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from the unless-they-were-'accidentally'-broken dept.
The Register has found itself subject to a certain amount of criticism for this author's skepticism ( Richard Chirgwin http://www.theregister.co.uk/Author/2242 ) regarding whether the NSA has been snooping on optical fibre cables by cutting them.
Glenn Greenwald's recent “NSA cut New Zealand's cables” story is illustrative of credibility problems that surround the ongoing Edward Snowden leak stories: everybody is too willing to accept that “if it's classified, it must be because it's true”, and along the way, attribute super-powers to spy agencies.
In running the line that undersea cables were cut, Greenwald is straying far enough from what's feasible and credible that his judgement on other claims needs to be questioned. It seems to The Register almost certain that neither Glenn Greenwald nor Edward Snowden have actually held a submarine fibre cable in their hands.
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2014/09/18/spies_arent_superheroes/
Do you think that it is credible that these undersea fibre cables were tapped when it is easier to tap onshore installations?
(Score: 1) by Arik on Friday September 19 2014, @07:39PM
If laughter is the best medicine, who are the best doctors?
(Score: 2) by takyon on Friday September 19 2014, @08:01PM
He did a press blitz in New Zealand in which he talked about tapping underwater. Slip of the tongue?
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 5, Informative) by frojack on Friday September 19 2014, @08:06PM
First, why do you insist of foisting your font on us?
Cable landings are the most likely location for tampering, and since most cables end up terminating in the US / UK at some point that is the logical point. See http://www.cablemap.info/ [cablemap.info]
Second, most of the cable laying ships are owned by large companies that have at least some tie to the US, and can be coerced into allowing a certain person aboard during a certain phase of operations. There are repeaters and splice boxes every so often along the cable every 45km.
Some of these repeaters may have been compromised before the cable was laid.
There is enough excess cable laying on on the sea floor to allow snagging the cable robotically, and hoisting it to the surface for repairs without disrupting it. These people don't work as sea bottom depth. They hoist and fix. If you had your pre-compromised repeater in place that would be the where you could tap in before the cable even became live, because the ocean is a big place and a cable repair ship working several hundred KM behind the laying ships would not arouse suspicion.
No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.
(Score: 2) by ls671 on Friday September 19 2014, @08:15PM
"First, why do you insist of foisting your font on us?"
Maybe he is using ECMAScript...
Everything I write is lies, including this sentence.
(Score: 2, Funny) by Arik on Friday September 19 2014, @09:51PM
"Cable landings are the most likely location for tampering, and since most cables end up terminating in the US / UK at some point that is the logical point. See http://www.cablemap.info/"
Exactly.
"Second, most of the cable laying ships are owned by large companies that have at least some tie to the US, and can be coerced into allowing a certain person aboard during a certain phase of operations. There are repeaters and splice boxes every so often along the cable every 45km.
Some of these repeaters may have been compromised before the cable was laid.
There is enough excess cable laying on on the sea floor to allow snagging the cable robotically, and hoisting it to the surface for repairs without disrupting it. These people don't work as sea bottom depth. They hoist and fix. If you had your pre-compromised repeater in place that would be the where you could tap in before the cable even became live, because the ocean is a big place and a cable repair ship working several hundred KM behind the laying ships would not arouse suspicion."
Sure, that's a possibility too, although I would consider it less likely just because it would be harder to do and the result would be exactly the same.
If you want to read everything that passes through the cable, you can do it at either endpoint or the middle. Not sure which endpoint would have been the easiest given as it seems servile governments on both ends, but there's no particularly reason that I am aware of to suspect that the more difficult route of intercepting in the middle of the ocean was even considered, let alone done.
If laughter is the best medicine, who are the best doctors?
(Score: 1) by arashi no garou on Friday September 19 2014, @10:49PM
But you can use the code tag and be smug and superior about it!
Just ribbing btw, it doesn't look bad on my screen. If anything it's more readable since I spend a lot of time in an editor.
(Score: 1) by Arik on Saturday September 20 2014, @01:54AM
I only realized that as an unintended side effect this resulted in a different font showing up on some browsers after someone started flaming me for it. Of course I have several browsers in default state available for testing but why would I do that? I typically dont touch them unless I am on the clock, dealing with that level of brokenness might be my vocation but it will never be my avocation.
This is why I say in all seriousness the font is not something I am controlling or changing. Are you seeing it in Courier? That's a statistically likely guess but by no means a certainty, and not what appears on my screen.
If laughter is the best medicine, who are the best doctors?
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday September 20 2014, @03:04AM
Whatever it is, it is monospace which is a pita to read.
Monospace is great for structured text like code, but suckass for freeform text like regular sentences.
(Score: 2) by Popeidol on Saturday September 20 2014, @05:34AM
When you write a reply, there is a drop-down menu that lets you select the the type of formatting you'd like: Plain old text, HTML Formatted, Extrans, and Code.
You probably have 'code' set to default. You can change that on the preferences page [soylentnews.org].
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday September 20 2014, @11:21AM
Obviously you cannot be bothered to read before replying.
(Score: 2) by Hairyfeet on Saturday September 20 2014, @10:27PM
Well is there any way you could perhaps make the text bigger? Because on my 16x9 widescreen your postings look smaller than the warning labels on a medicine bottle and I really don't have the time nor inclination to hack multiple browsers at 2 locations simply to get your posts to render in a readable way so for now I simply have to skip them as they are simply too small to read comfortably.
ACs are never seen so don't bother. Always ready to show SJWs for the racists they are.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday September 21 2014, @01:29AM
If you have multiple browsers misconfigured to display unreadable text there is no other solution than to configure them.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday September 22 2014, @02:49PM
You may not be choosing the font, but you are effectively forcing a monospace font on readers of your comments. I could change the font to a variable-width font, but that would fuck up the display of text where it is used appropriately.
If there is a way of making my browser just display your comments with a variable-width font, but still use monospace elsewhere (including other comments on SN where it is used appropriately) please let me know.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by sjames on Friday September 19 2014, @08:31PM
Mod parent up!
Snowden made no claims whatsoever about some super amazing undersea caper.
TFA is just hacking at a strawman.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday September 19 2014, @08:50PM
Greenwald is a strawman? I guess that explains a lot. Maybe he should go see the Wizard and get himself a brain.
(Score: 2) by DECbot on Friday September 19 2014, @09:11PM
If the strawmen are not regularly beat and hacked, they would band together into an unstoppable army hell bent to shove humanity down a slippery slope of tyranny and depravity. They know no limits and fear only a lit match, the strawmen must not be allowed to unite. A Grand Strawman Army would naturally ally with the Trolls and B'tards, overrun the lurkers to attack what we hold dear. This must be allowed. This is for the sake of our children, the environment, and economy!
cats~$ sudo chown -R us /home/base
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Friday September 19 2014, @09:32PM
That's Greenwald's job. He needs to milk this shit for all he can to try to keep himself relevant. It is like Assange. You don't simply release the info you have; that would quickly lead to people digesting it all and forgetting all about you. You need to drip, drip, drip it out slowly, spread over time, accompanied with unwarranted speculation, then you can constantly keep yourself in the news. Greenwald is a modern-day carny barker with about just as much credibility ("Come see the amazing lizard man! Come see the bearded woman! Come see the NSA undersea taps that probably exist!").
(Score: 2) by sjames on Friday September 19 2014, @10:12PM
Except I find no evidence of Greenwald making such a claim either.