Carthag.
posted by Mikkel , 1:38 AM Þ 
posted by Irdial , 12:19 AM Þ 
Friday, December 21, 2001

YOU MUDOFACKA BUL SHET . :) bLOOD IN DE DENS FLOR I M KILL
EWRY BODY WHO LOOK ME PONIEWAZ I M ROBO-BLOOD
http://www.akacentral.com/hate1.htm
posted by Irdial , 10:02 PM Þ 
posted by Claus Eggers , 1:33 PM Þ 

posted by Mikkel , 10:36 AM Þ 
Thursday, December 20, 2001

From ZDNET
http://www.zdnet.com/tlkbck/comment/22/0,7056,119574-992766,00.html

Name: Angered, Location: Withheld, Occupation: IT
"In less than 48 hours, 150 Secret Service men and other law officials

served 30 search warrents in 14 cities around the nation "

The quote above wasn't from this month, this year, or this decade. It was from May, 1990, from "Operation Sun Devil", a crackdown on "hacking and phreaking" BBSes, way before the web.

Has the flow of that information been hampered? Absolutely not.

This is nothing new. The FBI and Customs Servic are a bunch of blathering goons. Look at Alan Doody, and his stupid self-congratulated over-annunciated spittle ridden speech about this recent bust.. Wow, 63 people caught. My oh my.

All the feds have done is shoot themselves in the foot. They found a group of people that were the enemy of the oh-so-benevolent Great Corporations of this country. So, what did they do? The same thing the RIAA did with Napster and P2P: They fired a few shots into that mass of "offenders".. They hit a few, but they caused the vast majority just to scatter and take things underground.

Good for the warez scene. Bad for the FBI. Now, there will be fewer major conglomerated groups. The warez groups will be small, isolated, and harder to find and infiltrate. As things always will be.

In reality, I don't think warez does one tenth the damage companies claim.. As if a 12 year old would have bought Photoshop otherwise.. And the ignorant asses who yell "but they broke the law" are just that, ignorant, illiterate sheep. A law is only as good as the people's will to follow it.

Bobby Teenager trading software with his friends on IRC is not costing the software industry billions, and those kids CERTAINLY should NOT do "HARD TIME" as one FBI moron quoted. If anything, it's building experts in that software early, who will pay for it later.

What the he11 is wrong with our stupid country?? If the FBI is concerned about the scourge of software piracy, why don't they raid a few large corporations and see how many license violations they'll find there? Go to one building of one fortune 500 company, and I guarantee you'll net way more than -63- violators there.

But of course, these days, the FBI does not protect the citizen. It's the citizens against the corporations.. And if any FBI agent reading this is worth his salt (And I'm sure some are reading).. Think about what you're doing. Do you really think individuals trading software causes any harm? Do you really think they deserve hard time? This has been going on since computers started. It is more the norm than an exception -- and the most pirated companies (MS, Adobe) are doing just fine.

I'm a computer programmer, and I expect that my software will be used 'illegally'. However, I don't give a rat's a$$ about the guy down the block who even makes copies for all his friends. It's the large, rich company who COULD buy my software but instead installs 500 illegal copies at one site that I'm concerned about.

Note, not one corporate work center was raided. Just individuals. And it won't put a dent in anything.

Pathetic, but what else do you expect. I'd love to have a one-on-one debate with an FBI agent who supports this, however I fear with the recent attitude in this country, I wouldn't be safe speaking my opinion.
posted by Irdial , 5:33 PM Þ 

All of this should come as no surprise to anyone. People have always been stupid, and the reason that there has been any freedom at all is because there has been a gentlemans agreement that freedom is the best way to go.

It has alway been understood (and in the case of the constitution of Germany, explicitly stated) that rights are conditional. Now that there has been a supposed change in conditions, they are changing the mode of operation, knowing that the populations are so very stupid and asleep that they will accept anything that is forced on them, without question.

In the UK, bombing by the IRA has been happening for decades. Some of the bombs have been incredibly large and destructive, yet, throughout all of this time, the government has never felt the need to strip away all of the rights that have been part of the gentlemans agreement for 1000 years. It is only now, when there is an attack on another country that the peoples rights are to be revoked.

This is clearly absurd.

There is no reason why such measures should be brought in in the UK. No other country in the EU is doing this (partly because they have no freedom in the first place), so why has the UK done this? That is irrelevant. The point is why is everyone not up in arms over this? How is it that a single man can wipe away 1000 years of building towards a free country, destroy it without any justification at all, and not even a whimper from the population?

I have not even mentioned the millions dead in several brutal wars, where British men and women fought to protect the UK from enemies world wide.

Sadly, even the people with some intelligence simply cannot understand the power of the number 1. If they understood that, nothing like this power grab would be possible. I have not met anyone who thinks that these measures are needed or right, yet, the power of the individuals is contained by each individual because they refuse to communicate in a "linked arms" fashion.

What I mean by that, is to say that no one is saying "I am not going to accept this, and no one that I know is going to either." That alone would be sufficient.

Then of course, there are the people who actually think that people being numbered like pigs is an OK thing to do. These people are the worst kind, because not only do they not lend thier power of 1 to the cause of keeping people free, they are actually propagating a -1 input, which dampens down the effect of mass refusal.

The only way that a reversal of this situation can come about is if there is an outrage on a massive scale that will change the minds of the population, that effects everyones pockets and lives. Quite what that could be eludes me, but it looks like an impossible task.

Firstly, the currrent "anti terrorism laws" have to be removed from the books, in thier entirety. Then the UK must remove itself from the EU.

The second is more likely than that first. When the ECU comes into use in January, shopkeepers, hotels and many businesses will begin to accpet it in excange for goods an services.

When toursits come to the UK, they will bring Euros with them and will not use Sterling. Why should they change thier money twice when they are simply passing through the uk on a European tour, when every shop in the UK accepts ECU?

The value of the pound will be damaged by this. No one will want the pound, because you will not need it to operate in the UK. Everyone with a Sterling account will see that thier savings have lost value. They will be furious.

The UK will either have to join the Euro and take the loss, or outlaw the use of the Euro in the UK to try and bolster the value of the pound. I have been in countries where there are two currencies running side by side; the local currency always looses becuase the stronger, foreign currency, is, for many reasons, stronger.

Its astonishing that no one has spotted this....or maybe they have. Either way, the pound and the value of the savings in millions of Sterlings accounts is doomed unless something is done to protect the integrity of the pound.

Lets see what happens.

Either way, for the record, we are NOT going along with it, DO NOT support it, and refuse to co-operate with it. Period.

We will NOT accept the Euro in exchange for our goods while the pound is the legal tender of the UK.
We ALREADY encrypt our mail so that it cant be read.
We ENCOURAGE you to do the same.
posted by Irdial , 12:51 PM Þ 

Yes, Kid Rock is truly, truly appalling.
posted by captain davros , 10:34 AM Þ 

totally amazing cnn poll:

Do you agree that governments should be able to detain
terror suspects indefinitely without trial?
Yes 80%
No 20%

"hey you, suspect......."

claus, just bitching and ranting. i'm just confused
anymore. is there a brain sucking machine somewhere
up in space taking all of our precious bodily fluids? i think
that there must be as i just don't get how anyone could buy a
kid rock album. the arts need artists not 'stars'. bah bah.....
posted by john , 2:00 AM Þ 
Wednesday, December 19, 2001
posted by Mikkel , 9:46 PM Þ 

me neither. Maybe there was something in his food. That waiter/waitress didn't sound like someone I'd trust.
posted by Mikkel , 8:04 PM Þ 

6 am - I haven't got the faintest clue what you're on about. Perhaps I'm to blame?
posted by Claus Eggers , 7:12 PM Þ 

http://www.tomheroes.com/Video%20Games%20FS/game%20ads/video.htm
posted by Claus Eggers , 7:08 PM Þ 

natalie d served me coffee this morning! yes, yes
as i awoke to drive my lovely wife to work, we stopped for coffee
and snacks
to find natalie as cheerful as you would imagine
for someone who has "lost/misplaced" their id card. she spoke in
kind of a manly voice and spit a lot. as she ran around behind the
counter pouring steamy coffee she shouted gwb quotes, saying
"we will get them", "kill the educated", "zeke hile" and other
memorable snipets from our 'leader of the FREE world'
& friends. it was quite a morning....
"The reason we start a war is to fight a war, win a war, thereby
causing no more war!"
--from the first pres debate

but who is to blame? are YOU wearing nikes? am i? do we care?
should i keep laughing?
posted by john , 5:52 PM Þ 

Fantastic stuff
http://www.showandtellmusic.com/
e.g. http://www.showandtellmusic.com/pages/galleries/gallery_c/shaggs.html

New suggestion for the get-together: 57.25.04°N / 13.40.36°V http://www.nabban.com the homepage isn't much but I've seen a brochure. It looks really nice. 300m2, six two bedded bedrooms, extended 'minibar', own lake with jetty, big sauna, big livingroom with live fire, kitchen with everything, conference room with overhead projector, whitboard, TV/video, stereo and (very important) internet. 10 minutes from skiing and golf.
posted by Claus Eggers , 5:26 PM Þ 
posted by Irdial , 4:27 PM Þ 
posted by Irdial , 4:27 PM Þ 

What the hell is wrong with these people? It seems there will never be enough stupid people in this world. Appaling, really. I seriously hope this stupidity ends soon. The terrorists have gotten more than they wanted. They've effectively begun a change in the so-called "free" world, turning it into a realm of oppresion. Man, I hate it.
posted by Mikkel , 12:55 PM Þ 
posted by Irdial , 11:56 AM Þ 

Oh, 'tis nothing personal to any girls reading this, just me going on about my experiences in the field, no?

I've not done much C++, but I did take a class... I don't fancy it much, preferring lighter languages that gets the job done in fewer lines (Perl, per instance). It's good to know it, though. I think the biggest project I've completed as a C++ app has been a naughts & crosses terminal game, but it was rather shitty.
posted by Mikkel , 9:16 AM Þ 
Tuesday, December 18, 2001

thanks Mikkel, glad you like it ........ how long have you been writing with c++ ? what do you use it for ?
posted by a hymn in g to nann , 11:44 PM Þ 

girls are evil??? ACH! lets leave snide personal remarks aside mikkel as you seem like a lovely fella... ;)
posted by ha , 9:59 PM Þ 

On a lighter note, I got the white label today. Excellent, I must say! I need a turntable in my room, going downstairs is kinda annoying.
posted by Mikkel , 8:47 PM Þ 

thanks all ........ i feel a heap better ........ it doesn't help when your only experience of these matters is via textbooks that naturally come across as all-knowing, and when you've no real knowledge of the kinds of work to expect to go into, and thus what to worry about knowing and what not to worry about ; plus you've given up your day job to get the learning done and suddenly the world's economy goes pants-up ............... and this is the first time you've gotten involved with this whole area ; i did pascal before the c++ so the basics are pretty tightly tucked under my belt, but ....... whatever ........ thanks ; ]
posted by a hymn in g to nann , 8:27 PM Þ 

In case you ave been living under a rock on Pluto:
http://www.oxfordstudent.com/funstuff/girls.html
posted by Irdial , 7:05 PM Þ 

Hargl! Akin's got it right, learn what you need now, then learn more. I started perl that way, writing shitty little apps that responded to input, then gradually incremented on that, drawing larger concentric circles each time.

Oh, and girls are evil. Can't be said enough. Blearhgb.bxv h...b dcv
posted by Mikkel , 6:59 PM Þ 

I was going to get into programming actually, not a few years ago. Then I looked at the whole computer industry nowadays and was just... dissapointed. I dunno. It was so much cooler when I was a kid (the 80s, early 90s). It seems boring and bereaucratic nowadays.

Speaking of the hole of shitfucks known as the FBI, they want "more access" to Canada. What the FUCK does that mean? Who the hell does the FBI think they are, that they can shove their noses into every country's business? I want them to get the hell out of my country, now. I don't want any McCarthyist, shitbrained retards treading my country's soil. They're worse than the fucking KGB. But knowing how incompetant and useless our current government is, they'll just let them right in, in the name of the "War on Terrorism" (bullshit). And us citizens won't be able to do jack shit about it, our inability to affect gov't policy has already been demonstrated with Bill C-36. What's that you say? The police are allowed unquestioned access into lawyer's casefiles? What's that you say? Violation of fundamental rights of democracy? What's that now?
I feel like crawling into a hole and dying.
posted by Barrie , 6:05 PM Þ 

Ive been programming since the early '80s, first in Assembly, then in BASIC and most recently Perl. You simply have to suspend belief when you are trying to learn a new language. If you try and understand it all at once, you will fail, and feel stupid. Programming is a tool that you use to perform discreet tasks. If your task does not require that you write files to disc, then you dont need to know how to do that. You need to know just enough to do the job at hand, and no more. The incremental approach is best, and its also cool to have a good book by an author that you can get along with.

My entry into modern languages was very lucky. Im interested in operating systems, and installed early versions of Red Hat. This was a great way to learn about Linux/UNIX, and the different shells and command line tools. Then, I got a book on UNIX, and learned even more. Then I got "Learning Perl" and by then, most of the ideas were familiar, and picking Perl up has been a breeze. Its very important to be open to failing when you are a programmer; its the only way to learn how to fix things. Total knowledge is not necessary for this in any way. You have to trust that the pieces will suddenly fall into place, a light will suddenly illuminate your head and it will all coalesce into a coherent single package that you can RuLe with.

Then of course, you will be unable to communicate with anyone that does not programme. I am convinced that the act of learning a programming language changes the way that you think. I find that when people use gramatically incorrect english, I have to think to myself "You didnt mean to say that, but I know what you are trying to say". Your need for linguistic accuracy and correctness is very strong; forget watching the TV news, it will drive you iNsAnE! (especially Sky News).

As for working for other people, all I can say is that dealing with computer illiterates who want programming done is the shortest path to the insane asylum. Trying to explain the most simple concepts, and watching peoples eyes glaze over is something that "Mr. Irdial" has had to put up with for literally decades. Get used to it. Unless everyone is sprayed with Geek Gas and is transformed into a real person, you will have to put up with this aspect of your existence FOREVER.
posted by Irdial , 4:02 PM Þ 

Anthony,

I work with XSL and XML, which can be pretty mind-mangling at times, and I still can't get my head around it. Doesn't stop me getting paid, or doing things that work! In addition I work with someone who can only be described as a natural with programming languages of all types - he just effortlessly knows exactly what to do and how to do it, and writes so much better stuff than me. This can make one feel very dim when things go wrong and someone else fixes it in seconds, but rather than trying to understand everything, I think it's better to admit confusion and ask for directions and reasons. After all you can't run before you can walk, and if you're not bothered by feeling a bit dim because you did it wrong or don't understand it, you can soon pick up where to go next. So basically, don't be afraid to ask (and remember to add comments to useful bits of code!)

Sometimes it's good to be able to have an overview of things - after all, as I believe mega-metal widdly fellow Joe Satriani said, "I don't have to be able to play the flight of the bumble bee in order to want to write it", but I think for the average person there are lots of areas in programming where you can't possibly be expected to know everything, because it's just too vast, and inspite of all the rules and logic, data is still a tricky thing. For me, if you can get an interview with nice people who you won't mind working for and who look like they'll pay for training where you need it then that's a whole lot nicer feeling than being able to talk pure machine code and pat yourself on the back for it.
posted by captain davros , 3:58 PM Þ 
posted by Claus Eggers , 3:22 PM Þ 

I feel home when programming, my brain works a whole different way, thinking much more abstractly. I see the code as a real language, that I just type out. I guess this is because I've been dabbling in programminglanguages since age 12 or so (I don't really remember, but it was around the time I had my first Commodore 64 and the Macintosh SE/30).
On the note of job interviews, it's bullshit. I hate those, that's where I panic, I get this gutwrenching feeling that I do not want this job and it will do me in. I crap out and go like "yeah, that sounds interesting" and smile a lot and now I have a job doing web-work. Bleh.
But how much have you programmed before? I guess it gets easier as you learn more languages, you can compare them and see the concepts more abstractly. I learned a structured language (Basic) before I went on to the object-oriented (C++, etc), which I guess made it somewhat easier for me. Structured languages lie closer to writing a text for example. An object-oriented language is more like building a machine where you define each part and make them work together.
posted by Mikkel , 2:44 PM Þ 

programming panic attacks

I'm studying visual c++ and can't seem to rid myself of the fear that i'll never get my head around what seems to be an ever-expanding body of complexity. Just as I think I've mastered one concept, along comes another that sweeps notions of competency away with alarming ease. Those of you who work in these fields : does this sense ever leave you ? Will going for job interviews always involve 85% blagging ? At the moment I feel like a fraud, like I'm going to be found out the moment I try to step into a professional environment.
posted by a hymn in g to nann , 2:15 PM Þ 

Being in love is the greatest and most horrible feeling in the world.
Being depressed makes me extremely cynical.
Being both makes me go crazy.

Fucking pseudopoetry I feel like cranking out today. Meh.
posted by Mikkel , 1:24 PM Þ 
posted by Irdial , 12:28 PM Þ 
posted by Irdial , 12:20 PM Þ 
posted by Irdial , 11:09 AM Þ 

"The obviousness of disaster becomes an asset to its apologists--what everyone knows no-one need say--and under cover of silence it is allowed to proceed unopposed." -- Theodor Adorno
posted by Irdial , 9:42 AM Þ 
posted by Irdial , 1:30 AM Þ 
Monday, December 17, 2001

I just had a thought; monkeybrains.com decided not to cooperate with the feds, but what about the other 17+ email addresses where badtrans trafic was being dumped? Did the other site owners give in to the FBI?
posted by Irdial , 11:14 PM Þ 

Try www.cnn.com in the passwords section; logins compromised!!!!!
Utterly and completely unreal.

also compromised:
http://www.the-times.co.uk
http://www.guardian.co.uk
http://www.silicon.com (99 results) [and this is supposed to be read by and run by computer literate people. They had THE MOST episodes of compromised passwords of all the domains that I tried!]

Please try out the form and see what compromised domains you can find, and post them~
posted by Irdial , 8:40 PM Þ 

In particular, suck_my_prick@ijustgotfired.com began receiving emails at 3:23 PM on November 24. Triggering software automatically disabled the account after it exceeded quotas, and began saving messages as they arrived. The following day, MonkeyBrains' mail server was sluggish. Upon examination of the mail server's logs, it quickly became apparent that 100 emails per minute to the "suck_my_prick" alias were the source of the problem. The mails delivered the logged keystrokes from over 100,000 compromised computers in the first day alone.

One of the most basic tenets of an authoritarian state is one that claims rights for itself that it denies its citizens. Surveillance is perhaps one of the most glaring examples of this in our society. Accordingly, rather than hand over the entire database to the FBI, MonkeyBrains has decided to open the database to the public. Now everyone (including the FBI) will be able query which accounts have been compromised and search for their hostnames. Password and keylogged data will not be made available, for obvious legal reasons.

The database is available at http://badtrans.monkeybrains.net
posted by Irdial , 8:26 PM Þ 

Still using Outlook Express???

http://www.dailyrotten.com/articles/archive/189387.html

December 17, 2001
FBI wants access to worm's pilfered data

A ROTTEN.COM EXCLUSIVE

The FBI is asking for access to a massive database that contains the
private communications and passwords of the victims of the Badtrans
Internet worm. Badtrans spreads through security flaws in Microsoft
mail software and transmits everything the victim types. Since
November 24, Badtrans has violated the privacy of millions of Internet
users, and now the FBI wants to take part in the spying.

Victims of Badtrans are infected when they receive an email containing
the worm in an attachment and either run the program by clicking on
it, or use an email reader like Microsoft Outlook which may
automatically run it without user intervention. Once executed, the
worm replicates by sending copies of itself to all other email
addresses found on the host's machine, and installs a keystroke-logger
capable of stealing passwords including those used for telnet, email,
ftp, and the web. Also captured is anything else the user may be
typing, including personal documents or private emails.


[...]

Last week the FBI contacted the owner of MonkeyBrains, Rudy Rucker,
Jr., and requested a cloned copy of the password database and
keylogged data. The database includes only information stolen from the
victims of the virus, not information about the perpetrator. The FBI
wants indiscriminant access to the illegally extracted passwords and
keystrokes of over two million people without so much as a warrant.
Even with a warrant they would have to specify exactly what
information they are after, on whom, and what they expect to find.
Instead, they want it all and for no justifiable reason.

[...]

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posted by Irdial , 8:23 PM Þ 

Meh, and now we're at the McCarthyism, let's start blacklisting the clever people. Fucking.
posted by Mikkel , 9:05 AM Þ 
Sunday, December 16, 2001

From: "Erich M"
To: Declan McCullagh
Date: Sun, 16 Dec 2001 14:33:48 +0100
Subject: Bin Laden's communications system

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
Hash: SHA1

Declan,

Here is the gist of three stories in German linked below
cu
erich

If Bin Ladens Voice really could be identified on intercepted radio
communications as some US Media report, he most likley used used a
Handset of the "High Power HF SSB System" by the Australian manufacturer
Codan.

These Shortwave SSB [Single Side Band modulation] radio systems [voice and
data] are used by most of the UN and many NGO relief orgs [UNHCR, UNICEF,
Omar, Red cross]

The Codan Marketing Manager confirmed that they had to ship over one
thousand additional units to resupply the losses of those organisations in
Afghanistan. Taliban/Al Quaeda systematically robbed those Codan Systems
and used them to hide their communications.

Can you imagine how difficult it was for the US to identify a communications
station as a target when it was active with a hardware id and a callsign
belonging to a UN organization?

In many of the cases when relief orgs were hit by US missiles a Codan station
was also destroyed.

Codan System typically consists of automobile transceivers, a powerful base
station [up to 1 KW covering the whole shortwave spectrum] plus a number of
handsets. Each base station can handle up to 400 [!] radio telephony channels,
Codan also delievers radio modems

Shortwave, being the dirtiest of all spectra of course does not allow reliable on-
the-air voice encryption - way too much noise around. Data transmissions are
very slow [1Kbit/sec is "fast"] because of high data transmission error rates.
Strong encryption systems are difficult to apply - if one character ist corrupt,
the whole message remains unreadable - so even embassies around the world
use some kind of Baudot-like numerical Code: Information is coded in groups of
five numbers.

All an easy prey to ECHELON I'd say. Al Kaida did not communicate via PGP
or Steganography in pornographic images - God forbid! They used stolen two
way radio hardware from relief organizations with stolen callsigns. The
challenge to US surveillance was to identify whether a voice speaking in Pashtu
[or some other dialect] belonged to the enemy. Or not: four Afghan engineers of
a UN technical aid unit were killed by a cruise missile beginning October, the
building contained a Codan base station.


Full text
http://www.heise.de/tp/deutsch/inhalt/co/11357/1.html

Abridged version
http://futurezone.orf.at/futurezone.orf?read=detail&id=99932

first story
http://futurezone.orf.at/futurezone.orf?read=detail&id=98032





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posted by Irdial , 7:57 PM Þ 

that is truly something. if we could flash forward a couple
decades i wonder what we'd see. facism all over with
the press numbing the minions with mcrib and 'survivor'.
apathy mixed with brainwashing as the mini mall slips
into thewhitehouse. well at least the whitehouse front
office....but down in the basement hitler and the duke
boys will be plotting the next in' sync tour. oh, i'm sorry
that was last week....
posted by john , 7:52 PM Þ 
posted by Irdial , 6:40 PM Þ 
posted by Irdial , 6:34 PM Þ 

I've said it before and I'll say it again, the vetoes are the reason why the UN never gets any security issues ironed out. Argh. Retarded.
posted by Barrie , 4:27 AM Þ 
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